Tag Archives: French

With These Reissues, You Can Relive the Glory Days of the Delightful Francoise Hardy

by StarCrofts Posted on October 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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Francoise Hardy
Tous les Garcons et les Filles
Le Premier Bonheur du Jour
Mon Amie la Rose
L’Amitie
La Maison ou J’Ai Grandi
Light in the Attic

Often mistakenly described as one of the yé-yé girls of French pop, teenager Francoise Hardy achieved instant stardom in 1962 with the beautifully melancholy hit “Tous les Garcons et les Filles,” and became an international sensation. Unlike the bubbly yé-yé singers, who were attuned primarily to the latest chart sounds, she mixed more traditional influences like Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel with contemporary elements. Her elegant singing eschewed youthful exuberance for a serene gravity that would serve her well over the course of a career that has thrived into the current century.

Recording in English, Italian, and German, as well as French, she wrote much of her own material, a rarity for female singers of the day. The photogenic Hardy socialized with members of the Beatles and the Stones, and was famously pursued (to no avail) by Bob Dylan, who addressed a poem to her on the back of his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. While America has proven immune to Hardy’s alluring artistry, the wonderfully idiosyncratic Seattle reissue label Light in the Attic is seeking to rectify that by reissuing her first five French-language albums from 1962 through 1966. Taken as a whole, they tell the engrossing story of an ongoing evolution, as echoes of folk, girl groups, and torch balladry were absorbed into her singular, yet consistently accessible style. The trappings changed over time, and the music grew more elaborate and orchestral, but Hardy was her own person from the very start, secure in her identity.

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With These Reissues, You Can Relive the Glory Days of the Delightful Francoise Hardy

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Chart of the Day: Intriguing New Data on Getting Kids to Eat Their Vegetables

by BrianneJessep Posted on September 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Over at Wonkblog, Roberto Ferdman passes along some fascinating new research on the frustrating problem of getting kids to eat their vegetables in school lunches:

It turns out there might be an ingenious solution hiding beneath everyone’s nose.

Researchers at Texas A&M University found there’s at least one variable that tends to affect whether kids eat their broccoli, spinach or green beans more than anything: what else is on the plate. Kids, in short, are much more likely to eat their vegetable portion when it’s paired with a food that isn’t so delicious it gets all the attention. When chicken nuggets and burgers, the most popular items among schoolchildren, are on the menu, for instance, vegetable waste tends to rise significantly. When other less-beloved foods, like deli sliders or baked potatoes, are served, the opposite seems to happen.

So let me get this straight. The way to get kids to eat vegetables is to serve them crappy-tasting food that makes the vegetables seem good by comparison? That’s the ingenious solution?

Yes indeed. So if we just starve the little buggers and then give them a choice of steamed broccoli or vegemite on wheat, they might go ahead and force down the broccoli. And since you are all sophisticated consumers of the latest research, I’m sure you want to see this in chart form. So here it is for veggie dippers (notably, a “vegetable” already disguised with mounds of ranch dressing). As you can see, when paired with yummy Chef Boyardee ravioli, the kids turn up their noses at the dippers. But when the entree is a yucky sunbutter sandwich, kids cave in and sullenly eat more than half of the little devils.

This all comes from “Investigating the Relationship between Food Pairings and Plate Waste from Elementary School Lunches.” However, if you click the link and read the report, you will almost certainly find yourself tormented with yet more questions. I’m here to help:

Q: What the hell is a sunbutter sandwich?

A: According to an exhaustive search of the entire internet, it’s a peanut-free peanut butter sandwich made out of sunflower seed spread.

Q: What vegetable do kids hate the most?

A: Sweet potato fries, which barely edge out green peas. Oddly, sweet potato fries are far more loathed than raw sweet potato sticks. I suppose it’s because the raw sticks are served with some kind of horrific dipping sauce.

Q: What’s the most popular vegetable?

A: Tater tots.

Q: Knock it off. What’s the most popular real vegetable?

A: It’s a little hard to say, but the garden salad with ranch dressing seems to do relatively well.

Q: Is a cheese-stuffed bread stick really considered a proper entree?

A: Apparently so. And as loathsome as it sounds, I suppose it’s not really all that different from a slice of cheese pizza.

Q: Is a whole dill pickle really a “vegetable”?

A: In west Texas, where this study was done, it is.

Q: How about mashed potatoes?

A: Yep.

Q: French fries?

A: Yes indeed.

Q: Seriously?

A: It appears so.

Q: Is one of the authors really from the Alliance for Potato Research and Education?

A: That’s what it says. In fact, they’re the ones who financed this study. I can’t tell if they got their money’s worth or not.

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Chart of the Day: Intriguing New Data on Getting Kids to Eat Their Vegetables

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Breaking: Malaysia Says Washed-Up Wreckage Is from MH370

by SonMdn121076 Posted on August 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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The biggest aviation mystery of our time is one step closer to being solved today, after the Malaysian Prime Minister confirmed that washed-up debris discovered on the remote French island Réunion last week is from Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

The barnacle-encrusted wing-part, called a “flaperon”, was being studied by French authorities for connections to the Boeing 777, which was carrying 239 people when it veered dramatically off-course and vanished on March 8, 2014, sparking an international hunt for the plane, thought to be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean off Australia.

The Guardian quotes Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak as saying: “Today, 513 days since the plane disappeared, it is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you that an international team of experts has conclusively confirmed that the aircraft debris found on Réunion is indeed from MH370. We now have physical evidence that on 31 March last year, flight MH370 tragically ended in the south Indian ocean.”

Great mysteries remain, however, most notably how the wing part ended up drifting so many thousands of miles from the search area off Australia’s Western coastline.

Originally posted here – 

Breaking: Malaysia Says Washed-Up Wreckage Is from MH370

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Here’s Why Greece Is Having Such a Hard Time Getting European Agreement to Europe’s Own Proposal

by AthenaTurriff8 Posted on July 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Greek austerity proposal has been approved by parliament, and since it’s essentially identical to the European demands of two weeks ago, everything should now be hunky dory, right? The Europeans will accept the Greek capitulation and move on.

Um, no. Emergency talks in Brussels are being held around the clock this weekend, and there are still a couple of big sticking points.

First: The new proposal is much bigger than the previous one. Back in June, Greece was asking for about €7 billion in loans that would cover its needs for a few months. Now it’s asking for €53 billion over three years, and European experts think even that number is too optimistic. Greece will really need about €74 billion—plus additional funds to recapitalize Greek banks, which have basically disbursed all their cash over the past couple of weeks. This raises several concerns:

The European proposal in June was meant to set conditions for releasing the final €7 billion in loans in Greece’s second round of bailouts. But the new Greek proposal essentially wants to use these same conditions as the basis for a third round of bailouts that would be bigger and longer-lasting. European finance ministers are skeptical, with many suggesting that the June proposal was never meant to cover a whole new round of bailouts. Something tougher is now required.
The fact that Greece estimates its needs at €53 billion and European technocrats estimate it at €74 suggests to many Europeans that Greece still can’t get its finances straight. This does little to boost confidence in the Syriza government.

Second: No one trusts Greece even slightly. The Europeans have never trusted the Greeks to implement the deals they agree to, and they still don’t. “What guarantees can Greece give they are actually going to implement what they propose?” Austrian finance minister Hans Jorg Schelling asked bluntly, echoing similar questions from the Dutch finance minister and others. Even Greek allies like France need to be convinced of Greek goodwill. “Confidence has been ruined by every Greek government over many years which have sometimes made promises without making good on them at all,” said French finance minister Michel Sapin.

After the events of the past two weeks, the issue of trust is even worse. Dutch state secretary Eric Wiebes notes that the commitment of the Greek government is a key concern. “That has been the weak point because, after all, we are discussing a proposal from the Greek government that was fiercely rejected a week ago.” And to make things worse, although the Greek parliament approved the latest proposal, it caused a serious schism in the Syriza party, with many members voting against it. “The parliamentary majority of the government now in Athens is being eroded,” Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said, “and they may not have the capacity to implement the measures they have agreed as time goes by.”

Things have now degraded to such a dire point that German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble has even floated the idea of a “temporary” five-year Greek exit from the euro. This is so batty that almost everyone else at today’s talks—including some of Greece’s strongest skeptics—thinks it’s both ridiculous and probably illegal too. But even though it’s not likely to be taken seriously, it does indicate just how frosty the Germans are toward any new bailout deal with Greece. It also gives ammunition to Greek critics who have maintained for weeks that Germany’s real goal is to kick Greece out of the euro.

So there you have it. The June proposal from the Europeans may have been OK two weeks ago, but it’s now past its sell-by date. Getting European buy-in to a new, third bailout for Greece continues to be a very delicate and knotty problem. Stay tuned.

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Here’s Why Greece Is Having Such a Hard Time Getting European Agreement to Europe’s Own Proposal

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Well, Well, Well, Look Who Just Endorsed a Bold Fix For Climate Change

by AbigailKennemer Posted on June 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Oil companies are pretty much the last ally you’d think of when it comes to advancing big-picture solutions to climate change. These are the companies, after all, whose product is responsible for causing a significant amount of climate change in the first place—and pretty much every proposed fix for global warming necessarily involves burning less oil.

So it came as a bit of a surprise Monday when six of the leading European oil companies, including BP and Shell, unveiled a letter addressed to the United Nations climate chief calling for a price on carbon emissions (read the full letter below).

“We believe that a price on carbon should be a key element” of ongoing UN-led international climate negotiations, the letter said. This week representatives from nearly 200 countries are meeting in Bonn, Germany, to prepare for a summit in Paris this winter where they hope to produce a powerful global accord on fighting climate change. The letter called on the world’s governments to create new national carbon markets where they don’t currently exist (like most of the United States, for example), and to eventually link those markets internationally.

As Bloomberg Business pointed out, the letter is “unprecedented,” in that it’s the first time a group of major oil companies have banded together to advocate for a serious climate change policy. It was welcomed by the UN’s top climate official, Christiana Figueres, who said that the “oil and gas industry must be a major part of the solution to climate change.”

Most environmental economists and policy wonks agree that making companies pay for their carbon pollution—whether through a tax or a cap-and-trade system—is a fundamental step for any meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The basic idea is that making carbon pollution expensive will drive big polluters to clean up. Policies like this are already gathering steam across the globe, from Canada to China. (California and a few Northeast states have regional carbon markets, but a national carbon price is still a non-starter in the US Congress.) Recently, Australia demonstrated just how effective carbon pricing can be, in a counterintuitive way: Carbon emissions dropped immediately after the country implemented a carbon tax, then jumped right back up when the tax was repealed.

If Monday’s letter is any clue, oil companies are reading the writing on the wall, and they know that one way or another, it’s time to start planning for a future when carbon pollution is more expensive and tightly regulated. Well, some oil companies: Conspicuously absent from the letter are any US oil companies, like Chevron or ExxonMobil; all the signatories are European. In fact, just last week Exxon chief Rex Tillerson implicitly blasted his European peers for cozying up to the UN on climate issues, saying his company wouldn’t “fake it” on climate change and that investing in renewable energy is tantamount to “losing money on purpose.”

The head of French oil giant Total addressed the cross-Atlantic schism in comments to Reuters, saying that the European companies were set on throwing their weight behind carbon pricing “without necessarily waiting for an American to come on board.”

Although carbon pricing “obviously adds a cost to our production and our products,” the letter says, the companies would prefer consistency and predictability over the patchwork of policies that exists now. In other words, it’s easier to justify and plan investments in lower-carbon projects, such as replacing coal with natural gas, when carbon prices are stable and “even-handed,” the letter said. At the same time, these companies have come under increasing pressure from shareholders to address how they’ll stay profitable in the future, as restrictions on carbon emissions are tightened.

To that end, a few of the signatories already have their own internal “shadow” carbon price, where investment options are calculated with a hypothetical carbon price added in, as a way of anticipating future policies.

Still, progressive-sounding statements notwithstanding, oil companies are oil companies, and the letter gives no indication that any of them have plans to replace fossil fuels as their primary product. Shell, for one, is just weeks away from a new foray into offshore drilling in the Arctic. And according to Bloomberg, the European companies are no better than their American counterparts in terms of their actual carbon footprint. So it remains to be seen how committed the companies will be to supporting sweeping changes to the global energy system, or if letters like this are just a clever way to stay relevant as the international climate talks forge ahead. Either way, the paradox of a corporation calling for a carbon price while still pursuing fossil fuel extraction is just more evidence that the free market won’t fix climate change voluntarily—governments have to create new policies, like an international carbon price, that energy companies can’t evade.

Here’s the letter:

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Paying for Carbon Letter (PDF)

Paying for Carbon Letter (Text)

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Well, Well, Well, Look Who Just Endorsed a Bold Fix For Climate Change

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Your City Is Probably Not Going to Be Hit By A Terrorist Attack

by SteffenBroussar Posted on May 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Americans are understandably terrified of terror attacks. But good news! These fears have nothing to do with actual data. According to a new tool released last week, no US cities are among the world’s 50 most at risk of terror attacks.

The index, designed by UK based Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk assessment firm, calculates the risk of terror attacks in “1,300 of the world’s most important commercial hubs and urban centers” using historic trends. By logging and analyzing every reported attack or event per 100 square meters and calculating the frequency and severity of those incidents, Maplecroft’s tool establishes a baseline for the past five years. Then, it compares that data with the number, frequency, and severity of attacks for the most recent year. Depending on the most recent statistics, cities move up or down on the list of cities at risk for terror attacks.

What cities are in danger? Cities near ISIS. Baghdad is the most terror prone city, followed by five other places in Iraq—including Mosul, an ISIS stronghold in northern Iraq, and Al Ramadi, ISIS’s most recent hostile takeover. In just one year, as of February, over 1,000 residents of Baghdad lost their lives in one of the almost 400 terror attacks the city endured.

A total of 27 of the 64 countries at “extreme risk” are located in the Middle East, and 19 are in Asia. Residents living in the capital cities of Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Tripoli face some of the strongest risks of terror attacks as well. Maplecroft points to the risk of terror incidents in high-ranking countries like Egypt, Israel, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan as major threats to US commercial interests.

And, recent events have triggered some cities to climb in the rankings. Prior to the Charlie Hebdo attack, Paris didn’t even make the top 200 most at risk cities. But according to the current index, the French capital jumped over 100 spots, now coming in at 97. Increasing violence purported by African militant groups, including Boko Haram in Nigeria and Al Shabaab in Somalia, have heightened the risk of terror incidents in African nations, landing 14 countries in the top 64.

So stop freaking out about terror attacks, America.

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Your City Is Probably Not Going to Be Hit By A Terrorist Attack

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Bees are addicted to pesticide-laden junk food, too

by FredricGilfilla Posted on April 27, 2015

bee minus

Bees are addicted to pesticide-laden junk food, too

By on 27 Apr 2015 3:20 pmcommentsShare

We don’t always do what’s good for us, especially when it comes to food. That kale smoothie? Not really feeling it, thanks — but that trough of french fries? Maybe I’ll just have one.

Like us, bees have trouble making the healthiest choices, according to a new study, published in Nature. In fact, they may prefer food that is laced with common agricultural pesticides: When choosing between two samples of sugar syrup in this experiment, both honeybees and bumblebees showed a preference for the neonicotinoid-laced sample. Here’s more from Science Daily:

“Neonicotinoids target the same mechanisms in the bee brain that are affected by nicotine in the human brain,” [said Geraldine Wright, lead scientist on the study]. The fact that bees show a preference for food containing neonicotinoids is concerning as it suggests that like nicotine, neonicotinoids may act like a drug to make foods containing these substances more rewarding. “If foraging bees prefer to collect nectar containing neonicotinoids, this could have a knock-on negative impact on whole colonies and on bee populations.”

Jane Stout, Professor of Botany and Principal Investigator in the School of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin, said: “Our findings imply that even if alternative food sources are provided for bees in agricultural landscapes where neonicotinoid pesticides are used, the bees may prefer to forage on the neonicotinoid-contaminated crops. Since neonicotinoids can also end up in wild plants growing adjacent to crops, they could be much more prevalent in bees’ diets than previously thought.”

In short, bees cannot be trusted to control their own intake of unhealthy foods, even when there’s better fare available. Sound familiar?

Source:
Are bees ‘hooked’ on nectar containing pesticides?

, Science Daily.

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Bees are addicted to pesticide-laden junk food, too

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Could a Pilot Be Locked Out of a Cockpit in the Skies Over the United States?

by Dorcas82Euh Posted on March 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday morning, Germanwings flight 9525, en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, crashed in the remote southern French Alps. All 150 passengers and crew are presumed dead. Thanks to the quick recovery of one of the plane’s flight recorders, some details of the final moments of the flight are now known: one of the pilots was banging on the cockpit door, presumably locked out, while the second pilot—identified as German Andreas Lubitz—was in the cockpit breathing normally. On Thursday morning, Carsten Spohr, chief executive of Germanwings’s parent company Lufthansa, told reporters, “We must presume that the plane was deliberately flown into the ground.”

Federal Aviation Administration regulations require that two people must be in the cockpit at all times in order to prevent these sorts of incidents on flights to, from, and within the United States. And the FAA requires cockpit doors to be locked at all times. If one of the two pilots leaves the cockpit, a flight attendant must take his or her place for the duration of the break. Glen Winn, an aviation instructor at the University of Southern California, told the Los Angeles Times that “procedurally, something was very wrong.” Pilots “don’t leave a person alone in the cockpit,” he continued. “They don’t do it. Nobody does that.”

But there are no European regulations that require all flights to have two crew members in the cockpit at all times.* Some European airlines have adhered to the two-person policy, and some have not. German carriers are not required to keep two crew members in the cockpit. After the Germanwings crash, Easy Jet, a British carrier, and Norwegian Airlines announced they would implement the two-person rule.

On an Airbus 320, the plane used by flight 9525, a pilot can reenter a locked cockpit door by punching in a multi-digit code on a keypad. But someone inside the cockpit can temporarily disengage the keypad, keeping the door locked and barring entry to the cockpit for five minutes.

It’s unclear whether the Germanwings pilot who was trying to return to the cockpit attempted to use the keypad. But Spohr said that each member of the flight crew knew the code and that there would be no way a pilot could forget it. He suggested that the pilot may not have tried the code for some reason, or that Lubitz disengaged the keypad or found another way to block the door.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, new flight safety standards were established and cockpit doors were strengthened to resist intrusions, gunfire, and grenade blasts. So if the keypad is disabled there’s little anyone can do to break in for five minutes; brute force will not open the door.

If existing regulations and procedures are followed, a pilot of an airliner in US should not be locked out. But this tragedy certainly will prompt regulators and safety experts in the United States and abroad to review existing rules.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that European regulations also require two people in the cockpit at all times.

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Could a Pilot Be Locked Out of a Cockpit in the Skies Over the United States?

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Two Police Officers Shot During Ferguson Protest After Police Chief Resigns

by BillyEUHsodb Posted on March 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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Two police officers were shot near a protest outside the Ferguson Police Department on Wednesday night, according to St Louis police officials. In a press briefing just before 2 a.m. local time Thursday morning, St. Louis County police chief Jon Belmar confirmed that one officer was wounded in the shoulder, and another officer was shot in the face. Who fired the shots remains unclear. A spokesperson for the St. Louis County Police said the two officers sustained “very serious,” but non-life threatening injuries.

The protests came after Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III announced earlier on Wednesday that Police Chief Thomas Jackson would resign with one year’s salary and health insurance.

Jackson resigned a week after the US Department of Justice issued a scathing report about systemic race-based problems within the Ferguson, Missouri police department and court system. This comes the day after City Manager John Shaw resigned. Both will receive a year’s salary as severance ($96,000 for Jackson, $120,000 for Shaw), and a year’s worth of health insurance—a fact that was met with outrage both in Ferguson and on social media.

Municipal Judge Ronald J. Brockmeyer also resigned in the wake of the DOJ’s report, which accused the city administration of using police ticketing and court fines, imposed on the city’s largely African American population, as a means to raise money for the city budget. That context set the stage for violent police crackdowns in the city last August as people protested in the wake of Officer Darren Wilson shooting and killing Michael Brown. Wilson wasn’t indicted by a local grand jury, and the DOJ announced last week that it wouldn’t bring federal civil rights charges against him either. Many in the city want others to resign as well, including Knowles III and the city council.

The DOJ’s report highlighted the glaring disproportionate police ticketing of the city’s black population, and highlighted several racist emails sent by city and police administration officials. Two officers involved with the emails resigned last week, and the city’s top court clerk was fired.

The Department of Justice issued a statement shortly after Jackson’s press conference saying that it will continue working for a court-enforceable agreement to reform the city and police department’s “unconstitutional practices in a comprehensive manner.”

Protesters gathered at the city’s police department headquarters Wednesday night after the announcement, with police arresting at least one man and some accusing the police of provoking confrontations.

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Two Police Officers Shot During Ferguson Protest After Police Chief Resigns

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Picky eaters — like penguins and my cousin Jables — could starve under climate change

by Kristin98I Posted on January 21, 2015

You Gonna Finish That?

Picky eaters — like penguins and my cousin Jables — could starve under climate change

By on 21 Jan 2015commentsShare

Growing up, my cousin Jables was the pickiest eater I knew. From the ages of zero to 16, he somehow survived exclusively on a foraged diet of cheese quesadillas, French toast, and Pepsi Max. That his Pixie-Stick bones didn’t crumble into dust while playing soccer remains a miracle (though he did look like he was jogging underwater, and still does).

A rare Jables in its natural habitat exhibits courtship behavior (while drunk).T. Alvarez

Chinstrap penguins are sort of like my cousin Jables, only cuter: They evolved on the Antarctic Peninsula to chase and eat large offshore patches of krill, their primary food source. They share breeding grounds with orange-beaked gentoo penguins, culinary generalists who consume a wider variety of prey closer to shore. Scientists think this dietary divergence once helped the two species coexist — but new research suggests that in a climate-mucked world, the picky eaters will starve. For chinstrap penguins, this means that populations are already crashing as the Antarctic Peninsula warms exponentially, while gentoo populations grow.

No surprise that it wraps back to sea ice: Swarms of shrimp-like krill bask beneath it, feasting on the algae that grows there. With less and less ice around these days, the endless buffet that choosy chinstrap penguins rely on disappears — and so do they.

This five-year study just tackled penguins — not literally, chill — but it joins a steady, doomy drumbeat for adaptation-averse specialists from all corners of the animal kingdom. Puffins in Maine are literally choking on the too-wide butterfish that have replaced dwindling hake and herring stocks. With whitebark pines dying, some ecologists worry about Yellowstone grizzly bears’ ability to shit in the the woods. And, hey, guess what: The U.N. warns that climate change threatens to drastically reduce global wild crop diversity by as much as 22 percent. That’s totally bad news for the bipedal species that cultivates, eats, and then slowy makes them go extinct (that’s us).

But before you mount an assault on the Svalbard seed ark or the bulk section of your local Whole Foods, it’s important to remember that even food specialists sometimes show the ability to adapt (note to dumbotrons: NOT a reason to stop fighting climate change). Case in point: A few seal-chomping polar bears are now targeting sea-bird egg nests when the ice melts. When that fails, they’re boning nearby DTF grizzlies to vary up the genepool.

Even the rare and majestic Jables has evolved: In the wild, he can be seen using his opposable thumbs and nimble proboscis to forage for grapes, carrots, and even sushi. Take notes, chinstrap.

Source:
Climate change does not bode well for picky eaters

, Science Daily.

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Picky eaters — like penguins and my cousin Jables — could starve under climate change

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