Sleeping pb?

I am so tired – and so polluted, that I can sleep any-time/where. But if you have a sleeping disorder and you live in Paris, there is a solution:

Gestion de l’insomnie
Il s’agit d’un programme sur cinq ateliers destinés aux personnes se plaignant d’insomnie.
Renseignements et réservation

– no charge Raya🙂

La France

I am following the French elections with a lot of interest. Thanks to the blogs – mentioned below, I can have a feel of the atmosphere. It seems that the dark and overwhelming shadow which presently stands against the world, is also at work in La France, despite a history of … well history, and culture … and etc.

Already a lot of déjà vu. Poll manipulations, emphasizes on fear and security … 30% of the French are not yet decided so all kind of twists remain a possibility … and then Rien ne va plus!

I was in France twice during the elections. I have already written about the first time in PM Personality and French elections. This was1981 when the socialists won.

The second time was right after the second term of Mitterrand. The population attitude was very different by then. In 81, the French felt as if they were going to liberate the Bastille once more. But in 95 most of the people I talked too – friends, taxi drivers, workers etc. – considered politicians as crooks, nobody believed much in their promises. Many wouldn’t bother to vote.

It seems that this time Bayrou represents some hope for a change. I wonder who, rather what will be the winner: fear or sanity. Let’s hope for the best.

Les Politiques has many informative posts on the subject
Loopy
Dorkozy, at the Frogblog

PM Personality And French Elections

I am not a morning person. I have a PM personality. I don’t wake up unless I am awoken, or … I am really excited about something. Only on vacations I change from night-owl to being a morning person. 🙂

When I was a student, 6 days a week I woke up by the alarm clock. Only on Wednesdays I would wake up by myself at 7 AM sharp.

On Wednesdays, at 8:30 AM there was a class about aesthetics by a French philosopher, which was not even held at the university I was attending! 🙂

A friend of mine mentioned that it might interest me. After the first session I attented I became addicted. The course consisted of informal discussions between the teacher and students. The theme, as I mentioned, was aesthetics but would naturally glide in all directions. Believe it or not what amazed me the most was that it was the first time I saw someone “thinking” before speaking! Whenever a question was raised, our professor, who with his long hair and beard looked like a Greek philosopher, would think in an undisturbed silence and would respond after about a minute. At that time, to me, his answers were magical. No clichés or fast ready-made ones. Each one was like opening a window in a direction unknown to me…

1981 was the year of the French elections. In my ignorant eyes it was akin to mass hysteria. When the election was won by the Socialist Party people celebrated in the streets as  though Bastille was liberated once again.

The last Wednesday before the elections someone asked the professor for whom he was going to cast his vote.

To everyone’s surprise he said he was not going to vote at all. He considered both parties liars, giving false promises and manipulating voters’ fears. It was against his principles to vote for liars.

Almost the whole class reacted: “how come? This is an historic moment for the country, how can you refuse to participate… to lie is considered normal for politicians because their adversaries also lie, it is part of the game of politics etc..”

The professor looked at the main cheerleader and told her that she was like the spokeswoman for the Liar’s Syndicate. He did not believe that people were stupid. If a politician spoke honestly, avoided promising miracles, did not invent imaginary enemies, did not simplify the problems by blaming them on his adversaries, and just talked about what he can improve and what he cannot … people would understand. He would vote for someone who tried this form of campaign.

Naïve? Maybe, but it still sounds right to me.