Memo From France: Questions Raised About a Code of Silence

When, for example, Fran?ois Mitterrand was asked by a journalist during his presidency whether it was true that he had a daughter outside his marriage, he replied: “Yes, it’s true. And so what? It’s none of the public’s business.”

The French have been complicit in accepting this sort of secret-keeping: they do not enjoy ugly revelations that could tear apart the social fabric. What shocked them more than the existence of Mr. Mitterrand’s mistress and their daughter was the revelation after his death that the French state had financially supported them and even provided police protection.

Now, the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is once again challenging the assumption that the private lives of the rich, famous and powerful are off limits to public scrutiny. That the most serious accusation against Mr. Strauss-Kahn is attempted rape, and not just an indiscretion involving a consensual sexual relationship, only adds to a sense on the part of some people in France that the curtain of privacy needs to be lifted.

“We felt that we were superior to the Americans and the British by upholding the principle of protecting private life,” Pierre Haski, one of France’s leading political commentators and co-founder of the political Web site Rue89, said in an interview. “But we journalists haven’t done our job properly. We were used and abused in keeping secrets. We need to define our role in a more aggressive way — and say that not everything private is private.”

Mr. Haski said he had been wrong to withhold information in the past about French political figures that could have compromised their ability to carry out their duties.

“I knew that when Roland Dumas was foreign minister, he was romantically involved with the daughter of Syria’s defense minister,” he said. “I didn’t write it because it was a matter of his ‘private life.’ I was wrong. It had an impact on France’s foreign policy.”

He also chided himself and the French media for keeping secret that the Socialist politician Ségolène Royal and Fran?ois Hollande, her longtime partner, father of her four children and head of the Socialist Party, were no longer a couple while she was running for president in 2007.

The Strauss-Kahn scandal coincides with shifts in French public life in which the codes had already begun to crack and secrets were being revealed. The personality-driven nature of the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy has created a hunger for personality-driven, tell-all tales. Technology has made it easy to record and film private meetings and embarrassing public encounters on cellphones, contributing to a transparency that had never before existed.

But historically, the French have traded in rumors and secrets, and there are several reasons why they can be passed around in private circles but not put into public discussion.

First, the French have long been accustomed to unconfirmed stories about powerful figures and politicians. This dates from the era of the royal court — when information was power, yet had to be handled carefully. Salacious stories, whether true or not, made for good entertainment.

That makes the French tolerant of other people’s private behavior, especially sexual behavior. Private lives must not be invaded by outsiders. “To live happy, live hidden,” goes the saying by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, the 18th-century poet.

There was no public outcry or journalistic investigation, for example, when Mr. Sarkozy named Frédéric Mitterrand, the nephew of Fran?ois Mitterrand, as minister of culture, even though he had written a memoir describing in graphic detail how he had paid for sex with “boys” in Thailand.

Marine Le Pen, now the leader of the ultra-right National Front, later pushed the matter into public view and called for his resignation, but Mr. Sarkozy supported him and he has kept his job.

Second, politicians in France are not hounded out of office for sexual indiscretions (although violence against women is another matter). Traditionally, a political man who reveals his sexual prowess is proving his vigor: he is showing his constituents that he is fully and physically capable of running the country.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 17, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the year in which Cécilia Sarkozy became the first lady of France. She became the first lady in 2007, not 2005.

 

Books: All About the Invidious Irritants That Irk Individuals

You get every bit as annoyed as I do by car alarms that never stop, fingernails screeching down blackboards, and a fly buzzing around your head. The prolonged whining of a child, your own or somebody else’s, drives you crazy.

In other words, some annoyances are particular to the individual, some are universal to the species, and some, like the fly, appear to torture all mammals. If ever there was a subject for scientists to pursue for clues to why we are who we are, this is the one.

And yet, as Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman make clear in their immensely entertaining survey, there are still more questions than answers in both the study of what annoys people and the closely related discipline of what makes people annoying.

Mr. Palca and Ms. Lichtman — he is a science correspondent for National Public Radio and she an editor for the network’s “Science Friday” program — skitter all over the map in pursuit of their subject, and at first their progress seems peculiarly random, like one of those robotic vacuums. But in the end they do indeed cover every part of the terrain: from physics and psychology to aesthetics, genetics and even treatment for the miserably, terminally annoyed.

Formulating a good working definition of annoyance is a persistent challenge for researchers. One calls it the weakest form of anger, simply diluted rage. Others cite overtones of disgust (a persistently belching dinner guest), dislike (a concert of atonal music) and even panic (that visceral “get me out of here” reaction to the fingernail on the board).

Still, a few constants emerge. An annoyance is unpleasant. It follows a pattern, but unpredictably so. It will definitely end at some point, but you don’t know when. Finally, it is neither harmful nor dangerous in itself, but it often channels something that is.

In sum, it barges into your brain and takes over. If it is a sound, it occupies enough of your attention to interfere with other thoughts. If it is a situation, it keeps you from where you want to be (the recipe calls for two eggs and you have only one). And if it is a person who is late (again!), it manages to do both.

Because so many annoyances are auditory, sounds are particularly well studied. Sometimes the context creates the problem, like the “halfalogue” of an overheard cellphone conversation: Our brains can tune out a whole conversation but seem programmed to pay attention to half. Sometimes the annoyance is the sound itself. One research group found that midrange frequencies, somewhere between a boom and a shriek, annoyed people more than either extreme. Reaction to sound may be cultural, but then again it may not be: Even members of an isolated African tribe appeared bothered by dissonant music.

Sometimes sound is meant by nature to annoy, like a baby’s wail. One researcher suggested that the fingernail on the blackboard bothers us because our primitive midbrain hears in it a primate’s warning cry.

And sometimes the problem lies more in the ear than the sound. People with perfect pitch report they are routinely driven insane by nebulous halftones that don’t fit into their ordered brains.

Mr. Palca and Ms. Lichtman have a lot of fun with the other large repository of annoyances: our fellow humans. Is there a prototype for the innately annoying person, that car alarm on two legs? Needless to say, there are many.

There are the people who display “uncouth habits, inconsiderate acts and intrusive behaviors” — we are annoyed by those who violate our social norms. Then there are the infinite variations on the unfortunate personality. First on a list of traits that tend to annoy others, interestingly, is that of being constantly annoyed. Then come arrogant and picky.

What about your own personal irritant, the spouse who was so enchanting during courtship and is exactly the opposite now? Studies show that precisely those traits that once attracted often begin to repel. Once he was cool; now he is cold. Once she was adoring; now she smothers. Here the problem seems to be a matter of dose.

People who are annoyed to the point of irritable and beyond might head for a medical evaluation; some neurologic diseases start like this well before other symptoms surface. For these patients antidepressants often work miracles.

For other sufferers, alas, there are few quick fixes. And so when you begin to kick my chair, I could try to pretend that I am Japanese, for it seems that the Asian ideal of subjugation of the self to the group makes for less annoyance with one’s neighbor. I could try to change my expectation that when peacefully seated I will not be jiggled like a fishing line, for it seems that among laboratory monkeys thwarted expectations are a prime source of annoyance. Or I can just turn around and glare at you and tell you to cut it out. Then I will be happy. And you will be annoyed.

 

At War: Clues About Qaddafi’s Forces

 C.J. Chivers/The New York Times

MISURATA, Libya — As the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi fled Misurata’s airport and its environs on Wednesday, they left behind signs of both how they survived and how they fought during their weeks working against the city that expelled them.

One set of clues was evident just outside the airport’s gates. The runway is surrounded by stands of olive and almond trees, and many farms. Near one traffic circle, the Qaddafi soldiers had taken shelter inside an opaque green plastic greenhouse.

From a fast-moving car on the nearby road, and likely from the air, the greenhouse looked innocuous enough. But the trash heaps nearby gave it away — someone had been drinking hundreds of liters of bottled water, and had thrown away many ammunition cans, and then, had ditched uniforms and even military boots.

A stop revealed more. Inside the tent, shielded from view, were a few grubby mattresses and cardboard sheets, where soldiers had been sleeping. Many of their blankets had been left behind, too.

C. J. Chivers/The New York Times

And at one end of the greenhouse was a large pile of crates telling more of the war and of how Colonel Qaddafi armed his forces for it. The crates had contained 125-millimeter high-explosive fragmentation rounds for the main guns of T-72 tanks.

Rebels and medical officials in Misurata have said the T-72 tanks at the city’s edge had been firing randomly into the city. Sometimes at night, when the wind died down and noise carried, it seemed they could be heard. A distant boom would sound — the report of an outgoing round. And then an explosion would be heard in the city, often very fast — within four or five seconds.

This was faster than artillery and mortar rounds, which fly in a high, looping arc that consumes time. Tank rounds fly in a much flatter trajectory, and can cover many kilometers in four seconds, though not exactly precisely.

And here were scores of a round that were not designed to fire at other tanks, but at bunkers, structures and people.

The official designation of this round is 3VOF36. It contains a projectile with a high-explosive charge surrounded by a steel case. When it detonates, the projectile breaks into hundreds of what its seller calls “anti-personnel fragments”; in other words, flying bits of jagged steel designed to kill.

The stenciling on the crates, and the paperwork within, told of their provenance. They had been exported from Oktyabrsk, Russia, in late 2002 under a 1999 contract between Rosoboronexport, the Russian state arms-trading agency, and the Libyan government. Under this contract, the Qaddafi military has bought 8,126 cases — a quantity corroborated by both the paperwork and the stenciling on the crates.

null

Who they were intended to be used against no one can say from the evidence available in the tent. But the empty canisters told the rest. They had been used in Misurata, and perhaps for the shelling of the city, by a force that put a greenhouse to a novel new use.

C.J. Chivers/The New York Times

Follow C.J. Chivers on Facebook, on Twitter at @cjchivers or on his personal blog, cjchivers.com, where many posts from At War are supplemented with more photographs and further information.

 

Worries About ‘Convenience Casinos’ in Florida

 

That these cafes are cash machines — and take in as much as $100,000 a week — is no secret to robbers.

And so, at 1 a.m. on April 19, three armed men tried to rob the place at a time when more than three dozen people were playing slot machine-type games on the cafe’s computer terminals. A security guard shot and killed one of the men; the other two fled and were being sought. A woman hiding in the cafe bathroom told a 911 operator that the robbery was happening in “the casino, in Apopka.”

The shooting death in a place that some customers call a casino has brought fresh scrutiny to Florida’s quickly multiplying “Internet sweepstakes cafes,” which now total nearly 1,000 statewide and are estimated to gross more than $1 billion this year, according to industry analysts, state legislators and their aides, and lawyers in the gambling industry.

It has also renewed calls by several county sheriffs for a statewide ban on the cafes’ games. They say the businesses are magnets for crime because they usually have large sums of cash on hand. Since nine sweepstakes cafes have opened in Seminole County, crimes at those addresses have increased 14 percent, according to data compiled by the sheriff’s office.

A bill was brought before the State Legislature this session that would have prohibited the games. Its proponents cite a host of concerns — worries about crime, compulsive gambling and morality. But the bill was rejected after an aggressive lobbying campaign by the companies that franchise some of the cafes. It did not help, industry critics say, that two state legislators own Internet sweepstakes cafes themselves.

Labeled by critics as “convenience casinos,” the cafes offer computerized “sweepstakes” games to customers who buy Internet time or phone cards. “Points” can be redeemed for cash, and jackpots are as high as $15,000, employees said. Lawyers for the owners have likened the slotlike and video poker games, with names like Cobra Cash and Fruit Paradise, to the Monopoly prize cards offered by McDonald’s restaurants.

The cafes operate in a legal gray zone in Florida and a dozen other states. Several Florida sheriffs have raided the cafes, arguing that the computer games, operated via the Web, are nothing more than a vaguely disguised form of illegal gambling.

In January, the Seminole County Commission passed a law banning the Internet cafes, but a federal judge issued a temporary order that stopped the county from enforcing the law while its constitutionality was considered.

“I just want clarity,” said Sheriff Jim Coats of Pinellas County, whose department has written to cafes ordering them to shut down within 30 days or face prosecution. “The Legislature ought to make the law clear. If someone goes in there and utilizes these machines and pays by cash, where does that cash go? No one knows. We need regulation.”

Florida is already awash in state-sanctioned gambling. There is a popular state lottery. There are eight Indian casinos. And there are nearly two dozen thoroughbred, harness and greyhound tracks and jai alai frontons — some with slot machines and all offering high-stakes poker games.

And in the last five years, the emergence of convenience casinos has put places offering jackpots next to neighborhood coffee shops and dry cleaners. The explosion of the games has led to complaints that they are addictive and prey on some of the state’s poorest residents.

“Florida now has the most diverse gaming industry of any place in the country, including Vegas, where the lottery and Internet sweepstakes cafes don’t even exist,” said Marc W. Dunbar, a Tallahassee lawyer who represents gambling companies. “We have every kind of gaming here, everything. And we have this massive underground industry in the state — there are so many places for people to get their fix.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 6, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the location of the Fun City Sweepstakes cafe. It is in Palm Harbor, Fla., not North Port.

View the original article here

Worries About ‘Convenience Casinos’ in Florida

 

That these cafes are cash machines — and take in as much as $100,000 a week — is no secret to robbers.

And so, at 1 a.m. on April 19, three armed men tried to rob the place at a time when more than three dozen people were playing slot machine-type games on the cafe’s computer terminals. A security guard shot and killed one of the men; the other two fled and were being sought. A woman hiding in the cafe bathroom told a 911 operator that the robbery was happening in “the casino, in Apopka.”

The shooting death in a place that some customers call a casino has brought fresh scrutiny to Florida’s quickly multiplying “Internet sweepstakes cafes,” which now total nearly 1,000 statewide and are estimated to gross more than $1 billion this year, according to industry analysts, state legislators and their aides, and lawyers in the gambling industry.

It has also renewed calls by several county sheriffs for a statewide ban on the cafes’ games. They say the businesses are magnets for crime because they usually have large sums of cash on hand. Since nine sweepstakes cafes have opened in Seminole County, crimes at those addresses have increased 14 percent, according to data compiled by the sheriff’s office.

A bill was brought before the State Legislature this session that would have prohibited the games. Its proponents cite a host of concerns — worries about crime, compulsive gambling and morality. But the bill was rejected after an aggressive lobbying campaign by the companies that franchise some of the cafes. It did not help, industry critics say, that two state legislators own Internet sweepstakes cafes themselves.

Labeled by critics as “convenience casinos,” the cafes offer computerized “sweepstakes” games to customers who buy Internet time or phone cards. “Points” can be redeemed for cash, and jackpots are as high as $15,000, employees said. Lawyers for the owners have likened the slotlike and video poker games, with names like Cobra Cash and Fruit Paradise, to the Monopoly prize cards offered by McDonald’s restaurants.

The cafes operate in a legal gray zone in Florida and a dozen other states. Several Florida sheriffs have raided the cafes, arguing that the computer games, operated via the Web, are nothing more than a vaguely disguised form of illegal gambling.

In January, the Seminole County Commission passed a law banning the Internet cafes, but a federal judge issued a temporary order that stopped the county from enforcing the law while its constitutionality was considered.

“I just want clarity,” said Sheriff Jim Coats of Pinellas County, whose department has written to cafes ordering them to shut down within 30 days or face prosecution. “The Legislature ought to make the law clear. If someone goes in there and utilizes these machines and pays by cash, where does that cash go? No one knows. We need regulation.”

Florida is already awash in state-sanctioned gambling. There is a popular state lottery. There are eight Indian casinos. And there are nearly two dozen thoroughbred, harness and greyhound tracks and jai alai frontons — some with slot machines and all offering high-stakes poker games.

And in the last five years, the emergence of convenience casinos has put places offering jackpots next to neighborhood coffee shops and dry cleaners. The explosion of the games has led to complaints that they are addictive and prey on some of the state’s poorest residents.

“Florida now has the most diverse gaming industry of any place in the country, including Vegas, where the lottery and Internet sweepstakes cafes don’t even exist,” said Marc W. Dunbar, a Tallahassee lawyer who represents gambling companies. “We have every kind of gaming here, everything. And we have this massive underground industry in the state — there are so many places for people to get their fix.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 6, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the location of the Fun City Sweepstakes cafe. It is in Palm Harbor, Fla., not North Port.

View the original article here

Well: Share Six Words About Your Mother

 

Can you sum up your mother in just six words?

To celebrate Mother’s Day, the Well blog has teamed up with Smith magazine and the Six Word Memoir Project to create a new set of six-word “Momoirs.”

The challenge is to explain your mother, someone else’s mother or motherhood in general in just six words. Here are some examples:

A sake mom, not soccer mom.

In meeting. Binky in suit pocket.

Channeling June Cleaver without the pearls.

So many socks, so little time.

Fired therapist. One mother is enough.

Sometimes mom needs a time out.

Suffered miscarriage. Daughter offered her doll.

And did we mention this is a contest? We’ll pick six winners to receive a signed copy of “It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure.”

Winners will be selected by both the editors and the readers of the Well blog, so be sure to vote for your favorites. Using our interactive module, readers will have the opportunity to “Like” individual entries on Facebook, and share them with their friends.

Larry Smith, editor of Smith magazine, also will pick several favorite Momoirs to be featured during the next Six-Word Memoir Story Slam, “I Am Turning into My Mother,” to be held May 18 at the 92nd Street Y Tribeca Main Stage in New York. Check the Web site for tickets and more details.

And now, tell us about your mom or motherhood with your six-word Momoir by clicking on the link. Your contest entry must be only six words, but if you have more to say, feel free to come back to Well to join the discussion.

See other entries and enter your own six-word Momoir here.

 

Books: All About the Invidious Irritants That Irk Individuals

You get every bit as annoyed as I do by car alarms that never stop, fingernails screeching down blackboards, and a fly buzzing around your head. The prolonged whining of a child, your own or somebody else’s, drives you crazy.

In other words, some annoyances are particular to the individual, some are universal to the species, and some, like the fly, appear to torture all mammals. If ever there was a subject for scientists to pursue for clues to why we are who we are, this is the one.

And yet, as Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman make clear in their immensely entertaining survey, there are still more questions than answers in both the study of what annoys people and the closely related discipline of what makes people annoying.

Mr. Palca and Ms. Lichtman — he is a science correspondent for National Public Radio and she an editor for the network’s “Science Friday” program — skitter all over the map in pursuit of their subject, and at first their progress seems peculiarly random, like one of those robotic vacuums. But in the end they do indeed cover every part of the terrain: from physics and psychology to aesthetics, genetics and even treatment for the miserably, terminally annoyed.

Formulating a good working definition of annoyance is a persistent challenge for researchers. One calls it the weakest form of anger, simply diluted rage. Others cite overtones of disgust (a persistently belching dinner guest), dislike (a concert of atonal music) and even panic (that visceral “get me out of here” reaction to the fingernail on the board).

Still, a few constants emerge. An annoyance is unpleasant. It follows a pattern, but unpredictably so. It will definitely end at some point, but you don’t know when. Finally, it is neither harmful nor dangerous in itself, but it often channels something that is.

In sum, it barges into your brain and takes over. If it is a sound, it occupies enough of your attention to interfere with other thoughts. If it is a situation, it keeps you from where you want to be (the recipe calls for two eggs and you have only one). And if it is a person who is late (again!), it manages to do both.

Because so many annoyances are auditory, sounds are particularly well studied. Sometimes the context creates the problem, like the “halfalogue” of an overheard cellphone conversation: Our brains can tune out a whole conversation but seem programmed to pay attention to half. Sometimes the annoyance is the sound itself. One research group found that midrange frequencies, somewhere between a boom and a shriek, annoyed people more than either extreme. Reaction to sound may be cultural, but then again it may not be: Even members of an isolated African tribe appeared bothered by dissonant music.

Sometimes sound is meant by nature to annoy, like a baby’s wail. One researcher suggested that the fingernail on the blackboard bothers us because our primitive midbrain hears in it a primate’s warning cry.

And sometimes the problem lies more in the ear than the sound. People with perfect pitch report they are routinely driven insane by nebulous halftones that don’t fit into their ordered brains.

Mr. Palca and Ms. Lichtman have a lot of fun with the other large repository of annoyances: our fellow humans. Is there a prototype for the innately annoying person, that car alarm on two legs? Needless to say, there are many.

There are the people who display “uncouth habits, inconsiderate acts and intrusive behaviors” — we are annoyed by those who violate our social norms. Then there are the infinite variations on the unfortunate personality. First on a list of traits that tend to annoy others, interestingly, is that of being constantly annoyed. Then come arrogant and picky.

What about your own personal irritant, the spouse who was so enchanting during courtship and is exactly the opposite now? Studies show that precisely those traits that once attracted often begin to repel. Once he was cool; now he is cold. Once she was adoring; now she smothers. Here the problem seems to be a matter of dose.

People who are annoyed to the point of irritable and beyond might head for a medical evaluation; some neurologic diseases start like this well before other symptoms surface. For these patients antidepressants often work miracles.

For other sufferers, alas, there are few quick fixes. And so when you begin to kick my chair, I could try to pretend that I am Japanese, for it seems that the Asian ideal of subjugation of the self to the group makes for less annoyance with one’s neighbor. I could try to change my expectation that when peacefully seated I will not be jiggled like a fishing line, for it seems that among laboratory monkeys thwarted expectations are a prime source of annoyance. Or I can just turn around and glare at you and tell you to cut it out. Then I will be happy. And you will be annoyed.

 

Poll Finds Egyptians Full of Hope About the Future

The poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center and based on face-to-face interviews with 1,000 Egyptians, is the first credible survey since the revolution lifted many restrictions on free expression. It is also the first to directly address Western debate over whether the revolution might drift toward Islamic radicalism.

The poll found about 30 percent of Egyptians have a favorable view of Islamic fundamentalism and about the same number sympathize with its opponents. About a quarter have mixed views.

That range was exemplified by attitudes toward the Muslim Brotherhood, the previously outlawed Islamist group.

Many in the West have assumed that as the best-organized nongovernmental organization in Egyptian society, the Muslim Brotherhood might quickly dominate Egyptian politics — a view long espoused by the Mubarak government. The poll shows the Muslim Brotherhood is indeed regarded favorably by about three in four Egyptians, receiving very favorable ratings from 37 percent of respondents and somewhat favorable ratings from an additional 38 percent.

But that put the group roughly at a par with the April 6 Movement, a new and relatively secular and progressive youth group that played a leading role in organizing the revolution. Seven in 10 viewed that group favorably, with 38 percent viewing it very favorably and 32 percent viewing it somewhat favorably. The poll’s margin of samplinfg error is plus or minus four percentage points.

Only 17 percent of respondents said they would like to see the Muslim Brotherhood lead the next government. Al Ghad, a liberal party led by Ayman Nour, a formerly jailed presidential candidate, was favored to lead the new government by roughly the same number. And one in five supported the New Wafd Party, a secular liberal party that was recognized under Mr. Mubarak.

Nearly two-thirds of Egyptians said civil law should strictly follow the Koran, but then the existing Constitution of Egypt’s largely secular state said that it is already based on the Koran.

Sobhi Saleh, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a former parliamentary candidate, dismissed the poll’s findings as wildly overstating the support for other parties. Only the Brotherhood has a broad organization and a well-known platform, he argued, predicting success at the polls. “These findings are wrong, and it’s only a matter of two months until you see that,” he said.

Amr El Shobaki, a political analyst in the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said the results reflected an Egyptian habit of shrugging off apparent contradictions between a traditionalist faith and modern lifestyles. “That’s why people can have a favorable impression of the April 6 Movement and like the Brotherhood at the same time,” he said. “Average people enjoy a high degree of reconciliation between Islam and modern ideas. So they are conservative but not extreme.”

The poll also found that a majority of Egyptians, 54 percent, want to annul the 1979 peace treaty with Israel that has been a cornerstone of Egyptian foreign policy and the region’s stability. The finding squares with the overwhelming anecdotal evidence that Egyptians feel Israel has not lived up to its commitments in its treatment of the Palestinians. But more than a third of respondents, 36 percent, favored keeping the treaty, and the poll did not ask the more controversial question of whether Egyptians wanted to sacrifice the three decades of peace they have enjoyed along the border.

Mr. Saleh of the Muslim Brotherhood, however, said he supported maintaining the treaty.

“There is a difference between the people’s feelings toward Israel and their political assessment,” he said “Those who want to maintain the treaty are motivated by Egypt’s interest. It is not because they accept Israel.”

The poll found the military extraordinarily popular, reflecting its decisive role in ultimately pushing Mr. Mubarak aside, and 9 in 10 approved of the work of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mr. Mubarak’s former defense minister and the current head of the interim military council running the country.

But it was conducted in the two weeks that ended April 7, before recent controversies over the military’s use of force against demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Still, the results may raise concern for Egyptian liberals anxious to see the military relinquish power to civilian authority. Only 27 percent of respondents called that very important.

Among presidential candidates, the poll confirmed the widespread belief that Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League and a former Mubarak foreign minister, is the front-runner. About 9 in 10 have a favorable view of him, including 41 percent who have a very favorable view. Seven in 10 had a favorable view of Mr. Nour, another candidate known for challenging Mr. Mubarak and going to jail, with 32 percent viewing him very favorably. And 57 percent had a favorable view of Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Prize winner and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But many complain that he has spent most of his career outside his native Egypt, and 39 percent of Egyptians reported an unfavorable view of him.

None of the three is considered an Islamist.

Mr. Shobaki, the political analyst, argued that the core of Mr. Moussa’s support was the majority who did not participate in the revolution but voted for a constitutional referendum. “These are the people who are looking for stability, want their economic conditions to be improved and do not necessarily want to see drastic changes,” Mr. Shobaki said.

The poll found Egyptians remarkably bullish on their revolution and, in its aftermath, their future. Nearly two-thirds said they were satisfied with their country’s direction, and 6 in 10 were optimistic about the future. Although open political elections would be a novelty in Egyptian history, most had some degree of faith that they had won democracy. Forty-one percent said a free and fair choice in the next election was very likely, and 43 percent said it was somewhat likely. Only 16 percent said it was unlikely.

Fifty-four percent said a democratic government was worth the risk of political instability, while only 32 percent held the opposite view, the Mubarak government’s mantra that stability was more important.

But asked about their most important concerns for the future, the broadest majority — 82 percent — said improving economic conditions was very important; 79 percent said a fair judicial system was; 63 percent said law and order, the same portion that said freedom of speech; and only 55 percent said honest elections.

Slightly fewer, 50 percent, said it was very important for religiously based parties to be able to participate in government.

 

Scene City: A Party for, by and About Art

The pressure was on for the 30th anniversary of Bomb, a nonprofit magazine that seeks to elevate conversations about art. About 300 guests reached for something conceptual to say as they mingled at Capitale Friday night, beginning with a silent auction of contemporary works by artists who had appeared in the magazine’s pages.

Ellsworth Kelly recounted the 1960s: painting in the Hamptons in a potato barn and driving around Jacmel, Haiti. But he did not place any bids. “I only like artists older than myself,” the 87-year-old said.

The actress Kim Cattrall, on the arm of Klaus Biesenbach, the director of MoMA P.S. 1 (who advised her to bid on a Robert Mangold drawing), spoke about the dwindling role of women over age 50 in Hollywood. “It’s like there’s a shelf life for talent,” she said.

Nearby, the performance artist Marina Abramovic kept the small talk to a minimum as she inched through the crowd of art world insiders including Ross Bleckner; James Rosenquist; Francine Prose; Richard Armstrong, the Guggenheim director; and Amy Phelan, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader turned collector, whose blond hair was piled up like a birthday cake.

“Actually, no conversation is possible at all because of the sound pollution,” Ms. Abramovic said, dodging canapés and chardonnay in the soaring foyer.

A group of artists in Manhattan started Bomb in 1981 with $3,000. The magazine is about process and ideas and takes the form of long cross-genre interviews: for example, the novelist Jonathan Lethem talking to Noah Baumbach, a filmmaker; or, in the ’80s, the artist Robert Mapplethorpe interviewed by Gary Indiana, a writer.

True to her word, Ms. Abramovic did not veer into banal banter, but she committed a faux pas: she wore the almost identical Givenchy dinner jacket of another guest, Riccardo Tisci, the label’s designer. Luckily, they are friends. “I give her tips on what to wear,” he said. “But I guess I did too good of a job.”

At 8 p.m. the guests made their way through the fortress-like doors of the former bank to tables set with long stems of cherry blossoms. The choice seats were filled with intellectuals from the pre-Chanel SoHo days, in black glitter Toms and Margiela hoof boots.

The writer A. M. Holmes was with Anh Duong, the painter, and Betsy Sussler, Bomb’s editor in chief. “I bet there are not that many Ph.D.’s in the room,” Ms. Holmes said. “Back then we didn’t study it, we just did it.”

Speeches were given, short ribs were served and then the serious table-hopping began. The younger artists were near the back, including Mika Rottenberg, who donated a small drawing.

“The best conversations happen amongst friends when you’re hung over at breakfast,” she said. “I don’t like to network at galas. The martinis are really good, though.”

 

US Skeptical About Syrian Law Changes

 David Gollust | State Department ?April 19, 2011

Mourners attend the funerals of protesters killed in earlier clashes in the Syrian city of Homs, April 18, 2011

The United States expressed skepticism Tuesday that a vote by Syria’s cabinet to end 48 years of emergency rule will actually ease human rights conditions there. The State Department confirmed U.S. opposition to Syria’s candidacy for the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Officials here say any gains from the vote lifting the state of emergency in Syria would apparently be negated by companion legislation regulating public protests, and they are renewing their call on authorities in Damascus to end violence against demonstrators.

The action by the Syrian cabinet followed a speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Saturday in which he promised to end the harsh emergency law in effect since 1963.

The cabinet Tuesday ratified draft legislation ending the state of emergency, and abolishing a special security court widely criticized by human rights activists. But it also approved a measure regulating peaceful protests that would require permission from the Syrian Interior Ministry for any demonstration.

At a news briefing, State Department Acting Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said the Syrian legislation, awaiting the signature of President Assad, may not yield any net gain for human rights in the country.

"In light of some of the comments we’ve seen from the interior minister, this new legislation may prove as restrictive as the emergency law it replaced," said Toner. "More fundamentally, there was more violence overnight, soldiers firing on peaceful protestors. Obviously the violence there continues to raise serious concerns. And it remains clear that the Syrian government need to urgently implement broader reforms."

Toner said that while President Assad has cast himself as a reformer, "we have seen a lot of words and not a lot of action" and that it is for the Syrian people to decide whether he has done enough.

Amnesty International says at least 200 people have been killed by security forces since demonstrations for democratic reforms began in Syria a month ago.

The? U.S. spokesman confirmed that the United States will oppose Syria’s candidacy for membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Syria is running unopposed for one of four seats reserved for Asian countries on the 47-nation council. It is thus is likely to win a seat unless another Asian country comes forward to contest the vote, set for late May.

Spokesman Toner said the Obama administration believes that given the Damascus government’s actions against its own people, it would be "inappropriate and hypocritical" for Syria to join the Human Rights Council.

[All VOA blogs...]

Now You Know
Watch Todd Grosshan's report - "What is Radioactivity?"

 

New York City marks April 16th as Foursquare Day, Mayor feeling good about his chances

By Vlad Savov posted Apr 14th 2011 2:48PM 16 is the product of squaring four, so naturally the date of April 16th is the most logical one to be called Foursquare Day. Just why such a celebration should exist is less obvious. As it turns out, a grassroots movement of Foursquare users built up steam around the idea of dedicating a day to the online check-in service, that concept then filtered through to Foursquare's founders who decided to go "100% in on this," and now, somewhat surprisingly, so has New York City Mayor (the elected one) Mike Bloomberg. As Mike sees it, Foursquare represents a fine example of NYC's startup-friendly environment, which is why he's giving it and its heretofore informal Foursquare Day celebration the official NYC seal of approval. He even went so far as to deliver a Mayoral Proclamation to the Foursquare offices, which you can see for yourself after the break. 

 

Archos flashes 7c Android tablet, brags about its 1.2GHz clock speed

 After taking a breather from cranking out new tablets, Archos is at it again, this time with the Archos 7c Home Tablet, a 7-inch number that ARMdevices.net caught on camera during a visit to the company's Chinese outpost. This slate packs a Cortex A8 processor and RK2918 chipset, which the rep quaintly says is "faster than any chipset you can find" -- you know, owing to its 1.2GHz clock speed and all. Alas, it runs Android Gingerbread (2.3) and not Honeycomb (3.0), so you'll have to do some hacking to get your Android Market fix. Although the 7c has a capacitive display, the woman leading the demo appears to jab at browser links with her finger -- a throwback to some less-than-responsive resistive screens we've tested. On the bright side, 1080p video plays smoothly -- at least in the few seconds before the camera pans away. The 7c is headed to the US and Europe in June for an unknown price, but for now you can head past the break to see it in action. 

 

Camp KDE Preview: All About Mobile

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

Q: Camp KDE is co-located this year with The Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit. Can you tell us about what attendees should expect at Hotel Kabuki?

Jeff: Co-locating with the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit gives us a great opportunity to engage with the attendees of the Collaboration Summit and in return, for our attendees to become part of a broader Linux event. As one of the largest open source communities in the world, collaboration, both internally and externally, is an important part of the KDE community experience. As a result, many of our attendees are looking forward to discussing collaboration techniques and technologies with the larger attendee base of the Collaboration Summit.

Q: What do you expect to be the hot topics at Camp KDE this year and what can attendees look forward to at the event?

Jeff: One of the hot topics this year is KDE on Mobile. KDE is very interested in the mobile space; in particular, Plasma as a technology is well suited to creating interfaces for devices with small and disparately-sized screens. The Plasma Netbook workspace is a great example of this. Qt is now available on the leading mobile platform (Android), and is also available on WebOS, Symbian and MeeGo. This is quite a large number of devices for KDE technology to target.

The other hot topic this year is Education. On Tuesday, Carol Smith from Google's Open Source Program Office will be giving a keynote discussing KDE and Education, especially in terms of Google Summer of Code (KDE has for many years been the largest organization in GSoC). Later that day there will be a moderated panel on KDE in Education with Carol Smith, Knut Yrvin and Aleix Pol.

Q: Jim Zemlin will open up the Collaboration Summit with the "State of the Linux Union." Can you describe for us your take on the state of the desktop? What's critical in the year ahead to see progress in this area? What is KDE doing to help that progress?

Jeff: The vast majority of computer users these days are able to do nearly anything they could want to do within a web browser and are often not even in front of a computer thanks to the advances in smart phones and other mobile technology. This presents a major challenge for anyone writing software for the desktop. In order to remain relevant, communities such as KDE need to embrace the capabilities of the web while finding ways to enhance the user experience beyond what the browser can offer.

KDE is uniquely positioned to achieve this thanks to the huge amount of effort our community has put into the "KDE Development Platform," which is the base of libraries and services used to power KDE applications. With this infrastructure it becomes easy for developers to create applications that integrate seamlessly with each other to provide an immersive experience not possible in a web browser.

There has also been much effort invested in the area of creating a more semantically oriented desktop experience. Technologies like Nepomuk will allow users to leave conventional desktop searching behind by allowing them to tag their files with meaningful metadata, making it much easier to find later on.

KDE also acknowledges that today's computer users often have many devices that they use throughout the course of their day. With this in mind, applications such as ownCloud are being developed to allow them to create their own personal cloud without having to rely on third party corporations to store their data. This way, it doesn't matter if they are on their desktop, laptop, or mobile devices as their data will always be accessible in a secure, private manner.

Finally, the Plasma Desktop and many other KDE applications are preparing for a future where computing exists outside the traditional desktop environment. ?We have recently added new Plasma Workspaces targeted at netbook/tablet interfaces, and much of our software is actively being modified to support utilization on mobile phones so that you can be free to use KDE even when you're away from your desktop computer.

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