World's Biggest Volcano Found Beneath Pacific Ocean

Computer Schematic of World's Biggest Volcano
(Image: National Geographic)

Have you ever seen a volcano? I've seen some dormant ones, such as those in the Pacific Northwest and the guardians of Mexico City. I've been in the neighborhood of one live volcano: Vesuvius. (It's easy to forget that Italy is a very active seismic zone.) However, many of the world's biggest volcanoes are not exactly readily available for the layperson to view. That's because they're under water.

In fact, the world's biggest volcano is somewhere off the coast of Japan, according to a Pierre Barthelemy blog posted in the French newspaper Le Monde. (For those who can't read French, the blog's story is based on a recent piece in the publication Nature Geoscience.) The volcano's striking dimensions seem like a flight of fantasy more akin to King Kong than a sedate Saturday night PBS science program. The article is a humbling reminder that humans still know very little about the marine world and the ocean's depths.

French Minister Probing Tax Fraud Has Secret Swiss Bank Account

From the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up Department, European Division"

Jerome Cahuzac
(photo: Paris Match)

Jerome Cahuzac, the French budget minister whose responsibilities included investigating tax fraud, resigned today. According to a report noted in the financial blog zerohedge.com, it turns out M. Cahuzac possesses a Swiss bank account. In and of itself, that's not a crime. However, when the account is secret, and you're investigating people who also have hush-hush bank accounts outside the land of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, you invite...how can I put this...skepticism. In this case, it's Gallic-style skepticism. Since that's rarely for the faint of heart, M. Cahuzac decided it was time to bid adieu to French President Francois Hollande's increasingly unpopular administration.

For a Parisian perspective on l'affaire Cahuzac, read Le Monde's story on the affair, which includes the former minister's declaration of innocence. If you're in the mood for a second helping of scandal, dig into the French newspaper Liberation's version of events.

School Funding Crisis Drives One Spanish Town's Housewives to "Desperate" Measures

An image from the "Desperate Housewives"/Spain calendar
(photo: El Pais/Madrid)

Americans who are complaining about the funding levels in their public schools should take a look at Spain. The Iberian country is going through its own economic crisis, largely due to its American-style housing disaster.

Here's a cautionary, and funny, tale resulting from this financial disaster. One village near Valencia just doesn't have enough money to support transportation to the local school. What's a devoted parent to do?

In this case, the moms decided to create a calendar in which each month showed a photograph of a local woman in lingerie. The French newspaper Le Monde has dubbed this initiative "Desperate Housewives." Will this unique fund raiser will be successful? Who knows, but it has gotten the world's attention.

Do you think your local PTO will embrace this money-making idea? Should be some rockin' Board of Ed meetings in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave in the coming years.

Financial Times Deutschland -- RIP

The American media paid attention today to Australian-American immigrant Rupert Murdoch's reshuffling of News Corporation and the announced closing of his iPad news publication. In Europe, a media event quietly took place that spoke to the challenged economics of the print media. Gunnar + Jahr, part of Bertelsmann, the German publishing Goliath, is shutting down the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD). The story, as reported in the Parisian daily Le Monde, noted that 300 people will lose their jobs and 100,000 subscribers will have to find new ways to read reliably reported information.

Meanwhile, Bertelsmann's planned shotgun wedding of its scion Random House with book publisher Penguin (owned by Pearson, which publishes the UK-based Financial Times) continues on schedule.

PS. The Financial Times sold its fifty percent share of FTD in 2008.

Tilda Swinton and "The Impossible Wardrobe"

Tilda Swinton in
The Impossible Wardrobe

I first became aware of Tilda Swinton from a poster for Orlando. Her paleness, sharp features, and thin figure, at that time, seemed in tune with the fashion world's unreasoned lust for a fresh "look of the month." It wasn't for me, and I thought there was a surfeit of British actresses, anyway.

In recent years, Swinton's roles melted my wariness about a Cambridge-educated import over whom Hollywood went ga-ga. She won a deserved Oscar for her performance in Michael Clayton. She also effectively starred in Io sono l'amore, shown in US art houses as I Am Love. Her most recent effort is an intriguing collaborative project currently being shown during Paris' Festival d'Automne. As noted in Women's Wear Daily and Le Monde, the film portion comes via artist and photographer Katerina Jebb. She shot a "fashion performance" of Olivier Saillard's The Impossible Wardrobe, in which Swinton was the featured actress.

According to the Festival d'Automne's website:

In a fashion museum like Galliera, thousands of clothes from various historical times are carefully stored -- often never to be worn again.
Tilda Swinton learned the minute gestures of the fashion archivist and invented others, chaste or romantic. In a mysterious fashion show, she showcases precious dresses in a restrained ritual, reviving the hidden histories weaved into the fabrics.

If you want to see this film, you'd better catch the next flight to Paris. The show closes October 1st.

Nicolas Poussin and Moses Exhibition in Paris

A Gobelins tapestry that echoes Poussin's La Manne dans le desert.

Take time during these late summer days to explore a brief online display of works entitled "Nicolas Poussin and Moses." The objects include paintings and exquisite tapestries either from Poussin's hands or from those artists obviously influenced by him. The works can be found on the culture pages of the Le Monde website. If you're in Paris and lucky enough to be staying at the Plaza Athenee, you can see some of this delightful art at the hotel's Galerie des Gobelins.

Film Maker Chris Marker -- RIP

Chris Marker
(photo from sensesofcinema.org)

The enigmatic French film maker Chris Marker died recently in Paris at age 91. His passing was noted in France in a rather brief obit in Le Monde, and a somewhat longer one in the Los Angeles Times. Neither obit was particularly satisfying. That's quite possibly in keeping with Marker's life, which was shrouded in mystery. His stance toward publicity was as polar opposite to, say, Oliver Stone, as is humanly possible.

For more insight into Marker, take time to read Agnes Varda's brief adieu to her enigmatic friend. The piece is in French, so reader beware.

France Declares Michel Foucault's Archives a "National Treasure"

Michel Foucault

Some philosophers in France get the star treatment. They obtain lucrative book deals, get interviewed on television, don't come across as freaks, and the public knows who they are. Their American counterparts are more anonymous than participants in the Witness Protection Program.

One of the brightest stars in the Gallic philosophical firmament has been the late Michel Foucault. The French State has now made his Olympian status official. According to a report in the Parisian newspaper Le Monde, the government has declared Foucault's archives a "national treasure."

The directive, among other impacts, bans the export of Foucault's documents. As the Le Monde story noted, the Foucault action comes in the wake of the French government's recent intervention to block some of Antonin Artaud's recently auctioned self-portrait in pencil from leaving France.

A December to Remember?

The blog's title, borrowed from an automobile's company's annual year-end advertising campaign, made us wonder what would be so memorable about December 2010. Well, there's already enough to fill one's holiday stocking with episodes and incidents worth remembering. The following examples offer some ideas:

1. New Jersey's conservative, Republican governor Chris Christie has discovered YouTube is a very effective propaganda tool. This tactic became evident during a recent town hall meeting, in which a questioner was "escorted" to the stage by a state trooper. Then, in a physically bullying manner, the governor responded to the inquiry without allowing any sort of reply. A trooper removed the questioner and that was that: a perfect YouTube moment available for Governor Christie's fans. The Star-Ledger of New Jersey included the episode in its print coverage (no YouTube, sorry) of the town hall meeting.

2. In fairness, it should be noted Christie did confront a sacred cow of prosperous, typically Republican suburban communities at the town hall meeting. One of his questioners asserted his municipality's right to pay its school superintendent above the $175K cap the Christie Administration has decreed suitable for the position. The municipality used a line of reasoning which must have sounded familiar to its many highly compensated, Wall Street inhabitants: the proposed superintendent's salary was "competitive" with the local school system's perceived peers.

Senior management compensation committees and consultants have used the "peer" ploy to boost key personnel pay schemes for some time. The rationale is usually accepted without complaint, and the top dogs make a killing via compliant corporate boards. The superintendents and local boards of education know this game, and have shamelessly played it. Prosperous suburban communities have rarely hesitated to use financial incentives to land the candidates they want. As long as the school system stayed "highly rated," and the connection between a school system's quality and housing prices remained ironclad, the money would be found. While Governor Christie's politics and public personality are repellent, he's on the mark on this issue.

3. China v. Google -- The WikiLeaks material in The New York Times included some profoundly disturbing information regarding the Chinese government's relentless grip on its domestic information dissemination, its mistrust of Google as a tool of the American government (read the Le Monde summary of this episode for some of the juice), and the sinister efforts of elements within China to conduct cyberwarfare against United States interests. Keep in mind China holds trillions of dollars of United States government debt.

4. Google Settles "Street View"/Privacy Lawsuit for One Dollar -- A couple sued Google for its unwelcome photographing of their Pittsburgh area home. According to a story based on original reporting in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Google employees drove 1,000 feet onto private property in order to get the photo of the couple's house. Google fought the lawsuit, only to eventually give in and pay a symbolic one dollar settlement fee. However, the couple had to pay their own legal fees. How many people have pockets deep enough, and time substantial enough, to fight Google? The FCC, meanwhile, is looking into allegations that Google's Street View campaign collected passwords and other personal information from unguarded WiFi locations. That information is quite significant in location-based marketing; the commercial leveraging of it by the aggregate information's possessor has the potential for a staggering financial bonanza.

5. Wild and crazy Mark Cuban made a fascinating post on Vator.tv called "The End of Location-Based Apps?" His thesis involves the increasing use of face-recognition software to identify prospects and customers in a specific location. He also makes a chilling assertion: "few people exclude their basic name and picture information from public search, so FB [Facebook] could be the first to provide a database of names and faces to the commercial world of facial recognition."

6. Zero Hedge posted a CNBC segment in which former Reagan Administration budget director David Stockman tells some very unpleasant truths about the American economy. Stockman notes how offshoring strongly and negatively impacted job creation in this country. (Liberals should take note this happened during the Clinton years as well as the Bush 43 nightmare. The corruption runs deep, my friends.) Stockman pointed out the inconvenient fact that most "new" jobs that have appeared during the Great Recession (Stockman's phrase) are mostly part-time jobs. He noted that government jobs will decline, as municipal and state governments are broke. And implicit in his observations is the time line for "recovery" is very, very long.

A December to remember? More likely, you'll want to take a rain check on this month. As Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca, "I drink to forget."

Claude Chabrol Obit

Influential French New Wave director Claude Chabrol died this weekend at age 80. Here are the BBC obit and French reactions published in Le Monde.

While very popular in France, and respected worldwide, Chabrol's films were confined to the art-house circuit in the United States. How foreign movies such as Chabrol's get distributed in the United States is an interesting, important, and largely untold story. One finds out quickly that distribution is very definitely a business: to paraphrase Scripture, many films are made, but few are chosen. This maxim is especially true for those films of foreign genesis and "artistic" reputation.