I am all for the respect of differences but have we gone too far? This is the “footnote” from a company looking for new staff:
The [Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate because of race, color, creed, religion, sex, marital status, domestic partner status, ancestry, national origin, weight, height, physical or mental handicap, pregnancy, medical condition, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship, veteran status, or age.

This is when I feel like I am a European that does not take a micro-community perspective on each thing. And not a legalistic one too!

Two news today that drive me crazy:

1. Venezuela blows up pedestrians bridges between its territory and Colombia’s, claiming smugglers and militia cross it. Yes, maybe, but do you really want to destroy expensive infrastructure in a poor country? Is there a not another way to stop the alleged presence of smugglers? I am sure there is. Come on, let’s brainstorm Mr Chavez, before you bring your country even more backwards. Caudillos will remain caudillos.

2. Egypt witnesses violent incidents after losing a football game to Algeria and not being qualified for the 2010 world football cup. There is enough already to comment on the stupidity to burn flags for the loss of a football game - as important as that game was. There is enough to comment about the son of the president saying that his country’s “dignity” had been “insulted”. Hey, what if the players of your country suck at football? Would that be a reason why they lost?

The real question in this last case is two-fold:
A. Why doesn’t Egyptian society behave like a grown-up society, that accepts a defeat at a game, identifies the reasons for the loss and deals with them? And, no, that does not include attacking the embassy of the other country, nor recalling ambassadors.

B. Why does the Egyptian youth revert to such actions, which are essentially the same as when they read Danish newspapers? Because these young men are bored, unemployed and because their dictator has not done anything to create a future for them, outline a vision for this important country.

Today more than ever, societies cannot waste time to determine their future and care for themselves and their neighbors. Destroying infrastructure or letting bored young groups wander around for years is pure folly.

Vanity Fair has done a fun exercise of editing Sarah Palin’s resignation speech of a few weeks back. It’s also worth just looking at the pages from afar and see how much work was needed to make the intervention just even decent.

Michael Jackson has apparently just died of cardiac arrest. CNN, having no details on the story besides showing a crowd in front of a hospital, is reading emails from fans, including this one: Michael, you had the greatest heart and the best music”. Hellooooo!!!!!! The guy just passed away after a cardiacarrest.

And equally brilliant, if you receive the feeds from NPR on Facebook, you would see that at least 442 people “like” the news that the King of Pop has died.

With fans like these, …

A really good article in the New York Times about Twitter and how technology is the spine of the current protests in Iran.

Watching the Iranian elections story develop is fascinating. To those in the US who can’t prevent themselves from commenting on current events in Iran, and especially on the vote count, one could offer the reminder of the US 2000 elections. And 2008 as well: if Minnesota can’t count votes after seven months, how does Iran –without voting machines — count 40 million in two hours?

A great op-ed in the New York Times on a persistently-forgotten group in the Middle East comprehensive peace plan: Jews kicked out of Arab countries.

When I was a grad student, my history professor gave us a test of what he called “heuristic method”. He would give us a one line sentence - usually a statement from a world leader that would seem trivial at first glance - and we would have to infer and explain how this statement would play within the broader historical context. For example, I got a statement from then U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry about the Yugoslav wars, which in fact was the discrete announcement of America’s intervention in Bosnia against the Serbs.

I wonder if this professor will give the following “episode” of U.S.-China relations to his future students. The fact that Chinese students laughed at Secretary Geithner trying to re-assure Chinese authorities that their dollar assets were safe is very revealing of a superpower slowly losing its shine and force, on the economic front at least. This visit will be seen as a key moment in the passage of power between the two countries. The slide had already started a few years back but I think that this deep economic crisis of 2008-2009 is accelerating that momentum between the big debtor and the big creditor.

On the spurrrrr of the moment, I got a last minute reservation at French Laundry in Napa which is definitely worth its 3 Michelin stars. First, Napa valley is gorgeous, with its hills of green and brown tones. Second, seeing the chefs from the restaurant running across the street to their big garden to get some chives or one more vegetable wets your appetite.

The welcoming was perfect - no chi chi but still, you realize you are in a classy place. Perfect table at the corner. The service throughout was very kind, respectful of our conversation, discrete… The rhythm at which the 10 courses were served was perfect. I thought that by arriving at 11am, we would be done by 1.30pm but we left our table at 3.30! 4 hours for lunch seemed very reasonable…

2 menus, the chef’s tasting menu and the tasting of vegetables (which is not a vegetarian menu!). We all went for the Chef’s choice.

Caulifower panna cotta (very light mousse of cauliflower with sturgeon caviar on top)

Choice between the foie gras au torchon and a salad of Hawaiian hearts of peach palm. I went for the latter to try the famous technique of compression - in this case a watermelon pulverized to make almost a mousse. It was good but not spectacular. it came with petals of flowers and a light mint sauce.

Choice between a red snapper fillet (with hen-of-the-wood mushrooms, golden corn, romaine lettuce and tarragon creme fraiche) and an octopus from the sea of Japan. I went for this last one, thinking that the usually chewy octopus would be great here. Bingo! It was firm but tender too. The secret? The octopus is vacuum-packed and poached this way to have a perfectly constant cooking temperature. It’s then poached. It came with fennel, nicoise olives, sweet peppers in a spectacular saffron-orange broth

Then came the Maine lobster tail poached in butter (forget any medical check-up the next day, it goes without saying), with a red-beet essence and melting leeks. This was also decorated with lightly cut slices of potato, fried together in the shape of a sun - beautiful.

We then moved to meats with a choice between duck and Kuroge beef (which is fattier than Kobe beef!). We all went for the duck which was slightly too firm but surrounded with peanuts, kaffir lime sauce, Tokyo turnips and broccolinis, it was very good.

Came then the selle d’agneau and my favorite sweetbreads. The lamb was perfectly cooked and savory without being too strong in taste. The sweetbread (singular) was minuscule but worth every second. It came with artichokes, peas, heirloom carrots and black truffle jus.

We then moved to cheese with a very nice Manchester from Vermont, accompanied by some eggplant confit, San Marzano tomato compote and a sweet garlic emulsion

And we were still not done! For desserts, we started with a yogurt sherbet (a “Petit Suisse” 1000 times better), covering an oatmeal sable, and surrounded by an apricot reduction. We continued with a chocolate gateau. The gateau itself was excellent, with hazelnut sorbet and caramelized banana. The whole thing was decorated with two flowers made of chocolate - not worth having. The chocolate had very little taste. It was not cheap quality but more likely it had lost its personality during the preparation. We finished with mignardises, more chocolates (curry and oil, peanut butter - very light actually, praline, vanilla, burnt caramel)

We had a 1997 Chateau Beauregard (Graves) until the duck and then went on to a 1988 Lafite. Life was good. Back to you, Houston.

The macchiato was our best help to get back into town. All water bottles were included, so was the service. It was an unbelievable experience, a treat, worth every penny.

From Foreign Policy:
As food prices skyrocketed over the last two years, countries and state-sponsored companies were quietly snapping up land around the world. Few noticed when South Korea began investing in farms in Madagascar, or when China, Japan, Libya, Egypt, and Persian Gulf countries acquired farmland in Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Mozambique, Uganda, Ethiopia, Brazil, Pakistan, Central Asia, and Russia. From what little has emerged publicly, the total land purchased since early 2007 adds up to at least twice the cereal cropland of Germany. But the purchases weren’t about land so much as water. For with the land comes the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries essentially a freebie that increasingly could be the most valuable part of the deal.