Lots of stories this week kiddies! So go get a cup of tea or coffee, or glass of wine (it is kind of early for that?) and site back and take these in:
Just as last week JenX67 excerpted on her blog that Gen X is The Breakfast Club generation, it can be said that the Baby boomers are the “Woodstock Generation”. And today is the 40th anniversary of that event. You can read about the history here, which among other things states Woodstock as “widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history.” I would very much agree.
In France there were several days of riots due to police action in the banlieu (poor suburbs) of Paris. The conditions of this riot situation nearly mimicking those of the 2005 riots. Youth running from police (rightly or wrongly) and dies in the process. People are pissed off at the overall conditions and environment and perceived police harassment, so they start burning cars and protesting.
As you can imagine, these are monitored very closely and stopped as soon as possible. Whenever these things happen, I always ask my husband why people so often set cars on fire in France, and he never has an answer, because he doesn’t get it either. That in when the union workers take the executives hostage whenever there is a change of conditions or layoffs. It is just terrible, yet continues to be one of the most common outward expressions of displeasure in France.
French advertising company Publicis Groupe bought American interactive agency Razorfish (formerly so many names it isn’t even funny). Razorfish was bought by Microsoft several years ago and they have now turned around and sold them to Publicis, the world’s fourth-largest communications company. I have worked with Razorfish in the past and have friends that worked there previously, it will very interesting to see what their future looks like! I want to see what influence French management will have on them.
Google France has been making quite a stir with their vid-tric, a tricycle with nine cameras set to take automatic shots every two meters, provided footage of some of the most popular spots where there is no access to vehicles. So you can use Google maps and see some of the areas of Versailles as well as garden areas of Tulieres and Le Defense. What a cool job!
A big story on the French news which I somehow missed in the U.S. news from the end of July is the story of the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg paying one-way tickets for homeless people to return to their home countries. Apparently, when Michael Bloomberg began his tenure as mayor, he promised to address the problem of homelessness in the city, so he started this program. Problem is, although all the U.S. accounts of this story say that it is immigrants only that are being sent back, in the case of some people that have been sent to France, they were U.S. citizens with family in France. In the French news, it was a big deal because these homeless people who had ties to France have been sent there and once they arrive in France (without any notification to the French government) they become France’s problem.
Some mayors were interviewed from small towns in France who have been recipients of some of these homeless people, and they are not happy to have these people show up unannounced expecting government aid. Really, is this the best way to fix the homeless problem in New York – shift them to someone else, making it their problem? I don’t think so, and I am a bit disgusted by it. I can see if someone came over recently and thought they were going to make a better life and then have problems and can’t go back to their homeland. Getting assistance to make it back is cool, but any other case than that is simply not cool!
This week saw the passing of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of JFK, and founder of Special Olympics. She was an amazing woman from an amazing family. I have these two pictures one of Eunice and one of her daughter, Maria Shriver – don’t they look so much a like?
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It is a shame that Maria is married to an idiot, but that is another story. Although I am a Democrat, I was a supporter for Arnold Schwarzenegger after he got elected as Governor of California, because he seemed to have a lot of good stuff planned, but now California is just as bad as when he took over from Gray Davis. We got a state tax return that we can’t even cash, it is an I.O.U. until October – how cool is that? Sorry, I digress. I do have an admiration for the Kennedy’s although I know that they are definitely not perfect, but the family in general has always been community service oriented and has always served its country. They are a great American family.
In social media news:
- Facebook buys FriendFeed which I mentioned here.
- The wife of Twitter founder, Evan Williams, Sara tweeted while in labor which happen to be during all the denial-of-service attacks – that is supporting your husband during a time of need!
That’s it for this week!
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