Holy icons!

Have you ever wondered what the colorful icons positioned above this article mean?

Social-Media-IconsThey are Social Media symbols (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc.) and they allow you to share and exchange information with virtual communities.

For instance, if you are a member of Facebook (and you need to be a member to do this), by clicking on the corresponding icon you will instantly post a link to this article (on your own page) for all your “friends” to see.

No need to send individual messages with attached URL’s anymore.
The Digital media technology will do the hard work for you.
Similarly, you can print or email what you are reading by clicking on the “print” or “email” icons.

And you don’t have to be a teenager to share your interests with your friends.
One click will do it.

What have you got to lose?
Try it, you’ll like it! I guarantee it!

Alain

Trust

A few days ago I watched a movie about a pedophile priest.
A sadly familiar story alas.

The saddest part of this wretched tale is that his superiors knew about his guilty secret but never did anything about it.
A common case of “omertà”, widely practiced by professional associations.

This led me to ponder the following question:
In these complicated times, who can we trust?

When I was a child I was taught to trust figures of authority, but nowadays much fewer people feel confident that these emblematic figures have our best interest at heart.

Politicians? Cops? Doctors? Lawyers? Priests? Bankers?
Can we trust them? Or do they put their own interest above ours?
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they do.

If I had to draw a cartoon about this distressing situation, I would show a man in a bamboo cage wearily watching sharks circling his flimsy enclosure.

Today, instead of telling their children to blindly trust traditional figures of authority, parents would be well advised to instill a healthy dose of skepticism in their catechism.
Does it sound cynical? Absolutely, but cynical people are less likely to get fleeced than trusting souls.

I am not saying that altruism is dead, but it is more the exception than the norm.
In this world, you are more likely to encounter a thousand Bernie Madoff instead of a single Mother Teresa.

So, can you trust anybody?
Yes, but with a bucket of salt.

It would be wise to remember that

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Lord Acton

Do not come to a meeting to merely listen, because silence implies consent.
Come prepared with facts and very pointed questions
The kind that makes politicians squirm.

And above all, beware of wolves clothed in clerical garbs.
They could be extremely hazardous to your health.

WOLFinsheepsclothingBeware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Gospel of Matthew 7:15, King James Version).

Cynical indeed, but realistic!

 


Alain

The ballad of Minou and Minette

Yesterday, nineteen teams from all over the Bay Area braved the elements to compete in the 2014 California Commemorative Cup.
Ignoring rain threats, they gathered in San Rafael for the first official LPM tournament of the season.

These brave souls were:

  1. Louis Toulon & Claudie Chourré
  2. Francois Moser & Helga Facchini
  3. Alain Efron & Sabine Mattei
  4. J-C Etallaz & Minette Etallaz
  5. Etienne Rijkheer & Carolina Jones
  6. Mickey Coughlin & Nicole Coughlin
  7. Patrick Vaslet & Shannon Bowman
  8. Henry Wessel & Calvert Barron
  9. Kevin Evoy & Holly Sammons
  10. John Krauer & Eva Lofaro
  11. Joss Krauer & Jean-Michel Poulnot
  12. Adair Hastings & Barbara Hall
  13. Bernard Passmar & Henriette Matocq
  14. J-C Bunand & Mireille Di Maio
  15. Carlos Couto & Therese Pollock
  16. Ed Porto & Beth Lysten
  17. Hans Kurz & Debbie King
  18. Rene Di Maio & Monique Bricca
  19. Peter Wellington & Teri Sirico

The predicted rain never materialized and the tournament proceeded under an overcast but clement sky.

The tournament consisted of three 13 points qualifying games played before lunch and the ensuing Concours, Consolante A and Consolante B played in the afternoon.

I noted with pleasure that a much-needed time limit of forty-five minutes per game was enforced by the organizers. Kudos to La Pétanque Marinière for finally implementing this necessary rule.

After lunch, 8 teams qualified for the Concours, 7 teams for Consolante A and 4 teams for Consolante B.

In the first round of the Concours

  1. Vaslet/Bowman defeated Porto/Lysten
  2. Hastings/Hall defeated Evoy/Sammons
  3. Etallaz/Etallaz defeated Di Maio/Bricca
  4. Toulon/Chourré defeated Efron/Mattei

In the second round

  1. Hasting/Hall eliminated Vaslet/Bowman
  2. Etallaz/Etallaz eliminated Toulon/Chourré (by a hair).

Our own team (through the excellent pointing of Sabine Mattei) won its three first games and qualified for the Concours.
But in the first challenge of the main event (probably drunk with success) we were unceremoniously kicked out of the tournament. A shrewdly calculated move I might advance, designed to free me to snap some action shots of our petanque warriors.

I think that this particular event will be remembered more by the fairytale of the defeated than by the achievement of the winners.

Minou and Minette (Jean-Claude & Genevieve Etallaz) lived an enchanted life throughout the tournament and to everybody’s surprise squeaked into the Concours’ finals.
But like Icarus, their magic ride came to a fiery end when they flew too close to the sun.

In the finals of the tournament, facing a much stronger team, they crashed and burned.
In less than 15 minutes they were annihilated by Adair Hastings and Barbara Hall and suffered the seldom-witnessed ignominy of a finals’ Fanny.

But to their everlasting credit, Minou and Minette deserve respect for reaching the finals, a slight detail that 17 teams failed to achieve.
Let’s not forget that to reach the finals, they first qualified for the Concours and that during this event they also defeated Di Maio and Bricca, and then Toulon and Chourré.
Not a small achievement.

FINAL RESULTS:

Concours:

1st place: Adair Hastings & Barbara Hall (on the right of the picture)
2nd place: Jean-Claude Etallaz & Genevieve Etallaz

IMG_3524

Consolante A:

1st place: Mickey Coughlin & Nicole Coughlin
2nd place: Etienne Rijkheer & Carolina Jones

Consolante B:

1st place: Carlos Couto & Therese Pollock
2nd place: Francois Moser & Helga Facchini

The names of the tournament winners (Adair Hastings and Barbara Hall) will be inscribed for everybody to see on the Perpetual Trophy.

Thank you to Verena Rytter, Christine Cragg, Liv Kraft and Bart Zachofsky for hosting and coordinating this tournament.

Alain

PS: To look at photos of this event and listen to accompanying background music, turn the sound on, and click on the link “My Photos” located on the right side of this page.