Au Cochonnet Marin

I have a beef with “fine print”.

As my old friend Andy Rooney once said, “nothing in fine print is ever good news.” I firmly believe that.

But the damn thing is multiplying like crazy, breeding like rabbits on a Caribbean holiday. It is everywhere, and like most everything that you cannot see, it is hazardous to your health… and to your retirement plan.

“Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.”  Pete Seeger

A wise person (or a seasoned lawyer) will read the fine print before gracing any document with his John Hancock. But unfortunately there seems to be a shortage of wise men; in their eagerness to acquire something new, very few people bother to scrutinize (especially the benign last paragraph) of the document that they are signing.

Fine print basically means that the author of the document is loath to reveal what the law constrains him to do. He thus complies through the artifice of miniaturization.

I realize that my sight is not what it used to be, but even when wearing my spectacles I strain to decipher some documents.

I just purchased a Thermos bottle, and it came with a “care and use” guide. But this guide (hiding in the bottle) is barely 3 x 2 inches and the print is so small that I need a magnifying glass to decipher what it says.

Is Thermos trying to pull a fast one or am I becoming paranoid? In this climate of “fake news” everything is possible. Is a microphone hidden in the walls of the bottle? Am I going to get infected by a mysterious virus by drinking from this container? Is this a surreptitious way of converting me to Scientology? Are the Russians involved?

Washington’s paranoia has affected all. Everybody is jittery and inclined to believe the most outrageous claim.

Make America clean again and built a beautiful wall around Un-American fine print.

Alain

The big print giveth and the fine print taketh away. Fulton J. Sheen

Ne berces-tu jamais                       Don’t you ever entertain
En tout bien tout honneur               With honorable intentions of course
De jolies pensées interlopes ?        Fetching lascivious thoughts?

Those are some of the lyrics of “Penelope », a song composed by famous French singer/songwriter Georges Brassens. This ballad was published in 1960 and as it shows, Georges was not the first person to cast some doubts on women’s declared rectitude.

Sexual Harassment deserves condemnation and should be reined in, no doubt about it. But not all men are villains and not all women are innocent victims. In view of the Sexual Harassment tsunami, we need some kind of a reset.

Yes, there has been a lot of sexual harassment in the past but let’s not turn this into the Reign of Terror or the Red Scare.

In the current climate, someone’s reputation and livelihood can be wiped out in seconds by allegations, and one needs to be cautious before casting stones and ostracizing anybody.

In some cases, women were the amorous instigators. But what if the romance goes sour and the man decides to put an end to the relationship? There is something called vengeance and it is a very tempting retribution tool for scorned women. Could then a consensual relationship suddenly become a case of sexual harassment?

The key to all of this is consensual agreement. If both parties agree to some hanky-panky there is no cause for melodrama. But the main question is “when does the woman agree to a sexual interlude?”
Some men are seemingly unable to tell.

In my ever-inventive mind, I see an opportunity for another smartphone voice-activated app. It would work like a miniature stoplight. Since most people bring their phone near or into their bed, it would be easy to handle.

During any prelude to sexual activity, the would-be seducer would have to pay attention to the phone lurking in the dark. If the light is green, there is a consensus. When it turns orange, easy does it. If the light turns red, STOP. An alarm could also be activated if the Lothario persists in his unwelcome advances. Running a red light as everybody knows is a serious offense punishable by law.

To sum it up

If men don’t see the light, the Stop Light could become the indispensable killer app for the woman on the go. What da ya think?

Alain

You gotta have style. Without it you are nobody. Diana Vreeland.

In the last 10 years, I must have taken at least 30,000 pictures. I have photographed just about everything under the sun including men, beasts, and pétanque players.

During this time, I have shot the same individuals multiple times and I have noticed that every person has a very distinctive way of casting his/her boules. This is called style, and a photographer is very partial to form. The more graceful you are and the more the camera will like you, increasing your chances to be seen in various publications.

Style is inimitable and often defines a player. Having style though does not necessarily mean that you are a top-rated player. You can be photogenic without being effective, but generally speaking, a stylish individual is usually a good player. Style and outcome go hand in hand.

By the same token, a bland player can be extremely accurate and as capable as a flashy player; he might not be stylish, but this does not prevent him from scoring.

Skills can be learned, but style is innate. You are born with. It also partly depends on your morphology. It is also not exclusively a man’s attribute. Au contraire! Some women can be very stylish and when they are, they draw larger crowds than men players.

Style is definitely crowd-pleasing; to be popular you need to win games, but it is the way you do it that will shape your reputation.

Style is whatever you want to do, if you can do it with confidence. George Clinton

Tennis pro Anna Kournikova was not a particularly successful player; she never won a single title but she had style and the crowds cheered for her.

Moral of the story:

Winning games is great, but winning with style is the cherry on top of your achievement.

Alain