'Jeneral Beetrae Us' Indeed

(This blog is published, first, in phonetic (Fanetik) spelling and only then in standard English. To skip to the traditionally spelled text (albeit with a few simplifications here and there), click here.)
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In reesponding tu tha MuevOn.aurg ad in The Nu Yaurk Tiemz witth tha hedlien "Jeneral Patreayus aur Jeneral Beetrae Us", the Demakraats haav, aaz yuezhuewal, bin uterle kraevan. Tha Reepublikan Riet paurtraez Daevid Patreayus aaz a heero aand paetreeyat. But hiz aakshanz, aur failyerz, haav maed the Yoonietad Staets haetad around tha werld. Kansider tha reepaurt toodae thaat a Y.S. Orme snieper hu diliberatle shot tue unormd Eeroke men aand then plaantad fauls evidans thaat thae wer involvd in tererizam, wuz sentanst tu fiev muntths in prizan but aloud tu reemaen in the Orme. Fiev muntths in prizan faur merdering tue Eeroke men. Tha merderer'z deefens (tha Nueramberg Deefens) wuz thaat he wuz under aurderz tu shuet eneewun hu pikt up "baet" mateereeyalz thaat miet be yuezd in kreeyaeting Impraviezd Eksploesiv Diviesaz. Kood such tthings haav no uther yuesaz? Hwut if sumwun wuz just trieying tu kleer awae traash? Piking up wieyer iz a kaapital afens? If we wer okyoopied bi aan ormy uv Mozlam kongkererz hu ishued aurderz tu shuet Amairikanz hu pikt up wieyer, hou mene Amairikanz wood be shot ded? Wood we tthingk thaat wuz fair, a simpool preeventativ mezher agenst "tererizam"? Wood we eevan reegord aaz "tererizam" reezisting a foran orme uv okyoopaeshan? Aur wood we insted reegord it aaz ouwer paetreeyotik duete?
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Tha Y.S. invaezhan aand kantinyued okyoopaeshan uv Eerok iz aabsaluetle, uneekwivakale raung, raung, raung, and eneewun hu sapaurts it iz eevool and unfit tu be kauld a "heero", "paetreeyat", aur eneetthing liek it. Beekauz aat end tha naashanal perpas uv the Yoonietad Staets iz aulwaez tu du tha riet tthing, not ever tu maek ekskyuesaz faur duewing tha raung tthing.
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Mauroever, Patraeyus wilfoole faulsified faur nuez kaameraz toodae hou "saef" Baagdaad iz nou, bi wauking tthur aan outdaur morkat wairing oenle a haat raather thaan helmat on hiz hed. But the NBK reepaurter swung tha kaamera around tu sho duzanz uv hevile ormd soeljerz gording him in the imeedeeyat visinite. Or thae aulwayz thair, hwen it's oenle Eerokeez in tha morkat aand not Jeneral Patraeyus? I doen't tthingk so.
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Chorle Roez laast niet intervyued tha maan hu ruelz Kator, a Gulf staet (Shaekh Homad bin Kholeefa ol-Tthone). He aaskt the obveeyas kweschan uv hwether Y.S. faursaz in Eeroq miet be reeplaest witth YN peeskeeperz, aaz frum Aarab kuntreez. The shaekh sed thaat Aarab naeshanz doen't wont tu get involvd. Tuf. It's thair port uv the werld. If the Y.S. anounsaz, plainle, "We'r goewing hoem. We freed Eerok frum Sadom. Ouwer job iz dun.", the Aarab werld wil haav tue choisaz: staand asied aand let haapan in Eerok hwutever miet haapan, aur se its oen vietal interests aaz reekwieyering them tu help the Eeroke guvernmant staebiliez tha naeshan, aand dastroi tererizam aand sektaireeyan vieyalans. In eether kaes, we wil haav wosht ouwer haandz uv tha sichuewaeshan, espeshale if we aufer tu help fund peeskeeperz frum Aarab Leeg staets, aaz reparaeshanz faur Y.S. kriemz agenst the Eeroke peepool aand "Aarab naeshan". Miend yu, Aarabz haav tunz uv mune uv thair oen, in plaesaz liek Saude Araebeeya, the Yoonietad Aarab Emirats, aand, yes, Kator. (Kyuereeyasle, aultho we haav bin toeld in reesant yeerz not tu pranouns thaat kuntre's naem tha saem aaz tha staanderd Ingglish werd "kator", but raather liek "kuter" aur eevan "guter", witth stres on the ferst silabool, tha Shaekh himself pranounst it egzaaktle liek "kator". Perhaaps he did so aaz a kertase tu speekerz uv Ingglish but wood pranouns it vere difrantle in Aarabik. He speeks vere good Ingglish.)
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Eeron Iz Riet. Toodae, Eeroneeyan laumaekerz braandad tha Y.S. militere aand the SIA witth tha werd "tererist" thaat tha Y.S. tthroez around reegording Eeron. Eeron iz riet, Amairikan propagaandists raung. Kount tha bodeez uv tha ded frum Eeron's aakshanz aand tha Y.S. Guvernmant's aakshanz.
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Su Che. Wun reezan I aam a speling reefaurmer iz tha kaeyotik 'sistam' uv traanzliteraeshanz frum laanggwajaz ritan in nonroemaanik aalfabets. It's baad eenuf thaat we taek intu Ingglish intaakt naemz aand loenwerdz frum laanggwajaz thaat or ritan in tha roeman aalfabet,but hwen sumtthing iz traanzliteraetad in iraashanal faurm frum nonroeman rietingz, thaat iz intolerabool. Meedeeya sae plaenle thaat the fienal name uv the Burmeez hyueman-riets aaktivist "Aung San Suu Kyi" (I woen't eevan atempt tu riet tha hoel naem fanetikle, beekauz I haavan't herd it aul sed sloele), iz pranounst "Che". Hwi, then, iz it speld "Kyi"? Hwut ideeyat took a werd frum Bermeez skript thaat plaenle soundz liek "Che" aand roet it "Kyi"? On hwut posibool justifikaeshan? This kiend uv linggwistic stuepidite iz evreehwair around us, aaz oeverejookaetad aand undersensibool fuelz berdan us witth nonsensikal spelingz we kaanot posible sound-out beekauz thae bair no reelaeshan tu tha soundz uv the Ingglish verzhan uv tha roeman aalfabet. So, evre yeer, maur and maur ideeyotik, unfanetik and eevan aanteefanetik spelingz kum intu Ingglish, but padaantik fuelz in tha laanggwaj Estaablishmant deefend the endlas wersaning uv Ingglish speling on faachuewas groundz. Thae need tu be beetaen intu submishan. Fizikale, if need be.
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S-CHIP Oeveried. It looks, aat tha moemant, aaz tho tha Boosh Kabol iz goewing tu luez wun, big. Thaat astoundingle profligat bunch uv monsterz, hu haav givan us tha lorjast bujat defisits in tha histare uv tha werld in deefens uv Raadikal Zieyanizam in tue foran waurz, wont tu deeni aan ekspanshan uv heltthkair tu childran insied the Yoonietad Staets. Thair pupat, Dumbya, haaz promist tu veeto tha bil paast bi boetth houzaz uv Konggras. Aultho eevan toodae NBK Nuez sed thaat tha bil'z sapaurterz or 15 voets shaurt uv oeveried in tha Hous uv Repreezentativz, it aulso sed thaat reefyuezal tu oeveried kood kauz eenaurmas problamz faur tha Reepublikan Porte in nekst yeer'z eelekshanz. Thaat seemz tu me liekle tu pradues a chaenj uv 'hort' on tha port uv eenuf Reepublikan Konggrasman tu oeveried aafter aul.
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Reepublikanz or baad peepool, but thae doen't liek tu be understood tu be baad peepool, so hwen Boosh kumz tu shuv aand thae faes reevulshan aat tha poelz, thae mae hied thair vishas faes aand voet faur oeveried. Hwen we'r runing a defisit uv hundradz uv bilyanz uv dolerz a yeer, apoezing mune faur sik Amairikan childran on bujatere groundz iz ekstreemle objekshanabool tu aulmoest aul Amairikanz, eevan tha bulk uv rejisterd Reepublikan voeterz.
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Indeeyan Ttheevz. NBC repaurtad todae thaat ten yeerz ago, Konggras paast lejislaeshan tu permit Amairikan Indeeyan triebz tu oepan gaambling kaseenoez, no maater hwether tha staets around them didan't haav aand didan't wont leegaliezd gaambling. Thaat wuz aan impermisibool abyues uv tha staets then. It iz aan impermisibool abyues uv tha staets nou. Indeeyan kaseenoez or steeling $25 bilyan a yeer frum non-Indeeyan fuelz, port uv an $80 bilyan a yeer haul frum leegaliezd gaambling in tha Naeshan oeveraul.
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Evreewun noez thaat "gaambling" iz moestly tthroewing yaur mune awae. If yu wont tu bie wun lotere tickat faur eech drauqing, yu noe yau'r unliekle tu win, but tha chaans tu faantasiez about hwut yu wood du witth aul thaat mune mae seem a fair ekschaenj faur $1. Thaat iz not hwut we'r tauking about in kaseeno "gaambling" (steeling). We'r tauking about peepool hu luez hundradz, eevan tthouzandz uv dolerz in a singgool weekend, aufan dolerz thae kaanot afaurd, taekan frum puer peepool's reel needz, inklueding helthkair faur thair childran. So on wun haand, Konggras wonts tu pravied mune faur publik helthkair faur childran, aand on the uther, it autthariezd Indeeyan kaseenoes tu steel mune frum faamile helthkair faur childran. Maeks a lot uv sens, doen't it?
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Pramoeting Jender Kanfyuezhan. DrugFree.aurg iz pramoeting boksing aaz a beter wae thaan drugz faur yung wiman (uv kuler) tu koep witth problamz uv self-esteem. Yes, bi aul meenz let us pramoet jender kanfyuezhan aand vieyalans aaz aulternativz tu drug yues. Brilyant. Hwut nekst? Smieling apon merder aaz aan aulternativ tu drug yues?
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Anuther aantee-drug publik-servis anounsmant klaemz thaat a muther'z yues uv the ekspreshan "Riet on!" shoez her tu haav bin port uv tha drug kulcher uv tha Siksteez. Thaat iz astonishing in its ignarans. "Riet on" beekaem port uv tha laanggwaj in tha 1960s, perhaaps, but it wuz not lingkt tu tha drug kulcher eksept sekanderile. It wuz priemerile a BLAAK ekspreshan, aand kaan be herd toodae in, amung uther plaesaz, episoedz uv tha klaasik blaak sitkom Good Tiemz.
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Ingglish Evreehwair. (That's tha naem uv an aurganizaeshan/foundaeshan I wood liek tu kreeyaet, tu pramoet the yues uv Ingglish aul oever tha plaanat. But, eevan aabsant such a foundaeshan, it reelaets tu this nekst topik.) I aufan woch tha nuez in French, witth Ingglish subtietalz, aafter the eevning netwerk nuezkaasts in Ingglish aand Spaanish (hwich I swich baak aad faurtth amung duering kamershalz (eksept that I woen't woch the CBS Sprietle Nuez, witth Perke Kerik). I doen't aulwaez reemember tu tern tu tha French nuez, houwever, in port beekauz tha chaanal on hwich it apeerz, WNYE (tha staeshan uv the Nu Yaurk Site publik skuelz) wuz oenle reesantle aadad tu Kaeboolvizhan Nuewerk aaz chaanal 22, aand faur reezanz I du not understaand, its auferingz or stil not listad in Kaeboolvizhan'z naur eevan AOL's proegraam gied. (Naur iz Terner Klaasik Mueveez, on chaanal 97, listad in Kaeboolvizhan's oen onscreen gied, tho, odle, it iz shoen in AOL'z listingz!)
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In ene kaes, tha subtietalz sumtiemz oeverlaap printad infarmaeshan on the underlieying proegraam, rendering boetth unreedabool. So toodae I sent tha foloewing mesaj, veeya feedbaak faurm, tu Fronns Doo, tha netwerk thaat auferz the eevning nuez oever WNYE. Aafter I klikt tha send butan, I reeseevd no aaknolajmant skreen, so this iz a sekand, indirekt atempt tu reech tha pouwerz thaat be aat French braudkaasting about tha need tu impruev thair outreech veeya Ingglish.

(En anglais:) In tha verzhan uv 20 HEURES braudkaast in the Y.S., yu need tu maek shuer thaat tha yelo subtietalz in Ingglish or singgool-spaest aand apeer abuv tha printad infarmaeshan in hwiet aand red, beekauz utherwiez tha tue sets uv tietalz interfeer witth eech uther, aaz kaan render boetth unreedabool. Vyuewerz hu reeli apon tha subtietalz beekauz ouwer French iz puer (aur nonegzistant) or eeritaetad aat luezing infarmaeshan tu a needlas teknikal glich. I doen't noe hwi singgool-spaest (good) aand dubool-spaest (baad) subtietalz aulternaet raandamle, but it's anoiying.
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I aulso se, hwen I vizitad tha websiet, thaat the Internet verzhan DIFERZ frum tha verzhan we se veeya WNYE in Nu Yaurk Site (hwich I se bi kaebool in Nuewerk, NJ). Unles I wuz inatentiv, toodae's proegraam apeerz tu be tha saem up until a segmant about men kooking thaat apeerz, in the Internet verzhan, aafter tha segmant on obsesiv-kampulsiv disaurder. I did not take tha tiem tu woch tha hoel proegraam on the Internet, but nou wunder, Iz 20 HEURES akchuewale aan ouwer laung, aand we se, abraud, oenle a haaf ouwer? If so, I ges I wil haav tu woch (aur lisan tu) the Internet verzhan nou aand then, eksept thaat it duz not haav subtietalz (hwich, I point out, yu kood aad aat aan aulternate Internet siet), aand mi French iz baad. Indeed, I woch/lisan tu Fronns Doo maenle tu impruev mi French.
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IZ thair aan aulternat, Ingglish-subtietald siet on the Internet thaat I just did not fiend? If yu du not prezantle send out aan Ingglish-subtietald verzhan on yaur websiet, yu shood seereeyasle kansider aading wun, sins such a webkaast kood ekspaand yaur audeeyans abraud, eevan outsied Ingglish-speeking kuntreez. Thair or mene peepool huez naetiv laanggwaj iz neether French naur Ingglish hu nunthales or aebool tu reed Ingglish (but not French). Yaur staure toodae on Bermeez refyoojeez in Tielaand shoez a loekal maan speeking Ingglish. I heer Ingglish in tha baakground in mene uv yaur segmants, hwair yaur reepaurterz haav tu yuez Ingglish aaz the oenle koman laanguaj beetween themselvz aand tha peepool thae or intervyuewing in kuntreez aul oever tha werld. Yu thus noe thaat thair or hyuej numberz uv peepool liek thaat Ti maan hu kood not understaand a French braudkaast but kood deriev infarmaeshan frum Fronns Doo veeya aan Ingglish-subtietald Internet braudkaast.
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In ene kaes, Loerhonn Dooloques iz KYUET, aand hiz smieyal brietanz this gae maan'z dae. I woch eevan on the daez he duz not apeer, but I preefer tha daez hwen he duz aangker tha braudkaast. Cheerz.

Reekaalibraeting Kor Alormz. Aaz I riet, a kor alorm iz goewing auf faur no reezan. This haapanz sevral tiemz a dae witthin mi heering, aand sumtiemz kantinyuez faur oever a minit, eevan in tha middol uv tha niet. Kor alormz or tue sensitiv aand regyoolerle go auf hwen thair ia no braek-in. A loud noiz, a heve truk paasing bi, a persan wauking kloes bi, aand hu noez hwut els, kaan set auf a kor alorm aand blaast the entieyer naeberhood until the oener heerz tha noiz aand ternz it auf reemoetly, aur haaz tu go fizikale out tu tha kor tu stop it. Plaenle tha Federal Guvernmant needz tu set staanderdz tu preevant interstaet sailz uv kor alormz thaat go auf faur no reezan beekauz thae or tue sensitiv, aur reeyaakt tu tthingz thaat haav nutthing tu du witth braek-inz. This izan't rokat sieyans.
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Peepool haav lernd tu ignaur kor alormz beekauz thair or so mene fauls alormz. Kor ttheft kantinyuez tu haapan daspiet, aur perhaaps in port beekauz, uv aul theez oeversensitiv kor alormz goewing auf aul around us sevral tiemz a dae. Kor alormz or the eelektronik verzhan uv Tha Boi Hu Kried Woolf. But thae or much louder, disturb us much maur aufan, aand konstituet a seereeyas publik nuesans.thaat reeduesaz kwolite uv lief in mene erban aireeyas. Eether tha Federal Guvernmant aur staets must aakt tu impoez reezanabool staanderdz uv sensitivite, aur staets aand loekaaliteez must enaak noiz-nuesans aurdinansaz tu punish oeners uv kor alorms thaat go auf faur no reezan aand haraas naeberz. Perhaaps aafter a fyu $50 fiens (ferst afens), $100 fienz (2d), or $500 or $1,000 fienz (thairafter), kor oenerz wil diskanekt faulte kor alormz, aand nu-kor bieyerz wil maek shuer thair kor duz NOT haav a kor alorm instauld.
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(Tha kerant Y.S. militere detth toel in Eerok, akaurding tu tha websiet "Eerok Koewalishan Kaazhuewalteez", iz 3,802 — faur Izreeyal.)

'General Betray' Us Indeed.. In responding to the MoveOn.org ad in The New York Times with the headline "General Petraeus or General Betray Us", Democrats have, as usual, been utterly craven. The Republican Right portrays David Petraeus as a hero and patriot. But his actions, or failures, have made the United States hated around the world. Consider the report today that a U.S. Army sniper who deliberately shot two unarmed Iraqi men and then planted false evidence that they were involved in terrorism, was sentenced to five months in prison but allowed to remain in the Army. Five months in prison for murdering two Iraqi men. The murderer's defense (the Nuremberg Defense) was that he was under orders to shoot anyone who picked up "bait" materials that might be used in creating Improvised Explosive Devices. Could such things have no other uses? What if someone was just trying to conquerors who issued orders to shoot Americans who picked up wire, how many Americans would be shot dead? Would we think that was fair, a simple preventative measure against "terrorism"? Would we even regard as "terrorism" resisting a foreign army of occupation? Or would we instead regard it as our patriotic duty?
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The U.S. invasion and continued occupation of Iraq is absolutely, unequivocally wrong, wrong, wrong, and anyone who supports it is evil and unfit to be called a "hero", "patriot", or anything like it. Because at end the national purpose of the United States is always to do the right thing, not ever to make excuses for doing the wrong thing.
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Moreover, Petraeus willfully falsified for news cameras today how "safe" Baghdad is now, by walking thru an outdoor market wearing only a hat rather than helmet on his head. But the NBC reporter swung the camera around to show dozens of heavily armed soldiers guarding him in the immediate vicinity. Are they always there, when it's only Iraqis in the market and not General Petraeus? I don't think so.
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Charlie Rose last nite interviewed the man who rules Qatar, a Gulf state (Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani). He asked the obvious question of whether U.S. forces in Iraq might be replaced with UN peacekeepers, as from Arab countries. The sheikh said that Arab nations don't want to get involved. Tuf. It's their part of the world. If the U.S. announces, plainly, "We're going home. We freed Iraq from Saddam. Our job is done.", the Arab world will have two choices: stand aside and let happen in Iraq whatever might happen, or see its own vital interests as requiring them to help the Iraqi government stabilize the nation, and destroy terrorism and sectarian violence. In either case, we will have washed our hands of the situation, especially if we offer to help fund peacekeepers from Arab League states, as reparations for U.S. crimes against the Iraqi people and "Arab nation". Mind you, Arabs have tons of money of their own, in places like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and, yes, Qatar. (Curiously, altho we have been told in recent years not to pronounce that country's name the same as the standard English word "catarrh", but rather like "cutter" or even "gutter", with stress on the first syllable, the Sheikh himself pronounced it exactly like "catarrh". Perhaps he did so as a courtesy to speakers of English but would pronounce it very differently in Arabic. He speaks very good English.)
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Iran Is Right. Today, Iranian lawmakers branded the U.S. military and the CIA with the word "terrorist" that the U.S. throws around regarding Iran. Iran is right, American propagandists wrong. Count the bodies of the dead from Iran's actions and the U.S. Government's actions.
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Su Chee. One reason I am a spelling reformer is the chaotic 'system' of transliterations from languages written in nonromanic alphabets. It's bad enuf that we take into English intact names and loanwords from languages that are written in the roman alphabet, but when something is transliterated in irrational form from nonroman writings, that is intolerable. Media say plainly that the final name of the Burmese human-rights activist, Aung San Suu Kyi, is pronounced "Chee". Why, then, is it spelled "Kyi"? What idiot took a word from Burmese script that plainly sounds like "Chee" and wrote it "Kyi"? On what possible justification? This kind of linguistic stupidity is everywhere around us, as overeducated and undersensible fools burden us with nonsensical spellings we cannot possibly sound-out because they bear no relation to the sounds of the English version of the roman alphabet. So, every year, more and more idiotic, unphonetic and even antiphonetic spellings come into English, but pedantic fools in the language Establishment defend the endless worsening of English spelling on fatuous grounds. They need to be beaten into submission. Physically, if need be.
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S-CHIP Override. It looks, at the moment, as tho the Bush Cabal is going to lose one, big. That astoundingly profligate bunch of monsters, who have given us the largest budget deficits in the history of the world in defense of Radical Zionism in two foreign wars, want to deny an expansion of healthcare to children inside the United States. Their puppet, Dumbya, has promised to veto the bill passed by both houses of Congress. Altho even today NBC News said that the bill's supporters are 15 votes short of override in the House of Representatives, it also said that refusal to override could cause enormous problems for the Republican Party in next year's elections. That seems to me likely to produce a change of 'heart' on the part of enuf Republican Congressmen to override after all.
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Republicans are bad people, but they don't like to be understood to be bad people, so when Bush comes to shove and they face revulsion at the polls, they may hide their vicious face and vote for override. When we're running a deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars a year, opposing money for sick American children on budgetary grounds is extremely objectionable to almost all Americans, even the bulk of registered Republican voters.
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Indian Thieves. NBC reported today that ten years ago, Congress passed legislation to permit American Indian tribes to open gambling casinos, no matter whether the states around them didn't have and didn't want legalized gambling. That was an impermissible abuse of the states then. It is an impermissible abuse of the states now. Indian casinos are stealing $25 billion a year from non-Indian fools, part of an $80 billion a year haul from legalized gambling in the Nation overall.
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Everyone knows that "gambling" is mostly throwing your money away. If you want to buy one lottery ticket for each drawing, you know you're unlikely to win, but the chance to fantasize about what you would do with all that money may seem a fair exchange for $1. That is not what we're talking about in casino "gambling" (stealing). We're talking about people who lose hundreds, even thousands of dollars in a single weekend, often dollars they cannot afford, taken from poor people's real needs, including healthcare for their children. So on one hand, Congress wants to provide money for public healthcare for children, and on the other, it authorized Indian casinos to steal money from family healthcare for children. Makes a lot of sense, don't it?
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Promoting Gender Confusion. DrugFree.org is promoting boxing as a better way than drugs for young women (of color) to cope with problems of self-esteem. Yes, by all means let us promote gender confusion and violence as alternatives to drug use. Brilliant. What next? Smiling upon murder as an alternative to drug use?
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Another anti-drug public-service announcement claims that a mother's use of the expression "Right on!" shows her to have been part of the drug culture of the Sixties. That is astonishing in its ignorance. "Right on" became part of the language in the 1960s, perhaps, but it was not linked to the drug culture except secondarily. It was primarily a BLACK expression, and can be heard today in, among other places, episodes of the classic black sitcom Good Times.
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English Everywhere. (That's the name of an organization/foundation I would like to create, to promote the use of English all over the planet. But, even absent such a foundation, it relates to this next topic.) I often watch the news in French, with English subtitles, after the evening network newscasts in English and Spanish (which I switch back and forth among during commercials (except that I won't watch CBS Sprightly News, with Perkie Couric). I don't always remember to turn to the French news, however, in part because the channel on which it appears, WNYE (the station of the New York City public schools) was only recently added to Cablevision Newark as channel 22, and for reasons I do not understand, its offerings are still not listed in Cablevision's nor even AOL's program guide. (Nor is Turner Classic Movies, on channel 97, listed in Cablevision's own onscreen guide, tho, oddly, it is shown in AOL's listings!)
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In any case, the subtitles sometimes overlap printed information on the underlying program, rendering both unreadable. So today I sent the following message, via feedback form, to France 2, the network that offers the evening news over WNYE. After I clicked the send button, I received no acknowledgment screen, so this is a second, indirect attempt to reach the powers that be at French broadcasting about the need to improve their outreach via English.

(En anglais:) In the version of 20 HEURES broadcast in the U.S., you need to make sure that the yellow subtitles in English are single-spaced and appear above the printed information in white and red, because otherwise the two sets of titles interfere with each other, as can render both unreadable. Viewers who rely upon the subtitles because our French is poor (or nonexistent) are irritated at losing information to a needless technical glitch. I don't know why single-spaced (good) and double-spaced (bad) subtitles alternate randomly, but it's annoying.
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I also see, when I visited the website, that the Internet version DIFFERS from the version we see via WNYE in New York City (which I see by cable in Newark, NJ). Unless I was inattentive, today's program appears to be the same up until a segment about men cooking that appears, in the Internet version, after the segment on obsessive-compulsive disorder. I did not take the time to watch the whole program on the Internet, but now wonder, Is 20 HEURES actually an hour long, and we see, abroad, only a half hour? If so, I guess I will have to watch (or listen to) the Internet version now and then, except that it does not have subtitles (which, I point out, you could add at an alternate Internet site), and my French is bad. Indeed, I watch/listen to France 2 mainly to improve my French.
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IS there an alternate, English-subtitled site on the Internet that I just did not find? If you do not presently send out an English-subtitled version on your website, you should seriously consider adding one, since such a webcast could expand your audience abroad, even outside English-speaking countries. There are many people whose native language is neither French nor English who nonetheless are able to read English (but not French). Your story today on Burmese refugees in Thailand shows a local man speaking English. I hear English in the background in many of your segments, where your reporters have to use English as the only common language between themselves and the people they are interviewing in countries all over the world. You thus know that there are huge numbers of people like that Thai man who could not understand a French broadcast but could derive information from France 2 via an English-subtitled Internet broadcast.
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In any case, Laurent Delahousse is CUTE, and his smile britens this gay man's day. I watch even on the days he does not appear, but I prefer the days when he does anchor the broadcast. Cheers.

Recalibrating Car Alarms. As I write, a car alarm is going off for no reason. This happens several times a day within my hearing, and sometimes continues for over a minute, even in the middle of the nite. Car alarms are too sensitive and regularly go off when there is no break-in. A loud noise, a heavy truck passing bi, a person walking close by, and who knows what else, can set off a car alarm and blast the entire neighborhood until the owner hears the noise and turns it off remotely, or has to go physically out to the car to stop it. Plainly the Federal Government needs to set standards to prevent interstate sales of car alarms that go off for no reason because they are too sensitive, or react to things that have nothing to do with break-ins. This isn't rocket science.
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People have learned to ignore car alarms because there are so many false alarms. Car theft continues to happen despite, or perhaps in part because, of all these oversensitive car alarms going off all around us several times a day. Car alarms are the electronic version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. But they are much louder, disturb us much more often, and constitute a serious public nuisance that reduces quality of life in many urban areas. Either the Federal Government or states must act to impose reasonable standards of sensitivity, or states and localities must enact noise-nuisance ordinances to punish owners of car alarms that go off for no reason and harass neighbors. Perhaps after a few $50 fines (first offense), $100 fines (2d), or $500 or $1,000 fines (thereafter), car owners will disconnect faulty car alarms, and new-car buyers will make sure their car does NOT have a car alarm installed.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,802 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM