Harry Potter in Marathi! [en]

The first book of the Harry Potter series has been translated into Marathi.

I’m really keeping an eye open for a Hindi translation. I promise I’ll buy it and try to read it if it is published in Hindi. Reading a book you know and like in a foreign language you are learning is a great way to improve your skills: it makes you read a lot, and it’s not as discouraging as reading an unknown text: you know the story already, so you’re not reaching for the dictionary at every line.

[via The Leaky Cauldron]

Assurance maladie: ras la Supra! [en]

En Suisse, l’assurance maladie est obligatoire. Je ne m’en plains pas, je précise au bénéfice de nos lecteurs d’ailleurs.

Affiliée à  la Supra (qui malgré mes recherches, ne semble pas riche d’un site web) depuis belle lurette, j’avais déjà  reçu pour janvier une notification de hausse de 50.- Frs. Sur un budget d’étudiante fauchée — même si elle travaille — et qui compte grandement sur les subsides de la ville pour payer son assurance maladie, ça fait *arghl*.

Comme bien d’autres assurés, j’ai reçu en avril une nouvelle notification de hausse, d’une cinquantaine de francs également (oui je sais, j’ai été particulièrement gâtée.) Je vous passe les centimes, sachez seulement que mon assurance maladie de base me reviendrait à  environ 385.- par mois (mais Dieu merci, comme je l’ai dit, il faut déduire de ce chiffre les subsides de la ville; et non, je ne sais pas pourquoi mon assurance à  moi est plus chère que celle d’autres assurés Supra avec la même franchise.)

Conséquence sans doute en partie de l’exode vers d’autres caisses moins chères d’environ 40’000 assurés en début d’année. Croyez bien que je ne vais pas attendre de subir les conséquences de l’exode de juillet!

Un petit tour sur comparis, et le tour est joué. C’est très facile, au fond: toutes les assurances maladies offrent les mêmes prestations pour l’assurance de base, seul le prix change. Et on peut très bien laisser ses complémentaires chez son ancien assureur. Faut juste faire gaffe de ne pas se laisser avoir par le temps: on a un mois pile à  partir de la notification de hausse pour faire atterrir chez son assureur un recommandé annonçant notre départ. Entre-temps, il faut avoir conclu un contrat ailleurs…

Pour couronner le tout, j’ai reçu en retour ma dernière facture de médecin adressée à  la Supra: il faut dorénavent collectionner chez soi ses factures jusqu’à  concurrence du montant de la franchise, et les envoyer d’un bloc à  l’assurance. Il est vraiment temps de changer de caisse!

Swiss Weblogs [en]

I’m trying to collect a list of swiss weblogs. Thanks for helping!

Je fais une liste de weblogs suisses. Merci pour votre aide!

[de] (Mein Deutsch ist leider sehr schlecht!) Ich mache eine schweizer Weblogsliste. Hilfen Sie bitte!

Mozilla "commented code" Bug [en]

If you are using Mozilla RC1 (you should be using RC2 – RC=Release Candidate), code that has been commented out on this page will be visible to you (in the sidebar, and the second sitemeter icon in the footer).

You’ll be happy to know that this parsing bug is being fixed.

Lausanne [en]

Lausanne est un petit village que l’on traverse en voiture en 20 minutes quand la circulation est fluide, et en 1h30 aux heures de pointe. Les gens dans le bus ne se parlent pas et regardent dans le vague. Les vendeuses à  la caisse de la Migros remercient cinq fois les clients entre le moment où elles donnent le prix total des courses et celui où le client est en possession du précieux ticket de caisse.

La Migros, on ne l’évite pas, en Suisse. Elle fait partie intégrante de la culture.

Lausanne, c’est aussi la Cathédrale, les rues du centre-ville désertes le dimanche, et peut-être de la neige en hiver si on a de la chance.

On aime ou on n’aime pas. L’assurance maladie obligatoire, l’assurance chômage, les flics à  tous les coins de rues, mais plutôt sympas, les feux rouges que personne ne grille, et les trottoirs propres. La vie chère, mais les salaires souvent élevés en conséquence. Quatre semaine de vacances par an pour les moins chanceux.

L’accent du coin, les panosses avec lesquelles on se réjouit de poutzer l’appart le samedi, nonante et septante, les voisins à  qui on dit poliment bonjour dans l’escalier pendant des années sans parler de rien d’autre… Les gens que l’on dit froids, parce que l’on n’adresse pas la parole aux inconnus, mais qui une fois amis aiment à  passer des heures au bistrot à  parler de tout et de rien, mais aussi des choses qui comptent.

Je pourrais en parler longtemps, de ma ville. Comme toute personne qui aime “sa” ville, j’en viens cependant toujours à  penser qu’il faut la visiter pour s’en rendre compte. C’est l’expérience sythétique de la ville qui compte – pas les petits morceaux en lesquels on peut la décomposer.

Avortement [en]

Visiblement, je ne suis pas la seule que ça énerve!

Initiative “mère et enfant”: une volonté de choquer.

[…] il faut avouer que la brochure distribuée la semaine dernière dans plus de trois millions de ménages suisses par les auteurs de l’initiative se situe à  un niveau de subjectivité rarement atteint.

Alain Pichard, mai 2002

India, Pakistan, and History [en]

A few months back I read this post of Anil’s, in which he suggests reunification as a solution to the India-Pakistan situation. I must say I personally quite like this solution, although I’m not sure it’s really viable (see my ideas on critical mass and big communities). I won’t comment further on the problem and its possible solutions, though, as I totally lack the political and economical insight to do so.

One argument in Anil’s post shocked me, however, and this is what I want to talk about today:

I also feel like the division of 50 years, or one hundred years, or however long it lasts, pales in comparison to the thousands of years of shared history.

[…]

It should only take a strong leader to remind Indians, Pakistanis, and Kashmiris of their thousands of years of shared history.

Anil Dash, Jan. 2002

The thousands of years of shared history is unfortunately a reinterpretation of history. The indian subcontinent was more or less unified under the Raj, and also at some point under the Moghul domination, but apart from that its history is definitely not one of unification.

I’m currently in the process of digging out enough indian history to demonstrate this (as I like giving evidence for what I state – sometimes). The “united subcontinent” is another of these “myths” whose origin can certainly be traced to relatively recent times (19th or 20th century, probaly). If anybody is interested, I’ll do a bit of research about it.

Now, let it be clear that I don’t blame Anil a bit for making that statement. We all—me included—repeat things that are “common knowledge” every day, and (unfortunately?) a fair amount of such things “heard and repeated” are false (heard about urban legends?)

The reason I’m telling you about this is because when I read the post, I thought “OK, that’s definitely not correct… but where on earth do I start to explain that it’s wrong? Do I have to go through the entire history of the indian subcontinent?” Actually, it’s possible to give a concise explanation—which I will try to do in a future post. The problem, I have now realized, is that my knowledge of indian history isn’t thorough enough that I am able to do so off the top of my head, even though I remember having seen evidence proving the point. So I’ll sweat a bit for the education of my readers and hunt it down 😉

I run in to this “where do I start?” problem pretty often, especially when the subject matter happens to be in my field of expertise. For example, I have joined buddha-l for my dissertation research. One of the reasons I haven’t participated to discussions there is that a lot of what is said is so far “off the mark” that I just can’t answer to it with my (limited, albeit specialized) student’s knowledge. If I’m pointing at Anil’s post today, it’s simply this afternoon’s indian culture lecture happened to mention Independence and Partition…

Non-Religious Buddhism (Batchelor, closing words) [en]

How to create an authentic community, which provides a sound basis for the emergence of a culture while optimizing individual freedom, may be the single most important question facing those practicing the dharma today.

One of the strengths of religious Buddhism is its ability to respond unambiguously to this question through continued establishment of hierarchic institutions which have weathered centuries of turmoil and change. While such institutions may provide excellent settings for sustained training in meditation and refection, it is questionable whether they alone can provide a sufficient basis for the creation of a contemporary culture of awakening. The democratic and agnostic imperatives of the secular world demand not another Buddhist Church, but an individuated community, where creative imagination and social engagement are valued as highly as philosophic reflection and meditative attainment.

An agnostic Buddhist vision of a culture of awakening will inevitably challenge many of the time-honored roles of religious Buddhism. No longer will it see the role of Buddhism as providing pseudoscientific authority on subjects such as cosmology, biology, and consciousness as it did in prescientific Asian cultures. Nor will it see its role as offering consolating assurances of a better afterlife by living in accord with the worldview of karma and rebirth. Rather than the pessimistic Indian doctrine of temporal degeneration, it will emphasize the freedom and responsibility to create a more awakened and compassionate society on this earth. Instead of authoritarian, monolithic institutions, it could imagine a decentralized tapestry of small-scale, autonomous communities of awakening. Instead of a mystical religious movement ruled by autocratic leaders, it would foresee a deep agnostic, secular culture founded on friendships and governed by collaboration.

Stephen Batchelor, in Buddhism Without Beliefs, pp. 114-115 [end of book]

[emphasis mine]

Freedom (Batchelor) [en]

Instead of creatively realizing their freedoms, many choose the unreflective conformism dictated by television, indulgence in mass-consumerism, or numbing their feelings of alienation and anguish with drugs. In theory, freedom may be held in high regard; in practice it is experienced as a dizzying loss of meaning and direction.

Part of the appeal of any religious orthodoxy lies in its preserving a secure, structured, and purposeful vision of life, which stands in stark opposition to the insecurity, disorder, and aimlessness of contemporary society. In offering such a refuge, traditional forms of Buddhism provide a solid basis for the ethical, meditative, and philosophical values conducive to awakening. Yet they tend to be wary of participating in a translation of this liberating vision into a culture of awakening that addresses the specific anguish of the contemporary world. Preservation of the known and tested is preferable to the agony of imagination, where we are forced to risk that hazardous leap into the dark.

Stephen Batchelor, in Buddhism Without Beliefs, p. 110

[emphasis mine]