Η Σηkope των Τρελών
Χρονικό της Κοινής Τρέλας
6 Ιανουαρίου 2008
- σελίδα 1 -
Θα ήθελα πολύ να έχω καλά νέα να ανακοινώσω.
Ξαφνικά σκέφτοτε μια φράση από ένα ποίημα του Ζακ Πρεβέρ:
- Όσοι φτιάχνουν σε υπόγεια στυλό με τα οποία άλλοι θα γράψουν ότι όλα πάνε καλά
Οι αναγνώστες μου στέλνουν συνεχώς διευθύνσεις internet για βίντεο. Έχω μόνο την επιλογή να αναφέρω φρικτά πράγματα. Θέλω να πω « με τι θα ξεκινήσουμε; Με ένα άρθρο για τις βλάβες του Taser; Με τις εξομολογήσεις που έκανε ο Ρούσο έξι μήνες πριν από τον θάνατό του; Θέλω να φύγω από αυτή την λευκή σελίδα, αυτή την κενή οθόνη που θα γεμίσω. Θα ήθελα να είμαι ξέγνοιαστος. Τα καταφέρνω παρ' όλα αυτά, ας ηρεμήσουν οι αναγνώστες μου. Βρήκα το μπαστούνι που μου χρειαζόταν, πάνω στο οποίο μπορώ να ακουμπήσω. Ένας παλιός φίλος μάλιστα επέμενε να μου το προσφέρει. Σ习惯 (Συνήθως). Αλλά ονειρεύομαι να ξανακάνω someday ένα ιπταμένο αεροπλάνο (aile volante), να τρέχω στο γρασίδι και να νιώθω τα πόδια μου να αποκολλώνται από το έδαφος και να κατευθύνω την πτήση μου μιμούμενος αυτήν των αετών.
Ο φίλος μου Ντανιέλ αναρρώνει από την απίστευτη ιστορία που έζησε πριν από μερικούς μήνες, όταν γκάνγκστερ τον ανάγκασαν να απογειωθεί, με κατεύθυνση την αυλή ενός φυλακισμένου, για μια απόδραση. Μοιάζει με γκαγκ.
*- Θα απογειωθούμε. Εσύ θα μας μεταφέρεις, εμένα και τον φίλο μου, προς τη φυλακή. Θα σου δείξουμε τον δρόμο και θα πάρουμε έναν φίλο μας.
- Είστε τρελοί! Είναι δίθεσμο...
- Πώς; Ο οδηγός έλεγε: 700 κιλά...
- 700 κιλά συνολικού βάρους, όχι χωρητικότητας.*
Οι δύο κακοποιοί με κουκούλες ήταν έκπληκτοι. Όταν κάποιος βρίσκει τον οδηγό ενός ιπτάμενου μηχανήματος, πρέπει να διαβάσει τα πάντα! Τελικά η απόπειρα απόδρασης πραγματοποιήθηκε παρ' όλα αυτά. Ο Ντανιέλ έκανε το ταξίδι με έναν τύπο με κουκούλα που του κολλούσε την Καλάσνικοφ στον κρόταφο. Επειδή ο φωτισμός onboard ήταν σε τροποποίηση, δεν λειτουργούσε. Έπρεπε να πετάξει με ένα φακό ανάμεσα στα δόντια. Αλλά τη στιγμή της απογείωσης δύο κρατούμενοι θέλησαν να παίξουν τους Μπελμοντό και αρπάχτηκαν στο μπροστινό μέρος του αριστερού σκι. Το μηχανήμα, σε μετακίνηση στο ύψος του εδάφους, έκανε αμέσως翻 (翻). Ένας από τους κακοποιούς είχε το πόδι κομμένο. Ο Ντανιέλ πέρασε μέσα από τον ρότορα. Είχε τύχη να μην χτυπηθεί από τα πτερύγια και λιποθύμησε. Ένας από τους κρατούμενους κατάφερε να αποδράσει παίρνοντας φύλακες ως ομήρους. Ο άνθρωπος είναι επικίνδυνος, έχει ήδη καταδικαστεί σε ισόβια. Αν η αστυνομία τον βρει δεν θα γίνουν προειδοποιήσεις. Πάντως έχει ήδη τραυματίσει σοβαρά έναν από αυτούς.
Με πλήρως κατεστραμμένο ώμο, ο Ντανιέλ έμεινε, ξαπλωμένος στην αυλή της φυλακής. Δεν μεταφέρθηκε σε νοσοκομείο παρά μετά από τρεις ώρες και οι κρατούμενοι του έφεραν καφέ. Στο νοσοκομείο οι γιατροί εφημερίας Βέλγοι δεν είδαν τίποτα στις ακτινογραφίες.
- Ας το, όλα θα αποκατασταθούν με λίγο αποκαταστατικό.
Λάθος, είχε δύο τένοντες κομμένους και μια οστική αποκόλληση. Πήγε να χειρουργηθεί στο Παρίσι, στο Val de Grâce, σε έναν τύπο που έχει τη συνήθεια των τραυμάτων των οδηγών αυτοκινήτων. Όταν αναρρώσει ίσως ξαναπετάξουμε. Εν τω μεταξύ ξεκίνησα ένα νέο κόμικ, για την ναυτιλία στην αρχαιότητα.
Έπεσα πάνω σε ένα βιβλίο σε έκπτωση. Λέγεται Liners, εκδότης Köneman. Βρήκα πολλές φωτογραφίες του Mauretania, στο οποίο έκανα τη διάσχιση του Ατλαντικού, στην πηγή. Θα διασκεδάσουμε λίγο πριν ασχοληθούμε με τα προβλήματα του κόσμου.
Το Mauretania
Σε αυτές τις διατλαντικές κρουαζιέρες, που διήρκεαν λίγο λιγότερο από μια εβδομάδα, δεν υπήρχε κάτι άλλο να κάνει από το να προσπαθείς να κυνηγήσεις τη φούστα. Θυμάμαι ότι μεταξύ των Γάλλων επιβατών υπήρχε ένας τύπος που μοιάζε με τον Φρανσουά Περριέ. Τον ρώτησα γιατί πήγαινε στις ΗΠΑ:
- Είδες το πρόσωπό μου. Στη Γαλλία, με τις γυναίκες, δεν πετυχαίνω. Αλλά στις ΗΠΑ, αν μια γυναίκα μάθει ότι είσαι Γάλλος, πέφτει αμέσως στα χέρια σου, απλά σκεφτόμενος τον Λουί Ζουρντάν.
Κατά αυτή την πηγαία διάσχιση δεν βλέπαμε πολλές ελκυστικές φούστες. Το πλοίο, που ξεκίνησε από τη Χάβρη, έπρεπε να κάνει στάση στο Κόρκ, στην Ιρλανδία. Τότε, για μεγάλα liners αυτού του τύπου, μπορούσε να φορτώσει ένα επιπλέον φορτίο επιβατών χωρίς να σταματήσει σε λιμάνι. Η φωτογραφία που ακολουθεί δείχνει ένα shuttle boat που πλησιάζει το Mauretania, επιτρέποντας άμεσα να καταλάβει κανείς τις διαστάσεις του. Ήταν ένα από τα μεγαλύτερα πλοία της εποχής.
Ένα shuttle boat, leaving an English port, approaching the Mauretania
Θα έπρεπε να φορτώσουμε διακόσια επιπλέον επιβάτες. Όλοι οι νεαροί κακομαθημένοι του πλοίου παρατηρούσαν το πλησιάζον πλοίο. Δεν βλέπαμε, στο κατάστρωμα του, παρά μια μεγάλη μαύρη κηλίδα. Στην πραγματικότητα ήταν μια ομάδα κληρικών και μοναχών που θα πήγαιναν στη Νέα Υόρκη για ένα συνέδριο.
Το Mauretania, κατά την καθέλκυσή του:
Το Mauretania κατά την καθέλκυσή του
Βλέπουμε καλά ότι κατά την καθέλκυση το πλοίο γλιστράει πάνω σε ένα επίπεδο στήριγμα. Στην πραγματικότητα τα πολύ μεγάλα πλοία έχουν σταθερότητα σχήματος. Πλέουν επίπεδα στη θάλασσα σαν κουτιά παπουτσιών. Βλέπουμε πολύ καλά αυτό το επίπεδο πάτο, κατά την κατασκευή:
Έτσι αυτά τα πλοία δεν είναι φορτωμένα, ή ελαφρώς, από τις μηχανές, το καύσιμο. Το συμπέρασμα είναι ότι αν κλίνουν περισσότερο από 45°翻 (翻). Έκανα το ταξίδι επιστροφής σε ένα πλοίο της French Line, ίδιων διαστάσεων, που ήταν το τελευταίο του ταξίδι.
Ένα φάντασμα της French Line
Αυτή η μονάδα 300 μέτρων μήκους θα πωλείτο στους Ιάπωνες για να μετατραπεί σε ξενοδοχείο. Ήταν το τελευταίο του ταξίδι και αυτό θα μπορούσε να είναι και το δικό μου. Ήταν Οκτώβριος 1961. Είναι η εποχή των καταιγίδων, στον Ατλαντικό. Και εκεί έπεσε μια μεγάλη, με κύματα τριάντα μέτρων ύψους. Υπήρχαν 500 επιβάτες, που σημαίνει ότι το πλοίο ήταν μισοάδειο. Οι πρώτες θέσεις ήταν ερημικές. Οι πλούσιοι προτιμούσαν να ταξιδεύουν με αεροπλάνο, στα τετρακινητήρια « Constellation ». Οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι ήταν άρρωστοι. Κατά την ώρα των γευμάτων δεν υπήρχαν είκοσι άτομα καθισμένα στην τραπεζαρία. Οι σερβιτόροι γέρναμε. Πολλοί άνθρωποι γέρναμε. Θυμάμαι έναν βιολιστή που γέρναμε εναλλάξ δεξιά και αριστερά. Το σαλόνι των « τουριστικών θέσεων » ήταν στο μπροστινό μέρος, που σημαίνει ότι σε κάθε διάσχιση κύματος η πλώρη ανέβαινε και κατέβαινε τριάντα μέτρα. Κατά την άνοδο, η επιτάχυνση εμπόδιζε τους πότες να φέρουν το ποτήρι στα χείλη τους. Αλλά κατά την κάθοδο αυτός που δεν προσερχόταν βρεχόταν στο κεφάλι.
Βρήκα το θέαμα αυτής της καταιγίδας συναρπαστικό. Η θάλασσα ήταν完全 (complete) λευκή από αφρό. Μια νύχτα θέλησα να δω τη θάλασσα σε fury από πιο κοντά. Στην φωτογραφία που ακολουθεί βλέπουμε καλά ότι στο πίσω μέρος υπάρχουν μια διαδοχή καταστρωμάτων. Το πιο κοντά στο νερό είναι το καταστρώμα χειρισμού, με winches πιο ψηλά από έναν άνθρωπο. Πήρα τη σκάλα. Έφτασα μπροστά από την πόρτα που οδηγούσε σε αυτό το καταστρώμα χειρισμού και είδα μια επιγραφή « απαγορεύεται η πρόσβαση στους επιβάτες ». Πιστεύω, είχα 22 ετών, πέρασα. Το θέαμα ήταν συναρπαστικό. Βλέπαμε να κυλίνδουν πραγματικά βουνά μαύρου νερού. Ξαφνικά realization ότι ένα από αυτά θα εισβάλλει στο καταστρώμα στο οποίο βρισκόμουν. Τύχη reacted immediately, rushing towards the riveted metal door, closing it behind me. Heard the impact of the wave. If I had stayed on the other side, the water would have gently lifted me from the point and a few seconds later I would have seen the liner moving away. I must have a guardian angel, hired full time with a guy like me.
But this was not to be the craziest episode of this return crossing. The wind took us from the rear quarter, at an angle of about thirty degrees. The wavelength of the waves, from crest to crest, was of the same order of magnitude as the length of the boat. This therefore climbed liquid mountains three hundred meters long and thirty meters deep. Then it descended surfing on them. All people who have navigated know this. I spent most of the days on the almost deserted deck, sniffing the spray and looking at the sea, whitened to infinity. Suddenly something astonishing happened. The boat entered resonance. All boats have a natural frequency of oscillation in roll. A boat like the one I was sailing on had a natural oscillation period counted in tens of seconds. Chance made the roll solicitation corresponding to the crossing of the waves suddenly fall very close to this value. Do the calculation. These liners navigated at 45 km/h, that is to say at twelve meters per second. They therefore needed 25 seconds to climb, at an angle of 30 degrees, waves of 30 meters, which succeeded each other.
The boat began to oscillate, slowly. The movement amplified. There were six or seven oscillations. According to the logbook, the angle of heel during the last oscillation reached 38°. At 45° the boat would capsize. We were two, on the huge aft deck, on the wooden floor. I was clinging to the railing. At tens of meters from me a passenger was on a deck chair, which was fixed by a rope to this railing. The rope broke and he crossed the deck before my eyes, like a rocket. Fortunately on these liners the railings are quite high and he did not go overboard, being quit for the fear. The captain decided to turn completely and in the middle of the ocean we set course towards Newfoundland ... towards the United States to take the waves head-on this time, with a roll solicitation more dry, this time far from the critical period. I believe I remember that our zigzag crossing lasted eleven days. A record. During these oscillations there were two deaths. A woman fell from her bunk and was killed instantly by fracturing her skull on her washbasin. A steward, carrying a tray and bottles in a transverse corridor, ran and smashed his skull on the partition, at the end of the corridor. I remember that we had all the trouble in the world, with a member of the crew, to free an old lady who had slipped between the toilet seat and the wall and was unable to extricate herself from this uncomfortable situation. Attracted by her screams, we had to dismantle the door.
There was another incident, quite funny, this one. When there are storms as violent as this, steel covers are placed on the glass portholes. But in general this concerns only the lower portholes. During this fantastic heel, the sea broke the porthole of a cabin and the water invaded it immediately, transforming it into a pool where a poor passenger began to splash as he could.
Memories resemble attics that one explores, with a lamp. It is the discovery of this book that brought those memories to the surface. As a rule, I prefer the present. Adventure is neither a question of place, nor of age. On this level, what I am building with some kids old enough to be my sons is quite grating. It is in the style "be realistic, envisage the impossible". Go take a look at this page, it is quite astonishing. In principle, we are going to build a magnetohydrodynamic laboratory in a garage in Fontenay, on the Paris outskirts, 1500 meters from the terminus of a metro line. I believe the sixty members of the association and the donors put 4800 euros in the cash box. The contribution is free, with a minimum of 10 euros. There may be two thousand others lying in the GESTO cash boxes. We already have an Edwards vacuum pump, bought new for 1300 euros in 2007. Julien Geffray, 29 years old, found the various materials we need. A thick pyrex vacuum bell, a pressure gauge, an electrical power supply. We will meet in this garage as more than thirty years ago, my accomplice Maurice and I, in the cellars of the Space Astronomy Laboratory in Marseille.
But there is even crazier. We will also build a circular "hull basin" by reusing a kit pool, like those bought in supermarkets, with a simple circular wall in corrugated plastic and a "liner". We will fill all this with acidulated water. In the middle we will put a pylon, weighted with concrete blocks, carrying a rotating arm at the end of which we can fix models of MHD hydrodynamics, powered by low voltage by car batteries, attached to the rotating crew.
See http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com/JPP/telechargeables/Francais/mur_silence.htm (1983). More precisely, page 45.
| mursilence_page_45 |
This link will first take you to the bottom of the aforementioned page, which represents an announcement (below) posted by the DCNS, the organization representing 13,000 employees building ships and weapon systems centered on the sea, as well as French military research in terms of navigating and submarine devices. Thirteen thousand employees who manage a crowd of subcontractors. It is the entire French military naval industry, including its weapon systems.
The term "analysis of indiscretions linked to magnetohydrodynamic propulsion (MHD)" already makes my eyebrows accentuated. The formulation has something absurd and suggests that the writer of the announcement knows nothing about the subject and goes... fishing (maybe normal, for sailors?). But you are not at the end of your surprises. Another reader, exploring the DCNS site, found this astonishing announcement:
| annonce_mhd_dcns |
Everything begins with a bibliographic analysis. The person writing this announcement visibly knows nothing about the subject, goes "fishing". Note the monthly salary proposed to this fluid mechanics engineer: from 800 to 1100 euros per month. But the person who posts this announcement on the DCNS site for the account of their propulsion department does not exclude that at the end of this six-month contract all this could conclude with a publication in a conference or in a scientific review.
A text written by a clown, who highlights the state of decay, the nullity of French MHD.
I just had on the phone a friend who worked in these high technology spheres - National Navy - and who thinks, himself, that marine propulsion by MHD is in France at near quasi-zero. So this is what should be "read" in these announcements that look like pantomimes. I will recall an anecdote. More than ten years ago, I believe, I participated in Cadarache in an international MHD conference. Lucky, it was twenty minutes by car from my home. This colloquium was organized by Marbach, engineer, founder of the PAMIR group (pole of applications of MHD to Industry and Research).
On site I could hear students of Moreau (MHD in liquid medium, Grenoble) evoke their first works in a "seawater loop". Understand: a closed circuit channel, put in motion by a linear Faraday accelerator. At the end of the intervention I stood up and said:
- Did you think of putting the MHD accelerator outside the submarine?
The guy remained stunned. It was in the mid-eighties, I believe. I went to the board and explained the principle of the parietal accelerator. The other, visibly ignoring this concept, said to me:
*- Where can we... find elements about all this?
- But in my comic, The Wall of Silence, page 36 (1983).*
He did not know. I do not know where they are now. We have the impression of pedaling (with sailors we should rather say navigating) in the most complete surrealism. It is possible that 25 years after the publication of The Wall of Silence the French military have not yet understood the interest of MHD propulsion. Other countries have mastered it for a long time. Its corollary is silence. This is what was evoked in the film Red October. We just learned that Chinese submarines would have wandered under American units, navigating in the Strait of Hormuz, without having been detected. It is not to be excluded that these Chinese submarines may have had recourse to an MHD propulsion mode during this phase of their mission. The Chinese are necessarily in the loop in MHD, if I base myself on the enormous surprise that was that of the Westerners in the early eighties when, participating for the first time in an international colloquium, in the United States, they revealed the extent of their research activities in this field. China is the country of secrecy par excellence. Well clever who could say where they are in this field.
For the idler who is in quest of the indiscretion of this MHD propulsion I will recall that it is silent (laminar flows) and that the electromagnetic signature is nonexistent, because they are constant fields, intense but of very short range. At a distance equivalent to the distance between the electrodes, the magnetic field created by a parietal accelerator is insignificant.
So know one thing: what will be done in and around this Fontenay garage, with the few thousand euros sent by sympathizers, will be the only and unique MHD activity in France. I do not think the situation is better in MHD-gas. It would be comic if it were not so sad and so lamentable to the last degree.
There will be no collaboration. We do not pursue the same goals. The military dream of hypervelocity torpedoes, submarines with MHD propulsion, hypersonic cruise missiles. I am desperately indifferent to the French delay in terms of armaments. We, we want to show that UFOs are flying machines. I believe we do not speak the same language, even if the DCNS engineers say, in their video, "working with passion".
This drawing is not just humor. The army systematically messed up my MHD research for 25 years, particularly thanks to the successive interventions of its go-between, the polytechnician Gilbert Payan. I think that if one day I was working in this premises and a guy presents himself saying:
- My name is So-and-so, I represent the DGA or the DCNS...
I would throw him out immediately with my foot in the behind. Unless I plunge him into the acidulated water basin, so that he can examine our models more closely.
Jean-Stéphane, 24 years old, one of the members of the team, proposes to put on the door:
MAKE SCIENCE, NOT WAR
One of my readers just sent me a poem that I find not bad. You will access it via this link: Reason of State. There is no proper military research, in any country of the world, no more in France than elsewhere. There are only unconscious people, everywhere, dirty kids playing with matches. It is unconsciousness to devote such an important part of state budgets to weapons of all kinds. To understand when this great shift occurred, when research (applied as fundamental) and elaboration of weapons merged into a single and same activity, go read my book The Children of the Devil. Why this title? Because, in the code of the world of research, the devil, is... the army.
In what follows, we will address the horrors of the world. It is so nauseating and abundant that I chose to deliver these things "in small bites", interspersing moments of distraction, or dream. Because without this, the world in which we evolve would lead us to despair.
Watch this video presented on the site of Karl Zéro. The Taser: source of cardiac arrests, causing delayed infarcts, able to create serious lesions of nervous tissues due to lack of oxygenation linked to the paralysis of cardiac muscles during tetanization. The Taser in prisons, instruments of torture and death by repeated tasing.
To see absolutely: http://leweb2zero.tv/video/impetuoso_684747529835837
In France, 5000 Taser pistols already equip the police.
By clicking on this link you will be able to see a video illustrating a new product created by the company Taser. The text accompanying it is:
You will see the most technologically advanced projectile ever delivered by a 12 gauge rifle
From now on, when you see a man equipped with such a weapon, you will not look at him in the same way
http://www.taser.com/pages/VideoDetails.aspx?videoid=56
I stop here, because these images give me nausea. It is the "electric Karcher", to clean bad places, where bad people live. This non-lethal weapon invades the world despite the protests of human rights leagues. It has already killed 70 people in the United States and it will kill many more, everywhere. I no longer have the link to a video that showed a "Taser party" where men, probably masochists, are tased by their companion. There is another one where we see that the Taser becomes an initiation instrument among the Marines. Sarkozy has already had many police equipped with this weapon. Thousands of others will equip our... municipal police. There have already been blunders. In Lyon, a 17-year-old student, ecological activist, apprehended during a demonstration, pinned to the ground by two plainclothes police, calls them "little quequettes". They tase her immediately. Tasing is becoming a banal episode of the slightest apprehension. We tase the driver or female driver apprehended for the slightest speeding excess and who has wisely pulled over on the side of the road. We tase the student who challenges an American politician (John Kerry) during a public meeting, while he is already mastered and thrown to the ground by muscular police. But the Taser is an instrument of punishment. It is moreover coldly used in this sequence by a female police officer who shoots at the young man, already pinned to the ground. It is "shut up or I tase you!"
Another video, which evokes the misdeeds of the Taser in the USA, shows how this instrument could have been used to torture to death prisoners, in a prison (the body of the dead bore the trace of numerous impacts). If readers give me the links, I will add them. Let's say that this page constitutes a sort of "news about the Taser".
The Taser becomes a means of expression for weak beings, complexed, who have found within the police a means to compensate their feeling of inferiority.
- With my Taser, now, people respect me!
Psychologists would qualify this instrument as a phallic substitute and it is not surprising to see women use it. But read this:
In the following link, the Taser for ladies, sold with Holster.
http://www.taser.com/PRODUCTS/CONSUMERS/Pages/C2.aspx
For those who do not understand English:
I WANT TO BE THE MASTER OF MY OWN DESTINY
In today's world, self-confidence implies the necessity to protect oneself.
For the independent, autonomous woman, the Taser C2 is an effective element of protection that suits all lifestyles.
Another variant:
Translation:
FASHION WITH A BITE
Let this innovative design, with unparalleled performance, of revolutionary style, give you allure
What do you bet that the company studies a mobile phone Taser combo?
We enter "into the Taser civilization". This Taser phenomenon is only one of the multiple symptoms of the decomposition of our planetary civilization, which takes proportions difficult to imagine and that I will try to evoke in the next page. You will see that one can wonder why immensely rich and powerful people seem no longer able to stop. A man of power should be able to keep a cool head in all circumstances. I express serious doubts regarding our current president, capable of reacting to the challenge of a demonstrator by giving him... a rude gesture. It is a thug's gesture. Is this "people's president" a "thug-president"? I ask myself the question.
Who is Nicolas Sarkozy? What is the exact nature of the links he has woven with the Bush clan, during his stays in the United States? Is he capable of separating his own internal disorders from the conduct of state affairs? Is he up to the task he is supposed to assume? I fear that, like so many others before him, or who seek his place, he lacks terribly imagination.
Continuation of this series of pages "The Ship of Fools"
Table of contents of this series of pages