wabi sabi is

asymmetry
subtle
simplicity
natural
elegance
sublime
tranquility

1. DAVID LUIZ (BRA), 2. James RODRIGUEZ (COL), 3. Karim BENZEMA (FRA), 4. Arjen ROBBEN (NED), 5. Jan VERTONGHEN (BEL), 6. NEYMAR (BRA), 7. Thiago SILVA (BRA), 8. Ivan PERISIC (CRO), 9. Johan DJOUROU (SUI), 10. Thomas MUELLER (GER), 11. Lionel MESSI (ARG), 12. Angel DI MARIA (ARG), 13. Philipp LAHM (GER), 14. Daniel VAN BUYTEN (BEL), 15. Xherdan SHAQIRI (SUI), 16. Raphael VARANE (FRA), 17. Stefan DE VRIJ (NED), 18. Sokratis PAPASTATHOPOULOS (GRE), 19. Mathieu VALBUENA (FRA), 20. Claudio BRAVO (CHI), 21. Toni KROOS (GER), 22. Marcos ROJO (ARG), 23. Paul POGBA (FRA), 24. Ezequiel GARAY (ARG), 25. Islam SLIMANI (ALG), 26. Jerome BOATENG (GER), 27. Mesut OEZIL (GER), 28. OSCAR (BRA), 29. LUIZ GUSTAVO (BRA), 30. MARCELO (BRA), 31. Cristian ZAPATA (COL), 32. Thibaut COURTOIS (BEL), 33. Keylor NAVAS (CRC), 34. Oscar DUARTE (CRC), 35. Hector MORENO (MEX), 36. FRED (BRA), 37. Vincent KOMPANY (BEL), 38. Vincent ENYEAMA (NGA), 39. Robin VAN PERSIE (NED), 40. Mats HUMMELS (GER), 41. Asamoah GYAN (GHA), 42. Blaise MATUIDI (FRA), 43. Federico FERNANDEZ (ARG), 44. Hector HERRERA (MEX), 45. Serge AURIER (CIV), 46. Miralem PJANIC (BIH), 47. Enner VALENCIA (ECU), 48. Konstantinos MANOLAS (GRE), 49. Bryan RUIZ (CRC), 50. Benedikt HOEWEDES (GER), 51. Dries MERTENS (BEL), 52. Mehrdad POOLADI (IRN), 53. David OSPINA (COL), 54. Guillermo OCHOA (MEX), 55. Edin DZEKO (BIH), 56. Georgios KARAGOUNIS (GRE), 57. Diego GODIN (URU), 58. Patrice EVRA (FRA), 59. Wesley SNEIJDER (NED), 60. Pablo ARMERO (COL), 61. Sergey IGNASHEVICH (RUS), 62. Keisuke HONDA (JPN), 63. Admir MEHMEDI (SUI), 64. Giancarlo GONZALEZ (CRC), 65. Juan CUADRADO (COL), 66. Sergio RAMOS (ESP), 67. Sergio ROMERO (ARG), 68. Oribe PERALTA (MEX), 69. Georgios SAMARAS (GRE), 70. Vasileios TOROSIDIS (GRE), 71. Mamadou SAKHO (FRA), 72. Cristhian NOBOA (ECU), 73. Per MERTESACKER (GER), 74. Gonzalo HIGUAIN (ARG), 75. Dani ALVES (BRA), 76. Manuel NEUER (GER), 77. Cristian GAMBOA (CRC), 78. Alexis SANCHEZ (CHI), 79. Hugo LLORIS (FRA), 80. Vedran CORLUKA (CRO), 81. Fernando GAGO (ARG), 82. Kevin DE BRUYNE (BEL), 83. NANI (POR), 84. Yaya TOURE (CIV), 85. Javier MASCHERANO (ARG), 86. Emir SPAHIC (BIH), 87. CRISTIANO RONALDO (POR), 88. Martin CACERES (URU), 89. KI Sungyueng (KOR), 90. Mario YEPES (COL), 91. Yohan CABAYE (FRA), 92. Clint DEMPSEY (USA), 93. Andrea BARZAGLI (ITA), 94. Mario GOETZE (GER), 95. Axel WITSEL (BEL), 96. Alexander DOMINGUEZ (ECU), 97. Andre AYEW (GHA), 98. Gary CAHILL (ENG), 99. Giorgio CHIELLINI (ITA), 100. Laurent KOSCIELNY (FRA)

A functioning modern economy needs respect for property rights; a government that is able to collect taxes and offer a social safety net; banks that allow the payment system to function; markets that allow businesses to raise capital and so on. Once those essentials are in place, whether the right top tax rate is 40% or 50%, the right interest rate is 1% or 5% is largely a matter of trial and error, and of political acceptability.
Much is made of the difference between Britain’s “Anglo-Saxon” model and of France’s dirigiste approach, between the British government’s austerity drive, and France’s pro-growth approach. But for all the rhetoric, Britain’s GDP per head in 2011 was $36,090, according to the IMF, while France’s was $35,156, almost identical. Britain plans to balance its budget by 2017, and so does France.
Despite the small differences in outcome, economists will continue to debate the merits of the competing systems as vigorously as Reformation clerics debated the difference between transubstantiation and consubstantiation.

It could well be, however, that, looking at it from his far-off Ferney, Voltaire may have believed Catherine’s tales a la Miinchhausen, to wit, that there was no villager in Russia who would not eat chicken meat, which he would prefer to that of turkey. Catherine deemed it superfluous to invite Voltaire to see for himself the veracity of her intimations to him, all the more so as she had already had the experience of communicating with another observant French philosophe. This was Denis Diderot. The latter, on arriving at St. Petersburg in 1775, showed himself to be a rhapsodic, garrulous, and credulous man. The empress sensed her superiority over this simpleton, and easily cleared up all his “tricky” queries regarding serfdom and autocracy in Russia, leading him completely astray. Yet this philosophe, whom she thought to have twisted around her little finger, picked at her famous Nakaz (Instruction to the Legislative Commission), which naturally incurred her displeasure.
As to the impressions made on her by Diderot’s philosophical concepts, they were most unfavorable. “I conversed with him often and at length, but with more curiosity than gain. If I had believed him, all would have been upset in my empire; legislation, administration, politics, finances, I would have overturned everything for the sake of impractical theories.” This is what she said to Diderot himself: “In all of your plans for reform you forget the difference between our two positions: you work only on paper, which tolerates everything, is uniform and supple, posing no obstacles either to your imagination or to your quill; while I, a poor Empress, work on human skin, which is much more irritable and ticklish.“

Should you sacrifice one man to save five? Whatever your answer, it should not depend on whether you were asked the question in your native language or a foreign tongue so long as you understood the problem. And yet here we report evidence that people using a foreign language make substantially more utilitarian decisions when faced with such moral dilemmas. We argue that this stems from the reduced emotional response elicited by the foreign language, consequently reducing the impact of intuitive emotional concerns. In general, we suggest that the increased psychological distance of using a foreign language induces utilitarianism. This shows that moral judgments can be heavily affected by an orthogonal property to moral principles, and importantly, one that is relevant to hundreds of millions of individuals on a daily basis.

When I say I lack empathy, what I mean is I have a deficit in understanding the emotional states of others. Hell, I have a deficit in understanding my own emotional state at times.
This doesn’t mean I’m unsympathetic.
It doesn’t mean I don’t care for others.
It doesn’t mean I can’t show concern.
It doesn’t mean I have no emotions.
It doesn’t mean I don’t get overwhelmed by other people’s emotional states.
It doesn’t mean I’m any less human than you are.
What does it mean then?
That I may need more information than a typical person to understand a social situation. That my reactions to your emotions may be unconventional. That I have to work harder to grasp what comes naturally to most people.
Simple as that. Nothing more, nothing less.

It is increasingly common for long-dead scientists, literary “geniuses” and innovators to be forensically diagnosed as autistic. Almost every philosopher has been diagnosed as autistic. Certainly Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Immanual Kant would get diagnosed today as “classic cases.” Instead they were allowed to get through their childhood label-free and live perfectly successfully. I have also recently read arguments that Charles Ludwig Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, and Emily Dickinson have been labeled as autistic though there are skeptics.

… there are in fact two spectra, two dimensions on which we can place each person: empathizing and systemizing. Empathizing is “the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion.” If you prefer fiction to nonfiction, or if you often enjoy conversations about people you don’t know, you are probably above average on empathizing. Systemizing is “the drive to analyse the variables in a system, to derive the underlying rules that govern the behaviour of the system.” If you are good at reading maps and instruction manuals, or if you enjoy figuring out how machines work, you are probably above average on systemizing.
If we cross these two traits, we get a two-dimensional space, and each person can be placed at a particular spot in that space. Baron-Cohen has shown that autism is what you get when genes and prenatal factors combine to produce a brain that is exceptionally low on empathizing and exceptionally high on systemizing. Autism, including Asperger’s syndrome (a subtype of highfunctioning autism), is better thought of as a region of personalityspace—the lower right cornerof thelower right quadrant—than as a discrete disease. The two leading ethical theories in Western philosophy were founded by men who were as high as could be on systemizing, and were rather low on empathizing.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

The question in question is, “How are you?”
The answer Americans give, of course is, “Fine.” But when Russians hear this they think one of two things: (1) you’ve been granted a heavenly reprieve from the wearisome grind that all but defines the human condition and as a result are experiencing a rare and sublime moment of fineness or (2) you are lying.
Ask a Russian, “How are you?” and you will hear, for better or worse, the truth. A blunt pronouncement of dissatisfaction punctuated by, say, the details of any recent digestive troubles.
… if the American “fine” can come off as plastic and insincere, the speed with which Russians unload intimate details is just as disturbing.
The thing most Russians don’t realize is that, in English, “How are you?” isn’t a question at all, but a form of “hi,” like the Russian “privyet!”
Whereas it’s easy to read a particularly American optimism into the easy embrace of the auto-fine, Russians seem almost congenitally unable to fake fineness.

This book is about the full gamut of what we lose when languages die, about why it matters, and about what questions and techniques best shape our response to this looming collapse of human ways of knowing. These questions, I believe, can only be addressed properly if we give the study of fragile languages its rightful place in the grand narrative of human ideas and the forgotten histories of peoples who walked lightly through the world, without consigning their words to stone or parchment. And because we can only meet this challenge through a concerted effort by linguists, the communities themselves, and the lay public, I have tried to write this book in a way that speaks to all these types of reader.

「他人に迷惑をかけないように」というのが社会生活を営む上でのルールとなっている日本では、地下鉄など公共の乗り物でのマナーも海外のそれより厳しく、車内での通話はもちろん、大声での会話や音楽プレーヤーからの音漏れなども迷惑行為に当たる。そのため、グループで乗る学生がいない限りとても静かである。
一方、韓国でも近年は日本のように公共場所でのマナーを守ろうという動きも出ているが、依然としてにぎやかそのものである。他人の目を気にせず通話する姿はもちろん、隣同士で話している会話のボリュームも大きく、たまには実演販売にも出くわすこともある。
携帯電話の使用に関する車内放送も、日本では「優先席付近では、携帯電話の電源をお切りください。それ以外の場所では、マナーモードに設定の上、通話はお控え下さい」がスタンダードだが、韓国では「車内で携帯を使用するときは、小さな声で手短くしましょう」と流れるそうだ。

mind

• esprit (peace of mind = tranquillité d’esprit)
• tête (it’s all in the mind = c’est tout dans la tête)
• avis (to my mind = à mon avis)
• raison (his mind is going = il n’a plus toute sa raison)
• intelligence (with the mind of a two-year-old = avec l’intelligence d’un enfant de deux ans)

esprit

• wit (avoir de l’esprit = to have wit)
• mood (je n’ai pas l’esprit Ii rire = I’m in no mood for laughing)
• mind (avoir l’esprit vif= to have a quick mind)
• spirit (esprit d’équipe = team spirit)

男女はなぜ惹かれあうのか。脳科学はいま、恋のメカニズムを解明しつつある。その中心はドーパミンという脳内物質。快楽を司るドーパミンの大量分泌が恋する二人の絆となっているのだ。ところが脳科学は同時に、皮肉な状況も浮かび上がらせている。高い代謝を要求するドーパミンの大量分泌は身体への負担が大きく、長く続かない。そのため、“恋愛の賞味期間”はせいぜい３年ほどだというのだ。
そこで、男女関係はどうすれば長続きするのかという科学的な探求がさまざま進められている。アメリカでは３０年に及ぶ家族の長期研究を通して、長続きしない男女関係では、男女差が大きな障害になっている事実が浮かび上がってきた。たとえば、女は、相手の顔の表情から感情を簡単に読み解くが、男は必死に脳を働かせてもハズす。女が悩みを相談するとき、話を聞いてもらいたいだけなのに、男は解決策を示そうとしてしまう。
こうした男女の違いは、長い狩猟採集時代の遺物ではあるが、無意識のなかに深く根ざしており、日常生活のなかで深刻な影響を与えやすいという。違いをちゃんと意識して、相手の気持ちを理解する努力が欠かせないのだ。

Korea is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.

日本プロ麻雀連盟の第30期十段戦で堀内正人氏が、生中継されていた試合にて悪質極まりない行為でプロ失格処分させられていたことが判明した。状況を説明すると次の通りである。

1. 堀内プロがツモってきた3索を卓に叩きつける。
2. 困ったような表情で溜息をつく。
3. 手の内にある3索を切り出した。
4. その後テンパイが入った瀬戸熊プロが1索を切って堀内プロに放縦した。
5. 本来であれば審判の藤原氏がすぐに止めるべきだったが、生放送であったため躊躇した。
6. 対局後の審議で堀内プロの失格を満場一致で決めた。

2番目と3番目の行為が三味線と見なされ麻雀連盟からプロにあるまじき行為としてプロ失格の処分を受けたのだという。

Chacun devrait recevoir en Suisse quelque 2500 francs par mois, qu’il travaille ou non. L’idée d’un revenu de base inconditionnel est défendue via une initiative populaire. Les partisans de ce nouveau concept social ont présenté jeudi leurs arguments.
Chaque personne, active ou non, vivant légalement en Suisse devrait toucher une certaine somme, qu’elle soit riche ou pauvre, en santé ou malade, qu’elle vive seule ou en communauté. Il s’agit de donner la possibilité à tout le monde de s’engager comme il l’entend, dans le social ou dans la culture par exemple, a expliqué devant la presse l’une des initiantes, Ursula Piffaretti.
Pour le comité d’initiative, qui compte notamment l’ancien vice- chancelier de la Confédération Oswald Sigg, il faut casser le dogme qui fait rimer actuellement revenu et travail. De nombreuses tâches, comme les travaux ménagers, ne sont d’ailleurs actuellement pas rémunérées.

Greenpeace crew members detained in Russian jails for two months over their open-sea protest against Arctic oil drilling are “close to shock” over their conditions, a rights activist said.
The 30 detained are being held in pre-trial detention centres in the cities of Murmansk and Apatity, which are nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) north of Moscow and above the Arctic Circle.
All but four of the activists are non-Russians from countries including Britain, the United States, Finland and Argentina.
Russia has jailed the activists from Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise protest ship without charge pending an investigation into alleged piracy, after several scaled a state-owned oil rig on September 18.
The activists have complained of cold cells and a lack of suitable clothing and food, said Irina Paikacheva, the head of a state-connected regional prisoners’ rights watchdog.
“Many of them are in a state close to shock,” she told AFP after visiting the prisoners. “They had never expected that they would face such consequences for their peaceful protest in a democratic state.”

No open houses, no advertising and not a single online photo. And yet a $27 million town house on the Upper East Side and an $850,000 two-bedroom co-op in Lower Manhattan had no problem finding buyers in the past six months. Neither home was listed on the open market.
Off-market deals, known as whisper listings, have long been the purview of the ultra-high-end market. Certain properties, often with price tags of $20 million or more, are shopped with a shroud of mystery among a small circle of well-connected agents instead of being put on the market for the world to see.
Now this hush-hush approach has spread to many price points, including apartments below $1 million, as sellers realize the advantage they have, thanks to the lack of apartments available for sale in Manhattan.

LAUGH MORE..
GRIPE LESS..
IGNORE CRITICS..
SAY YES..
ORDER DESSERT..
LOVE LIFE..

I remember talking about Alan Shepherd – one of the men on the moon – who took a golf shot. I asked the children how much further the ball would have travelled than if he has taken a shot on the Earth. After a while we worked out it was SIX times further as there is SIX times less gravity on the moon because it is SIX times smaller than the Earth. Then one girl, her name was Naomi, piped up from the back ”Excuse me Sir, but did he go and pick it up or is it still there?” I had no idea! But what a fabulous question, what beautiful curiosity!!! I have since researched this matter and apparently he never did bother to pick it up – so next time you look up into the night sky marvel at the fact that somewhere up there on the moon is a 44 year old golf-ball!

To even a technology neophyte, Windows is synonymous with Microsoft and vice versa. To a tech marketer, Rowland Hanson is a name that is the stuff of legend. The story of how Windows got its name has been mentioned in numerous books, articles, and countless departmental discussions around branding, naming, and marketing strategies. You can Google “Rowland Hanson Microsoft Windows” and read about how Bill Gates personally recruited Rowland from Neutrogena to serve as Microsoft’s first marketing executive. And, upon joining, how Rowland convinced Gates to name its GUI based MS-DOS extension or add-on as “Windows” instead of “interface manager.”
I never met Rowland in person. I first reached out to him in 2001 to get some advice on career direction and marketing. Although I was a complete stranger, he gave me invaluable suggestions and always offered to help any way he could. If there’s one dominant characteristic I’ve seen in successful people it is in their desire and willingness to share, teach, and help. This is their “edge” as well as gift.

Jordan denied accusations that lasers were shone in Japanese players’ faces during their 2-1 World Cup qualifier loss to the kingdom, saying the claims seek to justify their loss.
“Personally, I am surprised at these accusations. We did not hear or notice anything about laser,” Salah Sabra, vice-president of the Jordan Football Association, told AFP.

All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards thier goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders – all maniacs. What else but a blind singlenee of purpose could have given focus to thier genius, would have kept them in the groove of purpose. Mania … is as priceless as genius.

BCG’s twelfth annual report on the global wealth-management industry (PDF)

Les relations avec les pouvoirs publics peuvent être traités ici sous l’angle du social. En effet, chez nous, la majorité des actions sociales sont de l’ordre de l’Etat. Celui-ci fait appliquer toute les règles qui y sont soumises. On peut citer comme exemple les assurances sociales, qui dans le modèle rhénan, sont des prélèvements obligatoires, la sécurité qui est fournie par l’Etat, prise en compte des inégalités sociales, etc.
Au niveau américain, tout ceci est très différent. Premièrement, toutes les assurances sociales ne sont pas obligatoires, tout est réglé selon la loi du marché, donc bien de personnes ne sont pas assurées. Deuxièmement, les USA comptent de fortes inégalités du fait que l’Etat ne s’occupe pas du tout de la redistribution des revenus et tout ce qui s’en suit. On peut dire que l’Etat n’est pas concerné par ces problèmes. De plus, pour terminer, nous sentons très bien que les USA sont défavorable envers des prélèvements d’impôts trop élevés, car ils constituent selon eux un frein à l’économie et au travail. D’un certain point de vue, ils n’ont pas tout tort mais ils sont peut-être un peu trop à l’extrème. Faut-il donc prélever des impôts?
Pour conclure, le modèle rhénan est sans aucun doute le plus performant que ce soit socialement ou économiquement parlant mais au niveau du rêve et de la gloire, le modèle néo-américain l’emporte largement.

考え方が違っても愛国者であり得、また意見が相違しても団結することができる。そう我国の「愛国者」は考うることができぬ。

そういえば、ロシア語の中に Гулять так гулять （遊ぶならとことんと遊ぼう）という決まり文句があります。要するにパーティーなどでハメをはずすことですけれども、そのときたとえ人に迷惑をかけたとしても、それはむしろ「しっかり遊んだ」証拠になるようで、ちっともかまわないようです。
日本人にとって「ちょうどいい」状態がロシア人にとっては「中途半端」だったり「物足りなかったり」するという感性の違いもありますけれども、実は、もう一つ、ロシア人の性格・性質から来る問題もあります。「ちょうどいい」という状態は案外絶妙なバランスを必要とする場合が多いのですが、それを達成したり維持したりするには日本人のような「きめ細かさ」や「丁寧さ」が必要なのです。ところが、豪快なロシア人はそういうのが大の苦手。ロシア人はどちらかというと、「細かいことは気にしない」、「大枠で考える天才肌」の人が多いのです。
・・・これだけ性格が違うと、日本人とロシア人との間で誤解やトラブルがあっても不思議はないでしょうけれども、付き合い方によっては案外お互い補い合える部分はいくらでもあるのではないかと思います。

人と違うことは当たり前のはずなのに、友達と同じでないと不安を感じることが多い今のこどもたち。人に合わせることが必要なこともありますが、自分らしさを見つけ出し、それを認めることができると、自分と違う人の事も認めることができるようになり、人間関係も楽になります。ムーミンの住む世界が平和なのはムーミンたちがお互いの違いを認めているからなのです。　そして実はそれこそが本当の「国際人」になるためにも必要なことなのです。
日本では知らない人がいないムーミン。フィンランド人の作者が書いたムーミントロールの話は実はフィンランドとロシアが戦争中に作者が自分自身を慰めるために書いた物語でした。
ムーミンに登場する人物はみんな個性の強い、それぞれ違った性格や考え方、体つきをしています。人はお互いに異なって当たり前なのです。
その違いを認めることができると自分自身を認めるようになり、友達や周りの人だけでなく、世界のいろいろな文化や人を認めることができるようになるのです。

>We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.

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>The common denominator in all these costly mistakes was a lack of realism. Gandhi refused to see the realities of human nature; of Islamic doctrine with its ambition of domination; of the modern mentality with its resentment of autocratic impositions; of people’s daily needs making them willing to collaborate with the rulers in exchange for career and business opportunities; of the nationalism of the Hindus who would oppose the partition of their Motherland tooth and nail; of the nature of the Pakistani state as intrinsically anti-India and anti-Hindu.

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>Pourquoi écrit-on ? J’imagine que chacun a sa réponse à cette simple question. Il y a les prédispositions, le milieu, les circonstances. Les incapacités aussi. Si l’on écrit, cela veut dire que l’on n’agit pas. Que l’on se sent en difficulté devant la réalité, que l’on choisit un autre moyen de réaction, une autre façon de communiquer, une distance, un temps de réflexion.

>Умывальник без пробки и ванна без душа – лишь один из множества примеров, которые иллюстрируют непреложную истину: сталкиваясь за рубежом с чем-то необычным и непривычным, люди порой превратно судят о нём из-за инстинктивной склонности мерить всё на свой аршин. Следует от этого отказаться и разобраться в системе представлений, мерок и норм, присущих данному народу.