Joseph Tual, a brave French journalist

Joseph Tual wanted to do some actual investigation journalism at France Televisions, the French public broadcaster and his hierarchy blocked him and then fired him in 2018. He is now suing in works court.

See https://www.arretsurimages.net/articles/joseph-tual-censure-puis-vire-de-france-teles .

France : erosion of democracy?

Reading this https://blogs.alternatives-economiques.fr/abherve/2021/02/03/le-gouvernement-osera-t-il-ne-pas-renouveler-l-agrement-d-anticor I am afraid of a possible erosion of democracy in France.

See also https://www.anticor.org/2021/02/11/report-de-la-decision-dagrement-danticor-a-qui-sattaque-t-on-vraiment/ .

See also https://www.amnesty.fr/liberte-d-expression/actualites/violences-policieres-et-discriminations-des-mesures-structurelles-sont-necessaires .

Quoting Liberation :

Anticor était jusqu’à présent l’aiguillon d’une justice parfois trop lente, voire réticente, à explorer des pistes mettant en cause des personnalités. Elle a à son actif un grand nombre de dossiers, obtenant par exemple la mise en examen de Richard Ferrand ou l’ouverture d’une information judiciaire sur un possible conflit d’intérêts d’Alexis Kohler, secrétaire général de l’Elysée. Deux affaires qui avaient d’abord été classées par le parquet de Brest et…

Business should support democracy and civil rights.

The West is interdependent with major powers which do not respect democracy and civil rights :

- China

- India

- Saudi Arabia

- Russia

- Turkey

Few organizations and countries are making political choices favoring clearly the countries where basic freedoms and human rights exist and where political leaders are elected democratically.

Why does this matter ?

Countries which do not respect human rights and do not elect democratically their leaders often have states which exert arbitrary violence against their citizens.

They jail their dissidents, kill peaceful demonstrators, discriminate against ethnic or religious minorities such as Uighurs and Tibetans for China, Muslims in India…

In corporate America, too many bosses tell employees who to vote for

Read this article in the Guardian: In corporate America, too many bosses tell employees whom to vote for.

I know that this is the case with several major corporations.

Amazon fired workers for organizing

Quoting the New York Times of April 19th 2020. Emily Cunningham lost her job at Amazon. Her firing, she said, came hours after her organization, Amazon employees for climate justice, sent out an invitation to colleagues to a virtual meeting about company issues.

On April 12, two Amazon employees who has been outspoken about the company’s climate change policies and, more recently warehouse conditions said they had been fired. …

Heroes and villains in the time of the coronavirus

Captain Crozier is a hero, he put ahead the health of the sailors of his ship before his career. I like this opinion piece of the New York Times by Tweed Roosevelt: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/opinion/coronavirus-crozier-roosevelt.html.

On the contrary, I am very opposed to the behavior of the NHS officials in UK who want to muzzle medical professionals who complain about the lack of PPE. Read this : https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/31/nhs-staff-gagged-over-coronavirus-protective-equipment-shortages .

There is also this story of a nurse, Tracy Brennan who resigned because her employer would not let her wear a self made mask…

Air pollution as a factor in the impact of coronavirus

Air pollution may be a big factor of the impact of the coronavirus. This article explains that, on top of making people more susceptible to the disease, dust may be carrying the virus : https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/transitions-ecologiques/la-pollution-de-l-air-une-autoroute-pour-le-coronavirus-842732.html.

This one in the guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/17/air-pollution-likely-to-increase-coronavirus-death-rate-warn-experts mentions also a correlation between air pollution and incidence of coronavirus.

This great article on medium https://medium.com/@fcameronlister/coronavirus-is-there-something-in-the-air-45964b2f5b37 also elaborates on this topic, explaining that Lombardy, Wuhan, and places in Iran are all heavily polluted.

A lot of people in the technology area seem to think that everything should be done agile.

What does agile actually mean ?

Does it mean improvising architecture ?

In a previous work stint at Merrill Lynch I read some project management documentation recommending to start any new project with the following :

• a project initiation document explaining the goal of the project
• a business requirement document
• an architecture document
• a technical design document
• a testing document
• a delivery document explaining how the new assets would be deployed and how the signoff of the delivery by the internal or external…