Transat Québec Saint-Malo 2024 and the Château Frontenac
Above, a view of Cap Diamant and the Château Frontenac as the Transat Québec Saint-Malo 2024 gets underway. You can see the water jets and the Volendam, a cruise ship anchored at the Port of Quebec.
La Boulangère Bio sailboat on the St.Lawrence River during the Transat Québec St-Malo en 2024
The photo above shows the sailboat La Boulangère Bio on the St. Lawrence River off Île d’Orléans. Skipper Amélie Grassi is originally from France, more specifically La Rochelle. She achieves excellent results in most of the races she takes part in.
In the background is the 150 MW Massif du Sud wind farm, which supplies electricity to Hydro-Québec.
The Atlas Ocean Racing sailboat during the Transat Québec St-Malo 2024
This photo shows the Atlas Ocean Racing sailboat during the Transat Quebec Saint-Malo as it passes near Île d’Orléans near Quebec City. Skipper Gilles Barbot is a French Canadian of Breton origin who now lives in Montreal. All crew members are Canadian, from the province of Quebec.
The Transat Québec Saint-Malo 2024 observed from Île d’Orléans.
Curious onlookers set up here and there along the south shore of Île d’Orléans to watch the sailboats that left Quebec City an hour ago.
Rotor clouds and lenticular clouds over the St.Lawrence River during the Transat Québec Saint-Malo 2024.
Off Île d’Orléans, lenticular clouds and a small rotor cloud are visible. They are formed by strong wind aloft that is crossing the mountain range north of the St. Lawrence River.
P.S. After many days of racing, the results are now known. It is the Atlas Ocean Racing‘s team that arrived first in St-Malo, France.
The Martinique Tchalian sailboat and the Volendam during the Transat Québec Saint-Malo 2024
Above, the sailboat Martinique Tchalian in the Transat Québec Saint-Malo 2024. Piloted by Jean-Yves Aglae, Jean-Marie Hervé and Moane Mangattale, the boat is off Île d’Orléans as the cruise ship Volendam approaches on its way to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
The Martinique Tchalian sailboat between the Alerce and the Frankopan during the Transat Québec Saint-Malo 2024.
Above, the Martinique Tchalian is in the area of Berthier-sur-Mer, near two ships, the Alerce (on the left in the photo) and the Frankopan. In this section of the St. Lawrence River, the channel is narrow, and ships must use it to sail upstream to the Great Lakes.
The Alerce is a bulk carrier heading for the Port of Quebec, from the Port of Jorf Lasfar (MA JFL) in Morocco. The Frankopan tanker left the Port of Sainte Victoire in Quebec (CA SVD) a few hours ago, and is heading for the Port of Houston in the USA (US HOU).
For a long time, I hesitated to buy this graphic novel, which was only available in one of the seven bookshops I regularly visit. In this age of flashy covers and attention-grabbing themes, I found myself faced with this quiet book about the seven lives of a complete stranger. What was I to do?
In the end, I decided to buy it and found it so interesting that I read it in one go. A very nice surprise, although I should have known that the quality would be there when I saw the name of the author, Charles Masson. I had previously read another very interesting graphic novel by this author. The book was entitled “Droit du sol” and dealt with the difficulties experienced by natives in dealing with colonialism.
A page from the graphic novel “Sept vies à vivre”.
“Seven Lives to Live” is an intelligent and humane account of the life of an ordinary man named René. Forget computers and social networks. The reader finds René and his family several decades ago in the Bauges massif, where he spent his childhood and adolescence in the absence of comfort and luxury. The inhabitants toil to survive in this part of the country.
René lost seven siblings in infancy and is determined to live life to the full. He heads down to the valley to change his life. René’s seven lives are the seven great moments that change this man’s destiny. Like so many of us, he was shaken by events. In his case, it’s the Second World War, compulsory military training in France in 1946, chance encounters, and so on. How do you adapt and retain your humanity in the face of life’s surprises?
The script is solid and the graphics interesting. There’s no downtime, which is something to be said for a 225-page story. A great find to add to your library.
After all, it’s quite possible to have the right to photograph without having the right to publish. You also need to know the nuances between editorial and commercial distribution, as well as how to obtain written authorization where applicable.
There are also nuances between the privacy laws of the following two groups: the first made up of Quebec and France, and the second made up of the rest of Canada, the United States and the majority of Western countries.
In addition, a distinction must be made between the person who is the main subject of the photo and those who are merely incidental to it. The laws also change depending on whether the photo is taken from a public or private place. Finally, there are always exceptions to each category. As you can see, nothing is simple in this area…
The author uses case law to flesh out his points. He also discusses the limits of police and security officer powers, and what is legally permissible on Facebook and other social networks when it comes to disseminating an image.
He also elaborates on the difference between patrimonial, moral, integrity and authorship rights. He even expands on the changes to copyright before and after November 7, 2012. A section of the book tells you how to detect if your images are being used illegally, and how to request corrections and compensation.
Finally, Francis Vachon uses the last sections of his book to show us how to obtain photos legitimately, and sometimes free of charge. He also shows us how to protect ourselves from a lawsuit.
In short, a book full of vital information for the amateur and professional photographer, as well as for all social media users. Many of these users are full of good intentions, but can find themselves in trouble pretty quickly for inadvertent negligence.
The graphic novel “Wagner”, l’histoire secrète des mercenaires de Poutine.
“Wagner” is a top-quality graphic novel, the fruit of serious research based on numerous known and confidential sources.
Thanks to the large concentration of relevant data in a single volume, readers will quickly gain a better understanding of the international role played by this mercenary group supported by Vladimir Putin, which has gradually established itself in Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya and Syria, before attacking the Ukrainians.
The book includes the names of numerous companies, corporations and foundations (Concord, IRA [Internet Research Agency], SEWA Security Services, Lobaye Invest, M-Finance, M-Invest, Meroe Gold, Midas Resources, First Industrial Company, International Global Logistic [IGL], Alpha Development, Marko Mining, Prime Security, etc.) and a host of players who played a major role in sharing control of natural resources (mines, forests, etc.) in the Central African Republic and Mali.
The book shows how the short-sightedness of certain politicians and intelligence services enabled Wagner to gain a foothold in Africa without too much difficulty. It sheds light on the hasty departure of the French in Mali and the Chinese south of Bamako.
African leaders and customs officials turn a blind eye to the transfer of gold and diamonds to Russia. But I don’t have to dig very far in my memory to point out that many great powers have enjoyed similar treatment in other places on our beautiful planet.
Scriptwriter and illustrator Thierry Chavant is careful not to over-censor the actions of Wagner’s mercenaries, who sometimes think of themselves as soldiers. The explicit drawings shed light on the crimes committed by these killers, including rape, torture and the systematic elimination of hundreds of people at a time.
Despite these radical methods, the mercenaries do not have it easy against determined opponents. Wagner lost many fighters to the jihadists in Africa, but far fewer than in Ukraine, where the group suffered a literal debacle, with tens of thousands killed and wounded.
Even Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin lost their lives when the private jet they were in exploded over Russia. The question I still ask myself today: how can anyone be so stupid as to continue to fly calmly over Russia after having tried to seize power by force a few weeks earlier?
The book confirms that international geostrategy has two faces: an acceptable side, where diplomats and businessmen work hard to gain advantages for themselves or their countries. But there’s also a much more violent side, where the main principles give way to the desire to win new territories with the wealth they contain. And there, any means are good enough to achieve the goal, be it obscure financing, threats, summary executions, overthrowing governments or even modern-day slavery.
Novel cover “Dans le ventre de Klara” by Régis Jauffret
[For the presentation of this book published in French, I did my best to translate some sentences in English, but a professional translation would have better reflect the quality of Régis Jauffret’s writing].
“In July 1888, around Saint James’s Day, Uncle made me pregnant”. So begins Régis Jauffret‘s novel “Dans le ventre de Klara” (In Klara’s Belly) , that master of punchlines and synthesis. The Klara in question is Klara Hitler, who at the time of the story is carrying within her an Adolf Hitler already capable of infusing her on occasion with visions of the disaster he would orchestrate years later.
The author has found a unique way to position Klara’s terrible premonitions in the text. They are suddenly imposed in the midst of the mother-to-be’s daily reveries, often right in the middle of a paragraph or sentence.
In this tale of fact and fiction, the wife must stay in her place and hope for nothing. The writer has Klara say: “I’m afflicted with the mania of hoping for something other than my fate“. The husband decides everything. The local church’s confessor would love to have as much control as the spouse, but this proves more difficult than expected. The husband and abbot are a good example of the excessive power they wield over women in this era. A military officer with little combat experience who dictates his conduct to his wife as if she were a soldier, and a fanatical abbot who imposes the arbitrary rules of a sickening religion, enslaving women and imposing his dogmas on couples from a distance.
Back cover of the novel “Dans le ventre de Klara” by Régis Jauffret
Speaking of God and women, the author writes: “A Christian woman must bear children, help to populate the Earth He has given us as a theater for our sins”. And when Klara finds herself back in the confessional and being chastised by the priest: “Far from the voice of Christ gone, it was now Abbé Probst who was busy putting me through the wringer of language. Sentences as long as straps. Words as heavy and blunt as bludgeons. Subtle, sharp words, in places bristling with reddened spikes. Punctuation like broken glass […].” You get the idea…
I particularly appreciate Régis Jauffret’s writing, having read many of his works, including “La ballade de Rikers Island“, “Le dernier bain de Gustave Flaubert“, “Papa” and the three volumes entitled Microfictions, published respectively in 2007, 2018 and 2022. He even won the Goncourt short story award for the 2018 edition.
Régis Jauffret explains the intention behind his latest novel in a video on Youtube, if you’re interested in digging deeper into the subject.
Frédéric Pierucci is a senior executive at Alstom, a gigantic French energy company. Thanks to a US extraterritorial law (FCPA Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) which allows the US government to prosecute any foreign firm targeted for corruption, he was arbitrarily arrested in 2013 as he got off the plane in New York.
Pierucci had not received any money from these operations, but he was aware that Alstom was targeted for embezzlement and that the company used “intermediaries” to secure contracts. He was incarcerated for months, and Alstom finally abandoned him, believing that the Americans would be satisfied with the imprisonment of this high-ranking executive. Pierucci must now try to extricate himself from the quagmire into which he has been plunged.
A page of the graphic novel “Le piège américain”.
Even if he is not directly implicated in the bribes, the American justice system wants to pressure Pierucci into revealing details that would incriminate Alstom’s management, including CEO Patrick Kron. Pierucci’s harsh judicial treatment is also intended to intimidate the firm’s other top executives, showing them what awaits them if they do not cooperate in rectifying past mistakes.
The primary aim seemed to correct unfair schemes that were damaging American companies and, by the same token, to obtain very substantial monetary compensation. The operation was a success: the effects of Pierucci’s arbitrary arrest paved the way within a few years for the sale of a strategic Alstom subsidiary to General Electric, its main competitor.
Back cover of the graphic novel “Le piège américain”.
The maneuvers also allow to obtain information that would otherwise remain confidential. This U.S. extraterritorial law works well and is used to attack numerous corporations around the world, including the German international group Siemens. Each time, the offender is obliged to pay substantial fines and must submit internal documents considered confidential or even secret to the prosecutor.
It’s hard to know who exactly will have access to these documents. Is it possible that agents (we won’t call them “spies” for the sake of politeness) are passing on trade-secret information to people working outside the U.S. Justice Department? Such actions would enable American companies to improve their competitiveness at little cost. But these are questions that the executives of the targeted companies are asking themselves.
Be that as it may, not everything in this story is squeaky clean. Author Matthieu Aron writes: “In autumn 2018, after Frédéric [Pierucci] was finally released, we finished our book. But again, it was not without difficulty. The day after we sent our manuscript to our publisher, my home was ‘visited’ and my computer disappeared. Simple burglars, spooks, or action by a foreign service? We’ll probably never know.”
The graphic novel “Le piège américain”, prix littéraire nouveaux droits de l’homme 2019.
My view on the subject.
China is watching and learning.
The effectiveness of this American extraterritorial law has not escaped the attention of China, which is planning to devise a similar law that would allow it to lay its hands on otherwise inaccessible information and archives.
Faced with these two behemoths, the United States and China, Europe has fallen behind, and it too will have to create its own law enabling it to extend its judicial power outside the continent. For no one is fooled: bribes to obtain contracts involve multiple countries. Prosecutions under extraterritorial legislation give access not only to large sums of money, but also to documents containing important data and possibly industrial secrets.
Another book on the graphic novel “Le piège américain”.
The Alstom experience will at least have had the effect of better preparing France for the moment when, a little later, the giant Airbus was targeted for malfeasance by the same American law. Airbus manufactures not only airplanes, but also many strategic military products protected by secrecy. This time, the widespread collection of the company’s confidential information was refused, without a French citizen being named as intermediary and the documents handed over to the Americans being reviewed to ensure that they did not contain military secrets or other information not directly related to the corruption charges.
Today, Airbus is a great success, selling more aircraft each month than Boeing, which is experiencing difficulties with the way it builds its aircraft. And we have every right to believe that senior management at Airbus has improved its business practices.
The comics ” 13h17 dans la vie de Jonathan Lassiter”.
“When you’ve got nothing left to lose, you can take all the risks…”. This is the sentence [translated] on the back of the comic strip “13 h 17 dans la vie de Jonathan Lassiter” (13:17 in the life of Jonathan Lassiter), which best sums up this French-language work published in 2023.
Jonathan Lassiter works as an insurance agent in Keanway, a small, remote town in Nebraska. Overnight, his wife leaves him, he loses his job and his wallet is stolen. In short, his life suddenly takes an unexpected turn. He has two choices: either he feels sorry for himself, or he changes. His chance encounter with Edward, a “distinguished, cultured and cynical” man, forces him to take a stand.
It was the quality of the graphics that caught my eye. This isn’t one of those publications where you wonder whether the design can be done in a month, and which pretends to be original through the absence of detail, and therefore of work. A great deal of effort went into this album, and it shows at first glance.
Back cover of the comic strip “13h17 dans la vie de Jonathan Lassiter”.
It’s got it all: the judicious choice of angles, the refined, masterful drawing, the skilful maintenance of atmosphere through well-dosed, under-saturated colors, the well-crafted script. This comic strip keeps the reader’s interest from start to finish, with no downtime.
The main character reminded me of the famous actor Vincent Price.
Ten years ago this year, I took this photo of Parisian life in relaxation mode. I wasn’t interested in the main subject that we find on every postcard, but in the normal parallel life of citizens living close to such a well-known tourist attraction.
In the photo above, these Parisians are taking it easy on their barge moored along the Seine, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
A relax evening for local citizens living near the Château Frontenac.
The same is true for Quebec City residents living near the Château Frontenac. They find a way to reserve a little peace and quiet for themselves, away from the tourists, quietly seated on their verandas at the end of the day.
