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Posts Tagged ‘France’

Pickpockets At The Pyramid

Posted in crime, Humor, Travel, World, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2013 | 2 Comments »

If you’ve ever been to the Louvre, you know one of the great joys of the experience is waiting by the ugly glass pyramid to get in to one of the world’s great museums.  And waiting . . . and waiting . . . and waiting . . . .

Apparently things have gotten a bit more . . . exciting at the Louvre since Richard and I spent an eternity there one morning two years ago.  At that time, it was just a boring exercise in passing the time until we moved to the front of the line.  Now the news media is reporting that gangs of aggressive pickpockets that include children are prowling the premises of the pyramid, attacking tourists and employees alike.  The crime has gotten so bad that the employees went on strike today and the Louvre was closed to visitors.  Can you imagine how you would feel if, on your once-in-a-lifetime visit to Paris, you budgeted one day to visit the Louvre and today was that day?

There must be something to this story that I don’t understand.  It seems like the response to a pickpocket problem at a particular location, like the Louvre, would be obvious — station a bunch of gendarmes there and have them chase down, tackle, and arrest any perpetrators.  You’d certainly think that France would want anyone visiting one of the crown jewels of Paris to be able to do so without grappling with the French equivalent of Fagin and the Artful Dodger.

I thought waiting in the Louvre’s endless line that moved at a tortoise-like pace was awful.  I guess I should be grateful that I wasn’t mugged to boot.

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Sauce For The Goose, But Not For The Gander

Posted in America, Politics, World, tagged , , , , , , , on April 5, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

France has seen the latest outbreak of the politician’s double standard.  It’s a story as old as politics itself.  It goes like this:  the politicians decide that, for the good of the country, it’s important to enact some new, typically painful law or regulation of private behavior.  The politicians also decide, of course, that it’s equally important that they not be bothered with compliance.

This week Jerome Cahuzac, the former French minister who was responsible for prosecuting tax evasion, finally admitted he had a secret bank account in Switzerland and had been lying about it.  His admission came two weeks after he resigned following reports that he was funneling funds to the account to avoid the harsh taxes the French government has levied and after Cahuzac had strenuously denied having the account.  Now he says he is “devastated by remorse” and begs forgiveness.  “Devastated by remorse?” Or, embarrassed that he was caught in a colossal lie and thought he could get away with avoiding the law that applied to everyone else?

In America, we see this kind of behavior from our political classes all the time.  Congress passes laws that regulate the activities in every workplace except congressional offices.  Politicians lecture us about global warming and not relying on fossil fuels then fly on gas-guzzling chartered jets rather than rub elbows with the great unwashed on standard commercial flights.  Presidents and Vice Presidents tell us we need to tighten our belts, but enjoy lavish and repeated vacations on the taxpayers’ dime.

What’s sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander — period.

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Remembering A Forgotten War

Posted in America, tagged , , , , , , , on July 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

On Independence Day, shouldn’t we also remember the conflict that some have called America’s second War of Independence?

What’s that, you say?  A second War of Independence?  I’m speaking, of course, of what Americans call the War of 1812 — when they talk about it at all, which isn’t often.  Most people heard about the war in American History class, thought it was boring and confusing, and promptly forgot about it.  That reaction isn’t surprising.  Who wants to think about a war where Washington, D.C. was embarrassingly captured and burned?

The War of 1812 grew out of America’s status as a pawn in the global chess game between Great Britain and Napoleonic France.  Both countries tried to restrict trade with the United States, a bit player in the Euro-centric world of the early 1800s, and the British routinely “impressed” — i.e., kidnapped — American sailors the Royal Navy encountered on the high seas.  A fed-up Congress declared war on Great Britain, land and sea battles were fought, the White House and the U.S. Capitol were burned by British troops, and the British bombardment of Baltimore led to the penning of The Star Spangled Banner.  The war ended with the Treaty of Ghent, in which the British agreed to leave the U.S. border with Canada unchanged and promised not to roil up Indian tribes in the American West, and America stopped insisting that the British end impressment.  America then achieved its only significant land battle victory in the Battle of New Orleans, which was fought after the treaty had been negotiated.

Although most Americans have forgotten the inconclusive conflict, many Ohioans — including the Bus-Riding Conservative — are buffs of the War of 1812.  That’s because one of America’s notable victories, in the Battle of Lake Erie, was fought just off Ohio’s northern shores.  An American gunboat squadron commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a British squadron, and Perry wrote the deathless line “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”  Today any reveler at Put-in-Bay — and there are likely to be a few — can hoist a cold adult beverage to Commodore Perry and salute the nearby Perry Monument that towers over the lake’s shores.

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The Witless Wisdom Of Wine Snobs

Posted in Food, Science, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 16, 2012 | 1 Comment »

I’m not a wine snob.  I can distinguish between outright swill, of the $3.99 a bottle variety, and better wines, but my palate’s capabilities end at about the $10 a bottle mark, and from there on up I can’t really appreciate the fine nuances and subtle distinctions that effete wine drinkers claim to enjoy.  Now, a recent taste test suggests I’m not alone, and that wine snobs are faking it.

The taste test follows in the wake of famous blind taste tests of the 1970s, in which experts were unable to distinguish between esteemed French wines and upstarts from California — and indeed, twice selected Stag’s Leap wine over the finest wines of France.  The latest blind taste test contest pitted wines from France against wines from, of all places, New Jersey.  The French wines won, but only barely, against the New Jersey offerings that were 20 times less expensive.

As the New Yorker article linked above demonstrates, there’s lots of evidence that the supposedly educated palates of the wine snobs really are influenced mostly by labels, and that supposed experts will describe the same wine in diametrically different ways, depending on whether a high quality label or one indicating the cheap stuff is attached.  The studies all point to the conclusion that most people really can’t distinguish the high-cost vino from the $10 bottle.  I think that’s right, and that’s why I don’t spend more than $15 a bottle in stores and refuse to buy the outrageously priced bottles in restaurants.

Our friends the Cave-Dweller and his lovely wife soon will be taking a wine-tasting trip to the Napa Valley, to celebrate their 25th anniversary.  Perhaps next year they should head to New Jersey?

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The Worst Previews In The World

Posted in Humor, Movies, tagged , , , , , , , on May 30, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Last night Kish and I were watching TV and saw the preview for the next Adam Sandler movie, That’s My Boy.  The preview made the movie look like the worst movie in the world — which is about par for the course for Adam Sandler movie previews.  They’re uniformly awful, and when the latest Adam Sandler movie is released each year, we Americans are just expected to stolidly endure them.

For years Americans cackled at the French for inexplicably admiring, and indeed finding deeper significance in, the “genius” of Jerry Lewis movies.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the French chuckle at the fact that Americans have a seemingly endless appetite for low-brow Adam Sandler drivel.  The movies keep getting made, so somebody must go watch them.  The question is:  who?  You wouldn’t think there would be a sufficient audience of pathetic, friendless, unmarried 40-year-old guys who appreciate the subtle humor of a pie in the face, but apparently there are.

Watching the That’s My Boy preview, I found myself imagining how Adam Sandler movies come to be.  Picture a man running away from you, down a long hallway.  He bursts through the door of an office, and a Hollywood type wearing a Hawaiian shirt and about a pound of gold neck chains looks up.

Running man:  “Boss, we’re ready to move forward on the next Adam Sandler project!  The writers and I have come up with an entirely novel way for a man to unexpectedly get hit in the crotch!”

Producer:  “That’s great, Jenkins — but that only puts us halfway there.  Now you need to think of an excuse for Sandler to wear a stupid wig.”

In fairness to Sandler, I haven’t been to see one of his movies since the Happy Gilmore era.  For all I know, the movies are richly rewarding, profoundly moving viewing experiences.  However, I take the previews at face value, and consider them to be fair warning.  If I went to see That’s My Boy and it was even close to as dreadful as the preview suggests, I’d have no one to blame but myself.

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Adverse To Austerity

Posted in America, World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Elections have occurred in Greece, France, and Italy in the past few days, and voters have cast their ballots against the austerity measures that were imposed to try to put a brake on the European debt crisis and, in Greece and France, have thrown out the governments that agreed to those measures.

In France, the flamboyant Nikolas Sarkozy was replaced by a Socialist, Francois Hollande, who says he seeks an alternative to austerity and vows to increase taxes and spending.  In Greece, voters deserted the parties that had dominated the political landscape for decades and splintered their support among a broad range of parties, including the disturbingly neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn”.  The same trends were seen in local elections in Italy.

No one should be surprised by these results.  Austerity is hard; Europeans are soft.  They’ve become accustomed to rich benefits, lots of vacation time, a short work week, and generous pensions that allow them to retire at an early age.  The problem is that their lifestyle has been financed by debt, and now people are only willing to lend them more if they agree to actions that will bring their fiscal house in order.  The fact that Greek voters and French voters don’t like the austerity doesn’t change that result.  Why would you want to lend money to someone who hasn’t shown the responsibility or willpower necessary to pay you back?

This likely means that the Eurozone concept will fail.  Appeals for continental unity only go so far, and hardworking and thrifty German and Dutch voters aren’t going to support the unrestrained spending of the Greek and Italian and Portuguese governments forever.  The Euro will end as a unified currency, the responsible northern European countries will return to their highly valued local currencies, and the southern European countries will slink back to their devalued and debased drachmas and lire, look around for new saps to loan them money with no hope of being repaid, and find there are no takers.  At that point, the current days of “austerity” might begin to look pretty good, in retrospect.

There’s a lesson in here somewhere for America.

 

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Jeanne d’Arc, Jeanne d’Or

Posted in Photography, Travel, tagged , , , , , on April 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

As everyone knows, there is still a very strong French element to New Orleans.  The connections to the city’s French past are found in the cuisine, in the name and architecture of the French Quarter, and even in statues found around the city.

Joan of Arc is a popular subject — which is not  surprising because she was, after all, the Maid of Orleans.  This golden depiction of France’s martial heroine was a gift to the citizens of New Orleans from the people of France and is found in a small park next to the French Market area of the French Quarter.

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George Washington, Their Greatest Enemy

Posted in America, World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The British National Army Museum has held a contest to identify England’s greatest military opponent, and the winner was . . . George Washington.

The Father of our Country beat out Napoleon Bonaparte, Irish leader Michael Collins, Erwin Rommel, the crafty Desert Fox of World War II, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a World War I opponent and the father of modern Turkey, among a number of other candidates.

How could Washington be considered a greater foe than the likes of Napoleon?  After all, the history of the Revolutionary War is a long litany of defeats and retreats by the outmanned American forces, without many of the brilliant tactical maneuvers that gave Napoleon and Rommel their reputations.  For that reason, some people have belittled Washington’s military prowess.

But one other, important factor distinguishes Washington from Napoleon and Rommel — Washington’s side eventually prevailed.  General Washington never gave up and somehow managed to hold together his rag-tag, underfunded band of soldiers until the French entered the fray.  Washington then teamed with the French to deliver the final blow to the British forces at Yorktown, which led to the Treaty of Paris and the independence of the American colonies.

The loss of the American colonies was probably the greatest defeat ever inflicted on the British during the glory centuries of the British Empire.  So yes, George Washington is a logical choice for England’s greatest military opponent.  He was, as the British themselves recognized, a worthy foe.

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Apocalypse (Not Quite) Now

Posted in Humor, Science, World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Weird things are happening in the French Pyrenees.  New Agers have descended on the village of Bugarach because they’re convinced that aliens will emerge from a nearby mountain on December 21, the date that marks the end of the Mayan “long count” calendar.  The helpful aliens will cart all humans in the vicinity off to, in the words of one believer, a new era celebrating the “energies of tomorrow.”

The aliens expect we humans to perform some bizarre stunts in order to get a seat on the spaceship to the coming age.  Groups of naked believers regularly hike to the top of the mountain, which they believe emits special magnetic waves.  Some have been seen carrying a ball and a golden ring connected by a single thread on their hikes.  Is it some kind of a communicator?  An exercise device?  One of those desktop time-wasters, like the five silver balls that clack together until they become annoying?  No one knows for sure.

It’s hard to believe that aliens who are capable of living undetected under the Pyrenees would need — or, for that matter, want — to see a bunch of naked humans trudging up a magnetic mountain with a ball and ring.  Mountaintops can be cold; aren’t the aliens even a bit concerned that the humans might suffer from (ahem) exposure?  But maybe that’s just part of the aliens’ careful plan.  Perhaps it’s not going to be easy in the new era filled with the “energies of tomorrow,” and they have to separate the hardy few from the rest of us luxury-loving softies.

It’s hard to call what’s happening over in Bugarach a cult, because there doesn’t seem to be the standard “charismatic leader” who makes everyone wear a new track suit and carry a roll of quarters before they drink the Kool-Aid.  Still, you can’t help but reflect on how apocalyptic scenarios have changed over history.  In the past, religions often emphasized doing good deeds (at least, as the religion defined them) during this lifetime, so that when Judgment Day came your efforts would be assessed and found not wanting.  Now, people don’t really need to do much of anything to qualify for the next life — they just have to be present when the benevolent super-beings decide it’s time to save a few of us.

In these New Age scenarios, humans are little more than science experiments, to be rescued from the grimy Petri dish of our world by those helpful aliens.  Let’s hope they don’t just wash out the Petri dish, take their ball, string, and ring, and decide it’s time to head back to Andromeda.

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Europe Is Still There, And Its Problems Are Getting Worse

Posted in America, World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2012 | 1 Comment »

In America, we have the ability to just ignore the rest of the world now and then.  When the news from abroad is too depressing, we turn it off and focus on more interesting American things instead, like a celebrity scandal or  the new iPhone or a weirdly viral YouTube video.

I think most Americans have tuned out the debt crisis in Europe.  It has been going on forever.  There’s no end in sight.  Lots of different, faraway countries are involved. The Europeans appear to be dealing with it.  So why should we care?  Look, a squirrel!

On Friday Standard & Poor’s cut the credit ratings for the debt issued by nine European countries.  France, Europe’s second-largest economy, lost its AAA status, Italy’s debt is now rated the same as that of Kazakhstan, and Portugal’s debt is down to junk bond status.  Even worse, it looks like Greece won’t be able to reach agreement with its creditors, which would mean that the latest Eurozone effort to address the Greek debt crisis would fail and Greece would be facing default and bankruptcy in March.

In the modern world, the economies of countries are connected in countless ways.  We sell lots of good and services to Europe; if its economies crash, those markets vanish and American businesses will suffer.  American banks, mutual funds, and investors have purchased the sovereign debt of European countries and would experience huge losses in the event of defaults.  And, of course, Europe’s current predicament is just a peek at America’s likely future if we don’t deal promptly with our governmental debt problems.  European countries that are saddled with enormous debt are now at the mercy of ratings agencies, creditors, and faceless bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund.

So, we can be distracted if we choose — but Europe is still there, and its problems are, too.  They may be our problems soon, if we don’t start paying attention.

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The Party Nations

Posted in America, Humor, World, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Who hasn’t idly wondered which countries hammer down the most alcohol?  Thankfully, the World Health Organization has released a report that answers that crucial, nagging question.

Where does the U.S. stack up?  We’re middle-of-the-pack, actually.  Americans consume, on average, 9.4 liters of alcohol per person, per year — about half the average of the booziest nations.  Of that amount, 31 percent is consumed in spirits, 16 percent in wine, and 53 percent in good old beer.  I feel that I have done my share in the beer category, at least.

Who’s number 1?  The wine-swigging French?  Nope, they barely crack the top 15, finishing at number 14.  What about Ireland?  That would be wrong, too — the Irish barely beat out the French, finishing at number 13.  How about our vodka-guzzling Russian buddies?  Closer, but not quite.  The Russians finish at number 4.  No, the top three are Hungary, the Czech Republic, and overall winner Moldova.  The studly Moldovans pound down 18.22 liters of alcohol per capita and they apparently aren’t picky, either:  they drink about as much spirits (4.42 liters) as beer (4.57 liters) and wine (4.67).  In short, Moldovan partiers will be happy to drink just about anything you put in front of them before they collapse.

Where in the world is Moldova, anyway, you ask?  It’s a former part of the Soviet Union, located between Romania and Ukraine.  It’s also so small — only slightly more than 4 million people — that a few serious tipplers could skew the national average.

 

 

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Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous

Posted in America, crime, tagged , , , , , , , on May 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Americans have always been interested in the lives of the rich and famous — particularly when the story involves their misdeeds.  The arrest for sexual assault of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the now-former head of the International Monetary Fund, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s belated confession to fathering an out-of-wedlock child are just two of a long line of tawdry scandals that have captivated American audiences.

The sordid tale of Strauss-Kahn provides an especially rich trove of detail.  He was staying in a $3,000-a-night hotel room when the incident occurred.  He flies first-class on Air France whenever he wants.  He jets around the world, passing judgment on the economies of sovereign nations and spending other people’s money.  He’s French, and a Socialist.  And, according to the hotel housekeeper who is his accuser, when she entered what she thought was an empty room he burst out of the bathroom like some Gallic satyr, assaulted her, and engaged in forced sexual contact.  His apparent defense is that the encounter was consensual.  And, to complete the required story line, his resignation statement professes his innocence but says he is giving up his post for the good of his wife, whom he loves “more than anything,” and the IMF.

One point that distinguishes the Strauss-Kahn tale from the others is that he is French, and therefore people from both sides of the Atlantic are reacting to his arrest.  Initially, many in France seemed to blame his arrest on American prudishness and to complain that he wasn’t being treated in a deferential way that acknowledged his lofty position in the world.  More recently, the prevailing view seems to be shifting away from reflexive sympathy for Strauss-Kahn having to deal with the unsophisticated, benighted Americans to a realization that the conduct of which he is being accused is, in fact, criminal and is properly treated as such.  If this incident causes the French to be a bit more concerned about sexual assault crimes, and a bit less willing to give a pass to the misconduct of the high and mighty, that would be a good thing.

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A Reason To Take 8th Grade Geometry

Posted in Growing Up, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 9, 2011 | 1 Comment »

We sat huddled in Mrs. Jackman’s 8th grade geometry class at Hastings Junior High, learning the names of differently shaped solids and how to calculate their volumes, discussing the value of pi and the Pythagorean theorem and other equations, all the while wondering when in the hell we would ever use this self-evidently useless information.

Little did we know that Mrs. Jackman’s diligent instruction would have equipped us to nod yes if Louis XIV had asked us to design the extensive, jaw-dropping gardens at the palace at Versailles!  But in fact those gardens — from their layouts, to their perspectives to the far horizon, to the shapes in which shrubs are trimmed, are all about using geometry, geometry, and more geometry.

In my view, the gardens at Versailles are far more interesting and memorable than the palace.  You can only see so much gilt, and take in so many paintings and busts of Louis XIV, and experience so many vaulted ceilings and marble floors, before you experience sensory overload and ultimate disinterest.

But the gardens!  They are full of wonder and surprises. Who would have thought that geometric lines and shapes could be so enjoyable and, in the case of shrubs, even a bit silly and whimsical?

Mrs. Jackman, who considered geometry to be a very serious topic and applied a no-nonsense approach to her teaching, might not have approved, but I chuckled with delight as Richard and I strolled through the gardens and enjoyed the different shapes and patterns that lay around every corner.  The fact is, geometric lines and shapes are pleasing to the eye and to the mind.  The gardens at Versailles are extraordinarily beautiful not just because of the flowers, and fountains, and canals, but because they are laid out in a precise geometric fashion.  The gardens convey the neatness, and order, and patterns that the human brain craves.

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The Cheap Wine Competition

Posted in Travel, tagged , , , , on May 6, 2011 | 2 Comments »

When we took our trip to Italy years ago, Kish and I concluded that it was impossible to get a bottle of bad Italian wine.  Go to any restaurant, get their table wine, and you would inevitably get a very good wine that would sell for a pretty penny in the States.

The cheap wine contestants

My experience this trip suggests that France is the same way.  There is an excellent wine shop right across the street from our apartment.  I’ve purchased several bottles of wine there for between 6 and 9 Euros each (roughly $9.00 to $13.50) and they have been uniformly excellent.  All were French wines from wineries I’d never heard of — and they made me decide to test my theory, with the help of Richard and two of his friends.

First I bought a 2008 Cotes du Rhone for 3.85 Euros — about $5.75. We agreed it also was quite good. Then we put my theory to the acid test last night, by buying a Vieux Papes for 2.95 Euros (about $4.50) and a Cuvee du Pere Bernard for 1.90 Euros (about $2.95).  The Vieux Papes was pretty good, and the Cuvee du Pere Bernard was still decent, although we were probably reaching the outer limits of drinkability and common sense with that purchase.  (I’ve seen the street people of Paris drinking other kinds of wine that undoubtedly were cheaper, and I didn’t really want to go there.)

France therefore finished strong in the cheap wine competition.  There’s probably a bad bottle of French wine somewhere out there, but you’d have to look pretty hard to find it.

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Tonight’s Dinner A Chez Josette

Posted in Family, Food, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Tonight's repast in the dining room Chez Josette

Richard and I decided that prudence and careful travel demanded that we eat in the apartment tonight.  We previously had bought two bottles of very fine and reasonably priced wine at the shop across the street, and when we returned from today’s travels we decided to visit the boucherie across the street to buy some pate de compagnie and some Camembert de Normandie, as well as some baguettes at the neighboring boulangerie et patisserie.

Sure, the guy at the boucherie looked somewhat amused as I bumblingly tried to order an appropriate amount of pate using my high-school French, where the only metric measurement I can remember is a kilogram.  But, he was friendly, as the French inevitably are when you make an effort to use their language, and we ended up with a large, but reasonable, amount of pate that we consumed, with gusto, with some crusty bread and some excellent French wines.

And then, after we had killed two bottles of wine and gobbled down a lot of the pate and cheese and bread as we played cards, we rambled over to an adjoining street for a nightcap of Pelforth Brune, toasting Aunt Corinne ‘s 70th birthday, and enjoyed some people watching at a fine example of an open-late French cafe.

In all, not a bad day!

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