Today is the anniversary of the liberation of Paris

To the memory of Michel Varin de la Bruneliere.
Cross of War. Drafted at 18 y.o.
Died for France. The 25th of August 1944.

One of the things you notice around Paris, if you pay close attention, are all the small plaques, here and there, on the sides of this and that building - maybe a school here, an office there - commemorating someone who died fighting the Nazi occupation during World War II.

Often the plaques will honor Jewish students - only teenagers, or worse - who attended that school and were taken away by the Nazis, never to be seen again.

(There's an exhibit at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, about the Nazi deportation of Jewish kids - I couldn't get in, lines were too long, but it's free and worth a look if you go any time in the next month or so.)

Michel Varin de la Bruneliere

I came upon one such plaque, actually several of them in a row, a few years back near the Place de la Concorde (you'll see them right next to the Concorde Metro exit on the south side of the Rue de Rivoli along a long white wall). They're dedicated to 9 Frenchmen, including an 18 year old boy, Michel Varin de la Bruneliere, a number of whom were lined up and shot by the Germans against this very wall during the liberation of Paris.

Apparently, the Pont de la Concorde, a bridge near the Place de la Concorde, was one of the only Parisian bridges the Nazis hadn't yet blown up, keeping it as a potential strategic retreat.  There was heavy fighting near the bridge, machine gun fire everywhere, and the young rifleman decided to help.  He was soon shot dead.

I still get chills imaging an 18 year old having the gumption to step up and help defend his city (then again, our soldiers are 18), and at the thought that he's still remembered with flowers nearly 70 years later.

Here's a short video from the Daily Beast that shows that particular memorial among others.



I'm usually in Paris today, the 25th of August, finishing up my house-sitting for Chris and his wife (and my medical tourism), and I always liked going by that monument near the Place de la Concorde and seeing all the flowers left at each plaque to commemorate, and remember, people who died nearly 70 years ago.

In researching this particular wall of plaques, I came upon these tremendous photos of the Liberation of Paris, many from famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson - I've always loved his photos, but didn't realize he had photographed the liberation. I found several particular amazing (they're a mix of photographers, including Robert Capa, who's also very good).  I can't link directly to the photos, so have a look - there aren't too many, but several are really neat ones I'd never seen, including one from inside the destroyed French Foreign Ministry looking at the Eiffel Tower. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Paris in Motion

Fun and cool.


Paris In Motion (Part I) from Mayeul Akpovi on Vimeo. Read the rest of this post...

The dinner party of the damned, or how not to throw a "dîner" in France

Preparations for the dinner party of the damned continue. I decided to invite some French friends for a greco-american dinner tonight, and, well, it's been challenging.

First there was translating french recipes into US units, and trying to guess what, say, 10 tablespoons of corn starch looks like by sight, or 2 cups of grated cheese, because we of course don't have those measuring devices in France, and finding the french equivalent of sour cream (I went for light creme fraiche at 15% fat), then realizing that the eggs are bigger here, so the recipes I'm making are turning out wetter.

Costco-sized cheesecake.

Then realizing that mom's cheesecake recipe, which is for an American spring form pan (8.5 inches diameter), is far too little for a French spring form pan (10.2 inches diameter), so I had to run out and get more cream cheese and could only find "light" (considering the guests don't know NY cheesecake, it's rare in france, I'm hoping they don't notice that there's a layer of light cheesecake on top of the full-fat cheesecake).

Sauteing the eggplant, bechamel
for the moussaka in the middle.

Then I go to make the moussaka, and of course, can't find a 9x13 pan, have to go much bigger, so double the recipe (which is great fun when you're pan sautéing a gazillion slices of eggplant (now times two) a few at a time). Surprisingly, the moussaka did not spill out of the pan all over the oven, as expected.

But I write too soon. After spending about 5 hours on the moussaka, the oven almost catches fire from the butter that dripped from the spring form pan when I was baking the cheesecake crust (because I probably used too much butter in the crust - why? - because there are no graham crackers here so I have to improvise with speculoos, a wonderful regional cookie (who knew you needed to put a spring form pan on another pan in case it drips?) Smoke is pouring out everywhere, I put the fan by the window to blow the smoke out, but of course the fan is oscillating, so it's only blowing out the window part-time (I got the fan last week, and quelle surprise, it was missing the part that stops the fan from oscillating - almost returned it, but then figured, when will I seriously need to stop the fan from oscillating?).

So, at 1030 at night, moussaka still unbaked, I wait for the oven to cool down, clean the butter from the inside, start the oven again, more smoke.  This time I crank the oven up to 250 celsius, 500 F give or take, and let it cook a while. Smoke goes away.  Moussaka is done by 1230am, let it cool a bit, throw it in the fridge warm (better than leaving it out to cool all night and risk poisoning the guests (a distinct possibility, the way things are going).

Oh, fun fact about some French ovens.  The temperature can only be set in 25 degree celsius increments, or about a 45 degree F increment - so there's no setting the oven to 325. It's either 300, 350 or 400.  Adjust cooking times accordingly, which is fun to calculate when you've doubled recipes that you have never doubled before.

Shut-off valve conveniently
hidden behind the wall.

Then this morning the toilet begins to leak like niagara, and who knew the cut off valve was in the cupboard, BEHIND a board in the wall? Run to the neighbor across the hall, not home. Run to the neighbors upstairs, no home.  Run downstairs, get the concierge, and frantically explain in utterly incorrect French: "It's urgent, the water is sticking to the toilet."

In my panic, I mixed up the French words "coller" (to stick) and "couler" (to flow). Couldn't help but think of David Sedaris, another neurotic gay Greek-American francophile, who once famously told his French landlord, "the toilet, she cry much of the time."



So I go to take a shower, drenching wet from sweat. And what do I discover? My good friend, Pierre the French mosquito, who's been camping out in the bedroom for the past month or so, decided last night to bite my nose four times. And like Chris, I for some reason have a reaction to European mosquitos (at least the ones in france and greece), where the bite looks like a rather huge pimple (actually a pimple would look smaller).

So that's the last 24 hours so far.

Dinner is tonight. Invited 8 people, me making 9, which of course is too many for this place, but oh well (France is all about making room for extra friends at the dinner table, which is something I very much like about this place). According to the weather, depending when you check, it's either going to pour or be a lovely 79 degrees. I'm counting on the former.

Finished moussaka.

Hopefully most of the possible shoes have dropped already, so tonight's dinner will go off without a hitch (still have to make the strawberry coulis for the cheesecake, mom's crab/artichoke dip, the strips of melon with prosciutto that Chris recommended, and the Greek peasant salad).

It's amazing how hard it is throwing a dinner party in a foreign country when you're a foreigner. It also doesn't help that folks here tend to (but not always) throw rather fancy dinner parties with lots of courses and far too much wine (I was told to plan on buying one bottle per person). I've decided to ditch the cheese course and serve the salad with the moussaka (it's good to push their horizons).

Wish me luck. Photos to follow.  Oh, and we may not have a ton of posts today, as Chris is on vacation and I'm clearly losing my mind.

PS Right on schedule, it's raining.

And it's sunny again.

Read the rest of this post...

Fun with panoramic photography

I've been having fun lately with a free iPhone app called Photosynth. It's an app for making panoramic photos.

And while I don't like the fact that the app shrinks your photos (it limits the size of the panorama, otherwise the phone wouldn't have enough memory to stitch all the photos together), but it does a tremendous job of making panoramas IF you know what you're doing. Meaning, when you rotate the camera for a panoramic photo, you need to keep the point where the light hits the (metaphorical) film stationary, you pivot the camera around that point - rather than keeping yourself in one place and moving the camera through the air. (Read up on parallax and you'll see what I mean).

Anyway, I went out with some French friends tonight for dinner, and before we went to a place called Aftersquat, an old squatters' house of artist that the city of Paris bought, renovated, and turned into a huge multi-level artists' workshop.  It's at 59, rue de Rivoli (get off the Metro at Chatelet and take the Rue de Rivoli exit, it's right across the street).  You can visit any day from 1pm to 8pm and just walk around and check out the place - there's art EVERYWHERE.

I was really liking the stairwell because, with all the colors, and some banners hanging down, it was more interesting than the run of the mill spiral stairway photo, so I shot some photos.

Then I decided to move to the other side of the stairs and see if the view appeared any different. It did.

Then I thought it might be fun to take a Hipstamatic photo of the stairwell, from the same position, using another app on the iphone.

I really like the Hipstamatic photo, it's interesting how it totally changes the same image, and thus the mood of the photo.

Then I decided to take a panoramic photo using the Photosynth app.  This got interesting because it's rather difficult to tell how the photo is going as you're taking it.  You really can't tell all that well if the app itself is getting confused by the scene you're presenting it.  What I mean by "confused" is exactly what happened when I developed the photo when I got home.

First, the "'good" panorama:

Do you see how a good panoramic photo can invite you into the space, and let you experience the location in a way that a regular photo can't?  What I like about photos like this, using the panoramic feature, is that you see what I see as a photographer, what my eye sees.  You get a sense of the motion, the color, the symmetry and the forms that caught my eye and made me want to snap the photo in the first place.

Now the "bad" panorama, that I kind of like:

Photosynth messed up the photo in the most wonderful way.  It got confused by the spiral stairwell and started turning it in on itself, with what I think is a great result (that's me at the bottom left in the green shirt). I'm forgetting the name of the guy, but it looks like one of those logically impossible drawings of the staircases that twist into each other forever (or like a staircase at Hogwarts).

And unrelated to the squatters' house, here's a panorama I took once I got home tonight to Chris and Joelle's neighborhood in Montparnasse.  It had just rained, and I love Paris in the rain, for photography at least.  The city shines all the more when it's wet at night.

So there you go with a walk-through of how I look at a photo, and how panoramic photography works, doesn't work, but sometimes still does even when it doesn't.

Read the rest of this post...

A little Paris park blogging for your morning coffee

This is a lovely little park near Metro Cour Saint-Émilion (just east of Bercy).  I was waiting to see the Batman movie (which I didn't love, felt too simple - though Anne Hathaway and that kid from 3rd Rock, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, were amazing).

Read the rest of this post...

Two guys, without clothes or money, set off on an adventure...

This is an ad for a documentary, I guess, that two young French guys made in which they set off into the wilderness, with no clothes, no money, nothing and tried to travel the country (apparently theirs, but perhaps others too) relying entirely on the kindness of strangers.

You don't need to speak French to understand the trailer. It looks quite fun and interesting.

Read the rest of this post...

The art of the French kiss

Kiss by Shutterstock.

There's a great blog post up today about something I was just talking with some French friends about on Sunday.  How do you know when (and how) to kiss a French person hello?

It's a problem many a foreign visitor has had in France.  You arrive at a brunch, as I did on Sunday, and suddenly the women are allow jumping up and approaching you, and you have no idea if you're supposed to kiss them or what.  Even worse, what do you do with the guys?

(I remember one of my two Greek grandmothers, who immigrated from the old country, every time we'd see her, she point to her cheek, meaning, "where's my kiss?"  Then we kids would kiss her, pull back, then she'd point to the other cheek.)

In the states, we just wave at the entire crew and say "hey."  The French find that abominable.  They even asked me at the brunch, "is it true you just wave at everyone and say 'hello'?"  Uh, yeah.

Well, the blog post walks you through the rules, or lack thereof, in French however, and there's a cute video, also in French - so here's a quick synopsis of the rules they lay out.  Okay, first here's the video, but it is in French:



In order to figure out the kissing thing, you need to consider four questions:


1. Quand (when)
When, in what situations, do you kiss someone else on the cheek? Answer: You would kiss your friends, for example, on seeing them after a long vacation, you also might sometimes kiss hello when arriving at at work, and you always kiss hello when you arrive at friends' houses.

2. Qui (who)
Who do you kiss? A lot depends on the familial, friend, or work relationship you have with the kisee, but also their status, meaning, WHO are they.  For example, you don't kiss your boss hello. But, your boss can approach you for a kiss, then it's okay for you to kiss back.  On the other hand, colleagues at work kiss hello a lot.  For men kissing men hello, however, it depends.  Sometimes men kiss each other when they're friends or members of the same family - but not always.  Young people kiss each other hello a lot, and guys are doing it a lot more now with other guys.

3. Comment (how)
How do you kiss them?  Meaning, air kiss, cheek to cheek but no lip to cheek, or lip kisses cheek?  The story doesn't answer any of this, but I can tell you after years of kissing people's cheeks that the French, at least in Paris, do cheek to cheek air kisses (I only learned recently) - who knew?

 As for intensity and duration depends of the kiss, it depends on the situation.  It really just depends on how it feels at the time.  If you don't know the person well, show a little reticence.


4. Combien (how many)
How many kisses do you give?  In Paris it's 2, i.e., one on each cheek.  In the city of Montpelier, it's 3.  Orleans, 4.  Lyon, 3. Bordeaux, 4. And so on.  So you're pretty much out of luck on that one.

I'd also add "which cheek do you land the first kiss on"?  I'm actually not sure as it's different in different countries - I think the Greeks start with one cheek and the French with the other, because it always screws me up.  Maybe Americans are the ones who use the other cheek, I'm really not sure.

Oh, and to make things worse, I've had numerous French women admit that when they meet Americans, sometimes they hold back from a kiss because they know that Americans don't like to kiss hello.  I informed them that it's not that we don't like it (though a French guy kissing a straight American guy on the cheek would be funny as hell to watch), it's just that we don't understand when to do it and when not to, as in the states it could be a tad presumptuous.  And it's even worse when the French hold back, thinking we're uncomfortable, because then we get mixed signals about whether we're supposed to kiss.

Putain, c'est difficile! Read the rest of this post...

Paris blogging: Le Jardin de Luxembourg

Built by Marie de Medicis starting in 1611, the Luxembourg Gardens now house a wonderfully large public park and the French Senate. It also happens to be about two blocks from Chris and Joelle's place, so it's a nice place to walk around if you have nothing else to do.

Sunday was such a day.

Petanque is a popular game with men in France (one gets the sense that it's more popular with working class men), and it's fun - I played it once in Mali, of all places.  None of my friends play it. It's hard to miss the Petanque fields in the Jardin de Luxembourg.  The people watching the game are almost as much fun to watch as the players.

Another popular staple is in the center of the park - a big fountain where children push little sailboats back and forth, and chase the ducks, in this case an adorable duckling.

Another neat staple in the park around the mini horses for kids to ride.  This time around, it was kind of odd - the horses were all tied together, by themselves, in the middle of the park.  So, I started petting them.  Soon, others saw what I was doing and we got a nice little crowd of parents and kids petting the horses.  Only in Europe would no one worry about a lawsuit.

The horses were beautiful, especially as the sun started going down.

The other big thing to do in the garden is sit and people watch, or read.

I love the way the French manicure tress.

As you can see, it's quite a large garden.  One word of warning, stay on the pebble pathways, and not on the grass - it's a no-no and the cops will yell at you.

Read the rest of this post...

Is it easier in America to buy a gun than French cheese?

Yes.  But.

The following graphic has been making its way around the Internet this weekend.

I was intrigued, but suspicious. I don't like to send things around, or post them on the blog, if something doesn't smell right (no pun intended, as we are talking about wonderfully stinky French cheese). So I did a little digging, and here's what I found.

The graphic is kinda right.

J'accuse!

It seems that, of all things, an outbreak of Typhoid in Canada in the early 1940s was linked to Cheddar cheese made from raw milk (call her, Typhoid Elsie). Fast forward to 1950, and the FDA decides to do something about the dangers of stinky French cheese, and bans the sale of any imported cheese from raw milk that is not aged for a minimum of 60 days (a ban on domestically-produced cheese was, reportedly, instituted a few years before that).  The thinking was/is that the curing process kills the bacteria (and recent research suggests that even that may not always work).

And so began America's cheese panic.

So, the cheeses in the graphic are not banned per se.  They're only banned if they're made with raw milk that hasn't been aged a minimum of 60 days.  And if they're made with pasteurized milk, they're fine.  Thus, newer French Brie cheese made with pasteurized milk can be sold in the US (even though it's reportedly less tasty than the "real" French version - and part of the lost flavor of some French cheeses comes from the fact that their peak flavor comes at a time "less" than 60 days).  Sadly, there's a section of the site I link that appears to note some exceptions to the rule, but the section isn't written in complete sentences, so it makes no sense.  So I did some more research...

What I found was that there seems to be another restriction, beyond the 60 day rule. This from an article in 2005:

According to John Sheehan of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in the 1980s both countries agreed that all soft cheeses from France would be made from pasteurized milk in plants certified by the French government. This followed the detection of the harmful listeria bacteria in some French Brie.

2005 was around the same time that the FDA cracked down on French cheese entering the US - previously they apparently had overlooked some of the "illegal" cheeses. Now they were cracking down even on some cheese aged over 60 days - possibly for legit reasons, possibly as retaliation for a trade dispute.

And there's talk of banning raw milk cheese all together:

But in recent months, two recalls involving e. coli in raw-milk cheese have brought that law into question: in November, at Bravo Farms, near Fresno, then in December, at Sally Jackson Cheese, in Washington State.

David Acheson, a former associate commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, says laboratory tests have suggested that e.coli O157, and possibly other microbes, as well, can survive the 60-day aging process.

“There’s real concern that the 60 days isn’t long enough,” he says.

On average, there are about 40 reported cases a year of people getting sick from raw-milk cheese, nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control. During a 15-year period between 1993 and 2008, two people died from those illnesses.

That's a small fraction of the outbreaks that have been traced back to ground beef, for example, and the number has stayed fairly constant. Still, the FDA says raw-milk cheese is a growing concern.

Two people died over fifteen years from eating raw milk cheese.  Significantly more died over that period from guns, about 450,000 people (that includes suicides, but hey, we don't let people intentionally kill themselves by eating French cheese, so why allow guns?).

In the end, I couldn't confirm that any of the cheeses listed in the graphic above are actually "banned" in the US, because there are versions of them - with pasteurized milk or aged over 60 days - that are permitted for several of them (I didn't check them all).  The graphic indicates, for example, that French roquefort (i.e., blue cheese) is not permitted into the US.  That's not true.  You can buy the French "President" brand blue cheese in the US - I  have.  The same goes for the graphic's mention of Camembert.  Obviously, the American versions are either pasteurized or aged over 60-days.

Now, the graphic would be correct if it got a little more specific and, say, added an asterisk noting that the original, "true," raw-milk-aged-under-60-day versions of these French cheeses are banned in the US.  Try this:

And that's our food science lesson for the day.  At least this explains why I have such a hard time finding a good tangy French chèvre at the market in the states. Read the rest of this post...

Of cats and dogs and Brie, a little Paris blogging

I'm in Paris for my annual cat-sitting, scheming with Chris on AMERICAblog 3.0, and medical tourism.  I thought I'd share some random photos/thoughts from the past week.

Right before I left Chicago a few days ago, it was finally time for Sasha to get another haircut.  I like her hair long, but it tends to get a bit unkempt, owing to her half-terrier status (she's a Yorkie-Bichon mix).  That along with the 100 degree weather meant it was time for her summer cut.  I cut her back to about 1/4 inch, which I like (didn't at first, maybe I've gotten used to it).

Sasha pre-haircut:

Sasha post-haircut:

Sasha is not thrilled when I travel - either with her or without her.  She's gotten quite attached to me, as I'm told small dogs are bred to be.  That means it's hard for me to even go into the backyard, without her frantically searching for me through the window.

Upon arriving at Chris and Joelle's place in Paris, I was welcomed by my foster pets Sushi (the grey) and Nasdaq (the black).  Both cats know me well, and like me, though this was the first year that both decided to take up residence on my luggage at the same time.

Sushi was taking a respite from his other new favorite sleeping locale, the drawer in the kitchen (which was recently removed in order to be repaired - the stuff on the floor is the previous content of the being-repaired drawer).  Chris and Joelle's artist friend Serge painted their entire kitchen, and apartment, by hand (but with ornate designs in each room - the kitchen had, of course, a country food theme):

Another fun addition to a French kitchen is the toaster that's big enough to warm croissants and baguettes, but adjustable to do toast too (not that anyone here ever makes toast) - I've got three croissants in this thing in the photo:

Along the theme of food, here's Chris buying cheese at the cheese counter at the local supermarket, the Inno.  You can click the photo and see a much larger size.

This was a cute sign above the cheese counter.  It reads:

If I had a son
to marry off,
I would tell him:
"Beware
the girl
who loves neither wine,
nor truffles,
nor cheese."

And this, below, is a screen capture of an episode of the Borgias I was watching last night.  (Great show.)  And who should appear but one of Chris and Joelle's neighbors here in Paris, Jemima West (playing Jeremy Irons' new love interest, Vittoria/Vittorio).  We're all good friends with her parents, and Chris and Joelle have known Jemima since she was a little girl.  I met Jemima a few years back.  Just a wonderful young woman - British by blood, French by birth, and a fascinating, beautiful mix of the two.  Jemima just got one of the lead parts in a new movie about vampires, called Mortal Instruments.  Keep an eye on this one, she's going places.

And here's another shot of someone who wishes I weren't going places.

Read the rest of this post...

I've cut my asthma Rx dose in half until I get to France because it's just too expensive

What does it say about our country when I have to cut my asthma meds in half - I'm rationing them against the advice of my doctor - because they're just too expensive?

You see, as I've written before, my CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield self employed health insurance has an annual limit on prescription meds - they only cover $1500 a year (which isn't all that much if you have any kind of chronic illness like asthma - my monthly asthma meds are about $500).

And as I've mentioned before, Blue Cross came up with the neat idea of never increasing the amount of coverage that I have for prescription meds - they covered $1500 a year back in 1999 when my premiums were around $150 a year, and they still only cover $1500 a year now that my premiums have tripled 13 years later. And in twenty years, Blue Cross will still only cover $1500 a year, even though that amount of money will be next to worthless because of inflation.

And because of my asthma combined with my cataract surgery (where the eye drops alone cost over $100 a pop, and I needed at least four to six of them), I'm perilously close to my $1500 limit, if I haven't passed it already.

So, rather than take the asthma med dosage that my doctor told me to take, I've cut my one lead medicine in half until I get to France - otherwise I'd have run out of it a week or two ago. Why cut it in half? Because it costs around $200 a month here in the US, and in France I should be able to buy the same medicine, made and sold by the same pharmaceutical firm, for 1/3 to 1/5 the price.

Why are medicines so cheap in France? Not because the government subsidizes the drug - rather, because the pharmaceutical firms agree to charge the French 1/3 to 1/5 of what they charge Americans.

In other words, Americans are subsidizing "socialist" health care in Europe.

So, I'm risking my asthma (which my doctor would tell you is risking my life) because I'm too cheap to keep paying usury prices for drugs in this country. I'll simply go to France on Wednesday, visit my local doctor (who agreed to squeeze me in hours after I land even though she didn't have an opening - "rationing," my ass) and I'll buy the same drug for a fraction of what we pay here.

Health Care Reform changes all of this. It outlaws annual and lifetime limits, like my offensive $1500 annual limit from Blue Cross. If the Republicans get their way, Health Care Reform will be repealed, and my annual limit - and my health care rationing - will continue until I don't.

Talk about your death panels. We already have them, and they're self-imposed. Best health care in the world, my ass. Read the rest of this post...

We owe a good part of our independence to France

A little fact the Republicans conveniently forget every time they bash France.  Then again, far too much Republican "patriotism" isn't based on fact, since facts, you know, have a liberal bias.  From the Library of Congress:

From beginning to end, France supported the Americans in their struggle for independence. In the early stages of fighting, assistance came from idealistic young officers such as Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette (1757-1834), who volunteered his military expertise to help train and lead the Continental Army. Under the guise of neutrality, the French Crown secretly provided arms, uniforms, and other supplies.

When the British defeat at Saratoga in 1777 presented the prospect of American success, however, France began to openly support the rebellion. In 1778 France formally recognized the colonists in the Treaties of Amity and Commerce, negotiated by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), a longtime friend of leading French scientists and philosophers and the first American ambassador to Paris. Franco-American relations were far from perfect, but the mutually beneficial relationship endured for many years.

In no other battle was French military assistance more decisive than in the 1781 Battle of Yorktown. Conceived by French General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807) and General George Washington (1732-1799), the Yorktown campaign involved a combined overland and naval assault on the British troops led by General Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805). Having landed five battalions of infantry and artillery at Rhode Island the year before, Rochambeau and several thousand of his troops joined Washington’s Continental Army in Virginia. By mid-September French naval forces from the West Indies, under the command of Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse (1722-1788), and Continental forces under General La Fayette, had trapped Cornwallis on the Yorktown peninsula.

With the arrival of Washington’s forces on September 28, the Franco-American force laid siege until the British surrender of October 19, 1781. The capture of Yorktown gave the Continental Army control of the Chesapeake and forced the British to enter the peace negotiations that led to British recognition of American independence.

Read the rest of this post...

French police raid Sarokozy's home

Nicholas Sarkozy made a lot of enemies on both sides of the aisle over the years so it's not much of a surprise that someone is continuing the fight. The Guardian:

French police have raided the home and offices of the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as part of an investigation into illegal campaign financing and alleged brown envelopes of cash from France's wealthiest woman, the L'Oreal hairspray heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

Police searched the mansion rented by Carla Bruni in a chic gated community in the west of Paris, where she and Sarkozy live with Bruni's 11-year-old son and the couple's new baby daughter. Officers also searched the office of the legal firm where Sarkozy is a partner and the new office he moved into after losing the presidential election to Socialist Francois Hollande in May.

Read the rest of this post...

The Minitel - truly the first "public" Internet - is gone

The French have pulled the plug on the Minitel, their early experiment (launched in 1982) in creating a public Internet for shopping and other services.

France pulls the plug on the Minitel this weekend, a home-grown precursor of the Internet which brought on-line banking, travel reservations and even sex chats to millions a decade before the World Wide Web.

In a country where resistance to all things “Anglo-Saxon” runs deep, the Minitel evokes both pride at French technological prowess and regret that the country failed to capitalize on the commercial online network, launched in 1982.

By its peak in the late 1990s, some 25 million people in France were using Minitel’s 26,000 services, ranging from checking the weather to buying clothes and booking train tickets.

I remember ads in the Paris Metro would have four digit numbers placed in the corner, that was their Minitel address. Just 4 digits. Made it relatively easy to remember. Rather cool for 1982. Read the rest of this post...

Video: Damien Saez' rousing political anthem to Resistance: "Sons of France"

"Fils de France" (Sons of France) is one of the most powerful political anthems I've heard, and it's modern. Its composer, Damien Saez, is a man to watch. He's one of the best of this generation's singer-songwriters, and a powerful political voice.

I'll have more of his work in future posts.

"Fils de France" was written during the French 2002 presidential election, when Jean-Marie Le Pen (the far-far-right candidate) defeated the center-left candidate, Lionel Jospin, in the first round to enter the final round against Jacques Chirac, who won.

The victory by the racist Le Pen in reaching the second round shocked France and the world.

Couple that with the fact that 40% of French youth didn't vote — 40% — and you can see why Saez is upset. Saez is one of them, of that generation. The song opens with a reference to that lack of engagement by youth (a constant Saez theme).

Saez is always trying to engage the youth politically — something we should be doing here as well. In my own personal and most humble opinion, of course.

Notice please the emphasis on la Resistance (resistance!), with the raised fist. If you come here often, you know I'm a big fan of raising a ruckus, exerting your will, getting in the way of the machine — being effective, in other words.

But maybe that's just me and my "playing to win" fetish.

Listen and watch as Damien Saez performs "Fils de France" live at the Zenith in Paris in 2002. After that, a taste of the lyrics, to get you started.

Enjoy the music. Every time I listen, I can't get the song out of my head.



A taste of the lyrics:

Fils De France
Sons of France

Announcer: "40% of 18–25-year-olds didn't vote. Unimaginable!"

J'ai lu, les larmes aux yeux,
les nouvelles ce matin
    I read, with tears in my eyes,
    the news this morning.

20% pour l'horreur,
20% pour la peur.
    20% voted for horror
    20% voted for fear

Ivre d'inconscience,
tous, Fils de France.
    Drunk with unawareness,
    all of them, Sons of France.

Au pays des lumières,
amnésie suicidaire.
    In the land of the Enlightenment
    suicidal forgetfulness.

Non Non Non Non.

Nous sommes, nous sommes la Nation des Droits de l'Homme.
    We are the Nation of the Rights of Man [a document]
Nous sommes, nous sommes la Nation de la Tolérance.
    We are the nation of Tolerance.
Nous sommes, nous sommes la Nation des Lumières.
    We are the nation of the Enlightenment.
Nous sommes, nous sommes à l'heure de la Résistance.
    We are at the hour of Resistance.

Pour les rêves qu'on a fait, et pour ceux qu'on fera.
    For the dreams that we have done,
    and the dreaming we will do.
Pour le poing qu'on a levé, pour celui qu'on lèvera.
    For the fist that we have lifted,
    and the fist we're going to raise.
Pour un idéal, pour une utopie.
    For an ideal, for utopia.
Allons marchons ensemble enfants de la Patrie,
Fils de France.
    Let us march together, children of the country,
    Sons of France.

[The last is a quote from La Marseillaise, the French national anthem: "Allons enfants de la Patrie..."]

...

Y a ces ombres derrière nous, y a ces idées vendues,
    Behind us there are shadows,
    the traitors and their plots,
y a ces drapeaux qui flottent et des hymnes dessus,
    the banners that they fly,
    their anthems and their shouts,
et puis y a toi mon frère, oui toi qui n'y croit plus
    and then there is you, my brother,
    yes, you who have lost your faith
et puis y a nos prières et nos causes perdues.
    and then there are all our prayers
    and all lost causes too.

Honte a notre pays, honte à notre Patrie,
    Shame on our country, shame on us,
Honte à nous la jeunesse, honte à la tyrannie,
    Shame on us the young, shame on the tyranny,
Honte à notre pays, revoilà l'ennemi,
    Shame on our country; look, the old enemy,
Allons marchons ensemble enfants de la Patrie,
Fils de France.
    Let us march together, children of the country,
    Sons of France.

"The old enemy" is a revolutionary France–era reference to being surrounded by kings who wanted the French Republic to go away — threat as it was to their "divine right" doctrine. They put armies in the field to say so.

We know how that ended (they lost to the Republican army), but it always comes back, that battle. The "old enemy" is rule by elites, as Saez obviously knows. He's quite the rebel, one I really like.

Nous sommes à l'heure de la Resistance. We're at the hour of Resistance.

If you think, as I do, that we're at a global tipping point — true that in spades.

À la Resistance, fils du Monde — Resist, children of the world. It really will be your world soon enough.

Remembering Saez' words: "You who have lost your faith" — do not lose your faith yet.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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France adds more women in government, still below 50%

One of the great failures of the François Mitterrand government was the failure to promote women and non-white candidates. To his credit, Nicholas Sarkozy did a considerably better job than previous governments and promoted a number of women within his team including current IMF chief Christine Lagarde. You can agree or disagree with policy choices, but that was a big step.

The new François Hollande government has appointed women to half of his cabinet, though some have argued that the number is much lower for the top level cabinet positions. Following the parliamentary elections, women now comprise 27% of the parliament, 37% for the socialists. The new parliament includes yet another LePen, the 22 year old niece of the former far right presidential candidate Jean Marie LePen. (Sarkozy's UMP delivered only 14% in the recent elections.)

It's certainly progress, but again, this is still well below the 50% target.

The result lifts France from 69th to 34th in the world for the proportion of female MPs, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international organisation of parliaments. Britain now lies joint 55th.

éjane Sénac, a specialist in gender equality at Sciences-Po and the National Centre for Scientific Research, said there was still no egalité in the French executive. "With 73% of MPs still men, this result has confirmed that parity is a problem that needs to be dealt with. If there had not been the 'pink wave' with the Socialists winning so many seats, we wouldn't even have 27% women," she said.

Sénac called on Hollande to bar political parties from receiving public funds unless they implemented a policy of equality.

It should be noted that despite the modern women's movement having origins in the US, the US is sadly ranked number 78, far behind France and the UK for women in government. The House stands at 17% and the Senate 17% for women representatives. We need to do a lot better than this. How can we expect Washington to properly govern all Americans when the numbers are this far off? This needs to become a higher priority for both political parties. Read the rest of this post...

New French president to limit CEO pay at state owned businesses

François Hollande's 75% tax rate is still going to struggle due to the ease of moving out of France (or any country besides the US) but bringing a dose of fairness is going to be much easier. There will be plenty of complainers who will suggest how difficult it will be to attract top talent but there is even more evidence that shows paying top dollar (or euro) does nothing to attract top talent.

For years we have seen one company after another bump up pay to attract the next Steve Jobs or whatever other CEO of the day is being described as the greatest leader ever. The reality is there was only one Steve Jobs. The others command superstar pay but more often than not, they under-deliver. (We only need to look at Bankia as one recent example.) They're always billed as the leader who will take the business to the next level, but the only thing going to the next level will be the executive pay.

Since Hollande is a Socialist, this change will no doubt trigger a storm of criticism and howling from the so-called free market "capitalists." As in the same free market capitalists who all thought it was important to bail out the lifestyles of the bankers and keep the quantitative easing policies that have been all about free money for bankers to gamble. There hasn't been anything close to a free market or raw capitalism for years so spare me any arguments about socialism. We've had it and it has been socialism for the 1%.

If we are ever going to bring some balance back to society, we're going to need a lot more action like this. We've tried excessive CEO pay and it simply does not provide an acceptable ROI. More on fat cat pay from The Guardian:

The president François Hollande vowed during the election campaign that in majority state-owned companies, the highest salary must not be 20 times more than the pay of the lowliest worker. The squeeze on state fat cats, expected to be enacted by decree next month, is part of the new government's quest for France to set a moral example in a crisis-hit Europe where top earners' stratospheric pay packages and benefits has exasperated workers and voters. The measure will sit alongside Hollande's promised new top tax rate of 75% on income over 1 million euros, which is extremely popular among the French public, and which he has described as an act of "patriotism" and "morality". Socialists brushed aside criticisms from the right that state pay-caps could make it difficult to recruit from private sector.

The prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, aware of the unease at fat-cat excesses weeks before the parliament elections, took a hard line, announcing in an interview with the weekly L'Express that the executive pay-cuts would apply to those already in their posts rather than only new contracts. "I believe in the patriotism of company leaders. They can understand the crisis requires the political and financial elite to set an example". The president and cabinet have cut their own pay by 30%.

Read the rest of this post...

François Hollande pledges support for gay marriage in France

The new French government is planning to make a number of changes on the economy, but they're also looking at many other changes from the past including support for gay marriage. Read the story at AMERICAblogGay. Read the rest of this post...

The train to Versailles decorated like the palace of Versailles

Very cool.  The folks who run the French Chateau of Versailles, the former palace of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who were executed following the French Revolution, have redesigned a few of the regional trains that take passengers from Versailles to Paris.  The design mimics various rooms at Versailles, including the king's library and the queen's bedroom.  Totally cool. (H/t Buzzeum)

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How did Harvard give us George W. Bush?

"I once told a lie that was this big."
Photo via Shutterstock.

It's an interesting question now that yet another French trader is at the center of an ugly loss. That said, I believe the question needs to be opened up well beyond France, since the problem extends far beyond France. The Wall Street crash that required an industry saving bailout was mostly caused by rich, American men. The French have played their part, but let's not kid ourselves.

The Wall Street trading world is heavily dominated by graduates of the top schools, especially top Ivy League schools. Even the Bank of England's Mervyn King complained a few years ago about the financial industry sucking up all of the smart kids. The reasons for their decision is obvious. No other industry can propel them into big money so quickly. When the game is fixed, as much as it is on Wall Street, who wouldn't want a piece of that action?

So the real question that the AFP should be asking is "what's wrong with the top students that our elite schools graduate and why do we allow cheaters to run these companies?"

In 2008 Jerome Kerviel cost Societe Generale nearly five billion euros ($7 billion at the time), in what the bank described as rogue trades.

Two years later Goldman Sachs paid regulators half a billion dollars amid charges it defrauded investors, with Frenchman Fabrice Tourre at the heart of the scandal.

The "Fabulous Fab", as Tourre described himself, flogged exotic mortgage securities and was accused of misleading customers in the process.

Somewhere along the line, the system is failing the world. In theory, these are the best and brightest both in terms of of education and jobs yet they keep failing miserably. Are the schools overrated and teaching poor values? Is it the banks that corrupt everyone with mega-dollars? Whatever it is, we're making an enormous mistake to keep buying into the brilliance of this elite.

Going full Sarah Palin and attacking the elite is too vague and silly, but at the same time, there also comes a time when we need to stop worshiping the products of the top schools. It was a Harvard MBA that forced tax cuts, and started two wars, that the US couldn't afford. (Romney has an MBA and JD from Harvard too.)  A bit of diversity and fresh air at the top would be a refreshing change after years of failure by the chosen few. Read the rest of this post...