How Sarko got his groove back

The news is so odd these days. While most of the EU is now officially in recession, France continues to show positive growth - the only EU country that still is, IIRC. Today I just read that Sarkozy is taking advantage of this to press his case for a more controlled form of global capitalism, in this interesting NPR article. They have a lot of good ideas to take to the table, but can you spot the key problem that will make sure no serious changes are ever actually implemented?

Sarkozy and the Europeans want to change the rules of the financial game. They speak of more regulation, lower corporate salaries, global governance and binding multilateral measures enforced by international organizations — the kind of talk that makes American free-marketeers shiver.

Call me cynical.....

The best election news so far

One can only wonder how much better McCain might have done if not for the appalling choice to run with this creature...

JibJab comes through again

2004's "This Land" video was hilarious, and this one is just as entertaining. No matter what your political persuasion, you'll probably be amused. I especially love the Obama bit. And I can truly add that the best way to watch a US election campaign is from 3000 miles away across an ocean...

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Elections improve US image abroad

Here's me waving hello from the beach at La Turballe. I love Brittany in June - perfect weather and empty coastline. I'm posting to share a good story I ran across on Digg the other day:

Democratic Primary Boosts U.S. Image Around the World


I can confirm the gist of the article. We've been somewhat startled and amused by the sheer intensity of the British and European fascination with the events of this election - Every tiny event has been headline news across France and the UK. There's a sense of hope and optimism that is positively tangible - No great surprise after the global disaster that the Bush presidency has been. On a personal level, I probably speak for a lot of US expats when I say what a huge relief it will be to no longer have to introduce ourselves at parties with, "Hi, I'm American, but please don't hate me, I didn't vote for Bush". It makes me a bit warm and sentimental to watch the sheer enthusiasm abroad over the possibility that the US may turn itself around on some of the policies that have made us international pariahs these past years. And I love the quotes from the article:

"The primaries showed that the U.S. is actually the nation we had believed it to be, a place that is open-minded enough to have a woman or an African American as its president," said Minoru Morita, a Tokyo political analyst.

"I think it will be put down as a shining, historical moment in the history of America," said Fumiaki Kubo, a professor at Tokyo University.

"Obama is the exciting image of what we always hoped America was," said Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, a London think tank. (Of course, he's probably also the presidential candidate most likely to be assassinated since Kennedy....)

"Germany is Obama country," said Karsten Voight, the German government's coordinator for German-North American cooperation. "He seems to strike a chord with average Germans," who see him as a transformational figure like John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr. (*Cough*, see comment above)

For my own part, I'm pretty much happy with all three nominees, though it now seems Hillary may be out for good. I do believe that come November, regardless of who ends up in the oval office, the US may find the rest of the world is a much more welcoming place.

In honor of election season

Some things actually do change with time!

Election 2008

Public Healthcare breeds Terrorists

We had a little surprise visitor in the workshop.

I have nothing of the slightest importance to say today, except to pass along a soon-to-be-classic example of how utterly insane Fox News is, "National Healthcare: Breeding ground for terror?"

Yes, truly, putting a question mark at the end of your inane headlines really makes it serious journalism instead of rank tabloid-ism, oh yes... "Fox News: Run by Marmits?"

Fortunately the strange-looking muppet they chose to be their talking head manages to dissolve any hope he had of making a point simply by how silly he looks. His babbling statements aside, who would look at that guy and think, "Here's someone with an opinion the nation should hear"?

My other laugh this week came from Charles Bremner's blog entry, "Jogging is not French, Mister President". The French are upset that our new president goes jogging. I quote Mr. Bremner: "As a correspondent, you try to avoid reinforcing national stereotypes but sometimes the French don't let us. Where else, for example, would people argue that jogging is a capitalist pastime that is designed to undermine serious thought and democracy? "

I find humanity endlessly entertaining! :D

In local news, I've just posted a gallery of pics taken from the air of our area. Enjoy!

Off to the voting booth!

Watching someone else's presidential election is fun. It's like a grand party where you have no control but also no responsibility either - If everyone has a good time, you can join in, but if someone burns the house down, you can get the hell out too. France has roughly a dozen candidates in the running for president, and today is the day of the first round, where two will be chosen to go on to the final vote. The front runners are Sarkozy, Royal, Bayrou, and Le Pen, whose political positions can be summed up as follows:

Bayrou - "I believe in governmental gridlock, and I like cows"

Le Pen - "France is for French people as long as they're white"

Royal - "I am the Blairite Socialist, no, I am pro-business, no, wait, I hate business, more welfare for the people, more state money! Vote for me, I am pretty"

Sarkozy - "Start working harder, you lazy fuckers, and let's put this country back on the world map again"

For my part, I'm just happy and bemused to watch an entire presidential campaign where no one even mentions religion, family values, abortion, or whether anyone ever smoked pot as a teen. And there's no "Swift Boat" bullshit, either. It's weird. I'd almost call it civilized politics for adults if Royal would stop comparing herself to Joan of Arc (She should maybe think that story through a little further before she uses that comparison again, considering how the story came out...).

On the plus side, if Ségo wins, we'll have the world's prettiest president!

They Are Coming, Version 2.0

Today's pic is a nice shot I snapped on the way back from our Sunday at Quimiac. While France is not as experimental in the use of wind power as some other countries, this particular windmill is really operational, though I suspect it's usage is more scenic than practical.

A lot has happened since I last wrote. The government has completely scrapped the CDE employment contract in a humiliating climbdown that proves the current administration really is as toothless as international jokes make it out to be. My own feelings were best summed up in the Expatica article on the hysteria surrounding "Le Précarité" - the total shock evidenced by people's reactions here to a bill that would likely greatly reduce youth unemployment by making it easier to fire poor employees. Heavens above! I might have to survive through a two year period when I could be fired! How can anyone live with such stress??

Ahem, sorry, my sarcasm is showing...

In other news, Em and I are braced for Parental Visit 2.0, or "Emily's Parents Strike Back", or "Parents 2, Electric Boogaloo". In theory, they are coming at the end of this month. I say "in theory" because Emily's parents utilize a planning and traveling style that is so diametrically opposite to my parents as to be impenetrable to me. During the lead-in to my parents' visit, my mother would email me nineteen times a day questioning every tiny aspect of the trip - Is this pre-paid, is this reserved, have these tickets come yet, how do we get from X to X, etc. It was a fully prepared, micromanaged, highly scheduled operation that ran like a tactical military assault (and pretty much left all of us dead from exaustion once their ten days here were up). By contrast, Em's parents don't even seem to have their plane tickets yet, and their date of arrival is supposedly barely two weeks away. We're not sure exactly when they're coming, where we'll be meeting them, or whether they will actually come. Emily seems content with this vagueness, so I assume it is normal operating procedure and simply float along making pipes, expecting at any moment for them to turn up without notice on the doorstep.

The nice thing about this more-relaxed approach is that I expect their visit to be the same - a peaceful couple of weeks of casual walking about and birdwatching, instead of the hardcore Griswold's European Vacation experience of my parents' visit. ("C'mon kids, we've got nine thousand three hundred works of art to see, and the Louvre closes in fifteen minutes!") So, if people wonder why the website goes quiet for a few weeks of early May and there aren't frequent new pipe updates, it will be because we're all sitting in an outdoor café somewhere in a tiny rural village finishing up our lunchtime crépes and trying to figure out what European bird variant is nesting in the steeples of the gothic church tower.

Sunday at Quimiac

While, from the news reports I read, it seems that half of France is rioting or striking or burning things, it's pretty quiet out here in Brittany. I've been following the growing chaos surrounding the government's CPE law with lots of amusement and absolutely zero sympathy for the protestors (My own thoughts on this were well-represented in this Expatica article). Hearing people with a 25% unemployment rate screeching over a law that would allow employers to fire them at will for two whole years before job entrenchment sets in is like.....well, a lot like hearing my American friends complaining about their "high cost of gas". One nods in polite sympathy and struggles to hide one's giggles. It's really difficult to take someone's complaints seriously when they're sawing their own feet off as they protest, though.

Em and I took off for the coast this Sunday afternoon, with the sun bright and the weather warm. One of our favorite little hidden spots is the Baie of Carbonais, a fantastic rocky beach with some fascinating stratification and erosion patterns to the stone. We had to get out of the house - Non-stop work lately has pretty much made mushrooms of the both of us. It was really odd to see that big blazing bright thing in the sky again, whatever it was called. Not much more to say for the moment, though here's a classic photo of Em clambering around on the rocks, and those interested can also download a brief 16 meg video of what this beach looks like (Supply your own salt spray):

What I Crave

This is a photo of the honey maker's house in La Roche-Bernard. It's a sort of museum/factory/shop devoted to the art of making things with honey and beeswax, and really a neat place to visit. The fellow who runs it makes an award-winning Chouchen, which is a really sweet Breton honey mead... accent on "Sweet"! Chouchen is a bit of a Love-It-or-Hate-It drink, but I'm fond of it, especially since I can drink it from an authentic mead horn gifted to me by kind friends from across the border :)

As to today's title, here is what I crave. My French friends should find this amusing. They keep complaining about the quality of McDonald's "food", and I keep telling them that McD's is really the bottom of the barrel in American food, the problem is that the good stuff doesn't seem to get exported. What I would not give for a Ragin' Cajun, with spicy Pepper Jack and Cajun sauce, or a Firehouse Chicken or Red-Hot Buffalo Chicken sandwich. Arg!

It seems Chirac has made a fool of himself on the world stage again. I can't help but wonder that he does not realize such antics as this only make him (and France, by representation) look rather pitiable and pathetic, not proud and offended as he seems to think. Yes, English is the language of international business. The French can laugh at us once Chinese becomes the language of international business, but for the moment it would be better to just deal with it and use it to their advantage, rather than continually whining and trying to turn the clock back to 1900. C'est la vie...

And finally, my friend Steve sent me this link to what he described as "the scariest pictures he had ever seen on the net". No, they are not graphic or bloody - This is a professional photographer's page, but he does have a unique visual style with color and re-touching that lends the gallery a really disturbing look. If only I could make pipes this creepy...

A Little of the Old Ultra-Violence

Bonjour! In answer to the various folks from the US who keep emailing us, yes, we are still alive and doing fine so far as we ride our way through this bizarre wave of violence that has seized France. I thought today's picture was a nice choice, since we may all end up living in such places! This is a little museum down near La Croisic. It was originally a German artillery emplacement in WW2, and it's quite an interesting historical oddity. The thickness of the reinforced solid concrete walls is as astounding as the paranoia-inducing interior is claustrophobic - The place seems built to be staffed by dwarves, as the ceilings were constantly scraping my head. The funniest bits about it are the painted windows on the exterior (visible when the pic is enlarged). Fearful of naval shelling from sea, the wily Germans built a quick roof on the thing and painted fake windows on the sides, hoping to fool Allied warships into believing it was an ordinary house!

I don't know what to make of the wave of riots that has hit France. At first, we brushed it off as normal Paris craziness, but as the ripples of violence have spread out through the country, we have grown increasingly cautious. Over the past few nights there have been riots in Nantes and Rennes, both barely an hour's drive from here even though they are different worlds from our rural area. What has boggled me the most is the near-total non-response from the French government - A UK paper recently ran the headline "French government fiddles while Paris burns", and it isn't far off the mark. When the LA riots occurred in the US, the National Guard was on the spot almost immediately and there was no joking around about the use of lethal force. I am very surprised that this has been allowed to run so long without military intervention, but Chirac seems to be slipping into a near-catatonic disconnect with the populace he supposedly governs. The whole country feels, to me, momentarily like a huge ship whose helmsman has just decided to take an unannounced break... Sheer inertia keeps things moving forward, and everyone still has to get to work, but there is a palpable sense that no one is quite in charge. Sarkozy and Villepin keep pulling the situation first one way and then the other (I told my mother it was like putting Dick Cheney and Ted Kennedy in co-charge of a US crisis, and giving them equal authority). To put it mildly, the message is mixed... First they want to negotiate with the rioters, then the rioters are scum, then the government is announcing massive welfare spending to help these people, and then the riot police are given powers to raid any homes at will. I hope to write more on this later - I have invited some of the locals here in Herbignac to contribute their thoughts, so perhaps I'll have some interesting insights to pass along the next time I post. In the meantime, we'll just keep the window shades cranked down and a hefty crowbar near at hand!