"I may have seen some of the stupidest Negroes I've ever seen! A bunch of stupid, mindless Negroes!"

I may have seen some of the stupidest Negroes I've ever seen … the prestigious African-Americans — even though they've never been to Africa … Blacks! You're not African-American, you're black! Stop it! "I agree with [Barack Obama]!  … He's right about everything! … I agree with the president!" … Negroes would follow Barack Obama to Hell if he went there! … A bunch of stupid, mindless Negroes, if I've ever seen stupid and mindless Negroes! … What about hitting yourself in the head with a hammer?! … "Is the president for it?! Okay, I'm for it!" … God, you people! … Wake up, mindless zombies!

Think I'm quoting some terrible Ku Klux Klan member, or some other racist, and therefore I can only be a racist myself? Problem is, of course, that I am quoting The Angry Black Man aka the doctor of common sense (fist bump to Valerie).

Good Grief: How to Figure Out Who Is Racist

Click to enlarge (Thanks to Greg in PA, via Duncan Hill)

Plus Ça Change: Christians Accused of Being Hateful by… Nero (!) …Two Thousand Years Ago (!)

In the year 44 King Herod Agrippa I imprisoned and beheaded James the Greater, the first of the Apostles to die 

writes Andrew Todhunter in the March 2012 issue of the National Geographic. The least one can say is that The Journey of the Apostles (with photos by Lynn Johnson) is extremely revealing. Plus ça change, they say, and it turns out that the period of time in that phrase goes back not only over a period of a generation or two (as perhaps commonly thought), or perhaps over a century or two, but over a period of not one but two millennia!

How many times have you heard that Republicans are horrid, that conservatives are racist, that the West is intolerant, that Christians are hateful?

Well, it turns out that the reason that the early Christians were persecuted, it was because they were… — scratch that! In fact, you see, the early Christians were not persecuted per se, it turns out, they were in fact getting their just desserts for being — yes, wait for it — hateful!

The chickens coming home to roost, to use a phrase used by self-serving leftists the world over. Karma! "Haven't the Christians (early or otherwise) asked themselves why they are despised so much? Haven't they asked themselves why their adversaries (the Romans, in this case) treat them the way they do? Haven't they looked into their (dark) souls?" (Ever notice how the — alleged — hatred in the souls of people in the West is always highly reproachable, while that of everybody else always seems to be understandable and natural and somehow a good thing?)

To quote Tacitus, the early Christians were convicted of — get this — "hatred against mankind".

Indeed, hatred is so much of a no-no, hatred is so politically incorrect (already 2,000 years ago), that when Nero accuses the Christians of being behind the great fire in Rome, with all the death and destruction that this entails, even this "crime of firing the city" is not so much the primary reason given for the Christians' conviction, the Roman historian tells us, as is the (obviously indisputable) fact of the presence in their souls "of hatred against mankind."

Let us let Andrew Todhunter (re)tell the story:

In 64, when a great fire in Rome destroyed 10 of the city's 14 quarters, Emperor Nero, accused by detractors of setting the fire himself, pinned the catastrophe on the growing Christian movement and committed scores of believers to death in his private arena. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote: "An immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind … Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired." In the year 110 Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was arrested by the Romans under Trajan, shipped to Rome, and condemned to death ad bestias—by beasts—at the public games. Bloody episodes like this would recur sporadically for the next two centuries.

Tradition holds that 11 of the Twelve Apostles were martyred. Peter, Andrew, and Philip were crucified; James the Greater and Thaddaeus fell to the sword; James the Lesser was beaten to death while praying for his attackers; Bartholomew was flayed alive and then crucified; Thomas and Matthew were speared; Matthias was stoned to death; and Simon was either crucified or sawed in half. John—the last survivor of the Twelve—likely died peaceably, possibly in Ephesus, around the year 100.

How 'bout that?! Now, in true leftist fashion, we understand the real reason why the Christians were persecuted — or, rather, why they were "persecuted", in quotation marks, since, in some obscure karmic manner, those hateful beings obviously deserved their fate. As French intellectuals said about Americans after the 9-11 tragedy, ils l'ont bien mérité… They had it comin' to 'em…

Update: Two or three years later, a special NG issue on The Rise & Fall of the Roman Empire will mention the Tacitus excerpt again, albeit with a slightly different translation (a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of "hating the human race")

Goodbye, Friend: RIP Ray Harryhausen

Visual effects master Ray Harryhausen, whose stop-motion wizardrystop-motion wizardry graced such films as Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, has died aged 92.

Olavo de Carvalho on socialism: A thousand combat fronts which do not advance the socialist cause ostensibly, but erode the moral and cultural values of capitalist society

Olavo de Carvalho, President of The Inter-American Institute, is interviewed by the Patrick Henry College's Intelligencer Journal on the subjects of Latin America and Socialism (obrigado para Swimming Against the Red Tide, whose post by Luís Afonso Assumpção contains different excerpts of de Carvalho's thoughts, focusing on the role of the late Hugo Chávez, as a… decoy!).

I. The Causes of Socialism

The Intelligencer: What do you believe are the underlying causes for Latin America’s shift toward socialism/communism after the region had implemented at least forms of capitalism?

Olavo: The history of Latin America in the last half century can be divided into three stages. The first, that of military dictatorships and defeat of the armed left. The second, the return of democracy and a phase of fleeting and skin-deep enthusiasm for free-market capitalism, coinciding with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Finally, the general rise of the left.

Clearly, the third stage was prepared during the second, when the public opinion thought that communism was dead and buried forever, when in fact it was only playing dead to catch its enemies by surprise. What happened was that, at the time, the right did not understand at all the process of internal transformation of the communist movement. First, the military had focused on combating the armed left without doing virtually anything against communism at the ideological and cultural levels, which, precisely at the time of the greatest repression, were quietly taken over by leftists. In almost all Latin American countries, leftists dominated the cultural and journalistic apparatus precisely at the moment when the fall of the USSR created among them a state of ideological confusion which is very conducive to a thorough strategic review, which occurred with remarkable speed, without the right—so drunk it was with triumphalistic delusion—even noticing it.

This review consisted of the following items: (1) an organizational reform of the communist parties, which abandoned the old vertical chain of command and adopted a more flexible form of organization based on network structures in order to provide a strategic coordination among all factions of the left, bypassing old ideological divisions, (2) a radical shift in the left’s ideological discourse, which, instead of focusing on a structural transformation of the economy, began to emphasize all sorts of group interests that were antagonistic to the system—against which the left no longer waged open war, but rather launched attacks from a thousand quarters, creating a total confusion in society.

These changes reflect what Augusto del Noce called, somewhat ironically, “the suicide of the Revolution:” once any clear vision of a socialist future was dissolved, the revolutionary struggle crumbled into a seemingly unconnected thousand combat fronts which, according to the same del Noce, did not advance the socialist cause ostensibly, but eroded moral and cultural values of capitalist society, which thus assumed increasingly malignant and odious features. The new generations of supporters of capitalism, already educated without the moral and cultural values that held up the regime, contributed to this process, surrendering themselves to an amoral pragmatism that made capitalism precisely the monster that leftists would wish it to be.

Meanwhile, leftists took advantage of this in order to promote and denounce corruption at the same time, laying all the blame on capitalism. The situation as a whole became so confusing that no one on the right understood what was going on. Stunned and paralyzed, conservatives and free-market liberals gradually yielded to an ideological advance whose communist profile they completely failed to notice. That is how a faction that seemed almost extinct in the early 1990’s became the almost absolute dominating political force on the continent.

The Intelligencer: What about the role of outside allies such as Russia, Iran, or China?

Olavo: The entire strategy of the São Paulo Forum clearly fits into the plans of Russia and China to create a “Brand New New World Order” to be built upon the devaluation of the dollar and the collapse of the American economy. … Note that, at the very moment that the United States are under threat of war, the Obama administration is all about weakening the American military and strengthening domestic law enforcement agencies (arming them even with military-style equipment) at the same time it promotes the destruction of the American economy through pharaonic borrowing and spending. To me it seems that the BRICS’ “Brand New New World Order” is already in power in Washington and sees as inevitable—if not desirable—the social crisis that will allow it to severely limit democratic freedoms.

The Intelligencer: Do you believe that the majority of citizens in socialized Latin American nations really believe in socialist policies, or are demagoguery and/or corruption driving the movement?

Olavo: You have no idea of the state of mental confusion and disconnection from reality in which public opinion finds itself in Latin America, especially in Brazil. None of the problems I have mentioned here is ever discussed in the mainstream media or in the Parliament. Most people believe they still live in a capitalist democracy and do not see the slightest danger of a communist dictatorship. It is as though the last newspaper that came into their hands were from about August 1990. Public debates do not reflect absolutely anything that is really going on. Moreover, it is necessary to understand that many of the profound changes that have been introduced into the social, economic, cultural, and educational life in Latin America have been established through administrative decrees, ministerial directives, and judicial rulings—that is, they have never gone through legislative debate, and they have rarely received any media coverage. Everywhere people understand democracy only as an electoral process, failing to notice that without access to essential information, this process is only a façade, with no reality inside. The state of political ignorance in which the population live today in Latin America, and especially in Brazil, shows that the difference between democracy and dictatorship has become relevant. In the United States, things have not yet reached that point, but they are very quickly approaching it.
  
II. The Future of Socialism

The Intelligencer: What political ideologies do you believe will dominate Latin America in the future?

Olavo: Everywhere on the continent, the political “right” is disjointed and disoriented. In Brazil, the only thing that exists under the name of  “right” is the most moderate wing of the left. In the coming decades, it is possible that some right resurfaces, not so much inspired by the traditional conservative discourse as by moral and religious grounds, since the the dominant left’s insistence on quickly modifying the country’s framework of moral values comes into direct conflict with the religious beliefs of the majority of the population. What seems that is going to happen is not a struggle between socialism and capitalism, but rather between the revolutionary spirit and Christianity.

The DailyMotion Illustration of How Government Intervention Undermines the Free Market

Orange-France Télécom has renounced in its plans to sell Dailymotion to Yahoo! in a Le Monde article that illustrates perfectly how government intervention undermines the free market.

As Cécile Ducourtieux et Alain Beuve-Méry report it, once the French government learned of the proposed sale, it intervened to put a stop to it: "Dailymotion is one of the few content companies these past years which France has succeeded in getting a place on the web," said one internet provider as he summed up the government's thoughts. "It is a real pearl, and which moreover is not losing any money. It would be a real shame to let it go." Later in the article, we learn that with 7.5 million euros in 2009, it is not the first time that the government intervenes in Daily Motion's finances.

(In a similar vein, Gwénaël Pépin informs us that a French government minister has intervened against a "brutal" decision by Apple to ban a French app named AppGratis from its AppStore…)

Selon des sources convergentes, Orange-France Télécom a renoncé à céder l'intégralité de Dailymotion au géant américain Yahoo!

L'opérateur de télécommunications, qui possède 100 % du capital de la plate-forme de vidéo française, cherchait depuis des mois un partenaire américain pour la développer. Mais, il y a trois ou quatre semaines, alertés par des fuites dans le Wall Street Journal, Pierre Moscovici, le ministre de l'économie et des finances, et Arnaud Montebourg, le ministre du redressement productif, ont émis de forts doutes sur l'opportunité d'une telle opération.

"Dailymotion est une des rares sociétés de contenus que la France ait réussi à faire émerger sur le Web ces dernières années, c'est une vraie perle, et qui en plus ne perd pas d'argent. Ce serait quand même dommage de la laisser filer", assure au Monde une figure de l'Internet français.

Pour Stéphane Richard, le PDG d'Orange qui brigue un second mandat à la tête de l'opérateur (l'actuel court jusqu'à mi-2014), il n'était pas question de se brouiller avec l'Etat, qui reste à plus de 27 % son actionnaire. L'ancien directeur de cabinet de Christine Lagarde à Bercy a donc décidé de ne pas poursuivre les discussions sur une base visant à céder une trop grande part du capital de la PME.

L'ÉTAT A DÉJÀ MIS DE L'ARGENT POUR SAUVER LA START-UP

Au gouvernement, on a d'autant plus "tiqué" que l'Etat était venu une première fois au secours de Dailymotion pour aider la start-up à se développer et la mettre à l'abri de l'appétit d'éventuels acquéreurs étrangers. C'était en octobre 2009, le Fonds stratégique d'investissement (FSI) y avait injecté 7,5 millions d'euros. Avant qu'Orange ne prenne le relais : en janvier 2011, le groupe avait annoncé un accord prévoyant sa montée au capital de la société à hauteur de 49 %. Cet accord prévoyait qu'il finisse par en contrôler 100 % en janvier 2013.

"Yahoo! demandait plus de la majorité du capital de Dailymotion, au moins les trois quarts, voire l'ensemble. Le portail américain veut pouvoir intégrer la plate-forme à son offre de contenu", croit savoir une source interne chez Orange.

 … Orange est en effet convaincu que la plate-forme française a besoin d'un partenaire américain. Dailymotion, fondée en mars 2005 par Benjamin Bejbaum et Olivier Poitrey, a certes réussi la performance de devenir un concurrent crédible de YouTube, géant mondial de la vidéo sur le Web et filiale de Google.

C'est une des pépites de l'Internet français, comme OVH, une société nordiste qui propose des services d'hébergement informatique, ou la plate-forme d'écoute de musique Deezer (dans laquelle Orange a également pris une participation, en 2010).

"Dailymotion dispose d'une superbe plate-forme technologique, elle est désormais parvenue à l'équilibre", précise un proche du dossier. Comme YouTube, la société a fondé son modèle économique sur la génération de revenus publicitaires. Elle travaille activement à attirer des contenus de qualité sur ses sites Web, afin de faire venir aussi les annonceurs. Elle parie aussi un peu sur la vidéo à la demande, et a commencé son internationalisation (le site est disponible en 16 langues).
 
BESOIN D'UN PARTENAIRE

Mais la différence d'audience et de moyens avec YouTube reste abyssale. Dailymotion comptabilisait 112 millions de visiteurs uniques par mois en janvier 2013, selon l'institut ComScore, alors que la filiale de Google a passé la barre du milliard de visiteurs uniques par mois début 2013.

 … Aujourd'hui, pour que le dossier Dailymotion avance, la question est de savoir si Marissa Mayer, la charismatique patronne de Yahoo !, arrivée l'été dernier à la tête du portail américain pour tenter de le redresser (il est en perte de vitesse par rapport à Google ou Amazon), va accepter que les Français lui dictent leurs conditions...

Cardinal Questions for the Believers

… semblant entériner un combat perdu, [le cardinal André Vingt-Trois] reconnaît : "Nous ne devons plus attendre des lois civiles qu'elles défendent notre vision de l'homme."

Ainsi écrit Stéphanie Le Bars dans Le Monde sur le sujet du mariage gay (gay marriage) qu'il remet dans un contexte plus large.

Aux croyants, il précise que "la pointe du combat n'est pas une lutte idéologique ou politique" et les met en garde contre "les protections trompeuses d'une organisation en ghetto ou en contre-culture". Il les appelle à vivre en conformité avec leurs paroles. "A quoi bon combattre pour la sauvegarde du mariage hétérosexuel stable si nos propres pratiques rendent peu crédible la viabilité de ce modèle ? A quoi bon nous battre pour défendre la dignité des embryons, si les chrétiens tolèrent l'avortement dans leur propre vie ? A quoi bon nous battre contre l'euthanasie si nous n'accompagnons pas nos frères en fin de vie ?"

Hollande's First Year in Power

After 12 months in the Élysée palace, François Hollande can only be said to have had a disastrous first year — as depicted as a typical Frenchman on the cover of Courrier International (obrigado para Underscore), albeit with hardly a seductive facial expression, a presentable loaf of baguette, and a ridable (tricolored) bicycle.
One year in, writes Anne-Elisabeth Moutet in the Daily Telegraph (merci à Evelyne), François Hollande has "alienated most voters, antagonised Angela Merkel, driven droves of French into exile and presided over a worsening economy": "Mr Normal has become the Pitiful President"

With hindsight, it seems as if François Hollande’s troubles started the day he was inaugurated, on May 15 2012. First he was drenched by a surprise storm as his open Citroën drove up the Champs-Elysées. Then, the very same day, his Falcon plane was hit by lightning on the way to Berlin, where he was scheduled to meet Angela Merkel – making it possibly the first and last time the German Chancellor has felt unreserved sympathy for him.

The new president had to turn back before travelling to Berlin in another aircraft. When he got there – in more pouring rain – he missed a turn on the airfield red carpet while reviewing German troops, and had to be steered back in the right direction by Mrs Merkel’s firm grip on his elbow, a moment that presciently symbolised their future relationship.

And everything went downhill from there.

One year later, the man who had billed himself as the “normal president” during his victorious campaign against Nicolas Sarkozy is breaking records for unpopularity. With 75 per cent against him, Hollande is scoring the lowest approval ratings of any president of the Fifth Republic since the country started conducting polls. Unemployment has risen by 11.5 per cent since his election, reaching an all-time high of 3.2 million. An estimated 150,000 young people have left the country in search of better prospects abroad: the only jobs created in France have been in the public sector, usually in fields such as teaching that are solidly controlled by Socialist voters.

Despite a widely touted “austerity” drive, public spending stands at 57 per cent of GDP – the figure in Britain is 45 per cent – and the country’s public debt is about to reach 94 per cent of GDP. The largest street demonstrations since 1984 – when the country also had a Socialist president, François Mitterrand – have brought more than a million people on to the streets of Paris on two occasions (and more are planned), to protest against justice minister Christiane Taubira’s new law on gay marriage and adoption: given that France is a fairly tolerant society, these were effectively a street referendum against Hollande.

 … Despite a widely touted “austerity” drive, public spending stands at 57 per cent of GDP – the figure in Britain is 45 per cent – and the country’s public debt is about to reach 94 per cent of GDP. The largest street demonstrations since 1984 – when the country also had a Socialist president, François Mitterrand – have brought more than a million people on to the streets of Paris on two occasions (and more are planned), to protest against justice minister Christiane Taubira’s new law on gay marriage and adoption: given that France is a fairly tolerant society, these were effectively a street referendum against Hollande.

 … “The country is drowning in an ocean of discouragement,” said Christophe Barbier, the influential editor of L’Express. “It’s not just the tax-avoiding rich, artists like Gérard Depardieu, businessmen – everyone is now tempted to leave for a better life elsewhere. Young people feel they will never get a break, a job, a sign of trust. Entrepreneurs have to fend off red tape, rising costs and levies.”

In April, to add to this toxic climate, came the Cahuzac scandal: France’s budget minister, the man in charge of fighting tax fraud, was revealed to have a secret bank account in Switzerland – and in all likelihood another in Singapore – and to have lied to the president and parliament about it.

In the past week, polls have given Marine Le Pen, the far-Right National Front leader, record numbers in a hypothetical presidential election – 23 per cent, well above Hollande at 19 per cent, while Sarkozy scored 34 per cent. Were Sarkozy to stand, he would beat Le Pen easily in the second round but the talk in France has been of the dangers of Fascism, beginning with the very real distrust of all politicians and of the ruling class.

Torture in the Sahara: Not an Issue Although It Is Another Foreign Defeat for Obama in the Arab World

Even Morocco makes the Apologizer-in-Chief pull back, we learn from Le Monde's Alexandra Geneste in a report that not even conservative websites seem to have picked up.

After asking for support from Moscow and Beijing (no difficult feat), and following only two weeks of protest against Susan Rice's initiative (supported by the Robert F. Kennedy Center), Rabat managed to get Washington to drop talk of human rights in the Western Sahara for another year.

Of course, it's only when torture, real or alleged, is conducted by a Western country — especially if it is not under a leftist president — that it becomes a scandal as well as an international cause célébre.

Sans prévenir aucun de leurs partenaires au sein du Groupe des amis du Sahara occidental (Russie, France, Royaume-Uni et Espagne), les Etats-Unis avaient préparé un projet de résolution proposant la création d'un mécanisme de surveillance des droits de l'homme intégré à la Minurso. L'initiative, défendue avec acharnement par l'ambassadrice américaine Susan Rice, a déclenché l'ire de Rabat, qui considérait cette démarche comme une atteinte à sa souveraineté. Il l'a rejetée "catégoriquement" et a reporté sine die des manoeuvres militaires prévues avec les Américains.

LETTRE DE PROTESTATION

Le roi du Maroc, Mohammed VI, aurait dépêché ses conseillers en Russie et en Chine pour solliciter l'appui de ces deux membres permanents du Conseil de sécurité. Pis, selon une source diplomatique, il aurait adressé une lettre de protestation au président Barack Obama. Deux semaines de lobbying effréné plus tard, Washington, "refusant sans doute de s'aliéner un pays stable dans la région et un allié en matière de lutte antiterroriste, a capitulé", résume une source proche du dossier. …

"OCCASION MANQUÉE"

Les ONG regrettent "une occasion manquée". Pour Philippe Bolopion, le directeur de Human Rights Watch auprès de l'ONU, "il est regrettable que les Etats-Unis, qui avaient au départ une position louable, aient reculé si vite sans obtenir une seule concession marocaine". Selon lui, toutefois, le Maroc "a senti le vent du boulet" et a bien conscience que tout faux pas lui sera vite reproché.
Si les experts ne s'expliquent pas ce qui a motivé l'initiative américaine – sauf à spéculer sur le rôle de l'ONG pro-démocrate et pro-sahraouie Robert F. Kennedy Center, dont la présidente serait proche du secrétaire d'Etat John Kerry –, le rapport 2013 du département d'Etat consacrait 12 pages à la situation des droits de l'homme au Sahara occidental. "Les forces de sécurité marocaines sont impliquées dans la torture, les coups et autres mauvais traitements infligés aux détenus sahraouis", souligne le document. Des violations confirmées, en mars 2012, par le rapporteur spécial de l'ONU sur la torture, Juan Mendez, à son retour du Maroc et du Sahara occidental.

Depardieu Plays Strauss-Kahn in a Reenactment of the IMF Chief's Sexual Assault Trial

Gérard Depardieu is the spitting image of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, writes the Daily Mail (merci à Duncan), as the French movie star as the Russian movie star plays the IMF chief on a set in New York reenacting the media storm surrounding the sexual assault trial in the company of Jacqueline Bisset co-starring as his then-wife, the French TV reporter Anne Sinclair.

In an interview with Swiss Television RTS last year, Depardieu revealed he agreed to play the part because he found his fellow countryman 'arrogant and smug', adding: 'He is very French. I will do it, because I don't like him.'

The Stars & Stripes After Immigration Reform

As Le Monde praises Barack Obama to the heavens for his ambition for a historic plan on immigration, Selçuk delivers a cartoon portraying the American flag in the new flavors of the new world created by The One…

Cartoon on Iraqi Elections That Avoids Any Reference to Who Made those Elections Possible

• That guy is scary!

A Plantu cartoon on the elections in Iraq, of all places, that — again — manages to avoid any references to George W Bush and obliterate any positive references to what, and to who, made those elections possible in the first place…

French Cartoonist Uses Boston Terror Attack to Lash Out at… Handguns?!?!

• The question we must ask is: who can be so hateful towards this type of sport?

Since a leftist is at the helm of the White House, Le Monde's Xavier Gorce makes a totally asinine cartoon — deliberately abstaining from making any profound statement on terrorism or on the state of our world — while Plantu uses his cartoon not to damn terrorism — let alone to say that America and it's president are somehow responsible — but to demonize… handguns?!?!

No statement à la "The question we must ask is: did America create these terrorists?" from this crew, as in Bush's time…

If Bush DOES Intervene Militarily Abroad, He Is to Be Lambasted; If Dubya Does NOT Intervene Abroad, He Is… ALSO to Be Lambasted

Former President George W. Bush rejected a request from former Mexican President Felipe Calderon to use armed drones to curb the growing influence of drug cartels, the Washington Post reported Saturday

writes Mollie Reilly. Or, as the Huffington Post summarized the story on AOL's front page:

George W. Bush Ignored Leader's Plea

A report suggests that Bush denied a request from the president of Mexico in 2006 -- and it could've possibly alleviated a problem today.

When Bush DOES use the military abroad, it can only create problems;
when Dubya does NOT use the military abroad, it can… only… (wait for it) create… problems…

In the meantime, of course, we learn that Syria has used chemical weapons in its possession. Needless to say, this in no way means that Syria's former neighbor, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, ever used, or tried to obtain, his own weapons of mass destruction — what a ridiculous idea!

When a French Village Receives $100,000 From a Texas Oilman

The small French village of Aurignac could not believe its eyes

writes Clémentine MAZOYER (merci à Valerie) in a story that shows the heartlessness of the evil capitalists, especially the filthily-rich oilmen of (the Republican-dominated state of) Texas

when a Texas oilman … offered $100,000 (about 77.000 euros) to restore the Languedoc village's small Saint Pierre church. …

L'argent servira à l'embellissement de l'église 

L'Association de Sauvegarde du Vieil Aurignac a touché l'argent il y a une quinzaine de jours. Une réunion a eu lieu avec les membres de l'association, de la mairie, propriétaire de l'église, et des responsables religieux, pour faire un constat des travaux nécessaires. La mairie devrait s'occuper des gros travaux tandis que l'association se penchera sur l'embellissement. "Nous avons des trésors dans cette église, et des tableaux à rénover," explique Renée Ragnès qui estime que les travaux dureront près de deux ans. 

Pour Jean-Michel Losego, maire de la commune, un tel cadeau "c'est un bonheur." Aurignac a "le problème de toutes les communes qui, riches à un moment donné, ne le sont plus", et qui se retrouvent avec un patrimoine considérable àentretenir. 

Pas tout à fait une première pour Aurignac 

Car Aurignac n'en est pas à son premier don venu d'Amérique. En 1911, Bertrand Adoue, enfant pauvre d'Aurignac part faire fortune à Dallas (Texas) où il devient banquier. A sa mort, il lègue une partie de sa richesse aux nécessiteux du village. 

Par ailleurs, un étudiant d'Aurignac touche encore chaque année une bourse de près de 500 euros grâce aux intérêts produits par un don fait à la même époque par une autre Aurignacaise, émigrée aux Etats-Unis.

WWII: Disney, and Donald, and Mickey to the Front

During World War II, Walt Disney sent characters from his menagerie to

take part in home front and front line activities. Donald Duck, as a marine, symbolizes that the pen is now equal to the sword, while other characters represent a variety of wartime roles: Thrifty Pig symbolizes the might of industry, Minnie Mouse is a Red Cross volunteer, Dopey the dwarf purchases war bonds, Flower the skunk is a member of the chemical warfare service, and Thumper the rabbit is in the army signal corps. The insignia characters for the Flying Tigers and the PT boat Mosquito Squadron in the sky represent two of more than 1,200 designs created at the Disney studio.

Hooded, hanged, and left in agony for hours on end: Shame on the U.S. Army and on — wait, it's worse, it's the dastardly Israelis! What is it you say? The Palestinians? Oh right, who cares, then…

Awful news from the shameful American army — Suspects have been tormented and tortured in what is supposedly a civilized nation! Shame! Shame! Shame on America! The entire nation, the entire world must learn about the —

Oh wait, hold on a minute. Wazzat? Worse? Worse?! The news are worse! It turns out that the torture is the doing of Israel! The shameful Israelis! Wait until world opinion hears about those dirty, oppressive sons-a-bi—

Oh, wait — what is it we learn from The Daily Mail's David Rose?

The what? Oh, it's the Palestinians? Uh — okay… Oh well, then — who cares about the event then?… Le'ss jus' ignore it…

France Seen Fom Abroad (Cliché!)

Cliché (merci à Carine)

Les Cagoules Blanches: That the KKK Inspired French Copycats Is Not Something You Often Hear About

…either in France or in America…

In its 75 Years Ago section, the International Herald Tribune (then the New York Herald) reprinted a summary of a 1937 report as follows:

1937 Police Investigate French Klan

 PARIS — The French police continued … to search the apartments of persons here and in the provinces who are suspected of membership in the Rightist terroristic society called “Les Cagoules Blanches” (White Hoods), but were unable to find evidence linking the group to any of a series of political crimes which have occurred recently. Investigators remained convinced that the society had had no connection with the bombings on September 11 of the two employers’ buildings in the Etoile district. Police are attempting to connect the French version of the Ku Klux Klan with at least four unsolved mysteries.

The Marquis de Sade's “120 Days of Sodom”: It’s a Sadistic Story, and France Wants It

“The 120 Days of Sodom,” by the Marquis de Sade, is one of the most perverse works of 18th-century literature

writes Elaine Sciolino.

It tells the story of four rich “libertines” who lock themselves in a remote medieval castle with 46 victims (including eight boys and eight girls, ages 12 to 15). The men are assisted by four female brothel keepers who arouse their hosts by recounting their outlandish (and embellished) experiences.

The work describes orgies and acts of abuse — sexual and otherwise — including pedophilia, necrophilia, incest, torture, rape, murder, infanticide, bestiality, violent anal and oral sex acts and the use of urination and defecation to humiliate and punish. 

Sade called it “the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began.” 

There is nothing erotic about it. 

Even Bruno Racine, director of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the National Library, calls it “depraved.” 

But that hasn’t stopped him from negotiating long and hard to buy Sade’s manuscript. He has convinced the Foreign and Culture Ministries of its importance. He has argued in front of the Commission of National Treasures to declare it provisionally a “national treasure” that needs to be preserved in the library. And he is ready to pay more than $5 million to get it. 

“The document is Sade’s most atrocious, extreme, radical work,” Mr. Racine said. “But we make no moral judgment about it.” A rambling, unfinished draft, “120 Days” has been praised and vilified. Simone de Beauvoir defended it as an important contribution to the dark side of humanity in her essay “Must We Burn Sade?”

 … Since taking over as director of the Bibliothèque Nationale in 2007, he has sought to have important manuscripts classified as “national treasures” in order to acquire them for the library.

 Among other purchases, he has bought Casanova’s memoirs with $9.6 million from an anonymous donor; the archives of the French philosopher Michel Foucault; and the archives of the French Marxist theorist, writer and filmmaker Guy Debord (preventing them from leaving the country and going to Yale). 

“I don’t know of any director of a world-class library today who is making the kind of brilliant strategic acquisitions that Bruno Racine is making at the Bibliothèque Nationale,” said Paul Le Clerc, the former head of the New York Public Library and the director of Columbia University’s programs in Europe. 

Now Mr. Racine is negotiating with Mr. Perrone and the heirs of Mr. Nordmann to buy the Sade manuscript and give each party a cut. The estimated sale price — more than $5 million — would be raised from private donors. 

Mr. Racine’s goal is to put the manuscript on display, along with other Sade works in the library’s collection, for the 200th anniversary of Sade’s death next year. 

“It is a unique, exceptional work, and a miracle that it survived,” he said. “It is part of our cultural heritage. Whether we like it or not, it belongs in the Bibliothèque Nationale.”