If you thought Geert Wilders' haircut was weird, how about this one? The Kinks' Dave Davies with Death of a Clown from 1967. Immortal. Priceless song. The adding of the ethereal background vocals was a stroke of genius.
If you were born past 1980, you gotta know these guys were legendary. Although to be sure, this is a Dave Davies single rather than a Kinks single.
Fast forward to 2007. Amy McDonald was born in 1987, but I'm sure she's well aware of The Kinks. Must be aeons since I heard such a beautiful contralto voice. This is the life is the fourth and most successful single drawn from the Scottish singer/songwriter's debut album with the same name.
"While the year 2005, marked by three weeks of large scale suburbian riots, was particularly dreadful (45,588 cars torched, of which 10,000 during the riots), the evolution has by and large remained unfavorable [Le Monde does not seem to realize that in an article dealing with the downplaying of these events, it is itself using soothing language - MFBB], and a long way from the stats made public in 1999 by the Head of State. Still 44,157 cars burned in 2006, 46,814 in 2007, a little more than 40,496 in 2008 and probably more than 40,000 in 2009, if one has to believe the numbers reported by Le Figaro."
These Le Figaro numbers are fairly correct. It don't take geniuses to produce them, they are simply the result of meticulously composing the national total by snuffing out local, confirmed reports from all over France. In short, we have here the appalling fact that in the course of 5 years... mobs composed of muslim youths (Algerians, Moroccans and immigrants from former colonial French West Africa)... have destroyed in excess of 45,588 + 44,157 + 46,814 + 40,496 + 40,000 =
217,055 cars
If you think the "downward" trend of the past two years is positive, think again. While there is an official governmental blackout on the burnings, French Police has been issued orders to try to stifle the hordes' onslaught. So in the course of the past 5 years, there has been a steady evolution in the deployment of police, a fact that has certainly contributed to keeping the tally at least stable. Take e.g. the fact that the number of cars destroyed on Ney Year's Eve, 1,137, was 10 (ten) lower than the previous year... but then there has been a surge of 10,000 police and riot police vis-a-vis last year, 50,000 compared to 40,000. And double the number of arrests was made, over 500. You have to wonder what it would have been if the French authorities had deployed the same number of police as the year before.
The photo above shows part of the cars torched on New Year's Eve 2010 in the eastern French city of Strasbourg. I just wonder what is more scary... muslim mobs taking over French streets... or the French at large seeming to insist nothing is going on.
Then there is the Grand National Debate on French Identity, the brainchild of French Integration Minister Eric Besson. As I have asserted here before on these pages, if a nation needs a national debate so that its citizens can find out what they stand for, you're in deep shit. You're in deeper shit still if the dork who comes up with the idea states that...
"France is neither a people, nor a language, nor a territory, nor a religion, it is a conglomerate of peoples who want to live together. There is no ethnic Frenchman, there is only an ethnically mixed France."
A French blogger notes that...
"...Besson actually said: "There is only a France of 'métissage'", i.e., "there is only a France where the blood is mixed." Besson has written off completely the existence of a white, European France."
However, when you look at the national French soccer team, Besson's statement may not be that far off the mark:
Where have all the whiteys gone? I count only two of them, nos. 23, Gregory Coupet, and 13, Anthony Reveillere.
Anyway, am I the only one to notice Besson looks like an effeminate pansy? Okay, I KNOW judging people by their looks is a tricky thing, but still... Just like I'm wondering where the whiteys in the French national soccer team are these days, I'm wondering where the Leclercs are. Compare this fella's façade with monsieur Besson's:
Général Philippe Leclerc, WWII commander of the French 2ème Division Blindée (2nd armoured division), which post Normandy gave hell to the Germans. Guy was one tough cookie. After the Nazi surrender, Leclerc met a squad of Frenchmen who had fought on the Eastern Front as troopers of the 33rd Waffen SS Grenadier division, the Charlemagne. He asked them what they were doing in German uniform. One of the prisoners replied: "Et vous mon général, qu'est-ce que vous faites dans un uniforme américain?" Leclerc reportedly had the prisoners lined up and shot. To put this colorful character into context, it may help if you know that he was born on the 22nd November 1902 in Belloy (Picardy) as Philippe de Hauteclocque, the fifth of six children born to Count and Countess Adrien and Marie-Thérèse Van der Cruisse de Waziers. Originally from Artois (a formerly Flemish region heh heh, hence the "Van der Cruisse"), Leclercs family came from a long line of nobility dating back to the 12th century, which participated in the crusades, served at Fontenoy and Wagram, and held office as town councillors. The later general spent his childhood in a rural and traditional environment, where he developed an exceptional toughness as well as a passion for hunting. Also, an ardent patriotism and a Christian faith anchored in Roman Catholicism, which was reinforced through his education by the Jesuit fathers of Providence in Amiens.
We can assume that Général Leclerc never suffered from an identity crisis. We can also assume that if he would be in charge of French Police, car insurance premiums in Fwance would drop like the temperature in Iowa in the first week of January 2010. Perhaps we can even assume that if he were alive today and encountered the man who wants to strip the Fwenchmen of the conviction that they gave the world the Cathedral of Chartres, Gay-Lussac's gas laws, Diderot, Proust, Monet and Manet, Brie and Camembert cheeses, fine booze made from particular white and red grapes, and Citroen cars (as long as they last, that is) he would have him put against a wall and shot.
Wait a minute, did I say that out loud?
Whatever. Speaking of identity, here's a video of a couple of chaps who don't suffer from lack of it. Look at them, they are literally tripping over each other in their ardent desire, according to monsieur Besson, to live together with christian whiteys such as Jean, Claude, Laetitia, Alain, Amélie and Brigitte. Barbès neighborhood, Paris, Christmas day:
And check out our pal Galliawatch from time to time.
After having become aware of the scale of the terrible disaster in Haiti, a post like this one seems appropriate. Close to 100,000 dead, and of course, as bad luck would have it, an epicenter at only 50 kilometers from the capital Port-au-Prince, where the risk of people getting trapped under collapsing buildings was greatest.
Check out your national news sources, you will quickly find a link guiding you to a donation page. If you don't immediately find one, maybe the International Red Cross's site is okay for you.
If you live in Belgium, you might want to donate to Artsen Zonder Grenzen/Médecins sans Frontières. Flemings can follow this link, Walloons this one. I'm pretty sure a gift to AzG/MsF is still rather well spent. I just wired a small amount, please do so too.
People are lying out in the streets. They are desperate, many lost everything. Donate, please. Please.
After all the clatter and the buzz and the frantic activities of another working day, I find myself dreaming of walking...
... here.
Snowdonia, or Eryri for Welshmen, is a region in North Wales, and at the same time a national park of 838 square miles (some 2,170 km2). The highest mountain is the Snowdon, 1,085 meters (3,560 ft), which in Welsh is called Yr Wyddfa. What a beautiful name.
Should be a piece of cake. Wait...
MFBB.
P.S.: pics stolen from Wikipedia. Being an outlaw comes in quite handy.
