France, Food, Scooters and More

WHAT HAS CHANGED?

A teenager carries a gun illegally in a city and state away from his home. He shoots two people dead. Now a discussion ensues that includes the media and public officials as to whether he should be considered a villain or a hero.

What has changed? Something must have changed. Have we changed or have the rules changed?

Are we so habituated to violence that the idea of a high schooler, a kid barely old enough to shave, walking down a street and shooting people indiscriminately - apparently including someone begging him to stop - is OK as long as we agree with his politics? Or have we decided that the Ten Commandments or, if you are not religious, The Golden Rule no longer apply in modern America? Is that the real answer, that our opinion of the use of violence depends on our politics and not our morality? Because if that's the case, then the folks who believe that America no longer values their lives have every right to walk down Main Street and start shooting too. So far, their violence, and the violence of those who have committed acts in their name, has been directed at property, not people. Is this new reality of teenage vigilante justice what we want, what we are willing to accept?

To be clear, violence on either side of a political issue is abhorrent. It should be possible to support a cause while, at the same time, denouncing violence in the name of the cause. That's why taking a knee is different than smashing windows. And that's why we should honor the Constitutional right to do the former and punish to the full extent of the law those who do the latter.

Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette cross-pollinated the US Constitution and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man at about the same time, the late 18th Century. Less than a generation later, Napoleon crowned himself emperor of France and began rampaging through Europe. That's how quickly a society can lose moral and ethical focus. It's a lesson that America is too young to have learned. Let's hope that the lesson doesn't include continued and escalating violence.

An Hour of Comfort Rock - #9

TO PRESERVE HISTORY, GERMANS ERECT STATUE OF HITLER IN MUNICH

No, calm down. That hasn't happened and it ain't gonna happen.

I'm the first one to agree that comparisons of modern political figures to Hitler are often overblown and without merit. But putting that aside, can you just imagine the outrage if such were to come to pass, Germans celebrating Hitler with statues as an important component of German history that needed to be preserved in bronze in public spaces? Other than a few right-wing, brain-dead fanatics, modern-day Germans would simply not stand for such a thing.

Now ask the following question. Why is it acceptable to erect statues to traitorous American slave holders like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, who prosecuted a treasonous war that killed a higher percentage of adult American males than any war in American history, all for the purpose of preserving the institution of slavery?

Don't. Just don't try to tell me that preserving slavery was not the cause of the American Civil War nor its ultimate aim. Only fuzzy-thinking college professors and Southern apologists push their theories of States Rights and Northern economic aggression. Don't. Just don't. Instead, read what elected state legislators said themselves as they announced their decision to secede from the Union.

Here are the second and third sentences of Georgia's secession statement: "The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." Even more telling is the second sentence of Mississippi's statement: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world." Both Texas and Virginia refer to the grievances of 'slave-holding states' throughout their declarations.

I submit that the memories of the rebels who have been honored with statues throughout the United States do not deserve preservation. I submit that their statues deserve the same fate as the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2003 or the statue of Josef Stalin in Budapest during Hungary's October Revolution in 1956 or the statue of George III in Manhattan in 1776 just days after the Declaration of Independence was ratified.

Have no fear. The guiding lights of the Confederacy will not be forgotten. They just need to be relegated to the place where they belong, the trash heap of history, covered in contempt rather than gilded bronze. Pigeon shit is too good for them.

TURN ON, TUNE IN, TURN IT UP: GUITAR HEROES - #7

...and Walsh and Duane Allman and Dicky Betts and Bonamassa and...

WALK AMONG THE POPPIES - MAY, 2020

The poppies explode in the fields outside of Quarante about every two or three years. Mostly appearing in fields of grain, suddenly we become aware that this will be a poppy year. Drives to the market or to visit friends, or just rambles through the country, reveal fields decorated with unexpectedly bright slashes of red. Just one of the many reasons that this corner of Occitanie has captured our hearts. Let's take a walk.

An old friend. There's a mare and a gelding in a pasture just outside of town. They know that we bring carrots.

An attempt to capture the dominant colors - the amazingly blue sky as background to the poppies.

The vines are fully leafed out early this year, while the nasty yellow broom's pollen seeks out my nose with a vengeance.

Picture taking slows me down.

Poppies from the level of the path...

...and from above.

Poppies or not, the views from just outside the village are worth a quick promenade.

We often have to make way for cars or tractors or...

It's been a good year for all sorts of weeds and wild flowers.