Republicans need to play their role

I was listening to Politically Reactive and their guest, Van Jones, who is a fairly lefty political commentator, was saying that

"[C]onservatives play an important role. ... If you have any organization, any family, the person who's always asking the question, 'How much does this cost and who's going to pay for it?' plays an important role.  The person who asks, 'Should we even be doing this?' plays an important role!"

And this reminds me instantly of my grandfather.  He was always smiling, funny, charming and generous, but he was also an an accountant by training and spent his life being very financially prudent and encouraging others, respectfully, to do the same.  He was always asking questions like that, even when he immediately came to the conclusions: 'Yes! Let's do it!' 

He was a lifelong Republican in the mold of Nelson Rockefeller or George Romney, always wanting to be prudently active with money to help everyone around him, his family, his friends, those he helped by doing their taxes for them for free every year, the small business owners in the city who he mentored through a volunteer program.

I truly think he would be horrified to see what has become of his party today.  As W. Kamau Bell said to concur with Jones: "The person who asks for the birth certificate does NOT play an important role!"  When you are obsessed with Benghazi or repealing Obamacare instead of reforming the parts that don't work well, you are NOT helping, you are NOT governing, you are NOT playing an important role!

Montparnasse Tower

I heard this brief episode (in French) the other day talking about potential efforts to refurbish instead of demolishing the Montparnasse tower: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/leco-dinter/id1045507301?mt=2&i=370793763

The Montparnasse tower is the tallest office building in Paris.  I once had lessons there, in fact, but I've never heard anyone say anything good about it.  It's ugly, it's clunky, it's an eyesore, etc... It surely doesn't match anything around it.  It just sticks up there like a steel middle finger.

The thing is, Paris usually does so well with modern architecture, even in the middle of the city.  Sometimes you can be walking down a row of 19th century buildings and there will be, in the middle of the street, a modern steel-and-glass edifice just sitting there.  The contrast is actually a GOOD thing!  It's interesting and surprising, but there is usually at least a nod to the architecture around it.  

Here, I think they were going for something starkly different, thinking that the shock value would make it stand out.  In that, I guess they succeeded.

In the piece they talk about efforts to rehabilitate the façade and make it look shiny and colorful, with images and probably some advertisements on the sides.  They're going for a 'Times Square' look, but I'm a little skeptical.  The whole thing about Time Square is that ALL the buildings in the vicinity look like that.  Here it will still be the ONLY one.

It's a shame because Paris desperately needs some more construction and probably needs to grow UP quite a bit.  It doesn't have the same geographical constraints as San Francisco or Manhattan, but it does have some of the same difficulties providing affordable housing.  Building more densely means building at least somewhat higher, and if you suggest that, people have a tendancy to point to Montparnasse and say, 'Not if it's gonna look like THAT!' (but in French). 

Jessica Valenti, Ezra Klein and Feminism

Just finished listening to a great episode of the Ezra Klein Show featuring Jessica Valenti, a feminist blogger I've never heard of before for a blog, Feministing, that I've not heard of before either but will be checking the second I get wifi access.

Every time I hear about the kind of issues she brings up I cringe a little.  I get angry, and a lot of it comes from the fact that it's a little shocking to hear how women are often treated online, in the streets, and in schools, and I am unaware of it and disturbed.  I don't behave that way myself (catcalls, social media trolling etc.) and more to the point I DON'T SEE IT.  Yet it happens.  Every day.

And I keep taking it very personally.  I want to shout out, hey, that's not ME doing it!  Why are you attacking me!?!  Not all me-- oh crap. Yeah, that went through my head.  I thought it.  My mind has become a meme.

And the thing is, it's NOT about me personally, it's about the reality for millions of women.  The problems she describes don't require ALL men to behave badly.  A relative few, because of the outsized damage that kind of bad behavior can cause, can create a climate of fear and pain for all women.  

And that IS about me.  I would never accept anyone behaving in a belittling manner toward the women in my life, but neither should I accept that behavior on the part of the men around me toward ANY woman.  Not that we have to be the white knights coming to the rescue of the damsels in distress around us, but we need to be taking the drunk asshole next to us aside whe we realize he's had one too many and that girl he's hitting on is not appreciating his advances.

We would never be that asshole, right?  Right?

Except that I can distinctly remember one time in my life whe I WAS that drunk asshole.  When I didn't know what I was doing and behaved in a less than gentlemenly fashion.  After I was made to realize that by some very kind friends, who took me aside, I proceeded to hardly touch alcohol for the next couple of years.  I believe that when I did begin to partake again, I was a more mature and responsible person.

I've never forgotten it.  But if even I, feminist and gentleman that I try to be, can have that kind of moment, then it is my responsibility and the responsibility of all men to be like my friends.  Looking out for the bad behavior we are ALL capable of in a bad moment and helping each other to be better men.

That's what this is about.  A MAN doesn't need to belittle a female coworker.  A MAN doesn't need to sht a lewd comment at a repandom stranger.  A MAN doesn't feel threatened by a succesful woman any more than he would be by a succesful man.  

Not all men behave that way, or at least not all the time.  But it is the responsability of ALL MEN to keep a brotherly eye on each other and say, 'Hey dude, that's a little out of line.'

Update:  link to the show-- https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1081584611?mt=2&i=370676709

Reboot

Ok, so this is like the second reboot I've tried for this blog, but if Star wars, Star Trek AND the XFiles can do it, so can I.

That last may not have been the best example. Maybe Spider Man....

The Cheese Thing

So what's with the cheese?  I mean, cheese is intended to go on TOP of things like pizza, burgers, or lasagna.  You might dip nachos in it if you're feeling like more than the usual salsa dip. You could grill it in a sandwich or spread it on a bagel.  I used to consider myself a bit of a cheese snob because I eschewed the standard fluorescent-orange cheddar for the "fancy" natural-colored white sharp cheddar.   

What about the REAL cheese snobs?  How can the French consider that cheese is sufficiently interesting, in itself, to warrant a course of its own during a meal?  That last is a stereotype that is mostly true.  Most restaurants and families at home offer cheese before desert.  Much is made over the number of different cheeses in France, with numbers anywhere from dozens to thousands depending on how you do the counting.  How can we even imagine that kind of variety when most of the cheese we encounter is either mozzarella, cheddar, or, well, SQUARE?   

 I certainly wasn't prepared, but I can now testify that there is, indeed, an incredible variety; some if it is rather pungent, and while most is delicious, some varieties are an acquired taste.  Roquefort in particular has as strong a scent as its reputation suggests.  Mind you, many French people don't like it.  That or they say, "Well you don't eat it ALONE!  It's best with bread, butter and red wine."  Taste in cheese is very personal, everyone has their favorites, and not liking one variety is not a shameful or unpatriotic thing.  My wife likens it to how Americans  have their favorite brands and flavors of chips out of the dozens of varieties available.  

What seems silly to us is so only because we don't have such a wide variety available to choose from. It is genuinely silly to obsess about cheese in a world where you have so little, but an abundance of difference opens up the possibility of appreciating those differences.  

The Myth of the Rude Frenchman

I grew up with the typical 'Pepe le Pew' stereotypes of the French that are so common in the US.  I thought all Frenchmen were rude and arrogant, wore berets and horizontally striped shirts, had thin mustaches, ate smelly cheese and carried around baguettes of bread.  I never really believed any of that was true, but I had no other images to replace them with.  Hence:

Of all these, the only ones that turned out to be true were the bits about the cheese and the bread.  I'll discuss all of them eventually, but the worst are the first two.   They're mentioned in films, TV, books, etc., always with an air of certainty to it, as though 
it were a cultural trait as ubiquitus as the British tendancy to politeness and tea-drinking.   It's so common that I hear it from the French themselves.   Many French people have bemoaned to me the rudeness of their own countrymen,  all the while being perfectly polite and personable to me.  Now, either they stop being nice when I turn my back as part of some giant conspiracy of 'let's mess with the American by being nice to him, or the stereotype is simply, flat-out wrong.  

Where did this impression come from? After all, stereotypes like this aren't formed overnight, and by only a few people. How could all  American tourists who have visited for the last half century or so be so wrong?  

When people visit France , they dont really visit FRANCE, they visit Paris.    Now, Parisians have a reputation in France much like New Yorkers in the US.  It's a big city, and people generally have a tendancy to be a bit taciturn with strangers.   Not only that, but when you are a tourist, your primary form of contact with REAL parisians is in the subway.  It's my personnel experience that the Paris Metro at rush hour can make even affable Oklahomans capable of growling at strangers, but it's not a permanent effect.

The French people I have met have been unfailingly polite, almost to a fault.  Perhaps that's part of the problem, because that politeness results in greater formality.  This is more true of the older generations that of young people, but on average, the French do have a tendency towards formality.  Sometimes it could be perceived as arrogance,  because that politeness can seem overly formal. In the US, formality can come across as arrogance because we tend to equate familiarity with friendliness. This is not a failing on our part any more than formality is a failing for the French!  But we must be careful to recognize that in other cultures, too much familiarity  can be taken for a lack of respect.  

Ironically, we tend to think of the Frenh as arrogant because they are  mcuh more formal than we are and they tend to think US arrogant for EXACTLY THE SAME REASON!

An American in Paris

When I was growing up, I never imagined living anywhere but the good 'ole US of A.  I took Spanish in high school because I'd heard it was the easiest, and while I enjoyed my high school trip to Europe when I was 16, I never imagined I would actually live there one day.

Now I am living in suburb south of Paris, I have a job, and, what would be most impressive to my younger self, I speak French (passably)!   My primary work is in teaching English to businesspeople and university students.  (I also now teach Math and IT at the French branch of an American University.)

This has led me to meet a cross-section of French people, and invariably one of their first questions is, "What do you miss from home?"  Well, of course I miss my family (I do see them as often as we can all arrange!), but that's not really what they're asking about.  They want to know what I like about life in France, what I miss about life in the US, and what the differences are.  I usually tell them, "Well, I kind of miss Dr. Pepper when I'm here, and I miss Camembert when I'm there."

I usually have to explain what Dr. Pepper is, but then they laugh.  Then I add, "You know, in the US, quiche is considered 'fancy'."  They stare at me disbelievingly.  They refuse to believe.  They say, "But, it's just quiche!"  And I say "Yes, but it has a French name.  In the US, everything French has a fancy image about it.  You know you are in a fancy restaurant, or at least a restaurant that is trying to be fancy, when they serve quiche."  They laugh, and I think they usually don't believe me fully.  After all, in France quiche is...  well... it's just quiche!  We have it maybe once a week.  It's fast and easy to prepare.  There are thousands of variations, but the basic recipe is dead simple.  It's what you cook when you're too busy to do a real meal, so you whip together a quiche.  You cook it to use up leftover vegetables or meat.  It's comfort food.  It's like pizza to Italians or meatloaf to us.

Do you like omelets?  Do you like pie?  How about an omelet pie?

So what's the deal?  Why do we think of quiche as a kind of fancy-shmancy thing?  I think it has to do with a flawed perception of French culture as elitist.  Do they have their 'elites'?  Sure, but they have their 'regular people' too.  I'm not even sure I know how to define those two groups reliably, but however you do it, France has both.  They're not trying to be fancy when they say something in French, they're just talking.



One of the first things I learned to cook here was quiche.  Here's the recipe I use:


1 pre-made pie shell
2 eggs
About 2 cups of milk
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons instant mashed potatoes (optional: this is my own secret ingredient!  It makes the pie fluff up nicely)
1 handful shredded cheese (I use 'Emmental', which sounds really fancy but is a very common type of  cheese here that you can buy pre-shredded at the store.  You could probably use Mozzarella or Cheddar and it would work fine.)
2 slices ham, diced
optional: salt and pepper to taste

Crack the eggs, add the milk, whisk in the flour and potato powder(you can use a fork), toss in the rest.  Unroll the pie crust into a standard 9-inch pie pan and dump the filling in.   Cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.

After this there are countless variations.  The one I made today included 2 shredded carrots and a leek (A sort of giant green onion, found in the 'Fancy European Vegetable' section of your grocery store.  In France it's in the 'vegetable' section.)  Add a bit of milk if necessary so your mixture stays just a bit liquidy (this is a technical French cooking term).

The result:

Bon appetit!