I don't do a lot of random observing on this blog. It may be time to start. So here are few. As always, comments and long involved arguments are desired.
(1) The internet and social networking are overrated. (I'm looking at you, Randy.) Way way overrated. Had computer technology been four decades more advanced, we would be pinning all the tumult of the sixties and seventies on the internet. Weather Underground, blame it on Facebook! Had it been six decades more advanced, we would have been bored. You know, like anyone surfing the net in the UAE can get bored. Click the link and tell me why I'm wrong. (That one goes to Charlie Stross. But how the hell did he manage to erase my post about meeting him in a bad bar in Boston?)
(2) Lay off my man from St. Lucia Saint Kitts! Alexander Hamilton is the hero of every muscular patriotic American pinko. He is why you can be a lefty Big Government type (with all respect to Alex Harrowell, I will have to disavow the term socialist, since it's become a curse word in my country) and still evoke the founding fathers. I will give props to libertarians (hey! Guy Tower! Why you don't read this, G?) but I will not let Dick Armey lie about the founding father of the nationalist American left.
(3) Basta with the Massa puns. (Scott? I haven't heard any from you, but I know you thinking 'em.) Seriously, people. Funny once. No more emails, please.
(4) You should all read more Alex Harrowell.
(5) I write this in Paris. Paris has a lot of white people. Really, the city is surprisingly chock full of 'em. But a major figure at a well-funded think tank says it ain't! Am I confused? So I looked up the figures. I was only able to find the 1999 results, which told me that 17.6% of the city's population was foreign born. Of those, 14% were Algerian-born, 13% from Portugal, 10% from Morocco, 6% from Tunisia, 4% from the madre patria, another 4% from the country that I often think really should be the madre patria, and 3% from Turkey. That comes to 54% of the foreign-born. Speaking as somebody who mistook the Moroccan fellow who drove him from the airport for an Eastern European and then asked his equally-Moroccan barber if he was from Italy, I leave any conclusions about Charles Murray's character (or my ability to identify accents in a foreign language) as an exercise for the reader. I do of course assume that Mr. Murray realized that people from Martinique, Guadaloupe, Guyana, Reunion, and (very soon) Mayotte are indeed as French as any blond German-speaking dude from Alsace.
(6) Man, there were a lot of cigarette butts in the gutter this morning when I took the metro in to the office. I ... like that.
I like France. I can't help it.
St. Lucia? I thought AH was from Nevis. [Checks wiki] Yep, born on Nevis, childhood on Saint Kitts. No mention of him ever hitting St. Lucia.
Too bad SHWI seems to be in its death throes. An AH positing a brilliant young francophone "Alexandre Faucette" (his mother was part Huguenot) that the local West Indian talent-spotters ship back to France for school, would seem to be a logical POD for an organizational wizard who could successfully bridge the Girondiste and Dantoniste factions, and be a better foil to Robespierre.
Posted by: Colin Alberts | March 19, 2010 at 10:49 AM
Fixed! Thanks for the catch, Colin.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 19, 2010 at 11:22 AM
Hmm. In the 21st Century, it is France that the sun never sets on. Especially if you include French Polynesia.
Does the EU have anything to say about this? Granted, I wouldn't be very worried about the Comoros being mad at me if I were the EU, but precedents and all.
Posted by: David Allen | March 20, 2010 at 10:48 AM
Ah, Hamilton. A minor side note of how awesome he is, I recently read that he proposed the southern states raise regiments of black troops during the Revolution from slaves, with the promise of freedom. Since, he noted, it was clear they could fight as well as whites.
The Southern reaction was to say they'd return to Britain first.
I am fairly certain if we found one of his napkins you'd find a sketch of how to do a proper Reconstruction.
Posted by: Scott Blair | March 20, 2010 at 11:06 AM
The mystery, David, is why the rest of the Comoros opted for independence. I have been unable to find a satisfactory answer to this question, although I am sure that there must be someone who has studied the question.
Djibouti's independence is almost as mysterious, although there it seems to have been tied to a conflict between the two major clan groupings.
In both cases, however, is feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Why deprive your people of French citizenship? Why not try instead to pry more autonomy, or more money, or (as in Mayotte's case) a lot more money by demanding departmental status?
Kind of a mystery to me how these referendums were won. Anyone know?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 20, 2010 at 11:08 AM