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Thanks fishtail. I was going to post something to that effect. Some to Most of these military minds are educated.
To let you know, I hated Poe's writings. I prefer Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Louis Lamoore (changed to L'amour). If you want to compare book collections, I own over 550 books (not all in english) and have over 800 magazines ranging from cars to western history and ww2 history.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I had "dulce et decorum est" inked on my helmet band at various times while I was in the military and no one said a damn thing to me. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Jaques Chirac is a neo-Gaullist, I think, or so I hear. He certainly believes France deserves a far higher place in the world than it currently occupies, and his unintelligent, tactless quips about America-loving Eastern Europeans makes him out to be the ultimate French political stereotype in many people's eyes
Well, this is certainly a simplification. Chirac's party has made a large effort to distance itself from the Gaulliste party. It's basically a conglomerate of parties on the right, consolidated to create a larger voting force against the leftist parties. At any rate, I would by no means call Chirac representative of the French public. The only reason he was elected to a second term is because he was running against LePen. And the most recent round of elections has shown him losing a lot of ground.
Not that any of this is relevant... the main issure here is over-simplification of a people you don't understand. As soon as anyone starts passing judgement on an entire nation without being fully educated, we run into problems of prejudice and stereotyping.
Can't we all just get along? Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I actually don't have much of a problem with the french... I took several French literature classes and they were some of my favorites, which is sort of the reason why I find the distance and their supposed disdain for us to be fairly distressing.
But the guy who told me Chirac was a neo-Gaullist was my European relations professor, whom I trust... He's published and whatnot, if that means anything, and he certainly knows enough about European politics to go on and on about it endlessly, on tangents, and bore us all to death. Perhaps he's wrong. Americans probably associate any semblance of French ambition with Gaullism.
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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There is a valid point under there, even if the Italian lady came nowhere close to finding it. When you're in Europe it's just as easy to find American culture as it is here, and not just because of the Internet. The prevalence is freaky considering the language barrier et al. In my experience this in no way drowned out local culture -- 300 million people can absorb a lot of cultures, period -- but the prospect has rightfully scared some folks.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: But the guy who told me Chirac was a neo-Gaullist was my European relations professor, whom I trust...
He is right. Point is, not everybody in his party is like him : in fact it's a minority. And as a president he represents the all party, not his own opinions.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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