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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2019 17:52:14 GMT
Left-handers do not need to be reassured. We are the cats of the world and the rest of you are dogs.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2019 23:43:24 GMT
I prick my ears up and cock my head back and forth in a futile attempt to understand how you think you said a good thing about yourself.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 14, 2019 4:11:53 GMT
15 years ago today, on Friday the 13th, Hurricane Charley slammed into Sanibel and Captiva Islands.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 14, 2019 5:47:18 GMT
I flew into Fort Myers about a month after that, and there was certainly plenty of damage to be seen in the area.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 14, 2019 10:10:04 GMT
I'm left-handed as well, but what really bothers me is the story about the fundie teacher instructing a small child that he is the devil's spawn or something for being "sinister". What will she do if she comes across a gay kid?
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 14, 2019 13:29:39 GMT
My brother is left handed and fifty five years ago, more or less, my mother stormed into his school classroom and berated the teacher for constantly trying to make him write right handed. One of my twin daughters is right handed and the other left handed.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 14, 2019 16:00:12 GMT
Mirror twins.
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Post by onlyMark on Aug 14, 2019 18:15:18 GMT
Yes.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 16, 2019 0:27:47 GMT
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Post by whatagain on Aug 16, 2019 11:52:22 GMT
15 august was celebration of landing in Cavalaire. 1944 opération Anvil if I am not mistaken. I think I posted some pics some years ago. Same guys same trucks. A nice Dukw a great half-track with 4 .50 machine guns in a turret some jeeps inc one SAS or LRDG desert type. A bofors 40 mm antiaircraft gun and some command cars trucks and ambulances. One Opel Blitz under FFI colours. Then a very nice fireworks. Followed by an awful concert (horrible sound and some interesting 'music'. We had some beers at a cafe. And an Irish coffee. A good evening.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2019 4:37:35 GMT
Today is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Paris.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 25, 2019 5:00:40 GMT
That is really really something!!! The scenes of the fighting in Paris and the fact that it was recorded are both incredible. It says something about the people of Paris that they so restrained themselves as the Nazis were marched past them after surrender.
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Post by bjd on Aug 25, 2019 8:16:02 GMT
I'll watch it later but re the restraint of Parisians, don't forget that there was a lot of getting along if not outright collaboration in Paris during the war. Not everyone was a hero, the way de Gaulle made it sound in the interest of national unity afterwards.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 25, 2019 9:35:21 GMT
That was true just about everywhere. There was a wide range of attitudes and reactions. Of course not everyone was a resistant, but not everyone was a collaborator either. And many people just muddled on.
They showed a Black French patriot - a lot of the French forces liberating Paris were people from the colonies, and much of the news reporting was deliberately "whitened".
Funny how little attention was paid to this in the news. Perhaps there will be more today. In Québec we usually get the major news stories from France.
Going back to bed - need a bit more sleep - but will look at it again soon.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 25, 2019 10:08:39 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2019 11:12:57 GMT
Funny how little attention was paid to this in the news. Perhaps there will be more today. I think there is supposed to be a vintage parade from Porte d'Orléans and Denfert-Rochereau today, on what is now called avenue du Général Leclerc. It should provide some news footage for the world media.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2019 13:05:45 GMT
Since the American military authorities demanded that all black and Indian soldiers be deleted from any newsreels, it is important to know that the Germans felt the opposite, despicably so.
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Post by bjd on Aug 25, 2019 14:53:27 GMT
The recent commemorations of the landings in Provence in 1944 did finally mention the participation of soldiers from the French colonies in North Africa and Subsaharan Africa. A couple of their heads of state attended.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 25, 2019 16:48:24 GMT
Missed the deadline but yesterday was the one thousand nineteen hundred and fortieth anniversary of the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii.
Seems like yesterday.
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Post by bjd on Aug 25, 2019 16:51:55 GMT
I heard an interesting interview this evening with a British historian who wrote a book about the liberation of Paris. He said that in his famous speech (that would be broadcast this evening in Paris), de Gaulle never once mentioned the Resistance because he was against those of the Resistance, only using them when he had to. For de Gaulle, he himself (who stayed in London for 4 years) and the Free French Army who marched into Paris in August were the real representatives of France and its people.
He also mentioned that it is often forgotten how much fierce fighting there was: "On the French side, the losses were minimal for an operation of its size: about 1,000 Resistance fighters, 600 civilians and 156 French soldiers."
Another thing he said was that by August 1944, the Germans were evacuating Paris because troops were being pulled back towards Germany after the landings in southern France. Hitler had ordered the destruction of the city but the general in charge (von Choltitz) did not have the means to do so. The German air force no longer had dominance in the skies either. And the original Allied plan had been to bypass Paris on the way to Germany but the uprising by the Resistance forced them to intervene and go into the city.
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Post by patricklondon on Aug 25, 2019 17:51:11 GMT
I heard an interesting interview this evening with a British historian who wrote a book about the liberation of Paris. He said that in his famous speech (that would be broadcast this evening in Paris), de Gaulle never once mentioned the Resistance because he was against those of the Resistance, only using them when he had to. For de Gaulle, he himself (who stayed in London for 4 years) and the Free French Army who marched into Paris in August were the real representatives of France and its people. To be fair, on arrival in Paris, he did speak of "Paris outragé! Paris brisé! Paris martyrisé! Mais Paris libéré - er par soi-même!" But I read in a recent history of the French resistance that in the immediate aftermath of the liberation, while trying to integrate the different armed resistance groups and the core armed forces the Vichy government had been allowed to retain on mainland France, into an army to continue the war into Germany and secure a place at the top table of interational powers, De Gaulle was very sniffy about all the (in his view) self-appointed "colonels" and "majors" of different groups. And he, or rather his representative in occupied France (Jean Moulin), had had in trying to get the different resistance groups to act according to a common strategy (under the orders of his organisation, of course, but with a view to supporting the eventual invasion plan) - as detailed in Alias Caracalla, the memoirs of Moulin's assistant Daniel Cordier. And I wonder if perhaps the pressure to detach French forces to rush to the support of the Paris uprising mightn't in part have been inspired by the thought (in the mind of conservative professional soldiers like De Gaulle) that the Communist-led resistance groups might try to launch a renewed Paris Commune, as in 1870.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2019 18:15:02 GMT
Anybody who hasn't seen Jacques Audiard's film Un héros très discret / A Self-Made Hero about the immediate post-war period in Paris should make it a priority.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2019 18:18:50 GMT
Here is a little glimpse of today's parade in Paris.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 25, 2019 18:38:39 GMT
Despite the insulting commentary, the African troops look very dignified. Any group of starving people will resort to such methods of obtaining sustenance. They would certainly rather roast the goat. They are sharing it with their comrades-in-arms.
And despite Nazi contempt, some of those men are very handsome.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 25, 2019 18:43:51 GMT
K2, do you have a longer version (in French or in English) of that very short clip?
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 25, 2019 19:04:24 GMT
I went looking around on YouTube for what I posted. Because of today's commemorations, it is quite possible that more stuff will show up.
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Post by htmb on Aug 25, 2019 19:59:50 GMT
Thanks so much for posting this link, Lagatta. I was at the Paris Liberation celebration today and hadn’t completely understood why there was a large Spanish group at the end of the parade.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 30, 2019 22:32:57 GMT
Back to school for many pupils, cégepiens and university students. I was buying a bottle of cheap wine at the SAQ (government semi-monopoly)and people were joking about the 1-5s. Turns out that meant large bottles of spirits students (especially at McGill, a prestigous English university) buy to chug-a-lug. Remember seeing a whole carload of young men buying such party supplies. Alas they were in a car. Perhaps it is my inner "auntie", but I just prayed that they weren't going to drive it totally plastered.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 1, 2019 20:19:58 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 1, 2019 20:35:52 GMT
Trump was supposed to be there for the commemoration but for some reason failed to attend.
German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier made a very moving speech asking forgiveness.
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