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Post by lagatta on Jan 13, 2015 20:55:04 GMT
I actually watched that idiotic news clip - and the "no go" zones indicated are clearly within the périphérique; there isn't a single one, for example, where women can't walk around in Western dress, and I'm sure the idiot reporter didn't even notice all the women of Maghrebi origin who dress like any other Parisienne.
And I certainly had friends of Maghrebi and Sub-saharan African origins studying at top universities - a good 30 years ago. This is utter bullshit. Not to mention idiot's misuse of the term "banlieue" which means either suburbia "la banlieue" or suburbs "les banlieues sud"...
Some of the denser anglo journalists were trying to depict the Buttes-Chaumont area as a slum. Huh?
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Post by mossie on Jan 13, 2015 21:10:12 GMT
Well this is the idiot who claimed that Birmingham, second largest city in England, was totally Moslem. People like this make the problem to start with. I have just commented in the other thread on the new Jewish area of Paris, that also refers the most crass assumption.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2015 11:54:41 GMT
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Post by lagatta on Jan 14, 2015 13:03:54 GMT
Oh, it'll get cleaned up. I hope they collect the useable pens and send them somewhere poor. It is delicate to remove all the graffiti immediately, but at the same time, graffiti can spawn other graffiti that is simply vandalism and urban blight.
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Post by questa on Jan 14, 2015 13:04:13 GMT
How lucky we are to have kerouac2 with his knowledge and camera to give us the back stories.
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Post by htmb on Jan 14, 2015 21:24:21 GMT
How lucky we are to have kerouac2 with his knowledge and camera to give us the back stories. So true!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2015 21:58:08 GMT
Well, I hope you are all happy, because I have been a news freak since about age 10, and I am obliged to watch just about every report concerning current events. It has been more painful than you can imagine watching all of the more personal reports this past week. In France of course they are much more lengthy than the tiny snippets that you get in other countries. And of course they concern both victims and survivors that we know much more intimately than people in other places. As I wrote to somebody here in a PM, to give an idea of the impact to Americans, "just imagine if you heard on the news "there was a shooting in a newsroom in New York and Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Tom Brokaw and John Stewart were all killed, among others."
In other words, it is like having a list of people with whom you felt that you grew up with (even if you are not as young as you think) suddenly slaughtered because they were being themselves.
The most painful thing to watch is the testimony of the survivors and their friends and of course it is continuing every day here, even as it drops out of the news in the rest of the world. I have never seen so many tears on television, not even after 9/11 because this event was not about "innocent strangers" whom one mourns abstractly but about several people who were part of your life, almost family in a way.
Even though I have seen a lot of tears on television, I think I may have contributed at least as many myself.
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Post by htmb on Jan 14, 2015 22:22:37 GMT
While we can certainly try to relate to what you, others in Paris, as well as those in the rest of the country are going through, there is no way for those of us who are outsiders to completely understand your pain. I would imagine that, as with any tragedy, the pain will become even more acute as the reality begins to more thoroughly sink in. We are sad for you, sorry for you, horrified and deeply affected, but we are not there to live with the reality of it all.
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Post by htmb on Jan 14, 2015 22:48:02 GMT
At the moment, I am feeling even less articulate than normal, but Kerouac, you know there are many here at AnyPort who care about you, and who are grieving for you.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2015 23:00:40 GMT
There is no reason to grieve for me since I have lost no one. But I am upset because people that I have known from a distance and respected for the last 40 years were suddenly killed for no good reason.
If just one of them had died in a random accident or act of violence, it would not have been at all the same. It was the idea of being specific targets that made everything so horrible. And it is regrettable to admit such a thing, but if the deaths at the kosher supermarket had occurred in a completely separate incident, they would not have seemed to be nearly as important. It would have been considered horrific since no such thing had ever happened in Paris since the bombing of the Goldenberg restaurant in 1982, but once again, the victims were anonymous and created no additional empathy.
The dynamics of such events are therefore rather despicable.
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Post by mich64 on Jan 14, 2015 23:02:00 GMT
Very well said htmb.
I feel the recent attack here in Canada affected me and I find myself being more aware when I go into town. I watch too much current event programming but it has more of a concrete format than entertainment programming.
Through my Facebook page I read reports and articles from family and friends in France. One cousin is a Gendarme. Some of the news outlets here are still reporting any new information, mostly focusing on the investigation phase and you are very accurate that our coverage was more of the attack then the victims or survivors. Perhaps on our French language news programs there were more reports.
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Post by fumobici on Jan 14, 2015 23:31:35 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2015 23:39:43 GMT
I certainly have not seen that, but now I am wondering which American officials committed suicide directly after 9/11.
However, I did look it up and there are indeed lots of articles about the event. None of them evokes a specific reason for the suicide other than the fact that he was severely depressed and in a state of total burnout.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2015 0:03:00 GMT
Yes, I read that a coupld of days ago. Very sad.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 15, 2015 0:39:30 GMT
mich, there were two attacks in Canada recently, one a few days after the other.
Yes, there were many more "personal" stories on Radio-Canada than on CBC, but that was also simply because they were content in French. They are very upsetting.
This is a bit of a "trigger" for me due to the unrelated Polytechnique massacre, which occurred when I was writing a graduate history exam at the same university, two buildings away.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2015 2:28:43 GMT
Kerouac, what's the feeling there about Dieudonné's recent arrest?
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Post by breeze on Jan 15, 2015 2:55:57 GMT
Kerouac, it’s up to you now, since my usual sources, the BBC and Guardian websites, are slacking off on their coverage. I’ve also been checking Le Figaro, but maybe you can suggest a better online newspaper? Has there been any explanation of how the high school student’s identity card got in the getaway car? In the out-of-the-way part of France we go to most often, there were Je suis Charlie gatherings in several of the towns. There are local connections, it turns out. Today there was an article about the policeman killed at Charlie Hebdo. "Le policier chargé de la protection de Charb à Charlie Hebdo était Normand." He'd been a policeman in hot spots around the world for 30 years, including guarding the French ambassador in Afghanistan. He will be awarded the legion of honor. His widow is rédactrice (editor?) at L'Eveil Normand. www.le-perche.fr/35359/franck-brinsolaro-un-heros-si-discret/On another website devoted to Percheron horses, the author noted that Cabu was occasionally seen in a cafe in Mamers, drawing the life around him.
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Post by bjd on Jan 15, 2015 10:19:55 GMT
Has there been any explanation of how the high school student’s identity card got in the getaway car?
Well, neither of them were high-school students -- one was 32, the other 34. Since ID cards have to be renewed every 10 years, no way either of them were students.
Anyway, when I first heard about the ID card, I thought it was rather stupid, but in fact on a news report, one security expert said that they had to have their ID cards because to get away, it would have been simple to remove their face masks, get rid of the guns and melt into the crowd. And having an ID card is obligatory in France. If you are stopped during a police check, you have to be able to prove who you are.
It was mentioned that not having ID was how they caught Mennouche, the guy who shot the people at the Jewish museum in Brussels. He had no ID when he was checked and that raised suspicion.
The card must have been dropped by accident. Luckily for the police investigation.
Breeze, for online news, you can use France24 too -- in English, French or Arabic.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 15, 2015 12:49:42 GMT
bjd, it was reported that a much younger fellow was sought - think he was 18. He turned himself in (he was in a lycée class at the time). I forget his name.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2015 15:24:13 GMT
Right now the French news is not so much focusing on the terrorists as on the reaction to the attacks and more specifically "those who are not Charlie." The officials investigating the attacks are obviously not blabbing to the media about what they are doing, and most of the media are accepting this since some of the newspapers published full page articles last week about all of the misinformation that appeared in the press and on television as the events were unfolding. Terrorists killed, captured, injured, escaped, etc... There is so much news competition these days that everybody wants to be the first to announce something and there was most certainly not enough verification before airing "news." So the French media at least are being somewhat repentant about this temporarily, and they are letting the investigators get on with their highly secret work. Of course this is not stopping foreign media from still making all sorts of outrageous claims and "revelations." As for "those who are not Charlie," it became shockingly evident that there are more such people than we would like to believe when some schools tried to have a minute of silence and did not succeed. I think that all of us are aware how hot-headed teenagers can be, not just because they feel that the honour of their prophet has been impugned but also because they spend all of their time on the internet and believe all sorts of conspiracy theories. And of course they don't mind at all making totally contradictory statements, such as on the one hand the Kouachi brothers are heroes for having eliminated infidels but at the same time "there is no proof that they did it; why isn't there any blood?" And of course, "the whole thing was staged by Israel and the United States." The nonsense is endless, and I cringe at each new radio report where they are interviewing young Muslims from the 'bad' part of town. While the Ministry of Education is wracking its brains about how to educate the students properly about things like racism, tolerance, freedom of the press and other apparently alien concepts, the Ministry of Justice is coming down as hard as possible on illegal hate speech. One 28 year old man told the police "They killed Charlie and I laughed!" He received a six-month prison sentence for "support of terrorist acts." A 14 year old girl was arrested in Nantes when the ticket checkers on the tramway were fining her. "We're the Kouachi sisters and we have AK-47s." Due to her age, she will almost certainly be let off with a warning, but still... Up near Lille a 34 year old man received a 4-year sentence, which seems quite harsh, but this was apparently his 17th conviction. He was driving drunk and was in a traffic accident in which people were injured. He told the police "the terrorists were right to kill you in Paris. There should be even more Kouachis and I hope you're next on their list." He asked for the forgiveness of the court since he was drunk, but the court did not forgive him. There are about 50 other cases waiting for judgment -- 37 for "support of terrorist acts" and 17 others for "threatening to engage in terrorist acts." Jeez.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jan 15, 2015 18:37:39 GMT
It must be difficult to know how to respond, even though people say 'We are not afraid and we will not let terrorists dictate how we live our lives' it must be very hard not to over-react...especially when idiots behave so thoughtlessly.
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Post by mossie on Jan 15, 2015 19:44:33 GMT
The expression "Keep calm and carry on" is the obvious answer. The hotheads should be ignored as far as possible, those who believe it is all a conspiracy are not going to be reasoned with. On the other hand are the do-gooders who must make excuses for murderers, who should also be ignored and scorned for stupidity.
A friend asked me today if I was going ahead with my proposed trip to Paris in May. I answered "Of course, the chances of a normal person (please consider me normal) being involved in this sort of incident are many times less than being in a road accident" and in any case it is "If your number is on it". I still have my youthful optimism that "it will never happen to me" and that has seen me through some funny situations in my time.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2015 20:32:40 GMT
In any case, it is in tranquil Belgium that the bullets are flying tonight.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 16, 2015 0:26:25 GMT
It is darkly humorous that a serial drunk driver was invoking radical Islam. A Jewish friend from NYC sent me this story from Forward, a longstanding progressive Jewish-American publication. forward.com/articles/212791/sad-but-true-farce-behind-israels-funeral-for-pari/I am so not surprised, not because it involves Israel or "Jews" (in quotes because we are speaking of the antisemites' mythical nefarious Jews), but because this kind of mendacious crap is so common everywhere in the wake of tragedy, and moreover because I'm not surprised of the blowhard Netanyahu sponsoring such a takeover of funerals of murdered people. Remember that Jewish and Muslim tradition prescribes burial as swift as possible after death. Ahmed was also buried on Tuesday, but near Paris, so his family can visit his grave.
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Post by tod2 on Jan 16, 2015 4:43:36 GMT
I'm with you Mossie 100%! I too have reservations for September to show 3 Paris hoteliers we are putting up the middle finger at religious fanatics.
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Post by onlyMark on Jan 16, 2015 8:21:47 GMT
As usual with religion things have become twisted over the years. At one time there were many images of Muhammad and were and are available still. It all comes down to someone's interpretation of what is written. To me in my partial ignorance the message in the religious books can even become so twisted that it seems the opposite is now accepted and extra restrictions are now in place, for example the hijab/chador issue. And it's not just in the Islamic world that it gets twisted.
For me, you can keep religion. If you want it and follow it fair enough but too much of it goes against my natural common sense for me to take to it. Too many deaths have been caused by it, too many years and years of war even between those of the same religion but different interpretations of the same thing. Too many bad things done 'in His name'. Religion is all too ambiguous, questionable as to 'taking things on faith', scientifically unsupported and to a simple practical person like myself, just seems to be the biggest con perpetrated on the human race.
As was said somewhere, good men will do good and evil men will do evil, but a good man will do evil in the name of religion. Rant over.
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Post by bjd on Jan 16, 2015 8:52:13 GMT
I agree totally with your rant, Mark. My feelings exactly. Fanatics about any religion (and even atheism if you look at the Soviet Union) have caused more trouble than anyone else.
I did hear an interesting interview on the radio the other day with Gilles Kepel. He is a political scientist who specializes in the Arab world. He said that traditional views of Arab culture (the development of astronomy, arithmetic, architecture, etc) have been lost and taken over by a Salafi view in completely extremist religious terms, blocking out all the rest. And in France, it is nearly impossible to learn Arabic in high school any more (it used to be an option, I know), so any young person wanting to learn it is forced to go to religious schools where the only texts used are religious ones.
My main argument with the way things are presented is that we are being defined only in religious terms, even in France which is defiantly secular. Why is it assumed that Christians, Muslims and Jews (to list the most obvious) are all practicing? It's obvious that most French people who would probably be defined as "Christian" are certainly not, given church attendance. Why do we assume that Jews and Muslims are more religious? Or are they?
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Post by tod2 on Jan 16, 2015 10:24:29 GMT
A good point bjd. And I agree wholeheartedly with Mark about religion or any other beliefs. I have a friend who is always 'following' some or another person who has set themselves up as an authority on how to attain wisdom/peace/guidance/everlasting life/, the list goes on and on. Most of these so called 'preachers' have the gift of the gab and have realized a real money-making opportunity to rake in desperate and disillusioned people. Some individuals cannot cope with life without some type of religious crutch. Just have no faith in themselves.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2015 11:00:48 GMT
Kerouac, what's the feeling there about Dieudonné's recent arrest? Dieudonné set himself up to be arrested for the publicity, by not going to two appointments set by the legal authorities for tax evasion. And he was only detained a few hours, but he reached his goal since the news went around the world again.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2015 17:46:30 GMT
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