le tocsin

2004-03-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

Two things:

1. Stanford LOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like others, I don't know what to do. I'm in shock. Now, all you doubters must deal with the following: St Joe's IS number one. The only question I have as follows: What 16 seed do we get to destroy in the NCAAs?

2. I'd like someone to tell me what color Suze Orman is (you know, that personal finance guru on MSNBC). The other night, I saw her on Tavis Smiley's show and it looked to me like she has tanned herself purple. Is it make-up? Is it tanning gone awry? I just want to know why she isn't human colored. If there's a good reason, I'll feel bad, but if there isn't, how can you take money advice from a purple lady? Just curious....

2004-03-02T20:43:00.000-08:00

St. Joseph's (27-0, 16-0 A-10 East) became the first team to finish the regular season unblemished since Nevada Las-Vegas in 1991. Top-ranked Stanford can join the Hawks with victories this weekend at Washington State and Washington.

2004-03-01T22:34:00.000-08:00

Jon's Blog lives!

2004-03-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

Haïti go boom.

Again.

And yet AGAIN US troops roam the streets of Port-au-Prince. Just like February 29 that shows up every once in a while, US Army fatigues walk the streets of the Haitian capital.

Haïti represents yet another staggering success in US foriegn policy. You'd think that instead of spending kabillions of dollars deploying troops in Haïti everytime the country goes kablouie, we'd come up with something else. But oh yeah, let's be honest, Haïti is of no economic interest to the US unless its refugees threaten Florida, Haïti is of no strategic importance unless its refugees threaten to land in Florida, we just don't care and it seems to be easier to send in the Army periodically to "keep the peace".

In the theme of taking a moment to review, let's look at some of the USA's great jobs at "nation building" aka places we've gotten involved in in one way or another. And there are several catagories here-

Post WWII.
Western Europe and Japan. Nice job. Rebuilt, affluent allies who (generally) agree with us.
South Korea. Another good job. Kept the nasty commies out. Allowed modern South Koreans to be modern and South Korean. This also represents the last time our involvement was an unmitigated success. If you don't like depressing stories, stop reading, it don't get better.

Cold War
This mainly involved propping up petty despots, nasty little men with nasty little armies that did nasty things to their economies.

Afghanistan. Soviets go, we go. We know how that one played out.
Cambodia. Two words - killing fields. Another nice job on our part. We destabilize Cambodia with the largest bombing campaign since WWII. We bombed the CRAP out of a country we weren't at war with and that our own legislature said we shouldn't involved in Cambodia. Cambodia goes to (Pol) Pot and millions die. Cambodia is still a hopeless basket case while the rest of East Asia - even Vietnam - has made at least some strides toward prosperity. Class A disgrace.
Zaïre. We should stay out of nations with tremas in their names. During the Cold War, we supported Mobutu Sese Seko (né Joseph Desiré Mobuto) as a "bulwark" against Internation Socialism. Mostly against Angola were the Cubans and the Soviets were supporting their own private nasties. If by "foil" to socialism, we meant "outright crook" then yeah, he was that. He stole billions. He allowed the country to decay. By supressing ethnicity and tribal ties, all he did was make them worse by ignoring them instead of integrating and co-opting them. So, he's eventually replaced by another thug and, commence au festival. Genocide, plague, death, chaos and a decade of unceasing civil war. Another GREAT job.

Ok, let's move onto Latin America. In the past century or so, we have invaded:
Panama (more than once).
Guatemala (more than once).
Cuba (more times that I can count).
Grenada (for some reason....)
Haïti
Honduras

Yeah, we've done good there. We're back in Haïti. All of those other countries are basket cases and Cuba is actually still under the thumb of Communism. Nice.

Post-Cold War.Bosnia. Ok, stopped the genocide. That was good. But status quo seems to be the watchword in Bosnia these days, a don't rock the boat mentality that's not good in the long run. Isn't the time to rock that mine-laden boat NOW when NATO is on the ground to take care of any problems? We started to fix this one, can we finish it?

Kosovo. Ok, stopped the genocide. That was good. Got the Kosovars back home. That was good. Now we're playing keep away. Serbs over there, NATO troops in between, Kosovar Albanians over there. Albanians don't want to be part of Serbia anymore. Serbs won't let go of Kosovo. Hm. Problem. Again, isn't the time to fix this NOW while NATO is on the ground to handle all the fallout?

Where is the resolve that rebuilt Europe? Where is the will that saved Japan? Isn't it in our national interest to rebuild these countries? To create markets for our goods? To make new allies (because as long as "President" Bush is around, we need new ones as a lot of the old ones are pissed at us...) strikes me as a noble goal. More than that, we have the power to stop future nastiness. We've already committed the force and resource to Iraq, Afghanistan and Haïti. Why don't we fix these countries instead of restore a decaying status quo? Our list of failures is long enough.

2004-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

And now a moment of levity.

Be sure to read the review of "The Core".

It's HYSTERICAL!

Oh, and link on the right to see pics of my fishies.

2004-02-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

Subway Nation.

There's an article in this week's Newsweek about the job "situation". Normal stuff. Stat heavy. Things like 2.2 job openings for every job seeker, the (rather spectacular) loss of jobs since "the President" was "elected", the depressing number of manufacturing that vaporized, etc.

Then there was a part of the article that describes a couple concludes that they should open a Subway franchise because, as they said, it's something people will always need. So, they give up their carreers and open a sandwich shop. Great. Good for them.

So, rather than using their education and their experience to start a business, to contribute to a company's growth, and to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of American workers, they're going to be creating interesting variations in the vibrant field of condiment combination and finding intersting ways to slice lettuce.

And then, when others have lost their carreers, they can teach the next generation about that special sauce of sandwich success.

I don't mean to belittle those who do work at Subway and those business owners who have shrewdly managed their franchises. But the tone and context of these individuals was that of defeat, like being a Venetian resigned that your city will no longer be a maritime powerhouse ruling most of the Adriatic, that your traditions and your heritage are no longer anything but fodder for the cruise ship set. So we Venetians may as well get used to selling copies of St. Mark's made out of Parmesan. We citizens of the Republic should get over talking business and finance and start talking about lunch during our lunches.

This could be another passing cloud of despair temporarily obscuring our bright future. Or not. In either case, this eclipse of the American economic sun gives us an oppertunity. An eclipse is the only chance that we, the earthbound, have to see the solar corona, to study an otherwise invisible phenomenon. While our economy radiates wealth, investment and growth, while we bask in the light of success, we can't see the entirety of our economy's output. Covered by the shadows of recession, perhaps we can examine the normally unseen.

It seems that we have a problem that shouldn't be a problem, namely we've been too successful. America and her economic might has, since the devastation of the Second World War, pretty much created single handedly the modern global economy. I don't mean to be discredit the staggering accomplishments of the rest of the planet, but no Marshall plan means that European and Japanese economies don't recover as quickly or maybe never to the point they're at. The USA doesn't successfully engage in the Cold War and perhaps the fall of the Iron Curtian takes longer further degrading already shambled infrastructures. Without our tech revolution, what would there be to outsource to India? And LOOK AT THE TRADE SURPLUSES! They build on us buying.

So, we invest in their economies which in turn take off allowing them to compete and undercut American markets. That makes our businesses and firms look for ways to improve their bottom lines by cutting costs - like labor. Then we make do with less. We work more.

So, it boils down to two things: Americans are expensive and Americans have become too greedy. We're expensive because we've allowed our avarice to get the better of us and our avarice grows because we're expensive.

Instead of remaking our fields and our carreers in the wake of a changing marketplace, we give up and open a Subway. Yes, we don't make televisions in the USA anymore. We make everything people watch on the televisions and on their DVD players (which we don't make, either).

This change shouldn't be a call to innovate steak sandwiches. This should be a time to look at the corona around our economy. Perhaps we don't have the tech jobs anymore. Move on. We have before and if we don't in the face of this eclipse, we risk permanent darkness.

Sandwich anyone?

2004-02-19T21:34:00.000-08:00

Another reason France is strange and the US media isn't very good.

A summary of the article if you don't feel like reading it or the NYTimes pulls the link:

"Yes, it is possible to marry the dearly departed in France, thanks to a law that turns the vow "till death do us part" on its head."

Got that? In France, you can marry a dead person. The article goes on to explain that the law permitting this strange permitting such nuptials dates to 1959 and was put on the books because of a disaster - a dam collapse that killed hundreds in the city of Fréjus. Those who were already engaged were allowed to procure marriage licenses so that they could be registered as widow(er)s, so that if there were kids conceived or existing they could be heirs, and so that people could salvage something from the catastrophe. Nice idea.

And it stuck around. This woman's fiancé was killed in a traffic accident, so she had the wedding - a real wedding, just sans groom (an orange chair stood in, if you're curious). This is a bit odd, but what's truly odd is the process required to get this rather exterme marriage license. This is also an example of the NYTimes' rather diappointing coverage. Let's quote, shall we?

"Anyone wishing to marry a dead person must send a request to the president, who then forwards it to the justice minister, who sends it to the prosecutor in whose jurisdiction the surviving person lives.

"If the prosecutor determines that the couple planned to marry before the death and if the parents of the deceased approve, the prosecutor sends a recommendation back up the line. The president, if so moved, eventually signs a decree allowing the marriage."

Got that? And yes, by "president" they mean Jacques Chirac, le Président de la République Française, chief executive of the world's fifth largest economy, commander in cheif of one of the world's few nuclear arsenals, and, I would imagine a very busy individual. So, to add to all of M Chirac's state duties, we may now add marriage counsellor.

President Chirac lives in the Elysée Palace, but his type of direct appeal to the chief executive smacks of another time and another palace, one built by Loius XIV called Versailles. Under the Sun King, everyday Frenchmen could sorta wander into the palace, find the king and ask if he could help them with their taxes or get a bridge rebuilt or arrange a pardon for their son who went AWOL. They would tell the king their problems and the king would respond - regardless of the problem - je verrai (I'll see).

This is the same thing. France was and is obsessed with that kind of direct appeal to authority, not just authority but the highest authority, monarchial, kingly, absolute authority. If this sort of thing were to happen in the US, it would be handled by a local official and would probably get no higher than a mayor. But France is a completely centralized state. Everything goes through the center, through Paris. This kind of process indicates how different the French view of government is from the American one. This is the true divide between France and the US. Not the divide of foriegn policy or at the UN, but a real difference of how power is dispensed, of how people relate not only to the state but to one another.

And this is where the NYTimes failed in this story. Instead of using this event as a microcosm, as an example, it harps on how wierd this is, on the "human interest" side. Wasted print and wasted oppertunity. If we want to understand, we should try not only to comprehend our similarity but to truly understand the differences.

2004-02-18T16:34:00.000-08:00

Go look at The Notion.

Andrew makes good points about marriage.

Then go pick up the latest copy of "America" and read some good, knee-jerk reaction.

2004-02-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

One of my dreams was dashed today. Howard Dean dropped out of the running for the Democratic nomination.

Did I want to see Howard Dean become the next President of the USA? Oh God, no. But I had hoped that he would win the nomination anyway. One reason is purely selfish and purely for my own amusement and the other was for the sake of the Republic.

First and foremost, how much good ol' fashioned fun would a Bush/Dean debate be? You'd have Bush making up words, espousing his vision for fart powered aircraft, promising 6 trillion new jobs in the next four years, declaring new axes of evil, pissing of Europeans, giving us suprisingly canned off the cuff remarks about his "Texan" roots, plotting against dictators with oil, and just good general conservative vaccuousness. And in the other corner would be Dr. Dean telling us how he will reform welfare, he will reform healthcare, he will reform federal spending, he will reform yee haw! and when his voice is good and harsh, he will offend some group with an ill-thought analogy about their religion or race and say things only acceptably liberal, being careful not to get TOO radical or TOO progressive or actually SAY anything AT ALL.

Ah, what could've been.... two men who don't seem to think very much jostling for the highest office of the Republic...

And that's the other thing I'll miss. I wish out country could have seen that. Of our genius, of our diversity, of our brilliance, that's the best we can do? These two? I had hoped that we would see national political debate become so disgustingly lowbrow, so devoid of discussion of anything important, so smoked and mirrored by Bush and Dean's meaningless tripe that as a nation we would collectively vomit these pretenders from our political system.

Alas what could have been!

2004-02-17T20:09:00.000-08:00

I hate to harp on this, but:

Tomorrow night:

No. 2 Saint Joseph's at Fordham, 7:00 PM ET

See that "No. 2"?

Yeah. You do. You may not want to, but you do. After we beat Fordham, we play Temple. Let's pull for a Stanford loss so that no one has to see that "No. 2" anymore and we can replace it with a "No. 1".

Go Hawks.

May The Cardinal break a wing.

2004-02-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/sports/ncaabasketball/12JOE.html

GO HAWKS!
#3!
21-0!

2004-02-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

He's in lalala land.
If you don't feel like reading the whole thing...

"Over all, the report predicts that the economy will create 2.6 million jobs in 2004, increasing nonfarm payroll employment to 132.7 million. Last February, the White House predicted that 1.7 million jobs would be created in 2003. In fact, nonfarm payrolls showed a small decline, government figures show.

"If the president's forecast is correct, 2004 will be the first year of Mr. Bush's presidency to see a net increase in payroll jobs. Since he took office, the country has lost 2.2 million payroll jobs, as nonfarm employment dipped to 130.2 million."

I love this. Really I do. There are so many places to go with those two paragraphs, it's hard to start. So, let's itemize the things that are wrong with this statement:

1. It's stupid.
2. It's meaningless.
3. It's ALMOST a lie.
4. What kind of jobs are going to be created?
5. It makes no economic sense.

So, let's go back to 1. It's just a stupid thing to say, politically. They said the same thing last year and, well, they were wrong. Why chance it? If new jobs start showing up, take credit for it. Bushtradamus, looking into his crystal Rove, now predicts that in 2004 the cherubim of jobs will bestow upon the people of North America 2.6 million jobs. Why create another issue that highlights your administration's ability to do anything it says?

2. It is meaningless. 2.6 million jobs won't show up this year. They just won't. The job market doesn't work that way. A year after a decline won't suddenly become a year of staggering gain. The American economy is too big and inertia is too powerful a force.

And it is ALMOST a lie. At best, it's a pipe dream. At worst, they know it to be untrue and are saying it anyway. Add it to the list of hydrogen cars, weapons of mass destruction, trips to Mars.... The question is why does anyone trust him at all anymore? More itemization, catagory of things GWB has said that either aren't true or he's been deliberately evassive about:
1. His "miliatary" record.
2. WMDs in Iraq. Here they actually lied to:
a. Congress.
b. The United Nations (read: every other nation on this planet).
c. The British Parlaiment.
d. The American people.
e. Themselves.
3. Connections between Iraq and global terror (see previous list of victims).
4. The costs of the war in Iraq.
5. The "ending" of hostilities in Iraq.
6. Our promise to help Afghanistan.
7. The deficit.
8. Education spending.

So, Clinton is a bit evassive about getting a BJ in the White House and he faces trial in the Senate. Clinton never claimed that he was going to create jobs. He just did. Clinton never claimed that combat hostilities ended in Kosovo. He ended them (and saved hundreds of thousands of lives, no American/allied combat fatalities). The US Government pledged to help Bosnia. We're still helping Bosnia. Now, I'm not saying that Clinton was a paragon of virtue, but politically, how much smarter was he? And, let's face it - we don't elect lousy politicians. Good politicians get things done - that's they're job. Bush and his administration are bad politicians. They're bad at what they do plain and simple. We didn't elect them in 2000, let's not in 2004.

Onto 4 and 5. Ok. We create 2.6 million jobs. What kind? Where? Quality jobs or fry cooks? Numbers only tell half the story. Instead of seeking economic growth at all cost, we really should be asking ourselves and discussing at the highest level what kind of growth we want. Do we want 2.6 million fry cooks or do we want 100,000 bankers, lawyers, doctors and small business owners? An economy on the steriods of tax cut and subsidy and protective tarriff is not a healty economy. It may look nice for a while, but eventually it will get cancer and wither away. Growth is not per se good, only that which the system can sustain is. But that's hard and the administration seems to prefer pie-in-the-sky forecasts to hard questions and good, well thought out responses.

Again, our nation is in terrible hands. Our leaders are doing an awful job. Please help them become intereseting history.

2004-02-05T21:31:00.000-08:00

"Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee that 'there's work still to be done' in surveying Iraq's weapons programs, 'and it is too soon to come to final conclusions.'"

Too soon? It's been A YEAR! A YEAR! You think in a year with 150,000 soldiers wandering around the country, they would have found at least one or two simply by accident.

Grow up, Donnie boy. Big boys admit when they goofed.

2004-02-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

Spending money is the primary way that a nation can demonstrate the things it thinks important. Apparently, "The President" thinks that we consider military spending to be more important than:
1. Helping American citizens unfortunate enough to be disabled become more productive in our society. After all, that could help disabled Americans get to work more easily, buy things more easily - you know, generate more tax income. But we don't want that. Might decrease the deficit.
2. Loans to small businesses. In yesterday's Chicago Tribune, there was a small blurb about cutting the Small Business Association's (already under funded) budget by another $50 million. The same article points out that applications for SBA loans have NEVER been higher. We wouldn't want to help small businesses succeed. That might reduce the deficit by strengthening the economy. Or worse, a small business could cut into the profits of a corporate donor. Alas!
3. School counselors. I don't get that one. No child left behind, they just have to catch up by themselves, apparently.
Why do we let them get away with this stuff? Spending billions and billions overseas to get WMDs that didn't exist, going to Afghanistan to get OBL - which has gone smashingly unwell, spending money on airport security only to have flights cancelled because of purported security concerns and that doesn't even begin to discuss all of the projects (hydrogen cars? Where are the hydrogen cars?) "The President" proposes that seem to evanesce into the dusk of his dim wit and the smog of Karl Rove’s advice.
He is spending the lifeblood of our Republic, the taxes on our labor, the products of our ingenuity and freedom without our consent.
If a CFO of a corporation behaved the way this administration does, the shareholders would demand and receive his resignation. It has taken us from profit to loss, security to vulnerability, alliance to enmity, and admiration to revulsion. Our image has never been worse to those outside our borders, our brand has suffered. We will not tolerate this behavior in our business dealings, but yet condone it in our politics?
Every Bush budget has been an affront to this nation. This one is no different and it must be the last.

2003-11-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

Save your money!
Don't see Matrix Revolutions.
Consider this a warning.
It was bad. Really bad.
Ok, that's not totally true. I kind of enjoyed the deus ex machina at the end. At it was, quite literally, a deus ex machina.
STOP READING HERE IF YOU CARE ABOUT BEING "SURPRISED" AT THE END OF THE MOVIE.
At the end of the film it seems that the writers ran into a creative dead-end. Ok, well, actually, it seems they ran into a creative dead end several years ago, but had signed this enormous contract and had to stagger on. But, not knowing what to do and having written themselves into an inane, banal, who-gives-a-shit corner, they suddenly found a need to end what seemed unendable. So, suddenly when Neo, our monosylabic hero, seems about to perish at the hands of the Elfking, sorry, wrong trilogy, Agent Smith that is, suddenly the ubermachine in the secret machine city that plugged Neo into the matrix to off Agent(s) Smith uses its ubermachine powers and makes Agent(s) Smith explode. Literally a deus ex machina.
Now, this is sad for several reasons. Again, I'll itemize for your convenience.
1. It makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
2. It makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
3. The Greeks used aforementioned literary device because humans were way to dumb, stupid, slow, pathetic, mortal, etc. to solve any kind of problem on their own. And the gods, in their infinite cruelty, enjoyed watching the circle. So, they would step in from time to time to assure good viewing by making sure that the circle could never spring open. That's why they're called tragedies. Here, the device seems to announce some sort of ending and liberation. Or it doesn't. As I've said, it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
4. And then there seems to be some sort of revelation, the significance of which everyone in the movie immediately grasps, but, because it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE, us mortals in the audience don't get.
5. And then there's the dancing and the cute little Indian program girl that I just don't get because, you guessed it, it makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
6. And then ... and then... something else that makes no sense happens.
7. And then the architect (remember him? they guy behind the door in the previous "film" that sounded like a terribly bad adjunct philosphy professor who couldn't decide if he was a nihilist or an existenialist or just liked large words?) shows up again and he and the oracle wink and nudge eachother. Why? I have no idea. Because.....
8. And then there were the R e a l l y
slow fight scenes. Where drops of water stopped falling and when Neo punched Agent(s) Smith one time in slow motion and his face made this slow motion contortion, I knew the movie went way beyond over the top. At that point - ok, well, actually much earlier than that - I should have stopped expecting this piece of overdone sophistry to make any sense.

What most irritated me is how much promise these movies seem to have had and how they were subdued by Lucasism (Lucasism (n) the tendency of furry creatures and stupid dialogue to mess up good movies). This movie just made me laugh. It was bad. It was terrible and that ticks me off because it didn't have to be that way.

Aparently, this movie was not The One.

2003-11-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

Link time.
The Notion is Andrew's blog. We went to college together and he's proof that there can be such a thing as honest debate. Yes, he leans a bit to the right, but that's OK. I especially like the Sherman statue idea. Perhaps some guilding so that it shines in the light and is visible for miles?
Oh, and a "tocsin" is an alarm bell. There was one in every spire and les parisiens especially liked to ring it during the revolution to sound the alarm against the counter-revolutionaries.

2003-11-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

First, read this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06EPA.html
It's sickening. Disgusting. You know, Republican.

So many things wrong with this one, I think I'll rhetorically itemize.

1. Dick "Haliburton" Cheney chairs an energy commission? Isn't that kinda like letting a Boston priest be principal of an elementary school? Whose idea was ... oh.... nevermind.

2. The industry complained about regulations. Hm. How novel. Pardon, but aren't regulatory agencies meant to protect everyone from the avarice of corporate entities? So, when the drug companies complain about silly clinical trials, should we junk those? Or, how about that retardo FAA? Wouldn't be easier for airlines make money without having to worry about inconveniences like aircraft maintenance and strict oversight?

3. Utilities gave huge sums of money to the Commander in Thief. Suddenly regulations disappear. I guess that's what the dolts meant when they said "legislative agenda."

4. The utility industry saves between 10 and 20 BILLION with these annoying, planet saving rules gone? 10 and 20 BILLION? That means we just gave the generating industry something between Armenia (GDP $11 billion) and Zimbabwe (GDP $21 billion).

So another freedom - the one to inhale clean air - has been sold off.
Get rid of Bush before he sells off our nation.

2003-11-05T21:51:00.000-08:00

Today's annoyance - Europeans in general and the French in particular.

I should start of with a disclaimer for those who do not know better - that is know me better. I am NOT a franco(or euro)phobe. My family's French, I speak the language, love the country, love the people. I date a European. That said, like all relationships and loves in this world, they get on your nerves and sometimes annoy you. Today, the French (in particular) and Europeans (in general and under the guise of the EU) annoyed me.

So, without further ado nor éclat (see, French!), here's what annoyed me. It was this, from Le Monde. For those unable to read French, translation below.

Mais la mise en œuvre de ces réformes est selon Bruxelles freinée par l'armée et l'appareil d'Etat kémaliste : dans certains cas, comme l'enseignement en langue kurde, ou la torture, il s'agit selon elle carrément d'obstruction. "Il convient de renforcer la mise en œuvre des réformes, ce qui suppose que toutes les institutions et personnes concernées en acceptent l'esprit", écrit la Commission qui regrette que "les organes exécutifs à tous les niveaux" ont "limité la portée des réformes en imposant des conditions restrictives".

[But the beginning of these reforms is, according to Brussels, being slowed down by the army abd the workings of the Kemalist state, in certain cases like teaching in the Kurdish language or torture, is acting like a speed bump....

and blah blah blah... the bold type is what caught my attention. (that and the expression "carrément d'obstruction" (obstacle trench) which I will try to use). So, the EU is yelling at Turkey because it doesn't permit the use of Kurdish in schools. Now, I'm not going to debate that point. Way to Byzantine a debate. (Turkey... Byzantine... get it? come on... that's ironically, snobbishly funny... admit it).

So, anyway, the French (sorta... really the EU, but the French coulda vetoed the report that the quote came from) are scolding the Turks that they should allow minorities to use their native language in schools and to respect their cultural rights. One more time. The French are telling the Turks that they really should respect the linguistic rights of minorities language groups.

And now the fun begins.

Article 2 of the French Constitution on the Sovereignty of the State reads thusly (translated for your reading pleasure):
Article 2
The language of the Republic shall be French.

Got that?

Ok.

So, that means that all of the minority rights of those whose native language is NOT French (Bretons, Basques, Catalans, Occitans, Alsatians, Flemmings - teehee- Germans etc) cannot use their NATIVE language in schools, at court, on forms, or really in any viable public forum, bascially everything that languages were made to accomplish. To do all of that - get an education, sue someone, fill out a license application, or, you know, vote - these people have to learn, you guessed it, French. As a direct result, these languages in France - and some like Breton, Occitan and Alsatian are not found anywhere else other than France - are vaporizing before our eyes. Once they're gone, they're gone. History. Toast.

So, while the French and the rest of the EU are telling the Turks that to get into their little club, they have to do a better job at promoting the native cultural diversity, they're driving Breton into the dust.

Now I understand why the Turks want into the club. Once they get in, they can ignore all the rules! Because the EU DOES have a charter on minority languages http://www.uoc.edu/euromosaic/index.html that basically says "let people speak whatever they want!!!!" That apparently doesn't translate into French too well. Or into English. The Brits had to be dragged kicking and screaming into agreement.

This annoys me. It might be right to make Kurdish language education a prerequisite for ascension to the ranks of EU member for Turkey. But before you can ask Turkey to join as a partner, as an equal among equals that the EU purports to be, then for heaven's sake be consistant! Don't force Turkey to do what France won't. To require that is not only condecending, it might be wrong.

The real carréfour d'obstruction here should be the arrogance of the EU. This should piss the Turks off. But to the contrary, they're so desparate to get into big money club (that would be the EU) they're willing to sell their souls to Brussels.
What most annoys me is that it doesn't seem to annoy Turkey.