More evidence that McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was perhaps the single worst Presidential campaign decision ever made, this story from the New York Times: Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch? Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staffer. It […]
This today from the Pew Research Center: Only 11% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. today, which is the lowest figure ever recorded. Here’s a graph of the trend. By the way, who are these 11% of people who are satisfied with the way things are going nowadays? Also today from the Pew Center, especially for my friend Jill, additional confirmation that Republicans […]
I went to the Franprix just down the block this afternoon to get a few groceries. I had a problem buying apples. Most grocery stores in France require you to weigh fruit or vegetables that are sold by the kilo at a electronic scale, which then spits out an adhesive price tag that you stick on the outside of the plastic bag holding the fruits or vegetables. To get the […]
I went to the office of La Poste on Rue d’Alésia and mailed my ballot on Monday. Even though I am solidly in the center of the political spectrum, this decision was not even a close one. Thinking about my decision, I realize that it was based on three separate but related fundamental notions. Trite and tired and cliched, maybe, but a big part of my decision was grounded in […]
Silly, funny, and slightly scary and sad poll this weekend in the Femina supplement to the French paper Le Journal du Dimanche. The poll, carried out by the French polling firm Institut français d’opinion publique (IFOP), asked 1006 people in France various questions about the United States. Not all the news was terribly bad; for example, 62% of the French (and 68% of those under 35) said they appreciated the […]
On Saturday, Suzie and I, craving the outdoors, took the Metro to the Bois de Vincennes, the huge mostly natural park on the east side of Paris. It was an absolutely glorious fall day: Cool but not too, a blue sky with a few puffy white clouds, a warm but weakening sun. The trees here are in the middle of turning color and losing their leaves, which made the walk […]
In an amazing, in my view, example of the efficiency and courtesy of our county government in Sonoma County (not that I’m biased), we received in our mailbox at our apartment in Paris our absentee ballots for the upcoming election, along with all of the necessary other documents (such as the state and local ballot guides) exactly one week after requesting them by e-mail. I have no idea how they […]
Big controversy here in France this week. During a so-called “amicale” or “friendly” soccer match at the Stade de France on Tuesday between the national teams of France and Tunesia, a large number of the Tunesian fans decided to whistle (the equivalent of booing) during the singing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. This caused a strong reaction (one could say, an overreaction) from the French government, as noted […]
It’s Sunday night, time for a quick post. We had perhaps the most relaxed weekend we’ve had since we’ve been in Paris, thanks mostly to the fact that the boys have found a new friend to hang out with, a boy in Andrew’s class named Kory. They spent the night at Kory’s house on Friday night, which gave me and Suzie an entire afternoon and evening alone together, which we […]
I feel a bit guilty posting this, while the markets are crashing, but there’s nothing much we can do other than go on doing what we are doing, which is enjoying our time here. Friday was a French-intensive day. Four hours of class in the morning, plus three hours of tutoring from 5:30 to 8:30. In between, Suzie and I took a walk around the town on a very windy, […]