nerdycellist @ 96: what's more, that hotel is in Nantes, so rodent role-players could also have a go at scaring this guy while they're in town.
Paul A. @ 91: And which side was the yellow rabbity thing on?
I've always understood him to be a mousy thing (albeit a really long-eared one).
Lee @ 90: I'm guessing this is a UK/US thing, or something similarly geographic. The Shorter OED lists four variants - Shanks's Mare, Shanks' Mare, Shanks's Pony, Shanks' Pony - but as a native of SW England, the only one of these I've ever heard in conversation is "Shanks's Pony". My question for Alex would be, when you say it, do you actually say shanks or shankses?
TNH @ 70: The Merrimack wasn't scuttled. She caught fire when the ship outboard of her position was burned.
Is this true? The NY Times has a pair of eyewitness accounts (click through for pdf) of the Merrimack and the other ships at Gosport being scuttled and burned in two distinct operations1 over the weekend of 19th-20th April 1861 (ie within days of Virginia's secession). That said, the freeboard problems, the 172 feet and the "raft" comment definitely sound like Keegan's confusing her with the Monitor. (Shelby Foote has the men of the Virginia actually mistaking the Monitor for a raft carrying a ship's boiler, until she opens fire on them.) Add that to the geographical errors and the Disraeli business, and it's all pretty damning.
It's such a pity. I thought Face of Battle was excellent and I loved Six Armies in Normandy, but then I guess the 1970s/80s were a long time ago.
1. Admittedly the chronology is a bit confused: the first account seems to have Merrimack already scuttled when the Pawnee arrives on the evening of the 19th, where the other has her ready to fire on the Pawnee at that point. Both seem clear that she was already flooded before being set afire, though.
Tex Anne @ 193: Ah, that's the name of the tune! When they were very small, my kids had a speaking clock toy that played the same three tunes over and over again, like a musical version of water torture. One was "Trois Jeunes Tambours", one was "Quand Trois Poules" (a slightly broken version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star") and one, I now discover, was "Cadet Rousselle". Also, I now realise, it's the tune my mother-in-law whistles to herself while working in the kitchen. (Of course, given that it's whistling, it could be "Bali Balo", but that would seem out of character...)
Ginger @ 406: It's worth teaching to parents as an example of proactive methods for use in their children.
In which spirit, it's no bad idea taking small children round the outside of a parked car and getting them get to touch it1. Children usually experience cars from a passenger's viewpoint, as soft, comfortable non-threatening things that take them interesting places. Touching the outside of one can show them that it's hard and unfriendly2 and could hurt them.
1. After scouting for heat, dirt, sharp edges, paranoid owners etc, naturally! ;)
2. Modern family cars might have too much plastic for this, but a typical car park ought to have something a bit more rugged that would do.
Raphael @ 33: Does anyone here, or anyone close to anyone here, get annual letters or something from the Nobel folks asking for nominations?
Why yes, I get those all the time. Here's one that turned up this morning:
Dear friend,
My name is MRS DR MIRIAM NORDQVIST and I am chairperson of the Noriges Riksbank in Oslo Norway. Some years ago a client of this bank MR ALFRED BERNHARD NOBEL of Stockholm Sweden died most unfortunately in San Remo Italy. On checking our accounts ledgers I find that he had deposited with us the sum of 31,000,000 Kr (THIRTY ONE MILLION KRONOR) with instructions that if he died we should not give this money to his family but should instead give it to deserving people around the world who would help the world peace and the brotherhood between countries, because Mr Alfred Bernhard Nobel had gained this money through manufacturing of weapons and arms which were killing many peoples. I therefore am writing to you to invite you to nominate any such deserving people, possibly including your good self. (Please be sure to include your bank address and all account numbers for the easy disbursement of funds.)
Many thanks from the bottom of my heart,
Mrs Dr Miriam Nordqvist
Serge @ 2: That's the first time I've seen the word 'bolide' used in its astronomical sense. A shame that it couldn't have hit a higher performance car: then it would have been one bolide hitting another.
(Of course the 1964 model Chevy Malibu could be a good deal more exciting...)
abi @ 356: This is a perfect description of my older kid
It sounds a lot like our older kid too, back in primary school. He hardly even seemed to be the same species as the other kids: there was no hostility that we know of, but plenty of thinking "weird" and turning away. It took its toll in stress.
FWIW, secondary school has worked out much better so far (* looks round for wood to touch *). His academic choices have, more by luck than design, landed him in with a very diverse class - kids who speak French as a third or fourth language, kids who've been to school in other countries - and this seems to have made them all very accepting and open-minded. We count our blessings, and cross our fingers for the next one.
(That YMMV seems too obvious to need saying, but we wouldn't have happened on our son's school if not for conversations with others.)
Rikibeth @ 363: For the kids, these are signifiers of protest. That's what protest looks like on TV, that's what their elders do at university, that's what everyone knows you're supposed to do.
When adults are angry about something, barricades etc are mostly there to send a message of "We're serious, we're prepared to take casualties and we won't be intimidated," but there's also a tactical purpose of sorts. If the police escalate things, they'll be operating with reduced mobility against protesters who work together and use equipment (tractors, lorries, excavators etc). The cops have to use more force, which makes for more sensational TV and more pressure on the government.
It's never exactly military though: the point is always to get attention and shift public opinion. When things really get rough and protesters shut the motorways down, this acts as a kind of impossible-to-ignore opinion poll. If the public think the protesters have a legitimate grievance, they'll blame the government for the disruption. The government can't break up the roadblocks with anything less than armoured vehicles, and no-one wants that kind of archive footage as their political epitaph, so that only leaves negotiation or retreat.
The thing is, this culture of protest would naturally turn into revolution if the issues were serious enough and the government stood firm. I think this kind of ties back in with heresiarch's worry on fail states way upthread (@ 220): the French see protest, not free speech, as the ultimate guarantor of their rights.
albatross @ 442: I could certainly see it as an episode of 'Friends'. (With apologies for un-Americanisms...)
THE ONE WITH THE COWBOY STATUE
With a sudden influx of cash from a film role, Joey buys an unusual statue, but it creeps Chandler out.
CHANDLER: You know those paintings where the eyes seem to follow you round the room?
He persuades Monica to look after it. Later, Phoebe and Ross see it for the first time.
PHOEBE: (Smiles) Oh wow, I used to date a guy who did that!
ROSS: (Stares.) Really?
PHOEBE: Yeah. (Catches Ross's expression.) NO! He used to build sculptures of CARTOON CHARACTERS!
Later still, Rachel catches Monica with the statue and a feather duster.
MONICA: It just... doesn't feel clean in here, with him doing that.
RACHEL: (Leans nonchalantly on statue.) Sweetie, you can dust all you lke, it's always gonna be a dirty statue, you know that, right?
A loud snapping noise is heard.
MONICA: Oh my God, did you just break that? You broke that! You just broke a thirteen-and-a-half million dollar statue!
RACHEL: Oh my God! It came off in my hand!
MONICA: Right there? That's a half a million dollars you got there. (Takes a closer look.) Well, a coupla hundred grand, anyhow.
Serge @ 444: Louis de Funès would rock the reaction shots! You'd get minutes of laughs every time he saw the statue (or Pierre Richard pretending, because Depardieu's sold it to Terry-Thomas on the sly.)
Keith @ 435: All I'm going to say is that whoever buys it will have to have a big sheet to cover it over for when their mom comes to visit.
That would make a stupendous MacGuffin for a French farce: "ZOMG, Mom's here and we forgot to cover that statue!!!" It's so expensive too. What if it got broken? Or it went missing, and one of the characters had to stand on the pedestal and imitate it?
Linkmeister @ 4: Willie Sutton got away with roughly $2M during his career robbing banks.
It sounds like he did better than most. Even if you average over his entire adult life, that still comes out at better than $30K per year, presumably a decent living in the 1970s and a very good one in the 30s. By contrast John McVicar, one of Britain's more famous armed robbers, calculated that including time spent in prison, he'd have made more money as a manual labourer, digging ditches. (Incidentally, McVicar's autobiography looks excellent: be sure to read the "Look Inside" pages on Amazon for contrasting Bulgarian views of the Roger Daltrey film.)
Me @ 341: ...I don't think that would be possible.
Overstating the case: I should have said something more along the lines of "...I think that could be difficult." Any society can revolt, it just goes against the grain in some more than others.
Bruce Cohen @ 333 and after, re individualism vs co-operation in American SF: it's not post-apocalyptic, but this made me think of Larry Niven's "Cloak of Anarchy". Individualism just doesn't work when the state breaks down: groups will always form, and you'd better get yourself into one fast. "Anarchy isn't stable. It comes apart too easily."
Albatross @ 335: Nobody calls you a troublemaker or smears you for that--as they will, if you picket or try to organize a boycott or ask annoying questions at the stockholder's meeting, or even sue someone to get them to stop doing something wrong.
As seen from outside the US, this looks really contradictory[2]. If America prizes individualism, how can it view 'troublemaking' as a bad thing? One guy standing up to a faceless corporation ought to be a hero. This reminds me of another BoingBoing comment thread standard, the one where Mark posts about a concert violinist getting tasered or similar, and a whole load of commenters chime in with, "He had it coming, he should have done what the cop said," or words to that effect.[1] The criticism doesn't just seem to be tactical (you should pick your fights) but also moral (you shouldn't stand up to authority). I don't get it. What could be more individualist than standing up to authority? Am I missing something?
Charlie Stross @ 247: You folks[*] need a new revolution.
Given the above, I don't think that would be possible. If people don't instinctively stand up to corporations or cops, how will they bond effectively to form a revolutionary mob? The French can improvise a revolution at the drop of a hat, but then they're trained for it from childhood. Anecdote: when the Ministry of Education here wanted to change the curriculum for 16-18 year olds, the kids went out on strike. At my son's school (affluent town, conservative-leaning, not at all a rough neighbourhood) they formed an action committee, threw up barricades[3], lit fires, formed human chains across the road, the whole bit. The police stopped by to check that things were properly organised, then left one guy to keep an eye on things, from a distance, just in case. (He looked bored: I mean, it was great that the kids were getting some hands-on civics education, but it's not like they were going to break out the Molotov cocktails or anything. This was babysitting, not riot duty.)
[1] I can't see the comments from that link, but that's my recollection of how it went, and the pattern's so firmly established that you often see commenters anticipating it now on that kind of post.
[2] HUGE disclaimer to what follows: I am horribly ignorant about the US, have spent a total of seven days there in my entire life, etc etc. If I've completely misunderstood, please regard this as an amusing example of how we really should learn about the world before sounding off about it.
[3] Big piles of furniture, way above head height. It's amazing how high teenage boys can stack stuff, when there are teenage girls watching.
Bruce Baugh @ 274: Then it's worse than I thought - the US has actually developed anti-fraternity!
Lee @ 259: I seem to have become the guy with a plank on his shoulder in one of those slapstick routines. I'll try standing very still and see if I can avoid hitting anyone for a bit. Apologies for the twitches caused.
Ten years ago I'd have been agreeing with heresiarch's absolutism on free speech, and probably on the headscarf ban as well. Now I think I'm at a very similar place to Abi. I wrote and discarded a post last night which read in part:
"Exposure to France forced me to accept that my own was only one of a range of possible viewpoints a reasonable person could hold. (I'm not arguing for total moral relativism, but the things I still feel sure of as objectively true - the wrongness of torture, for example - aren't enough to build a functioning society.)"
I don't think I'd have lost that absolutism without leaving the English-speaking world. Seeing the UK change around me probably wouldn't have done the trick. I'm too field-dependent: if we were all lobsters in a pan of water, I'd be the one going, "Oh, do you really think it's getting warmer?"
Kelly McCullough @ 241: I suspect that a huge part of the problem in the USA has to do with the ever-increasing legal equivalence between individual rights and corporate rights.
I think you'd be amazed at French attitudes to capitalism. Big companies have duties here, not rights: you're not allowed to cut your workforce unless you can prove you're making a loss, and if you close a factory without going through all the relevant steps they will literally put you in prison, and the man in the street says "quite right too." Mysteriously, the economy does not collapse: it's a bit slower than the UK in booms, and a bit better in hard times like now, but overall it does okay. The thing is, I don't think you could export the French approach to the UK, far less the US, not because it wouldn't work but because people would think it was morally wrong to treat companies so badly.
Annalee Flower Horne @ 230: Inasmuch as the original discussion that prompted this post was about whether or not women should be allowed to wear modest swimsuits to public pools and beaches, I don't think it necessarily scans to say that anyone who would wear such a thing remains cloistered away from men.
Oh, absolutely, and I wasn't at all trying to suggest such a thing. The context I had in my head was PNH's I think that one of the necessary first steps to making a better world is getting to know the one we’ve got, which your post @ 178 seemed to echo, and my intended point was that some Muslim ways of living* will have problems benefitting from the familiarity effect that you describe. (That was why I said "devout Muslim women", hoping that the anecdote about my wife's friend would show what I meant by the word "devout". I can now see that the way I expressed myself here was hopelessly ambiguous, and that furthermore I should have inserted at least one caution along the lines of "I am not saying that my wife's friend or anyone else should change their behaviour because of this".)
Now ISTM that these ways of life will correlate to some extent with modest dress, and thus that the sample bias effect they suffer from ("I don't know any cloistered women") is likely to have at least some carry over onto modest dress. Once again, I am not suggesting that this is anyone's fault or requires action by anyone: with luck, increasing diversity among the modestly dressed will weaken the correlation over time, and the burqini looks like a positive step on that front.
*Clunky expression, but I can't come up with anything better. Stupid brain, too full of useless French conjugations.**
** I mean, when am I ever going to need to find the first person plural subjunctive of the verb "to be born"?
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