Tag Archives: France

Hatred of Gays in Missouri and France

The following was reported at The Huffington Post this week: Roger Gorley went to Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday to visit Allen, his partner of five years. But when he got there, a member of Allen’s … Continue reading

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Wine is a Girl Thing?

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A 3-D Film to See Before You Die: Werner Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”

It appears that Werner Herzog has produced a once-in-a-lifetime/not-to-be-missed film that, to be fully appreciated, must be experienced in a large movie house. It’s a 3-D documentary titled Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Its subject is Chauvet Cave in France, which Andrew O’Hehir … Continue reading

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Do You Support a Burqa Ban in France?

About 2000 Muslim women in France wear the full body burqa, and the French Parliament is slated to vote on its ban Tuesday. The idea of a burqa ban is popular in France (in polls, about 80% of French citizens tend to … Continue reading

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In Case You Missed It: The Washington Post on France’s Opening Up of Its Previously Classified UFO Files

The Washington Post, in 2007, reported on the opening of France’s previously classified UFO files. Here’s the link to the article. The article focused on two key incidents revealed in the documents—one of children witnessing a UFO and one of an Air France encounter. … Continue reading

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Get out of Afghanistan Now?

That’s former NY Times foreign correspondent Chris Hedges’s advice in an essay posted yesterday at TruthDig.com. Chris Hedges thinks that we’re in a quagmire in Afghanistan, and that we are, by meeting violence with violence, creating more problems for ourselves … Continue reading

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Embracing the Blonde Hay

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Without a Doubt?: Honore de Balzac’s “A Passion in the Desert” and The Value of Close Reading

In Honore de Balzac’s short story, “A Passion in the Desert” (1830), is a vivid—and unsettling—description of an old, one-legged Napoleonic soldier: “He was without a doubt one of those troopers who are surprised at nothing, who find matter for laughter in … Continue reading

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Longing and Broken Connection in a Van Gogh Painting

Beneath a big and spasmodic sky, and before rolling countryside divided by high fences, Van Gogh foregrounds a chasm with two (or three?) people separated from one other person:

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George Bush Exit Watch: We’ll Soon Have a President with a Better Reputation Than Vladimir Putin’s!

According to the Times of London today, back in August of 2008 French President Sarkozy tried to talk Russian president, Vladimir Putin, down from hanging Georgian president Sakkashvili. How? By appealing to Putin’s sense of shame. Sarkozy asked Putin whether, … Continue reading

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Existential Contingency and Absurdity Explained by an “Onion Network News” Sports Video-Clip

Fully digesting the philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre, and soberly pondering Albert Camus’s famous observation that the first question of every life is whether or not to commit suicide—and then losing the opening coin toss to the Tennessee Titans—the Jacksonville … Continue reading

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Femme Fatales and a Hegelian Computer: Jean-Luc Goddard’s Must-See Film, “Alphaville”

Alphaville is at once innovative and thought provoking. Made in 1965, the film seems to inadvertently capture the French philosophical shift from Existentialism to Postmodernism. At the time of the making of this film, Sartre was “in” and Derrida was … Continue reading

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If Barack is a Meteor, Who are the Dinosaurs?: French Philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy’s Take on Obama

The French philosopher and biographer of Sartre, Bernard-Henri Levy, has spent a good deal of time thinking and writing about the United States. His most recent book is titled American Vertigo: Travelling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville.   In the … Continue reading

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