Hello from Europe - 419 Days to Go

Jump to Comments

Is there anything that gets one sailing through the day on a cloud, like belcanto with the divine voice of the unforgotten Luciano Pavarotti? No? Then let’s start the news round-up with “Torna a Surriento”

Here’s the link

You find today’s news round-up below the fold - and there’s even “sex” on the menu.

Are there rays of hope for Middle East Peace? The Annapolis photo-op has resulted in a Israeli-Palestinian vow to take up negotiations and create a Palestinian State by the end of 2008. Conditions for success would be: Both Israel and the Palestinians mean what they said today, the US will not attack Iran and all the fairly unstable neighbors don’t throw a spanner in the works.“Europeanview” maybe excused for not getting her hopes up just yet.

Riots are quite the rage in suburban Paris again. After two young men were killed in an accident that involved a police car, the poverty stricken suburbs of the French capital are ablaze again. This is where thousands of young french men, mostly with an immigrant background, are cooped together, without jobs, without perspective and with the label “scum” that was given to them by Nicholas Sarkozy himself, during the riots of 2005.

The French paper L’Humanité (via The Guardian) says:

“Nicolas Sarkozy’s arrogance evidently has no limits. Questioned on television about his attitude to the crisis, the interior minister declared calmly: ‘I don’t have the right to overreact. Nothing can be achieved by agitation and tension. The most difficult thing for me is to stay lucid, to get out of the cauldron and to find the time to reflect on what should be done.’ Get out of the cauldron? If only he could! After having deliberately lit the fuse, he happily surveys the damage, and wants time to think about it. The residents of Seine-Saint-Denis and the politicians and educators who live there will appreciate that.

British students aren’t taking any from Fascists. Holocaust denier Irving and BNP leader Nick Griffin were invited to speak at the Oxford Union, but met with lively protest from students.

“I hope we’re not giving Griffin further publicity by doing this,” said Peter Simpson, a student at Essex University who stormed the chamber, ” but history has shown that you need to draw the line with fascists.

So true.

And finally: The honourable London “Times” laments the fact that the elites aren’t taking sex seriously enough. Whether “Europeanview” qualifies for elite is questionable, but I have a serious attitude. Here’s a quote from the article:

In 2004 the sex in a Tom Wolfe novel was described by the judges as not just “ghastly” and “inept” but “unrealistic”. That word “unrealistic” took me back to the recent story concerning the man who was caught copulating with his bicycle. It was the first such case in the courts, we were told, since 1994 when a Redditch man was fined for having sex with a pavement. Such is human complexity and ingenuity, there isn’t any kind of physically plausible sex that you can dismiss as “unrealistic”.

“Europeanview” wishes you all a safe and happy day, take care.

19 Comments

Filed under International - Middle East, News, News - Politics, Society - Fascism

Tags: Europeanview @ TPZoo, France, Society - Fascism, Sex, Riots, Annapolis, Holocaust, International - Middle East,