Paris - 2008

 

Friends of mine — Earl and Kellie (McCoobery) Starr — are presently in Paris visiting some of Earl's kids who live there.  They walk.  They walk a lot, which is easy to do in Paris which I tell people is one of the most walkable cities on Earth.  I'm having a back-and-forth conversation with them on FaceBook and that reminded me of our last trip to Paris in 2008, so I thought I would put down some recollections of that most memorable trip.

—==+++==—

Norene's brother passed away in 2007 and we went north for the festivities.  At a family get-together afterwards, Norene's niece approached her and asked when we were next going back to France.  Norene suggested that it might be soon.  The niece begged to tag along with her daughter and Norene agreed.  We were a party of four.

We told this story to our friends, Joe and Cathy Mallozzi, and they expressed interest in going with us.  We were a party of six.

The grand niece's talent for bowling got her onto a team that wangled an invitation to play in an Italian tournament, so niece and grand-niece wound up going to Italy ahead of our trip to France.  Their finances precluded two trips to Europe so close together, so we were a party of four again.

When her divorce was finally final, my co-worker Peggy Thomas held a celebration at a local watering hole, and during the event, I recounted the trials and tribulations of planning this all out.  Peggy admitted she soooo wanted to go to Europe, especially with seasoned travelers as guides.  Chris Dulligan, another co-worker, did a 'me too!', and we were a party of six again.

—==+++==—

Months ahead of the trip, I asked for each of the travelers to provide me with a list of their must-see sights in Paris, and from that list, I divided our days such that we could hit a maximum number of attractions.  Of course, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Louvre topped everyone's list.  I'm pleased to say we saw all the sights (except two) from everyone's lists.  For a pictorial recounting of the trip, see my website.

—==+++==—

The six of us met up at the Philadelphia airport whence we flew to Paris, arriving there the morning of September 7th, and took the shuttle to our apartment: 17 Rue Cadet.  We dropped our luggage and went to get breakfast at a local bistro, then everybody went back to the apartment for a much-needed snooze.  By mid-afternoon with everyone rested, I hustled them all across the street and down into the Metro to get our Cartes Orange, 5 days of go-anywhere Metro use.  Day-1 I had planned to devote to "Metro 101".  Joe and Cathy, raised in Brooklyn, knew all about subway travel; Chris and Peggy — not so much.  We did some trips hither and thither as practice, and wound up at the Abbesses Metro station in Montmartre, then climbed and climbed and climbed up to Place du Tertre for Sacre Coeur and dinner at Le Consulat.

In the days following, we tripped out to Chartres, had dinner at Le Refuge des Fondus, took in a show at Le Bal du Moulin Rouge, and got creeped out by the Paris Ossuary (among many other things).

After a week of Paris, Peggy and Chris flew home and the remaining four rented a car at CDG and headed for Normandy to see Rouen, the D-Day beaches, the American cemetery, and, finally, Mont St-Michel.  To top off the trip, we next went to the Loire valley to take in the chateaux: Chenonceau, Montpoupon, Clos Lucé, Cheverny, and Chambord, finally returning to Paris for our own flights home.

Yes, a good time was had by all.  Did I mention that Paris is a very walkable city?  Joe came home seven pounds lighter than he was at the start despite having eaten his way through half the boulangeries in France.

 

The Theory And Practice Of A Welfare State

 

In a welfare state, wealth is transferred from those who have wealth to those who don't.  Ideally, the recipients of welfare state charity are those who are needy through no fault of their own and who are making an effort to become self-sufficient.  Too often, however, the modern welfare state provides support for those who have no ambition to become self-sufficient, and which is a primary factor in how they became 'needy' in the first place.  A modern industrial society can actually tolerate a certain number of able-bodied slackers, although it's never a good idea since it tends to encourage others to take that low road.

In a modern industrial society, those with ambition and talent can live in comfort not generally available to welfare beneficiaries.  This is, in fact, the primary element that makes the welfare state possible: some people are producing wealth far beyond what is actually necessary for subsistence, and that extra wealth can be tapped in order to provide for those whose wealth-generating ability is below what is necessary for subsistence.  Voila!  A source of wealth and a place to use it.

If the recipients of welfare largesse are encouraged, cajoled, or coerced to end their reliance on public charity, a welfare state can operate for a very long time, and the more robust the underlying economy, the longer the game can be played.

We know, however, that entropy always increases, and this is true even in a modern welfare state.  As benefits become more lush, more people find themselves comfortable with the idea that they are wards of the state.  Eventually, that group becomes a powerful voting bloc, and at that point, the system, like a star that has run out of fuel, is on the path to a spectacular end.  In fact, without a mechanism that forces welfare recipients off the dole after a limited time, that path begins when the welfare state is first established.  As the number of participants who produce no wealth grows, the burden on the actual wealth-producers becomes more and more onerous.  If the number of wealth-producers is also falling (as it is in America today) the collapse of the system is easy to foresee.

Things get out of control when newborns are eligible for state-supplied welfare because there is an incentive, usually in the form of larger payments than are strictly necessary for the newborn's survival.  That is: having a baby becomes profitable and the incentive to become productive and leave the welfare rolls decreases, even if only slightly.  This also moves society toward the point where welfare recipients constitute a voting majority.

In Minnesota recently, a modern scam involving their welfare system threatens to bankrupt their economy.  Working mothers whose income is under a certain figure are eligible for $1,000 per child per month for child care expenses.  A company is formed for the purpose of delivering 'child care' and subscribes a group of families.  It then hires those mothers as 'attendants', and pays them minimum wage for 25 hours per week to watch their own children!  The company bills the state for the 'care' at the maximum allowable rate and, it appears, funnels the excess offshore.  It should not come as a surprise that the proceeds of this scam are used to bring Mom's relatives over from the home country so that they can apply for and get welfare benefits here.

Meanwhile, the sources of the funds for doing all this are having children at a much decreased rate.  The next generation will be much smaller, but supporting a much larger group of welfare clients.

This can't go on.

 

Mistaken Identity

 

A year or so ago, I got a toll-violation notice from SunPass, the Florida Toll Road folks.  They sent me a series of bills for the plate that's attached to my 49cc scooter.  Now, for anyone who doesn't know this, scooters in the 'under 50cc' class don't require a motorcycle endorsement on your license because they're barely more than mo-peds.  Under ideal conditions — downhill with a tailwind — that scooter will do 42mph.  I've seen that happen once.

But these toll notices were from the Central Florida Expressway in Polk County, 80 miles away, a road where the minimum speed is 40mph.  It's not even legal for me to drive that scooter there.  I called SunPass to complain.  The nice lady reviewed the photo that was used to generate the notice.  It was for a Hyundai sedan whose license plate was one character off: 'Q' vs. '0' (zero).  She apologized and re-routed the toll notice to the proper person.  Case closed.

A few months back, I got another toll notice, this time for a license plate that clearly wasn't mine.  I protested again.  And again.  And again.  SunPass finally got around to digging deep into the case and they report:

...the temporary plate number CIU-7849-FL was associated with a Toll-By-Plate account in your name. The information was provided by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

I don't care what DMV says; that's not my plate.  I called DMV to verify the information.  "All our operators are busy with other callers.  Please call back another time.(click)"  I called the Pinellas County Tax Collector to see if they could verify the data, and here's where it gets uncomfortable.  PCTC says "Yessir, Mr. Clarke, that's your plate!"  The helpful operator, after checking with a supervisor, suggested that the dealer, Parks Ford, might have accidentally put my information on the paperwork for that 2010 Cadillac when they sold it in January.  That's plausible.  That's where we got our 2018 Ford last June.

Turns out, when they were hustling through the paperwork for Francis Leroy Clark, they used the information associated with Francis Xavier Clarke by mistake.  Uh-oh...

They swear by all that's holy that they will correct everything that needs correcting and confirm back to me that all is well.  It may take a few months, though...

 

Repairing Notre-Dame de Paris

 

There is considerable sentiment that Notre-Dame de Paris, which suffered a serious fire on 15 April 2019, should be rebuilt.  French President Emmanuel Macron has already pledged that it will be rebuilt, and several deep-pocketed French captains of industry have pledged over €600 million for that purpose.

There are two questions still unanswered: "Who will be in charge of the rebuilding?" and "In what form shall it be rebuilt?"  I have an answer for both.

The cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris once belonged to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paris, but in 1789, the revolutionary government of France seized it along with several hundred other churches.  One of them is still to this day the Musée des arts et métiers.  Many of the churches are leased back to the Diocese of Paris for a fee.  That is: France took that property from its putative owner and now rents it back to them.  France owns Notre-Dame and is responsible for its maintenance.

It is a matter of settled law that good title can never vest in stolen property.

Taking it was a political crime.  Allowing it to burn as it did demonstrates that the French government is incapable of caring for such a valuable asset.  It is time to correct the criminal act of the revolutionary government of France in 1789.  Give Notre-Dame de Paris back to the Diocese of Paris to be rebuilt as its real owners wish.

 

April 19th, 1775

 

In the late evening of April 18th, 1775, two co-conspirators, William Dawes and Paul Revere, were on high alert in Boston.  A contact within the walls of General Sir Thomas Gage's compound had warned them of a probable troop movement overnight toward Lexington and Concord to the west with the goal of raiding and confiscating militia stores: gunpowder, shot, and flints.

Revere rowed across the harbor to Cambridge where he waited for a signal from Dawes who was to hang a lantern in the belfry of the (now 'Old') North Church: one if the troops were marching overland, two if they were to cross the harbor behind Revere.  As Revere watched, two lights shone out from across the water.  He mounted his horse and began to ride toward Lexington.  "The regulars are coming!"  Dawes took the overland route himself to alert militia units not on the direct path of His Majesty's Marines who were tasked with the operation.

At about 5am the Marines arrived in Lexington and were met by 77 militia and 100 spectators who had gathered to watch the action.  A British officer rode forward and ordered the militia to disperse and many of them decided to go home at that point.  Just then, a shot was fired; no one knows to this day who fired the shot, but it was enough to get the battle started.  Following a bayonet charge, the battle of Lexington was over with 8 militia and one British regular dead.

At Concord later that day, perhaps 8am, the British forces clearly did fire the first shot and this was met by effective return fire from the militiamen assembled.  The British managed to do some searching for weapons, but found little or nothing to compensate them for their time.  By mid-morning, other militia companies, perhaps alerted by Dawes, began arriving and jumping into the fray.  By mid-afternoon, it is estimated there were between 2,000 and 4,000 colonial militia engaging the British troops, albeit half-heartedly.  Many clearly thought this was a minor incident and would operate to chasten the regulars and make them leave the colonials alone.  There were enough hardened militia, however, to chase the British troops back to Boston, inflicting 287 casualties along the way.

By the following morning, 20 April 1775, more than 15,000 militia ringed Boston, besieging it.  The War for Independence had begun.

The longest-running mystery in this tale was the identity of the mole within Gage's inner circle, the one who tipped off Dr. Joseph Warren who passed the word to Dawes and Revere.  Historians now believe it was Lady Margaret Kemble Gage, the Governor's New Jersey-born wife.  Gage said he had only told two people of the planned raid: his 2nd-in-command and an unspecified other; Warren was killed at Bunker Hill and never revealed his source.  After the rout at Concord, Gage shipped Lady Margaret off to England — to keep her safe or because he thought she was a spy? — and joined her there after the war ended.  She never saw North America again.

 

A Scar On The Face Of Paris

 

Notre Dame de Paris is burning as I write this.  The roof has fallen in and the flèche (the arrow), the central spire, has fallen with it.  The bell towers are involved.  The stained glass windows including the famous Rose Window are probably now lying in shards on the floor.  Drone footage shows the interior, mostly 800-year-old wood, is an inferno.  Without its roof, the flying buttresses that supported the enormous weight of the roof will likely push the walls inward.  The structure is probably a total loss.

I don't know which is worse: that we have lost NDdP to negligence or to arson.  In some ways, 'arson' might be preferable.  It would allow us to be angry at something or someone, but to lose 800 years of beauty and elegance and tradition to 'oops!' would be just too hard to bear.

How was this allowed to happen?

My heart is broken.  What is left will surely be 'a scar on the face of Paris'.

—==+++==—

UPDATE (16Apr): Authorities now say the fire was accidental.  I don't know that I entirely believe that, given that a dozen smaller French churches have gone up in flames over the past several months.  The stonework appears to have survived, and many artworks and relics have been saved.  Importantly, the crypt that houses priceless documents such as the original plans for the cathedral, appears to have survived as well.  The bell towers are intact.  Had the bells (which are supported on wooden carriages) crashed to the parvis, they could easily have taken the towers with them.  The Rose Window is said to be damaged but salvageable.

Many prominent French industrialists have pledged (so far) over €600 million for its restoration.

It will likely take decades before NDdP regains its former beauty if, in fact, it ever does.  Just as those who first began its construction in 1153, I will not live to see it complete.

—==+++==—

Further UPDATE (24July2025): I am happy to be proved wrong.   The renovation of NDdP is complete, and I have lived to see it!   We're back in Paris for the fifth time and astounded at the newly-revealed beauty of the cathedral.

 

Assange and Manning

 

If what follows offends you, I am definitely not sorry.

Julian Assange has been arrested in London and will be extradited to the United States to stand trial for... well, I'm not actually sure, to tell the truth.  Assange, an Australian, published via Wikileaks material he got (allegedly) from Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning.  Mull that for a moment.  Our 'intelligence services' are so incompetent at keeping secrets that secret stuff got out, and Assange is going to be punished for... somebody else's incompetence.

Assange, as an Australian, had no obligation of loyalty or citizenship to keep what he learned secret.  No obligation, period.

Further, the stuff that got leaked was not 'national security' stuff, it was evidence of war crimes, crimes perpetrated by U.S. military personnel and contractors.  Mull that for a moment.  You can choose either to defend Assange for making evidence of a crime public, or you can defend the criminals.  There aren't any other choices; pick one.  Warning: picking the wrong one makes you an accessory after the fact.

What he publicized is almost exactly the kind of stuff that got Woodward and Bernstein (and the Washington Post) their Pulitzer prizes.  How very odd that the Post is campaigning to put Assange in the federal pokey.  I guess they only stand up for their own employees.  Too bad he was a free-lancer.

Oh, yes, he also publicized the fact that the Democratic Party rigged their own party primaries in 2016 to ensure Hillary Clinton would beat Bernie Sanders.  He's the reason Debbie Wasserman Schultz had to step down — in disgrace — as party chairwoman.  If you're a Democrat, you should be mad at your own party leaders, not Julian Assange.  If you're a Republican, you should be happy Assange blew the whistle on what, more and more each and every day, looks like a criminal enterprise.  If, like me, you shun both major parties, you should be grateful to Assange for his entertainment value.

By no means should Assange be considered a criminal himself.  He is, in fact, a hero.  He should get the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  He won't, because that would require we first admit that all of our military adventures in third-world hell-holes are crimes.

His trial, if he gets one, is going to be very educational.  Let's hope he doesn't commit suicide by two shots to the back of his head while in custody.