Well, he likes to live in France. (hat tip: “bkochba” – wasn’t he a freedom fighter himself?)
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I’m fully expecting an unsolicted email very shortly, the content of which will closely resemble the dozens of other appeals I’ve received from poor unfortunate millionaires-to-be in Nigeria. This new email, though, will sound something like:
ìDear Sir,
A thousand greetings to you and your family. I am writing to you with the utmost confidence in you ability to help me in a most difficult situation in which I find myself. I got your email during a personal research on the Internet and wish to use this opportunity to notify you of the existence of a certain amount I hope to recover from my late husbandís estate.
My husband recently passed away from yet-to-be-determined causes, leaving me in a terrible state of uncertainty and doubt. Although I was well taken care of by my husband during our married life, his unfortunate death has thrown in question my ability to secure the inheritance which I had expected after his passing. It is for this reason that I have contacted you in the hope that you might be able to help me in my quest to secure my inheritance, a part of which I will most gratefully remit to you upon its transfer to my bank.
According to the records I was given by trusted advisors and confidants, there exists on deposit the amount of $3.4 billion (three billion, four hundred million U.S.) in various banks throughout Europe. My husbandís enormous wealth was a surprise even to those who sought his help and protection. It is only through the help of individuals like yourself that I hope to recover these assets.
In order to initiate the process of monetary recovery, I am looking to secure an immediate loan from you, in the form of a fully refundable wire transfer, the small sum of $25 thousand (twenty five thousand U.S.) to be pledged as a good faith security deposit.
I sincerely need an honest person to work with and have agreed to share the money in the following percentages, 70% will be for me who will effect the transfer, and 30% will be for you whose account is used to secure the funds. There is no risk involvement because applications will be made to the concerned Federal ministries with official approvals given by the Federal government before the Central bank of Palestine will be officially empowered to wire the funds to your account by telegraphic transfer.
If you are interested, contact me by Email through suha@plo.gov indicating your full names or company name and address. Your direct telephone and fax numbers. The name and address of the bank you will like us to deposit the money, the telephone and fax numbers of the bank, your account number etc. Everything has been arranged and I will send more information about the business transaction to you as soon as I hear from you. For obvious reasons, please keep the proposal top secret and highly confidential.
Yours truly, Madam Suha Arafat
speaking of which, I am just back from France!
Wonderful things to report (wonderful-interesting, mostly, as opposed to wonderful-wonderful) . . . but have no time at the minute.
However, I must post my one wonderful-wonderful Paris factoid, which was the cover stories on the election:
Apres sa reelection triomphale BUSH maitre du monde
“After his triumphant relection, BUSH master of the world”
L’EXPRESS
and:
Caprices, fortune, secrets de famille . . . GEORGE ET LAURA BUSH LA VIE TRES PRIVEE DES MAITRES DU MONDE
“Whims, fortune, family secrets . . . GEORGE AND LAURA
BUSH THE VERY PRIVATE LIFE OF THE MASTERS OF THE WORLD”
(magazine: “vsd”)
Then, on the cover of Marianne, which my husband characterizes as a “stupid left-wing magazine,” was this:
Enquete sur les bushistes francais
“Inquiry into the French Bushists”
Apparently there are some 150 Bushists in the French Parliament, 150 out of 600.
Who knew?
The Bushists are basically allies of Sarkozy, who is pro-Bush, or, at least, certainly ready and willing to do business with Bush.
Boy, reading those headlines was fun. I bought copies of L’EXPRESS & Marianne for my coffee table; also a second set for my sister’s coffee table. She’s been in the closet about her vote, so I figure French headlines about George Bush, Master of the Universe, will do nicely.
Unfortunately, the headlines also sparked a Department of Corrections moment: apparently I misunderstood the concept of legitimacy.
I know this, because when I said, “The US vote gave George Bush legitimacy in Europe,” my husband said, “No, it didn’t. It gave him power.”
OK, fair enough!
He also said that these headlines would not have been written about John Kerry.
I should think not, but, OTOH, I was glad to hear him say it.
I also picked up a trade magazine for P.R. & marketing that had a striking graphic of an American flag on its cover with just one line of print:
Vous aussi partez a la conquete de l’Ouest.
“You, too, can go to the conquest of the West,” i.e., you can conquer the West the same way America has.
Last, but not least, on the cover of Marianne:
Le petit Irak de Chirac
That one requires no translation.
The funny thing about the Ivory Coast situation is that I reflexively side with the French.
The other day I read an apologetic passage in the TIMES or somewhere about how unfortunate it was the French had bombed the Ivory Coast airport. It was unfortunate, the report said, but unavoidable, since the insurgents had blown up a French helicopter, so of course the French “had to” bomb the airport in response. The poor French had practically been trapped into bombing the place.
I read this story with the exact same degree of sympathy I bring to MSM coverage of Iraq. My whole entire thought was: if the French blew up an airport, obviously that airport needed blowing up.
That’s how Jacksonian I am.
I’m rooting for the French.
(I am, too.)
Catherine:
I spent Election Day in France. The only French I know is how to order wine and ask for the check, but it was funny watching French t.v. cover the election.
Blue State Conservative
Well, that brings me to Factoid Number Two.
We had dinner with friends of my husband’s whom he’s known for 25 years.
The wife was telling us that the weeks leadings up to the election were remarkable; the French media had launched a massive campaign for John Kerry. No one had ever seen anything like it, she said.
She was going on about how stunning the whole thing was when her husband interrupted and said, “Well, you know why, of course.”
She looked at him and stopped talking.
Then he looked at us and said, “French journalists are gay.”
Whoa. Talk about Who knew?
Our friends said probably about 75% of French journalists are gay, (“and 90% are leftist”); apparently, gay is to French journalists what gay is to American actors. (They also swore us to secrecy; from this I gathered that while everyone there knows journalists are gay, it is not polite to say so.)
My husband, who has lived in France and has traveled there every year for his entire career, had no idea that French journalists differ from American journalists along this vector. (Factoid Number Three: men are from Mars.)
As for me, I conclude that there is no earthly reason for me ever again to attempt to read French journalism of any kind.
It’s one thing to correct for liberal bias reading the MSM here in America. I can do that, more or less.
But I have no idea how to read French and correct for French-gay-leftist bias.
As a matter of fact, I don’t know what French-gay-leftist bias even is apart from George-Bush-bad, John-Kerry-good.
“Do you ever get the feeling there’s something going on that we don’t know about?”
Mickey Rourke in DINER