May Day Pariscope!

 

may-day-in-paris-2002-001Sorry about last week’s Pariscope walk. That was a bit of a bust because it rained all weekend and Leo was sick with a cold. So we wound up staying at home, playing with the cats, and eating scrambled eggs. It wouldn’t have been very interesting to broadcast that live.

But today, for the first time, we’re going to use this Periscope thingamajigger to do real journalism. Because today is May Day — the International Day of Laborers and the Working Classes promoted by the labor movement, anarchists, socialists, and communists, as well as an ancient European spring holiday — celebrated without irony and with a large cohort of riot police everywhere in the world but America, where we will never be so over the Cold War that we can use the phrase “International Workers Day” with a straight face. The weather report says it will be sunny and fine, so this should be a colorful day indeed for journalists such as ourselves.

May Day’s an extremely significant holiday in France. As important as Thanksgiving in the US. And almost everywhere in the world, May Day means journalists can sell stuff. What kind of stuff? No one knows, but even no news is worth a few bucks: “May Day was celebrated peacefully in Paris” is considered news. (That’s probably the only news we’ll get out of the day, but it’s still news. Guarantee you it will not be celebrated peacefully somewhere else. Probably Istanbul. I remember one year when the May Day celebrations there were, to everyone’s astonishment, totally peaceful — and that was news.)

Alas, May Day is May Night for most of you. All times below are Paris times. (Here’s a handy time-zone converter.) But if you’re afflicted with insomnia, or working the night shift — tune in! And if not, you can still watch the broadcasts later, when you wake up. But you won’t be able to ask questions or interact with me, which is a shame, because that’s my favorite part of this.

By the way, if you missed my earlier posts about this: Periscope is an app that lets me livestream what I’m seeing and interact with viewers in real time. Here’s the info page, and here’s where you follow my broadcasts.

So here are some of the things we might see today:

MuguetsFirst, May 1 has been a day for celebrating old French customs since King Charles IX received a gift of flowers on May 1 in 1561. So you’ll see people buying muguets to give to their loved ones. If you do that, it brings good luck. Families with children sometimes even get up early in the morning and go into the woods to pick them.

Second, although I doubt we’ll be able to get near it because of the crowds, there’s a wreath-laying ceremony at noon at the Arc de Triomphe, and then there will be a parade on the Champs Elysee.

Third, all the churches and the Panthéon will be open. Sunday Mass starts at 11:00 a.m. at most of them. But think I can only do about an hour of broadcasting in total before the battery runs out, so I’m not sure we’ll have time for the detour. It all depends what you want to see.

Fourth, May Day in Paris is traditionally a day for massive union demonstrations and parades. Each political party sponsors its own unions. We’ll see workers of the world uniting, socialists, communists, and lots of politicians trying to be out in front of them for the cameras. These should be particularly pugnacious this year, because the unions have been going absolutely berserk about the proposed new labor laws. You may even get a chance to see people in France singing The Internationale unironically.

The traditional route for Left-wing parades is from République to (of course) the Bastille, and then, if the march is big enough, to Nation. There will be lots of rallies and speeches all over the city, mostly for causes of which we’d disapprove, but these are the main ones:

At 3:00 pm, the left and the hard-left start their march at the Bastille. Recently, the Nuit Debout movement has been gaining strength. We can find them there, I reckon. If you’ve got any questions for Nuit Debout people but you won’t be awake then, leave them in the comments, I’ll ask for you.

mapAt 11:00 a.m., the libertarians and the anarch0-syndicalists will begin their march for “a social revolution and libertarianism” and against the government’s austerity program. (What does it mean to be a libertarian in France, you ask? Hell if I know; that sure doesn’t sound like something any libertarian we know would do, does it? But they’ll all be there today, so let’s just ask them.) They start at 11:00 am at the Place des Fêtes, and head toward the Bastille.

Only problem is that there are a few scheduling conflicts. See below.

From 11:00 am to noon, there’s an antifascist rally in memory of Brahim Bouarram, a Moroccan father of two who was murdered by the National Front on a previous May Day, at the Pont du Carrousel.

Fifth, May Day is also counter-rally and counter-parade day for the National Front. This year, there will be two competing National Front events to commemorate the day: a traditional rally, led by the elder Le Pen, and a “Great Patriotic Banquet” led by his enemy and mortal rival — his daughter Marine. Usually, the far-right parade goes from Opéra to the statue of Jeanne d’Arc near the Place de la Concorde. But this year, things will be a little different. France24 explains:

France’s far-right National Front party has shifted its annual May 1 gathering from its usual spot at a statue of Joan of Arc in central Paris to another location, citing a terrorist threat.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the firebrand founder of the National Front (FN), has organised his own rally at the traditional spot in defiance of his daughter Marine’s decision to host the event elsewhere in Paris.

If we go, and actually, I’d really like to see this — I’ve never seen the Old Boy speak — we’ll be going to the traditional one (at 11:00 am local time), because Marine’s banquet is invitation-only.

The annual FN gathering has taken place every year since 1988 at the gilded bronze statue of French heroine Joan of Arc (who was burned at the stake for heresy by the English in 1431) on Rue de Rivoli next to the Louvre Museum.

But this year, prompted by jihadist threats to the “idolatrous” annual gathering of anti-European and anti-immigration FN supporters, the venue has been shifted to another statue of Joan of Arc, this time at Saint Augustin, less than two kilometers away.

jm-lepen.jpeg

Because this is a family-friendly site, I won’t show you the other gate-crashers.

The one at Saint Augustin is just a wreath-laying. No speechifying, they’re saving that for the banquet. But the real reason they moved the rally isn’t because ISIS threatened it. It’s because last year, Marine (the daughter) totally lost control of it. She’d just placed a spray of lilies and roses at the foot of Joan of Arc’s gilded statue when a bunch of nekkid Femen chicks burst onto the scene. And if that wasn’t mood-ruining enough, out of nowhere her embarrassing father ambushed her. The Old Boy was supposed to be safely in the hospital, recovering from heart surgery, but he materialized exuberantly, clambered up on the stage, ruddy and demented, and began shaking his fists in defiance. Marine just couldn’t catch a break.

So this year, she’s having an invitation-only Great Patriotic Banquet and leaving Pops to be blown up by ISIS:

The nature of Sunday’s official rally has also changed. The Rivoli gathering traditionally sees FN supporters marching to nearby Opéra after speeches by party leaders.

This year, however, the event at Saint Augustin will be a stationary “patriotic banquet” in the shadow of St Joan (she was canonized in 1920).

“Daesh [Islamic State group] has directly threatened the FN,” said party lawmaker Gilber Collard in reference to a recently-published article in a jihadist magazine that described the FN rally as a “prime target.” “We do not want to risk the safety of our militants.”

Daesh has threatened to blow up everyone in France, so really there’s nothing special about them threatening to blow up an FN rally. Everyone understands the real logic of this. No photos of Marine ahead of the 2017 elections with a bunch of nekkid ladies and her crazy Pops, period. 

But it wasn’t just safety issues that caused the change in venue. In 2015, Jean-Marie le Pen was removed from the list of speakers at the May 1 event, but appeared on stage anyway in chaotic scenes that many saw as a purposeful attempt to undermine his daughter’s legitimacy.

“I think that was a malicious act, I think it was an act of contempt towards me,” Marine Le Pen, who took over the party leadership in 2011, told French radio after the event.

No kidding, Marine. (This family is straight out of King Lear.)

“I get the feeling that he can’t stand that the National Front continues to exist when he no longer heads it,” she said.

It’s true, he can’t. It drives him nuts. He’ll do everything in his power to sabotage her.

Indeed, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has been convicted for making anti-Semitic comments, inciting racial hatred and for Holocaust denial, has become a growing problem for the FN as it tries to move its public image away from the overt racism and anti-Semitism of its beginnings.

Jean-Marie Le Pen has not been invited to the “patriotic banquet.” He told Metronews he wouldn’t deign to go to what will be a tightly-controlled and watered-down rally, even if he was invited.

Instead, he has prepared a 40-minute speech that he will deliver to die-hard supporters at the Joan of Arc statue on Rue de Rivoli.

According to Metronews, Le Pen senior said, “I call all the people who are not afraid of Daech to meet before the statue of Joan of Arc on May 1, instead of the Pyramids, where I will address the yuuuuuge crowd of patriots who will, I am sure, respond to my appeal.” (Read: If you go to my daughter’s rally, you’re a complete wuss.) “Il n’y aura pas de place pour les pleutres et pour les lâches,” he said. “There will be no room for spineless people and cowards.”

“I want to maintain this FN tradition started 28 years ago,” he said, referring to his daughter as “Madame Le Pen” who had “broken the tradition of marching from the statue of Joan of Arc, supposedly because of a Daesh threat.”

“I haven’t been invited [to the patriotic banquet] and I wouldn’t want to go,” he said.

“Despite this, what I desire, and what will be the subject of my speech on Sunday, is for the FN to unite ahead of the [presidential and legislative] elections of 2017,” added the man whose bellicose words and actions have done more to divide the party he founded than any other.

Recently, Marine has been posing in lots of photos with her cats to soften her Comme-Jean-Francois-Cope-Marine-Le-Pen-ouvre-un-blog-pour-preparer-2017-sans-reference-au-FNimage. These take on a somewhat different meaning when you know that last year, one of her father’s dogs devoured one of her cats. Yes, that is correct: Her father’s dog ate her favorite cat.

Anyway, Marine has threatened to excommunicate any FN supporter who goes to her father’s rally. She’s reportedly going to have spies in the crowd to see whether any of her faithful followers are betraying her. So let’s try not to miss that: Skinheads, spies, and the Old Boy whipping up the Party die-hards; that should give us a really good feeling for the old Front. Tune in at 10:00 a.m. Paris time. I’ve never seen the Old Boy live, so I’m looking forward to that.

By the way, the Old Boy’s a big Trump fan. He calls him “Don Trump.” I don’t know if his English is good enough for him to realize that this has a second meaning.

  1. Apr 21 Bravo à Don TRUMP pour sa belle victoire à New York, qui augure de la prochaine…

Don’t be alarmed if the broadcast starts and stops suddenly. It’s hard to concentrate on where you’re walking and what you’re filming at the same time, so if the crowds require me to pay some attention to what’s going on around me, I’ll just stop filming. (May Day is notorious for pickpocketing. This is also why I’ll be mean to the adorable little urchins who try to give me flowers. I don’t hate adorable little urchins with flowers. But I do hate their parents, who put them up to distracting people so they can pick their pockets.)

Don’t forget: I’m mailing signed, paperback copies of There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters and Menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis is America’s, Too to everyone who contributes to my book campaign this weekend.

See you at the barricades!

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  1. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Seattle businesses are already battening down the hatches and boarding up windows in anticipation of vandalism and destruction.  Seattle Police will be out “in force”, but they are afraid of their own shadows these days (afraid of Black Lives Matter, etc., and under Justice Department consent decree).  Remember the WTO riots?  This now happens almost every year, and those who run the city are 1960s radicals who are in sympathy with the anarchists.

    • #1
  2. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Claire,

    If I understand you we are beginning our advance on Paris at about 11:00 am your time. Here in Florida where I am it would be 5:00 am. Is this correct?

    If this is so. We are coming.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #2
  3. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    James Gawron: Here in Florida where I am it would be 5:00 am

    I believe so! See you there.

    • #3
  4. drlorentz Member
    drlorentz
    @drlorentz

    May Day reminds me of a little ditty I learned in New England that begins, “Hooray, hooray, it’s the first of May…” The rest is not CoC compliant, so you’ll have to Google it if interested. Suffice it to say that it concerns labor only in the sense of a labor of love.

    • #4
  5. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    James Gawron:

    Actually, I plan to start at 9:30 or so my time — Le Pen père starts at 10:00, it seems. I’ll probably go from there to the Pont du Carrousel, then maybe break for lunch before going to the Bastille.

    • #5
  6. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.:

    James Gawron:

    Actually, I plan to start at 9:30 or so my time — Le Pen père starts at 10:00, it seems. I’ll probably go from there to the Pont du Carrousel, then maybe break for lunch before going to the Bastille.

    Claire,

    If I understood your transmission. Madame Le Pen’s father’s dog ate one of Marine’s cats??

    I have coined a phrase for this political season. I came up with it after listening to Andrew Klavan one time too many.

    GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME POPCORN!

    I know it doesn’t make a great deal of sense. However, if one can’t get what one wants politically at least a little entertainment could be a second prize.

    Vive la France!

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #6
  7. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    I thought nuit debout was a busted flush, descending into the standard occupy mutual excommunication, serving now only as a fetish object for philosophy professors of a certain age and easy copy for credulous and lazy journalists.

    • #7
  8. DialMforMurder Inactive
    DialMforMurder
    @DialMforMurder

    If nothing else, it seems like it would be a good opportunity to meet singles who share your politics.

    • #8
  9. Mike LaRoche Inactive
    Mike LaRoche
    @MikeLaRoche

    RushBabe49:Seattle businesses are already battening down the hatches and boarding up windows in anticipation of vandalism and destruction. Seattle Police will be out “in force”, but they are afraid of their own shadows these days (afraid of Black Lives Matter, etc., and under Justice Department consent decree). Remember the WTO riots? This now happens almost every year, and those who run the city are 1960s radicals who are in sympathy with the anarchists.

    What’s needed is a whiff of grapeshot.

    • #9
  10. Robert Zubrin Inactive
    Robert Zubrin
    @RobertZubrin

    What great writing. Super!

    • #10
  11. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    James Gawron: If I understood your transmission. Madame Le Pen’s father’s dog ate one of Marine’s cats??

    Roger that. You have understood correctly.

    • #11
  12. Tenacious D Inactive
    Tenacious D
    @TenaciousD

    The protests against the Loi El Khomri seem the most serious to me. That is, from your descriptions above, the various demonstrations by the FN, antifa, anarcho-libertarians against austarity, et al. sound designed to whip up the base, while the labour law dispute will have meaningful policy outcomes whichever way it is decided.

    Is there anyone in France who vocally supports the labour law reforms? On the surface, they seem pretty reasonable to me–which lines up with my heuristic of disagreeing with unions, student protesters, and reds–but I haven’t looked at them in detail.

    • #12
  13. Nick Stuart Inactive
    Nick Stuart
    @NickStuart

    In addition to the Red Fete which has occupied the serious posters that have preceded me. And it’s Orthodox Easter this year.

    On the lighter side, as was said by the ancients:

    The First of May!
    The First of May!
    Outdoor [consortium] begins today!

    Although the first two will be enthusiastically celebrated here in the People’s Republic of Illinois, the current outdoor temperature of 40° F will confine all but the hardiest amongst us to the indoors for a little while longer.

    • #13
  14. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    I couldn’t resist – I watched the Paricope thingies – I haven’t contributed yet but should be working again in two weeks and then I will sort you out Berlinski.  Promise.

    Three questions:

    1. Was the Algerian origin lady you interviewed referring to the killing of North Africans by the police back in the 1950s/60s in Paris during the Algerian war of independence?
    2. Periscope keeps sending up these little hearts on the right hand side of the screen while I’m watching. Is this normal? Am I unwittingly sending you heartsies?  If so I swear I’m not being creepy, it’s just happening.  Have I clicked the wrong button? Anybody?
    3. Why do you think the French Revolution failed, and why do think the American Revolution has not failed?  What’s the measure of success or failure?
    • #14
  15. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Tenacious D: Is there anyone in France who vocally supports the labour law reforms?

    Pretty much everyone who hasn’t been protesting, yes. They’re eminently reasonable and everyone knows it.

    I’m checking the news now. We managed to miss it. Femen showed up for Marine’s rally, not the Old Boy’s. And just a few blocks from where I decided, “Okay, peaceful rally, nothing to see here,” and turned around, this happened:

    More reports of violence breaking out at the Paris rally: Below Le Monde journalist Juliette Harau says police cornered by around 200 protesters in front of shop windows have fired stun grenades and tear gas. She also says journalists have been “violently ejected” by protesters on Avenue Daumesnil, between Bastille and Nation.

    We missed it all. I actually thought, “Is that tear gas I smell?” (I’m weirdly insensitive to capsicum-based tear gas: I’m part of the small percentage of the population that doesn’t have a very strong reaction to it.) But I told myself I must just be imagining it based on May Days past in Istanbul, and obviously, no one was choking or tearing up. But I guess I really did smell it. I should have trusted my sense of smell and kept walking.

    • #15
  16. Eric Hines Inactive
    Eric Hines
    @EricHines

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: So we wound up staying at home, playing with the cats, and eating scrambled eggs. It wouldn’t have been very interesting to broadcast that live.

    But then we could have snooped around your apartment–from the cats’ perspective, via GoPro cameras in place of their bells.

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: All times below are Paris times. (Here’s a handy time-zone converter.)

    FoxClocks also works well with Firefox; it sits in the status bar.

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: No photos of Marine ahead of the 2017 elections with a bunch of nekkid ladies and her crazy Pops, period. 

    Surely easily could be spun: “See crazy Pops, cavorting with nekkid wimin/consorting with nekkid wimin to harass the Great Patriotic National Front.  Does Pops love France, or not?”

    Those street musicians (because I got up at that miserable hour)–you could have spent all day with them.

    Eric Hines

    • #16
  17. Eric Hines Inactive
    Eric Hines
    @EricHines

    Zafar: Why do you think the French Revolution failed, and why do think the American Revolution has not failed? What’s the measure of success or failure?

    I’ll hazard a guess, and then Ms Berlinski can tell me how wrong I am.

    The American Revolution was built up from a long series of argument and debate with each other and with a remote government that, at bottom, really wasn’t all that different in social philosophy, albeit the differences and the political philosophy differences were Critical Items.  Ours had an underlying philosophy and an endgame for what should come after Independence (even though we made a hash of our first post-Independence draft).

    The French Revolution was an outburst of rage against a government with which the only connection was the latter’s application of raw, naked power against the former, it had no organizing principle beyond down with the king, and it had no endgame, and so the rebellers (I can’t call them revolutionaries) quickly lost control of their “movement.”

    A couple of books you might want to read until your day job interferes with your priorities:

    Pauline Maier’s From Resistance to Revolution, Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, and Gordon Wood’s The Radicalism of the American Revolution.  Sorry, I don’t have anything similar for the French Revolution.

    Eric Hines

    • #17
  18. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    I do fondly remember buying Pariscope to decide which classic movies to see in the great old independent cinemas of the 6th and 5th. Then the Internet happened.

    • #18
  19. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.: This family is straight out of King Lear.

    That one sentence is worth this month’s subscription fee. Everything past that is gravy.

    By the way, the song I was trying to identify at the Le Pen père event was “Le Régiment de Sambre et Meuse,” otherwise known as the march the Ohio State University Marching Band plays during Script Ohio.

    I’m watching the second one now.  Had to sleep sometime.

    • #19
  20. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Claire,

    Paris was just beautiful on this beautiful sunny day. We didn’t even get a wiff of tear gas. Jean-Marie’s dog did not swallow yet another of Marine’s cats. All in all, it was a terrific time. Just one problem.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #20
  21. Pseudodionysius Inactive
    Pseudodionysius
    @Pseudodionysius

    In 1955 Venerable Pope Pius XII, established the Feast Day of “St. Joseph the Worker” to be celebrated annually on May 1. This date was specifically chosen in order to counteract the predominantly Socialist and Communist holiday “International Workers’ Day,” also known as “May Day.” Pius XII encouraged laborers to look to St. Joseph as their model and to ask for his intercession in their work:

    St. Joseph is the best protector to help you in your life, to penetrate the spirit of the Gospel. Indeed, from the Heart of the God-Man, Savior of the world, this spirit is infused in you and in all men, but it is certain that there was no worker’s spirit so perfectly and deeply penetrated as the putative father of Jesus, who lived with him in the closest intimacy and community of family and work. So, if you want to be close to Christ, I repeat to you “Ite ad Ioseph”: Go to Joseph! – Ven. Pius XII, Address to Italian Workers, 1 May 1955

    • #21
  22. Pugshot Inactive
    Pugshot
    @Pugshot

    I didn’t catch it if you mentioned it, but did you end up at Place des Vosges? That’s what it looked like to me, anyway. Loved the walk – would have liked to do some window shopping along the way (I did see your inspection of the shop with the Russian matryoshka dolls). I’m not a fan of the architecture of the Bastille Opera – it would be interesting for those not familiar with the two Operas to Periscope the Bastille Opera and then the Opera Garnier (particularly the ball room in the Garnier).

    • #22
  23. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Pugshot: I didn’t catch it if you mentioned it, but did you end up at Place des Vosges? T

    Exactly. Yes, I mentioned it, but I never know whether people can hear me over the ambient noise. The Bastille Opera is criminal. It turned the whole neighborhood — one that was as beautiful as the fourth — into a place that says, “The architects hate you.” And as soon as that happened, the crime rate went up. You sound pretty familiar with the city, so I’m sure you know how the mood changes if you walk from the Fourth into the Eleventh at night. That’s on that monstrous building and the rest of the ugly ones they built in the 11th.

    • #23
  24. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Zafar:

    • Was the Algerian origin lady you interviewed referring to the killing of North Africans by the police back in the 1950s/60s in Paris during the Algerian war of independence?

    She was referring to both. I was trying to translate what she was saying in real time, but I watched that part of the video later and realized I wasn’t speaking anywhere near close enough to the phone to be audible. We were walking from the LePen rally to the site of the memorial for Brahim Bouarram. It’s hard to believe that twenty years ago his rallies at that site attracted young, violent men. As you could see, now the only people who show up are friendly, nostalgic, elderly, and there with canes and walkers. I saw a handful of skinheads (including the one who told me I couldn’t understand what it is to be a nation because Americans are colonized mongrels), but pretty much everyone else you saw there who was under the age of 60 was a cop or a journalist. All the energy of the movement is with Marine, now; they’re only there for the Old Boy as a show of appreciation and loyalty.

    But in 1995, they were something very different. A group of them went straight from the rally — I’d turned the phone off to save battery, but had I not, you’d see that the bridge is only five minutes away — and that link tells the rest of the story.

    The woman I was speaking to was of Algerian origin. (She said “I’m Algerian,” not “of Algerian origin,” or “from Algeria,” but she spoke with a native Parisian accent, so I think she’s “of Algerian origin.”) She said she was particularly affected by it because it brought back the memory of the 1961 Paris massacre.

    • Periscope keeps sending up these little hearts on the right hand side of the screen while I’m watching. Is this normal?

    Yes. I think you also see it if other people send hearts. They’re Periscope for “like.” It took me a while to figure out what those were, too.

    • Am I unwittingly sending you heartsies? If so I swear I’m not being creepy, it’s just happening. Have I clicked the wrong button? Anybody?

    I don’t know how to do it. Anyone?

    • Why do you think the French Revolution failed, and why do think the American Revolution has not failed? What’s the measure of success or failur

    Well, now, that’s a big question, and perhaps the subject for a whole post. Maybe even today.

    • #24
  25. Eric Hines Inactive
    Eric Hines
    @EricHines

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.:

    • Am I unwittingly sending you heartsies? If so I swear I’m not being creepy, it’s just happening. Have I clicked the wrong button? Anybody?

    I don’t know how to do it. Anyone?

    Tapping the right side of the Periscope screen sends hearts floating up the right side of the screen.  Periscope color-codes the signed in users (a permanent color for each user, or a different color each time one signs in–I don’t know yet), and the hearts are colored according to the user sending them.  As noted elsewhere, they’re not intended by Periscope to be creepy approaches to the transmitter; they’re just Facebook-y Likes.

    Note: tap the screen (repeatedly, if desired; each tap sends a heart); tap/press and hold just halts your reception and gives you a time line to scroll along for backing up and re-viewing something.

    Eric Hines

    • #25
  26. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Claire,

    My view of the American Revolution v. French Revolution centers around our ability to see the downside and prepare for it. In the Declaration a little-noticed passage is very relevant.

    Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

    We held to the Declaration until Washinton could secure victory. Then we held to the Articles of Confederation until it became clear that it was inadequate. Then the Constitution was created by long debate (see Federalist papers) with great concern for consensus.

    The French Revolution descended into a very deep ideological struggle. Without consensus, it resorted to extreme measures to maintain control. Then as the violence escalated, the revolution lost control and a tyrant took over.

    Sort of like what just happened to the Republican Party.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #26
  27. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Pseudodionysius:

    In 1955 Venerable Pope Pius XII, established the Feast Day of “St. Joseph the Worker” to be celebrated annually on May 1. This date was specifically chosen in order to counteract the predominantly Socialist and Communist holiday “International Workers’ Day,” also known as “May Day.” Pius XII encouraged laborers to look to St. Joseph as their model and to ask for his intercession in their work:

    St. Joseph is the best protector to help you in your life, to penetrate the spirit of the Gospel. Indeed, from the Heart of the God-Man, Savior of the world, this spirit is infused in you and in all men, but it is certain that there was no worker’s spirit so perfectly and deeply penetrated as the putative father of Jesus, who lived with him in the closest intimacy and community of family and work. So, if you want to be close to Christ, I repeat to you “Ite ad Ioseph”: Go to Joseph! – Ven. Pius XII, Address to Italian Workers, 1 May 1955

    Can you imagine if there was a St. Joseph Booth or a procession parade with a statue if St. Joseph in the middle of all that? I’m glad it was peaceful but it was strange – like Mardi Gras without the fun – so many people turn out but they just walk – I am reminded how different life is there – hence Claire’s forthcoming book. I never thought socialism would be the new order – with appeal even in US.

    • #27
  28. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Front Seat Cat: I am reminded how different life is there

    Can you tell me more about what struck you as different?

    • #28
  29. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Was that crazed red-coated person in the picture above Dad Le Pen? It looks like a berserk grandmother – a woman! If it is the dad, how stylish and fitting in his communist red coat!

    • #29
  30. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Front Seat Cat:Was that crazed red-coated person in the picture above Dad Le Pen? It looks like a berserk grandmother – a woman! If it is the dad, how stylish and fitting in his communist red coat!

    It is, but he’s not a communist.

    • #30
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