Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Alive in Paris
I’m alive and so is my family. I’m not “reporting live,” however, because I saw none of this and haven’t left the apartment since my brother called to tell me what had happened.
Here’s what I know. It’s probably close what you know. At least 127 dead. Eight terrorists dead, of whom seven blew themselves up. A state of emergency has been decreed. I’m trying to figure out what this means. Among other things, it seems — although I’m not an expert in French jurisprudence — that the state now has the authority to toss what we’d consider First and Fourth Amendment rights into the toilet:
Le décret déclarant ou la loi prorogeant l’état d’urgence peuvent, par une disposition expresse :
1° Conférer aux autorités administratives visées à l’article 8 le pouvoir d’ordonner des perquisitions à domicile de jour et de nuit ;
2° Habiliter les mêmes autorités à prendre toutes mesures pour assurer le contrôle de la presse et des publications de toute nature ainsi que celui des émissions radiophoniques, des projections ciné-matographiques et des représentations théâtrales.
My translation:
1. Gives the administrative authorities referred to in Article 8 the power to order house searches day and night;
2. Empowers the same authorities to take all measures to ensure control of the press and publications of all kinds as well as radio broadcasts, cinema projections, and theatrical performances.
After 12 days of this, parliament must agree to it; but for now, the executive has more power than one would wish, ideally, in a democracy. Then again, these are not scenes I would wish to see, ideally, in a democracy, either: particularly in my neighborhood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vToc7N6r5pI
Most of my friends have checked in and are okay, physically. It seems 78-79 of the dead were at the Bataclan, about six minutes away from my apartment. I assume that a much greater number have been maimed, mutilated, and traumatized permanently.
ISIS has officially taken credit for the attack, although they would, wouldn’t they? That said, my instinct says it’s so. (Fred, not kick you when you’re down, but today might not be the best day to argue with me about threat inflation: We’ll have to come back to that when I’ve got a bit of distance from this; I’m very literally too close to be fully rational about it.)
We’re still advised to stay indoors, apparently. But it’s just advice; we’re not forbidden to go out. Schools, museums, libraries, gyms, pools, and open-air markets are indefinitely closed. Demonstrations have been cancelled, city halls are closed except for the permanences État Civil and Mariage.
Many metro stations are closed on lines 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 11, but traffic is normal on the other ones. That’s good because it means I can visit my father, although when I spoke to him he said the thing we could do to most make him feel better is stay home. (Of course he said that. He’s my father. I’ll wait for more news before figuring out what to do.)
The authorities say the situation should be under control from now on, but they don’t know the exact number of assailants or their movements, so nothing’s ruled out, either. In other words, “Take the chance if you want, but we’re making no promises.”
This part confuses me: I’m not sure whether we’re in “plan blan” (the white plan) or “plan rouge alpha,” but I think for hospitals, it’s now Red alpha plan:
Le plan « rouge alpha » est le niveau de réponse à une série d’événements dramatiques simultanés. Il est différent du « plan blanc » qui concerne les hôpitaux, le « plan rouge » se concentrant sur la coordination des soins sur le terrain, donc autour de la protection civile, de la Croix-Rouge, ou des ambulanciers.
Dans le secteur hospitalier, c’est un plan blanc qui a été activé au niveau de l’Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris. Il organise le secteur hospitalier, et permet la réquisition de personnels, de lits et de blocs opératoires.
My translation:
“Red alpha” is the level of response to a series of concurrent emergency events. It is different from the White Plan. For hospitals, the “red plan” focuses on care coordination in the field, that’s to say on civilian protection, be it through the Red Cross or the ambulance service.
In the hospital sector, the white plan was activated at the Public Assistance Hospitals in Paris. It allows the requisitioning of staff, beds and operating theaters.
I don’t think this should affect my father. When I called, no one was requisitioning his staff or bed, which is good.
I haven’t quite had the emotional reaction to this you’d expect. It’s not because I’m a psychopath; it’s just that physiologically I don’t have it in me. Human bodies can’t stay in a state of constant stress; they go back to equilibrium, and I used up all my ability to be terrorized these past few days worrying about my father. I pretty much only have the bandwidth right now to be grateful that he got through that surgery.
So what I’ve seen over the past few days hasn’t given me any insight into the news you’ve all heard about. But I’ve learned so much more about cardiac surgery in France. So I’ll report what I’ve seen, since it’s all I’ve got to report.
For those of you uninterested in French cardiac surgery, you can stop now.
***
The year 2015 is lamentable in many ways, but there’s never been a better time in human history to have cardiac surgery. Paris is one of the best places in the world to have it. Did you know the first surgery on the aortic valve was conducted in 1912 by Theodore Tuffier in Paris? The most important surgery on the aortic valve was recently conducted by Stéphane Aubert in Paris. That’s the one that saved my father’s life.
The French tradition of cardiovascular surgery is a magnificent one. The French surgeon Alexis Carrel was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump, too, along with Charles A. Lindbergh. He was the first surgeon to take a direct operative approach to bypassing diseased segments of coronary arteries. In 1910, he performed the world’s first aorto-coronary bypass graft, on a dog. (May God bless the animals who have unwillingly given their lives for this research, including the pig whose arterial valve is now part of my father’s beating heart. In its merger with a human heart, it became completely kosher, by the way.)
So what should one think about the year 2015? We live in a time when it’s so routine for suicide bombers and men with AKs and grenades to kill hundreds of people in an evening that it’s only news because it happened again, not because they’ve used a novel, pioneering technique in mass murder.
Yet 2015 is a time when it’s so routine to replace a diseased human aortic valve with that of a pig that his odds of the human surviving this procedure are outstanding. In 1936, there was no known surgical treatment for congenital or valvular heart disease. In the beginning of 1952, there was no open cardiac surgery. In 1959, there were no satisfactory prosthetic valves, nor implantable pacemakers, nor even closed chest massage. My father, whom I love so much, would have died of his illness within a year.
But here we are in 2015. We’re now routinely slaughtered by terrorists. We’re just as routinely able to render a 73-year-old man totally insensate, cleave his chest from his neck to his belly, separate his breastplate, attach tubes into his heart and blood vessels to mechanically circulate and oxygenate his blood, shut off his heart and lungs without killing him (usually), cool his heart, stop his heartbeat, remove his diseased aortic valve, replace it with the chemically-treated valve of the heart of a pig — and these even come off-the-shelf, in standardized sizes, like shoes — suture the pig’s valve to his human heart, take a few healthy vessels taken from his leg, arm, chest or abdomen and connect them to the other arteries in his heart, restart his heart using a series of electric shocks, sew him back up, then reanimate him — and this is so normal that it doesn’t even make the news. They do four or five of these a day, said the wonderfully reassuring nurse at the clinic, “and we never get it wrong.” Ne vous inquietez pas.
Having seen what they did to my father, I might have said, “Astonishing though this may be, it is still a barbaric procedure,” but I’m not going to use the word “barbaric” lightly on a day like this. It’s painful and horrible and brutal. But no, it’s not barbaric. The difference is obvious: The doctors did it to save his life. It’s unfortunate that humanity hasn’t yet figured out how to do that in a gentler way, but barbaric, no.
I never want to go near a hospital again.
Back to Carrel. I’m so grateful for the research he did that it seems almost churlish to bring it up, but he was an enthusiastic eugenicist, and while his relationship with the Nazis is unclear, it doesn’t sound good:
Because of his relationship with Nazi-supported Vichy, as well as certain distinctly undemocratic statements he had made during the late 1930s, Carrel was widely regarded by his countrymen as a Nazi collaborator. After the liberation of France in 1944, he was relieved of all duties related to his institute and was placed under surveillance. An investigation began to evaluate the extent of his collaboration with the Nazis and the Vichy government, but no conclusions were reached. Unremitting attacks by the press left Carrel deeply saddened, embittered, and depressed. He was a broken man when he died on November 5, 1944.
At any event, France has a glorious tradition of cardiac surgery. It still does. It has an inglorious tradition of political violence, and still does.
A complicated country.
By the way, if anyone’s wondering whether medical innovation can happen in a country with socialized medicine, I assure you it most certainly happens in France, although whether medicine here is truly socialized is another subject. Alain Carpentier, for example, is the father of modern mitral valve repair; French surgeons recently performed a ground-breaking artificial heart implant. Didier F. Loulmet, Carpentier’s collaborator, performed the world’s first robotic mitral valve repair with in Paris in May 1998, and the world’s first closed-chest robotic coronary artery bypass grafting in June 1998.
I could go on at length about the French cardiac surgery tradition. It’s remarkable. It was the last thing I wanted to learn so much about, but when you find out your father needs surgery soon or he’ll die (maybe: the imminence of mortality given his condition wasn’t entirely clear from the literature) — you do read the literature closely.
So my father was alive when I saw him yesterday evening. I don’t have enough emotion left in me to be anything but grateful for that. I saw nothing unusual on my way home from the hospital. When I got home, I fell deep asleep: I’ve been exhausted for days. My brother woke me up to ask if I was safely at home. From his voice I knew something was wrong, but God help me, when he assured me that nothing was seriously wrong — there had just been a massive terrorist attacks all over Paris, that was all — I was relieved. I know that’s not a normal response, but I won’t lie; that’s what I felt.
My father thanks all of you who sent your good will and your prayers. I spoke to him this morning. He is doing even better today. He was well enough to be angry and depressed, and well enough to find the word that best describes what happened in Paris: disgusting.
As for immigration and France, let me pre-empt the comments I expect. This is too complex for slogans. A good third or perhaps half of the surgical and nursing team taking care of my father were immigrants. I wasn’t counting them or asking where they were from; obviously, my mind was elsewhere, but I could tell because they looked like it.
Whatever your feelings about immigration, I haven’t much patience for unkind words about Muslim immigrants in France today. I’m sure you’ll appreciate why. I have immigrant friends here. I’m an immigrant myself — now of a kind that no one fears, but I’m the grandchild of the kind whose children are now nothing more than the plaque you saw in this photo. I just spoke to one of my friends. She was Algerian. Now she is French. I called to check that she and her family were okay. She told me to be strong and not to cry. “We’ve seen worse,” she said, speaking of both herself and of me. She’s right.
President Hollande, who convened a special security meeting this morning, vowed to be “pitiless” with the nation’s enemies. “We know where these attacks come from,” Hollande said, without naming anyone. “There are indeed good reasons to be afraid.”
The newspaper headlines say, “This time it’s war.”
There are good reasons to be afraid; but I don’t have it in me. I am all for being pitiless on this nation’s enemies. Kill them all, and do not dither. Do it soon, and do it right.
But if anyone mistakes my formerly-Algerian friend for an enemy of France, it would be quite a mistake. I don’t say this out of bravado, I just say it because she is my friend — a victim as much as anyone in Paris who wasn’t killed or close to someone who was.
My father is so fond of her. He’s gone through enough as it is. His heart doesn’t need to be even more broken. Let there be no persecution of innocent immigrants. This country needs no more shame.
Dear Claire, you know your friend is right–be strong and don’t cry. Because you and France will get through this in the end, if they have the backbone for it.
And no, your lack of emotional response at present is not a symptom of insensitivity.
Exactly.
Thank you, Brent. More than that even; the woman beheaded in Moore, Oklahoma, the USMC recruitment center killings by Muslim American boy in Tennessee, the recent knife wielding freak in UC Merced, who was identified only as “a boy from Santa Clara” in the press rather than as Faisal Mohammad who left a manifesto behind.
All these attacks were inspired by ISIS and activated in American Muslim youth, but the press primarily covering for Obama somehow misses the most significant distinction in each story that links them culturally to an ideology that is anti American at its core.
Americans need to stay vigilant because our elitist leaders continue to sacrifice innocent Americans on their altar of a multiculturalism, a “universal value system” that only exists in their graduate school thesis. I’ve never known or seen the “universal values” our President espoused yesterday in his speech, anywhere on earth. It’s folly. It’s Utopian drivel that is promoted mostly by people in government protected by their large entourage of security.
I just finished your post – what a powerful story (about your dad and the surgery)! My gosh! In any crisis, first thoughts are family, friends, loved ones – everything else fades, doesn’t it – prayers to your dad and family, and for the miracles of caregivers and medical professionals.
I have a neighbor who lives here part-time, from New Orleans – he is 85, and the most cantankerous man I have ever met – I really like him! I met him when we moved to the neighborhood in 2011 – the first thing he did when we met was show me pictures of his heart surgery on his iPhone – not kidding – I don’t know how he got them – and I thought – yikes, really? – but he was proud of his robustness to overcome – you have to talk loud – his hearing aid flakes out sometimes – but he still plants fruit trees, power washes his driveway – drives to have lunch, that is a miracle of modern medicine!
Worth remembering that the Tsarnaevs were brought to this country as “refugees.”
If you just applied a standard template, 3 to 5 times as many attackers are needed against defenders. Accepting your 50K figure, you are in the 150K to 250K range from that alone. Then you have to consider NATO’s ‘way of war.’ That’s a long topic, but many more troops will be required than the standard combat ratios would suggest. Also ‘superior air power’ does not decide victory against an ISIS-type foe. (Sustained) Control of the ground, not plinking targets from above, determines victory. What’s your evidence for assessing that ISIS will break and run? They are far more committed to their goals than most fielded combatants, and they certainly don’t think NATO’s unionized, 8-hour day fighters are much to worry about. Three words: NATO in Afghanistan.
If people are looking for some up-to-date news coverage and opinion pieces on the Paris terrorist attacks, Real Clear Politics has an excellent collection of articles from around the Internet. (Their editors must have been up all night to have gathered this material.)
Islam delenda est.
There is only one judge qualified to preside over these men. The one whose name the Jews spell without vowels.
This might help focus the attention of some:
Not that this should be considered more important than, say, the offense that a Halloween costume might invoke.
Claire—my advice is, if you can, avoid knowing more than you have to. Don’t look at awful videos. Watch old re-runs of the Mary Tyler Moore show or something. Re-read books you already know you like. Drink lots of water. Have soup for supper. Talk to your dad, call your brother and tell him you’re okay, pat your cats a lot, and tell yourself you’ll catch up when the time comes. After all, it’s not as though the world is going to magically get better in the next two days, so if you’re a crisis-type (like me) there will be more crises, so think of it as re-filling the tank.
It’s one thing to say that not all Muslims are like this; I’m usually one of the first to do so, having served with a few of them.
But that doesn’t change the fact that there is only one religion that inspires this sort of behavior in it adherents. Even the Westboro Baptist Church, the one held up as the standard for cartoonishly offensive “Christians,” are merely holding up offensive signs.
In many respects it’s not hard to believe. All of the Palestinian leadership (before Arafat and to this day) has had a strong interest in fomenting these feelings. How else to explain the continued existence of refugee camps, the lack of well-maintained roads, hospitals, schools, the lack of museums, concert halls, libraries, etc.,? In other words, normal civilized cities throughout their land. There certainly has been enough money. The people have been ill-used by their leaders for decades – and should rise up against them. It’s easier, though, to be swayed by emotions and accept their leaders’ scapegoating of Israel as the source of all their ills.
Like many of us, Claire, my first thought when I heard about the atrocities in Paris was “How’s Claire & her family”. I’m very glad you and your family are safe (and that your dad will recover).
Yours is a great intellect, but you are right; everything is too raw, too emotionally wrung out to process objectively. Please take time to give your mind & body rest; the rest of us will keep praying. God bless, & vive la France.
Nor has—correct me if I’m wrong—Westboro inspired a global Christian movement for waving offensive anti-Gay signs at funerals.
When automatic gunfire six minutes away is Just Another Thing, that is stress.
Be well, Claire. You, your family, and the people of France are in our prayers.
Six minutes from your apartment, Claire? I can’t imagine. Be safe Claire. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you.
Good advice, of course. But I must say that the two things I never worry about with respect to Claire are eyes wide open and wits well tethered!
Good point. I’m just worried when friends are in war zones.
Nobody could ever accuse Claire of not sticking to a plan, even when it shows itself to be disastrous over and over again. This is always a symptom of an ideologue.
Like the neocon elites over here she says that they have screwed the pooch so bad that it is impossible to clean up, so don’t even try. We are in need of new elites, maybe ones that are actually exceptional. The rest we could send to Syria since they have such a desire to see the fruits of Islam close up.
Maybe but it is hard to trust your judgement. It wasn’t that long ago you were encouraging Europe to bring in one of terrorists that did the deed yesterday. Your compassion seems hollow and usually at another person’s expense.
It has the shame of not protecting its citizens from an obvious threat. Not only not protecting but working hard to create the conditions of danger. Only a fool would look at Islam and want to bring that home.
Stay strong Claire. We all love you and are glad you are safe.
Claire, this is great. It proves that even in the midst of misery there is still gratitude. Your dad is recovering. It’s almost like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. There’s a weak metaphor in here. Yes the surgery is barbaric, but it is also the means by which pain and death are overcome. It puts me in mind of the Cross: Unspeakable suffering from which emerges life in the fullest. Somehow, though we cannot begin to see it, good will come of this evil. Perhaps the restoration of Judaeo-Christianity. Meanwhile, gratitude is the road to peace, as Dennis Prager reminds us:
In reply to the response that there was an attack in Garland, TX, no, that was not a large scale major operation with scores dead; and it was not in a major urban center. Given the size of the US, the “prestige” such attacks would have, and the lack of police presence in the US (as compared to France and much of Europe), the lack of attacks is mysterious to me.
To stray back on point, if we can get more people to understand that Paris (and London, Berlin, Stockholm, New York, etc.) is, indeed, in a “war zone” we might have more success in defeating Islamic fascism. Sure, for the coming days, weeks, maybe months, everyone gets it. But the Charlie Hebdo attack was just 10 months ago and look how low the guard was set in Paris last night before 10:00 pm. How many times will the West hit its snooze button before the wake up alarm does its job?
How is it that a mere handful of months after the Charlie Hebdo massacre Euro leaders were welcoming hundreds of thousands of potential Muslim combatants into their countries, providing them succor, and congratulating themselves for their fine humanitarian ethos? And now we are talking about invoking Article V so that NATO (read: US combat power) can do something about the ISIS threat to Europe. Yeah, sure, more dead and maimed American teenagers & 20-somethings so that Euro leaders can feel good about themselves. #Insanity!
Indeed. And by the way, I passed on your kind words about his book to him two mornings, ago, when he was really feeling awful (he used words not compliant with the CoC to describe the pain), and they really meant a lot to him. He wanted me to thank you for them.
It’s violent and stomach-turning, and I wish he hadn’t had to go through such a thing, but no, it’s not barbaric. Barbaric is doing it for the purpose of causing that suffering. We’ve got enough real barbarism to think about in Paris that I’m tossing that metaphor out. A cardiac team working with immense training, care, precision and skill to save the life of an elderly Jewish man is not barbaric. Period. That’s the most civilized thing this century’s got going for it.
You’re right Claire. Barbaric wasn’t the right word to describe the surgery. Eliot said it better: “The sharp compassion of the healer’s art…”
Stunning. Uncivilized. Subversive. Just what are you trying to do to Claire???
-Stay alert and safe.
-Our government lectures us on intolerance and Islamaphobia when the intolerance and *phobia is caused by the government’s policy failures.
-How many concealed carry people would be needed to stop 6 terrorists? I will attend a concert tomorrow night where maybe 1500 people will be in attendance. If only 5% have a gun, that would be 6 terrorists vs 75 good guys. I like the odds….but the venue bans guns.
-If we don’t let people assume some responsibility for their own defense, and since government can’t be there all the time to protect us, the situation might deteriorate to the point options will include some in the comments above that result in collateral damage/death to innocents.
-Innocents should not have to endure what befell the unfortunates in Paris…and every civilized country is responsible for ending this madness.
Sand makes good glass.
Claire, this medium makes me feel like I know you (even though I don’t) but I feel pretty clear stating the following: I am trained therapeutic professional ; ) and what you’re describing is definitely (as we say) within normal limits; which is fairly impressive given the non-normal stress you are experiencing.
Our bodies and brains are wonderfully complicated and amazingly self-regulating.
Bless him, and all those who love him.