While my family and most American's remain in the US, I live in an anti-war, anti-American culture. Today I descended the metro and stood beside a presse stand, flaunting an oversized frontpage of a magazine, asking, "Pourquoi veut-il aller jusqu'au bout?" The picture was a decorated President Bush. Not only was he wearing his fatigues, and leaning out over his pulpit, with his determined look, but some random french had added their own personal impression of Bush to the plexiglass, complete with indentity tagging, rendering the American President a little reminiscent of Bin Ladin. The magazine also stated a few reasons to go along with its question: religion, Petrol, terrorism. Then it blantantly labelled it all the "new world order."


Last night at the church event, I met a great little gal who asked me how I felt about all this war. I always treat my american heritage and the war subject with care. I did a little BSing in french to say that I really didn't have a clue and avouved that there were so many side issues involved that I couldn't come up with a clear opinion. I think she realized that she has backed me into a corner and apologized for having made it difficult for me. Must walk carefully...


Of course I think Saddam must be removed from power cuz he's a bummer for more people than a hero, but the question is how deep does his power go and who all has his poison infected-- whatever the case it must be ALL removed, like a cancer you can't just take the tumor. You have to take it and do chemo. Then the question remains, who is to do the surgery and when. And that's not the half of it. There is economy involved, terror cells, Israel and Palestine, the injustice to his own people and neighbors, his deception. I saw a week ago how he drained the lush area between the Tigris and Euphrates because those people were rebelling. Now it is a wasteland. I remember learning about the fertile crescent in 4th grade- and this man has dismantled it.


Yeah, take him out- but how?


I just came from taking a long walk through Paris with my friend Severine and her 5 friends. We walked about 10km. It took us all afternoon. We started on the easterly side of the city, south of the Seine and walked west. We walked up into the Luxembourg Gardens and by the Pantheon. I learned that the Senat meets in the gigantic building at the end of Jard Lux. It is guarded pretty heavily these days. A Senat member is appointed for a duree of 9 years whereas a member of the Assembly National is elected by the people to about 4 years. They work much like the House and Senate in the US. The little chapel that I love, just to the left of the Pantheon, called Saint Etienne de la Mort is where famous people like Emile Zola and Alexandre Dumas are buried. We came upon Les Invalides, a golden domed structure. We crossed the Champs and walked under the Tour Eiffel and started a hunt for de la glace. We were so tired and needed some icecream. Unfortunately we settled on some plain old expensive american Ben and Jerry's. It was great weather today. We kept walking all the way to the Bois de Boulogne. There is a little boat rental place and people were out canoeing about in the late afternoon sun. I shot a couple shots. It was amazingly beautiful. The trees where all exoticly french. I'd call that place a wonder to see in the sunset on a romantic evening in the spring.


We RER'd it home. I got the last baguette at Tang Frere's on the way home. :-) ouais...elle a dit, "c'est la derniere!"