Nudging etiquette, French-style.

"A blackboard outside the cafe advertises advertises 'Un cafe' for seven euros (£5.90; $9.6) - but 'Bonjour, un cafe, s'il vous plait' costs just 1.40 euros."

In the French food store: 5 porcupines, 15 gazelles, 20 bats, and lots of caterpillars.

The police raided the place and — as the UK Telegraph puts it — "carted off 200 lbs of bush meat belonging to the unfortunate animals stored in three freezers in the unnamed shop situated in a run-down part of Paris’ 18th arrondissement."

Unfortunate animals? This was meat, frozen meat. The animals were dead, as dead as the animals that yield all the meat that is sold in stores that are not raided by the police. The only unfortunate animals in this scenario are the human beings who might get sick if this meat is tainted in some way. It's silly — perhaps intentionally so — to refer to a caterpillar as "unfortunate."

And what's the big deal — if you're going to eat animal — with eating odd things like porcupines? It's actually quite the thing in France:

Exotic animals have been legally making their way onto French plates of late in upscale restaurants. In Montmartre — just down the road from the shop police raided - Le Festin Nu (The Naked Lunch) bistro gives customers the chance to select from a variety of insects. Specials include palm weevils with beetroot and oil of truffle; water scorpion with preserved peppers and black garlic; or grasshopper with quail’s eggs. In Nice, Michelin-starred chef David Faure offers an “Alternative Food” menu at his Aphrodite restaurant. Mealworm and crickets share the billing with pate de foie gras.

"Germany and France demand talks with US over NSA spying revelations."

"The revelations are threatening to create a major rift between the US and its European allies," says the Guardian.

Despite US efforts to placate Angela Merkel – including a phonecall made by the US president, Barack Obama, on Wednesday – she has refused to conceal her anger over the issue. "We need trust among allies and partners," Merkel told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. "Such trust now has to be built anew... It's become clear that for the future, something must change – and significantly."...

The latest confidential memo provided by [Edward] Snowden reveals... that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.

After Merkel's allegations became public, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications. But that failed to quell the row, as officials in Berlin quickly pointed out that the US did not deny monitoring her phone in the past.

"Perhaps the biggest difference between the racers and the randonneurs was socioeconomic."

"Racing was a working-class sport — prize money was a way out of the coal mines or factories."

"You don't have the liberty to say, 'Well, the other guy deserves to win' if your living depends on it," [Jan Heine, editor of Bicycle Quarterly, a Seattle-based magazine about the history, technology and culture of biking].

Randonneuring was more of a refined hobby. "If you're doing this for fun, suddenly the distinction between winner and second becomes meaningless," says Heine.

Also:

"There was a lot of animosity in France, actually, between the tourists and the racers," Heine explains. "Because the tourists said, 'We are going in the mountains, and we are a participatory sport.' " Participatory meaning that women could ride alongside men — and people could ride basically whatever they wanted. This drove innovations in bicycle technology that today are widespread: If you've ever ridden a bike with a derailleur, thank the randonneurs.

Interesting the way the inclusiveness toward women changes things — this particular activity... and everything else. Who wins and who loses? Or... shall we say?... the inclusion of women changes the nature of the activity so that speaking in terms of winning and losing becomes inappropriate and those who play to win and triumph over losers become socially unacceptable oafs?

ADDED: I am reminded of the perennial efforts to restructure law school to suit women. Recently, in the Harvard Crimson:

Harvard Law student Jessica R. Jensen hates the Socratic method. “It’s the worst thing in the world,” she said. “It forces you to talk like a man... It made me feel really uncomfortable and incompetent at first, and it really impacted my performance in classes the first year.... You feel like you don’t know the material really well because you feel like an idiot in class.”

The worst thing in the world? Worse than coal mining or — the coal miner's alternative income source — the Tour de France?

Employed in some form across most classrooms at Harvard Law School, the Socratic method, a teaching style that relies on cold-calling, lies at the heart of the debate over gender issues and serves as a focal point for the Shatter coalition. Today, many students and faculty have raised concerns over the teaching method, saying that men are more likely to participate voluntarily in Law School classes than women....

Yet the root cause of this disparity remains contested, as professors, students, and administrators debate whether the Socratic method—the traditional form of legal pedagogy—needs to be adapted to account for gender disparities in the classroom.

Note that both calling on students and relying on volunteers is bad for women.

“Women take longer to process thoughts before they feel comfortable to say them out loud than men do,” Jensen said, adding that men feel more natural in that kind of classroom atmosphere.

I guess as long as you mean well — which is to say, you think and get others to think you're helping women — you can engage in sex stereotyping even when it's disparaging women. I know you can restate Jensen's stereotype so that it's more flattering to women — a paraphrasing skill you might want to work on. Just say that women are reflecting deeply, forming more refined ideas, and contemplating the social dynamic of the classroom —  while these brutal, competition-addicted men lunge at the first opportunity to dominate and blurt out whatever comes to mind with little concern about what others in the room think about them.

Harvard Law professor Lani C. Guinier ’71, who has authored several articles on legal pedagogy, said... “women’s reaction to law school is an important warning sign, but a warning sign that the problem will not go away simply by focusing on helping the women think more like their male counterparts”....

Inclusiveness toward women changes things.

"American singer Bob Dylan has been decorated by France's Légion d'honneur..."

"... a spokesman for the historic French order said Monday, a move that raised hackles among some of the French elite."

The Légion honors foreign luminaries by granting them honorary titles within the order. They aren't considered full members of the order, which includes the likes of 19th-century French writer Alexis de Tocqueville....

The Légion was founded by Napoleon Bonaparte as a civil and military order that was open to members of society outside European nobility....

***

Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells
Speaking to some French girl
Who says she knows me well...

"A far-right French historian has killed himself at the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after declaring..."

"... that more radical action was needed in opposition to same-sex marriage in France."

Dominique Venner, 78, walked into the building at 4pm and put a letter on the altar before shooting himself through the mouth, according to local media reports. Hundreds of visitors were immediately evacuated from the site, which is the most visited Catholic monument in Paris.

The motive for the suicide and the contents of the letter were not immediately clear, although Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right Front National, tweeted her "respect" for Venner and said his death was an "eminently political" gesture.

Disgusting. You can't stand on traditional Christian values and commit suicide (and desecrate an altar). That's completely incoherent. Despicable.

"In 1958 the French Fourth Republic collapsed due to political instability and its failures in dealing with its colonies,..."

"... especially Indochina and Algeria. The founding of a Fifth Republic was supported by the French people, while France's colonies were given the choice between more autonomy in a new French Community and immediate independence. The other colonies chose the former but Guinea — under the leadership of Ahmed Sékou Touré whose Democratic Party of Guinea had won 56 of 60 seats in 1957 territorial elections — voted overwhelmingly for independence. The French withdrew quickly, and on October 2, 1958, Guinea proclaimed itself a sovereign and independent republic, with Sékou Touré as president."

And that was the beginning of the modern state called Guinea, today's "History of" country.

"French lawmakers have legalized same-sex marriage after months of bruising debate and street protests that brought hundreds of thousands to Paris."

"Tuesday’s 331-225 vote came in the Socialist majority National Assembly...."

"Julien Fédon, a mixed race owner of the Belvedere estate in the St. John Parish, launched a rebellion against British rule on the night of 2nd March 1795..."

"... with coordinated attacks on the towns of Grenville, La Baye and Gouyave. Fédon was clearly influenced by the ideas emerging from the French Revolution..."

... especially the Convention's abolition of slavery in 1794: he stated that he intended to make Grenada a "Black Republic just like Haiti." Fédon and his troops controlled all of Grenada except the parish of St George's, the seat of government, between March 1795 and June 1796. During those insurgent months 14,000 of Grenada's 28,000 slaves joined the revolutionary forces in order to write their own emancipation and transform themselves into "citizens"; some 7,000 of these self-liberated slaves would perish in the name of freedom. Fédon's forces were defeated by the British in late 1796, but Fédon himself was never caught and his fate is unknown.

Grenada is the next "History of" country, as we resume our alphabetical progression the the "History of" Wikipedia pages for the 206 countries of the world.



IN THE COMMENTS: bagoh20 said: "Is that outfit ever appropriate in Grenada near the equator?" And Anniella said: "That's an amazing painting, but there's a very good reason he's so bundled up," linking here.

In 1819, Charles Willson Peale headed down to Washington to paint portraits of President James Monroe, Henry Clay, and other dignitaries for exhibition in the famed Peale museum located in Independence Hall. But there was another sitter the painter wanted to snare on his trip.

"I heard of a Negro who is living in Georgetown said to be 140 years of age," Peale wrote in his diary. "He is comfortable in his Situation having Bank stock and lives in his own house."

The man was Yarrow Mamout, a free African, a Muslim who indeed held bank stock, purchased with great effort to secure a comfortable old age - after a life of abduction and bondage...

So... it's not Julien Fédon. I had my doubts, and I won't take advantage of the lame excuse — though I thought of it when I decided to use that picture — that I never actually say that's Julien Fédon. I'm glad to hear of Yarrow Mamout and I love the painting.

"Yarrow owns a house & lotts and is known by most of the Inhabitants of Georgetown & particularly by the Boys who are often teazing him which he takes in good humour," Peale confided in his diary. "The acquaintance of him often banter him about eating Bacon and drinking Whiskey - but Yarrow says it is no good to eat Hog - & drink whiskey is very bad."

"A French intelligence agency threatened a Wikipedia volunteer with jail unless he deleted an article with which he had no connection..."

"... but which the spooks found inconvenient. Not surprisingly, that article has been restored and is now really popular."

"Clovis made Paris his capital and established the Merovingian Dynasty..."

"... but his kingdom would not survive his death in 511."

Under Frankish inheritance traditions, all sons inherit part of the land, so four kingdoms emerged: centered on Paris, Orléans, Soissons, and Rheims. Over time, the borders and numbers of Frankish kingdoms were fluid and changed frequently. Also during this time, the Mayors of the Palace, originally the chief advisor to the kings, would become the real power in the Frankish lands; the Merovingian kings themselves would be reduced to little more than figureheads.

By this time Muslim invaders had conquered Hispania and were threatening the Frankish kingdoms. Duke Odo the Great defeated a major invading force at Toulouse in 721 but failed to repel a raiding party in 732. The mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, defeated that raiding party at the Battle of Tours (although the battle took place between Tours and Poitiers) and earned respect and power within the Frankish Kingdom. The assumption of the crown in 751 by Pepin the Short (son of Charles Martel) established the Carolingian dynasty as the Kings of the Franks.

A couple hundred years in the history of France, today's "History of" country. We are proceeding in alphabetical order through the world's 206 countries, reading their Wikipedia "History of" pages. France has one of the most interesting pages, and I couldn't begin to summarize the summary there.

Here's the Battle of Tours, which happened in 732, as depicted by Charles de Steuben in 1837:

"A T-shirt worn by a 3-year-old nursery-schooler named Jihad has led to an unusual and politically charged criminal trial..."

"... that tests the limits of free speech — and common sense — in a France increasingly ill at ease with its growing Muslim population."

“I am a bomb,” the shirt said on the front. The back read, “Jihad Born Sept. 11.”

The child's name really is Jihad, and he was indeed born on September 11th. The phrase "I am a bomb" is said to mean "I am a real looker." The mother asserts that she intended no political message by dressing the child in that shirt.

After the police investigation, no terrorism-related charges were brought. But the prosecutor decided to charge [the mother] Bagour and her brother [who choose the message for the shirt] with “apology for crime,” which under a 1981 French law carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $58,000 fine....

Kerry: "And now I will speak in English, because otherwise I would not be allowed to return back home."

A good joke or disgusting condescension? 



(I loathe Kerry, but I actually love hearing him French it up big time. Quelle accent!)

"Côte d'Ivoire officially became a French colony on March 10, 1893."

"French colonial policy incorporated concepts of assimilation and association. Assimilation presupposed the inherent superiority of French culture over all others, so that in practice the assimilation policy in the colonies meant extension of the French language, institutions, laws, and customs.... Under [the policy of association], the Africans in Ivory Coast were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests. An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between the French and the Africans.... As subjects of France they had no political rights. Moreover, they were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility."

In Côte d'Ivoire – Ivory Coast — today's country in the "History of" project, wherein we read the Wikipedia "History of" page for each of the world's 206 countries, in alphabetical order. Next up? Here's a clue:

When golfers go Depardieu.

Actor Gerard Depardieu has been putting on a big show of running from France to escape high taxation.

Now, here in America, "Golfer Phil Mickelson May Call It Quits Due To Climbing Tax Rates."

If you think perhaps Mickelson is being a bit of a baby for threating [sic] to end a career that’s earned him a spot on this list of 10 wealthiest athletes on the planet because of some tax increases, understand that he’s getting hit on the state level, too. In November, California passed Proposition 30, which increases the top income tax rate on resident millionaires to 13.3%, a drain on Mickelson’s take-home pay that may force him to sell his 9,500 square foot mansion and flee his home state in search of more friendly pastures.

Do Americans care whether Phil Mickelson lives in the United States or not? It's hardly the equivalent of Gerard Depardieu and France. Or is it? Maybe I'm not getting America's attachment to its athletes.

Which, if any, Americans are in a position to protest — effectively protest — taxes by threatening to leave the country? Threatening to leave a state seems more plausible. I would think there are a lot of athletes in team sports who could let it be known they are taking taxes into account, but presumably that's all haggled over in private negotiations. A team in a high-tax state is going to have to put up more money than a team in a low-tax state. It really is the golfer — the athlete in business for himself — who has some choices about where to live. But other than the one-off character Tiger Woods, America doesn't care about golfers.

"French control over Flanders steadily increased until 1302 when an attempt at total annexation by Philip IV met a stunning defeat.."

"... when Count Guy (who had the support of the guilds and craftsmen) rallied the townspeople and humiliated the French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs."

It looked something like this:



That was long ago in the place that we call Belgium... our "History of" country today.

"In the mountains of the Pyrenees/There's an independent state/Its population five thousand souls/And I think they're simply great..."

"One hundred and seventy square miles big/And it's awf'lly dear to me/Spends less than five dollars on armaments/And this I've got to see."

So wrote Malvina Reynolds, with that kooky, lefty patronizing attitude you probably know better from her greatest hit, "Little Boxes." Remember that one, criticizing people for going to school, then getting jobs, forming families, and living in suburban developments where the houses are "all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same"? Really, what was that lady complaining about? The song quoted in the title is about a country that she read in the newspaper — back in the 60s — had a defense budget of $4.90. She took off on a lyrical flight of fancy that had no inkling of what was really going on with this country. She just used that $4.90 business as a jumping off point for hating on the United States:

I wandered down by the Pentagon
This newspaper clipping in hand
I said, "I want to see everyone
In McNamara’s band."
I said, "Look what they did in Andorra,
They put us all to shame.
The least is first, the biggest is last,
Let’s get there just the same."

What did she know of Andorra? What do you know?

Andorra is today's "History of" country, as we proceed through the list of the 206 countries in the world. It's very tiny, 181 square miles. But look where it is:


View Larger Map

How did that happen?

Andorra is the last independent survivor of the Marca Hispanica, the buffer states created by Charlemagne to keep the Islamic Moors from advancing into Christian France.

This isn't Malvina's cute little child of a place that doesn't know war.  It owes its existence to a French strategic defense.

Tradition holds that Charlemagne granted a charter to the Andorran people in return for their fighting the Moors. In the 9th century, Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Bald, named the Count of Urgell as overlord of Andorra. A descendant of the count later gave the lands to the Diocese of Urgell, headed by Bishop of Urgell.

In the 11th century, fearing military action by neighboring lords, the bishop placed himself under the protection of the Lord of Caboet, a Catalan nobleman. Later, the Count of Foix became heir to the Lord of Caboet through marriage, and a dispute arose between the French Count and the Catalan bishop over Andorra..

In 1278, the conflict was resolved by the signing of a pareage (pariatges).... The pareage, a feudal institution recognizing the principle of equality of rights shared by two rulers.... In return, Andorra pays an annual tribute or questia to the co-rulers consisting of four hams, forty loaves of bread, and some wine.

4 hams!

In 1793, the French revolutionary government refused the traditional Andorran tribute as smacking of feudalism and renounced its suzerainty, despite the wish of the Andorrans to enjoy French protection and avoid being under exclusively Spanish influence....

During World War II, Andorra remained neutral and was an important smuggling route from Spain into France. The French Resistance used Andorra as part of their route to get downed airmen out of France....

In 1958, Andorra declared peace with Germany, having been forgotten on the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I and, the conflict being extended by the lack of a peace treaty, remaining legally at war.

"I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it."

"But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it."



Today, the "History of" project brings us to...

Algeria, where human beings have lived for at least 1.8 million years. There are prehistoric rock paintings in the Tassili n'Ajjer range. Like this:



The indigenous people have been called Berbers since 4000 BC, and they have been joined over the years by invaders of the Phoenician, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish, and French kind.

Berber territory was annexed by the Roman Empire in AD 24. Increases in urbanization and in the area under cultivation during Roman rule caused wholesale dislocations of Berber society, and Berber opposition to the Roman presence was nearly constant....

Christianity arrived in the 2nd century AD. By the end of the 4th century, the settled areas had become Christianized, and some Berber tribes had converted en masse....

The 8th and 11th centuries AD, brought Islam and the Arabic language....

In the central Maghrib, the Abdalwadid founded a dynasty at Tlemcen in Algeria. For more than 300 years, until the region came under Ottoman suzerainty in the 16th century, the Zayanids kept a tenuous hold in the central Maghrib. Many coastal cities asserted their autonomy as municipal republics governed by merchant oligarchies, tribal chieftains from the surrounding countryside, or the privateers who operated out of their ports. Nonetheless, Tlemcen, the “pearl of the Maghrib,” prospered as a commercial center.

The final triumph of the 700-year Christian reconquest of Spain was marked by the fall of Granada in 1492. Christian Spain imposed its influence on the Maghrib coast by constructing fortified outposts and collecting tribute. But Spain never sought to extend its North African conquests much beyond a few modest enclaves. Privateering was an age-old practice in the Mediterranean, and North African rulers engaged in it increasingly in the late 16th and early 17th centuries because it was so lucrative. Algeria became the privateering city-state par excellence.....

Algeria and surrounding areas, collectively known as the Barbary States, were responsible for piracy in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the enslaving of Christians, actions which brought them into the First and Second Barbary War with the United States of America.

Colonization by the French began in 1830.

Viewed by the Europeans with condescension at best and contempt at worst, the Algerians endured 132 years of colonial subjugation. From 1856, native Muslims and Jews were viewed as French subjects, but not French citizens.

However, in 1865, Napoleon III allowed them to apply for full French citizenship, a measure that few took, since it involved renouncing the right to be governed by sharia law in personal matters, and was considered a kind of apostasy; in 1870, French citizenship was made automatic for Jewish natives, a move which largely angered the Muslims, who began to consider the Jews as the accomplices of the colonial power. Nonetheless, this period saw progress in health, some infrastructures, and the overall expansion of the economy of Algeria, as well as the formation of new social classes, which, after exposure to ideas of equality and political liberty, would help propel the country to independence. During the years of French domination, the struggles to survive, to co-exist, to gain equality, and to achieve independence shaped a large part of the Algerian national identity....

A new generation of Islamic leadership emerged in Algeria at the time of World War I and grew to maturity during the 1920s and 1930s. Various groups were formed in opposition to French rule....

The Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), brutal and long, was the most recent major turning point in the country's history. Although often fratricidal, it ultimately united Algerians and seared the value of independence and the philosophy of anticolonialism into the national consciousness....

Between 350,000 and 1 million Algerians are estimated to have died during the war, and more than 2 million, out of a total Muslim population of 9 or 10 million, were made into refugees or forcibly relocated into government-controlled camps. Much of the countryside and agriculture was devastated, along with the modern economy, which had been dominated by urban European settlers (the pied-noirs). French sources estimated that at least 70,000 Muslim civilians were killed or abducted and presumed killed, by the [Front de Libération Nationale] during the Algerian War. Citizens of European ethnicity... and Jews were also subjected to ethnic cleansing. These nearly one million people of mostly French descent were forced to flee the country at independence due to the unbridgeable rifts opened by the civil war and threats from units of the victorious FLN; along with them fled Algerians of Jewish descent and those Muslim Algerians who had supported a French Algeria (harkis). 30-150,000 pro-French Muslims were also allegedly killed in Algeria by FLN in post-war reprisals....

On 19 June 1965, Houari Boumédienne deposed Ahmed Ben Bella in a military coup d'état that was both swift and bloodless....

Boumédienne’s death on December 27, 1978 set off a struggle within the FLN to choose a successor....

After the violent 1988 October Riots, a new constitution was adopted in 1989 that allowed the formation of political associations other than the FLN....

Among the scores of parties that sprang up under the new constitution, the militant Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was the most successful....

In 1996 a referendum introduced changes to the constitution, enhancing presidential powers and banning Islamist parties. 

Abdelaziz Bouteflika became president in 1999 and "concentrated on restoring security and stability." He remains president to this day.

"France's Constitutional Council on Saturday rejected a 75% upper income tax rate to be introduced in 2013..."

"... in a setback to Socialist President Francois Hollande's push to make the rich contribute more to cutting the public deficit."

The Council, made up of nine judges and three former presidents, is concerned the tax would hit a married couple where one partner earned above a million euros but it would not affect a couple where each earned just under a million euros.

Why does that make it unfair? It seems as though the court is sticking up for the single-earner household — for traditional marriage. Why does fairness require that? I think this is what we here in the United States would call a policy decision, to be left to the legislature. (Yeah, a 75% tax rate is really high, but that's not the legal flaw this court found.)

France provides free birth control to girls aged 15 to 18 — and bars doctors from notifying parents.

Amanda Marcotte approves:

Straightforward, almost boring health care policy story about a government taking sensible, cost-effective measures to curb a public health problem. But the story isn't really about health care policy — the underlying narrative here is that the French are yet again making American politicians look like a bunch of out of touch prudes....

Needless to say, the measure sailed through the French legislature without any kind of political battle...