I Like the French

I admit I have a soft spot for France and the French people. I had an absolutely wonderful visit to France a few years ago and have vowed to see France again as soon and often as possible. Paris is a beautiful, magical city from the underground Metro to the Arc d'Triomphe to the Royale with cheese. I can talk about France endlessly.

French people are another subject. As lame as my French was, everyone I met appreciated the fact that attempted to "parle français".. As an American, I tried to blend in, not stand out. One of the things I immediately noticed was that the French enjoy life and know how to live. We could certainly take lessons from them.

Yesterday 2.5 million French took to the streets to protest President Sarkozy's attempt to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. You would never ever see anything like that here and no, tea party rallies and million man marches don't count. As angry as we all get about political issues, you could never get 2.5 million Americans to protest about anything!

With our two party political system, you could never get us to agree about anything.  because our political system is very divisive. (Don't believe me? Politicians constantly play up our differences for their own advantage, it's the "us vs. them" mentality: black vs. white, liberal vs. conservative, pro-choice vs. pro-life, straight vs. gay and everyone against the poor.) Americans are too damned selfish.

We certainly weren't angry enough to do anything when the government bailed out the banking industry. Sure, we conveniently blamed (pick one, all or fill-in-the blank) President Obama, W. or Barney Frank. Few of us were riled up over the fact that the gap between the haves and have-nots got a whole bunch wider while we were debating gay marriage. Even fewer of us realize that American companies that laid off the most workers paid their executives an average salary of $12 million a year and we still have gotten angry enough to protest.

Even in the worst economic depression of our lifetime, none of us are angry enough to take to the streets to decry the loss of jobs, the middle class or the fact that we are all one illness away from being bankrupt. Vive le français!

Fire Nancy Pelosi

Albermarle Street aka Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi, originally uploaded by Laura Emily.

I live in a very conservative state. We have a Republican governor who managed to get elected in the year of Barack Obama in 2008. Although I've done no formal polling, I can tell you that the people who live in my state can Bible thump and throw a tea party with the best of them. Though some of us may be passionate about our politics, we don't necessarily have any common"sense. I use the word "common" very loosely because as I get older, I  know common sense isn't so common.

Sure many of us believe that President Obama is really a Muslim that hails from the great state of Africa but you'll find just as many folks who believe that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (you can throw in Harry Reid and President Obama, too) needs to be fired for no other reason than being liberal. The other day while shopping I caught a glimpse of a "Fire Nancy Pelosi" button pinned to chest of a well-manicured, middle aged grandmother. I was disturbed by what I saw. I'm thinking of all the buttons to wear on a 95 degree day with 1,000% humidity, she picked this shit!?

Anyhow, the button did not match her summer yellow outfit but I let it slide because she seemed to be very proud of it. Getting Nancy Pelosi fired was a cause she felt strongly about since it trumped really important issues like our state's obscene unemployment rate, the massive oil spill in the gulf or even world peace. In this woman's mind, Nancy Pelosi was f**king up and need to be taken out. 

I knew if I had asked, this woman would have said Speaker Pelosi (along with Harry Reid and President Obama) were ruining her grandchildren's future. Of course she would be able to cite all of the Sarah Palin/ Republican/tea party talking points while providing little or no evidence to support her claims but so what.

Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing which allows people to say just about anything they want. The great thing about living in a democracy (for the most part) is that our politicians are elected to office, not appointed. This grandmother has no clue about how our government works; as much as she'd like to see Speaker Pelosi fired, there isn't much she can do about here in Indiana. Nancy Pelosi was elected by her constituents of California's Eighth Congressional District and elected Speaker of the House by her peers, the last time I checked, members of Congress cannot be fired.