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Posts tagged as “France”

Former Charlie Hebdo Editor: “Silence Must Not Win”

My rage only grows at the murder of cartoonists, artists armed only with wit, by masked gunmen shouting Islamic slogans in Paris today. The bursting slogan, Je suis Charlie, says "I am Charlie." If you speak, if you question, if…

Socialist Hollande’s 75% Top Tax Rate Fails Constitutional Test

French President François Hollande hit a constitutional bump this week. The Socialist leader (who presides over a country that my students are not finding terribly oppressive) wants to raise the top tax rate to 75%. That rate would apply to…

Bon Voyage! Madville Times to Report from Land of Socialist Tyranny

I'm about to discombobulate my blog-posting schedule. In four hours, I take off with 28 of Spearfish High School's best and brightest to visit France for seven days. Our itinerary does not include an audience with socialist President François Hollande,…

History Note: Extreme Individualism Weakens the State?

I'm reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, journalist William Shirer's 1969 study of the political, economic, and cultural factors that led to France's swift and crushing defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany in 1940. About a tenth of…

Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity on Bikes in Paris

The Tour de France concludes here in Paris tomorrow morning... after my plane leaves. I rode a bus yesterday down the Champs Élysées, I returned later and walked by the finish line where the well-to-do will sit in white tents…

Eiffel Tower Totally Beats Hype: Let’s Go!

We've all seen the Eiffel Tower in photos and film. The grand industrial-engineering-art project is so familiar that we might be tempted to think seeing the Tower in person could be a let down. We would be wrong. I spent…

Heidelberger in Paris, Enjoying Art, Architecture, Puns

Did I mention I'm in Paris? Here I am at the Louvre, with our guy Pei's great glass pyramid out front. The drastic contrast the the architecture of the old fortress still doesn't well with some observers. But it creates…