The French aren't all bad

Comments

# William said on May 23, 2004 9:12 AM:

Last time I was in France was 94' and we were way out in the French countryside. There were wild boars in the woods and trout in the streams. We went to the local town and drank all the beer that their one and only pub had. I think the name of the town was Bellue(sp?). The bartender/owner had to order more beer that next day then he normally does in a month. Everybody in the tiny town was super friendly. I had always thought of France as being like Paris until we went there, it's actually mostly rural with a lot of Mountains. The people outside of Paris were really nice, technology in the rural areas was literally 30 years behind including automotive technology. Ancient tractors were the norm. Though not as far behind as rural Ireland was by comparason. All in all outside of Paris I would say it was like visiting rural America and the people were just as friendly as what you find in rural America where I grew up. I would go back but I'd want to learn French first because we met a lot of people who were very nice but could only speak to us through our platoons translator. Most of France is very different from what you see on the news that's for sure. Everytime I see the news and hear French bashing going on I wonder what those folks in that tiny little town think of it all, do they know? do they care? what would they say? because to me they are what I envision as France and Frenchmen now when I think about the French. It would be interesting to send a news crew to those towns and see what they think of all of this.

# William said on May 23, 2004 7:20 PM:

I think that news crew could really shed light on stuff. All you see on TV is bunch of anti-Americanism. Many people attribute it to the bias of the US Press. However, the US Press IMHO is terribly biased toward the left. However, from CNN to Fox, ostensibly the two extremes of the pendulum, you definitely get the impression that Europe doesn't like the US. It's doubtful that CNN and Fox would collude in this regard but not in any other. I think it's a natural tendency of the press to cover the fringe elements of any culture and I think they play up stereotypes. I remember heaing a statistic that to date, under 10 abortion providers have been killed by pro-lifers. While that's still a large number, one certianly gets the impression that the number is much much higher. This probably isn't the best example. If you look at any gay/religion issue, you always see the most flaming guys and the most homophobic religous folk. Most gays that I know don't act like that, nor do most religious people hate gays. I think the press really plays up stereotypes.

People are people though and I've yet to find a group of people that didn't have a lot of cool folks, usually more cool ones than the jerks. This whole Europe/US thing is probably the best example. I know I sure as hell don't want to be judged by Michael Moore or John McCain. For the most part, most of the Americans that are featured in the press, particularly the international press, aren't folks that I agree with on a whole lot of issues. Some yes but not all. Something tells me the same holds true for people on the other side of the ocean too.

The MVP summit really brought this to light. I had the privilege of talking to other MVPs from all over the world. Kind of amazing how much we agreed on just about everything. Proof positive that I have a heck of a lot more with a Compact Framework MVP from the Netherlands for instance, than an attorney here in the states. They probably don't like lazy people or their equivalents of lottery players I mentioned the other day any more than we do.

The bottom line is that there are some cool cats everywhere, and anyone that wants to knock down some nutbag Radical Islamist's web site (the same holds for nutbag Catholics or any other religion) is cool with me [provided of course that they do it legally - God knows I would never advocate anything illegal even though I might laugh at it].

Thanks for the posst.

# William said on May 26, 2004 6:13 AM:

No offense meant...just a little light humor.

http://63.252.11.73/images/French.JPG

http://63.252.11.73/images/smonkeys.JPEG

# William said on May 26, 2004 6:40 AM:

Those are great. Not too long ago at a MS DevDays, there was an ASP.NET 2.0 demo. The guy doing the demo was showing how easy it would be to make an online auction site with ASP.NET 2.0. His first example was "French Rifle, never used, Dropped once" All in good fun.

# William said on May 27, 2004 4:30 PM:

Sure they aren't all bad, for the good reason that I don't think I'm bad (maybe my english is, but I am just a poor froggie...).
Being a French citizen, I would like to react to the first reply presenting an idealistic vision of French little villages:

You shouldn't consider that France is divided in two parts, I mean that between the highly technologic, poluted, cultural, polyethnic, whatsoever Paris and the desertic countryside there exists large and middle cities and even DSL wired towns of less than 1000 unhabitants.

Little villages unhabitants are not 'by design' more sympathetic than cities ones: at the last presidential elections, the fascist party obtained many voices in these very little towns: people had heard of Ben Laden, of insecurity, of ghettos and rap music, and therefore were extremely frightened thinking outlanders could invest their village. Note that for most of these people, you are an outlander when you are born 50 km away, and for most of them the only algerians (our major minority) they have seen are, on photographs, ones who faught during the 1st world war (and at this time Algeria was just another French state...)

About war: I must admit that I'm not a fan of Bush and I think the 2nd Gulf war is totally illegal, but I don't admire Jacques Chirac for not having sent soldiers in Irak: our beloved president is just an opportunist, and would he had thougt he could gain something in this war, that he'd have driven himself the troops trucks to Bagdad.

Finally, all that I could say about americans would be non pertinent and you could reply to me the sort of things I've just wrote about France. I've been once to NY (and fell on my ass), loved it (I could go to the top of WTC just one year before it doesn't exist), but I would never say that I know american people because I've spent a week-end in ManHattan.

And remember, Paris isn't located in Texas :-), and it isn't like in an American in Paris (which is a film I appreciate... I also love the 3 musketteers with Gene Kelly, but this is another story).

PS: I've landed on this site coming from microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.csharp; so as you said I think we have maybe more interests in common that with my neighbour.

PS2: you can check http://usgohome.free.fr/humour/joke_integrisme_us.htm to get some funny (to me) images... ;-)

PS3: did you know that Woody Allen was considered half a god in France by many film enthusiasts? But he's not an american, he's a jewish new-yorker (I think this is a very specific ethny like Masaïs or Inuits)

PS4: "We will save the world, for God is with us". Who said that? Ben Laden or Bush?... Bush of course: it's said in English... just for fun!

# William said on May 28, 2004 7:40 AM:

I really appreicate your comments. I agree with most everything you said and I think it's gotten so silly how the media on both sides have worked up all of this animosity. Americans, or the French are hardly this monolitick group. I bet if everyone was interviewed, we could easily find more people in our own respective country's that we dislike than people overseas. And C# Developers from anywhere are more likeably than many American Linux Advocates.

The worst part of the whole thing is that I found out French Fries weren't actually French. I really love them. I really love ROQUEFORT cheese too, that stuff is the best. And like I said, I have yet to meet a French person I didn't like. I've met a few Germans that really got on my nerves, but that pales on comparison to the number of Americans that piss me off.

There's just too much to lose when you paint groups with those broad brushes. And i'm glad you wrote me b/c you seem like quite a cool guy. If you ever need any help with C#, .NET, ADO.NET, well, most things .NET, or SQL Server or Oracle, please let me know...I'll be glad to help.

One thing though, what's up with Michael Moore winning all that? French dudes are supposed to be really good at picking up hot chicks and all, and he has to be the most disgusting thing in the world. He can't even fit in the average camera lens! Quentin Tarantino and his totally kick a55 Kill Bill Series should have won ;-)

Cheers my friend,

Bill

# William said on May 29, 2004 7:49 AM:

About Cannes Film festival. I have to say that its enormous reputation is mainly due to medias feedback, and to me it's just a big mondanities show with a layer of vomitting intellectualism.
I must admit I didn't see neither bowling for Columbine nor his last movie so I may not judge it, but there's something shocking me: to me, Moore's work isn't cinema: documentarie, reports, OK, but not cinema movies. So, only talking about the formal aspect, Moore should present his film in documentary films festivals rather than Cannes. For me it's similar to descerning the award of the best word processing program to VStudio and the prize of the leading IDE to Word...
I know that Tarabtino (who for the first time in Cannes' history had to explain his choices) said to the press something like that: "No, no, no, this isn't a political choice, I really found his film was great cinema art..." Why did he immediately inform us there was no political reason to descern Moore the 1st prize if there really wasn't?
Well I'm not saying a film should only be judged on its form, but at the least should it be a real film.

About Roquefort: it's a little village (with plenty of sympathetic unhabitants looking like Jose Bove (u know, he's the silly alter-mondialist with the big mustaches :-))
in the south-middle of France which speciality is... blue goat cheese (the cheese is blue, not the goat, and this is due to 2 or 3 very specific mushrooms (well moulds in fact). My girlfriend visited the cellars where the cheeses are refined. She told me there were laboratories in which the moulds were cultivated, cropped, transformed, studied: maybe the french government is preparing an invasion of genetically mutated mushrooms that with the help of specifically selected cheeses will transform the whole population into half E.T. half zombies... well, I don't care, it is so a good cheese! All this to say that I had heard that US were thinking of stopping importing french products like some sorts of cheese, "foie gras", wine, in fact all the products that don't meet some sanitaries requirements (the European Union also tried to impose some norms). I think this is silly: of course you won't find bacteries in industrial cheddar, and will find some in Roquefort or in wine: but these products are made of bacteries. A bordeaux without bacteries is just raisin juce and Roquefort without these little mushrooms isn't blue any more and just smells milk of last week. And when I'm speaking about laboratories, it's not because of my XFiles mania, it's true: everything is really controlled and very clean. If one is sick of having drunk Bourgogne aligoté, it's because he's drunk too much of it.

Olivier Mulder DALET
The truth is out there: yeah, it resides in Roquefort - France

# William said on June 2, 2004 4:16 AM:

About Michael Moore winning the Palme D'Or:
Nearly half of the judges were american.

# William said on June 3, 2004 6:02 AM:

I know, and the fact that Tarantino was one of them is the most heartbreaking of it all. Being forced to watch Moore, even for like 10 seconds on a commercial should be considered a war crime. I was only half serious about my comment on Moore, but do you really think all that Cheering was because his movie was so good or b/c it was Anit-US? Seemed like dejavu of Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize.

# William said on June 3, 2004 6:09 AM:

Oliver, that last post ruled. Especially about the blue goats ;-). That whole Boycotting thing was so silly. I mean, every time someone gets pissed off about the US they start attacking Starbucks or McDonalds or something. We do the same crap over here which is just as dumb. If the Cheese manufacturers or StarBucks or whoever is doing something you don't like, then I guess it may make sense. But if you are pissed off about Chirac or Bush, neither of them own all the industry in their country so what sense does all of this make. It just polarizes people unnecessarily. I love Roquefort cheese, and the thought of blue goats makes me like it even more.

# Michael DeAmelio said on March 8, 2006 7:48 AM:

I know it's a little late to respond but I couldn't resist. Yeah, the French ARE that bad. Now, they are against UN security measures penalizing Iran for their nuclear program. Of course, we have to consider that the French probably have a hand in this program just like they did with Saddam the snake. If we could only go back 60 years and let the Germans take over again.