May 20, 2011 -- 11:23AM, shirleyj227 wrote:

The French are bringing charges against the papers that have published DSK’s walk of shame. Says it all doesn’t it. Thank God in the good old US of A when an old lecher forces a woman  to taste his “little friend” he is made to feel shame.

 

Shirley

 

Seriously?  Who are "the French" in this case?  DSKs party or who?

May 31, 2011 -- 3:49AM, CharikIeia wrote:

May 28, 2011 -- 10:18PM, jane2 wrote:

The only European news I read is on the BBC online. I don't read German and my French is very rusted. The NYT sometimes has stories in its international section.

I see the NYT pieces (& what they publish as 'International Herald Tribune') as more accurate in a way than the BBC. The issue with the BBC is that despite its high standards, it has a penchant to overlook continental Europe. It is very much mired in the old British Empire (now Commonwealth) news channels. You are better informed about Canada, Australia, India, Jamaica, the Falkland Islands, than about France or Germany, when listening to the BBC. When you live in London (as I did for a while) you can easily forget that there is a rest of the world, actually... there's London, and there's the increasingly far periphery...

A fairly good English-language German news source are the English pages of Der Spiegel at www.spiegel.de/international by the way. A tad on the left by German standards, which may mean hopelessly leftist in US terms...

I don't think this is the time and place to discuss recent German history. But I hope you trust me a bit when I tell you that there has been quite an identity overhaul in Germany, after WW2.

I am sorry about your grandfathers. My dad was 33 when WWII began and was manufacturer's rep in a field that supported the war effort; he and my grandfather worked together and both were engineers. I do know about post-war Germany because we read about here when I was a student; international news was often discussed at our dinner table. Am I an expert--no.

Thank, Jane - and the very best we can offer is our own honest perspective. I don't think experts are more trustworthy. But there is a distinction between an opinion based on interest and an opinion based on disinterest, which I think is very important to make. More often than not, prejudice about other countries derives not from an interest and real information seeking, but from disinterest and post-hoc justification of stereotypes. That holds for Anti-Americanism over here as much as for Anti-Europeanism in your country.

I am a wee bit shanachie--Irish story-teller. My family thrives on story-telling.

I enjoy these posts of yours, also when I don't interfere with a thread. Thanks for being around, Jane! In a way, you positively prove the possibility of living a good life, eh? That's not always too clear when looking at the discussions here only..

Hi Chari

Thanks for the heads up  with the Spiegel url. You are right about the BBC online not covering much about continental Europe. I am truly interested in that news.

"But there is a distinction between an opinion based on interest and an opinion based on disinterest, which I think is very important to make. More often than not, prejudice about other countries derives not from an interest and real information seeking, but from disinterest and post-hoc justification of stereotypes. That holds for Anti-Americanism over here as much as for Anti-Europeanism in your country"

More than a little truth in this. Fox News here disembles as a matter of practice. My network of choice here is NBC because they, overall, have the best reporters. For me ABC and CBS here are fluff-meisters in the main. Withthe internetat least we can get some news from overseas sources.

My life as an American has been a good one and I do give thanks. I do admire the social nets found in many Western European democracies and would support much of the same here.

Jane

May 31, 2011 -- 11:27PM, teilhard wrote:

Kiss The Purple-Helmeted Warrior

You have this penchant to always inject Catholic clergy in these discussion here...

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/t...

Le Monde also seems to be thinking that maybe they French have ignored the sexual misadventures of their rich and powerful more than they should. 

Jun 1, 2011 -- 9:07PM, REteach wrote:

Le Monde also seems to be thinking that maybe they French have ignored the sexual misadventures of their rich and powerful more than they should. 

Well I have to think a man does not in one day go from being a charming seducer of willing women to attacking a complete stranger, seemingly without thought.

Chances are overwhelming he did this many times before.  And I hate to say given the immediate reaction of the French it appears to me that the society is hostile to anyone reporting on their rich and powerful.