Category: Fourre-tout

Yesterday, France’s sitting President Emmanuel Macron defeated challenger Marine Le Pen for a second time, and this is good news. Not only for France, but for the world as well.

This French referendum is more important than ever since the Russian ogre has awakened and is ravenous for more real estate. To be more accurate, it is more gluttony than hunger, since Russia is already the largest country in the world. It needs more land like I need a mega-yacht… The only powers that can stop Putin are the United States AND a united NATO.

If Le Pen would have won, NATO would have been weakened and Ukraine could possibly be lost. And if Ukraine falls, it will make Putin more belligerent. You cannot appease a tyrant with concessions. Just remember the Munich Agreement of 1938. The Sudetenland was just an appetizer for Adolf Hitler.

It is no secret that Marine le Pen intended to withdraw France from NATO and thus would have considerably weakened this crucial alliance. As an admirer of (and financed by) Putin, Le Pen would not hesitate to side with the person that she admires.

When a single man manages to take over a country and muzzles its press and its citizenry, that country is in trouble. Russia has already adopted a martial law policy, and its citizens are afraid to voice a negative opinion about the war “special military operation” in Ukraine. A still short war that has already made an inordinate number of victims, civilians, and combatants alike.

Stopping Russia in Ukraine is now as important as defeating the Nazi hordes during WWII. The fragile equilibrium existing between the Russian Federation and Western Europe must be maintained at all costs. Showing weakness would only embolden the aggressor to continue its rampage.

Emmanuel Macron is not somebody to be venerated, but he seems to be an intelligent, reasonable man… a middle-roader willing to improve the lot of his compatriots. And he has no desire to remain president for life through rigged elections… He will stay for 5 more years and leave quietly in 2027, as any civilized person would do.

It is for those reasons that I voted for Emmanuel Macron, and that I wish him the best in the years to come. To maintain a fragile World Peace, Putin must be defeated (best from within) and Macron (definitely not Le Pen) will help to achieve this goal.

Alain

I will never praise enough the protective and curative properties of laughter. Especially in our troubled times…

“Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all costs.” James Thurber

More than anything else, a good sense of humor is what you wish the good fairy would bestow on your cradle. It will be your survival kit, your shield, your flak jacket against the vicissitudes of life.

Never mind beauty; it is fleeting. Humor is what attracts the ladies, protects you against bullies, and will give you a pass to the best venues in the world.

It is Scheherazade Redux. Humor will give you at least 1000 days to extricate yourself from the toughest spots.

Humor allows you to take the edge off of once-taboo subjects such as sex, religion, and politics, and make it palatable to the uptight crowds. You can almost say anything about any subject if you season it properly with giggling spices.

Laughter is welcome by most but greatly feared by autocrats and religious zealots. For it is a formidable foe. You can pass laws forbidding people to talk about certain subjects, but no matter what you do, you cannot prevent people from laughing. And ultimately, the day belongs to the one who leaves you laughing.

There is only a single taboo against laughter. You cannot laugh at the expense of the weak or defenseless. It would be like killing baby seals. Absolutely detestable. Except for that, nothing and nobody is off-limits.

The only effective weapon against laughter is kryptonite. And kryptonite, ardently pursued by bullies of all kinds, is extremely rare and hard to find.

But a humorist also needs to have the ability to laugh at himself. It is when you are unable to do so that you become vulnerable, like all the unsmiling tyrants sitting edgily on their illegitimate thrones.

When somebody antagonizes his constituency, it is your duty to fight back by laughing at the offender, regardless of his rank and regardless of his wealth.

Eat, drink and laugh your head off for nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.

Alain

This is the message apparently communicated by the French penpushers to Jean-Claude Laprie, a retired man of 79 living in France’s Dordogne area.

This sounds oddly familiar. If I am not mistaken, this is the peccadillo that our former (thank God) commander-in-chief has been bellyaching about. A battalion of living dead staggering to the polls and stealing the rightfully-his elections from him.

Well, monsieur Laprie was not dead, but tarnation, his pension checks stopped coming. The French bureaucracy though was thoughtful enough to send him a new “carte électorale” (voting card). So, even though you are dead… you still can vote.

This is scary my friends. You might be dead, and as it happened to monsieur Jean-Claude Laprie, but you might not be aware of it.

A word of advice if I may… When you wake up, ask a reliable person to check your status. Many “Tamalous” might be in this predicament and live unaware of their condition.

How can you make sure that you are still alive? Ask yourself, am I still playful? Am I still joking? Am I still laughing? Do I have some close friends? If the answer to these questions is no, you might be a living dead.

“For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off.” —Johnny Carson

Don’t laugh, some people are so attached to their smartphones that they want to be buried with them. Just in case… you never know when you will need that thing. Or maybe they want to tell us what’s happening in the Great Beyond. We are all curious, aren’t we?

Many people believe that some living dead have infiltrated our society and are planning a takeover. That’s what already happened in Russia. Citizens have been gagged, sedated, and forbidden to express their feelings. In short, they can live, but only as living dead.

But, miracle of miracles, even the living dead can sometimes come back to life. The cure is a good kick in the pants to awaken them and make them realize what happened to them.

Personally, I pray and hope that all the living dead in Russia wake up soon from their coma… and forcibly remove the brutish puppeteer that made them pariahs the world over.

“He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend . . . provided, of course, that he really is dead.” —Voltaire (philosopher)

Debout les morts ! (Arise from the dead) Восстань из мертвых !

Alain