A touch of France -

Outside of Les Deux Garcons - Aix en Provence



Dedicated followers of fashion



Winter contemplation - Then and now - Fontaine de la Rotonde - Aix-en-Provence

In response to Felon47's racist video

Just seen on FB -

A use for the Melania movie!

And somewhere in a maximum security prison for the criminally insane outside of Washington DC, an old TV is sitting in the aisle just outside Hannibal Lecter's cell, playing the Melania movie on an endless loop.
Garnet Rogers

Resistance, compromise, and the Democrats friendly fire

Tad Stoermer gives us a good insight as to where we are now, as we try to resist the fascists in Congress, the White House, and on the Supreme Court.

From a friend in Philadelphia. I was given permission to quote it in full.

The bit about taking down the signage near the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, although a local issue, is also indicative of what's happening to the historical narrative elsewhere.
He also said that he is fine with people taking portions or the entire piece and sharing it.

"Unless you're following local Minneapolis press, and following local Minneapolis journalists, it's hard to understand how bad things are. This morning, a man observing ICE was tackled to the ground by a group of five masked ICE agents - one of which was pistol-whipping the man when his gun went off accidentally. He takes a moment, stands back and fires multiple times into the man's prone body on the ground.
Secret Police are executing citizens on the street. Secret police are kidnapping citizens and immigrants - who are in the country legally - in the Twin Cities and leaving their cars abandoned, doors open, in gas stations and the middle of the street. Using toddlers as bait to draw people out of their homes, often people who fled countries where this behavior from government was standard practice, who thought America was a beacon of freedom.
About 100 clergy members and dozens of other protesters were arrested outside Minneapolis airport while protesting flights carrying immigrants detained by federal immigration enforcement.

I'm mad they took the educational storytelling signage about slavery away from the President's House next to the Liberty Bell, but I'm going to be even more upset if our American neighbors continue to let these Secret Police Thugs - now with a budget dwarfing the Marines - dissolve communities and disassemble the republic.
I don't think there are many people on this platform (Facebook) that still have contact with me and are Republican, and maybe the stragglers will unfriend me as they side with the Reality Show President's Secret Police, deliberately ignoring the exact behavior their treasured second amendment was supposedly enshrined to dissuade. With one or two egregious exceptions, I've never made the move to "unfriend" or block those former acquaintances. So in a way, I'm yelling into the ocean, mouth full of pebbles, I suppose.

But it's important not to let up. Maybe you saw the news that ICE was told it doesn't need warrants to break into homes and businesses to kidnap people - a judge immediately ruled in contradiction to that. A judge ruled that Virginia unlawfully denied voting rights to hundreds of thousands. Judges ruled that the Trump administration must continue funding child care subsidies. Judges ruled in favor of Democrats in a case abour redrawing a district in NYC. You might have seen that the FBI raided a Washington Post journalist's home and seized material trying to uncover sources - a judge ruled that the FBI cannot examine the devices it took from that reporter.
Keep up the pressure. Keep showing up. Keep reaching out to your representatives - local, state, Federal. And yeah, keep working your day job too, if you have the good fortune to be employed during this bonkers economy. It's important to stay functional."

Matt Dunphy - Philadelphia

Call me Ishmael. - Tilda Swinton reading the first chapter of Moby Dick

Absolutely wonderful.
I attempted to read Moby Dick when I was much younger, but was too young and impatient to appreciate it. Swinton's reading has inspired me to go back to it.
Enjoy -

Some ideas for protestors from a friend on FB - Possibly tongue in cheek

It would be a shame if the protesters began making their signs out of quarter-inch-thick plywood to stop rubber bullets, forming a tight shield wall to prevent police from singling out and mobbing individual protesters. It would be a shame if the people behind the shield wall held up umbrellas so that tear gas canisters fired over their heads on the front line will be bounced away. It would be a shame if protesters began constructing improvised armour vests out of duct tape, hard-backed books, and ceramic tiles.
It would be a shame if protesters started wearing safety glasses, hard hats, respirators, and gardening gloves, all of which can be found at the same hardware stores as the plywood. It would be a shame if they started using traffic cones (the kind without the hole in the top), upside down buckets, or other improvised lids to contain tear gas by placing them over the canisters.
It would be a shame if protesters learned that police scanners are legal to own in the US, allowing them to learn where police are moving, and what routes they intend to take. It would be a shame if they discovered that these scanners can be used to send as well as receive, allowing them to flood the scanner frequencies with noise.
All of this would be a terrible, terrible shame.
*It would be an awful shame if you copied and pasted this, so that they couldn’t delete the original and all linked posts (again).
**An even worse shame would be to start donating these items to protesters.
***And leaf blowers!

A very sweet Christmas commercial - with real actors, no AI animation or AI voiceover

This is presently airing on French TV for Intermarche, a super market chain, and tells the story of how a wolf changes his diet.
"Manger mieux" - "eat better", being a pitch for less meat and more vegetables.

Fifteen Years - Today's story from XKCD - Tears may be involved

Seen on Threads - by r.j.Jenson