la tragédie que nous vivons

“we are pitifully gathered today, just a few of us, to ask only, without yet trying for anything more, that on one solitary dot on the globe a handful of innocent victims be spared.”

Albert Camus.
"Call for a Civil Truce,” a 1956 conference in Algeria

 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/sunday-in-paris?intcid=mod-yml

Houdon, Voltaire, de Gaulle, Houellebecq, Trolls

On n'arrete pas Voltaire.

If Voltaire were alive today, and living in the United States, he would be denounced for being "a troll."

(another dead white man)

-General Charles DeGaulle en 1968 a propos de l'arrestation de Jean-Paul Sartre pendant les emeutes de mai,

http://www.lacritiqueparisienne.fr/59/59voltaire.pdf
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/books/review/michel-houellebecqs-submission.html?_r=0

I can say, I cannot say

In America, you pay for having unpopular opinions.

Others pay you for having popular opinions.

How much of the rest of the world is like this I cannot say.

-LH

When you lie about another person

I felt violated in some fundamental way.  I think I've hit it on the nail now:   



When you lie about another person, you violate 

that person's integrity.  


You violate them.



It doesn't matter your gender, color of skin, religion, political creed...

No one ever told me that.  I had to learn it on my own.  

Thank you, downtown YMCA Seattle.  A very painful lesson, though.

-Lily H.



http://www.yelp.com/biz/ymca-of-greater-seattle-downtown-seattle

Pierre Ronsard

preface du Chapitre 2, La Chartreuse de Parme de Stendhal

Puis alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos yeux, 
Attaché dans le Ciel je contemple les Cieux, 
En qui Dieu nous écrit en notes non obscures 
Les sorts et les destins de toutes créatures. 
Car lui, en dédaignant (comme font les humains) 
D'avoir encre et papier et plume entre les mains, 
Par les astres du Ciel, qui sont ses caractères, 
Les choses nous prédit et bonnes et contraires ; 
Mais les hommes, chargez de terre et du trépas, 
Méprisent tels écrits, et ne le lisent pas.


http://www.poesie-francaise.fr/pierre-de-ronsard/poeme-elegie-a-helene.php#Outv5CJMW3vSjjYy.99

They speak with an American accent.

 

I know that many, if not most, Americans think themselves quite interesting, but do they have to insist upon it so by talking loudly in public?



-Lily H.
    

费力不讨好

大树底下好乘凉