Maori warriors from New Zealand take part in the traditional Bastille Day military parade on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France: photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters, 14 July 2016
Maori warriors from New Zealand take part in the traditional Bastille Day military parade on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France: photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters, 14 July 2016
Alpha jets from the Patrouille de France fly in an ‘Eiffel Tower’
formation over the Champs Elysees at the start of the traditional
Bastille Day military parade in Paris, France: photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters, 14 July 2016
Alpha jets from the Patrouille de France fly in an ‘Eiffel Tower’
formation over the Champs Elysees at the start of the traditional
Bastille Day military parade in Paris, France: photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters, 14 July 2016
A
view taken from a helicopter shows Alphajet aircrafts from the French
elite acrobatic flying team Patrouille de France (PAF) releasing smoke
in the colours of the French national flag as they fly above the
rooftops of Paris during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the
Champs Elysees: photo by Thomas Samson / AFP, 14 June 2016
#14juillet France marks Bastille Day #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
#14juillet France marks Bastille Day #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
#14juillet France marks Bastille Day #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
#14juillet France marks Bastille Day #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
#14juillet Maximum security on France's Bastille Day military parade. Photo @Sakutin #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
#14juillet Maximum security on France's Bastille Day military parade. Photo @Sakutin #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
#14juillet Maximum security on France's Bastille Day military parade. Photo @Sakutin #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
#14juillet Maximum security on France's Bastille Day military parade. Photo @Sakutin #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 14 July 2016
URGENT UPDATE: Around 60 killed in #Nice #attack - local media quote prosecutor's office: image via RT Verified account @RT_com, 14 July 2016
EN DIRECT - #Nice06 Le gouvernement met en garde contre les rumeurs: image via Le Figaro @Le_Figaro, 14 July 2016
The Good Romans: « C'était comme au bowling » "C'était une soirée cool..."
We will never forget you #Nice06 #Nice: image via M O H A M E D @achahbarmo, 15 July 2016
#Nice06
Il n'y aura jamais de pardon !
There will never be forgiveness !: image via Marc Herstalle @herstalle, 15 July 2016
No matter your God, ideology, or mental state. You can't fight against people who would celebrate this. #Nice06: image via Jesse Miler @MediatedReality, 15 July 2016
Stevie Smith: Tenuous and Precarious
Tenuous and Precarious
Were my guardians,
Precarious and Tenuous,
Two Romans.
My father was Hazardous,
Hazardous,
Dear old man,
Three Romans.
Hazardous,
Dear old man,
Three Romans.
There was my brother Spurious,
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.
My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious,
Five Romans.
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.
My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious,
Five Romans.
Surreptitious, our son,
Was Surreptitious,
Six Romans.
Our cat Tedious
Still lives,
Count not Tedious
Yet.
My name is Finis,
Finis, Finis,
I am Finis,
Six, five, four, three, two,
One Roman,
Finis.
Was Surreptitious,
Six Romans.
Our cat Tedious
Still lives,
Count not Tedious
Yet.
My name is Finis,
Finis, Finis,
I am Finis,
Six, five, four, three, two,
One Roman,
Finis.
Florence Margaret "Stevie" Smith (1902-1971): Tenuous and Precarious: Stevie Smith, from Poems (1971)
#Negresco hotel turned into help center for victims after #Nice #attack #PrayForNice #Nice06: image via RT Verified account @RT_com, 15 July 2016
Truck attack in Nice, France: What we know, and what we don’t: image via The New York Times @nytimes, 15 July 2016
More than 70 killed in Nice attack: what we know, and what we don’t know: image via The New York Times @nytimes, 15 July 2016
The front page of The New York Times for July 15, 2016: image via The New York Times @nytimes, 15 July 2016
Witness to truck attack in Nice, France: “Nobody in the way stood a chance.”: image via The New York Times World @ @nytimesworld, 15 July 2016
Des témoins racontent : « C'était comme au bowling »: image via Le Monde @lemondefr, 15 July 2016
La une de Nice-Matin du vendredi 15 juillet : carnage à Nice, neuf pages spéciales #Nice06: image via Nice-Matin @Nice_Matin, 15 July 2016
INFO NICE-MATIN. Un Niçois d'origine tunisienne au volant du camion: image via Nice-Matin @Nice_Matin, 15 July 2016
Les drapeaux de la ville de Nice en berne ce vendredi: image via Nice-Matin @Nice_Matin, 15 July 2016
La Promenade des Anglais fermée pour une durée indéterminée: image via Nice-Matin @Nice_Matin, 15 July 2016
Le témoignage de cette femme qui aurait vu le camion fou dès 22 heures: image via Nice-Matin @Nice_Matin, 15 July 2016
Le pire drame de l'histoire de Nice ”: les réactions des politiques: image via Nice-Matin @Nice_Matin, 15 July 2016
Statement on the publication of a graphic video showing the tragic and graphic aftermath of the attack in #Nice: image via NewsThisSecond @NewsThisSecond, 14 July 2016
An aerial view of the Balkhash lake in Kazakhstan. The
Balkhash lake is one of the largest lakes in Asia and the 15th largest
in the world.: photo by Patrick Baz/Reuters, 14 July 2016
An aerial view of the Balkhash lake in Kazakhstan. The
Balkhash lake is one of the largest lakes in Asia and the 15th largest
in the world.: photo by Patrick Baz/Reuters, 14 July 2016
4 comments:
Who Killed Brown Owl?
On The Promenade of the English
"How, one is left to ask in horror, can one civilization inflict such pain upon another, in the name of an ideology, so routinely as to make such acts of mass violence seem almost commonplace?"
The Ride of the Valkyries
Great post Tom, from Maori warriors to tricolor of jet trails above L'Arc de Triomphe to last night's carnage in Nice . . . Bastille Day will never be the same,
Tom, Those links to Vietnam are, as we used to say, right on. The painful fact is that there’s no statute of limitations on the blowback of anybody’s empire. Atrocities of another century lead to atrocities today. Nobody forgets anything. It’s never over. The casual terror of colonial armies becomes late or soon the cause of some individual’s bloody act of revenge—Apocalypse Whenever. This isn’t the end of the world; it just feels like it.
Thanks, fellows. Bastille day will never be the same. Ou sont les neiges. Demonstrations of bellicosity among the Gauls always have that same element of empty theatricality one gets from the bombastic rhetoric, the pronunciation snobbism, in fact everything else we are supposed to believe has to do with their Invention of Culture (in the form of the croissant was it then?), and their Valour and Courage as a people, exhibited wonderfully in the heroic scuttling of the fleet at Toulon. When the Turtle goes to his Vocabulary of Outrage, reaches in deep and pulls out one of those beautiful Gallic abstract concepts, like "Monstrosity!", you've got to know nothing ever changes.
Fifty years ago now I spent two months (July / August '66) in the high country above Nice, in a stone cottage perched on a hillside directly across a steep gorge from another ridge where there were cottages occupied by Tunisian migrant workers. By night the mistral wafted their radio music across the gorge.
Last night both Drumpf and Hildebeest were beating the drum for a Declaration of War in the Morning, against... well, whoever.
Today it turned out there wasn't even a Plausible Whoever, as the perp was a whack Tunisian with no radical political affiliation and a rap sheet that ran to one traffic stop for road rage, period. He'd been away from Tunisia for four years. There had been that beach blast targeting tourists some years back, no doubt he knew about that. But then, so did the whole world, if it was paying attention.
When living in the region I learned to avoid that tourist stretch of holiday plage down front of the swank white hotels. Being run over by a speeding truck on that slice of expensive frontage can't have been any fun at all. But then I feel exactly the same way about being run over by a speeding jetta here on a murican thoroughfare, and so far nobody has stepped up to declare war over that.
Haven, thanks for your good thoughts. Nobody forgets anything. It’s never over.
Post a Comment