On my mind...

Finding Liberté on Two Wheels - New York Times Finding Liberté on Two Wheels Ed Alcock for The New York Times

Published: October 14, 2007

MY plane landed at Charles de Gaulle airport. I took the RER train into Paris, dropped off my bag and, two hours after landing, I was riding a bicycle down the Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Pseudoscientific Bigotry in France - New York Times “DNA testing can be a useful tool in establishing criminal guilt or innocence. But it has no rightful place in immigration law. Modern French families, like modern American families, are constituted on many bases besides bloodlines and genetics. This is something most French politicians and voters should be aware of.

They should also be aware of the cautionary lessons of modern French history. Under the Nazi occupiers and their Vichy collaborators, pseudoscientific notions of pure descent were introduced into French law with tragic consequences. ”

L’éditorial du NYT rappelle sévèrement à l’ordre le gouvernement et ses sbires sur l’utilisation de le génétique, mais il n’y a éviemment aucun espoir que Sarkozy prenne une position digne. Pendant la campagne électorale, il avait déjà tenu des propos insupportables sur les gènes de la délinquance, qu’il fallait détecter dès la petite enfance.

The Real Carver: Expansive or Minimal? Raymond Carver’s widow is spearheading an effort to publish a volume of his stories in their unedited form.

Dans son blog du Monde, Pierre Assouline se retient de tonner contre les veuves indignes, mais se demande s’il ne regretterait pas son petit Carver bien serré.

Carroll: A troubling turn in American history - International Herald Tribune Facing our failures

Columbus Day… James Carroll from the Boston Globe exposes the decline of the long-held American virtue of righting one’s wrongs.