FRANCE... ET L'APPAREIL SANGLANT DE LA DESTRUCTION!

Yesterday evening, Joseph de Ca'th Lon, Claire Fontaine, and The Grandma enjoyed the classic French women's football match between PSG and OL. It wasn't a great game, but the experience of being at the Parc des Princes -and getting to see the Northern Star play for a few minutes- made it all worthwhile. 

On their way back to the hotel, the three friends encountered a scene that was nightmarish, surreal, and unacceptable in a democratic, rational country.

The news they have read today regarding the riots in various French cities -especially in Paris, Limoges, and Lyon- brought to mind authors as diverse as Charles Baudelaire and George Orwell, all pointing to a common truth: nothing justifies gratuitous violence, vandalism, looting, or the destruction of cultural heritage. Nothing justifies it. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing...

Sans cesse à mes côtés s'agite le Démon;
Il nage autour de moi comme un air impalpable;
Je l'avale et le sens qui brûle mon poumon
Et l'emplit d'un désir éternel et coupable.

Parfois il prend, sachant mon grand amour de l'Art,
La forme de la plus séduisante des femmes,
Et, sous de spécieux prétextes de cafard,
Accoutume ma lèvre à des philtres infâmes.

Il me conduit ainsi, loin du regard de Dieu,
Haletant et brisé de fatigue, au milieu
Des plaines de l'Ennui, profondes et désertes,

Et jette dans mes yeux pleins de confusion
Des vêtements souillés, des blessures ouvertes,
Et l'appareil sanglant de la Destruction!

Ceaselessly, the Demon stirs at my side;

He swims around me like an intangible air;

I inhale him, and feel him burning within my lungs,

Filling them with an eternal, guilty desire.

Sometimes -knowing my deep love for Art-

He assumes the form of the most seductive woman,

And, under the specious guise of melancholy,

Accustoms my lips to vile, intoxicating draughts.

Thus he leads me, far from the gaze of God,

Gasping for breath and broken with fatigue, into the midst

Of the plains of Ennui -vast, deep, and desolate-

And casts before my bewildered eyes

Soiled garments, gaping wounds,

And the bloody apparatus of Destruction!

Charles Baudelaire

More information: Poetry Verse

There will be no art, no literature, no science… 

There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. 

There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. 

All competing pleasures will be destroyed.

George Orwell