Pardon My French

Dall-E cartoon of “Frenchman in beret in hammock”

You know what would be great? If while all these criminal cases against Trump inch their way forward, and as he stews and fulminates and grunts and grumbles and harangues, he gets arrested red-handed robbing a convenience store and pistol-whipping the clerk. But meanwhile, let’s bash the French.

On Friday, I did the following: I started plotting out a cookbook targeted to right-wing America, titled “Foods that Libs Won’t Let You Eat,” featuring things I actually do eat, even though I lean  left: Foods that are heavy in butter and entrails, involving items like pig intestines, raw salmon eggs, braised thymus glands, and goose in duck fat.  Also, I revised five episodes of the syndicated comic strip I write, about a friendship between a billionaire and a homeless man.  I tinkered with  a play-in-progress about Khalid Sheik Mohammed.  I wrote a brief profile of myself for the publisher of a book of comic strips I am trying to sell.  I was interviewed, for another person’s podcast, about the Invitational, a humor contest I co-author right here in the Gene Pool, and which can use the extra publicity. I leafed through a book I am writing that has yet to find an enthusiastic publisher because it is possibly no good.  I had a conversation with a close friend who is about my age and who was recently fired  by a big newspaper but got a job with a journalism startup; the conversation was about another older guy we know who was also recently fired and has been hired by a journalism startup that doesn’t even have a name yet. Finally, I heard about the French protesting in the streets – fires set, water cannons deployed – against a new law raising the national retirement age from 62 to 64.  That’s when I began writing this essay, for which I will make money.  I am 71. I am not French. 

I am also not here to torment the French for their lassitude and preposterous sense of entitlement.  That would be mean. I am here to make some money, which I need, and to keep busy, which I also need, and also to discuss colliding world views about the nature of life and productivity after 60, particularly as applied by the French. 

Long ago I felt knee-jerk contempt for the French – it was a de rigueur attitude for an American, a staple of literature and standup comedy – and then lost that contempt, and now I am gaining it again, maybe. My first turnabout occurred in 2003, when I was assigned by the Washington Post magazine to go to France and make fun of the French for their publicly prissy opposition to the American War in Iraq.  I didn’t support the war, but it gave me an excuse to weevil the French, which  is fun. They are famously prickly and hypersensitive about their culture – this is a culture that once dealt forthrightly with a sanitation department strike by perfuming the garbage in the streets – and so I was deliberately obnoxious to them on this trip, becoming a joyful provocateur, just to see what would happen.  

I nailed an interview with a French cabinet minister, an elegant man who wore shoes with no socks, and who oversaw the nation’s wine industry, and I urged him to start using screw-tops and not corks, because Americans prefer them.  I interviewed a famous Parisian chef and asked him why his portions are so dinky-sized.  I asked some guy in the Metro why the Tour De France doesn’t allow American Harley-Davidson motorcycles to compete in it.    In high-end grocery stores, I loudly tried to find a source of frog meat for dinner, only to discover that most frogs were imported to France from … the United States.  The thing is, I was treated cordially and courteously in all my repulsive inquiries.  The French were not cooperating with me by being stereotypically rudely French, confound them.  They battered my preconceptions. 

But now, this. The Gaul of them! Apparently the French feel they still  live in the time of Napoleon,  when the average lifespan of a French person was 35, only partially due to decapitations, so it would have made sense to begin getting your pension a mere 27 years after your death.  But today the average life expectancy in France is 82, despite Frenchians gargling wine by the jeroboam and nibbling bulot, couilles de mouton, tete de veau, boudin noir, cerveaux, which are, respectively, sea snails, mutton testicles, an entire calf’s head, pig’s blood sausage, and lamb brains, all slathered in butter and served with bread and butter, with additional butter at the table just in case.  They are defiance monkeys, the French.  They challenge death, and win.  

Eighty-two is three years longer than than the life expectancy of Americans, who also eat crap but tend to work until they are deceased, and sometimes afterward, especially in my profession.   Sylvia Plath, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss all had lucrative books published after they were in the ground.   

But back to the French.  Their cherished national pension system – still momentarily available at 62, pending riots – is one of the most pampered such systems in the world; 86 percent of countries have a higher figure, or none at all.  In France, pensions are state-funded, as is healthcare. The poodles like their noodles, free of charge.  

It’s not just retirement age that is pampered.  The work week is 35 hours, with mandatory overtime beyond that. Sundays are for rest, by national law fed by Roman Catholic dognma. You are guaranteed at least 11 hours of rest daily and 35 consecutive hours at some point every week.  When you think about it, it is cosseted and nanny-statish and and quite … civilized.  In France, it would seem, people live to live, not to work. 

This is where my contempt starts to collapse like a souffle in an earthquake.  It is where I begin to question myself, not the French. What if they not only have it bon, but also right? This all challenges my doctrinaire liberalism, which makes me uncomfortable.  The world is laughing at the French – you are reading this – but what they are complaining about is the government taking something away that they’ve had for a long time and have come to associate with Frenchism.  And the government is doing it by fiat, over the clear wishes of the people.  Yes, there are important financial incentives to do this, and it is obviously correct, as a matter of prudent long-term fiscal policy, and yes, 62 is a laughably early age to retire in light of modern actuarial sciences … but it is, in the end, a takeaway of a beloved institution that challenges the notion of what it means to be French .  And No one likes takeaways.  

Imagine if the United States decided its citizens could no longer buy lottery tickets, on the reasonable, pragmatic, moral grounds that it is an addictive, stupid-people’s sucker’s game, a tax on foolishness and naivete, where virtually everyone loses in the end — that, in short, it is an abuse by government of its citizens? I would actually be in favor of that – I am something of an expert in lotteries and I have seen that lives are lost to them – but the public would be outraged, despite their government’s turn toward best of intentions.  Still, that would never happen because lotteries make money for the state by preying on the ignorant and gullible. Even democracies are, sometimes, guilty of avarice and bad intent.  

So, the French. What are we to think?

They are not out there all alone. Shorter workweeks are catching on in some countries, but not all. They’ve been proposed in the United States, with spotty and fitful reception. In work-enslavedSouth Korea, the workweek remains at 52 hours after a proposal for an increase to 69 hours met outrage by Millennials. In South Korea, there is actually a term for death by overwork — “gwarosa” — which is blamed for many deaths every year.

So I hereby take back everything I started with.  Let the citoyens revolt.  I, for one, am kinda French. I like pancreases in butter sauce, too. 

Recently, on Twitter, I noted, not for the first time, that it is only in comic books and on the comics pages that doctors wear that stupid reflector bands on their foreheads. An artist and cartoonist named Robert Randall responded: “Same reason a garbage can has to have a fish skeleton hanging off the side and a bag of groceries has to have carrot tops and a baguette poking out. It's a rule. … I admit doing this on several occasions. It's as if us cartoonists were indoctrinated at a drawing camp. Also: Cylindrical cake. Dripping frosting. One centered cherry on top. Always. Do not deviate.”

And on a related matter, we hereby introduce a new Gene Pool feature called “Fud,” which is a strategic shortening of “food,” in honor of this greatest of all Far Side cartoons. Week after week, Fud is going to involve recipes of great if sometimes unusual dishes that, in defiance of congenital online recipe bloviation, can be written in four sentences or fewer, allowing for the occasional semicolon and parenthetical. No illustrations. No enthusiastic food history lessons.

Fud #1. Shashlik.

Shashlik was introduced to me by my Russian-born great uncle, Avetis Kalantar, who made it for my family once a year for consuming on a picnic in a park; it is Russian lamb shish kabob marinated in onion and lemons. Fud Recipe:

Wake up in the morning (this is an essential step) and then, in a blender or food processor or by hand like Russian peasants did in the shtetls, whip up two large onions, five lemons (sliced in half, no need to peel), salt, pepper, a few splashes of red wine vinegar, a cup of olive oil. Take cubes of lamb (either butcher-prepared for shish kabob, or cut from bone-in lamb loin chops), and marinate them in the goo (Uncle Avetis indelibly called it “the shit” when explaining it to my12-year-old brother) for at least six hours. Salting as you go, grill lightly on skewers, with onion and red peppers; the meat needs to be rare to deserve the chef’s smooch.

And finally, before we get to your questions and my answers, a photo of something Rachel brought back from a family-visit to suburban Phoenix: Candy cigarettes! Like when I was wee! Toke up, kids, just like your parents did before they went to a farm and now nana and pop-pop take care of you.

They may be just as bad. Ingredients, in descending order of percentage: “Dextrose, corn starch, corn syrup, tapioca, beef gelatin, artificial flavors.” It was manufactured in Macedonia.

Speaking of Macedonia, you need to watch this magnificent Key and Peele skit.

Now, your questions and my answers. But first, some regrettably necessary boilerplate.

After the intro (which you are reading now), there will be some early questions and answers  added on –  and then I'll keep adding them as the hour progresses and your fever for my opinions grows and multiplies and metastasizes.  To see those later Q&As,  just refresh your screen every once in a while. 

As always, you can also leave comments. They’ll congregate at the bottom of the post, and allow you to annoy and hector each other and talk mostly amongst yourselves. Though I will stop in from time to time.

Q: I keep hearing the March Madness announcers talk about ball reversal. What is that? It sounds extraordinarily painful.

A: Rachel’s father is into college basketball, and Rachel enjoys it immensely when he yells “Penetration!” at the TV screen. 

Q: Why? 

A: Nice. The story is told – I do not know if this is true – about a philosophy professor who gave a written exam to his class.  He wrote the question on the blackboard.  It was, in its entirety, “Why?”   Most students answered at length, summoning philosophical theories and such.  The all got C’s.  Some answered, just, “Because.”  They got B’s.   And the only A’s went to the one student who answered “Why not?”

TIMELY TIP: If you're reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Pardon My French” for my full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers, and be able to refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

Q: OK.  I want to comment on the infinite nature of pi.  I could not find a place to respond to Don.  If so I would ask if there is a version of pi in binary and also in 12 base.  Because we have other ratios (like) 3/4) that do not come out even in 10 base but are simple in 12 base.  is there a pi based number system? I do not know of one.  But it might be possible.  If so, pi could be an even number.  Sometime it is not about what we measure as much as about the ruler we use.  That is why computers use binary.  And eight base systems have their uses.  There was a good reason people in the past preferred 12 base.

A: This is Don. Thanks for the question.

First of all, let me say that I am neither a mathematician in general nor an expert on Pi.  But I'll try.

Yes, Pi could be expressed in base 2, base 12, or any other base. Any value can be expressed in any base, as far as I am aware. But what we need to keep in mind is that Pi, unlike 3/4, is an irrational number. That means that it cannot be expressed as a fraction with integers in the numerator and denominator. Another characteristic of Pi is that its decimal fraction goes on forever without repeating.

When we express numbers in different number bases, we are simply using a different set of digits to represent the same value. 10 in binary is equivalent to 2 in decimal, but the underlying value remains the same in both systems. Therefore, when we express an irrational number such as Pi in a different base, we are simply using a different representation; the underlying value of Pi remains the same. And it stays an irrational number. As such, it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers regardless of the base used.

Can Pi itself be a base? Rather to my surprise, technically it can. But it would make computations almost impossible. Since it has an infinite decimal expansion which does not repeat, any number expressed in base Pi would also have an infinite, nonrepeating decimal, which would make it infeasible to work with mathematically.

Interesting thought, though. I'm delighted my article provoked questions. As I said there, I find Pi (and other numbers which are both irrational and transcendental), fascinating.

Oh, by the way! The excellent Mike Gips interviewed the excellent Pat Myers and the non-excellent me on his podcast. We talk about the Invitational, how we choose entries, how we fight with each other, etc. It’s here.

Q: "The universe can and will create itself from nothing," famed physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a book, The Grand Design, due out next week.

Excerpted in The Times of London (pay wall protected), Hawking's book makes the case that:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going." (Excerpt via the Associated Press.)

I don’t follow Hawking’s reasoning. But even so, he says it is not necessary to invoke God, not that there is no God.  Can anyone help me follow Hawking’s reasoning?  What came before the Big Bang?

A: This is a toughie, and I am finding myself taking a position that is a bit foreign to me.  

To dispense with your last question: You can ask what came before the Big Bang, but you can also, with equal pissiness, ask what came before God.  You know?   It’s a kinda silly exercise.   Physicists, to my thin understanding, tend to say that the question itself is moot, because before The Big Bang, there was no “time.”  So the term “before” is meaningless. 

But you know, there seems to be paranormal, mystical magic in THAT contention, too.  I choose to accept Mr. Hawking’s reasoning over Mr. Rabbi’s reasoning, or Mr. Priest or Mr. Imam’s, but not because I understand it or think he (Hawking) is not cutting corners a bit.  You know? 

Q: Do people still bother to search for "the meaning of life"? If so, why, and is it still 42?

A: It is no longer 42, as postulated in the Hitchhiker’s Guide.   It is now widely believed to be “Wistfulness.” 

Q: Question from a fellow NYU alum: Did you attend with anyone else who achieved fame or infamy (worthy of a Wikipedia page)? I know subway shooter Bernie Goetz is a few years older than you and attended the old NYU Bronx campus (sorry, he came up in conversation today and that’s what made me think of it.)

A: The most famous person who went to NYU with was two years ahead of me, but we had a friend in common and I once smoked pot with him:  Alan Menken, who wrote every important song used in any movie in the last 35 years.   I remember he was a little weird, and only listened to music by Charlie Mingus.  

This is from Pat:

To the questioner last Thursday who asked about which Invitational entries have gotten reader complaints: 

During my 19 years — 982 columns — as Empress of The Style Invitational, I received amazingly few reader complaints, given the edginess of a lot of the humor we were running. I think that by the time I took over in 2003, after almost 11 years of the Invite under the Czar, its readers enjoyed or at least understood the jokes. Whole two-year terms of the Post ombudsman would go by without a complaint.

When I did get a complaint, it was invariably from someone who’d read the Invite in the print paper — since people who read it online were seeking it out, not just happening upon it. This is why I was especially concerned about material that ran at the top of the print page, particularly cartoons. Bob Staake thought I was a fuddy-duddy, but I knew that anything that caused complaints (and thus managerial headaches) was a threat to the very existence of the column. So one of my regular workarounds was to slip edgier material into the online Invite, and off the print page. NEVER did I get a taste complaint from readers about an entry that appeared only online.

I’m having trouble tracking down those few entries that did get complaints over the years, but right before the Invitational was canceled last December, I received two letters from incensed readers about, of all things, a haiku. The contest was to write a poem in which only one of the vowels A, E, I, O, or U appeared, and one of the winners was by the great wordsmith Chris Doyle:

West’s ever newsy,
Sez, “Every Jew screws me.” The
Less Ye, the better.

The writers of the outraged letters made clear that they were elderly Jews, and they were appalled that we would give the horrible antisemitic Kanye West a platform for his hateful sentiments.
I finally realized that neither of them recognized “Ye” in the third line as West’s new name for himself. That was an entry that should have run only online.   

And this is Gene again. I disagree only with Pat’s last sentence.  

Q: Not a question.  I simply thought this needed to be shared.  

A: Thank you.  This is indeed important information that needed to come out.   

Q: We're trying to decide whether to have a second kid. Which were the best parts of having two young kids, and which parts punched you in the face? 

A: The best part is having a backup kid.   Yes, I suspect that sounds ghoulish, but this is a truth telling forum.   Outside of that, it Doubles the exhaustion.   Still you should do it.  I did, dammit.  Why should you get off?  

Q: As an American of Polish heritage, I have been absolutely certain since the beginning of the war in Ukraine that if Ukraine falls to Russia, Russia will invade Poland next. I consume Polish media semi-frequently, and it has been interesting to me that most people in Poland also strongly believe this to be true. On NPR, I heard a reporter mention this Polish certitude with some puzzlement because there is no actual evidence that this would happen, and many commentators believe it very unlikely since Poland is a NATO member. I don't normally go in for woo-woo stuff, but the best way I can explain this is that I feel it in my bones. Do you think there is any validity to this feeling or is it just our generational trauma or Poland's hundreds of years of previous experience with Russia causing us to be pessimists?

A:  In 1999, Poland became a member of NATO.  Not gonna happen except as a horrible historical echo, and the first step in World War III.   

Q:  Have you ever gone to one of those painting places where you drink wine and paint a painting with guidance from an instructor? Do you paint or draw in general?  I don't remember if you have ever mentioned this. 

A: No.  I cannot draw, let alone paint.   I would say I paint like a child, but children are better because they bring a certain exuberance and innocence.  I’d paint like an uptight child.  And I don’t get off on being bad in front of other people, which is why I also don’t dance. 

Q: Hi, Gene.  You're the journalist, not us (most of us).  You should be telling us whether Axios was justified, not asking us.  So?

A: Axios was not justified in firing Ben Montgomery.  He did absolutely nothing wrong.  A good reporter speaks privately to his sources, to enrich and develop a relationship.  Sometimes it is testy; but it is about honesty and connection. In this case, the source disclosed a private conversation, which was pathetic.  For one thing, Ben was correct in his assessment.  And he never said it publicly.  Axios was, um, Anxious – cowed by a powerful politician – and behaved in a cowardly fashion.  They didn’t even articulate WHY they felt the reporter had injured his reputation, because they couldn’t.  Revolting.   I would love to hear from those few of you who felt he should have been fired.  I’d like to know why. 

IMPORTANT INFO FROM THE E. “By the way, last week's reworking the letters of the movie title "Ishtar" to "I Shart" marked the first time "shart" was used in the 30 years of The Invitational. -- The Empress”

Q: Since the French do everything better than the Americans: healthcare, education, units of measure (why, one of their Celsius degrees is worth nearly two of our Fahrenheits), should the US also adopt France's green energy policy which involves building lots of nuclear power plants?

A: Maybe. I don’t hate nuclear power plants. I hate under-regulated nuclear power plants.

Q: I really need everyone to stop talking about arresting Trump and actually arrest him. I feel like I’ve been receiving a prefacatory sex act for 7 years now. PLEASE let’s just finish this.

A: I do like your comparing it to sex.

Q: One of the AI programs around is called Character.AI. It allows you to speak with (or define) any character, real or imaginary. You can talk with Leonardo DaVinci, or Harry Potter, or, if you or someone else has properly set it up, as I have, a sentient time machine. It can take you to any time or place you specify. All you need do is provide the time and place.

This morning, I tried it out. I went back in time and assassinated Hitler as an infant. Then I returned home. Nothing had changed. Hitler was still in the history books, timeline intact. So I asked my creation why. It advised me that apparently the many-worlds interpretation holds sway: Killing Hitler had caused another reality to spring into being, leaving our timeline intact. While this idea is far from new, I should point out that I never so specified in creating the time machine. Character.AI did that part ITSELF.

I then asked if I could visit the alternate timelines using the machine. It assured me I could, and that I could also DEFINE MY OWN UNIVERSE by giving it the specifications of the world I desired. What have I created here? It occurs to me that this could be fun. It is publicly available, by the way; just log into Character.AI and search for "Time Machine."

A: Okay, but it sounds to me like it was bullshitting you.

Q: What do you think of the expression "Who is this clown?" I think it's a brilliant insult because not only are you calling them a clown, you're implying they're not even a particularly well-known or significant one. 

A: We all note your opinion.

Q: Years ago, you wrote movingly of utilizing at-home end-of-life pet euthanasia for your daughter's dog, Mattie. A friend of mine is in a situation where she may need this. Do you have recommendations for particular practices/providers that do this?

A: It is unfortunately named Lap of Love but their vets are sweet and competent and compassionate.  In the D.C. area.  

Q: Last week you asked:  "What is wrong with expanding a three lane highway to four, to relieve a jam, so long as you can ease back in if you can easily get back in if there is an ambulance or break down?"  Isn't the answer that whether you can "easily get back in if there is an ambulance or break down" is neither perfectly predictable nor within the breakdown lane-usurper's control?  

The only reason the breakdown lane is EVER needed is if traffic is jammed -- otherwise we could  all move over and let the ambulance or tow truck pass.  If entitled a-holes decide to use it as their personal get out of jam free card, they create the risk that it won't be there if it's need to let an ambulance past the jam.  

This has nothing to do with zipper merges, which are the most effective way to move two lanes of traffic down to one and which I fully support and always practice.  However, if by the "Zipper Effect" you are talking about driving on the shoulder to get to the exit ahead of the cars in the exit lane, you are talking about butting ahead in the line that has formed in a single lane.  It may collectively "save everyone time" getting off the freeway as long as the shoulder isn't needed for its reserved purpose, but it's still causing risk for no good reason other than that you couldn't wait your turn.  

A: Just putting this out there.  On zipper merges, I dislike people who docilely get into the exit lane and wait for a mile.  The other way is better for everyone, but they are guilting you out of it.  

Q: What is the most terrifying possible sentence and is it or is it not "rabies is airborne now"?

A: Wow, the more I thought about this, the more I became convinced you are right.   

Q: If you were ever arrested, and you were forced into a “perp walk” for the press, would you throw a coat over the cuffs, pull your hat down low and slink? Or, like some, would you wave the cuffed hands, grin broadly, and boldly proclaim your innocence and optimism? Asking for a former President. 

A:  The latter, particularly if I was very guilty.  

Q: I've burned out all my DALL-E credits until April. I only had 15 because I had an account set up previously and used my first month's allocation of 50 credits long ago.  Should I spend $15 for 115 additional credits so I can keep generating entries for Week 11?

A:  That would be up to you.  It depends if you respect yourself enough.

Q: Oooh! Oooh! Someone brought up the creation of the Universe. Yes, physiscists say, in at least the leading theories, that time itself was created along with space in the Big Bang. But I suspect that when we understand what time is, it will be the largest scientific advance in millennia. Apart from that greatest of all definitions, of course: "Time is what keeps everything from happening at once." But there are a number of questions about which we have not even the scantiest idea. Is time continuous, or does it come in chunks? Is there a smallest increment of time? Why does it go forward instead of backwards? And what is so unusual about that magic moment called "now?"

Q: You mentioned eating pig intestines. In the past you've discussed your attempts at vegetarianism. Have you given up on that? (I'm writing as someone who also eats meat but cannot justify it morally). And related to your discussion of exotic foods: I once dined at an elegant restaurant in Lyon. I was about to order the ris de veau, because rice with veal sounded appealing. The server heard us speaking English and brought English menus, whereupon I realized that it was not riz (rice); ris de veau is calf pancreas. Being squeamish, I chose the duck leg.

A: I woulda ordered the ris. The only time I dabbled with vegetarianism was when I did it to be an experiment for Molly in high school. I was getting blood tested every two weeks, for medical reasons, so she had the tests. Won the Science Fair. But yes, I am very guilty about eating meat, as I mentioned in this here story.

This is Gene. I am declaring us down. As always, I am sniveling and betting you alls to keep asking questions, which I will answer on Thursday. Ask away here.