France Tales

I know there is this idea that people who spend too much time online socializing are losing the ability to socialize in real life and that we, oops, are missing out on real friendships. Well I have news for you, it’s not true. Through this blog I have had the opportunity to meet in person several people whom I would have never known. I have met 3 fellow bloggers. Lost in France and I met a few months back and have done a few things together as we live in Toulouse.

Well this weekend Sam deBretagne was in Toulouse and we set up a meetup and she brought along Toutes Directions. We met for a drink and had a dinner together. I also spoke on the phone to someone last week who was in the same position we were in and trying to move back to France. I was glad to give out some advice. There are a handful of others I have met in person as well. While I don’t advocate spending 10 hours online a day, don’t misunderestimate online relationships, they can become real in no time. Of course if you are just sending karate chops on Facebook and Twittering every time the angle in your knee changes you are wasting your time, and hopefully NOT wasting my time.

PS, BTW, we are going to Biarritz this coming weekend and then to Bordeaux for 3 days. Any bloggers out there who want to meetup for a coffee?

Toulouse has a great mediateque, Mediatheque Jose Cabanis. Aside from borrowing books, cds, dvds, software, magazines, language tutorials, and other things, you can also watch dvds there, use the computers, listen to music, see a lecture, view an art exhibit, etc. I wrote a post about it here.

Today we went back to the Mediatheque Jose Cabanis to borrow a DVD. The weather has been very rainy and we couldn’t bring ourselves to do much today even though our friend Vincent is visiting. We got a few books, even books in English, cds and dvds. I noticed something else you can do at the mediatheque in toulouse.

You can play the electric piano. At the mediatheque there are a few keyboards set up. You borrow the headphones that plug in and sit down and practice. You can compose music, record it, set an accompaniment, etc. I was walking past someone doing it and as I had never noticed it, I found it quite strange. Someone had headphones on, seemed to be rocking out, just at a study carel. Upon closer inspection he was in fact playing the piano along with a rhythm track and really into it. I”m not sure I’d put myself in public like that but I’m someone will. That is a first for me, I had never seen anything like it. One more thing to do on a rainy day.

You have to love a site that hosts a variety of blogs with the tagline, These Blogs Are Not Real. Newsgroper takes big current political and social leaders in the world and has people write fake personal blogs as if they were that person. The result is hilarious, sometimes scary, sometimes offensive, but always funny. I just discovered a new thing you can do on the blog. You can leave a comment for each post, big deal, but you can also leave a comment as if you were one of the other celebrity bloggers on the site and your comment will have their headshot next to it. So if you were to read Obama’s blog and he takes a crack at Hilary, you can post a comment as if you were Hilary and her picture will appear next to your comment. It is lots of fun and there are usually lively discussions. Visit the site here.

Other luminaries you can read about there

• George Bush
• Pat Robertson
• Marilyn Manson
• Ann Coulter
• Condoleeza Rice
• Flavor Flav
• Kim Jong
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Many more people from the US and around the world are featured. Take a look.

Apparently this scene was cut from Sicko because no one would have believed it. It was hard enough for some Americans to believe the coverage in France and Britain but this would have sent them over the edge. I am about to do another week residential program and we are going to do a few lessons on health and health in the workplace. One evening we plan on watching and discussing Sicko. It will be interesting to hear the French side of it.

Each week brings lots of new things including strikes. Now I am not against strikes in principle, but I am against strikes that make little sense.

Tomorrow there will be a strike in France. There are all kinds of rules about who goes on strike. For example some students will be on strike tomorrow but some will not. My students will be in class but other teacher’s aren’t sure of the strike status. The post office won’t be open but many banks will. Mostly it will resemble a normal day, except if you have something urgent to be done, then I’m sure they will be on strike. Don’t tell anyone what your plans are for tomorrow, keep it a secret, and then you might not be affected.

Seriously though, it reminds me of the book “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. I never knew that being so political had so many caveats. How does one keep them straight. Okay, back to the strike. If I understand, what is at issue is retirement.

Currently in France you must work for 40 years and then you qualify for retirement, a decent retirement package much better than the average retirement in the states. For most people that averages out to retiring around 60. Well the state is running a huge deficit and people are living longer. Both of those things combined make it hard to continue the current method.

It has been proposed that the French have to work 41 years to qualify for retirement. Well this rallied people in 130 cities and towns tomorrow to go on strike. Now I am no economist but it seems easy to understand that since people live longer and longer that they are a strain on the social security system for a longer period of time. Working an extra year seems like a small price to pay. I’m sure there is waste that can be eliminated in the government and jobs can be shed and efficiencies enacted, but why not also 1 extra year?

I have been reading about it and my French is not perfect but I have not heard a plan by those who oppose the measure. Okay, so you don’t want to add 1 more year to the number of years needed to be worked to retire, then what do you propose instead? Either way you are going to have to do something unpopular. If you get rid of a bunch of jobs then you will have to support those people through unemployment anyway, and if they are over 50, you will probably have to support many of them until they retire, 10 years or more. We heard on the news last night that the average unemployment rate for the over 50 group was 39%. People talk all the time about how difficult it is to find a job here in France if you are over 45 years old.

I hope I am missing something and one of you can point it out. It seems like reality is being denied.

Here is an article I found on Expatica in English about the strikes. It doesn’t really get into any of the nitty gritty issues but here it is.

I have been publishing on HubPages for about 2 months trying to earn a little extra money. There are some good writers there covering many other areas of France. Below are a short listing of stories about France. I hope you enjoy them.