There's not much to say. I'm trying to make appointments for Overseas Americans Week, but I can't do too many in an afternoon. First of all, some offices open and 8:30 and others at 9:00 am in DC, but my luck finding anyone to answer the phone before 9:30 am is almost nil. That's already 3:30pm my time. I try to do some preparation in the morning and then attack the phone, later, which really just ends up in sending yet another email. Sometimes, though, I'm busy later in the afternoon and just can't do it. The Senators' offices are the least reactive. I don't have the impression that others in the group are making appointments, which is discouraging to me. I was willing to coordonate, not to do all of it. Some have, or have let me know they'd like me to do it for them, which I don't mind too much as they give me the information I need.
We've seen the little ones in Paris. S. is speaking so much more clearly, now. We understand almost everything. And he repeats words, here and there, in English. I'm having as much trouble sticking to English with him as I did for my kids. Someone speaks French to me, I automatically respond in French.
And that's it.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Monday, February 9, 2015
Going back to DC
It's time to gear up for Overseas Americans Week. Time to make appointments, revise the position papers and all that. It's also time to visit family. This year I'll stay with B & T in Bethesda and commute into DC each day.I'm looking forward to that, the idea of "going home" in the evening.
When the week is done, I'll head down to Florida for more family visits. I didn't write about it before, but in mid-January I and all my kids went to Orlando for MLK weekend for a surprise party! It was a surprise, already, that we were all able to go. After all, they had to get time off from work. It's not a holiday in Europe. We all converged on Orlando on the same day along with more family coming in from London, California, Oregon, New York, the midwest -- when we were all together, on Sunday, there were 160 family and friends! It was a great party, full of love and energy for R. In March, I'll be able to pay a calmer visit.
I'll even get to see my brother and his wife because they'll be in Florida, too. T will be in a training program for her rowing club.
The main subject in DC, this year, will be taxes, again. Yes, again. As FATCA rolls out, more and more people are being discriminated against. Personally, I'm fed up with proposing a compromise position. The only real solution is for the US to adopt what the rest of the world does: residence-based-taxation. Then the OECD exchange of banking information would be the worldwide system -- reporting foreign accounts to the country of residence. I see the logic of that. I live in France and think it is normal that France knows of any accounts I might have elsewhere. France, yes, not the US. The US, with its system, treats my accounts in France as foreign accounts and the reporting of that information, on the part of the banks, is so cumbersome and expensive, they prefer to do without US customers.
Enough!
When the week is done, I'll head down to Florida for more family visits. I didn't write about it before, but in mid-January I and all my kids went to Orlando for MLK weekend for a surprise party! It was a surprise, already, that we were all able to go. After all, they had to get time off from work. It's not a holiday in Europe. We all converged on Orlando on the same day along with more family coming in from London, California, Oregon, New York, the midwest -- when we were all together, on Sunday, there were 160 family and friends! It was a great party, full of love and energy for R. In March, I'll be able to pay a calmer visit.
I'll even get to see my brother and his wife because they'll be in Florida, too. T will be in a training program for her rowing club.
The main subject in DC, this year, will be taxes, again. Yes, again. As FATCA rolls out, more and more people are being discriminated against. Personally, I'm fed up with proposing a compromise position. The only real solution is for the US to adopt what the rest of the world does: residence-based-taxation. Then the OECD exchange of banking information would be the worldwide system -- reporting foreign accounts to the country of residence. I see the logic of that. I live in France and think it is normal that France knows of any accounts I might have elsewhere. France, yes, not the US. The US, with its system, treats my accounts in France as foreign accounts and the reporting of that information, on the part of the banks, is so cumbersome and expensive, they prefer to do without US customers.
Enough!
Friday, January 9, 2015
Today at the Porte de Vincennes
First of all, I'm home. OK.
Whatever is happening at the Porte de Vincennes is not over as I am writing.
I just want to reassure friends and family that I am okay. So is Paul, who had no reason to be near there.
Earlier today, I was in Saint Mandé, just a block from the Porte de Vincennes. That's where my art classes are and I had a drawing class this morning. The class is over at 12:30, so normally I would have been on my way home when the shooting and hostage taking started. Today, however, we were staying late to share a bite of lunch and a galette des rois. (This is the tradition in France -- a pastry with a little token inside. The person who has the piece with the token is "king" or "queen" for the day. This is for Epiphany but it goes on all month, really.)
While we were eating, we heard a helicopter above. Then, one person, who had gone out to get some vegetable nibbles, came back saying there was something going on, and we started collecting information from phone calls. Our first reaction was to stay put. That's the safest thing to do. When in doubt, stay inside, stay put. After a while, another woman who had an appointment in Vincennes and I set out on foot. I had spoken to Paul and he suggested doing that. The hostage situation could go on all day and into nightfall and if I were going to have to walk the whole way, walking in daylight is better. We were walking away from the action and the police, who were otherwise keeping people off the sidewalk, let us through saying that our direction was okay.
Once at the Chateau de Vincennes, I caught the bus to go home.
That's all. I'm not a reporter, not a witness.
Whatever is happening at the Porte de Vincennes is not over as I am writing.
I just want to reassure friends and family that I am okay. So is Paul, who had no reason to be near there.
Earlier today, I was in Saint Mandé, just a block from the Porte de Vincennes. That's where my art classes are and I had a drawing class this morning. The class is over at 12:30, so normally I would have been on my way home when the shooting and hostage taking started. Today, however, we were staying late to share a bite of lunch and a galette des rois. (This is the tradition in France -- a pastry with a little token inside. The person who has the piece with the token is "king" or "queen" for the day. This is for Epiphany but it goes on all month, really.)
While we were eating, we heard a helicopter above. Then, one person, who had gone out to get some vegetable nibbles, came back saying there was something going on, and we started collecting information from phone calls. Our first reaction was to stay put. That's the safest thing to do. When in doubt, stay inside, stay put. After a while, another woman who had an appointment in Vincennes and I set out on foot. I had spoken to Paul and he suggested doing that. The hostage situation could go on all day and into nightfall and if I were going to have to walk the whole way, walking in daylight is better. We were walking away from the action and the police, who were otherwise keeping people off the sidewalk, let us through saying that our direction was okay.
Once at the Chateau de Vincennes, I caught the bus to go home.
That's all. I'm not a reporter, not a witness.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Charlie!
What happened yesterday at Charlie Hebdo is horrible. You've all been reading about it. And many have sent questions of concern -- How are you? Where are you?
I'm going to address that. I'm fine. I'm sad, but we are in no danger, here. We don't live in the neighborhood where this took place. It happened on Bd. Richard Lenoir, not far from the intersection with Bd. Voltaire, between Bastille and Place de la République, in Paris. Yesterday, We had no occasion to go into Paris, so we were far from the event and far from the getaway. And we were not among the targets.
This was an act of terror. A terrorist attack. However, it was not like other attacks we have seen -- back in the 90s on the RER B or in 2007 on the London Tube or in Spain on the train. Or even the twin towers in 2001. Or the Boston Marathon. In those attacks, the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The terrorists were after numbers of victims, not specific targets of hate.
In the attacks many years ago on the Rue des Rosiers or in front of the synagogue on rue Copernic or, more recently, at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, the victims were definitely targets of hate, but not specific. Any Jew would do.
The attack yesterday was different. It was definitely not a suicide mission. The attackers were not amateurs. One of the police victims, wounded and lying on the sidewalk, was executed as the attackers left.
The attack was the assassination of a specific target: Charlie Hebdo. That's a magazine, or newspaper. A magazine on newsprint, if you like. I haven't read it in a long time, but I used to read it from time to time. It's claim to fame was its cutting satire and excellent cartoons. Excellent cartoonists. People who could express so well so much in a simple little drawing. It's no surprise that they were the main editors, including the editor-in-chief. The attack was done during the weekly editorial meeting, when they were all there, with the writers, too. The attackers were well informed; they decapitated Charlie. What they don't understand is that Charlie will survive. It will grow a new head, somehow. Until it does, other journalists will take up their fight, their style.
Charlie will survive, but the journalists and police officers who died yesterday are human beings and they did not survive. They leave behind families and friends. Because most were journalists, they leave behind a whole country of readers and followers, who feel as though they knew the victims. We knew their faces, their voices. We all feel the loss of these individuals.
Yesterday afternoon, we were watching our regular news commentary program, "C'est dans l'Air" (watch the 07/01/14 edition). It's always interesting. We know all the commentators. They appear regularly on the show. For each subject there is a panel of regular commentaors. If it had been an economics subject, Bernard Maris would have been one of them, but he was killed in the attack.
When I came to France and met Paul, he was an avid reader of Pilote -- Cabu, Wolinski, and others were part of that experience. There was Pilote, then Hari-Kari. I could manage Pilote pretty well -- Asterix, Lucky Luke, The Masked Cucumber, etc. -- but Hari-Kari was hard. You had to have a good idea of what was going on in the world, in France, and get all the satire -- in French. That and the Canard Enchainé. I tried for a while to read them. Then, we'd see the cortoonists in the Nouvel Obs, and Liberation, so we never lost touch absolutely. I was able to identify at a glance a drawing by one or another of them. They are now people I feel are lost. They didn't die the natural deaths that could have come (Wolinski, in his 80s, and Cabu, 75); they were killed.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop.
I'm going to address that. I'm fine. I'm sad, but we are in no danger, here. We don't live in the neighborhood where this took place. It happened on Bd. Richard Lenoir, not far from the intersection with Bd. Voltaire, between Bastille and Place de la République, in Paris. Yesterday, We had no occasion to go into Paris, so we were far from the event and far from the getaway. And we were not among the targets.
This was an act of terror. A terrorist attack. However, it was not like other attacks we have seen -- back in the 90s on the RER B or in 2007 on the London Tube or in Spain on the train. Or even the twin towers in 2001. Or the Boston Marathon. In those attacks, the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The terrorists were after numbers of victims, not specific targets of hate.
In the attacks many years ago on the Rue des Rosiers or in front of the synagogue on rue Copernic or, more recently, at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, the victims were definitely targets of hate, but not specific. Any Jew would do.
The attack yesterday was different. It was definitely not a suicide mission. The attackers were not amateurs. One of the police victims, wounded and lying on the sidewalk, was executed as the attackers left.
The attack was the assassination of a specific target: Charlie Hebdo. That's a magazine, or newspaper. A magazine on newsprint, if you like. I haven't read it in a long time, but I used to read it from time to time. It's claim to fame was its cutting satire and excellent cartoons. Excellent cartoonists. People who could express so well so much in a simple little drawing. It's no surprise that they were the main editors, including the editor-in-chief. The attack was done during the weekly editorial meeting, when they were all there, with the writers, too. The attackers were well informed; they decapitated Charlie. What they don't understand is that Charlie will survive. It will grow a new head, somehow. Until it does, other journalists will take up their fight, their style.
Charlie will survive, but the journalists and police officers who died yesterday are human beings and they did not survive. They leave behind families and friends. Because most were journalists, they leave behind a whole country of readers and followers, who feel as though they knew the victims. We knew their faces, their voices. We all feel the loss of these individuals.
Yesterday afternoon, we were watching our regular news commentary program, "C'est dans l'Air" (watch the 07/01/14 edition). It's always interesting. We know all the commentators. They appear regularly on the show. For each subject there is a panel of regular commentaors. If it had been an economics subject, Bernard Maris would have been one of them, but he was killed in the attack.
When I came to France and met Paul, he was an avid reader of Pilote -- Cabu, Wolinski, and others were part of that experience. There was Pilote, then Hari-Kari. I could manage Pilote pretty well -- Asterix, Lucky Luke, The Masked Cucumber, etc. -- but Hari-Kari was hard. You had to have a good idea of what was going on in the world, in France, and get all the satire -- in French. That and the Canard Enchainé. I tried for a while to read them. Then, we'd see the cortoonists in the Nouvel Obs, and Liberation, so we never lost touch absolutely. I was able to identify at a glance a drawing by one or another of them. They are now people I feel are lost. They didn't die the natural deaths that could have come (Wolinski, in his 80s, and Cabu, 75); they were killed.
I'm rambling, so I'll stop.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)