Villefranche-sur-mer v.12

Dear Friends,

Today we visited the Musée Matisse in Nice.  It is a wonderful museum devoted entirely to Matisse who spent much of his life here since he loved the incredible light and colors.  This museum is one of our favorite ones.  You walk through old Roman ruins to get from the bus stop to the museum which sits on the edge of a beautiful park.  In January, there is virtually nobody there so you can take you time, stand close to the works of art or stand back and gaze at them without interruption from other people.  It is a real thrill.  I spend most of my time just smiling both inwardly and outwardly as I enjoy the beauty of his simple lines and colors.  Some of our favorite works were not there this year as they are traveling.  We saw many in Minneapolis not too long ago.  But there are so many wonderful works to see we were not disappointed.  Today Jane and I each picked out our favorites.  Jane's favorites are:

                      

My favorites are:

           

Don't worry I did not violate the rules and take pictures of the actual paintings.  I bought postcards and took pictures of them.  I have to now keep them in my memory to bring me happiness for another year until I can return again.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer v.11

Dear Friends,

This post is just about a couple of odds and ends.  The first is the weather.  It is January, and this year has been cooler than either of the last two years.  In fact I am not sure that it has been above 60 degrees more than a couple of times.  Nevertheless, the temperature has been great for walking and often eating outside.  I have always been amazed at the beautiful flowers which are not at their peak in January.  This one is just by the sea.

Not bad for January.

The cooler weather has brought our attention to "chocolat chaud".  While I might be inclined to translate this phrase as hot cocoa, I would be doing a great disservice to this wonderful drink.  It is not hot cocoa, it is truly warm/hot chocolat.  It is very rich and smooth and very chocolaty.  I think that you have to taste it to believe it.  We first had it at a small restaurant right in La Darse.  La Darse is what I might call the marina but it is the name given to this area of the bay that was where boat building and repair took place.  For many years now it has just been for repairs.  However, our landlady and her husband have commissioned the building of a beautiful motor boat.  We have seen the pictures in the design stage and next year we will see the boat in the water.

Our friend JP with whom we walk once or twice a week and speak french with introduced us to chocolat chaud.  Here we are the other day enjoying it.

We had it twice today in our visit to Nice.  Once was for dessert after our lunch which was a picnic near the Musée Matisse.  In this picture you can see a salade italienne and a panini mixte as well as a demi-caraffe of rosé.

In order for you to really appreciate the smooth, very chocolaty drink that chocolat chaud really is, here is a close up from a little place in Nice.

As long we are on the subject of food, I want to show you what real profiteroles look like.  

We have to walk up and down hills all day in a fruitless attempt to not gain weight.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer v.10

Dear Friends,

Last night we attended a meeting of the Association Les Americains et La 6e Flotte à Villefranche-sur-mer of which we are now members.  As you may recall from earlier posts, the US 6th Fleet was home-ported in Villefranche from just after World War II until January 1967.  We had to leave when Charles de Gaulle took France out of NATO.  Given what I know about sailors on leave in foreign ports, I cannot imagine why Villefranche has warm feelings for the US Navy.  My experience was during the Vietnam war when the ammunition ship I was on would return to Subic Bay in the Philippines for a few days every six weeks or so to load up on ammunition before returning to Vietnam.  Olongapo City which was adjacent the base was nothing like Villefranche.  It was one bar after another with bouncers with automatic weapons.  So perhaps my idea of sailors on shore leave is different from the experience of the Villefranchois.

The meeting was very interesting and I am told quite like official French meetings, and I am afraid like many meetings I have been to at home.  The leader gave a very long official talk which outlined the purpose of the organization, all the people who had been helpful during the last year, all that had been accomplished and what would get done this year.  She spoke in very fast French and spoke quite softly so I missed everything except from time to time a translator would fill in with a very general summary.  Her report and thank yous was followed by the financial report.  The highlight of which was the fact that they had about 1,000 euros on hand and needed 43,000 euros for the event they are planning for next January.  While I thought that it would be a difficult task to raise all that money, the French seemed confident that it could be done.

The event that requires all the money is a big commemoration of the 6th Fleet's time in Villefranche which will be held next January, 50 years after the flag ship left Villefranche for the last time.  We will be here then and are looking forward to it.

After the financial report was done, the meeting got more interesting.  There was a speaker from the United States Navy League who spoke in English about how important the commemoration event is and how the Navy League will help both to raise awareness among sailors who were on the ships home-ported here but also to get the US Navy to participate.  The next speaker was an American who had actually served on one of the flag ships in Villefranche.  He spoke in very good french at a speed and with enunciation that I could understand.  You can learn more on their Facebook page (here).

The whole meeting took just under two hours and like many meetings I have been to could easily have been done in one hour.  Nevertheless it was a fun experience.  It is also a worthwhile project.  Amazingly enough we meet a man who grew up in Edina, but left after college and whose son lives  there now.  That makes three people with Minneapolis connections that we have met in Villefranche this month.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Human Rights Committee

Dear Friends,

As further proof that the Democratic Establishment is circling the wagons to protect Hillary Clinton, the Human Rights Committee yesterday endorsed Hillary Clinton.  The actual endorsement is very long but focuses on all that is at stake and says that Hillary Clinton will fight for LGBT rights.  The following is the widely reported quote from the President of the HRC.

“All the progress we have made as a nation on LGBT equality — and all the progress we have yet to make — is at stake in November," HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement. “While they fight to take us backwards, Hillary Clinton is fighting to advance LGBT equality across our nation and throughout the world."
"We are proud to endorse Hillary Clinton for president, and believe that she is the champion we can count on in November — and every day she occupies the Oval Office," he added.

The HRC is using the same scare tactics that Hillary Clinton is now using to attempt to stop the growing support for Bernie Sanders.  The clear message is that if you vote for Bernie Sanders, the Republicans will win and all will be lost.

There is no way based on the positions that the two candidates have held over the last 40 years that HRC should have chosen Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.  Bernie Sanders voted against both Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act both championed and signed into law by Bill Clinton and supported by Hillary Clinton. She continued to support DOMA through her 2000 Senate campaign and refused to support its entire repeal in her 2008 Presidential campaign.  As Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders signed a Gay Pride Day declaration in 1983 and marched in the first gay pride parade.  Bernie Sanders fought for the first civil unions in 2000 in his home state of Vermont and has opposed restriction on gay marriage and in 2009 came out in full support of marriage equality.

Hillary Clinton is widely quoted as saying that marriage is between a man and a woman at various times as late as the early 2000s.  She was opposed to gay marriage during her entire run for President in 2008.  It was not until 2013 that she finally changed her position to support marriage equality.  Bernie Sanders may not have a perfect record for marriage equality going back decades, but he has been supporting GLBT positions for decades.  Hillary Clinton only changed her position on marriage equality when it became clear that she could not get elected as a Democrat if she did not do so.

I think that it is also very relevant that Hillary Clinton takes lots of money from foreign governments whose records on human rights including gay rights are abysmal.  I am reprinting a quote from The New York Times from my earlier post about Planned Parenthood Action (here).

Here is just one paragraph from The New York Times (here).
But the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars in donations from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Algeria and Brunei — all of which the State Department has faulted over their records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues.

As with Planned Parenthood Action, I have been a long time supporter of HRC.  Their endorsement of Hillary Clinton has put me in a difficult position.  I do not see how I can continue to support an organization that puts allegiance to the Establishment ahead of its mission.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer v.9

Dear Friends,

Lest you think that Villefranche-sur-mer is absolutely perfect with no problems whatsoever, I want to let you know that there are two, and only two, problems with Villefranche.

As I am sure you all know, the French love dogs and take them everywhere.  Unfortunately, they are not always great about picking up after them and the Villefranchois seem to have a particularly difficult time with dog poop.  It is everywhere.  There are big ones.

There are little ones.

There are well stepped on ones.

And there are ones with only one step on so far.

The other problem is one we just discovered the other day as I was walking to the boulangerie to get a couple of pain au chocolat for breakfast.  When you see the next picture, it is important to remember that Villefranche is a very old town and this body is the only time we have seen any evidence of mice or rats.

So there you have all of the problems of Villefranche.  I bet you cannot say that the place where you live has only two problems, neither of which is really a big problem.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

The Establishment v. The Outsider

Dear Friends,

The Establishment of the Democratic party has long favored Hillary Clinton, just look at the absurd debate schedule promulgated by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the number of super delegates who immediately jumped on her bandwagon without considering any other candidates.  The establishment media has also consistently favored Hillary Clinton with significantly more coverage than they give Bernie Sanders.  The only reason he is getting some media attention now is that he is consistently rising in the polls, and the media can now cover a fight for the nomination.  Although I must say that most of the articles that I read in the establishment media start from the assumption that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee.  Apparently, they did not learn anything from Iowa in 2008.

The Establishment, both Democratic and Republican, does not like significant change and anybody who passionately proposes significant change is considered an outsider.  So the establishment media treats Bernie Sanders as an outsider and an oddity.  Even though Bernie Sanders was drawing large and very enthusiastic crowds consistently and significantly larger than those of Hillary Clinton, they gave him no coverage and continued the narrative that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee.  Now that the polls show a very close race in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the establishment media is being forced to give Bernie Sanders more coverage.

At the same time the Democratic Establishment is circling the wagons to protect Hillary Clinton.  A prime example is that for the first time ever Planned Parenthood Action has endorsed a candidate during the primaries and has done so in a blatantly false and disingenuous manner.  (See my prior post here.)  All the Democratic women senators, other than Elizabeth Warren, have endorsed Hillary Clinton.  Only a few Democratic members of the House of Representatives have endorsed Bernie Sanders, notably the co-chairs of the House Progressive Caucus.

However, the prime example of the Establishment trying to protect Hillary Clinton (the Establishment candidate) from Bernie Sanders (the Outsider) comes from Hillary Clinton.  Everyday she ties herself closer and closer to Barack Obama assuring the Establishment that she will just take steps to very gradually build on what his administration has done.  She is telling the Establishment "don't worry I won't upset the apple cart, I won't try for any big changes, your lives will remain the same".

While I very strongly believe that we need significant changes to and the disruption of the status quo, I am not angered by her position.  What does upset me is the tactics she and the Establishment are now using to make sure the status quo is maintained.  A few days ago there was an article in The New York Times by Patrick Healy (here) entitled "Clinton Campaign Underestimated Sanders Strengths, Allies Say" which contained these sentences:

According to Democrats close to the Clintons and involved with her campaign, Mrs. Clinton and the former president are also unnerved by the possibility that Mr. Sanders will foment a large wave of first-time voters and liberals that will derail her in Iowa, not unlike Barack Obama’s success in 2008, which consigned Mrs. Clinton to a third-place finish. They have asked her advisers about the strength of the campaign’s data modeling and turnout assumptions in Iowa, given that her 2008 campaign’s predictions were so inaccurate.

The idea that any Democrat would be concerned that there will be "a large wave of first-time voters" is such an anathema to me that I cannot believe that any potential Democratic Presidential candidate would hold that view.  The only logical extension of that view is to suppress the enthusiasm and the voting by the millions of people in this country who do not vote, most of whom would vote Democratic if they did vote.  The only way for Hillary Clinton to secure the Democratic nomination is for her to maintain the support of the Democratic Establishment and suppress the enthusiasm generated by Bernie Sanders so as to keep new voters out.

I am afraid that the way that Hillary Clinton has decided that she can stop new voters from coming into the process is through fear tactics.  Her fear tactics were in full view in the last debate with statements like; if you bring up single payer health care, we will lose all the progress we made with Obamacare; if you move to a single payer plan you will raise taxes on the middle class (with no reference to the reduced premiums that would be significantly greater than the tax increase); if you elect Bernie Sanders he will be weak on gun control (despite his D- rating from the NRA); if Bernie Sanders is the nominee, he cannot win the election (despite the fact that the polls show that he beats all the leading Republicans); if you elect Bernie Sanders he will not keep America safe as he doesn't know much about international affairs; etc.  In the debate she was completely disingenuous and misleading in saying that Bernie Sanders voted in favor of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act in 2000.  He did in fact vote in favor of that act which did provide for deregulation and was a bad law.  However, that act was drafted in part by Bill Clinton's staff and signed into law by him.  Here is how the Washington Post summarized what happened (here).

The CFMA made its way through Congress on the back of a must-pass, 11,000-page bill to fund the government that year. This is where Sanders comes in, he joined a majority of Democrats and Republicans in approving the omnibus bill, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

In contrast to Hillary Clinton's use of scare tactics to secure the nomination.  Bernie Sanders remains committed to a discussion of the real issues on which his positions have not changed.  His proposals are for big change which scares the Establishment, but which are exactly what this country needs.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal