Fluctuat nec mergitur

Following Friday's attacks, I posted this image of Paris from my mobile phone:

That's a simple map of my hometown, with its motto in Latin.

'Fluctuat nec mergitur' means that even when tossed around in stormy waters, the city never sinks.

I considered using the official coat of arms, but it's too loaded in symbols, particularly with these protective walls, and the King's colors:

The last things I wanted were to celebrate warfare, to mention 'divine blood' in the middle of a carnage, or to bring monarchy into this new Republican challenge*.

I opted for a satellite image showing Paris as it is. Unfortunately, that crappy app cropped the map, severing even neighborhoods that had been struck by the terrorists, adding insult to death.

When I noticed that, I considered trying again, but somehow that failure made sense: you can't sum up the horror in one picture, and humanity as a whole had been assaulted anyway. 

Humanity is not sinking.

But among humans who are sinking, a few are tempted to join extremism, which feeds upon our weaknesses, particularly when our democracies fail.

And from France, more is expected than just 'staying afloat' and surviving terror attacks. This democracy can't afford failing to honor its own motto, 'liberty, equality, fraternity'. 

---ADDENDUM 20151118---
Thank you dear Annabel Park for your kind words to the French people:

(see also the French version on blogules V.F.: "Un message d'Annabel Park")

---

blogules 2015
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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* the year that started with "#JeSuisCharlie" keeps being dotted with atrocities across the globe

Detox

It was definitely high time for me to come back to Seoul for a good doenjang jjigae. Here is the indecent menu of my 9 dinners and 9 lunches in Paris :
- andouillette
- Britanny galettes
- grilled sausages
- couscous at Charly's
- chili con carne
- Relais de l'Entrecote
- paella
- "canette de barbarie rôtie aux olives pommes sautée"
- delicatessen
- light salad picnic at the Luxembourg garden (the odd one, probably the reason why my arteries didn't explode during the flight back to Korea)
- gastronomic dinner at Les Bouquinistes
- Relais de l'Entrecote redux (just to check something about their damning sage sauce)
- lasagna
- kebab
- black pudding with apples
- vietnamese pho (second odd one, but there's some beef inside)
- Savoyard fondue
- pot au feu stew with bone marrow

Of course, I spare you the breakfasts (croissants in Saint Germain des Pres, kouign amann - tarte tatin duet, cheese platter...) and snacks (aah, La Pâtisserie des Rêves... and thanks again Francois for that tea at Jacques Genin's - caramels were a huge success too).

Well well... All at building my Sasquatchian carbon footprint, I couldn't find the time to do everything I wanted to do nor see all the friends I wanted to see... Mea maxima culpa. Et meus maximus stomachus.

blogules 2010

Googling Paris

"Parisian Love", Google's Superbowl ad. Rom@nce, cliches and snapshots... as artificial and predictable as Avatar, only cheaper. And just like Avatar, you keep watching :

Red blogule to dognuments

Let's take a rather conservative figure : only 1% of all Parisian tourists experience the traditional visit of the city's dognuments. Considering the given fact that every bad experience is told to an average 20 people, this means about 10 million foreigners have either slipped on a dog's pooh or heard someone tell them about the ride.
Some say it's a lucky charm - hey, the most famous complaint turned an Italian hit into an Italian hit ("oh sole mio") - but I say we should get rid of them (the dog turds, not the Latin singers). Or at least curb the pace. Dog forbid, that would be a small step for man, but a giant leap for Parisians. Let's do it quick. Please step on it.

White blogule to "Paris 2020"

The year of the Trafalgar bicentennial, the year when Saint Tony reached the European throne, the year France said merde to Europe, how could Paris win over London for the 2012 Olympics ?
Paris has to wait at least after New York 2016 : (ex-) Europe can't possibly get two Olympic Games in a row and the Lords of the Rings cannot offer more than three consecutive gifts to non-US televorus popcornicum vulgaris. Dubya's successor is a sure winner in 2009, but he'll also need a second mandate to fully enjoy the show... and if Hillary is not that one, she can always claim part of the success (exhibit A : a token for attending Singapore 2005 board meeting).
If Paris were eventually awarded the 2032 Games, Chirac could be celebrated for the centennial of his birth as a turn of the millenium Coubertin breathing to his last gasp the spirit of Olympism : "the important thing in the Baghdad 2028 Olympic Games is not to win, but to participate", citius, altius, fortius, fabius...