Piggy backing eggs...
...and the miracle of hot water.
just ask joj
just ask joj will return next Thursday when I answer Liza from Houston’s question: What is your take on Emily meets Paris Netflix? So, tune in next week for my answer on that one.
the jojdom
l’organisme
I am pleased (and admittedly, pleasantly surprised) to announce that I have been loving my bod (read: eating a protein and fat-based diet, avoiding non-food, working on muscle tone twice a week, working on cardio five times a week, drinking enough water/herbal tea, and getting enough sleep) for nearly four weeks now with only two slip-ups (the day after I heard of Shanna’s suicide, I medicated with a gummy and binged birthday party crap and then, another day).
To be honest, I kind of hate it. Besides the fact that I’m orally fixated and not smoking, and that I freakin’ love food, ever since my heart attack, I’ve been pretty rebellious about deprivation. So, making/eating different meals than the rest of the family (or at least cutting out the starches and sugar/salt-laden sauces) kind of sucks.
Working out every day but Saturday takes so much mental work. I have to start with the easiest, most banal exercises so I can psyche myself into thinking it’s not a thing and hope the endorphins kick in and make the other—harder—workouts feasible. Things I had hoped to work into my routine (like my new battle rope and my punching bag) have fallen by the wayside because they’re just not practical and instantly accessible. If I don’t have a lightning fast transition from getting into my workout clothes to working out, I get really pissy and just want to stop. I’m like a goddamn toddler about the whole thing. So, on muscle days, I gotta be able to throw my mat down and start doing leg lifts quickly to get the endorphins flowing. On cardio days it’s an inclined stroll on the treadmill. So, it turns out convenience and routine are the foundation of me sticking to things.
One thing that is problematic in this is that I had set 10am as my workout time. That gave me a couple of hours to write before working out. Lunch is my job so in between exercises, I do little things to prep so it’s ready to throw in a pan at noon. The problem with that is that once I’ve had lunch, I don’t feel motivated to do any damn thing else and my writing suffers. So, this week, I’ve moved my workout to 3pm. That takes some of the pressure off the morning writing, BUT, it’s so much freakin’ harder to make myself work out in the afternoon.
Progress is minimal. I really hate to say that. If you’ll remember, I lost four pounds pretty quickly but for those of you who have “dieted” or started working out, that’s normal for a fat kid. Week Two had me actually GAINING—like to the point that I was ABOVE my starting weight. So, maybe I wasn’t eating enough calories or getting enough rest (or maybe my ovaries were working). It’s so fucking hard to keep going when you see no results. I felt some toning and OMG my muscles hurt kind of constantly, but it’s so hard not to fixate on those numbers. It’s so tempting to stop. Why keep doing this torturous boring shit if it’s not DOING anything? Why not just get a stomach bypass? I don’t have any answers to those questions. All I know is that three/four weeks isn’t enough to make a fair evaluation even if it feels like I’ve been working out for a year or two. So, I keep going.
My abs, y’all. Standing ab exercises hurt my back. Planks shred my wrists and shoulders. So, I’ve been doing floor ab exercises, but they make me into a horrible person. For one, when I work on my lower abs, I can feel something herniate in my groin. When I work on my upper abs, I’m nearly suffocated by the 20 or so pounds of BOOB in my way. And though I near WORSHIP Caroline Girvan, I can’t help but cussing her out as she just whoop-dee-doo does these complex ab things like she’s just having a light snack! (And trust, I’ve tried ALL the YouTube ab exercisers and she’s the LEAST obnoxious). I end up crying—sobbing—every time. Like, DURING the exercises. Lily came in yesterday to find me blubbering on the floor of my gym and I started yelling, “This is why I hound you about eating too much junk! Because I don’t want you to turn into me and have to do THIS to yourself!” I’m not entirely sure that this is the healthiest parenting move but I mean it. Later in the evening, Lily complained that all her friends eat as much or more than she does but they’re all rail thin. I reminded her that most of her thinner friends participate in sports. The poor thing inherited my penchant for laziness.
I could (might?) write a whole book about my complicated relationship with my body but it would read very similarly to Roxane Gay’s HUNGER.
I will say I’m feeling hella empowered by my toning progress in my legs, glutes, arms and shoulders—I still can’t get all the way through SOME of the workouts without modifying the movements, but I get closer to finishing every time. AND, I have moved up in weights (and actually had to go buy a set of heavier hand weights) for my arm and shoulder exercises.
Here, just FYI, is the routine I’ve fallen into finally:
Sunday and Wednesday—Muscles
Monday and Thursday—Cardio
40 mins on the treadmill walking at an incline (5 mins warm-up, 30 mins steeper incline, 5 mins cool-down)
40 mins on the rowing machine (5 mins warm-up, 5 mins increased resistance, 20 mins further increased resistance, 5 mins decreased resistance, 5 mins cool-down). I try to keep my stroke rate at or just under 30. Rowing is one of the most efficient and pain-free exercises but OMG is it boring af. Thank goodness for Netflix. Quite appropriately, I watch Vikings on machine-cardio days, tee hee hee.
35 mins on my spin bike. I ride with medium resistance 5 mins sitting, 5 mins standing, and then shorten the mins until it’s 1 min sitting, 1 standing. Then, I do a 5 min flat ride cool down.
IF I have time and don’t feel like murdering anyone, I sometimes do the Holly Dolke %$#@!& arms.
Tuesday and Friday—Cardio
I do this 45 min Jenny Ford workout twice a week. I did it without my step the first two weeks and then added the step (once I was familiar with the routine and was confident I wouldn’t trip off my step and bust my face). I was VERY surprised how much cardio that one itty bitty step added to the workout. I was also unpleasantly surprised how bad it made my knees hurt. So, this week, I took this cardio day off so far (we’ll see how the knees feel tomorrow).
I also do an hour-long Zumba Gold instructor’s video with two warm-ups and two cool-downs/stretches. But I’m getting REALLY bored of it because even though Beto (Zumba creator) is in it, it’s super freakin’ OWL (old white lady—look, I can see how that may come off as age-ist, but that’s not how I mean it. I am friends with white women in their 70s and 80s who are NOT OWLs but these chicks in this video very much ARE). I haven’t found any good Zumba Gold YouTubes yet, so if you know of some, throw ‘em my way.
Saturday—NOTHIN,’ MOTHAFUCKAHS!!!!
I’m CONSIDERING swapping out one of the Zumba exercises for an hour-long yoga for bigger bods, just cuz I am too lazy to get in any good stretching. *blushes * Stretching is SO good for you and feels so good but it’s so BORING.
la bouffe
A decade or so ago, back when we lived in Lyon, The Hairy One and I got into the habit of taking the kids to a brasserie once a week on their “kids’ night” because they had free meals for kids and a balloon-tying clown. The first time we went there, there was a menu item called Steak à Cheval. I thought maybe it was a typo and that it was steak DE cheval (horse steak) which I have loved ever since living in Lille where eating horse meat is pretty mainstream. So, I ordered it.
The server asked me something about the egg on top that had me confused.
That’s because it wasn’t a typo, but a misnomer. It’s not the STEAK that is riding a horse, but an egg. Still confused? The original name for the dish I was ordering is actually oeuf à cheval because it’s a fried egg, riding on a ground steak patty, but the name Steak à Cheval stuck for our family—a very appreciated, monthly appearance on the jojdom menu.
Because the Steak à Cheval is keto af, it’s the PERFECT quick meal for me. I use a frozen 100% ground beef steak (façon bouchère—which means that it’s a high-quality cut of meat), which I brush (or spray) with olive oil and dust with pink Himalayan salt and garlic powder (both sides) and grill it outside on the gas grill, taking it off while it’s still pretty rare, and let it rest while I fry an egg over-easy in Breton demi-sel butter.
Steak à Cheval is GREAT with frites or home fries because the yolk coats the potatoes and YUM, okay? But potatoes (especially fried ones) are too high in carbs and trans fats so I usually make myself a mâche (lamb’s lettuce) salad drizzled with olive oil and topped with a sliced cherry tomato or two and a dusting of pink salt.
Bonus: We went to a restaurant today!!!
France is slowly going through stages of lifting lockdown restrictions and yesterday was the first day for restaurants to be open again since they closed in mid-November of last year (terrace dining only). We live two minutes’ drive from one of the best little restaurants around (with a huge, covered terrace!!!) and though we would have LOVED to go yesterday, as you know, Wednesday is a half-day for the kids. THO and I wanted to go on a lunch date, just the two of us, like we did last summer when lockdown lifted. So, we made a reservation for today.
We were the second table seated. The menu was mostly the same (YAY!!!! Told you, it’s our FAVORITE!), though the kitchen staff must have changed (the plating is WAY more artistic and the caisson of my steak has never been this perfect). I ordered my usual pièce du boucher (butcher’s choice) which is a bavette (flank steak) served with a disk of herb butter, house-made fries and a green salad. I also had a café noisette (a tiny espresso with steamed cream or milk).
THO had the menu du jour (combo of the day) which included the plat du jour (today’s special) which was braised chicken leg with herbed potato purée, dôme du chocolat (like a BALL of chocolate mousse, filled with hazelnut mousse and garnished with salted caramel and a disque praliné) and an espresso.
I go there for the food, okay? To have an experienced someone make MY food for a change. But, I have to admit how therapeutic it was to watch the place fill up with eager diners who love the restaurant and truly appreciate the food. The joy and gratitude and conviviality was contagious and touching. Until it wasn’t. Which means that as soon as my demi-tasse of creamy espresso hit my gut, I started feeling antsy—unaccustomed to the din of the crowd, having another human who’s not my partner sit that close to me, gripped by the mounting urge to run back to the sanctuary of my compound. Still, it was a great first time out. Five stars!
Here’s a quick image reel of our lunch:
les bouquins
This week, I’m reading Lilly Dancyger’s memoir NEGATIVE SPACE. I have to admit that I’m in early stages of it, but I’m having fun getting to know her characters. I also have to admit that so far, I don’t “relate” to much more than her moving back and forth across the country and her appreciation of “place”—she is the child of artist parents who end up raising her king of bi-coastally, though she “comes of age” in New York City… So, she’s kind of the opposite of me other than the movement part, but I’m intrigued and invested in the chronicling of her search through her deceased father’s notebooks. Her voice is clear and engaging and every other page has a gut-punch line (my favorite).
Here’s the summary from her website:
Despite her parents’ struggles with addiction, Lilly Dancyger always thought of her childhood as a happy one. But what happens when a journalist interrogates her own rosy memories to reveal the instability around the edges? A memoir from the editor of Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger, Negative Space explores Dancyger’s own anger, grief, and artistic inheritance as she sets out to illuminate the darkness that was hidden from her.
Dancyger's father, Joe Schactman, was part of the iconic 1980s East Village art scene. He created provocative sculptures out of found materials, and brought his young daughter into his gritty, iconoclastic world. She idolized him—despite the escalating heroin addiction that sometimes overshadowed his creative passion. When Schactman died suddenly, just as Dancyger was entering adolescence, she went into her own self-destructive spiral, raging against the world that had taken him away. But as an adult, Dancyger began to question the mythology she'd created about her father—the brilliant artist, struck down in his prime—using his paintings, sculptures, and prints as a guide to piece together a truer story.
Here is the book trailer:
HERE Jane Ratcliffe interviews Lilly Dancyger for Electric Literature (May 4, 2021).
HERE Gabino Iglesias reviews NEGATIVE SPACE for NPR (May 5, 2021).
le boulot
Banking on the reaction from my consultant who said I could easily sell my memoir on proposal, this week, I dusted off my original HOW I LEARNED FRENCH query letter, made changes that reflect my current structure (braided memoir) and sent it to her (consultant) for a once-over. I reached out to a few writer friends who sold their books on proposal and who VERY GENEROUSLY let me see theirs. Using those as a guide (and of course, Michael Larsen’s book HOW TO WRITE A BOOK PROPOSAL), I’m going to spend the next few days getting my proposal into tip-top shape. I spent a whole writing day this week thoroughly researching agents for whom my book would be a shoo-in (like agents who say they are francophiles or are looking for “international voices” etc) and will in the near future begin to send out materials.
Fuck. I need a minute to digest that last sentence.
Whew! Okay! In the meantime, I’m writing writing writing writing. But, though what I’m writing fits into the book chronologically, it doesn’t always do so thematically. Still, I don’t want to gag the muse so I write it all out anyway and hope that I can lift some of that out and use it for fodder for personal ESSAYS.
Those of you who are not writers or artists might be interested to know that writers (especially those who write memoir or narrative/creative non-fiction) have a greater chance at getting picked up by agents and editors if they have already created a “platform”—basically, making a “name” for themselves…. Showing the publishers that, even though they aren’t famous, their autobiographical works will sell because they already have a following. That’s why I hound y’all about sharing this Substack with your friends because the more people who already read me, the better the chance that I’ll get picked up. (In comparison, my “numbers” are pretty abysmal… Right now, I need to dedicate my time to writing, but eventually (the American eventually) I’ll become obnoxious about increasing my “platform” so I can sell this GD book!)
One of the most sustainable ways of increasing your platform is to publish shorter pieces. Get your name out there. You’ve seen that in the recent past, I’ve published some flash pieces in non-paying venues. That’s to help with my platform. So, along with working on HOW I LEARNED FRENCH, I’ll be working on writing some essays to create buzz.
I’m not a terribly confident essay writer because I seldom know what my shorter pieces are “about.” I’m a storyteller and I usually prefer to let my readers figure out for themselves what my experiences “mean” in the larger context, what my stories “mean” for them. Shaping that experience too much feels manipulative and a smidge contrived. So, I’m not sure how successful I will be on that.
That said, I recently heard from several essay readers that they don’t really like when the questions are answered for them. That the purpose of the essay is to ask and attempt to flesh out the question, not deliver it in a neatly tied bow.
We’ll see.
le brico
Y’all. Water heaters. You don’t know how much you love them until they die. There are other machines in your home with which you can probably do without for a few days, right? But if you grew up without electricity or running water, you know the addictive properties of instant hot water and when you turn on the HOT and nothing but COLD comes out, there’s a strange panic and you start imagining how you’re going to have to boil water in the kettle or stovetop. By “you” I mean ME!
You probably guessed our water heater went out. Yesterday. But, because I’m married to an engineer and because miser-ing is one of his favorite hobbies, he was able to call the plumber and get our water heater changed! Y’all, I legit cried. Sometimes, the little poor kid in me has a privilege epiphany that brings me to my knees in gratitude. The thing cost us 800 euros, meaning that my inklings of going to my sister’s wedding in Florida in early July are now out of the question, BUT, I can still hose off my sweaty body after working out each day without having to stovetop-boil water and take a bird bath. Whew!
rouspéter
*sigh * Settle in for a long one.
I know I said on Monday that maybe I’d dig deeper and talk about the more problematic aspects of living in France, but y’all, it’s so hard to do without going into long diatribes about history and culture (both of which set the foundation for everything that happens anywhere). It’s almost impossible to explain what’s happening here in a way that will help you see it from the French perspective (mainly because, just like anywhere else, there isn’t ONE perspective). Also, I can’t help but admit my own prejudices, especially in this situation…. I’m going to try.
If you want to read up on the in and outs of the situation, HERE (IN ENGLISH) is a Guardian article about the gathering of police officers in protest yesterday. And HERE (IN ENGLISH) is a France24 article on it.
Here’s my take: In the past month, two police officers were attacked and killed. One was a Tunisian immigrant who had become radicalized during his stay in France who stabbed a female police officer in an apparent gesture of jihad (HERE (IN ENGLISH) is a BBC article on that) and another was the recent shooting of Eric Masson, a plain-clothes officer who happened upon a cannabis deal going down in a suburb of Avignon. In a Grenoble suburb (suburbs are like “projects” in France and are often called cités or HLMs) three photos of police officers were hung on a wall (article HERE IN ENGLISH) with “Dead or Alive” scrawled on them. On the news night before last (HERE (IN FRENCH) at 17:37) in explanation of the planned protest and homage yesterday for Eric Masson, they showed a report with footage of WHITE police officers performing what is essentially a STOP AND FRISK of a handful of BROWN teenagers living in a cité, one of whom was carrying a matraque (extendible baton-like weapon). They also found a rusty pistol on top of one of the lobby roofs. The offers say that finding weapons isn’t uncommon and that most of them are kalachnikovs (automatic weapons). The police are not saying that the NUMBER of incidents are growing but rather their level of VIOLENCE and INTENSITY. At one point, the officer being interviewed sees his own name tagged on a wall (which is blurred by the cameras) next to the word raciste. The officer says he’s afraid of reprisals, retaliations toward his family. Incidents against members of authority and law enforcement officers have doubled in the past twenty years. Another thing mentioned in this report is the blatant disrespect toward law enforcement—refusing to stop, refusing to be searched, talking back, running away, etc. There were one of these incidents on average every half hour during the year 2019.
So, police are calling for tougher consequences for violence against police officers. Some are even calling for minimum sentencing of 3 years. The issue others have with that is that this idea was tried during the Sarkozy years and it did NOTHING to lower the incidents of delinquency and recidivism. Others say that though the offenders are arrested, because 1) there are so MANY of them and 2) the courts and jails are saturated, most of these people are just simply let go without any actual punishment.
I can’t help but go at this thing as a Franco-American. For one, I hear the ghost of George Floyd yelling. Even if you make the argument that you can’t look at what’s going down in France through an American lens, no one can deny that police violence in France is a very real thing. Just half a year ago, police officers were filmed BEATING a black man as he was hurrying to make it home for curfew (HERE (IN ENGLISH) is the Guardian article on that incident). IRONICALLY, the government had JUST put forward legislation against filming and distributing images of officers on the internet. HERE (IN ENGLISH) is a France24 interview with a French expert on the REASONS for this attack (in which the police LIED in their report as to what happened and their lie was exposed through the release of the video). He says that the incident is not an isolated one and that the problem is “STRUCTURAL.” Sound familiar? The incidents of actual DEATHS committed by police officers in France is lower than in the States but the general attitude toward people who live in the cité (or being a different color) is very similar to racially/culturally prejudiced police officers in the States. Just the fact that you have gangs of ARMED, WHITE police officers going into a cité of the diverse, poverty-stricken, and largely unemployed and allowing them to do UNPROVOKED STOP AND FRISK/SEARCH, for me SCREAMS NYC. I can’t get the faces of the Exonerated Five (formerly and mistakenly called the Central Park Five) out of my mind. I can’t get Kalief Browder’s face out of my mind. And y’all know that’s just the start of a VERY fucking long list.
I also have to go at this from the perspective of someone who has had experience with police officers both in the States and in France. When I first got here back in ’98, the general opinion of the police was that they were “a joke” and “powerless” and “just guignols (puppets).” My impulse was to defend them (probably because I’m white and hadn’t grown a political consciousness, quite yet). I hadn’t had great experiences with the police in the States—mostly mild harassment because though I’m white, I’m not THAT kind of white—they’ve always seen the trailer in me and have treated me accordingly… like trash. Just before my flight to France (I mean, standing at the Greyhound station smoking a cig, waiting for a cab), two cops come up and accuse me of being “that hustler from Cali.” But still, it soothed me to believe that I had just had bad luck. That it was me and not them. That most cops were good. I have learned my lesson this past decade especially.
Within the first few months of being in France, my American friend got her wallet lifted from her coat pocket while we were in the metro. We went directly to the police station to file a report. We stood at the counter being IGNORED while a female police officer gossiped with a colleague and then, even after noticing us, sat down and started leafing through a fashion magazine. When we told her about the stolen wallet, there was no sympathy, no care, really. She just slapped a clipboard of paperwork onto the counter. Though livid, I politely explained that we were foreign students and would need some linguistic assistance—we weren’t familiar with the vocabulary used to describe criminal activity. “Juste… euh… doo eet een eengleesh,” with a dismissive wave, was her answer. She went back to leafing through the mag. Her colleague did explain that they would probably never find her wallet and that she should cancel all her cards immediately, but again, the “bedside manner” was nonexistent.
About six months later, I got my purse stolen. My passport and a check for 6000French Francs was inside (thankfully, my journal was NOT). The police, once again, were USELESS.
Every time I’ve encountered a police officer here in France, they have been power-drunk, patronizing assholes, confirming my suspicion that the main group of people who sign up to become cops are those who just like to boss other people around. I didn’t say ALL, but most. If you’ll remember a few weeks back during my story of running an orange light (because I’m American and that light is YELLOW and it means “HAUL ASS”), the officer who saw my infraction harassed my friend and me for nearly half an hour and at one point said, “Is that your child in the baby seat?”
I looked at the empty seat and said, “Sorry?”
“The baby seat behind you, Madame. Whose child is that.”
“Sir, it’s empty.”
“You’re trying to tell me that seat is empty?”
I wondered if it was some kind of trick or he was just trying to be funny, but he didn’t laugh as he asked me to roll the window down.
“Oh,” was all he said when it was CLEAR that the seat was empty.
As we pulled away, my French friend said, “Uhh, that’s just proof that cops are smoking weed on the job.”
The ONLY French law enforcement members I have seen that weren’t complete dicks were Gendarmes. They were my friends and neighbors and one of them not only helped save my life during my heart attack, but he gathered and cared for my four kids. But, it has been my experience that Gendarmes (who are the military branch of law enforcement) are better trained and less dickish than the municipal police. That said, I’m white, so, things might be different if I was a person of color.
And, finally, I have to address this issue as a parent. (Not to say that cops are the parents and the citizens are the kids, but the power dynamic is similar—someone enforcing and another subject to the rules they didn’t write.) Punishment, in general, only works to half-ass treat the symptoms of a deeper mistrust and communication breakdown. These white outsiders are doing in and in essence saying, “I can have guns but you can’t” and “I have the power to stop you and touch your physical being to look for any reason to punish you” and “you are brown and hanging out by a door, so you’re obviously up to no good.” If you parent your kids this way—going through their rooms and micromanaging them—in a misguided attempt to “steer them in the right direction” you will only foster resentment and mistrust. They will hate you.
In my kumbaya mind, I feel like cops—all cops—have to go back to being people and SERVANTS first. Actions speak loudly. If the only actions you see from the cops are ones that persecute and accuse, of course you’ll hat them. If the cops come to your local events (on or off duty) and try to foster community (and I don’t mean once a year, I’m talking like ALL YEAR LONG), folks might not be so hateful towards them. If the cops don’t see the people as people, the people aren’t going to see the cops as people, either. This is very pie in the sky Pollyanna cuz that’s who I had to be to survive, right?
But on a more realistic level, why can’t the national police try harder to recruit folks from the cité and not with the intention of having people rat out their neighbors but to actually SERVE folks? And why can’t officers be better trained re: race/culture/diversity? And why can’t the effort be put toward repairing RELATIONSHIPS rather than throwing more money and legislation toward PUNISHMENT which isn’t even CURRENTLY effectively enforced and followed-through?
When you ground your kids, do you think that really changes them? Or do you think it just makes them resent you, hide things from you, and plan their eventual escape?
When one of my kids breaks a rule, we examine the RULE first. Is the rule unreasonable? Unfair? Too restrictive? Outdated? If so, we revise the rule and collaborate on the future.
True story: I caught my teen smoking. My first IMPULSE was to be crushed that they would do something they know is 1) harmful, 2) stupid, 3) forbidden. My second impulse was to punish them, restrict their activity, lord the errant behavior over them with reminders about trust and failure and disappointment and shame. Those reactions are natural. But they’re not productive for anyone.
I had to acknowledge that it’s their body and that no “punishment” or restriction would target the actual issue which is simply body autonomy. My teen hiding alone in the garage sneaking a smoke mostly hurts only them. My reaction was to admit my own weakness vis a vis smoking, to remind them that they are asthmatic and that the long-term effects of smoking are devastating, to remind them that cigarettes are outrageously expensive and list all the great things they could spend that money on (video games, etc.), and to prohibit smoking on our property because it could start a fire and isn’t modeling healthy/safe behavior for younger siblings. I’m not going to (can’t, and have zero desire to) follow my teen around and monitor/control their behavior. I want to raise young adults who are capable of making their own, cool-headed, well-informed decisions. I don’t have the energy or emotional capacity to be making decisions for other capable folks. What seems to work for us (so far) is empathy and trust.
What if folks were encouraged (and physically and financially supported) to make their OWN communities safer places? What if the government stopped trying to be “tough” on things that people want to do (and won’t stop doing) as long as no one is being victimized—for example, smoking weed or doing sex work, and instead put their efforts toward making sure the folks doing those things are doing them safely? What if more white French folks took time to get to actually KNOW the folks they are patrolling? What if it was built into their training to shatter prejudices and stereotypes.
Yeah, yeah. I’m braiding a daisy crown and singing Imagine.
You may say I’m a dreamer.
I dunno. I can’t solve all the world’s problems.
But I CAN bitch about them on the internet. (Admittedly from a place of privilege.)
In summary, I don’t think cops should get killed. Not for jihad, not for enforcing the laws (though I do wonder why that supposedly trained undercover agent walked into an obviously ARMED situation without his bulletproof vest). Do I think they should get more consideration because they’re cops? Fuck no. People who stand up to or fight with cops shouldn’t get any more jail time than other people UNLESS cops who are FILMED violently harassing people have to go straight to fucking jail. I think all this talk and protest and bruhaha will do nothing but further divide the people. I think it’s futile to try to patch a HOLE with a HAMMER.
Voilà!
Leave me a comment if you wanna argue about it. :D
Merci!!!
As usual, thanks for your fidelité, dear readers. If you would, please take a sec to share my newsletter with your friends and family! See y’all Monday when I talk about, among other things, why French milk is annoying, AND about the cheeses the French haven’t yet perfected.
Giving rocks and bottles in return getting tear gas and pepper spray: May 1970 Columbus, Ohio