… may soon be over.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters on Friday morning that SWAT teams had the men cornered in a factory in Dammartin-en-Goèle, a small town northeast of Paris near the city’s main airport, and that crack forces were on site, ready to move in.
The men reportedly have at least one hostage.
Moment by moment updates at France 24.
‘… Islam today includes a substantial minority of believers who countenance, if they don’t actually carry out, a degree of violence in the application of their convictions that is currently unique. Charlie Hebdo had been nondenominational in its satire, sticking its finger into the sensitivities of Jews and Christians, too—but only Muslims responded with threats and acts of terrorism. For some believers, the violence serves a will to absolute power in the name of God, which is a form of totalitarianism called Islamism—politics as religion, religion as politics. “Allahu Akbar!” the killers shouted in the street outside Charlie Hebdo. They, at any rate, know what they’re about.
… [T]he murders in Paris were so specific and so brazen as to make their meaning quite clear. The cartoonists died for an idea. The killers are soldiers in a war against freedom of thought and speech, against tolerance, pluralism, and the right to offend — against everything decent in a democratic society.’
**************************
‘[The attack seems] to have been motivated more by a hatred of deeply held Western beliefs, rather than by specific actions of Western governments.’
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic
A writer, a psychoanalyst, she’s remembered here by one of her patients.
In her big messy office buried under annotated books and crumpled papers, with a cigarette on her lip and a coffee cup in her hand, and always perched on very high heels, she drew me into hard-hitting therapy sessions that invariably began Sooooooo, tell me…
Dans son grand bureau foutoirdesque, croulant sous les livres annotés et les papiers froissés, la clope au bec et un petit noir à la main, toujours perchée sur ses talons vertigineux, elle m’aspirait pour des séances sans concessions qui démarraient invariablement par « Alooooooors, racontez moi… »
Which, strictly speaking, I guess is true. What they seem to be doing there – UD‘s just speculating – what they seem to be doing at the University of Alabama for special categories of student – is reviewing footage of their woman-beating…
Maybe, say, they’re comparing the recently admitted Jonathan Taylor’s woman-beating to that of Ray Rice… How does Taylor stand up next to a more seasoned pro?
I’m figuring that only when they’ve completed a comparative review of domestic violence footage (not of football plays, because that would involve athletics in the admissions process) does the admissions committee get down to the hard work of determining which woman-beater most fully meets the academic standards of the University of Alabama.
These proceedings are of course hush-hush. So, as I say, this is pure guesswork.
**************************
There are a few naysayers:
I don’t think handing out athletic scholarships to two-time offenders who have felony assault charges pending qualifies as just giving a kid a second chance.
… has been killed, and the other two captured.
****************
Later reports say one attacker has surrendered, with the other two still being hunted.
… but the melody lingers on.
Florida State University will miss its hero! But it’s got a rape-related lawsuit to remember him by.
When UD was in Bali
(summer, 2000) she bought a
bunch of metal bird cages.
One she put outside in
her back woods.
(Taken at 8:00 AM
this morning.)
Center of Paris, midday. The satirical paper, Charlie Hebdo, “has been attacked in the past for satirizing Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.”
A Utah professor named Cassell
Finds Dershowitz rather a hassle.
‘So you say you’re defamed?
Two can play at that game.
Get set for one hell of a rassle.’
University Diaries has been tracking this meme for about a year. A guy recounts in lurid detail this lurid sport that – as described – only a moral degenerate would follow, let alone get excited about every week.
[L]ast year was uniquely disastrous for the game. Heisman-winner Jameis Winston’s off-the-field behavior—rape allegations, petty theft, a brief suspension for obscenity—stalked a league already burdened with lawsuits from former athletes … [T]he best running back was suspended for whipping his son with a branch, domestic abuse cases seemed to materialize weekly, and the Ray Rice saga exposed the commissioner to be exactly as dense and cynical as many already feared…
Then the guy comes up with elaborate theories as to why he keeps excitedly watching the game anyway. But, as in this latest article, one really obvious explanation doesn’t occur to the guy. He loves violence, and the more violence the better.
After all, as he himself notes, football is more popular than ever.
How the mightily corrupt are fallen.
The Guv’s sentence (for, among other things, trying to fuck with the integrity of his state’s universities) will be announced in a few moments…
Bet you five bucks it’s five years.
********************
Fine. Two years.
He said that academics and athletic success have an inverse relationship.
