don't worry, be happy (umm but not about out this)

so as many of you have been hearing on the news and then e-mailing me asking, rest assured, i am ok. if you don't know what i am talking about, be informed, paris is burning. no, not really, but outside the cities in the "impoverished" suburbs of what i have read are centers of recent north and central african immigrants and their french born offspring, riots are turning once "peaceful" neighborhoods into the fronts of a war waging between "poor" teenagers and the french police.

as far as i know the riots began after a group of teenagers thinking they were hiding from police took cover in the shelter of an electrical substation. they were electroctud to death. thus the proverbial spark that starts the fire; and what a fire. all over france in over three hundred cities people who have been suppressed by an unwelcoming society are turning against the very system that has held them down. young people are burning cars in the thousands and setting alight stands of transilien (tm) public buses. middle schools and homes, nurseries and boulangeries, all are subject to the firebombs of social angst.

be not afraid, even though france is in a veritable state of emergency, regularly scheduled programs still run on time. channel 1 is a bad talk show, channel 2 a daytime soap (voiced over), and the news still pre-recorded and re-ran every fifteen minutes . wait, is this an update?? oh no, just the same footage i saw fifteen, thirty and forty-five minutes ago. maybe i need to change the channel.

so pray for them, the misguided that will surely be the subject of critical conservatism asking to ship them to a home they have never known, nor belong to. they fight for rights they deserve but fight in a way that only alienates them more from a society that they crave to be part of. even the geography of the riots shows this separation. paris may be burning but it is only in the suburbs you wil notice. inside the city the rich still get delivered in their mercedes to their penthouses and the tourists still queue to see the stone vaults of notre dame. the banks of the seine still offer peaceful refuge.

god only knows what the future holds for these people, we can only hope that it offers something better than they have found so far.

as for me, i live in the city away from the dangers of exploding cans of spray paint. the sounds of the street filtering through the windows are the same as yesterday, and i feel safe walking to the supermarket two or three blocks away. so no worries there, not yet, i just have to watch what metro stop to use. i will try and keep you updated, and you may please do the same. now it is time for me to brave the teargas gasbombs to get some bread (probably shouldn't joke about this)... ahh, my building is burning (no not really)... le maison kaiser, boulangerie fantastique, calls my name.