Romane Is in New York!

Girls, Romane will be in New York City, from February 3 to February 9 2019.

Romane just turned 19 years old. She is Fanny and Gabriel’s sister, and like them, your first cousins. I am very happy she is visiting us.

Romane is an architecture student. I am confident we will find plenty of interesting buildings to see in the city!

You know what to do to see her.

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America Decent and Livable, for Once?

Caravan Refugees Crossing the Border (Photo: Reuters)

5,000 immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador are crossing the US border; Facing them, 5,000 border patrols “doing their job,” that is throwing tear gas at them. These immigrants are unarmed, left families and friends, walked thousands of miles to go where they are, and many of them have excellent reasons to seek political asylum.

See any middle-eastern looking folks among them?

It would please me to know that this women running with her two girls is still with them, and that deplorable 45 will one day be on trial for violation of international human rights laws.

 

 

 

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It Has to Start Somewhere…

Protesting

We live in difficult and uncertain times. It is good to find out that the youth will not remain idle…

Hat Tip: Laura Martinez

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Fatherhood, New York City Style

Somewhere in West Harlem (Photo Laura Martinez)

Non-custodial fathers like me pay attention to these kind of things: A father paying exclusive attention to his daughter in a restaurant; besides her dad, the little girl has all the teddy bears that matter for her.

I don’t know anything about these two but my guess is that this moment is intense. It looks it goes well. It better does, because such moments could be scarce if not. Fatherhood does not have many second chances in New York State.

Good luck to you folks!

 

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Joyeux anniversaire, Camille!

23 !!!  I think of you.  And I am introducing myself to you at this age.

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Mark Zuckerberg, My Daughters and Me

Parents celebrate important events of the life in their children life, like Bar Mitzvahs or commencement ceremonies. Not me. First, I have been “parented away” for a long time now. I cannot communicate directly with my daughters. Communication through the channel of their mother does not go through, and is unreliable. Ex has no problem impersonating her daughters when she wants to. In these days and age tough, there is Google to bring you news about your offspring, even those you wish were not true, like: My daughters have changed their name or are in the process of doing so. In so doing, they bluntly manifest they have severe ties with their father. Ex’ plans are fully accomplished: my status as a father is reduced to that of a unfortunate “blurb” (Seinfeld is to me a profuse source of references) in their life story. I have been erased.

That may well be, but I am a very resilient fellow. I will be there in case my daughters want to break through Goebbels (ex)’s fences. Meanwhile, I thought of standing outside of the area of the commencement ceremony with the hope of seeing my daughters when people would exit, but I was sick. I had to make do with the video of the ceremony, hoping again that by chance, I could see my daughters there. Instead I saw the speech of the commencement speaker, Mark Zuckerberg.

Mr Zuckerberg is a nice man. Yet a few remarks about a couple of points he raised in his speech to the class of 2017 are in order:

Firstly, Mr. Zuckerberg aspires to create a world where everyone has “a new sense of purpose.” Mr. Zuckerberg  has found his (he created Facebook) and he assumes that “all people want to connect.” That resonates deeply with me because it could not be more wrong in my family. An alienating parent wants her children for herself, she wants them “to disconnect” and she succeeds. She may want them to find “a sense of purpose” only if it is predicated upon the exclusion of anybody who may contradict her influence.

Secondly, according to M. Zuckerberg, “every generation expands its definition of equality” and “the millennials are the most charitable generation in history.” That’s possible, but it is not going to help this country very much. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have been widening since the 1980’s, and even if the number of well-minded philanthropists like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg expands, the wealth they give away will not correct for increasing lack of access to health, education and, for the subjects that matter in this blog, to decent family justice. Charity is not a substitute for a proactive fiscal policy, even less this undergirding grandiose social projects like “redefining equality.” Charitable rich folks care about pet projects, they don’t declare “war on poverty.”

I would have liked to discuss this point with my recent graduate.

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Congratulations, Camille!

“Lancelot” by Camille Lacour, 2000.

Today Thursday May 25, 2017, you graduate with a B.A. in History and a minor in Classics. I presume you will attend the 366th commencement undergraduate exercises of your university in the morning. Félicitations!

I don’t have a clue of what you will do next. Somehow I surmise you are as passionate as you were when you were little, and that you will do something related to politics, like shaking this dusty Democratic party. You may take a breath of fresh air before going to graduate school.

Whatever you do, I wish you the best. I will spend some time in Paris in the fall.

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Love in the Time of Cholera

The results of the US presidential elections prompted writer Aaron Sorkin to write a letter to his daughters. Like Sorkin, and many other fathers, I am very troubled by the victory of a man who, among many qualities, is an overt misogynist. I have not seen my daughters for years and feel I have to reach out to them, for whatever it is worth. This post is addressed to them.

I know you two did vote in the past election, both for your first presidential election. Chloé for the first time.

I did not vote. Although I have been living in this country for 25 years, I am not a U.S. citizen. Laura did become one this year to cast her vote against Trump and what he stands for. I went with her to her citizenship ceremony. I was very moved by it and congratulated her. Yet I could not to do the same as I can not bring myself to swear “to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law.” I refused to bear arms for France and do my military service there in 1984 when France still had the draft, so I became a conscientious objector instead. I will not swear to do the same for the US, even if it is very unlikely that the lunatic who is now President-elect reestablishes the draft and decides to send men of my age to countries he may fancy to take to war. I do not acknowledge the right of a State – democratic or  otherwise – to tell someone when it is just to kill.

To be honest with you, I would also have a hard time swearing to defend the constitution of the US with the second amendment in it. A constitution is however subject to change.

But back to the earthquake of election day. I accompanied Laura to vote on 152 street and Amsterdam. It felt there like Hillary had 100 percent of the vote as we exited the polling station at 8:00 am. In fact, I only started to smell a rat around 10:00 pm, as Virginia was failing to fall fast enough in Hillary’s column.

Five days after the elections I am still in a state of shock trying to figure out what the triumvirate of fat idiots (Trump, Giuliani and Christie) is going to mess up first. Climate change policy and the US pledge in the Paris agreement? Planned parenthood and the life of women seeking an abortion? The life of the undocumented migrants, who cannot afford to be depressed, have not seen their families for years, and are still here washing dishes, cutting flowers, cleaning tables for miserable wages and paying for Social Security they will never get a penny from?

The thing that strikes me the most is what was going on in the voting booth with the folks who voted for the man. Granted, the democratic party has for too long neglected the working class. Does that justify voting for somebody who has absolutely zero credential with labour, even less  with the poor, and furthermore, has never run an office and is at best a dilettante?  I dare to bet that these poor fellows from Pennsylvania are not about to see their State covered again with steel mills.

Last thing about an image that has been aired over and over again I keep thinking about. In one of Trump’s campaign meeting, a black protestor was expelled, and walked back to the door by security. A man in the crowd surreptitiously threw a punch at him from behind. He knew the protestor could not get back at him. He also knew the crowd was on his side. This was an unfettered, safe expression of hate; The act of a coward. Men like Trump, who lamented the “old times when protesters would go home on a stretcher” call for this type of acts from this type of men.

Be safe girls.

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Introductions

It has been more than 11 years since my last supervised visitation with you (September 10 2005 to be exact). Since then, our contact have been either inexistent, or imaginary -as when ex impersonated one of you in email exchanges, very recently.

During all this time, your cousins in France you met and may remember have become adults, and one you never met, Romane, is a teen. Let me introduce to you your little cousins, Louise and Théa, who live near Chambéry, in France. In December, Louise will turn 4 and Théa 1.

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Of the Way the Greeks See Fathers

If you walk the streets of Skala, the main town of Patmos, the Holy Island of Greece where I was a few days ago, you will likely bump into these signs that feature a man  -yes, a man – holding the hand of a little girl. These signs are there to tell motorists to slow down.

I am no specialist of Greek culture but these signs tell an interesting story: Greek fathers have a role to play in the life of their children, protect them, and have to be protected as caretakers. I bet Greek family courts are smarter than New York State’s and, as they handle divorces, do not limit fathers’ obligations to their children to paying child support.

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