The Rake Magazine

Author: Tom Bartel

  • Goddess Revealed

    I was beginning to suspect that I was the last person on the planet who hadn’t read The DaVinci Code, and so I remedied that situation last weekend. I like a good page turner as much as the next guy, and this was a good one. But man, I can sure see why this is riling up the orthodox Christians, especially the Catholics. Because if Jesus had a wife, and Constantine chose to unite the Roman Empire under Christianity for political rather than religious convictions, then myths are shattered, the center cannot hold, and some rough beast is certainly starting to slouch.

    The idea of the "Sacred Feminine" is a new one for most Christians. There are no sacred females in Christianity, unless you count Mary, who was a mother, yes, but not the sort of woman that most women, or men, can relate to—notwithstanding the images of the BVM painted on abandoned bathtubs in Stearns County. There was no sex, after all.

    Contrast this with the various other religions of the early Christian era. For example, here’s a description from the Aeneid of Venus, the goddess of love, and the mother of Aeneas, the Trojan hero and founder of Rome. He’s just been talking to her in the woods:

    She spoke, and as she turned away, her rosy neck brightened,
    And from her head breathed the aroma of divine ambrosia;
    Down to her feet flowed her garment,
    And by her step, she was revealed a goddess.

    Jesus certainly never talked about his mother that way, at least according to what we know from the Bible as it’s been transmitted. Venus is, well, hot. And Mother Mary—she’s pretty much the good old androgynous, handmaid-of-the-lord, giving-up-everything-for-the-kid kind of mom.

    People who have actually done their homework on the history of the early church don’t give a lot of credence to The DaVinci Code’s tale of Mary Magdalene as Mrs. Jesus Christ. (According to esteemed medieval historian and oenophile Oliver Nicholson, the Magdalene tale arose in the Middle Ages.) I am old enough to remember when Nikos Kazantzakis’ book, The Last Temptation of Christ, caused an uproar at my high school, years before Martin Scorsese scratched the scab again with his film version. (God bless the Jesuits for disregarding Rome and assigning it to high school juniors.) Jesus and Magdalene were married in that book, too, but since there wasn’t a hot Parisian cryptologist and a murder mystery involved, it sold about twenty-seven million fewer copies than The DaVinci Code.

    Silly history aside, The DaVinci Code does have a symbolic purpose. Dare I say a book about symbols is a symbol? Dare I opine that part of its appeal is its fictional struggle against the patriarchal nature of Christianity and the established church’s hold on the flock? Why not? This is just an essay in a magazine and probably won’t be reprinted in enough languages to tick off the Vatican to the point of excommunicating me. Also, if I do get in trouble, I can always blame it on the Jesuits, and whoever is currently filling Tomas de Torquemada’s shoes will just nod knowingly.

    So why does this all remind me of Michele Bachmann? Beats the hell out of me, but it did. OK, I admit it—it was the sexless obedient servant thing. And maybe we’ll throw in the omniscient overbearing church thing. While we’re at it, the hiding behind the trees at the gay rally at the Capitol and the cowering in the bathroom when confronted by some disagreeable lesbians recall some aspects of the thrilling DaVinci chase scenes, as well.

    Speaking of chase scenes, in the upcoming mad dash across the sixth congressional district, Michele, you can bet, will be playing the part of the Opus Dei-trained and Church-sanctioned albino assassin. She’ll be using the weapons provided by her church, and its armorer, Karl Rove, to try to squelch the story of Patty Wetterling, who actually does symbolize family values. Except, unfortunately for Wetterling, protecting children just isn’t as visually eloquent as the images of the yucky kissing gays that we’re going to be treated to, courtesy of Bachmann.

    In the last congressional campaign, Bishop Mark Kennedy put Wetterling’s pictures in ads right next to Osama bin Laden’s. How’s that for a powerful symbol? (And you thought the Church calling Magdalene a whore was bad.) I can hardly wait to see what Rove and Bachmann come up with this time. We don’t yet know any specifics of the Rovian symbology, but I’m willing to bet it’s going to involve Wetterling officiating at a gay marriage ceremony.

    But, like The DaVinci Code, politics is all about the supremacy of symbols over actual fact. That’s what makes a good story, after all.

  • Guns in the City

    The sound of the well-made gun is precise. If you pull the slide back smoothly, the sound of the hammer locking back echoes with a sharp “clock” through the hollow grip. Slap a magazine into the grip, pull the slide back a little more and let it go. The sharp “smack” tells you a bullet has seated in the chamber. The tiny pin sticks out in front of the hammer to confirm the bullet is in place. If you pull the trigger, the next sound you hear will be considerably louder. While the boom reverberates on the range, you will hear the next clock-smack. The gun will fire again.

    It’s not just a fine machine. It’s actually quite elegant in its function. The plastic grip is perfectly shaped to the hand. A tail protrudes from above the grip to protect the webbing of your thumb from being hit by the slide. The safety lever and slide catch are within easy reach of your thumb. The trigger, when the gun is cocked, takes a very light pull with the pad of your index finger. The barrel tapers smoothly out of the heavy slide down to its front sight, which is the shape of a shark’s dorsal fin. It is slightly beveled forward, though, so it won’t catch at all as you draw it from the leather holster.

    The holster is also thoughtfully designed. It is heavy leather, with a flap that covers the gun to keep out the muck of war. But the strap that holds the flap down is simply impaled on a round steel knob and comes up easily. A second rear flap on the holster breaks away to allow the grip to come back, instead of just up, and permits the muzzle to bear on the target immediately.

    The magazine holds eight 9 mm Parabellum rounds. The name comes from the old Roman adage, si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war.

    The gun has the usual markings and serial number. But nowhere is the name of its designer—Walther. There is clearly stamped on the left side of the slide “P.38,” the model, and “byf44,” which indicates it was built in 1944 at the Mauser factory in Oberndorf. On both sides of the slide, on the frame, and on the barrel are marks made after test firing the gun at the factory: “WaA135.” Between the two inspector’s marks on the right side is a tiny eagle perched on a swastika.

    The Germans manufactured a fine gun sixty-two years ago. It still fires a very tight group. I shot 232 out of 250 with it three months ago on my proficiency exam to get my state permit to carry a pistol. Of course I wasn’t under the same pressure as the German officer who gave it up to my father six decades ago. Dad was able to take it, he once told me, because the officer “didn’t need it any more.”

  • Swearing Allegiance

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    As soon as I get my teeth back in I’m gonna tell you all what you can do with your pansy anti-war act

    The papers and TV are all abuzz today with the startling revelation that cussing (as we used to call it where I grew up) is becoming more and more pervasive.

    I became aware of that when my son, who was then three years old, came home from day care one day and greeted me with “Fuck you, Daddy” while I was just innocently sitting there reading the newspaper.

    Luckily, I was able to overcome my initial surprise and ignore it. He soon repeated it, “Fuck YOU, Daddy.” I ignored it again.

    He tried again, with different emphasis, “FUCK you, Daddy.” I ignored him again.

    He didn’t repeat it again within my earshot until we got into an argument about 16 years later.

    He’s not a stranger to it though. When he was a Senate intern he got to witness Dick Cheney’s famous suggestion to Senator Pat Leahy that he “Go fuck yourself.”

    I guess if one can talk like that on the floor of the “World’s Foremost Deliberative Body,” one shouldn’t be surprised at what the boy learned at day care.

    I long for the day when I can meet Mr. Cheney in person. I don’t think I’ll have quite as much restraint as my son and Senator Leahy displayed.

  • The Bumper Sticker

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    C stands for Look Out!

    I’ve been searching for the perfect bumper sticker for the Prius. I love driving that car every time I pass a gas station, and hate it every time I try to pass some idiot in the left lane on 169.

    The car needs definition.

    I bought a sticker in Spain last summer that has a black “C” on a red and yellow striped background. The C stands for Catalunya, which is the area of Spain around Barcelona where the driving climate is definitely not for the timid.

    Catalunya, besides being the region of Barcelona, is also home to some of the most breathtaking vistas in Europe, which can best be apppreciated from behind the wheel of a BMW 5 series as you are jerking it around Pyrenees mountain roads as fast as you can go…or until your children in the back seat vomit, whichever is more fun.

    I haven’t put the Catalunya sticker on the car yet, though, because, frankly, it’s too damn subtle.

    It came to me yesterday when I was at “the range.” The only possible sticker for the Prius that makes any sense is an NRA membership sticker.

    Does anyone know how to get one without actually joining the NRA? If not, I suppose I could go with “My other car is a Ford F350”.

    You either get it or you don’t.

  • The BMW 330i, The Road Rake

    If you’re thinking of buying a car anytime soon you ought to test drive the BMW 330i. Hell, even if you aren’t thinking of buying a car, you should do it just for the rush.

    Because this is the car that all other sedans have to measure up to. You shouldn’t get to have this car just because you can afford it. You should have to pass a driver-appreciation exam. There should be scholarships, because this car is like Harvard for the driving literati.

    The “Road Rake” and I had the pleasure of being given free rein by the nice folks at Motorwerks BMW to take this car for a day, sans supervision. In other words, Steve Rydberg, the sales manager there, trusted us. He probably shouldn’t have, but he did. (We lied and told him we were actual journalists—as opposed to guys who like fast cars and happen to write about them occasionally.) We put the car to the test. Not all the way to the making-it-skid-backward test, but almost. Now that I think of it, Steve is probably glad he wasn’t with us. He just didn’t know it.

    The last time I test drove a BMW, it was with a friend who wanted me to advise her on whether to buy one. The test drive was short and uneventful—the usual one-stop up the freeway and back. I drove, my friend was on my right, and the salesman was in the back. As we were returning to the dealership on the frontage road, I decided we needed a little more information about the vehicle. So I accelerated to 60 … 70 … 80 … 90. As the dealership approached, the salesman kept pointing out the turn to me. He repeated himself because he noticed I wasn’t slowing. I took it after a hard brake and downshift. He whimpered a little bit as my friend and I said “Whee.” He managed a “Whew,” as he realized he hadn’t been killed. And he was about to spit out something more descriptive when my friend turned around in her seat and said, “That was fun. I’ll take it.” The salesman felt much better.

    That car was a BMW 645i, not the 330i, but you get the picture. If anything, the 330i is even quicker. Not as much weight to haul around, you see. The Road Rake and I took turns driving it one sunny Saturday last month. We zoomed around the back roads of Bloomington and shot up Highway 100, using the 330i’s effortless acceleration, ultra-responsive steering, and lovely Steptronic automatic transmission to pretend we were on the Autobahn and could pass whomever we liked. We could and we did.

    We made some very hard turns at high speed to test the vaunted stability control system. As far as I can tell, the engineers at BMW seem to have found a way to eliminate centrifugal force from the precepts of Newtonian physics. In other words, the car turned precisely as asked, didn’t lean at all, even at the point when the tires were losing adhesion, and made the Road Rake and me grin at each other as if we’d just got off the big rollercoaster at Valleyfair and said “Let’s go again.”

    The Road Rake and I are both confirmed standard-transmission guys, but it bears mention that we agreed we’d happily give up the left knee pain engendered by the stiff racing clutch pedals in our fun cars for the BMW’s Steptronic transmission. Unlike some of the earlier versions of the concept, like the Audi’s Tiptronic, which once displayed a slight reluctance to change gears when ordered, the manual shift auto transmission in the BMW was instantaneous and imperceptibly smooth. There was no “clunk” even at numerous high-rev downshifts. The car responded with instant acceleration without complaint. On the upshift, it shot ahead as if we were all of a sudden pedaling downhill while everyone behind us was stuck on the wrong side of a mountain on the Tour de France.

    On top of all this physical sensation is the sound. Not the audio system (which we really didn’t have time to notice, but I’m sure is fine if you’re not that into hip-hop). I’m talking about the sound we noticed after we turned off the radio. The tuned exhaust system was a perfect accompaniment to the performance. This car even sounds fast.

    The version we drove lists for $41,820 and includes the premium package, with auto dimming mirrors, a garage door opener, BMW Assist (OnStar with a German accent), and the Bluetooth connection, in case you feel like you have to talk on your cell and drive at the same time. (There’s also an all-wheel-drive model—the 330xi, for a couple grand more.) Drive one. Use the phone only to call your banker to arrange for the loan. —Tom Bartel

    The Road Rakes Tom Bartel and Chris Birt are now online at www.rakemag.com/today/roadrake/.

  • The Myth of the Liberal Media

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    Molly, once a month with you is not enough

    I came across an internal memo from the Star Tribune today. It may show up in their Reader’s Rep column…or it may not. A reader of the Strib went to the trouble of counting the syndicated columnists that have run on the Strib’s Op-Ed page the past 6 weeks. Here’s the count:

    Lefties
    Steve Chapman, 8
    E.J. Dionne, 2
    Molly Ivins, 1
    Garrison Keillor, 5 (he hardly counts, in my opinion)
    Paul Krugman, 3
    Total Lefties: 19


    Righties     (which doesn’t really sound right unless you’re talking about baseball pitchers)
    David Brooks, 5
    Mona Charon, 3
    Jonah Goldberg, 4
    Clifford D. May, 1
    James Pinkerton, 1
    Debra J. Saunders, 6
    John Tierney, 3
    George Will, 10
    Total righties: 33

    So, next time someone’s bitching about Nick Coleman, whip this out on them. Personally, I think the above numbers would provide a great excuse for getting rid of Katherine Kersten. The Strib is tilting right without her help, thank you.

    Perhaps they figure they need her, just like Bush needs the right wing Christians. They can’t stand her, but they need the votes.

  • Veterans Day

    Katherine Kersten let us know again today about the meaning of honoring our veterans. In case you missed it, it’s building memorials, like the one in Rochester. It was the typical superficiality we’ve come to expect from KK, but I’m sure she tries to do the best she can with what she has to work with.

    I do think it is good to have such tangible memorials to our war veterans. I’ve been to the one in my hometown to see the name of my father’s best friend from high school, who died in the English channel when his transport was torpedoed on Christmas Day 1944. I’ve run my fingers over the name of my high school buddy on the black wall in Washington. And I’ve looked through the private memorial constructed by my mother-in-law out of the contents of the foot locker of her brother who went down in a B-24 over Germany in 1943. (Disclosure: I was drafted in 1972, but flunked the physical.)

    I have one relative, who as one of the 5th Rangers, stood in an LST bobbing in the waves off Pointe du Hoc on D-Day, watching his unit be slaughtered as they tried to get up that cliff, and knowing he’d be next if they failed. He didn’t have to fight that day, but he did in the hedgerows in France, on the bridges in Holland, and in a Belgian town called Bastogne. He won one Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts (which he called the medal for being stupid enough to get shot) and all of 1945 and part of 1946 having his leg pinned back together and learning to walk again with a persistent slight limp.

    Two uncles missed that war but got in in time to both freeze in Korea and sweat in Vietnam. They got three Silver Stars and a couple of Purple Hearts between them. Their four sons and sons-in-law missed Vietnam, but did go to Germany for the Cold War, and Iraq in the first Gulf war. One cousin saw men under his command killed in a training accident. One cousin drove a tank into Baghdad three years ago.

    And one of those cousins was notified this week that his son is on his way to Iraq after the first of the year. He’s heartbroken, as are we.

    I once asked one of these guys why he hadn’t ever joined the VFW or American Legion. He just said anyone who’d ever actually been in combat would never want to glorify it in any way, and left it at that.

    Honor yes, glory no.

    What we’re doing now for our current armed forces is no honor to the memory of our veterans.

    We’ll send my cousin’s son to war short of enough men and equiment to keep him and his comrades relatively safe. We’ll have tax cuts and bridges in Alaska.

    Today, we will fire salutes at Arlington, where my uncle is buried, and at Fort Snelling, and at the memorial in Rochester Kersten writes about. We’ll be there even though our president has yet to attend even one funeral of one soldier killed in this Iraq war.

    We’ll place flags on soldiers’ graves while the flag draped coffins from Iraq are unloaded and buried out of the public eye, except for the obligatory stories from the local press about the local boy who played high school football and married his childhood sweetheart.

    We’ll hear from a president who used the National Guard to duck his own obligation while he uses guys who signed up for the Guard to get money for college to clear roadside bombs and fight house to house in Fallujah.

    And we’ll bitch about gas prices half of what the rest of the world pays while some of our regular Army are getting ready for their fourth tour in Iraq.

    My uncle once said, "I can’t believe Bush said ‘Bring it on.’ Nobody who has ever been in combat would ever say that. I was always hoping the enemy would hear me saying, ‘Take it somewhere else.’"

    Those are the sort of veterans I can honor every day–those who know what it is and went anyway. I can’t honor those who don’t know what it is, and send others to do it.

  • Dead Serious

    The largest public execution in U.S. history took place in 1862, down in Mankato. Since the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota Indians, public sentiment against the death penalty had been building in Minnesota. Nineteenth-century politicians tried to pacify the public outrage not by banning the death penalty, but by carrying it out in relative secrecy. An 1889 law prohibited the public view of an execution, provided that executions be carried out only in the middle of the night, and prohibited newspapers from reporting any of the details.

    The grotesque hanging of William Williams (and, ironically, the gruesome reporting of it by a St. Paul reporter who had sneaked into the execution) provided the final impetus which ultimately led to the abolition of Minnesota’s death penalty in 1911. Now, spurred again by media attention to the Dru Sjodin abduction, Governor Pawlenty wants to reinstate the ultimate punishment.

    One could argue that Minnesota has already gone a long way toward imitating Texas with last year’s passage of the concealed carry law and emaciation of the public education budget, but, philosophical questions aside, reinstatement of the death penalty in Minnesota is a bad idea for many empirical reasons that should even appeal to conservatives with a natural bent for injecting first and asking questions later.

    Here’s why we don’t want the death penalty here:

    The very nature of the crimes that would be punished by death virtually ensures that mistakes will be made and innocent people will be convicted. As Pawlenty’s immediate reaction demonstrates, people who are elected to office, including sheriffs, county attorneys, and legislators, have to be seen to be doing something about terrible crimes. The impetus of the abduction and presumed murder of a young woman grows into an emotional momentum that cannot be resisted. The police must find the killer; the county attorney must ask for the death penalty; the jury can’t take the presumption of innocence seriously when the stakes are so high if they fail to convict. Even when an error is later uncovered, what are the chances any of the above will admit their mistake? Not high, especially when any elected official will be called “soft on crime” by his next opponent. What’s the result of this pressure? Nationally since 1973, 108 people have been sentenced to death for crimes they were later proven not to have committed.

    Enforcement is uneven. For what crimes does one get the death penalty? Every state with the death penalty has its own list of criteria, but the one incontrovertible statistical correlation is that the race of the victim is what counts. A crime with a white victim is 350 percent more likely to draw the death penalty than one with a black victim. If you need an example of what could happen here, ask yourself if you recall then House Majority Leader and gubernatorial candidate Pawlenty calling for the death penalty for the killers of eleven-year-old Tyesha Edwards in 2002.

    We wouldn’t be doing it for the victims. If the logic of the penal system is to provide for the victims, then all punishment is based on revenge. Instead, if we are to maintain the belief that it is society which metes out punishment, then society’s only logical reason to punish is to prevent further outrages by the convict. Life without parole in a maximum security facility serves that purpose. Moreover, a life sentence removes at least some of the reason for the nearly endless appeals that constantly raise the specter of the perpetrator being released. Closure for the victims is more likely when the process comes to a quicker end.

    Isn’t it cheaper to kill them than house them for life? No. Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and California have all done studies that show the cost of a death penalty case exceeds the cost of a sentence of life without parole by an average of $2.3 million dollars, primarily because of the cost of the initial trial and subsequent appeals. In other words, Texas, which has executed 317 people since 1976, has spent over $600 million. Florida has spent $24 million for each of the 44 people it has executed since 1976.

    It doesn’t deter crime. Does someone who commits a heinous murder first think of what’s going to happen to him if caught? Psychologists say no. In fact, most evidence points to a murderer exhibiting near-total disassociation from society and its rules. Second, let’s examine the statistics. Of the seventeen states which have murder rates higher than the national average, sixteen have the death penalty. Only Michigan does not. Indeed, some studies show that murders actually increase around the time that executions are carried out. During the time of frequent executions in California and New York, murder rates doubled. Rates receded again when executions were suspended. When Oklahoma reinstated the death penalty after a twenty-five-year moratorium, murders increased. Finally, as we look southward to Texas—by far the national leader in executions—we might envy their death-penalty and concealed-carry laws. But do we envy their murder rate, which is almost three times that of Minnesota?

  • Too quick on the draw

    May 28, 2003

    I wrote a column last November about a Democrat fund raiser I’d attended with Al Gore. At the time, I noted that I thought we were in for a long period of Republican rule, because the Dems were such inept marketers. Well, the Republicans, at least in the Minnesota Legislature, (who, unlike big shots Coleman and Pawlenty, don’t benefit from the direct intervention of Karl Rove,) have recently proven to be just as inept.

    When the Republicans ran their very effective campaign of 2002, they hammered on their “No New Tax” pledge over and over, until all of us who don’t like paying tax, (and that’s all of us,) put them in control of state government. What they didn’t mention much was their insidious plans to limit abortion rights, put more guns on the streets, and put the true burden of the state’s financial squeeze fully on the Democratic strongholds of northern and urban Minnesota. The word insidious comes from the Latin word meaning ambush, and that’s just what the Republicans pulled off.

    If you don’t believe it, just remember how the “Personal Protection Act” was passed–through a parliamentary maneuver that had to be voted up or down with little debate. And, if you’ve ever heard Senate sponsor Pat Pariseau, Republican of Farmington, you’ll know it was also passed so quickly she didn’t have much time to read it herself.

    The Dems couldn’t have wished for a better poster child for the gun bill than Senator Pariseau. Pat Pariseau is about as articulate as a domestic turkey, and she backs that up by being irresponsible enough to sponsor a bill that she hadn’t read, or by being so bold as to lie about what was in it. (If you listened to her on MPR last week, you could only come to one of those two conclusions. On Katherine Lanpher’s show, she denied that there was a provision which required “personal notification” of potential gun-toters, and denied that the bill prohibited cities from banning guns from public buildings. So, she was either lying when she said she had read the bill, or lying about what’s in it. There is a third possibility, which we shouldn’t discount, is that she’s not bright enough to understand what was in it. Actually, on further consideration, I’m going with the “not very bright” explanation.)

    (Further evidence on the liar vs. dimwit question can be examined with even a perfunctory Google search. Pariseau said last week that she’d reconsider her stance if she could be shown "even two" instances of permit holders who violated their permit responsibilities. We came up with over 5000 in about 10 minutes. The links to some of those stats are below this article.)

    Thank God, Pariseau’s now a state senator, instead of a nurse, like she used to be. How would you like to have her reading a doctor’s instructions and administering medicine to one of your family? You’d probably want to have a Beretta under the hospital pillow to protect yourself from that.

    So, today we have Governor Pawlenty backtracking on the gun bill as fast as he can. He signed the bill in record speed after it was passed, in an attempt to leave no time for public reaction. But he, too, now admits to a less than careful reading. His staff says Pawlenty’s current attempt to rush through an amendment during the special session is only to correct a “drafting error” which requires the personal notice.

    But let’s not forget that Pawlenty is a lawyer, and that he undoubtedly has several of the same working for him, so the “drafting error” explanation doesn’t hold much water.

    What Pawlenty really missed in his perfunctory reading of the bill was the implication of having thousands of "No Guns here" signs and thousands of “personal notices” all over the state reminding people every day that he, Pariseau, and their ilk have wrought another fundamental change in Minnesota.

    And what the Dems didn’t miss is that, finally, the Republicans have miscalculated and shot themselves in the foot with their quick draw gun bill. How ironic is it that business owners and fervent church goers, those natural Republican constituencies, are today putting up what amount to DFL campaign signs all over their shops, restaurants and sanctuaries?

    Now that’s marketing.

  • The Fighting French

    I liked Mike O’Brien better than I knew him. He was a friend of my friend Charlie and we’d exchanged some boozy repartee at a few of Charlie’s parties over the years. He was a big Irish sort of American—funny, loud and a wonderful story teller. He grew up in Tunisia and spoke fluent French.

    We last saw each other at Charlie and Veronique’s wedding in Sollies-Toucas, an old village about nine kilometers north of Toulon, France. I was living in Spain at the time and another friend flew into Barcelona to meet me and my wife and we all drove over to Toulon a couple of days before the wedding to meet O’Brien and a few other college buddies and make sure we got the party groove down before the actual ceremony.

    One of those intervening evenings included one when 14 Americans and a couple of French sailors drank 24 liters of the local claret with Monsieur Meaux, one of Veronique’s neighbors. Monsieur Meaux was a retired French navy captain and was enlarging his home by hand chiseling a wine cellar out of the granite mountain outside his bedroom. He let us all take a few whacks with his big sledge after we’d had some wine and hummed along to a few French sea chanteys.

    Veronique’s father did his bit to mitigate the claret’s effects by turning out crepes with butter and jam as fast as he could, but he was slowed a bit by having to constantly open more bottles of claret. Although none of the Frenchmen spoke English, we were able to adequately mime our comradeship and laugh until 4 a.m. By that time, we’d made so much noise the entire male population of the neighborhood and a couple of their dogs had joined us for a few more carafes and a nude swim in Veronique’s family pool.

    We slowed down a bit the next day for the actual ceremony. I was an official witness, which mostly involved saying “Oui” when the priest looked at me and signing a bunch of French paperwork I didn’t understand. As insurance against the possibility I was confessing to the previous night’s international incident, I signed O’Brien’s name.

    The wedding party in the town square was eventually subsumed by a general village celebration, because the wedding day happened to correspond to the anniversary of that day in 1944 when the Americans last arrived in Sollies-Toucas for a party from which the Germans had been rudely excluded. All the older Frenchmen were wearing their medals from the Resistance and bought us many drinks and kissed our cheeks. They danced with our women, and we with theirs. Monsieur Meaux reaffirmed his place in our hearts when he asked a particularly buxom older friend of Charlie’s parents, Mrs. Jones, to dance the rumba. She declined politely, in English, which he didn’t understand, and pointed to her chest as partial explanation that she’d just had heart surgery. “Yes, they are very nice,” Monsieur Meaux agreed.

    Not all the French were so amiable, though. There were a couple of twins from Paris who had come to the party to play the part of the clichéd French who hate Americans. They sat across the long table from me and O’Brien and made snotty comments in French about the Americans who had come to their country and danced with their women, drank their wine, ate their crepes, and didn’t even bother to speak French.

    This went on for an hour or so until O’Brien had had enough. He leaned over the table, grabbed Pierre by the tie and pulled him right through the wedding cake plates and wine glasses. “If it weren’t for Americans, you’d all be speaking German now, you prissy poodle pumper,” he said calmly. He let go of Pierre’s tie and Pierre dropped hard back into his seat.

    Pierre and his brother both jumped to their feet to challenge O’Brien. On our side of the table, the six of us who could still stand up did so. Monsieur Meaux stood up, too, although it was unclear if he wanted to rumble or rumba, since he was standing on the side with us Americans and still eyeing Mrs. Jones.

    Pierre and frère sat down faster than you can say Vichy.

    So, given this experience, it came as no surprise to me that the French aren’t anxious to fight in Iraq. What was a surprise, though, was hearing that the owner of Cubbie’s restaurant in Beaufort, North Carolina was going to stop calling his French fries French fries because he’s mad at the lack of French support for our foreign policy. I’m tempted to phone Cubbie to explain that, if being called a pooch’s paramour wasn’t enough to get a Frenchman in a bellicose frame of mind, renaming pommes frites probably wasn’t going to do the trick either.