All Comments

“BTW, I’m french, and I do not find any thing offending in being called Frog.”

You should.
While I agree that this particular article was done in an ironic kind of way (everyone got that by the way , no need to insult our intellectual skills) the term “frog” is usually meant to offend.
As is the term “wop” for Italian-Americans or he term “kraut” for german people and many others. These terms all belong to the lexical field of ethnic slurs and xenophobia.

See  wikipedia’s list of ethnic slurs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethic_slurs

“BTW, I’m french, and I do not find any thing offending in being called Frog.”

You should.
While I agree that this particular article was done in an ironic kind of way (everyone got that by the way , no need to insult our intellectual skills) the term “frog” is usually meant to offend.
As is the term “wop” for Italian-Americans or he term “kraut” for german people and many others. These terms all belong to the lexical field of ethnic slurs and xenophobia.

See wikipedia’s list of ethnic slurs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethic_slurs

@Barney. According to WP, the meaning of “frog” changed over time. If I am offended by something whose meaning changes, as we say in french, “we are not out of the auberge”. I really beleive that the one being really insulted when it comes to reducing one person to its origin, is the one that says it.
If your last argument against someone you’re talking to is: “You can’t be right, your’re a frog (or whatever other slur word)” it really means that either your point is very weak, or you haven’t had any argument at all.

And if you’re talking in a friendly way with someone calling me “Frog”, there is really no reason feeling offended.

So to me, in both case, I do not find it offending at all.
But I may of course be overoptimistic 😉

I am very surprised: “frog” as such is no longer a problem, we should not have tolerated it many, many years ago! My concern is that nobody reacts to the sentence which is really offending in my reading:  “Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.”

Mr Saporito by himself is so clever as to abracadabra  the words, illusionists of all countries, of course! No, the problem I wish to emphasize  is that if  Mr Saporito feels that he can use such a word, which in all cases is insulting, whatever be the second and third meaning, he knows that he has what we call a “marge de manoeuvre” as the US patriots, i.e. a few tens of million people will lol (laugh out loudly) for a few tens of lost French men who will protest (and they even may not!). This is pure demagogy. We should stand up and avoid the same mistake as with tolerating “frog” with the word “despise”: insulting is never acceptable, even for and all the more for brilliant minds.
By the way, I did not realize that the article to which I refer does not appear:
http://www.laouach.com/blog/ecrire/poster.php?post_id=10

You wil see better what I mean.

Amicalement,

Laouach

John Mccain is a fukkin bitch i really hate him hope he will never be presedent cause he is just raises against mexicans !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really get irritated about this unemployment comparison. The US truely cheets by leaving off incarcerated, benefit no-shows and those whose unemployment benefits have expired – a total number greater than those recorded by receiving benefits! France figures in EVERYONE, incluting those who never get reemployed. Enough already, Americans need to get off this high horse mentality and understand that Europe and the US are far more alike than different.

I should add that Europe, and France in paticular, are far more efficient than the US at delivering services to their respective populations. The US has plenty to toot its’ own horn about, but, Europe is far more foward looking, at least for now.

Answer: Americans are at each other’s throat for the time being, busy busy lil loud and fat bees many of them are so have no time to dwell on their pissy feelings against the French.

I say, don’t let your guard down. With Sarkozy takking intl lead role in putting together a coherent force to institute reforms in corrupt global financial, banking and economic institutions, many Americans won’t like it. For the moment, they are riveted elsewhere but after the election, anti-French Americans are likely to show their heads again.

Sod off, McCain!

Nice article. Thanks. 🙂 Eugene

Quant on lit ça, on a envie de citer les paroles d’un évêque célèbre, ayant baptisé le premier chef des mangeurs de brie capituleurs : “Courbe la tête, fier Sicambre ! Adore ce que tu as brûlé, brûle ce que tu as adoré !” Ces journalistes… Après nous avoir descendus en flammes, voilà que ces petits chéris voudraient bouffer du républicain ! Enfin ça fait toujours marrer…

Fruit fly is one of the most studied organisms in biological research, particularly in genetics. They are studied in Paris as well as Stanford, Tokyo, NYC or Beijing.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster
I guess they dont teach this in creationism class in Alaska.
Regards

That particular study is taking place in Montpellier, France. Not Paris.
I guess the moronic Sarah Pallin didn’ want to embarass herself any further by trying to pronounce Montpellier.

http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2008/10/post-3.html?cid=137059013#comments

Hors sujet: En pleine actualité sur la crise financière, Bremner s’est offert un petit trip sur Vichy, comme tout bon francophobe qui se respecte l’a fait avant lui. Comme toujours dans ses billets, Bremner est subtil et son bashing n’est pas évident mais comme toujours avec Bremner il laisse ses habitués se charger de la basse besogne.  Ce qui nous donne une bonne cinquantaine de posts haineux avec les poncifs de cowardice, shame etc…

Bremner travaillant pour Murdoch, il n’y a rien d’anormal à tout cela. Ce qui est plus inquiétant c’est que ce type soit souvent invinté en tant que consultant étranger à la télé française. A gerber….

ps: hi, SuperFrenchie.

Cette obsession américaine de Vichy est assez curieuse si on se rappelle que le gouvernement américain avait d’excellente relation avec le gouvernement de Vichy, qu’il a même sérieusement trainé les pieds pour reconnaître très tardivement celui de la France libre, et qu’il a de surcroît même influencé les décisions du Maréchal Pétain. Visiblement Roosevelt préférait clairement Pétain à de Gaulle.

excuses bien entendu pour la faute d’orthographe “d’excellentes relations”

Just remember, the fight goes on! Freedy will get you in your sleep!

Marc, I think one of my posts has gone to spam hell.

Hello all – Sorry for the lack on interaction from myself lately, been very busy over at EnAmerique.com. André I’ll check !

Awesome animation !

The framerate is too low, and I didn’t colour it — but if I’d beefed up the animation too much, the animated gif would have been too large…

Excellent cartoon by André Wernesson!

The only reason why I tolerate Hitchens today is because he’s endorsed Obama. After the election, I’ll put him back where he belongs: into the thrash can.

I like how Hitchens mentions Poujade.  As if Republicans were any better.

And Poujade ? That’s kind of a weird attack. Who does Hitchens think Poujade was exactly ?
They hate us for Poujade now ? That’s rich.

Sarah Palin faliure : A Canadian comedy duo called The Masked Avengers from CKOI 96.9 FM in Montreal, Quebec pranked Sarah Palin, convincing her (and her team) they were receiving a call from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Wow.  Just, wow.

I am glad to see a US politician finally calling people out on that one.

http://eternalstudent.blogspot.com/2008/10/socialism.html

How can someone who has lived in France for years have the same perspective on France as some ignorant redneck addicted to Fox News ?
Are prejudices so powerful that sometimes you can’t even get over them even if your eyes show you a different picture every day ?

Methinks she’s mildly retarded. In what way is a Parisian banlieue worse than the Baltimore ghetto? I’ve been in both. At night. I choose the banlieue.

^^^^
lol
She’s restricted access to her her blog to guests only.
She couldn’t take all those French people criticising her crap anymore, I guess.
That was a quich admition of defeat followed by a shameful surrender.

Speaking of idiotic American take on France, check out this You Tube video that’s featured in Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/3/21101/1112/469/641260

Ooops, sorry about the embedding mess…

God, that video was stupid.

I could take it as irony if it were only the “democracy” issue; it the “stink” part I can’t stomach.

“McCain concedes defeat, congratulates Obama”

So why don’t they say he SURRENDERED, eh? If i was a French politician, there wouldn’t be a newspaper in all the US that wouldn’t be cracking the surrender joke.

Hey, and soon, when (thank God! It’s a pointless fight anyways…) Obama pulls the troops out of Iraq… Will anybody talk of surrender?

Bah.

Bonjour à toutes et à tous. Je vous ai un peu négligé ces derniers temps au profit d’EnAmerique.com qui a connu des succès sans précédent en matière de lectorat. Je continuerai de travailler davantage sur ce site que sur Miquelon.org – tout dépendant de l’actualité. Avec la fin du régime Bush et son manichéisme politique, la francophobie sera désormais un artefact sociétal au lieu d’être une des principes du pouvoir en place.

Excuse nous pour avoir dévié du topic initial comme ça, Miquelon.

Ce n’est pas un problème à priori à partir du moment ou tout le monde respecte la charte. D’ailleurs votre discussion est tout à fait intéressante, quoi de plus difficile que de tenir un blog de manière objective ?

Egads…

People smelling bad has always been a staple of the truly racist discourse.
So have people being cowardly, backstabbing and lazy.
Why is it that anti-French slurs particularly are so close to anti-semite and/or anti-black slurs ?

Belonging to the mafia for the Italians or being good at math for the Japanese, while offensive, don’t really belong in the same category.
Those are 2 examples people trying to justify the “stinky” ethnic slur often use as an argument.

Reddit has been burning up with other Google Autofills. Some are truly offensive, the issue here is whether Google is helping solve prejudice by having an open discourse – or are they encouraging the perpetuation of such stereotypes ?

Well, try “Why are Americans…” and see what happens… You’ll have millions of hits with “stupid,” “obese” etc. Try “Why are Jews…” then you’ll have “cheap,” “powerful” etc. Even more hits.
There are anti-French sentiments across the world, but we’re certainly not the most hated. Now, we still have to fight against them. For example, we should ask Yahoo to remove its xenophobic questions on Yahoo answers (and not only the ones against the French, all of them).

Link to Bremner’s thread:

http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2008/10/post-3.html

Here’s the Email I sent Superfrenchie on July 24 of this year and that he, for some reason, did not see fit to send you.

****************************************************************************

Cher monsieur SF

Je vous ai envoyé le même message sous l’adresse zitomersky1982@gmail.com mais il est fort possible que ce n’est pas fonctionné. Donc désolé par avance si vous avez déjà reçu ce message.

Je suis Flagg aka la question aka sogeking aka barney etc…et je crois qu’il y a un petit malentendu entre nous.

La question du French-bashing me taraude il est vrai au plus au point. Étant moi même un américanophile convaincu j’ai été particulièrement et suis toujours blessé par ce phénomène qui continue malheureusement de plus belle.

Je suis étudiant en anglais LLCE (Langues littératures et civilisations étrangères) à l’Universitée Montpellier III Paul Valéry et je m’apprête à entamer ma première année de doctorat. Mon mémoire de Master I et II était intitulée “Franco-American Relations Under the Fifth Republic” et  j’y ai consacré un chapitre entier au French-bashing ou j’ai même cité votre blog. Je doute que ça vous intéresse, étant donné les préjugés que vous vous êtes fait sur moi, mais je suis prêt à vous en envoyer une copie.

Car malgré ce que vous pouvez penser j’ai énormément de respect pour votre travail. J’admire votre façon de contrer les “arguments” des French-bashers par des faits. De simple faits historiques ou des études réalisés par des instituts internationaux. Et je n’oublie pas non plus que vous avez dénoncé et fait reculer une entreprise comme Subway.

Il est vrai que j’ai insulté plusieurs de vos membres comme Greg ou Rocket.
Je pense (je peux me tromper) que vous savez vraiment ce que sont des personnes comme Greg mais que pour des raisons qui je dois l’avouer m’échappe encore vous l’avez toujours protégé. Depuis une dizaine d’année je fréquente des blogs ou j’ai été confronté des milliers de fois au French-bashing. J’ai acquis une certaine expérience dans ce domaine, ce qui peut vous paraitre ridicule je le concois, et je ne me trompe plus. Il y a un pattern et des attitudes qui ne trompent pas.
Et puis j’ai d’autres raisons qui me font douter de ce cher Greg.
Ses écrits ressemblent mot à mots à ceux d’un French-basher de l’ancien forum expatica se nommant next qui n’était pas le dernier pour raconter des surrender jokes et autres drôleries. Deuxième coïncidence, Greg est apparu sur votre blog le jour ou j’ai posté un lien vers superfrenchie sur expatica.
Malheureusement; l’ancien forum expatica ayant disparu je n’ai rien pour prouver mes dires. Oui je sais c’est ballo.

Quand au pauvre rocket il continue sa carrière de francophile invétéré sur le blog de Charles Bremner sur timesonline. Un ‘journaliste’ ou ‘biographe de Carla Bruni’ serait peut-etre plus approprié et un journal complètement francophile aussi.
D’ailleurs à ce sujet j’ai posté sur votre blog aujourd’hui sous le pseudo zitomersky un message concernant un article de timesonline commençant par the monkeys have not merely surrendered but are prostrating themselves at the Golden Arch
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article4380820.ece?Submitted=true
et j’ai même rajouté SF reviens. Un de mes nombreux messages idiots et plein de haine dont vous parlez.

Je crois aussi que vous m’accusez d’anti-américanisme parce que j’ai osé dire que j’aimerais voir les +60 000 milles victimes françaises des bombardement alliés mentionnées un peu plus souvent (plus que jamais, ce qui est le cas actuellement, en tout cas serait bien) dans les médias américains. Cela ne fait pas de moins un anti-amércain à moins que le souvenir de ces gens ait moins de valeur que la possibilité de froisser la belle image d’Épinal que certains américains se sont fait de leurs interventions sur le sol français.
Si ce n’est pas ça qui me vaut ces accusations d’anti-américanisme, alors à part mes insultes de French-bashers (et désolé mais je vais continuer à insulter des types qui pensent que ma famille et moi sommes des lâches qui ne se lavent jamais) je ne vois pas sur quoi vous pouvez vous appuyer. Soyez plus spécifiques.

Une troisième chose qui me chiffonne, ce sont l’importance qu’ont pris les apologistes sur votre blog. Je parle de tcheni, mark déposé et ms.miami en particulier. Je n’ai pas d’autres mots pour décrire leur attitude. Il suffit de lire le thread de flocon (qui d’ailleurs ne poste quasiment plus sur votre blog depuis) intitulé faggots. C’est flagrant. Vous êtes une personne très intelligente. Je ne peux pas croire que cette attitude ait pu vous échapper.

Enfin je poste régulièrement sur le blog de miquelon.org sous le pseudo Barney hasn’t left the building. Vous pouvez vous entretenir avec le responsable du site que je crois vous connaissez bien et me dénoncer comme l’abruti anti-américain que vous croyez avoir décelé en moi mais je n’ai jamais eu de problèmes avec miquelon (au contraire) et je n’ai certainement jamais été accusé la bas des choses dont vous m’accusez sur votre blog.

Si je continue souvent à poster sur votre blog même si je sais que je ne serai jamais publié, c’est uniquement dans l’espoir de pouvoir prendre part à ce combat qui vous anime et qui est, je vous l’assure, aussi le mien du fond du cœur.

Mes salutations.

*****************************************************************************

Your replied to this email with insults.

Let the people here have all the facts before they make a judgement.
Je ne me laisserai pas trainé dans la boue sans réagir, monsieur SF.
Tenez-le vous pour dit.
Malheureusement pour vous, vous n’avez pas le pouvoir de me censurer partout.

You’re completely insane, my poor SF.
Be  a good boy and don’t come to this blog threatening me with your made up and paranoid fantasies about me
Death threats ? I’m seriously thinking about suing you Mister SF for slander now.
I have fought against French-bashing tirelessly for years and your personal vendetta against me is both unfair, based on false pretenses and now verging on stalking.

I understand now that most participants on your blog are now American conservatives (un comble sur un blog soit disant dédié à la la lutte contre le French-bashing) and that as a consequence French-bashing has now become a remote priority of yours but that still gives you no right to come on this blog (where French-bashing is still the main issue) where nobody has ever complained about me and threaten to censor me.
Stick to your own blog.

I have looked at this email you sent. Yeah, I’m sorry but not every one is buying your bullshit. And more than 50 % of those posts have not even been written by me. Most of the posts are about me complaining about French-bashers like Greg and other apologists ruining what once was a great blog. They have succeeded by the way. Good job.
And of course I have insulted you. You have treated me worse than shit despite me sending you a lengthy email praising you for your previous work against French-bashing.

As for Bremner’s blog. I have never impersonated you. I have made clear about the get go that I was not in fact the real Superfrenchie.
It was a mere reminder, sir, that once upon  a time instead of asking Bremner to censor my posts (where I was defending the French people against vile anti-French comments) you would have joined in the fight and denounced what is the most disgusting instance of French-bashing I have seen in at least 2 years.

How things change… And the fact that you were alerted about this by rocket, an insane French-basher who is psychologically incapable of telling people one thing he loves about France makes it all the more tragic and undelines how much French-bashing isn’t really high on your list of priorities by now

You will not silence me, sir.  No matter how much abuse I have to endure from you,  you will never silence me.

Not gonna get into a debate with Barney. However, I sent the participants in this discussion an email with some of the examples of the 615 postings currently in my moderation file sent by Barney, as well as a screen shot. Those 615 include a couple of death threats, but do not include another 300 or so that came before I stopped deleting them.
You may all want to check as well this <a href=”http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2008/10/post-3.html”>thread</a> on Charles Bremner’s site where Barney impersonates me with my actual last name to insult other posters.  I have asked Mr. Bremner to remove those postings so you may want to check them quick. Hopefully, they will be removed.
Finally, the email I sent to Hillblogger was returned. Should you want me to send it again, just shoot me an email via my site. To Andre, I sent it to the email you post on sf.com. Marc, thanks for your response.

Concernant les remarques ci-dessus sur un différent entre un participant à ce blogue et le propriétaire d’un autre blogue, je me refuse de prendre parti pour des raisons évidente car nos deux sites ont eu un rôle à jouer auprès de deux communités expatriées virtuelles. Par contre, ce différent était un fait désormais de notoriété publique ici comme ailleurs, je ne compte pas censurer ou modifier vos interventions tant que la charte sera respectée : <em>Comments on this website are the <a href=”../../../../about/terms-of-service/” rel=”nofollow”>responsibility</a> of their authors and are subject to the <a href=”../../../../about/blog-comment-rules/” rel=”nofollow”>Blog Comment Rules</a>.</em>

#28

lol Yeah, I know.
I was surprised too.
His hatred of me runs deeps indeed. And I haven’t posted on his site for weeks.
I guess he misses me.

I’m someone who literally have put hundreds of hours fighting French-bashing on the internet. I’m talking dozens of all nighters arguing with the bashers, writing to editors, phone calls, etc…

Being blacklisted on the biggest anti French-bashing blog sucks (especially for the benefit of French-bashers and other apologists) but I have nothing to prove to that guy.

This is amazing… In a blog against French-bashing, to condone “Barney bashing” in such a fashion; two little ones I stumbled across just now:

“Palin / Barney 2012”

“All you’re doing is giving an erection AND an orgasm to Barney/Flagg/La Question.”

This is pathetic. Can nothing be done to stop this man’s slandering?

Sometimes I have this feeling that SF doesn’t actually read the comments entirely before he makes his counter comments. But I may be wrong.

In any case, I used to post lots in SF but much less lately. Can’t put a finger to it but I think André W may have hit the nail on the head.

We’ll see…

Frankly, if SF were less of a jerk, I’d enjoy his blog much more. The problem is, he’s sometimes so intolerant and narrow-minded when it comes to some issues (such as religion, society, morals, politics… just about anything, in fact)  and he’s surrounded himself with a small court of like-minded people who act as his guard dogs, and whom he treats when they repeat his very thoughts (“you have just said what I would have said; you will therefore be post of the year” “woof! woof!”)

I seldom post there, in fact. I prefer Miquelon.org’s more serious, more impartial approach to things than SF’s partisan approach.