France surrenders again . . . this time to Apple 418

But it sure is fun. Hell, we Americans aren't the only ones who do it. Jeremy Clarkson of "Top Gear" fame (a British TV show about cars) was driving a new Aston Martin through France a year or so ago, and was stopped by the local Auto Route Gendarmes (for speeding, natch), and he was driving down the road afterwards decrying the French right and left calling them "Cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys."

We Americans do it because France pretends to be our ally and isn't. Some Americans actually hate the French and go baliistic whenever they're mentioned. Me, I've spent too much time in France and I know that most French folk are simply wonderful people. Its the government (and I've said this before) who maintains an anti-American "culture." This was fostered by DeGaulle, who felt that Roosevelt slighted him during WWII by not inviting him to Allied summits at Tehran, Yalta or Malta. Also, hotel managers and waiters in Paris can be insufferable to Americans too, but that atbreastude disappears when one leaves the city. As an anacdote, I was in Nice about a week after 9-11-2001. I went into a small Maritime Museum down by the sea, and I and an American buddy of mine were waiting in the lobby of the museum for my Italian friend, who was supposed to meet us there to show up. A young French guy behind the counter asked in decent English, "You Americans?" We both nodded. He then said something that almost choked me up. Hell, it did choke me up. "God bless America." He said in a whole-hearted and sincere voice. I can make fun of the French (after all, they're my heritage. My last name, Graves, is as Norman as a bottle of calvados), but I can't hold anything against them. They're just nice people like almost everyone else I've encountered in my travels.

-- George Graves The health of our society is a direct result of the men and women we choose to admire.