Things France Does Better Than The US

Things France Does Better Than Th…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Frenchmeals #bfdc-freelance #foodfb #francais #france #francethings #franceversusUS #freelance-bfdc #freelance-lifestyle #French #FrenchCulture #frenchfood #frenchmeals #frenchthings #frenchwine #livinginfrance #meals #paris #paristhings #sponcon-calling-all-travel-lovers #travel #travelinspiration #usculture #Wine
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2452212/things-france-does-better-than-the-us/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weapon-baby-names-trend_l_66fc3db0e4b0d70dca9f58f9

Yuk! Easy to guess how these people vote, what sort of vehicle they drive or aspire to drive, and so on...

#Names #Onomastics #WeaponNames #USCulture #Conservatism

Losing a loved one in the United States
It's commonly known that every aspect of the funeral industry in the US is highly expensive. A couple of positives I've learned:

1. All veterans are entitled to many free benefits if buried at a "national cemetery" (they are scattered all over).

2. Hospice is one of the best things in the US. Everything is free, including a year of bereavement counseling. I just received the kindest phone message informing me of that.

#mourning #death #USculture

I really appreciated this #KnittingCultLady video about Millennials who grew up religious and what we're doing now.

https://youtu.be/RMqs-hNnB44?si=f5-7Ujtd0nRQzJwG

My own experience is similar. James Dobson was on the radio in my childhood home. Most of the people I was friends with through college did not deprogram as of when we lost touch. Lots of people stay in that world and don't question it.

#religion #evangelicals #USculture #rightwing #deprogramming

In September, Masha Hamilton and her son, Cheney Orr, took a nearly-2,000-mile road trip along Interstate 95 — to connect with each other, and America. The pair chronicled their experiences for this Atavist longread. "The America I’ve met on the road is also far more recognizable, resilient, and generous than the noise of now would have us think," she concludes. "Online, we’re a nation of factions. In parking lots and at picnic tables, we’re a nation of encounters," writes Hamilton.

https://flip.it/NEHnac

#USA #America #Longreads #Essays #USPolitics #USCulture

Overheard in Texas:

At a bus stop: "Hispanic? That's amazing, you don't look at all Hispanic!"

In a library: "So I told them, we're not like that, we're not white, we're Mexican."

I've lived in Texas for years, but I still find ethnicity here hard to understand.

#USCulture #Texas #Ethnicity #Hispanics #LatinAmerican #MexicanAmerican #Mexican #Latino #Tejano

I recently read a couple of Elmore Leonard crime novels -- "Riding the Rap" and "Out of Sight".

I don't read that much contemporary fiction, nor do I have a deep background in crime fiction as a genre, so you'll have to make do with the remarks of a relatively ill informed reader.

I can see why Leonard is a both popular and respected writer. He knows how to structure a gripping narrative, and his dialogue rings true.

On a more critical note, I can imagine these two novels providing future students of US culture with material for a study of the anxieties and aspirations of middle class white men in an America seemingly riven with disorder.

In "Riding the Rap", Leonard's background as a writer of westerns comes across; the US marshal protagonist brings order to a lawless frontier by acting on his own initiative rather than a mere agent of a federal bureaucracy. Here though, the frontier is no longer in the west, but in Florida, and the threatening nonwhite others are no longer American Indians but a Puerto Rican hitman and a Black Bahamian immigrant who, as part of his assimilation to Black America, adopted an Islamic name.

Leonard's depiction of racial attitudes intersects with his representation of socioeconomic class distinctions. The two nonwhite criminals act for a while as henchmen to a drink and drug addled wealthy white playboy, whose kidnapping plan drives the plot forward. His exploitation of his senile mother's wealth and the revelation of her ugly racist attitudes point to the class and status tensions that exist between a decadent white upper class and the Appalachian coalmining heritage of the US marshal protagonist.

These racial and white populist themes recur in "Out of Sight", where middle aged, middle class, white bank robbers are contrasted with African American home invaders, the latter being characterized by their cruelty, treachery, idleness, lust, and greed.

In both novels the middle aged male protagonist beds a much younger female character; some readers might find these glimpses of the fantasy life of ageing men unintentionally ludicrous.

I think I'll reserve final judgment on Leonard until I've read another of his books. "Swag" is supposed to be good, but neither my local second bookstore nor my libraries have it available at the moment, and I don't want to pay full price for it.

#Books #ElmoreLeonard #USLiterature #CrimeFiction #RidingTheRap #OutOfSight #Race #Racism #Populism #USCulture

When U.S. President Trump visited the the U.K., he wanted to give King Charles a sword from the Dwight D Eisenhower Presidential Library. The director, Todd Arrington, refused because the artifact had been accepted as a donation and therefore belongs to the American people. Now he's been forced to resign — and doesn't quite understand why. Here's more from @CBSNews.

https://flip.it/S0HaFa

#USPolitics #USHistory #USCulture #TrumpAdministration

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/is-mid-20th-century-american-culture

Of all the authors mentioned here, the only one I would like to revisit is John Updike; I want to read the whole Rabbit series from end to end for social history purposes.

I'd rather be constipated for a week than have to read any more by the favourite novelist of the neoconservatives, Saul Bellow.

The remarks about the absence of mid-century American opera from the current repertory interested me; is this in part a consequence of new /contemporary music being programmed in the USA as "American music" in the hope of not antagonizing older, antimodernist concert season subscribers ?

As for the absence of "Citizen Kane" from Netflix, what did the author expect? Netflix is awful , being difficult to search, unstable in its offerings , and a commercial enterprise with little respect for film as art and none whatsoever for film history.

#USCulture