From France, with love

Posted in France, Things we don't need, War, what is it good for? - 9 February 2010 - 1 comment

M. le President has found a whopping 1,000 jobs for his beleaguered countrymen: building a Mistral-class assault ship for the Russians! Sarko Big Spender just sealed the deal, the largest arms sale ever from a NATO member to Russia. Plus there are hints that the Russians want not just one of these puppies, but four. Whoa, Nellie! At a catalog price of 500 million euros each, that would get you … 2 billion euros! Ka-ching !

But the thing is: There are some people in Georgia who remember a little war with Russia back in August 2008. Having a Mistral-class ship off their Black Sea shores, loaded with dozens of helicopters and tanks and nearly 1,000 men (no, not those French boys who built the thing), somehow doesn’t seem ideal to these nervous-nellie Georgians, all the more that not long ago a Russian commander said that having just one Mistral-class boat in the Black Sea could have reduced the assault landing time in the war from 26 hours to … 40 minutes! Now that’s French-inspired efficiency! After all, the Mistral is the second-largest boat in the French Navy, at 23,700 tons, and particularly well adapted to modern warfare of the swoop-in-and-slaughter variety.

France exports all sorts of big-ticket items, even submarines to Brazil. But why sell warships to the former Soviet Union Russians? Oh, I forgot. Jobs. How selfish of me. And how short-sighted of the Georgians, who should be dancing with joy that up to 4,000 Frenchmen will be working full-time (out of an entire labor force of 28 million) and taking home paychecks each month for a couple of years.

Possibly even more selfish: Russian shipbuilders who would have preferred those jobs. But very glad for the publicity: the Swiss, who doubtless perked up and smiled after one of the export gurus at the French Defense Ministry called the Mistral-class boat “the Swiss Army knife” of naval vessels. Let’s hope it has a corkscrew, to open the many cases of fine Bordeaux that Sarko Big Spender will surely tuck into the belly of the ship to soothe the painful business of invasion.

One Response - Add Yours+

footagehead says:

February 9, 2010 at 13:23

Not to mention the manditory figurehead of Carla for all French built ships. Ka-ching – another 250,000 euros !
I heard you’re going to be the on board Cognac sommelier

Vive la France !

Garden of Demise

"Garden of Demise" is my latest stab at poetry -- some wouldn't even call it that, to be polite -- which tries to get "out there" about France and offer a different view, a sort of "other side" to the place. The collection, at the link below, is set up so you can click through the pages just like a book (making it all realer than real?). So, enjoy, and/or load me up with invective after you've read. What is poetry but a calling out in the dark? Are you out there with me?

Open publication - Free publishing - More poetry

I wrote "Cognac: The Seductive Saga of the World's Most Coveted Spirit" because no one had ever put together a readable, independent history of this marvelous spirit. My connections to Cognac country inspired me to dig deep into an incredible story that ranges from a

n exploration of the ancient bedrock, to the long and tortured development of wine growing in this region of southwest France, to the phylloxera epidemic that nearly wiped out the industry, to the fantastic machinery of modern, foreign-owned Cognac giants spreading their eau-de-vie all around the world. Frank Prial, former wine critic for The New York Times, called "Cognac" an "enthralling volume ... a compelling story, not just about the world's best known eau-de-vie, but about the people who make it and the often violent history of the remarkable but little-known region of France from which it comes."

"Cognac, la saga d'un esprit" est la captivante histoire du cognac qui retrace le développement de la viticulture dans la région depuis le temps des Romains, puis l'avènement de l’eau-de-vie au XVIe siècle, l’expansion de la distillation au cours des années 1600, ainsi que l’âge d’or du cognac au milieu du XIXe siècle. Tout au long du chemin, Kyle Jarrard révèle comment les distillateurs charentais ont surmonté l’agonie du vignoble après la crise du phylloxéra, il dévoile les facettes parfois curieuses de l’occupation allemande et parcourt tous les défis qui ont secoué la région de production, en particulier celui de l’excellente forme de l’après-guerre quand le marché s’est étendu aux quatre coins du monde.

Kyle Jarrard