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Friday, March 22, 2002
SENOR FROG Imagine my shock, my horror, at learning that my dear friend and fellow francophobe Ben Kepple is a quarter French. It's not his lineage that disturbs me -- after all, it's the character, not the blood, that makes the man. There are, I am sure, plenty of French people who aren't rude, arrogant libertines, just as there are plenty of Americans who are. So if Ben can trace his family roots back to Huguenots, so be it -- we don't get to choose our ancestors. But at the very least, I would have expected Ben, in his usual curmudgeonly way, to curse his Frenchness and readily denounce it -- perhaps with some well-placed jokes about people who don't shower very often, eat smelly cheese, or smoke in church (that is, on the rare occasions they go to church at all). If nothing else, he could have said that he is only French in the eighteenth-century sense, but he thoroughly denounces the socialist pseudo-sophisticates who occupy most of the nation today. That's the Ben I know and love, the Ben who took great joy in the French jokes we used to tell together, who inspired me to write my classic anti-France column two years ago. What's happened to Ben since then -- and it surely has something to do with his moving to New Hampshire -- is a mystery. Perhaps it's living in such close proximity to the Quebecois that explains his reaction, which can be summed up as: I surrender. It doesn't get any more French than that. No, rather than resisting his Frenchness, Ben intends to embrace it. Like the true Frenchman that he is, he has waved the white flag, and will simply allow his enemies to march right over him. "I shan't ever bash the French again," he says, granting the country that gave the world Vichy and the RU-486 its first victory in two centuries. In fact, Ben now professes to being "a lot more agreeable to the way the French see things," citing his penchant for fine foods. (This from the man who, while in L.A., dined at Jack-in-the-Box at least twice a week and Del Taco once.) Truth be told, I see very little that's French in Ben, save for the fact that he works 35 hours and smokes 16 packs of cigarettes a week. He is a Catholic, a capitalist, a man of principle, and a fan of bad film. The French, on the other hand, are atheists, collectivists, relativists, and, well, fans of bad film. OK, so there are some similarities. But, Ben, I assure you, they are fewer than you think. Leave the dark side, young Kepple, as your ancestors did before you. Don't be tempted by the escargot. The 99-cent taco still beckons ... Wednesday, March 20, 2002
FULL SPEED AHEAD ON NMD This week's FrontPage column looks at the Pentagon test that smashed the missile-defense myth. |