Les Jones

Quotes > Jacques Chirac's Commanding Leadership in the Face of Riots

“France is declaring a curfew. I guess after 12 days, Chirac finally finished the French edition of ‘My Pet Goat.’”
 -- Room 237

(Minor nitpick: It's not My Pet Goat. It's The Pet Goat. Michael Moore couldn't even get the name of a children's story right.)

Meanwhile, the French may want to revise some of their textbooks:

Summarizing Élèves sous influence, Gabizon explains that textbooks say almost nothing about the role of Islamic fundamentalism or theocracies in their explanation of terrorism. Rather, terrorism is explained as "l'arme des faibles" (the weapon of the weak), used by people who cannot frontally attack the great powers: the United States and Israel. Textbooks criticize the attitude of condemning only terrorists, and not their enemies. Islamism is justified as resistance to western domination and globalization. The Taliban are described merely as favoring a "rigorous" Islamic moral order.

One textbook quotes with approval an article written in the run-up to the Iraq war, arguing for the urgency of containing American power, which imposes its will by force and is contemptuous of allies.