I used to have a great time living in France in the early 90s. The French are pretty much like people everywhere: lots of good ones, a few bad ones. Et, Il aide certainement à parler la langue bien. And of course they believe themselves superior to everyone else. Is that not a pretty normal human trait? So is honesty, when you expect it of people. I recall attending a dinner party during the initial month of the 1991 Gulf War. This was in company with fellow naval officers, except they were with the French Navy and I was a US Navy officer on exchange. I recall them talking about our round-the-clock bombing that had been going on for a couple of weeks by that time. Someone asked, "You can't keep that up for very much longer, can you?" I just looked at them. (Recall, this was during the waning days of the Cold War, when we had stockpiles sufficient to go to war with the Soviet Union). Finally, a note of pure honesty and dropping of all pretense: "You live here, and so you know there are always programs, news reports, articles in the magazines and newspapers about how...