I woke up realizing that telling the whole history of the December 7 Charles de Gaulle Etoile Police Battle on Twitter -- 240 words at a time -- was stupid. Twitter isn't meant for long-form journalism. I have a blog just for this purpose.
And I'm also writing a book. I could make this into another chapter. (For those of you wondering where that book is: Everytime I think it's done another chapter runs past me screaming,
"I am an important social phenomenon!" "
"Pay attention to me, me, me!"
So I'll re-post those tweets and finish it there.
For those of you who couldn't sleep last night because you didn't know how it ended, I'll post the link here.
"Pay attention to me, me, me!"
So I'll re-post those tweets and finish it there.
For those of you who couldn't sleep last night because you didn't know how it ended, I'll post the link here.
You'll see that the more I asked myself, "How the hell did *that* happen," the more I changed my mind--from thinking, "Wow, the cops screwed this up," to thinking,
Wow. I cannot believe they asked the cops to do that.
You can't organize a police force like that, slash the budget, expect them to do all of the jobs the police here are asked to do, and then complain that they can't keep the peace.
You can't organize a police force like that, slash the budget, expect them to do all of the jobs the police here are asked to do, and then complain that they can't keep the peace.
Or you can, but then you're some kind of whinger, or pathological French-cop hater, or you don't know shit about keeping the peace.
Meanwhile, if you haven't yet read it, here's the short article I wrote after spending most of last week asking, "How the hell did *that* happen?" city-journal.org/police-handlin… The long version will be on my blog soon.
