http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027349115Oh my.
DFW (19,691 posts) Mon Nov 16, 2015, 05:48 AM
About 20 minutes out from Paris now. Despite what we were told to expect:
In Köln boarding the Thalys--no cops, no paramilitary, no nothing. Just another normal day at the train station.
In Brussels, the third (and last) stop on the way to Paris, and where usually there are armed security personnel on the track where the Thalys leaves for Paris--again, nobody. Just a few normal passengers boarding, and a few getting off. Maybe they had people down in the Zuidstation checking people before they were allowed up to the track itself, we can't see that from the train platform. No conspicuous security people on the train, either. It's more lightly booked than a usual Monday morning, so maybe some people who were going decided to back out, but nothing out of the ordinary so far.
I'll report again when we are in town.
<<<anxiously awaiting the reports; no point in quoting any of the commenting primitives, as they don't know what the ****'s going on anyway.
DFW (19,691 posts) Mon Nov 16, 2015, 09:33 AM
11. The French government listens to everyone. No secret here. All are "sur écoute."
Their trouble is that, just like the East German regime, if you listen to everyone, you will never have the personnel to evaluate every call, not that the people who organized Friday the 13th communicated their intentions overtly in phone calls to begin with.
DFW (19,691 posts) Mon Nov 16, 2015, 09:34 AM
12. I'm usually here three times a month.
Pretty much routine for me by now.
DFW (19,691 posts) Tue Nov 17, 2015, 02:39 AM
20. Well, the weather sucks and I'm here for work
But I'll try to do that. I sometimes get news from friends who live in Hawaii and think the same thing.
For that matter, we have friends from the midwest in the USA who take their vacations in our house in Germany. We live next to a park with a 1000 year old castle, and are just 10 minutes from the Rhein. Our village has old architecture and open air farmers markets three times a week. They think it's a vacation spot. We think it's the place where we sleep and need to take out the garbage before the house starts to stink. One person's routine is another's dream vacation.
DFW (19,691 posts) Tue Nov 17, 2015, 07:25 AM
34. We don't exactly think of it as a vacation spot
After all, everyone in the neighborhood gets up and goes to work like everywhere else.
But we DO very much appreciate that we can leave the house and be in an immense park/woods within 2 minutes and walk around to our hearts' content, and the castle grounds, open to the public, are always beautiful no matter what time of year. The big plus is that being in a part of Europe that has been settled for over a thousand years, traditions like the open air market three times a week are so well set, that it is a given that there are woods and public places, and yet the center of town, doctors, a hospital, restaurants, etc. all within walking distance, and an intercontinental airport 20 minutes away by taxi. Best yet---starting next April there will finally be nonstop flights from Düsseldorf to Dallas!!!!!!
DFW (19,691 posts) Mon Nov 16, 2015, 09:36 AM
13. That it does.
I wonder what these fanatics thought they would accomplish? That 50 million people in France would all roll over and play dead because of this?
DFW (19,691 posts) Tue Nov 17, 2015, 06:40 AM
29. It's more nuanced than that
Obviously, EVERYone would LIKE to bomb those responsible into oblivion. That's a normal reaction. I think the main difference here is that the Europeans realize that those responsible (and still alive) are not idiots and were well prepared for the reaction of the victim country. They made sure well before the event that they would be out of reach and well hidden by the time their brainwashed minions carried out their bidding. The French would have known that Osama Bin Laden was already in hiding by the time anyone realized he was behind the 9/11 attacks, whereas Cheneybush seemed to neither know nor care.
Just this morning, an Arab restaurant about 100 meters from where I was staying, was raided, closed, and the personnel carted off because the French had traced via AirB&B that the renting of one of the shelters of the attackers had come from there. If you hadn't been in the immediate area, you wouldn't even have known it had happened. It may not get Hollande re-elected, but it makes a lot more sense than invading Syria in the hope of catching someone who already knew last week that he would be a wanted man, and surely took off well before it all went down.
DFW (19,691 posts) Mon Nov 16, 2015, 09:52 AM
16. Well we've been in town for over 3 hours.
Normal activity looks to be somewhere between a quarter and a third of normal. Merchants and restaurants are definitely hurting, and traffic is so light, a commuter could actually make it to his job and back without cursing once. A colleague told me that yesterday, he visited his mom in one part of town, and drove back to his apartment in another part of town. He said that even on a Sunday, it usually took him 40 minutes to drive across town. He said he made it in under ten.
My wife and I ate lunch at one of my favorite places, and got a table immediately (almost impossible at 1 PM). The owners, all Arabs, by the way, recognized me, and sat us right away with big smiles (maybe they just liked my wife, who knows?). I come to this place often enough when I'm in Paris, so they know me anyway, but it's rare that I get to sit down. Usually, it's take-out and eat at the office.
The streets are not deserted, but it's less than 50% of normal--way less. The people you talk to are determined not to let this event bring them down, but they all say they are aware they could be next, and it does weigh on their minds.
Since France already has a heavy surveillance of its citizens, they can't very well enact anything like a "Patriot Act" that would institute more controls than are already in place. So don't count on hearing anything like that. I'm sure there will be more air strikes on IS leaders if they can find them. I'm sure France already knew where many of them hung out, just didn't want to give away that they knew. Hollande obviously decided that he didn't care any more, and cashed in a few chips for a big PR coup. He had better hope he knocked out a bunch of their leadership, because if he didn't, you can bet the next attack on France is already in the planning stages.
Anyway--the bottom line is: subdued but defiant. They WILL get through this.
DFW (19,691 posts) Tue Nov 17, 2015, 06:30 AM
27. French TV was full of round-table commentary last night
There were the usual useless philosophers, but there was one very insightful comment from a French Arab jazz musician, who said that the worst thing the terrorists were doing was taking happiness from the young people who survived. People having a good time at a concert who would maybe never be able to enjoy one again. That stuck a deeper chord with me (and, apparently the audience) than all the talking heads making other observations. The musician said it was the one thing that could not be allowed to happen to the nation. To target young people having a good time at a popular concert, how ugly can you get?
This morning, when I was taking my wife to the train station at 7 AM, the Métro, usually clogged with people going to work, was nearly empty. Apparently, many of the big companies gave their employees a few days off, and it showed. The normal rush hour traffic had completely evaporated, and Paris is, after all, a city of somewhere between 6 and 10 million people, depending on how much of the outlying suburbs you count in the population.
But again, where we expected the train station to look like an army camp, there was no overt sign of anything out of the ordinary. Contrast this with the report of another Parisian friend who lives near a hospital near the Eiffel tower. He said around 10 PM Friday night through to 4 AM, there were nonstop sirens, the street closed off to all but police cars and ambulances bringing in wounded. Saturday, by contrast, he said the whole city was deserted, looked like a ghost town. Only yesterday, when my wife and I arrived, were people going back to work, and even then just a fraction of what was normal. Now, at half past noon, I am in the IIième, and there is maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the traffic, both auto and pedestrian, that one usually sees at this hour. It's a city trying to recover, but still in shock.
Quoting Walter Cronkite, "that's the way it is, Tuesday, November 17, 2015....."
