I’ve written about the topic of Public Diplomacy a few times, mostly adversely, as befits any initiative of the Bu$h malAdmnistration.

The very well-respected blog Mountain Runner is one of the leaders of the pack on this topic, and posted this up several days ago. I was lazy took my time about mentioning it.

Another slap in the face of George Bu$h’s elitist contempt for the average American.

French Warship to Deliver 10,000 Books to Disadvantaged U.S. Children

This Christmas, Santa Claus is leaving his reindeer behind and hitching a ride on… a French warship! The Jeanne d’Arc, a helicopter carrier which serves as a training ship for French navy midshipmen, will dock into New York Harbor on Friday December 28 carrying over 10,000 books destined for disadvantaged American students, giving new meaning to the expression “turning swords into ploughshares.” The French books, including dictionaries and textbooks, but also novels and comic books, will be offered to the children participating in New York’s newly launched French-English dual-language programs, as well as to New Orleans schools devastated by hurricane Katrina.

A delegation of students from the Jordan L. Mott Middle School (CIS 22) in the Bronx, one of the three schools that have launched a French-English dual-language program this year (the other two are PS 125 in Harlem and PS 58 in Brooklyn), will be welcomed on-board the ship at 2pm on the 28 th. Following a performance by their school band and a tour of the two French ships (the Jeanne d’Arc will be accompanied by the antisubmarine warfare destroyer Georges Leygues), they will take delivery of the books on behalf of all the schools involved. Sixty of the eighty crates will remain in New York, while the rest will be shipped overland to New Orleans.

At 3pm, the ship’s commander, Captain Hervé Bléjean, will hold a press conference in the presence of Catherine Petillon, the French Embassy’s Attaché for Educational Affairs.
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This unusual delivery was initiated, coordinated and financed by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, but the books themselves have been donated by two French associations, Adiflor and Biblionef. Both specialize in providing French-language books, which are either new or in excellent condition, to needy children throughout the world. The French Embassy’s contribution comes in addition to the $100,000 the French government has recently earmarked to support dual-language programs in New York City public schools.

Students participating in these dual-language programs are being partially immersed in a French-language environment, with half of their classes taking place in French, and half in English. They are expected to become completely bilingual after five years of such bilingual teaching.

The Jeanne d’Arc will remain moored in New York until January 2 at Pier 92 ( West 52th Street). It will be open for visits by New York area children learning French and their parents from December 29-31 (schools with French-language programs will receive the necessary registration information).

Jeanne d’Arc shows its respect to George Bu$h

The Bu$hCo has spent its time, efforts, and our tax money, performing what it interprets as the proper venue for “public diplomacy” – domestic propaganda, with a little bit of spillover around the word. Its record precedes it, and the stench of evil, predatory fascism has spread an oil slick of contempt for all civilized behavior. The nations of the world have quire properly returned that contempt.

Can you remember back to 2002 when the French were roundly criticized by the room-temperature IQs of the never-right for refusing to join the great glorious crusade to get even with someone who had done us no harm? Oh, what great fun we had, laughing about “freedom fries” and “freedom toast” and “Spanish salad dressing! Morons like Patrick McHenry (Fascist-VA) took repeated victory laps before the fawning news cameras for his little bit of cleverness. After we got well-stuck in the tar baby, and France, in its own orgy of bigotry over immigrants, elected its very own Fascist, all was forgiven.

France was the country that came to the aid of a desperate Colonial Army in 1778, and poured money, international assistance and recognition, soldiers and naval support into our struggle. The two countries found themselves allied once again during the war of 1812, and the friendship and mutual admiration society was off and running. It was France, not Great Britain, that honored American Freedom with a magnificent tribute, a gift that has been the lodestone of oppressed peoples around the world.

And now, in the days of George Bu$h’s No Child Left Behind, when only white children attending Christian private schools seem to be entitled to a great education, once again France has stepped forward.

That is what public diplomacy is, my friends.