Categories: Awesome French GuysDefining MomentsLa Vie Velominatus

La Solidarité

We'll always have Paris.

We will always have strength, we will always have Paris, and we will always have the Tour de France racing to the finish on the Champs Élysée in July.

Our thoughts are with the victims and people of Paris.

Vive la France.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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chuckp says:

Nov 17 2015 at 10:57 am

I know not everyone will agree, but my thoughts about this:

http://www.livefreeblog.com/je_suis_paris_solidarityavecfrance

And before you pile on, at least know that this kind of stuff is "in my lane":

https://www.ouramericainitiative.com/defense-and-foreign-policy.html

Vive la France! Je suis Paris #solidarityavecfrance
Oli says:

Nov 17 2015 at 1:43 pm

@chuckp

Well said.
Ccos says:

Nov 17 2015 at 2:15 pm

@Oli

Banning refugees/closing borders is exactly the sort of knee-jerk xenophobic reaction that ISIS want to foment. Don’t fall into their trap by blaming the people fleeing massive violence because one or two of terrorists used them as cover.

We won’t sort out terrorism by treating people worse, that’s for damn sure.

Agreed, and runs the risk of using Arnaud Amalric's supposed logic of (paraphrasing here) "kill them all, let God sort them out."
chuckp says:

Nov 18 2015 at 5:30 am

@Oli

@chuckp

Well said.

Thank you. Appreciate the kind words. Please feel free to share. Cheers!
Michael says:

Nov 19 2015 at 10:33 am

@piwakawaka

@DCR12

@piwakawaka

I understand the intent, and appreciate that what you are saying should be the way of things. If only…!..….if only we could all put down our weapons and pick up a bike !

I’m gonna continue with the cartoons, the absurdity of what we are fighting in the name of.

and what we are fighting for, the arms industry, the infrastructure industry, financial industry, the oil industry and the motherfuckers that own those companies…

My religion is the Bike, no go out and ride!

France was tragic, and it can happen anywhere, even here in the good old USA.
Mikael Liddy says:

Nov 20 2015 at 3:55 am

For the conspiratists, here's why the war on ISIS will be a long one...http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/16/investing/paris-attacks-defense-stocks-isis/index.html
wilburrox says:

Nov 20 2015 at 10:03 am

@chuckp

I know not everyone will agree, but my thoughts about this:

http://www.livefreeblog.com/je_suis_paris_solidarityavecfrance

And before you pile on, at least know that this kind of stuff is “in my lane”:

https://www.ouramericainitiative.com/defense-and-foreign-policy.html

Vive la France! Je suis Paris #solidarityavecfrance

I respect your opinion. And I wish I could agree. After all, why should we care about Syria and what happens there? And to be pragmatic about it, I read that $ expense was to tune of $11 million per day for current US military activity. Regret this perspective might be oversimplifying the matter however. Woven in to the fabric of western civilization is the idea that life is precious. And some empathy for those less fortunate. And just something about Yazidis, an ancient society most of us would others never have heard of, being enslaved and massacred strikes a chord with free people. Maybe not communists or Sunni's. But yes, free people in western civilization. Then we get to the grisly circumstances surrounding unfortunate aid workers being publicly executed. I guess people feel compelled to act. Especially free people fortunate to be enjoying the blessings of life. Rightly so. And reality is, it was a taliban controlled Afghanistan that provided safe haven for Al Quaida to hatch their plans and any idea that might not happened in a caliphate of sociopaths? Speaking of sociopaths, the sociopaths that targeted Parisians and claimed was for Syria... any chance they'd just have hijacked any other cause, if not Syria, for them to go about their murderous tendencies? In other words, their wires in their heads are so crossed they'd hijack any old cause to murder random people because that's what sociopaths do? It's all around bad stuff that needs to be addressed. Just saying f*** it and leaving it alone... well, I suppose the Chinese can do that. But not free people in western civilization.
Oli says:

Nov 20 2015 at 3:42 pm

But the point is why we get involved and how - unilateral bombings on poorly defined targets for political reasons is a lot different from multi-lateral action targeted at actually putting a stop to all the violence. Too often we've seen inactivity where action should follow and action where letting none should occur.

If you think the Syrian situation is as simple as "free people" helping out of the goodness of our charitable hearts then you're sorely deluded...