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In This Issue

• Positively Sino-Soidal
• AIDS, SARS, Avian Flu... Bean Curd?
• A Paradoxical Paroxysm of Pancakes
• Letters to the Editor
• International Yuks
• Après Moi, Le Corbusier
• Get a Free Bobblehead, for a Limited Time Only!
• The Sweet, Sensual Twang of Success
• Shut Up, Shut Up.
• To Sachs With Love
• Santa's Grottos Steal X-Mas
• Broad Goes Abroad to Paris
• A Lesson on Father Christmas
• Hugo Chavez in 2008: He’ll Crush Us Like Grapes!
• Martha’s Civil Unrest Tips
• Politics: Opiate of the Asses
• A Plan to Unite Humanity Without Using Glue
• Mad Cow: All the Cool Kids Are Contracting It
• Things Around the World on Which to Pee
• Trapped in the Closet (Deleted Scene)
• Mario Around the World!
• THEY WATCH
• The Staff of 21.4

Ria Mar-Fan

The Fed engages in yet more awful stereotyping

Helen Buyniski

As you may or may not know, there have been violent riots for the past three weeks in the suburbs of Paris. That's right, French people rioting. I know, that sounds like an oxymoron. French people don't riot! Or, at least, when they do riot, they tend to chop women's heads off over pastry-related matters. "Let them eat cake" was derogatory enough in French culture to incite a revolution; their greatest act of patriotism was inspired by dessert. In fact, in France, the position you take when it comes to brioches/galletes/pastries can signify strength, passion, and above all, love for country. In America, taking a similar position just makes you gay. In fact, no non-gay Americans even know what a brioche is. This is the country we are dealing with. La République Française. My question, then: what the fuck is a French riot?

    The French are known for many things; art, food, literature, surrender, but certainly not riots. Can you honestly imagine Picasso or Camus rioting? "Je deteste le gouvernement! I must go away to my home, make love to my ugly wife Babette, and write nihilist poetry. Zat will show zoes gouvernment pigs." Unless the police graduated from a liberal-arts college with a B.A. in existential philosophy, a nihilist poem will never hurt as much as bashing them over the head with a rock. You're probably saying, "But the French are such a passionate people!" That is true, but only up to a point. Look, if starting a good riot entailed simply seducing a naïve 14-year old American girl, nailing her, and making a film about it, there would be riots in France all the time. What I am saying is that the French have passion for many things: music, sex, uh ... red balloons, but mainly sex, a passion that doesn't carry over so well into rioting. When you riot, you flip cars, burn businesses, and scare the shit out of whitey. Riots don't work if the only cars you can flip are those tiny, little gay smart cars you see all over Europe. And if you burn down Louis Vuitton and Cartier, you're not gonna scare the shit out of whitey, whitey doesn't shop there. You're only going to end up hurting rich black people if you burn down Louis Vuitton. Oh, and Chinese tourists. My suggestion? Stop rioting, pull up a seat, my angry French brothers, mes frères français fâchés, and see how real people riot.

    Everyone knows that there are only two good types of riots. The first is a good, old-fashioned English soccer riot. I know, the English are almost as bad as the French. England is a nation that took one of its best athletes, David Beckham, gelled his hair, plucked his eyebrows and turned him into an international symbol of metrosexuality. Imagine if we in America did that to, say, the Baltimore Ravens' Ray Lewis. No one in America would ever attempt to highlight Ray Lewis' hair or get him to marry an emaciated white woman, because they would be shot. But in England, it's their freakin' national pastime. Well, despite all of England's obvious flaws, they do know how to riot. The English soccer riot is the paragon, the highest example of what I like to classify as alcohol-fueled riots. You get a bunch of dirty coal miners into a stadium, get them drunk, make them watch a sport that can't hold their attention, drunk or not, and watch the fists fly.

    You think the English have bad teeth because of poor orthodontic standards across the pond? Hell no. England collectively lost its teeth during the violent soccer riots that occurred over Leeds' overtime victory against Manchester United for the English Premier League Cup. As I understand it, the riot started when Mary Poppins, a Leeds fan, grabbed Margaret Thatcher, a Manchester fan, by the wig and punched that bitch in the face. Then Churchill stood up, called Poppins a "bloody twat," leapt on her back and the entire nation broke out into soccer riots. The nation was engulfed in violence and rapes and murders for a week and a half, taking only the occasional break to drink some tea, watch some dry sitcoms, and ask, "What's to be done with these colonies?"

 The other type of riot that the French might try emulating is race-fueled riots, the kind you see on a typical day in south L.A. Now those are some good riots. Violence, burning cars, and most importantly, they scare the shit out of white people. In fact, race riots are so prevalent in L.A. that they have their own lane on the highway. L.A. is the perfect combination of racial tensions, heat, ineffective police force, and that general malaise that permeates the smog of southern California and makes people dumber.

    You can't have an intellectually provocative riot; that's why riots don't work in France.  And the British show us that you don't have to be black or Hispanic or Asian or whatever to riot, because with the right mixture of alcohol, idiocy, and pre-existing dental conditions, white people can riot too. Follow these shining examples, and soon you'll see French people rioting the right way. Hey, maybe even wimpier countries like Liechtenstein and Denmark will one day start rioting like pros too.

    What? The riots are being perpetrated by disaffected North African, Muslim youths who have been ghetto-ized and are rebelling against an oppressive state? Oh well, my point still stands; France is gay and gay people can't riot. But they can throw some pretty fabulous parades! Maybe next time the French are angry they will put a couple drag queens and bondage freaks on some floats and march through Paris. Vive la révolution! Vive la France!