QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:
● Shot: Will we always have Paris?
Two worlds met in Paris last week. Thanks to the presence of Art Basel, some of the world’s most valuable art that wasn’t already in the city was shipped there. It arrived just in time for Paris to go up in flames. Most of the art fair went ahead as planned at the Grand Palais, but the final weekend was canceled.
Parisian friends and those who were visiting the city described scenes of Dada-esque absurdity. They navigated streets filled with burning bins and rioting “youths” in balaclavas, before slipping into champagne receptions. Some who attempted to get out of the city spoke of Mogadishu-like scenes at Gare du Nord, where the country’s newest net-contributors were busily assaulting any available police and stealing the luggage of any tourist they could find.
—Douglas Murray, The Spectator, yesterday.
● Chaser: It’s the Demography, Stupid.
Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There’ll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands–probably–just as in Istanbul there’s still a building called St. Sophia’s Cathedral. But it’s not a cathedral; it’s merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.
—Mark Steyn, The Wall Street Journal, January 4th, 2006.