Harry Potter 4 -- The Goblet of Fire

[Fellfrosch]

It started from a misunderstanding about the death of two teenage immigrants, but apparently, it's been kept going due to decades of pent-up problems and unrest.

[Tage]

Actually that's not a very good reason to make fun of the French, because there's real damage being done over there. Besides, it's not the French rioting, as Fell pointed out, it's immigrants. But the damage is being done to French people, and despite my light-hearted disdain of them, they don't really deserve to have their homes, cars, and businesses torched.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

if you really want to go into it...

don't take this as advocating the French should actually be damaged this way, because I don't. I just want to look at hte flip side of hte coin:

It's the French and their blatant, and often hostile, disdain for anyone not natural-born French that caused that tension. They have always been very extreme in their anti-immigration stance (speaking generally, and not specifically), even when they were happily colonizing half of northern Africa. Why the immigrants want to move there, I don't know, but the French people were not innocent in the creation of the environment where this takes place.

What's sad is that the end result will be even more distrust and dislike for foreigners and a probable crackdown on immigration and immigrants.

But it's not my place.

[42]

It is simply best to say that France has a lot of problems, like everyone else, despite their best efforts to ignore and cover-up anything that makes them look bad.

My experiences in Europe is that there has been some long running tension between "native" Europeans and immigrants. In some european coutries there are actually more immigrants than natives. Particularly since Europeans have been depopulating themselves for decades.

[The Jade Knight]

Feelings about Muslims (Arabs, especially, but also Africans) in France are something akin to feelings about Mexicans in the border states in America.  Le Front National, one of the most powerful parties in France, virtually has racism on its platform ("La France pour les français!")

In addition, French secularisation laws have alienated many French Muslims - for example, women are not allowed to wear head coverings in school because it is considered "religious clothing", which is disallowed in French public institutions.


However, the French are still our brothers, and we should keep them in our prayers - many of them, I'm sure, are very good people at heart.


Here's a link to an article on the matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France

[The Jade Knight]

Back on topic:

Ari and I are seeing HP4 in an IMAX theatre Friday Afternoon.  We got our tickets tonight.  We decided the 3:15 showing went better with our schedule (ie, show up early and go out to dinner sometime before or after), though we could have done 6:50 (only 3 tickets left).  We're planning on going to the theatre at about noon and doing homework, etc., and then going out to dinner after the film.

[MsFish]

I want to see it!

Unfortunately I'm broke.  Maybe I'll go see it over Christmas when I'm at home.

[stacer]

Same here, MsFish. But I might have some extra money because I won't be going home for Christmas. But I might try and go down for my friend's wedding in San Diego instead, if gas is cheap enough. I have that whole week off between Christmas and New Year's, so I need to do something fun! Either that or I should sequester myself and write while I have the time to concentrate on one thing.

[cyan10101]

what the?!  this whole page is not about the movie it seems.  so weird.

[stacer]

It happens a lot here.

[Chimera]

Same here, MsFish. But I might have some extra money because I won't be going home for Christmas. But I might try and go down for my friend's wedding in San Diego instead, if gas is cheap enough. I have that whole week off between Christmas and New Year's, so I need to do something fun!

You can visit me in Valencia on the way and we can go to Magic Mountain.  

I don't know how you feel about theme parks, though. And it definitely wouldn't be saving money.

[The Jade Knight]

Well, we can't really afford it, but we're going anyway - movie theatres here in Montreal are very expensive, and there's no matinée.

On the up side, seeing Harry Potter in an IMAX should be pretty cool.

[cyan10101]

can't wait for it.  The actor who plays harry potter was on martha stewarts talk show today.  I don't watch that show or anything, just flipping channels and saw him so stopped for a few minutes.  He was talking about his underwater work he was doing on the movie.  He does all his own stunts! hehe, just thought that was funny.

[Fellfrosch]

Sure you don't. We can smell lies, you know. They smell like...victory.

[42]

I'm not surprised that they have Daniel Radcliff performing is own stunts. He is a child actor after all, and those aren't too expensive to replace.