Seattle is closer to France than to Texas | David Horsey

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Seattle is closer to France than to Texas

By DAVID HORSEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL CARTOONIST


Thibault Mear's colorful drawing reflects
what many French children picture when
they think of America: fast food and fat
people.


French schoolchildren know the Statue of
Liberty was a gift from France. Romain
Gueraud's drawing shows what he imagines
is Lady Liberty's current state.

The typical citizen of Seattle would feel more at home, ideologically speaking, in Paris than in Dallas. Yet, even a liberal Seattleite would be shocked by the images of America drawn by French schoolchildren.

In January, a cartoon festival was held in the town of Carquefou, just outside of Nantes in the northwest corner of France. Students of all ages competed in a contest to illustrate their vision of the United States. They drew obese Americans devouring Coca-Cola and McDonald's hamburgers. They drew the Statue of Liberty with fangs or in chains or being run over by a wicked Uncle Sam on a motorcycle. And they drew George W. Bush: Bush riding a tank to war; Bush taking over the world; Bush as a liar; Bush as a monster.

There were a few lighthearted drawings of Hollywood and Las Vegas and fast food (hamburgers, always hamburgers) but, predominantly, from ages 8 to 18, the French students sketched images of a fierce and fearsome country. One cartoon summed up American villainy with a series of three hands. The first was a fist representing Stalin's Russia. The second was a saluting palm, representing Hitler's Germany. The third was another fist clutching a cross, representing Bush's America.

More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

the French call us "balloon people".
My sons live in Seattle, all of them, and yet Im in Michigan..even the people in Seattle cannot fathom what its like living in a small town in Michigan when my sons tell them about it, but I think the French kids cartoon put it very succinctly. I have walked into many a 5 dollar all you can eat buffet and thats the sad part of it here in the Midwest..its cheap, bad food, and obesity is a form of starvation, actually..you buy cheap crap to fill your stomach, and it is crap...processed crap that leads to fat and more fat thats put on a persons body...but many people, out of work, and scrounging for pennies to eat, cant afford anything else ...thats the sad part of it..in my area of the country, theres no jobs, people make do on what little they have, and sushi is for the extremely wealthy if it exists at all here..theres a fast food restaurant on every corner, no open markets such as the ones found in France or Seattle, no choices that arent costly..
this is the class war..the wealthy eat well, the poor are left to eat crap with no choices..
I find it sad and disheartening, and I think someone needs to tell the kids who paint the cartoons about the poverty that leads to the choices some US citizens are forced to make.
In the meantime, I dont blame people on either side..its just that the issue is a lot more complicated then people want to focus on.

guess where the food stamp money goes to feed a family? Processed, high-carb food causes insulin resistance, weight gain and diabetes.

When I lived in France, the supermarket carried processed food, but many people frequented the local outdoor markets where you could buy locally produced cheese, meat, and produce. Most small-farmed French food does not have additives or hormones. That has a lot to do with why you see the French eat lots of fat but they don't seem to gain weight.

as a cashier in the last grocery store here in town before walmart took over and we had to close..people getting by on pennies, and buying cheap high processed crap
Trying to scrounge daily, bringing back bottles and cans just to get a little monies to get by, heating with wood, freezing to death in the winter, old men and women scrounging for bottles and cans out of the garbage in town to recycle for pennies, people buying cat food and dog food to eat, ramen noodles for pennies, 5 cheeseburgers for 2 dollars, and people losing their teeth, health, and their children looking pale and underfed and dirty because its too hard to keep up all day, no winter coats, no gloves, people looking like they are half starved, and the malnutrition of obesity , because in many cases thats what causes it, malnutrition of a person on a high processed diet of carbs, their bodies full of junk that passes for food..
Its a class war of epic proportions.