Column from La Depeche

I am posting this here, although I have put it on my Facebook page, because I know that there are folks who do not belong to the Facebook community.  This was in yesterday's paper--can I tell you what a delight it is to have a Sunday paper?-- and it brought me to tears.  Never do I want to hear people tell me about the snobbish French who hate America.

 I am behind in getting my French grammar lessons done--so what's new.  I feel like I am behind in everything.  But this was good practice for me to translate Claude Marti's column.  Sorry, no photos.  Maybe tomorrow.

The word Salut, in French, means hello, but most people use it to say,  "Goodbye."

Salut to you, Mr. Obama

Like the majority of citizens of the planet, I was very happy on the evening of your first election, Mr. Obama! Before the image of the brand new America that you would incarnate, I decided to drive back the shadows of the past:  the cotton fields with their slaves, the brutal conquest of the West,  the breaking of 400 treaties signed with the Indian nations, the predatory war against Mexico to grab Texas, Arizona and California, the assassination of Sacco and Vanzetti, the coup in Santiago and the death of Salvador Allende, the atrocious war in Vietnam, and the invasion of Iraq triggered by a lie. 

With you, Mr. Obama, it was the other As , of the European age of Enlightenment, Mr. Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, who wrote in 1776, and for the first time in the history of the world: “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 

The other America.  That of Abraham Lincoln, who, in 1862, abolished slavery and paid the great price of his own life; that of the physicist Gell-Mann, the first to define “the strangeness of elementary particles.”  The other America,  That which has the tapestry of Neil Armstrong and Eldwin Aldrin of the Apollo 11 mission,; that of the writers Norman Mailer, George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, John Fante and the great Ray Bradbury of The Martian Chronicles.  That of Carnegie Hall and country music, of Pat Metheny, of Miles Davis, of Sidney Bechet, of Meryl Streep and of Kevin Costner, who dances with wolves. 

Salut, then, Mr. Obama.  You could not have done all that you dreamed of for America.  Will she keep at least part of this light that came into the White House with you?