Michele Roohani

Coming back from Europe, reality hit me with the softness of barbed wire! The U.S. is paralyzed with fear and uncertainty and the world is watching in horror the rapid meltdown of greedy and extreme American Capitalism—of the unregulated kind thanks to Reagan.

These are hard times and people can’t “go to the mall” anymore like their president suggested a few years back but Sarah Palin sure did with her shopping tag of $150,000—read Dowd’s interesting column here. Remember Obama’s tattered shoes?

Watch out  for the trick…People have been affected by the real estate massacre and there is blood on the streets everywhere— massive layoffs have not started yet. This cartoon of Ed Stein is funny and sad at the same time:

I don’t know about you but I prefer my autumn in its original colors of yellow/orange and the Halloween sweet and funny. If you miss my jack-o-lanterns click on my last year’s Halloween post.

I couldn’t resist including my picture of this classic Morgan—it has the perfect colors.

Exploration of the unknown requires tolerating uncertainty. I hope that the elections bring some degree of order and certitude; chaos scares the hell out of me.

These are scary times and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself into making a light post about the beauties of the old world…

I watched the debates in awe, witnessed the bickering over the financial bailout with disbelief and then Paul Newman died and I had the Paris Blues… Watch this magnificent trailer of Newman and Sidney Poitier in Paris of the 60’s.

Did anybody looked cooler than this guy? Beautiful man with a more beautiful heart. Smoking killed him.

Paris remains splendid in spite of all the bad news I have been getting from home—a walk through Place des Vosges at night washed away some of that.

The infernal crowds finally went home and left Isle Saint Louis in peace:

The best remedy— albeit temporary —for the blues is a visit to the Patisserie. Just looking at them can send you to the hospital…

I am not a chocolate or a strawberry person but I would kill for a Religieuse Café!

Window watching is a pleasure in this “walking city”,

Nobody has the money to buy any of these overpriced un-necessities anymore.

United States is trying to absolve itself from its sins and Europe will follow…

This one reminds me of the “poustines” we were wearing as kids back home:

Beautiful Mansard roofs are breathtaking:

but not enough to make me forget this:

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. Einstein