HOW SACRED IS CIVIL MARRIAGE?

When it comes to heterosexuals, no standard is low enough. But gay citizens still cannot apply.

THOSE SINGING EGGPLANTS: There is an explanation. Which kind of spoils it for me.

BERSERKELY: No, this isn’t Monty Python. A soccer match between the Anarchists and the Communists just took place. I have no idea how the anarchists kept it up for an hour and a half. Why didn’t they just destroy the ball?

FROM THE FRENCH: An email from my France correspondent, catching me up on the latest grotesqueries from perfidious Paris:

An article in this week’s L’Express pretty much lays bare France’s diplomatic aim on the US-Iraq-UN front, namely, to revamp the UN as a useful weapon against the US.-This poisonous article has to be read to be believed, but basically the theme is that Bush’s offer to get the UN involved again in Iraq is a “poisoned present” that only a “dupe” would accept, but that nonetheless the demarche offers a not-to-be-missed opportunity to restore both “credibility” and “diplomatic survival” to the UN and its Security Council, which alone can hope to control the “all powerful” US.-Anyway, here’s the last paragraph: “In the name of their credibility, and of their diplomatic survival, the UN and its Security Council can’t afford to miss the opportunity to bring back the all-powerful America into the fold and to retake some semblance of initiative on the critically important Iraq dossier.-But it remains to measure their hypothetical power, once more, by the measuring stick of concessions from Washington.” I reread the article, you know, looking for something about doing good work amongst people who could sorely use some, and found nothing.-And there’s nothing about bringing democracy to the Middle East either.-It’s all about bringing the US to heel.

And what else do the French care about?