Read this disclaimer first!!
Friday, Mar. 07, 2003 - 2:10 p.m.
Le Chevalier de Saint-George

Now that I have a SuperGold account, I can now include all the deleted scenes and entries from my purging last month, and then put passwords on them. I'll be back up near 300 entries again.

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Saab's parents live in Egypt. One of the groups they associate with is a group of ex-pat Canadians. His mother is in charge of a fundraiser organized by this group to raise money for breast cancer research. She says that 10% of Egyptian women get or die from breast cancer in their lifetime. One in ten!! That's a lot of women.

The big event was to take place Friday, March 28. It has been postponed indefinitely. Why? Because of the threat of war in Iraq.

"Wait, wait...WHAT?" he said.

"We have to be sensitive to those involved in the war..."

"You mean the Iraqis? The AMERICANS?? What does some idiot from across an ocean trying to bomb another idiot in some other country have to do with raising money for breast cancer research in Egypt??"

She couldn't answer.

When he told me, I couldn't answer, either. In fact, it seems pretty damn silly to me. Is everyone supposed to put their lives on hold now because of this war that may not even happen?

So instead of watching The Dubya Show, we ended up watching a short documentary on the Chevalier de Saint-George. I know it looks as though I misspelled his name (because 'George' is spelled Georges in French), but I didn't. Amazing guy. Tragic, too. He was mulatto. His mother a slave, his father a plantation owner. Because of his colour, he could never fully take advantage of his birthright, that is, he could never assume the rights and responsibilities of being a French nobleman. Yet, he still received training in fencing and the violin. His talent was immense. If he were born 220 years later, he'd be better than Michael Jordan, Nat "King" Cole and Gregory Charles all rolled into one. They called him the black Mozart.

In 1775, Louis XVI named him Director of the Paris Opera, probably the highest appointment an artist could ever get. But the leading sopranos, very influential women wrote a letter to Marie-Antoinette stating "that their honour and the delicacy of their conscience made it impossible for them to be subjected to the orders of a mulatto". The King withdrew the appointment. The documentary stated that not only did he withdraw, but the position was never filled. There was no one else qualified for the position. They would rather leave it vacant than appoint a mulatto, even one as talented as him.

There are many other triumphs and tragedies, including the death of his supposed son by a married noblewoman, the one true love of his life. Her husband ordered the wet nurse to let the child starve to death, and that is exactly what happened, according to legend. It doesn't sound all that out of the ordinary. Worse things have been done.

That's your Friday history lesson.

0 scrawls at the end of this hall

The look: slim!
The feel: restless
The taste: root beery
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