Okay, I would like to know right now why the whole world does not recognize Robert La Salle as one of the greatest explorers of all time. Here's what I learned about La Salle in school: He discovered the mouth of the Mississippi.

I'm done now.

So I always thought, well, he started from Quebec and he got a boat and he went into some rivers and the Great Lakes and got down the Mississippi and eventually your going to hit the Gulf, right? (I mean, it looks obvious from every map I've ever seen.) I hate how stupid I have become from the way I was taught history - and I include that pathetic college class in Canadian History in this assessment.

I mean it's freaking La Salle! Why didn't I know about him?

Okay, La Salle and his men did travel the length of the MS River - in 1681! He had to pretty much fund the entire trip himself, and at one point got a loan from one of his cousins at the rate of 40% interest. His plan to sell some furs to purchase supplies was thwarted by creditors who commandeered his warehouse and sold them off. His ship the Griffin which returned to Quebec partway through the trip to sell more furs was lost (and its fate still not determined - it is now considered the "Ghost Ship of the Great Lakes"). His men mutinied and stole from him and part of his group was almost wiped out in an Iroquois attack.

It wasn't a day at the park, that's for sure.

The thing that impresses me the most about La Salle is that he perservered through all the setbacks, that his quest for exploration never slowed. He wanted to see what was out there and was undaunted in the face of all the politics, forces of nature, and deadly enemies that showed up in his path. It seems like we have become less brave when it comes to exploration in the years since La Salle - the tragedies of Challenger and Columbia were awful (and i living was in Florida for both of them in an area called the "Space Coast"), but La Salle's tribulations were far and above our losses. He kept going, and I wish more people knew about him.

Have I mentioned lately that I love Thomas Costain? (Although I'd like to know what discovery he is referring to when he says the Griffin was found in the 20th century, because everyone seems to think it is still lost...odd.)

Pictures of the Paris riots have been on and off the news all day, along with an enormous amount of idiotic commentary. Laila has a nice short roundup of events over at Moorish Girl, and also mentions a book that I recently requested: Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow. It takes place in the Islamic neighborhoods that have become a hotbed for the unrest that is all too evident today. She also gave me the name of an author I had forgotten: Samira Bellil. I wish someone would translate her book Dans l'enfer des tournantes into English because I was stupid and took Spanish in high school and learned none of it and can't read French to save my life (unless we count Alouette and Frere Jacques). Bellil's courage against not only the people in her neighborhood and the boys who gang raped her (more than once) but also against the French government and citizens of Paris who prefer to look the other way rather than act, is amazing. And then she died from cancer which pisses me off more than I can possibly express here.

So why is Paris burning? Well, it's a lot bigger of an issue then you are going to figure out in a one minute sound bite, but suffice to say that there are a lot of similarities between the situation over there and the riots in the US during the Civil Rights Movement. Assimilation for the Muslim immigrants has been largely neglected and even denied by the French gov't and in many ways two different societies have developed. The people in those ghettos are not French citizens as white Christian Frenchmen and women are - but they are also not Algerian or Moroccan or whatever other country they originally came from (or their parents or grandparents came from). They are second class citizens. Remember what Langston Hughes had to say about that?

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun
or fester like a sore -
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load

Or does it explode?

And in case you're wondering - I never learned a thing about him in school either.