French Fries

This is one of the many art museums. I have seen the Henri Matisse exhibit twice here.
This is the house next door. This Mini is always parked here. It is adorable. One time I was on the bus and I think I saw it out...it was gone when I got home. What a small world! I went out with a boy from class for French Fries. There are multiple places that sell nothing but French Fries. The sauce is a sweet curry sauce, mayo and onions. Vincent loves this. He lives in S. Korea and his dad is some sort of weaponry scientist and owns a company with 3000 employees. We ate our fries and chatted in broken Geman mixed with broken English. He is 17 and here to study for high school. He is quite entertaining in a 17 year old way. He told me in total seriousness that he wants to be the president of S. Korea and work for peace. I asked how his dad felt about peace, since it would seem that with peace (we may not need guns) he would not be affluent with houses around the world. As Vincent is gesturing with a fake gun in the air (neither of us know "weapons" in a common language), he tells me his dad thinks there must be guns to have peace. I suppose this is one way to peace. We also talked about how S. Koreans feel about N. Korea. It was very interesting and totally timely since that day George W. was in S. Korea trying to make nice with them. Evidently, Bush doesn't help with his rhetoric about how barbaric N. Korea is. Vincent says there is a clear distinction between the government and the people there. The government is bad and the people are nice. It is always a chore to attempt a conversation like this, even with someone that speaks your language. I have to say I don't know much about the history with N. an S. Korea, but it seems that maybe George knows less.

Yesterday I was reading about American Democracy in the New Yorker...I didn't know that Webster (the dictionary guy) was so extreme! He was not Thomas Jefferson, that's for sure. Webster fought against the people that wanted to amend the voting laws for everyone to get a vote. He felt that one had to earn the right to vote with an education and by owning property. I can't help but feel for him. I remember feeling so bummed out that I only got one vote in the last election despite all the news I read and how educated I was about it. My one educated vote equaled the one totally ignorant vote, of the guy who thought Kerry had a big nose. Good old American Democracy. That was quite a tangent.