Well, the comic is back on track, even if the rest of the world is careering violently out of control.  I love the capacity of silent facial expressions to capture the character of the person.  I can’t make movies, but this is pretty close.  I really feel like everyone in this scene comes off just as I meant them to.

As for the rest of it, well – I’m sure the pundits and newsreels and websites and all the talking heads have gone over the atrocity in Paris with brutal elegance far better than I’m likely to do.  It was another of those weird synchronicities that last week’s filler featured soldiers of the Free French Army very prominently.  The attack was a shock, of course, but it was no surprise to me, really.  Paris is the cynosure and great symbol of western secularism, humanism, pluralism and intellectual advancement.  It’s the exemplar of what great cultures can achieve when liberal republican values are allowed to flourish.  Ours is a revolution that doesn’t end just because a bunch of decadent reactionaries commits a crime, however heinous.  When the torch of enlightenment falls, it doesn’t go out – you just have to pick it up and hold it higher than before.

Bon courage, mes amis.  Solidarité!