[Overpaid Slacker]

My antipathy for the French well predates the current Iraq situation, and I don't think it's soluble by smiles or any other ruse to get my ducats. Decades of petulence, obstructionism, petty sniping, ingratitude and avid support for enemies of the US and the West generally cannot be erased or forgiven. Twice I've had opportunities to travel to Paris for what would've essentially been free, and I turned both down, preferring once not to travel at all and once to pay my own way to Prague instead.

This is not to say I necessarily have something against every (or any) French person in particular. I learned an expression while living in the Netherlands, a country that still carries a good deal of enmity towards Germany for WWII. Even my contemporary Dutch friends, when they found out I was dating a German and travelling to Cologne with her said "JP, while you're there, steal some bicycles back" with not a little seriousness. Aside: the Wehrmacht confiscated the bikes of the Dutch for the steel; and bikes are a beloved transport staple in the Netherlands and of all the horrors visited upon the Dutch, this one seemed to engender the most bitter feelings in my friends and colleagues.

I won't even attempt it in Dutch, but the expression is something like "All Germans are *********s. Except the ones I know." That's about as close as I can come to "soundbiting" my feelings toward the French.

JP