Re: OT SF Mythology

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 20:38:54 -0400, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

Paul S Person wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:59:02 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer
<mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:
 

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:
>

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.
>
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-

disappears-after-1300-years/
>
This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc.
Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

 
It'll be interesting to see how the winner-takes-all Parliamentary
system copes with a situation in neither the Left, the Right, nor the
Center has control. No winner, no gummint?
 
Perhaps another snap election? Perhaps this will the start of the
Decade of Snap Elections, kind of like the periods where the Romans
went through 10 or so Emperors in two years or so, at least in terms
of social stability.
 
 From what I have read, the evil Right was only defeated by many
self-sacrificing candidates withdrawing so as to concentrate the
anti-Right vote on whoever else was on the ballot. Sounds like
cheating to me,

>
It isn't.  It's not even suspect.
>
If the British had followed the same practice (assuming for the moment
that they have a two stage election), labour's seat total would be about
300, as opposed to 400+.  Still a majority, but more representative of
the vote in which left and centrist parties got a bare majority.

In that event (purely hypothetical, as you point out), I would have
accused them of "not playing the game".

As to the French, perhaps they will move on to their 6th Republic.
After, perhaps, a third (?) Empire or even another Restored Monarchy.
French political history is nothing if not varied.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"