Dysphemism of the Day: Khmers Verts

During the years that I was living impecuniously in Berkeley, unable to afford an automobile, I rode a bicicyle -- or, after that was stolen, walked or took the bus.   So it was with a certain detachment that I beheld the maneuvers of that People’s Republic to make life unpleasant for the drivers of cars -- as, laying down a slalom of road barriers, which bikes could zip around easily, but cars must slow to a crawl.  Part of this was motivated by legitimate concerns about environment and quality of life, but -- Berkeley being Berkeley -- there was an ideological edge to it, and an odor of self-righteousness.

Now the “Socialist” mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo (really more of a socialo-bobo, rather than anything to do with the historical struggle of the working class) has stirred up controversy by closing off the Seine-side roads to vehicular traffic, predictably resulting in snarls elsewhere, and possibly actually raising the amount of automobile polution as drivers spend more time in jams and thus more time traversing the same trajectory -- spewing pollutants all the while. 

Let Le Figaro tell it:

Révélé par Le Figaro, le rapport commandé par Valérie Pécresse, présidente de la région Île-de-France, sur les effets de la fermeture des voies sur berge est accablant pour la Mairie de Paris.

C'est désormais la grande pagaille dans la capitale mais aussi en banlieue. La piétonnisation des voies sur berge rive droite, qui a indiscutablement aggravé la circulation dans Paris, provoque, en effet, de sérieux ralentissements bien au-delà de ses murs. Le trafic est désormais plus dense sur un périphérique déjà saturé et les temps de parcours se sont aggravés sur la rocade plus éloignée de l'A86.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2016/11/16/01016-20161116ARTFIG00382-voies-sur-berge-le-rapport-qui-denonce-l-explosion-des-embouteillages-a-paris.php

Thus it was with a pleasure of recognition that I encountered the following Reader’s Comment:

Et la pollution due aux embouteillages ! ... ça ne gêne pas Mme Hidalgo et ses Khmers Verts ?? 

Ils vivent dans l'air conditionné de leurs jolis bureaux et font changer souvent les filtres mais les enfants sur les trottoirs ... on s'étonnera qu'ils aient toujours plus d'asthme !
Quant aux habitants de banlieue qui viennent à Paris juste pour travailler... pas pour voter pour elle... ils peuvent bien étouffer ! ...

Khmers Verts.  But exactly!

A selection of some further linguistically-interesting comments from Le Figaro’s sharp-nibbed readers:

un petit dessin avec les bobogochos enfumés par les voiture bloquées sur le chemin du travail tout autour de son nid .

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Vivement le roller en famille sur l A86

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Madame Hidalgo et son aréopage de noctambules désoeuvrés considèrent Paris comme une ville dédiée à l'amusement.
Sa politique de circulation n'est jamais que la traduction de la vision de quelqu'un qui n'a jamais travaillé et a toujours vécu de cocktail en cocktail de voiture avec chauffeur à voiture avec escorte et qui n'a comme vision de l'action publique que d'arriver au fare niente institutionnalisé.

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le socialisme, l'art du bien vivre sans travailler. Les gens qui bossent  polluent, c'est bien connu.

The Medium & the Message

Recently, my Maxima, faithful companion of almost seventeen years, gave up its mechanical ghost (escaping towards the heavens, like steam from a radiator), and departed this life, hopefully for a better world.

Dialing back the horsepower expectations, for an era and region in which it’s impossible to drive fast anyway, I settled on a sensible Civic, which (as though through influence of its very name) I had always associated with courteous drivers.  Being brand-new, it had various electronic doodads I wouldn’t touch with a barge-pole, but my wife loves them, so I have her that car, and took on the one she bought, used, a few years ago.  Even at that rate, it has a CD drive but no cassette drive (the old Maxima was the other way around).  Which means that the vast library of language tapes and the like, which I constructed piecemeal over years, and (dutifully) used to listen to on the way to work and back, are now obsolescent.  So instead I listen to sacred music -- Thomas Thallis, Palestrina, William Byrd, Josquin des Prés.  Quite a change.

Coincidentally, at work, I finally acquired a “green” machine with an internet connection, and thus am able to listen to a wider selection from the same genres (focussing on performances by the Hilliard Ensemble, Kings Singers, Thallis Scholars, and such) through headphones  while working on the “grey” machine.

There was a time, some years back, when I listened only to such fare, for religious reasons.  Whereas now, simply because I like the music, it is beautiful and soothing, and does not distract from driving or from Saving American Lives.   It is good for tranquility.  Also, it goes will with driving more slowly, and with extending courtesy to others who wish to merge.

~

For an earlier meditation on such musical monoculture, try this:

Imagine, indeed, a world in which, for a thousand years, music just was the Goldberg Variations – no other music existed, nor had anyone an idea of composing any new.  The score was thus like the text of the Mass – you didn’t meddle with it. 

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2011/06/goldberg-variations-variations.html