the name police

We've all heard rumors about the French language police, I think--where they regulate that radio and TV must have at least x percent of French-language content. I have also heard that the French resist allowing any 'new' words into their lexicon - like 'hamburger'.... I can't confirm these law enforcers exist, in fact, I have evidence to the contrary (I think all the music in the stores is in English and no one has stopped us on the streets yet for our terrible accents)--but I've discovered something even more shocking--outright CENSORSHIP! This realization first came to us last weekend, when Rebecca and the kids were at a play date... did you know that until recently, there was a list of baby names, controlled by the government, from which to choose when naming your child? (We found this out because one of Callie's classmates seems to be named "urine" and Rebecca wanted to know if this was a common French name - the shocked hosts said no way and wondered how he escaped the name police. (conclusion - must be an immigrant)) Further censorship was confirmed by my colleagues at lunch when we were talking about films that had been exported to the US, and they mentioned one that was changed to better suit the American audience--they gave it a happy ending! Hmm, exports are censored? What, the US government won't export computer chips because they could be used as weapons, and the French government won't export movies made on their soil, because they don't want anyone to know they have sad endings???

___________running log_____________

This morning we had no cloud cover, so I got to see the sun coming up behind the hills... the moon is out as well--the photo doesn't do this justice but this is the main reason I like to run in the mornings--to see the sunrise! Not that this means anything to anyone but me, but I think I might start logging my runs here too--today's run was a 35-minute loop through point-du-jour to the hairpin turn and back to the cimitiere, with a few farteleks sprinkled in. Yesterday I skipped since I woke up a bit dizzy... Monday was a ladder on the track of 600m, 900m, 1200m and back down at about a 7:05 pace. Slow! But then again, I've been recovering from a chest cold...