The Online Game of Trust

I still remember one of the lessons I learned in my ninth grade French class. It was about cultural differences and what we should be prepared for, assuming we ever A) made it through high school French, thus gaining an only slightly pathetic capacity to speak the language and then B) actually got to the Motherland one day, in which case we could use said pathetic French in our daily interactions with real, actual French people.

Among our required reading, I distinctly remember a three-word phrase that seemed to epitomize the mysterious Français at the time: “Stranger means Danger.” The line in one of our books told us that the French wouldn’t smile at us in line for the bank or sitting on the bus, but that we shouldn’t take it personally. They were just sussing us out before making sure they could trust us.

While I now, years later, try to figure out what sitting on a bus seat has to do with trust, I realize that this little phrase sums up quite a bit about how the French interact, in contrast to us American folk. But while “Stranger means Danger” was, at the time, most likely meant to refer to a trip to the bakery, it has larger implications for how the French live their lives today, specifically regarding the worldwide web.

Take Facebook, for example, which has become the most used social networking website in the world as of January 2009, according to ComScore. While America still wins big, with more than 700 million users, Facebook is steadily gaining momentum in France, where it recently edged out its main competitor Skyrock to become number one. With all these enthusiastic users, virtual friends must be hurtling through cyberspace at warp speed, right? Well…

Go on any American’s Facebook page and they’ve got upwards of 300 friends, maybe even 600. I know a guy who reached the 1000-friend mark last month. Ask him if he regularly sends personal messages or writes on the Wall of all these “friends” and he’ll laugh at you incredulously. But take your average French user, and you’ll find that each of their Facebook friends are real-life friends as well.

“I don’t understand people who accept or add me as a friend and then make no contact with me whatsoever,” spouts my French friend Jean, over a coffee. Our mutual friend Cecile agrees: “I had a guy from high school try to add me as a friend. But it’s been years since he’s contacted me so I ignored his request. If I barely know him then what’s the point?”

The point, for Americans, seems to be the opposite of the French: Add them as a friend first; make them a friend later. Or maybe never. My French co-workers were mildly horrified to hear that I had added many a Facebook friend with the click of my mouse, never to have any contact with them ever again.

So, who’s got it right? The French, who tend to take a guarded view of the intangible internet friend, or the open-armed, smiling American?

Being too trusting can cost more than just the unwanted online pal. In 2007, Katherine Ann Olsen of Minnesota lost her life after innocently responding to a babysitting ad on the online classifieds website, Craigslist, by a woman named “Amy.” However, Amy turned out to be 19-year-old John Michael Anderson, who lived with his parents, and was waiting to shoot Olsen in the back when she turned up. Craigslist again made headlines this past April, when a Boston University medical student allegedly killed a New York City masseuse after responding to her Craigslist ad for massages.

Of course, it’s not to say that the French don’t ever get themselves into online trouble. But, it just doesn’t seem to be quite to the same extent as the ol’ Americans. Or maybe, as the old adage goes, everything in France happens ten years later than in America. In this case, I hope not.

The online dating world seems to be the one area where France and the United States are at match point. With millions of users in each country, finding love online is no longer stigmatized as the lonely way to search for a mate.

Marc Simoncini, the founder of popular French site Meetic, says that online dating is different depending on your culture. In a 2007 Times Online article, he said, “There are only two philosophies in this business… the American philosophy and the French one. The Americans try to sell you love. We sell une rencontre [an encounter] and I don’t care what happens afterwards.”

So as French and American internet users attempt to navigate the online world successfully (dodging sexual predators, murderers and casual friends when necessary) it looks like love is still the one thing that connects us. Maybe strangers aren’t so dangerous anymore.

Obama wins the Nobel prize. But will anyone believe it?

Today everyone, even the man himself, seems to be asking…. did Obama deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize?

The header for Yahoo news is actually: “Surprised, humbled Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize.” They might as well have ended the sentence with a large yellow exclamation point and a “so were we” in parentheses.

Is a world leader eligible for this award? Yes, we’ve seen it time and again. But has Obama done enough yet to earn it?

Sure, he’s inspired hope in millions and changed the theme of the race wars in America (and abroad). But should the Nobel prize be based lightly on what the guy’s already done and more so on what is expected of him in the future?

Some past winners of the award include the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jimmy Carter and Mother Theresa. Now, I love Obama as much as the next liberal, but placing him beside Mother Theresa is a bit of a stretch.

I don’t doubt that in a few years, Obama will have proved his name worthy of being placed next to these world greats. He is already well on his way by improving relations with the Muslim world, pushing for a more comprehensive U.S. healthcare plan, and generally inspiring Americans to do more, care more, and be proud of themselves for once. But view him already worthy of the Prize? No, I can’t.

Depressing Depression in France

As I watched yet another person walk by me in Paris muttering to himself tonight, I was reminded of a conversation I had not long ago with a psychologist friend about the French healthcare system. Considering it has one of the most inclusive and admirable ones in the developed world, I was shocked to find out that the social security – the near-full coverage that is given to all who live in France – does not cover mental health.

A visit with a psychologist in Paris costs around 80 euros for a one-hour session. That equals out to 80 euros once a week, or 320 euros per month – about half a month’s rent. If you’re lucky enough to warrant medication and thus, a psychiatrist (read: “doctor”), you can get your bill mostly covered by the social security. But what about all the others with anxiety, mild depression, or other illnesses that can be treated – oftentimes better – without medication?

Cognitive behavioral therapy, or talk therapy, has been proven effective alongside medication but also all on its own. Talking out problems, finding constructive ways to deal with difficult situations, reversing negative thinking, and learning techniques to calm the body and mind is what CBT is all about. It’s such a shame that the French government would rather pay for someone to pop a pill than to correct what is really at the root of his or her problems.

And the government should take note. According to the NOP World Health’s Western European Depression and Anxiety Physician Study from 2004, France has the highest proportion of depressed people in Western Europe. It says:

“Many sufferers are undiagnosed, however — and even those who are diagnosed are often not treated with prescription medications. This continues to be true, in spite of the fact that many established depression and anxiety therapies are available in Europe — several in generic form or recently re-launched with new formulations.”

Of course this isn’t just a French problem. Mental health is still a hush-hush issue in the most modern countries on the planet. In Japan, where suicide rates are among the highest in the world, killing oneself is seen as an act of nobility linked back to the days of the Samurai. Japanese have even been known to join internet suicide clubs to meet and talk about their planned deaths.

One nation attempting to fade the stigma is the U.S., which has paved the way with bestselling self-help books and pop-psychology. Seeing a therapist in America is trendy and a normal topic of conversation among friends. Billboards for depression and suicide line the highways, and Dr. Phil is a regular on afternoon TV. While the Obama administration struggles to find a solution to the healthcare crisis in the U.S., mental healthcare would most likely be included in a medical insurance plan as it is now under private insurance, with perhaps a slightly higher deductible.

Back in France, the general health insurance outlook is much better. Under the national social security, patients are covered up to about 60%, which is often supplemented by a 30-euro per month mutuelle plan, bringing that coverage to 100%. One would think then, logically, that mental health would be covered by some small percentage, if not the whole 60%.

Sadly, this is not the case. My psychologist friend says that they are working on it. But I wonder, what does that mean? And what needs to happen for the social stigma of mental health to once and for all, finally wear off so that people can get the help they deserve?

Whether it’s the depressing news about mental health in France or the depression itself, I have a feeling I know why the French never smile.

Jesus in France: Le Figaro ventures into the Bible Belt

As I sat on the faux lawn of the Hotel de Ville in Paris, trying to get through a very mediocre and slightly off-tune performance by R&B group “Bams,” I was reading and furiously circling sections of an old July article from Le Figaro. The place? The United States. The topic? Those crazy Christians and their fight for the fetus.

As if it isn’t bad enough that we Americans are already ashamed of these hyper-religious, gun-toting, anti-abortion walking contradictions, now we have the Frogs taking a crack at us.

Yet, I do agree with writer François Hauter, who made no outside comments and let the content speak for itself in the following passage:

“In 35 years, the anti-abortion, pro-life advocates have killed four medical specialists in the United States.”

Hell, I’d laugh at us too.

Later in the piece, pro-life organizer and the article’s token “decent guy” Troy Newman, says that his group, Operation Rescue, is diametrically opposed to such violence. “We have always defended our cause in a peaceful manner. The act of killing is against everything we stand for – the sacrifice of life!”

Well, duh.

Yet, it still didn’t help save Dr. George Tiller, an abortion doctor who often performed late-term abortions for women in special circumstances in Wichita, Kansas, from being shot in the head by 51-year-old Scott Roeder while praying in his local Lutheren church.

A sign during a rally and prayer vigil against abortion, held by the Christian Defense Council, outside Trinity University January 3, 2007 in Washington, DC.

Just when I think Obama has saved our international reputation, Le Figaro busts us on, as my friend Will used to say, “The Christ-ees.” I think it’s safe to assume that Roeder’s killing streak was not a one-shot deal but was instead astutely planned and morally backed (in his head, at least) by What Jesus Would Do.

It doesn’t help that Hauter goes on in the article to pronounce all but the very few Americans who have turned to ancient Asian practicies as unstoppably church-bound:

“For the most part, people [in the U.S.] are actively engaged in their religion. Certain cities, like Seattle, are more detached from traditional Christianity and have turned slowly to Oriental practices. But only 16% of Americans say they are Atheist. Among the 8% of citizens who were raised ‘without religion’, half subsequently found a church that worked for them. Religious practice, in the United States, is a part of daily life.”

Where to start. First of all, those “few” Americans who have discovered eastern religions are not only located in patchouli-scented hippie communities on the West Coast. And I would guess that 16% is low, considering how many Asians are actually living in America. Did Hauter interview them too, or only the rich, white people who had decided to convert as part of their mid-life crises?

Then there is the issue of percentages. I find it very hard to believe, in an enormous country such as the U.S., with a beautiful blend of nationalities in all four corners and in between, that only 8% of people can say that they grew up with no religion. I think that in my friend group alone I can push that number to at least 20%.

And from personal experience – I mean, as a life-long American and not a one-stop shopping French journalist – I can say that religion does not enter into the daily lives of most, if any, of the people I know or have known growing up, regardless of age.

But maybe it’s just because when you’ve got nothing, something seems like a lot. For the French, religion has become a sort of gros mot and not something they easily associate themselves with. Hauter says that in France’s secularized country, only one in ten people practice a religion regularly. Traditional faith in France has been replaced by a set of non-religious morals that don’t include God. The space between social ethics and faith has grown so wide that most French people feel sufficiently separated from the religion debate going on in America today.

On this one, Hauter got it right. I’ve been living in France for several years and I can safely say that I know approximately one French person who attends church or believes in Jesus. I’m sure there are more, but they must be hiding.

France’s churches are mostly empty and religious life has all but vanished, unless you count the nationwide calls for the construction of Islamic Mosques to accommodate the increasing population of religious Arabs immigrating here.

Near the end of the article, Hauter says that he will soon be visiting ghost towns on the outskirts of Wichita, in the infamous Bible Belt region of the United States. He says he can’t possibly imagine what awaits him.

I’d say, he’d better find himself some religion if he expects to make it out alive.

What’s 1989 got to do with it?

In addition to its special Michael Jackson commemorative edition (which is excellent and I highly recommend reading, cover-to-cover in one sitting), Time magazine recently came out with a 100+ page summer edition, featuring the year 1989.

Onlookers admire a mural by Russian artist Dmitry Vrubel of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (L) kissing former communist East German leader Erich Honecker at a surviving portion of the Berlin Wall on July 7, 2009

Through the tangle of world events that year – the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen Square massacre, Denmark’s (and the world’s) first legal gay marriage – we realize that nothing happened serendipitously. Ronald Reagan’s famous “Tear down this wall” speech put pressure on the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev to put pressure on German leaders to open the borders between East and West. And from there, the domino effect spirals on and on magnificently, planting 1989 at the crux of an international revolution.

Of course, few knew this at the time. It is only now looking back that we see how that year changed the world forever.

Read more at: www.time.com

European Union: membership denied

As I read about the Eastern Partnership, the summit meeting in Prague last Thursday that attempted to lure six former Soviet republics towards the European Union and away from Russia’s influence, I got to thinking about this whole immigration/E.U. thing.

Politicians in every E.U. country seem to be bewildered by the influx in immigration, the rampant crossing of European country borders, the migration of people towards better jobs in wealthier European nations than their own. What did they expect? If you create a club for people, you can’t exclude those same people months later when they actually start wanting to get more involved than simply paying the joiner’s fee.

The European Union was created in 1993 with the notion that it would create a stronger bond between nations, become a world economic and political power, and allow freedom of movement between member countries. Now in its 16th year, it seems that the original creators of the group forgot to outline a few things.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Like work, for example. How do you allow people to cross borders freely but then put restrictions on employment? Do you pull a “Sarkozy” and try to send everyone home? Is this whole E.U. idea just globalization at its worst?

And the biggest question, where does it stop? E.U. member countries are having an increasingly tough time deciphering who is European and who isn’t. The Czech Republic? Yup, they’re mostly white and mostly Christian. How about Poland? Why of course – they’re also mostly white and mostly Christian. And Turkey? Oops, sorry. They’re not so white and not at all Christian. But they touch all the right country borders so technically…

I have a French friend who is diametrically opposed to the European Union. He wants his precious franc back and not to worry about yet another European immigrant taking a job from him. He is proudly nationalistic and protectionist.

But is that such a bad thing? Yes, the European Union has succeeded in becoming a world power, giving the U.S. and China a serious run for their money. And tourists everywhere are having a hay-day, no longer worrying about changing money at every border or dealing with exchange rates. But lately, it seems that there are some serious kinks in the plan. Not to mention the joiner’s fee, which is a small sum in comparison to the price people pay with their souls once they officially become members.