On Communism and Bottle Openers

I hated my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Carson.  This was probably very unfair, because she really was just trying to get with the times, which were a changin’.  Without revealing my advanced age, let’s just say that she was prone to having us discuss our feelings, world events and asked us what our “bag” was.  I thought she was ridiculous and would complain about her being a phony, because after all, she was a middle-aged woman and looked like someone’s mom, not a young thing with frosted hair and go-go boots (like Miss Terry).  One morning, I was chatting with my friends in the school bus and we started dishing about Mrs. Carson.  As I warmed to the subject, Carrie—who lived in an gated community known for excluding minorities—had a scoop.  She lowered her voice to a whisper:  “My dad says that Mrs. Carson is….a communist!”  In Orange County, California, this was tantamount to announcing that Mrs. Carson participated in satanic rituals. 

I was taken aback.  Not only did I doubt Mrs. Carson was a communist, but I was flummoxed by the use of the word as an insult.  If she disapproved so whole-heartedly of WASP-y Mrs. Carson, what would she think of my parents, lefty Jews from New York City?  Was being a communist really that bad?  Did they even really exist?  After all, none of us had ever seen one. 

Imagine my amazement when a couple of years later we were living in France (thanks to my father’s sabbatical leave) and we went to lunch at my mother’s cousin’s house.  A cousin who was…a communist!  Favik had come to France from Poland before WWII to study medicine, and his doctoring skills and various strokes of luck helped him avoid being deported by Vichy. He sure didn’t look like a communist, whom I had imaged all being grey and thin and serious.  He was fat and jovial and lived in a big house in Argenteuil.   In fact, he seemed to have lots of money.  “How can a communist have lots of money?” I asked my dad, who waved me off as he parked the car.

Since then, I have learned that in France, you can be a communist and still have fun.  You can have a good job and lots of money, you simply have to vote and talk a certain way in certain situations.  A dinner with a communist need not involve Molotov cocktails but simply alcoholic ones, especially now that the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall only exist as material for historic spy novels.   Aside from a supporting role during the social explosion of May of 1968, the masses of communists in France were never much of a threat to the established order, even if they did and do continue to march in the streets at the first whisper of a labor dispute. 

Because even if they have lost all semblance of political clout (though the party keeps huffing and puffing along), the communist spirit is alive and well in France’s powerful labor unions.  And perhaps that is as it should be.  Someone has got to at least shout back at the Captains of Industry, who have so clearly taken over the show on a global scale.  And while they can be painfully earnest (take a gander at the prose at Lutte Ouvrière), being French, they still know how to enjoy themselves.  A while back a friend of ours who has the unenviable chore of being a union representative at IBM, brought us a unique bit of paraphernalia from the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail), the country’s largest trade union.  It’s a bottle opener (décapsuleur) with a metal bit that starts to play the Internationale when it comes into contact with a bottle cap.  I gave one to my younger brother as a gift, but the poor guy didn’t recognize the tune.  Ah, the days of revolution seem to be far behind us.  Or are they?  Who knows what might be required after the startling election results of last night.  It’s enough to make you want to start humming the opening lines…hey, come to think of it, this stanza sounds rather timely:

Let no one build walls to divide us

Walls of hatred nor walls of stone

Come greet the dawn and stand beside us

We'll live together or we'll die alone

In our world poisoned by exploitation

Those who have taken now they must give

And end the vanity of nations

We've but one earth on which to live

  

Medical Tourism Comes to France

Ever since my un-expected encounter with mortality and the French medical system back in 2007 (see my post “Thinking about Having Brain Surgery During Your Stay?”), I have been encouraging my fellow Americans to come to France for medical care.  Not only do they have some of the best doctors and hospitals in Europe, but the price is definitely right. For example, a friend told me that an MRI can cost up to $6,000 in the US, while here it would cost $200 max (and I should know, I get them every two years).   For that price, you could come to France, take a tour of the Loire Valley, get your MRI and still have spare change.  The only tricky part would be the paperwork: stuff like visas, insurance papers, and making sure your prescriptions/doctor’s instructions would be accepted on this side of the pond. 

But it seems that is no longer an issue.  After watching from afar as Germany, Belgium and the UK profited from US medical pricing excesses, France has finally jumped on the medical tourism bandwagon.  As of November 1, the French public hospital network (Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris) is launching a medical tourism program aimed directly at foreign visitors who wish to benefit from competitive prices and quality care.  And while that care usually comes in a plain brown wrapper here in France (bland waiting rooms, ugly doctors offices, minimal creature comfort options), this new program offers packages that include medical care, hotel stay and concierge service.  You simply send in your application with your medical records to a hospital specialist with a secure server, and they send you back a quote for the package. 

The only catch is they want you to prepay. Though some are complaining that the new program is meant to attract Arab sheiks and millionaires, I suspect that your average American could enjoy major savings, especially if they could get their insurance company to agree to pay part of the cost.  I can’t find an actually fee breakdown for the 110 treatments covered by the program (for both adults and children), and rumor has it there is a 20-30% price hike for foreigners, but judging from my own experience (a visit to a GP costs 23 euros here), I’ll bet the rates are quite competitive.

While I loudly applaud Obamacare, it is but a first step towards a democratic health system in the US, a mere thumbtack in the toe of the mega-monster that has grown out of unregulated medical fees (remember Stephen Brill’s amazing article in Time Magazine in 2013? Here’s an update). So why not make the most of medical tourism?  Especially now that it’s official:  you can visit France AND have hip replacement for a fraction of the cost in the US!  What are you waiting for?

August in Paris

It’s August, and in the quiet of the Parisian suburbs that means there is not a soul on the streets.  What is normally just low-key is now silent, save a few lone inhabitants, aimlessly wandering the streets like survivors of a nuclear blast. There is nothing post-apocalyptic about the scenery though, which is a pleasant mix of cute little houses and boxy modern apartment buildings.  The best part is the greenery, which is lush.  We are just a few steps from a forest, and the neighborhood is dotted with some nice old trees, like the huge weeping willow on the corner, which is literally the size of a house. 

Most of the stores on the main drag, if you can call it that, are shuttered, with notes taped to the metal shutters announcing their summer closures.  The mini-super market is open, as is one bakery, to feed those few who are not on a beach somewhere, slathering the sunscreen and trying not to get stepped on by the hordes of fellow vacationers.

I prefer to stay on my deck chair in the back yard this summer.  When the sun is out, I can close my eyes and pretend that I am at a luxury resort on the Riviera.  After all, it’s the same sun beating down on my face, the same warm breeze caressing my limbs, the same quiet massaging my temples.  OK, I’ll admit that instead of the cry of seagulls I hear the twitter of sparrows and instead of the distant roar of crashing waves, I hear the distant thunder of the RER C.  But by and large, what I lose in pampering I gain in the relaxing effects of sleeping in my own bed and not needing to get to the airport. And it’s not like I could ever afford a luxury resort to begin with. 

Then I decide to go to the movies.  I waltz into my private screening room that the owner of MK2 Parnasse has so kindly opened for my personal benefit.  Or else it certainly seems that way—I am the only person at the 1:30 matinee and get to enjoy Florence Foster Jenkins without any one near me crinkling wrappers or munching on popcorn.

But the best part of my home-grown luxury vacation is the silence.  The muted calm that you pay for at a ritzy resort is a standard feature of any residential neighborhood in Paris after July 14.  In fact, Paris in August is what some evil-minded tourists dream of: Paris without the Parisians.  Be advised, however, while the Parisians might be gone, their places have been filled by thousands of out-of-town guests, who clog the arteries of every major attraction.  It may be a nice playground, but one you will have to share with the other kids, who might not want to play they way you want them to.  To them, it might be fun to scream or run around or push people.  

So beware.  Or be willing to strike out into the quiet corners and park benches where if you close your eyes, you could be just about anywhere warm and peaceful.