Segolene Royal: Red Hot Socialist

Later this year the Frenchies will go to the polls and vote for the next president of France. I'm pretty sure that it's on April 22nd. One of the leading candidates is the brilliant, beautiful 53 year old Socialist Segolene Royal. What a name...what a woman. There she is on the left, as she should be. Recently some pictures of her in a bikini surfaced in European tabloids, and that put her in the news here more than ever before. She's hardly new to French politics. As a graduate of the École nationale d'administration she's in very good company among French politicians, and she's already a governor of a province. And naturally I'm fond of her as a Socialist. She's much more attractive than Hugo Chavez, although he was cute in his little yellow, blue and red sash during his swearing in ceremony yesterday.

Have you ever heard of Arwa Damon? Another amazing woman. She's a CNN correspondant who knows no fear as she darts through the streets of Baghdad embedded with American soldiers or interviews masked insurgents. She doesn't just hang around the Green Zone. While bullets wiz by, she keeps her cool and never so much as raises her voice. In addition, her commentary and analysis are better than just about anyone elses'. My god, I admire her. She is fearless, smart and also happens to be adorable. How many correspondants are adorable? Really. Wolf Blitzer is Pentagon Bureau Chief and Anderson Cooper has his own show, but neither one is particularly smart or huggable.

Anyway, I have surgery tomorrow at 1:45 in the afternoon, which is a ridiculous time for surgery in my opinion. I can't eat or drink anything and have to mill around my flat all morning waiting for the cutting and removing and sewing. Around 10pm I'll return here to convalesce with Toulouse. I've spent most day so far doing laundry and cleaning in case I croak. Hey, that's just being responsible. My next post will probably be post surgery. Adieu.