Raj Feridun wrote:
> [...] I lived in
> France for a time and I know of what I speak firsthand. There was a
> prevailing unkindness towards me to begin with based solely on the
> fact that I am an American. [...] 

That was not a valid reason ? ;-)
Seriously, I'm waiting for your specifics, but if you were not annoying 
or anything, I'm a bit surprised by that.

We also very much appreciated the kind of unkindness that prevailed in 
America after voicing that going to war in Ira was *not* a great idea.

And the earlier discussion had me wondering about how greatly superiorly 
kind with regard to Japan is a country that has death penalty for 
minors, and millions of peoples living without acces to decent health 
care or education.
Maybe the better kindness is always the one of the talker :-)

> Many of those thousands of elderly who
> died in this year's Frency summer heat wave were apparently just
> abandoned by their families who couldn't be bothered with them. 

You know it's not necesseraly because that governement needed to say 
something to stop people asking why *they* were the one who wouldn't be 
bothered when the emergency medical services reported they were 
overwhelmed and needed more ressource urgently that's it's so true.

The most relevant point is that we use very little air conditioning in 
France, and that would have saved many lifes.