How the Coronavirus Spread QAnon

Right-wing conspiracies and the pandemic created a petri dish for the child-trafficking hoax.

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Curious, Simon dug deeper. In Schroeder’s Instagram Highlights, which are Instagram stories selected by posters to stay up longer than the normal 24 hours, Simon found a set of messages titled “Theory.

Jaylnn Schroeder, an Instagram influencer with 50,000 subscribers, seems like any one of the thousands of people who have grown an audience on the platform by presenting a curated glimpse of their life. With a bio of “Sharing my Passions + Purpose” that notes “I believe in love + light + 🍟,” she mostly posts photos of family, friends, and outfits.

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Chanson du Jour: “Göttingen”

Barbara sings this classic from 1964

Bien sûr, ce n’est pas la Seine,
Ce n’est pas le bois de Vincennes,
Mais c’est bien joli tout de même,
A Göttingen, à Göttingen,

Pas de quai et pas de rengaines,
Qui se lamentent et qui se trainent,
Mais l’amour y fleurit quand même,
A Göttingen, à Göttingen,

Ils savent mieux que nous, je pense,
L’histoire de nos rois de France,
Hermann, Peter, Helga et Hans,
A Göttingen,

Et que personne ne s’offense,
Mais les contes de notre enfance,
“Il était une fois” commencent,
A Göttingen,

Bien sûr, nous avons la Seine,
Et puis notre bois de Vincennes,
Mais, Dieu, que les roses sont belles,
A Göttingen, à Göttingen,

Nous, nous avons nos matins blêmes,
Et l’âme grise de Verlaine,
Eux, c’est la mélancolie même,
A Göttingen, à Göttingen,

Quand ils ne savent rien nous dire,
Ils restent là à, nous sourire,
Mais nous les comprenons quand même,
Les enfants blonds de Göttingen,

Et tant pis pour ceux qui s’étonnent,
Et que les autres me pardonnent,
Mais les enfants se sont les mêmes,
A Paris ou à Göttingen,

Ô faites que jamais ne revienne,
Le temps du sang et de la haine,
Car il y a des gens que j’aime,
A Göttingen, à Göttingen,

Et lorsque sonnerait l’alarme,
S’il fallait reprendre les armes,
Mon coeur verserait une larme,
Pour Göttingen, Pour Göttingen ..

9 Classic Dishes from Provence to Try this Summer – Frenchly

From St. Tropez to Marseille, these are the dishes that will definitely make your Instagram followers jealous.

1. Ratatouille

No, it’s not just a cute animated childrens movie about — of all things — a rat who likes to cook. It’s actually a vegetable stew originally made by peasants in the South of France (particularly in Nice) when they didn’t want to waste a bunch of random ingredients. Ratatouille is tomato based, with zucchini, eggplant, onions, and a variety of spices, and it is slow cooked until the vegetables gain a smooth, creamy texture.

2. Socca

Like many of these dishes, socca is an example of Provence’s Mediterranean influences, both Italian and North African. Socca is a thin, unleavened pancake made from chickpea flour typically baked in a tinned copper plate as a street food in Marseille or Nice.

3. Soupe au Pistou

This vegetable and bean soup is similar to the Italian minestrone, but a bit tapered down, designed to highlight the vegetables of the season. White beans, tomatoes, onions, green beans, squash, and pasta are common ingredients. And the coup de grâce is the spoonful of pistou, pesto made without pine nuts, plopped right on top for you to stir in. Continue reading “9 Classic Dishes from Provence to Try this Summer – Frenchly” →

Farm on a Paris rooftop: Urban farm aims to be Europe’s largest

The first phase of a vast urban farming project in Paris is now under way following a two-month delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Set on a Paris rooftop, the farm is set to grow over the next two years to become the largest urban farm in Europe.

The farm, on a rooftop of the Paris Exhibition Centre in the south-west of the city, currently covers an area of 4,000m², but those behind the project plan to expand the agricultural space to 14,000m² by 2022.

They hope to be able produce around 1,000kg of fruit and vegetables every day in high season thanks to a team of around 20 farmers while providing a global model for sustainable farming where produce is grown locally and according to the seasons.

“The goal is to locally supply healthy, pesticide-free products to local businesses, company restaurants, and to farming associations in a nearby area,” Agripolis president Pascal Hardy told AFP.

Along with commercial farming, locals are able to rent space on the rooftop to grow their own fruit and veg, while visitors can sample the produce at an on-site restaurant.

The farm is part of what appears to be a growing trend in the French capital to produce and consume food locally, with a number of urban farming projects springing up around the city in recent years, while Paris City Hall has committed to creating 30 hectares of urban farming space in the city in 2020.

“The real trend today is towards quality local products, more so than organic,” said Hardy.

“We’re at the top of the organic wave, but we’re on the way down, and the challenge now is to be able to show how the products were generated, and also to show that they don’t come from the other side of the planet, like beans from Kenya, for example, or from deep in Spain with farming practices that are not very virtuous.”

Source: Farm on a Paris rooftop: Urban farm aims to be Europe’s largest

Black Visions of France: the Other Expat Writers You Should be Reading – Frenchly

From James Baldwin to Jake Lamar, there are so many incredible black writers who have made Paris their home.

Langston Hughes

Every white writer who’s been to France has an essay, a memoir, a novel, or a poetry collection about the country. It’s practically a rite of passage. But Paris didn’t cease to exist once Hemingway was done with it. There are countless black writers who expatriated to France and wrote about the country with just as much insight and skill. So if you want to understand or live the expat experience, it’s time you start reading about the other side of it. (Consider also purchasing from a local black-owned bookstore, like Sisters Uptown Bookstore in NYC, Mahogany Books in Washington D.C., or Black Pearl Books in Austin.)

James Baldwin

Where to start, but with James Baldwin? The Harlem-born writer moved to Paris in the middle of the twentieth century, at the age of 24, to escape the racism and prejudice he faced in America. In addition to works like Go Tell It On The Mountain and Notes on a Native Son, one of Baldwin’s must-reads is Giovanni’s Room, a quasi-autobiographical novel about a young black man who takes up with a handsome Italian in Paris, and one of the seminal works of black queer fiction.

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