Saw a youtube video one morning about Porto Cervo, a town of sorts on the northeast coast of Sardinia. This is a place concocted by the ultra wealthy, accessible primarily by yacht, and in this – and other ways – protected from intrusions from the outside world, those great masses of unwashed and yachtless.
Porto Cervo is – I cannot help but imagine – a sterile place: a collection of highend stores; probably a few carefully crafted cafes staffed by people exuding carefully crafted subservience; and as to naughtiness, there’s probably a shitload, but rarely if ever in the open.
I have painted – possibly inaccurately – an unattractive picture, one that had I not written it, but encountered it at some random moment in my peripatetic life, would have dissuaded me from visiting the place, even if I had a ghost of a chance of being allowed in. At least such would have been my attitude 2 months ago.
But in early May, 2025, Francesca and I flew to Paris, where we spent 4 weeks in an Airbnb across the street from Le Bon Marché, our favorite shopping destination in Paris containing Paris’s best grocery store. This particular neighborhood – the 7th Arrondissement – I discovered when researching the area, is inhabited by many wealthy Frenchies, even billionaires, or so I read (certainly many influential members of the Parisian elite). So this Arrondissement is better protected from riffraff than most. This is offered in explication of what dominated our stay here.
This being France, and Paris in particular, we arrived in strike season. Taxi drivers were upset. Their chagrin revolved around some financial issue, and ride-share companies like Uber. So they took thousands of taxis and parked them on major thoroughfares, one of these being about a block from our apartment. And by parked, I mean they took over all lanes, thereby blocking the entire thoroughfare to all but 2-wheeled vehicles and pedestrians. Then, in an effort to drive home their presence, lest the nearby billionaires should try to ignore them, they would set off small explosive devices throughout the day. These were more powerful than the Cherry Bombs I grew up with, and I learned these devices were illegal. This did not dissuade the disgruntled drivers in the least.
Francesca and I went to a cafe on this street one day, wanting to witness this spectacle in person. In addition to explosive devices, they set various stuff on fire at several places along their strike route. And we noticed that the majority of those involved in these disruptive activities looked distinctly of North African extraction. And before you point your quivering finger of disapproval at me and call me racist, let me put your mind to rest: I am racist. My racism is based on pattern recognition; it is rational, even mathematical. This either makes sense to you, or it doesn’t. I don’t care. But I dislike Islam vehemently, and the vast majority of its adherents.
So our second day sitting at that cafe watching the anger manifesting in front of us, there was a cluster of Parisian Gendarmes near us on a side street. One of the North Africans set off one of these explosive devices near us. The Gendarmes rushed out and grabbed the guy and dragged him down the side street a short way. The reaction of his cohorts was to rush at the police, and the only reason a violent fray was avoided was because the fellow the Gendarmes had grabbed raised his arms toward his cohorts in a universal signal of “Not to worry”.
Anyway, our interest in witnessing any further acts of dissidence on the part of these angry toads plummeted to zero at this point, not least because detonation of the aforementioned explosive device had damaged my one good ear. The primary effect of this damage is that when I stick a finger in that ear I hear a chirping noise, like that I experienced as a child in Redding, Connecticut. There was a pond behind our house inhabited by thousands of little peeper frogs, and during mating season they set up a loud and constant chirping. Long story short, they’ve moved into my ear, and I become aware of them when I yawn, or cover that ear (fortunately lying on that side on a pillow does not initiate the mating frenzy.)
The other major effect of this nearby ensemble of disgruntled was the frequent “bedoo bedoo …” of police and ambulance vehicles passing by in the vicinity. Eventually the police decided to park their vehicles at the striker end of our street, likely at the behest of our wealthy Parisian neighbors. Only once did the strikers make a brief foray onto our street, when they got half a block into our neighborhood and set fire to a bunch of crap – including tires – that ultimately melted into the roads surface. Fucking hell.
Then France won some sort of sports competition, and the Parisians reacted as Parisians do; the white Parisians celebrated; the black (subSaharan immigrant) Parisians, seeing a chance to riot and break stuff, did just that. Francesca and I visited the Champs Elysée 2 days later. Many storefront windows had been damaged, but we saw only one that failed to withstand the mindless assault: a Footlocker store (looting blacks do love some good footwear … pattern recognition).
Then there are the pickpockets. From our apartment window we watched one Arab-looking fellow standing casually at the entrance of the nearby Metro. He held a cell phone in front of him, but never once looked at it. Every so often he would spot a likely mark, follow them into the Metro, then come back a short while later and take up his watchful position again. Finally he must have scored big, for when he reappeared he raced off into the distance.
OH! And two years ago we were in Paris at the end of June during the annual citywide music festival. It was a total scene, but not violent. This year, while safely in Italy, I read that the Africans found this to be a valid excuse to rampage again, and – probably not connected – over 250 people during the festival were stabbed with hypodermic needles. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Anyhum, we had visited Paris every year but one (2024, Olympics year) since 2016. But no more, we think. Its luster has been tarnished beyond recall. In my possibly overly dramatic opinion, Paris has experienced a catastrophic change of state, from The City of Light, to The City of Watch Your Back, lest horny frogs take residence in your ears.
And that brings me back to Porto Cervo. Initially having no allure for me, it now sounds like a great place, the wealth of its inhabitants almost certainly used in part to keep out undesirable immigrants. Alas, I do not own a yacht, and had I a yacht, I could not afford its upkeep. So …
A final word on pattern recognition (a very apt phrase for my condition someone else used on the internet in the same way I am using it). Nerds, and most STEM folks in general, regardless of ethnicity, are immune to my pattern recognition induced racism, because nerds are my people. Both Francesca and I have worked with North African Berbers, an intelligent people conquered by the rapacious Arabs spreading Islam by the sword (so much quicker than proselytizing). We approve of Berbers, and other Amazigh (“Free People” in their original language). We approve of brain, and curiosity. You can be black as night; if you’re a science interested nerd, then welcome aboard.