French Politics

hence “Glorified”

Edited by megaeliz on Apr 17th 2019 at 8:24:39 AM

One problem with adding modern compartmentalisation to the old roof is the added weight. It's a gothic cathedral, the actual roof was built to be as light as reasonably possible with all the structural elements in the stonework. So you'd not want to stress the timbers too much.

No, Westminster is a death trap, Notre-Dame was just a tinderbox.

Edited by RainehDaze on Apr 17th 2019 at 1:26:51 PM

Don't tempt me into really dark thoughts.

Seconded about Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. What's kind of worse is that that whole complex is a death-trap that rose from the ashes of a fire that (mostly) destroyed the C12th-C16th oak-based tinder-box that had been there before with something arguably worse (which is mainly why I don't support a chest-thumping rush- job being done to restore/improve Notre Dame — been there, done that, got the crap that proves it).

Which is currently crumbling. Construction work upon which has been punted back and back with every government to even touch the thought.

Westminster is a jury-rig built on bodges on top of scrapped plans, all covered with paint, gilt, wood-panelling, leather and a heap of horsehair and plaster.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Apr 17th 2019 at 2:51:25 PM

Let's...let's not. Even joking about that sort of thing isn't really cool.

Edited by M84 on Apr 17th 2019 at 9:36:59 PM

Well, let's hope that no other historical important buildings will burn. And that Notre Dame will inspire a lot of governments to take a closer look at their most precious buildings.

In a way it is kind of difficult to belief that there wasn't enough money to take care of Notre dame properly, considering how many visitors the church has. It kind of should pay for itself, shouldn't it?

You'd be surprised, taking care of heritage like this is costly not only due to the type of tests one needs to make to keep track of the state of the edification, which must be non-intrusive techniques like sound or heat based measures; but also because you need to use materials that are compatible with the structure of the Cathedral so that the building can work without much problem.

The good thing however is that buildings like this, despite requiring a costly restorarion at first, shouldn't present much trouble for a long time if the effort is done correctly, At least, it should outlast any building made with modern concrete.

Someone has compared Macron (as he promised Notre-Dame de Paris would be back within five years) to Cleopatra as in Asterix and Cleopatra. I thought it was funny.

Lol! Though I wouldn't necessarily compliment his nose.

Yellow vests: Protesters in Paris set fire to dozens of cars in anger at millionaire Notre Dame donations

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Apr 21st 2019 at 8:16:14 PM

Really?

May I point out that we are talking about donations, that everyone has the right to decide what to donate money to and that those people have no idea whatsoever what else those people donate to?

(Not that I think that the rich donating something once a while makes up for ie widespread tax avoidance, but this is certainly not the right way to get sympathy for their cause).

I find it infuriating that these people refer to Notre Dame, one of the jewels of Gothic Architecture, an iconic Cathedral of the Catholic Church and an invaluable treasure to France and the world, now and in the future; as just some stones.

This is the same, flawed logic that the Talibans used to justify the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

Edited by raziel365 on Apr 21st 2019 at 1:06:09 AM

Some people just don't see value in history.

How many people do you think actually cared when our museum burned down about half a year ago? Almost no one, for many it was just a bunch of junk.

Seems like that attitude isn't unique to Brazil.

Without endorsing the Yellow Vests in any way (and certainly not condoning their violence), I can understand where their arguments come from, and partly share it actually. The everlasting argument of right-wing governments, and even left-wing ones, against taxing too much the large companies, is that it will harm them or cause them to leave the country. And now, the same companies are suddenly ready to offer incredibly large sums for repairing Notre Dame. So, yes, I can understand why poorer people can feel that a cathedral is more valued than them.

I had been thinking about that museum fire as well. It had received very little coverage in France, which I thought was a real shame.

Edited by C105 on Apr 21st 2019 at 10:37:47 AM

Oh, I share the anger at the rich, alright. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking these donations were done out of goodness of their hearts: this is all a PR stunt by them.

My point is that I don't think, for not even a single moment, that this anger should ever be directed at Notre Dame. Hell, if anything, the building is also hurt by the tax avoidance: the government needs to get the money for maintenance and repairs of historical buildings from somewhere.

Yeah if the donated money had been paid in taxes over the last few years the budget might have been there to do the renovations more safely, and thus avoid the fire happening in the first place.

I don't think that the yellow vests are justified for destroying things. But the thing is, our current government has lowered the taxes on the weatlthiest people; the current display of wealth by them, which costs almost nothing to them as it will further mitigate their taxes and benefit them as cheap publicity, can only anger the yellow vests further.

What we see is that the wealthiest have too much spare money and that they should pay more taxes.

I get their anger but that's absolutely terrible optics, people care about symbols and the Notre Dame is the mother of all symbols.

Of course, it's going to get support, Macron's neoliberalism may make it galling but they need to just deal with it and not die on this hill of all places.

Yeah the optics are a lot better if they go with “if you’d paid taxes in the first place this wouldn’t have happened”, rather than “so you’ve got the money for the cathedral but not us?”, the later point isn’t wrong, but it comes across as preferring companies that give zero money to public good over companies that give some to public good but are hypocrites about it.

@C105

Unfortunately, that's kind of a thing for the developing countries or even developed ones as much as I hate to admit it. Since the world manages itself by Fiat currency, perfecting taxation against the globalized companies will take some thought and time but we will get there, though we have to remember that, as much as we loathe these fat cats, there's not an international taxation enforcement team that could put pressure on them.

@Silasw

I'm afraid that's something of a thing for the current era, we prefer honest jerkassery to hypocrital goodness.

Honestly, whatever point they may have is somewhat undercut by the fact that they're setting people's property on fire.

That's a pretty good way to turn the regular citizen on the street against you.

Especially as it’s the property of regular people, if they were saying trashing luxury apartments owned by the ultra-wealthy, or a high end car dealership it would at least make sense.

If you want to say fuck the rich than it’s the rich’s stuff you should be trashing, not the stuff of the middle and working class.

Somehow I'm not surprised by the Yellow Vests' behavior.

Just a new branding for the Black Bloc, assholes out to smash and burn stuff.