Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?

Saturday, cigarette #2

Yale Free Press blogger TKB (also of Eli's Coffer) weighs in on the attempt to make danger illegal:

For too long have Americans indulged in the frontier fantasy. We would-be cowboys have kidded ourselves into believing that ours is the society where risk-taking is lauded, responsibility accepted and honored, autonomy and individuality held sacred. Yes, Americans sure do talk the talk, and when strolling alongside those nancies in the EU, we seem to walk the walk, too. But step off the Champs-Élysées and down Nevsky Prospekt, and a different persona quickly appears...

An interesting rhetorical strategy. I hope it doesn't backfire: I can imagine an American looking at a Frenchman, then at a Russian, and saying, like Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, "You gotta punch your weight."