Today at the Editor’s glance: Weather: Patchy fog in the morning. Sunny. Highs in the lower 70s. Northwest winds around 5 mph, becoming northeast in the afternoon. Sunday Night: Clear. Lows around 50. Southeast winds around 5 mph.
Stetson University’s Second Stage Theatre: Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2, is staged at 3 p.m. at Stetson University’s Second Stage Theatre, inside the Museum of Art, 600 N. Woodland Blvd., adjacent to the DeLand campus. Free admission to all.
The Annual George Washington Carver Foundation Auction begins Monday. The purpose of the auction is to raise money to go back into the development of the Carver Center in Bunnell. In order to participate in this auction you must register for a bidder account on this 32auctions website. To register click login in the top right corner and then click “Create an account now” if you have not yet made one. The system will then send you an email with a link to confirm the registration. Your bidder ID will be the first part of your email address. If you would like to change the bidder ID you may go in to account settings and pick a new ID. Please pick a username you don’t mind being displayed publicly. The username of the current bidder will be displayed with the item.
Notably: The French go to the polls today in the first round of their presidential election, when the top two vote-getters will go on to the runoff later this month. The winners are expected to be incumbent Emmanuel Macron and the National Front’s Marine LePen, a Trumpist on steroid. The problem: LePen, who Macron crushed five years ago, is within breathing distance this time, as the French electorate, like its counterparts in many democracies, has soured on democracy, inclusion, liberalism and liberty for all, preferring a more xenophobic, revanchist approach. Melanchon, the third-place socialist, is too much of a narcissist to matter at this point. You can watch the returns at France 24 in English here, also in French, Spanish and Arabic.
From Statista’s Daily Infographics: “With France gearing up for its next presidential election on April 10, what are the voting trends in this final stretch of the campaign? While there have been plenty of contemporary examples of polls not being predictions, but rather a snapshot of opinion that inevitably comes with a margin of error, this infographic looks at the ups and downs for the main candidates from mid-March until April 7, using data from the Ipsos-Sopra Steria barometer. While Emmanuel Macron remained in the lead of voting intentions three days before the election (26.5%), Marine Le Pen is the one who has made the best progress in the polls over the last four weeks, going from 16 percent to 23 percent. According to political analysts, the candidate of the National Rally would benefit, among other things, from the support of Éric Zemmour’s voters, who dropped by 5 points to 8.5 percent. In third place, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is also experiencing positive momentum (+4 points), but remains a step below his rivals for the second round, having stood at 16.5 percent on April 7. Another unknown factor in this first round of the presidential election concerns abstention, which could be particularly high according to the latest surveys (between 26 and 30 percent).”
Now this: Jacques Brel, one of the greatest singer, songwriters and poets of the 20th century, wrote “Quand on a que l’amour” (“When All We have Is Love”) in 1956 in response to the Soviet invasion of Hungary. If you were in France today, you’d probably hear this song in a few places, and see a few teary faces. The English translations I found have very little to do with Brel’s actual lyrics, so there’s no sense including them here.
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“… and so France, whipped on by a jingoist press, entered the last decade of the century still spoiling for glory or redemption. What had led people to credit a false messiah named Boulanger would lead them anon to vilify a scapegoat named Alfred Dreyfus.”
–From Frederick Brown’s Zola: A Life (1995).
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