Happy Birthday Charles De Gaulle

Today is the birthday of Charles De Gaulle.

The video above is of President De Gaulle calling for Quebec separatism while at the Montreal City Hall in 1967.

Pure entertainment.

Charles De Gaulle lived 1890-1970.

De Gaulle was the great French hero of WW II and of Algeria.

Here is my post about General De Gaulle’s famous speech of June 18, 1940.  This speech began the French Resistance to German rule of France.

A great two-volume of De Gaulle was written by Jean Lacouture. The first volume is called De Gaulle–The Rebel, 1890-1944. Here is a review of that book. The second volume is De Gaulle–The Ruler, 1945-1970.

A good one-volume biography is The Last Great Frenchman–A Life of Charles De Gaulle by Charles Williams.

De Gaulle’s war memoirs are justly well-regarded.

Here is biographical information about Charles De Gaulle.

Here is a BBC biography of De Gaulle.

Aware of his duties as a leader of the French resistance and as President of France, while at the same time never losing a sense of the absurd, Charles De Gaulle has long been one of my favorite figures of history.

Occupy Houston Moving Ahead As Always After Shots Fired

There was gunfire yesterday at Occupy Houston in Tranquility Park.

At first report, the gunman had nothing to do with Occupy Houston or with any ideological motive opposed to Occupy Houston or Occupy Wall Street.

Nobody was hurt except for the gunman who was wounded by Houston police.

Thank you to Houston police who risked their safety to apprehend the gunman. I hope the shooter gets the help he needs. The Houston Chronicle reported that he was 21 years old. I hope he can find his way at some point.

At Occupy Houston, there was still some press around in the evening after the shooting.

But the nightly general assembly went on as usual.

I was at Occupy Houston in the evening, but not at the time of the shooting.

Here is the Occupy Houston website.

Here is Occupy Galveston.

Here is Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy efforts across the country are meeting in their home cities, and are sharing ideas online for the next round of the movement.

Please consider supporting Occupy as they speak on behalf of the 99%. We all have the ability to advocate and speak up for ourselves