I HOPE this recording of the ever-popular second movement of Antonin Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, also known as the New World Symphony, fills you with affection for your country today. The symphony was composed in 1893 while Dvořák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America and was first performed in New York City. The Czech composer "wrote that he would not have composed his American pieces as he had if he had not seen America. It has been said that Dvořák was inspired by the 'wide open spaces' of America, such as prairies he may have seen on his trip to Iowa in the summer of 1893. Notices about several performances of the symphony include the phrase 'wide open spaces' about what inspired the symphony and/or about the feelings it conveys to listeners." (Source) The piece evokes so much that is beautiful about America -- things best said in sound.  

THE organized riots in France are justified by the history of French colonization of Algeria. Rarely mentioned is the motivation for French involvement. The 19th-century military raid on Algiers was intended, in part, to stop the Barbary slave trade, which had enslaved so many Europeans from the 1500's to mid-1800s that population density along some parts of the coasts of Europe declined dramatically. The Regency of Algiers was one of the main bases of the Barbary pirates and Barbary Slave Traders who attacked Christian ships and coastal settlements in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. Like the rest of the Barbary Coast, the Regency of Algiers lived from the trade of slaves or goods captured from Europe, America and sub-Saharan Africa. The European powers bombarded Algiers on different occasions in retaliation and the United States provoked the Barbary Wars in order to put an end to Algerian privateering against Christian shipping.[18] The conquest of Algeria began in the last days of the Bourbon Restoration by Charles X of France. It aimed to put a definite end to Barbary privateering and increase the king's popularity among the French people, particularly in Paris, where many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars lived. Algerian slave trade and piracy immediately ceased after the French conquered Algiers. (Source) Slavery in the American colonies was a piece of cake compared to slavery under the Ottomans. Boys and women were used as sex slaves and many slaves were worked to death. Robert Davis estimates that slave traders from Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli enslaved 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans in North Africa, from…

JEAN-FRANCOIS Gariépy reviews the situation in France. You can also view the video clip here, starting at minute 43:00.