French culture, pillow talk and rumors

We’ll always have Paris: The Nobel Prize for literature went to French-born novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, who scoffed at notions that French culture is dead. “There’s no risk of decline,” Le Clezio said.

Watch for Le Clezio when he appears on season eight of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” and MTV’s “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF.”

Can you hear us now? Two U.S. military linguists claim that intelligence agents routinely listen in on the phone calls of American military and Red Cross workers, even eavesdropping on their “pillow talk” calls.

An NSA official vehemently denied the allegations, then left quickly saying he had an important call that he had to take.

Have you heard? A survey says 94 percent of Americans have heard at least one ridiculous rumor about either John McCain or Barack Obama, including such falsehoods as Obama being a secret Muslim and McCain having been brainwashed.

The 6 percent who said they had never heard such rumors also said they had never watched the Fox News channel before.

—Jon Bauer, Herald staff