Tour de France and silly land distribution schemes

Since Direct TV cut me off from the French TV world signal I have to rely on a trip to Caracas to watch some of the Tour this year.  And it is as magnificent as ever, the filming crew becoming better if possible.

For some strange reason this year I am more obsessed in trying to find a pothole, any pot hole, along the hundred of miles of road.  Living in Venezuela where you have now major potholes regularly in the middle of our main highway, the ARC, I just cannot understand why the French do not have a few here and there....

Also, what is the story with all those clean roads, garbage-less, trimmed grass?  And how do they have so many chateaux, of all sizes, of even questionable interest, so well kept when here we do not even bother in keeping up one of Bolivar's homes?  The lack of graffiti on every wall, the lack of iron bars on most windows also do bother me....


Seriously now.  I think that someone should show Chavez significant footage of the Tour de France so he can see by himself the reality of the French country side, with extraordinarily well kept fields, producing fields, everywhere, separated by neatly kept patches of wooden area, wooden areas that do not go up in flames whenever there is a slight drought.

Someone should tell Chavez that all of these fields are private property, inheritance to someone.  They should tell Chavez that the French Revolution was at least a revolution in the country side when the lands of the Church and Aristocracy were seized by the state and sold cheaply, as a property, to the masses of peasants that transformed France into an agricultural power to this day, only matched in efficiency or production by the US or the Dutch.  And probably unmatched in the overall quality of its farm products (and I am not talking only of wine and cheese here).

Someone should tell Chavez that instead of saying nonsense about the future of La Güaira he should instead have a hard look at the countryside of Venezuela today where he will find only increasing wasteland, burnt land, abandoned land, sub-productive land, crime, garbage, blackmail, ransom, potholes, potholes everywhere, an incredible amount of potholes that require anyone that still dares to work the country side to own a 4X4 vehicle or a small truck....

Someone should tell Chavez that France with half the land of Venezuela and way more than the double of its population feeds well its people and millions outside its borders.  Someone should tell Chavez that French food is rarely if ever found in thousand of rotting containers abandoned who knows where...

Someone should tell Chavez that actually the French government subsidizes some sectors so that they do not produce as much as they could.  Someone should tell Chavez that no French government reached power promising the end of private agrarian property.  That no French government ever seized productive small farms like La Carolina.  Instead, all French government, including the socialist ones, tried to find ways to help productive farms to improve their efficiency, productivity, variety of crops, etc...

And someone should tell Chavez that this is why France can organize magnificent road trips for world class bikers while the hoi polloi can wait for them on the side of the roads, having well furnished picnic baskets, seating under the shade of an old tree, or their umbrella, next to their car or motor home unconcerned that some thugs will come to rob, rape, maim, kill them.