How sad this whole story is. Apart from the fact that I'm completely fed up with snow, I'd love to have this on my street. The Venus de Milo is a fabulous marble sculpture and this is a fabulous snow sculpture!

Our world's societies have recognised this lovely statue as a wonderful piece of art for centuries and the fact that our societies today can get so sadly wound up about a tribute to it shows we're not advancing as a culture, we're regressing in some key areas.

How sad.

I've been a huge fan of Cyndi Lauper for a looooong time. I like her music, I like what she stands for and I like her for the way she is just who she is and not what others want her to be.

True Colours is one of my favourite songs of hers... It has always spoken to me about who the true person is within the people I love and it's spoken to me about the real me inside the person people see. I find it hugely positive and wonderfully uplifting and it's always been one of those songs I turn to when I am feeling down or when I am thinking about the person I love the most.

What a lovely song!

That's truly shocking! Who on Earth is sick enough to come up with this stuff???

I love this song on so many levels. It's pulled me out of depressions, it's pushed me through tough times and it's given me hope time and time again. I can't think of another song I play quite as much as this one when I just need that special song to help me in a tough situation.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm quite a fan of this song! :)

I have to admit that I'm quite a fan of the vampire genre and loved True Blood (I've not seen Vampire Diaries so far, but assure you I will!) Alexander Skarsgård is definitely the True Blood hottie for me, but being bi, leaning more towards women, I was disappointed that the female vampires in True Blood at least were either of the hopelessly indept variety (Jessica, for example) or one-dimensionally evil, without the depth of character, flaws and aspirations of characters such as Eric Northman or Bill Compton.

<WARNING: SOME SMALL SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPHS>
Luckily, there are some good female characters such as Sookie, who is now showing a nicely growing strength which is a pleasant change to the continued situations of having to be gallantly rescued (which did get a bit tiring in the first couple of seasons), and Tara Thornton, who has a lovely depth and passion. Unfortunately, even though these are principal characters, so far the plotlines for both characters have been very heavily centred on their relationships with their male partners and I'd have loved to see them evolve to a more equal status with the men in the show. This could be veeery slowly happening with Sookie as we know more about what she is, and may happen with Tara now that Eggs is no longer there...

Fingers crossed for some more independence of Tara and Sookie and some more rounded female vampire characters in the next season! I'd actually love to see Tara become that strong female vampire character... I think that Rutina Wesley could really carry that off. She's impressed me a lot more than Anna Paquin and I loved how she played the gleefully/evilly hedonistic role when she was possessed.

That's a strong letter and just the right way to get the message across!

Thank you! That's so well said.

@LanceWorth:
That's the way I prefer to see things, too, since I see there being a huge difference between a transsexual person and a transgender person (though I do admit that a lot of transsexual people try to live with crossdressing, often hoping that will be enough to hold off transition).

Unfortunately, the world sees transsexual people and transgender people as one group (hence the 'transgender' umbrella term), though the motivations and the path followed are hugely different, which means that acting as he does above paints us all with the same brush and I do hate that.

Ann: There's no White privilege in Europe--Europe is the HOME of White people. It's like saying that Black people are privileged in Africa over Asians, etc...

Oh, come on... Europe is the home of white privilege! We have millennia of white privilege ingrained into this place and we have millennia of experience in stomping it into the regions around us!

I, or any other woman, in order to enter ANY mosque in France would have to cover my head or I would not be kicked out. So why do they demand special rights????

There's a huge difference between being asked to change what one wears in a public space and in a religious space! Of course it's normal to follow the customs of a religious space when you enter it... It's what one's expected to do in a public space which is so much more discriminatory in Europe.

I'm really disappointed by this. The discussions we had last year about burqas and head-scarves in schools was held at a much more rational level. France is a secular state and wearing any overtly religious clothing or jewellery is banned in state-run institutions (schools, courts, public buildings). That was at least on the surface a serious discussion of keeping religious tensions out of these places (with a hefty dose of Islamaphobia underneath, of course, because unless an example needs to be made, wearing a cross, rosary beads and carrying a bible, all at the same time, won't get a comment).

However, this discussion is purely about controlling how a woman can turn up to a swimming pool, a completely public space. I'm white: I could turn up in a kimono with a pink carnation in my hair and they wouldn't trouble me. This all happened in a public space where what one wears, as long as it is appropriate, should have no import. Yes, I can understand them wanting to stop people swimming in their street clothes (apparently the way they could justify this as unhygienic), but the burkini is made for swimming and is no more unhygienic than a swimming suit: It's the same material, but just covers a bit more skin!

Pure, classic discrimination and unabashed Islamophobia added to it.

Merci, Sarko! Encore une fois, j'ai honte d'être une francophile!