A Flaneur in the Cloud - December 16, 2023

France’s Chateau of Versailles has pulled out all the stops for one of its favorite sons, gardener Andre Le Notre, who designed the palace’s famous gardens. This year, to mark the 400th anniversary of Le Notre’s birth, several of the garden’s fountains are being restored and the chateau is hosting an exhibit on his life through February 2014. Experts say Le Notre’s work was so groundbreaking, it continues to influence contemporary urban architecture. Andre Le Notre was born in 1613 into a family of royal gardeners, but he would take the profession way beyond a trade. That’s according to Jacques Moulin, Versailles’ current gardener — or architect — the 30th since Le Notre. “Le Notre transformed the profession of gardener into a high-level royal service and turned his trade into a grand art,” Moulin says. “He became the interlocutor of kings and princes across Europe and built a huge art collection.”

Protests continue in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev in response to President Yanukovych’s refusal to join his country with the European Union. The outrage comes over the perceived favoritism to the Eastern part of the country where ties to Russia are stronger and jobs are relatively easy to be had. Meanwhile, in the Western side of the Ukraine, many have left for other European countries to look for work says Anastasiya Zanuda, a reporter for the BBC based in Kiev.

Race is embedded the fabric of American culture, and racial categories and their implications persist today. In “A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America,” Jacqueline Jones, professor of history at the University of Texas, Austin, argues against our continued use of racial categories—at least in the ways Americans have used these categories since the country’s founding.