> This spring I visited Notre Dame in Paris. I saw four soldiers patroling the street, spread out a few meters apart from each other, one finger close to the tr

> This spring I visited Notre Dame in Paris. I saw four soldiers patroling the street, spread out a few meters apart from each other, one finger close to the triger, barrel pointing to the ground...This may be all security theatre. Or the times are really changing. I don't think times are changing...thirty years ago I crossed the border in north Ireland, which was heavily militarized and patrolled, and drove past police stations there, which were heavily militarized. Then went to Paris and ran across sandbag covered watchpoints around the US embassy, possibly because of the recent CSPPA attacks. Then we went to the FRG a few weeks after Reagan made a Berlin speech (protested by tens of thousands of people in west Berlin), and the US/FRG/NATO presence even in cities like Nuernberg were ever-present, especially amid tensions between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. So no, I don't think times are changing.