a little redundant, don't you think?

I loved the forum, as Hala seems to have evolved quite well as a moderator. Some of the earliest forums she had moderated have been lacking, but this time she seemed to be in her element, at ease, confident and all kinds of awesome.

And I do believe that was Schams in the audience. Beside a rather striking woman (shall we say, of a certain age?) who, upon first sighting, my mind immediately went to: "Hala's Mom?" Not sure, and unless someone confirms it, I'll settle for the Schams sighting. (screencap can be found on the dotorg.)

And if I got the opportunity to do a forum in such an excellent location, I might have tried harder in my debate classes.



But I do have one beef with the whole thing, and I think this would annoy anyone: It's a forum on France. Yes. We get it. They have French names, they're at the French Senate, the forum is part of a feature called Eye on France. So why, oh dear CNN producers, did you have to put in, ad nauseam, the panelists' profession to be "French (blank)"? Why not just cite, "director", "tennis player", etc? WHY must it be "French director"? Seriously, why? If the pronunciation of their very French names (well, except for Marie Drucker) didn't tip viewers off, surely the accent would have. I mean, really. This would be understandable if you were airing this randomly, but we all knew what we were watching, and Hala didn't mind reminding us: the forum caps off the week, a week featuring France. And, gosh, didn't every other question posed (if not all of them) have the word "France" or "French" in it?

We get it.

Oh, and another thing? Why did Hala keep on calling some panelists (Amelie Mauresmo the most obvious) by their whole names? But this is minor beef, unlike the Kobe beef just mentioned.


Although, you know I couldn't turn away, because, well, Hala speaking in her French accent. What can I say?