Thus The Wall Street Journal today. “Marine Le Pen’s quest to transform the far-right National Front party from a fringe movement into a dominant force in European politics is hitting a fundamental obstacle: her own father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen,” explains the newspaper. This is hardly news nowadays, for the family in question has been in trouble for some years now, but I still cackled to myself when I read the title and byline. Splendid! The human species in a nutshell, indeed. Grand national ideas smashed by the idiocy of family life. The Le Pens are thus a good reminder to all and sundry of the fragility of the human endeavor from start to finish. There are family dramas galore in history, and there will be many more. The entire social order is suffused with idiocies of this ilk, which only goes to show that they are embedded in the human brain, the very source of all the trouble. Take any grand endeavor, and Le Pens will pop up all over the place. Peekaboo!