Bonfire of the Vanities

There has been no end of commentary, from both sides of the Atlantic, on the DSK affair.  Yet a couple of points seem not to have been made, and so shall be made here.

(1)   Not disputed is the scenario at T = 0:   DSK exits the shower, and finds Diallo in his room.  At this point, narratives differ, and continue to diverge over the subsequent events of the day.   But the oddity of the initial situation somehow passes without comment from either side.

To see how odd it is:  Imagine that Hillary Clinton, say, checked into a luxury hotel in Paris.   She is granted the luxury and privacy of the V.I.P. suite.  Yet upon stepping naked from the shower, she is confronted with a man (let’s call him Carlos) who, despite the obvious fact that she has not checked out, claims he is there to “clean the room”.

It is evident straight off that all public opinion would be against the man -- your first thought is that he has snuck in to steal something, or worse --  and (on the distaff side) would no doubt would work itself up to a righteous froth in the process.  But with the genders reversed… sound of crickets.  
Yet one thing is plain.  Either

    (a)  Diallo had no business being in that place at that time, and may have been up to something; or

    (b) She was there by prior arrangement with her … client…
(French reactions to this latter scenario here.)

To continue the thought-experiment:   

Imagine further that Carlos --- without corroborating witness -- goes on to accuse Ms. Clinton of some atrocity.  The Secretary, having checked out, is on a plane for her next appointment.  It is already on the tarmac, when French forces storm the plane, remove her by force, then parade her in handcuffs before a sneering, jeering populace.  She is thrown into prison with the lowest scum; unflattering photographs of her in unkempt captivity  are illegally leaked to the media.  The French press publishes front-page cartoons depicting her as various unpleasant animals, and in huge headlines, labels her  “la perv”.   An ambitious D.A. claims an open-and-shut case.  She is denied bail.  Invective pours upon her from around the world, and spreads to slurs on Americans generally, and on women generally.  When she is finally released on bail (at a figure higher than what is charged for most accused murderers), she attempts to find refuge at her husband's pied-a-terre in Paris, but the neighbors (with what legal authority is unclear)  block the move, not wishing to live near such a leper.  She is forced to hire emergency lodgings at her own considerable expense, and (lest she slip out by night to wreak further outrages) to wear an ankle bracelet at all times, as well as to hire -- again at her own considerable expense -- armed guards to watch her every move, with orders to shoot if she tries to pull something funny.  (It is unclear whether the bullets thus expended would be additionally charged to her account.)
It develops that Carlos has extensive ties in the Corsican underworld -- only, we have not been told so much as his name, which is shielded out of tender concern for what the Secretary of State might have done to him. Meanwhile these facts are hushed up, while the blood-lust mounts, and Clinton resigns from her office in disgrace, her Presidential ambitions in tatters.  Before her guilt or innocence can be determined, she is replaced by a politician of the opposite gender, who soon winds up facing criminal charges in turn.
Even when the lies begin to unravel, and she is finally released, a horde of paparazzi follow her wherever she goes, and file snide reports on what she's wearing, and how much she pays for lunch.

By this point, a number of Americans would be calling for the bombing of France.  (Well, actually, for Clinton, no, but if it had happened to Palin, then definitely.)   And this, in effect, is exactly what New York City, and its gutter press, did to the head of perhaps the most important financial body in the world, and the man who might well otherwise have become the next President of France.

(2)   Disputes abound, both factual and deontological, but on one thing all sides seem piously to agree.  “Only two people know what happened in that room.  The rest of us, we’ll probably never know.”

Now, that is certainly a logical possibility, perhaps even a probability:  but a truism it is not.  Some others who might be au courant include:  the concierge, or winking desk-clerk, who for a fee will arrange such things;  her handler, who will certainly be wanting his cut from so ripe a plum.

(3)  The whole affair is eerily reminiscent of Tom Wolfe’s classic novel, Bonfire of the Vanities,  where again, a man of finance and some heft, is brought low by an ill wind from the Bronx….

Footnote:

Having recklessly slimed DSK, the New York Post (a Murdoch rag) is now raking over Diallo with equal glee:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/hotel_maid_got_stiffed_by_dom_4sML8y67I7vcfXEBbTo2UM

(The pun, of course, is intentional.)

Still and all, give the devil his due.  If these latest allegations prove true (a big if; I wouldn’t take on faith  the word of Murdoch’s minions, nor a leak from the Defense), it will be quite a scoop for the Post, throwing the entire affair in a new and lucid light, one which had never occurred to me during the weeks when I pondered the ins and outs of this case.   It does sometimes happen that a tawdry source is the first to reveal a bombshell that is later largely substantiated (the National Enquirer, the Drudge Report).

[Update 10 VII 2011]
A number of parallel cases are examined here -- this time not as thought-experiment, but as fact:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-arent-we-mad-at-the-mistresses/2011/07/08/gIQA9DwQ4H_story.html

[Update 27 VIII 2011]
Eventually, as it must, DSK-fatigue sets in:

Un sparadrap nommé DSK

À l'instar du capitaine Haddock, les dirigeants socialistes aimeraient se débarrasser de l'ancien patron du FMI, dont le retour risque de perturber leur campagne 

DSK ministre en 2012 ? Une majorité de Français est contre

Blanchi, mais pas ministrable pour autant.

[Update 29 VIII 2011]
Further fun is to be had here.

[Update 18 IX 11]
DSK interview here.

~     ~     ~

Actually, a propos of pretty much nothing -- there is a wonderful scene of scene of Woman-walking-in-on-man-exiting-naked-from-the-shower in Episode 5 of Season 5 of “Angel”.   Angel has had a tiring day, and has just washed off some demon blood, when in waltzes Eve.  She shows no remorse at thus walking in on him (nor does he bother with a towel), but excuses herself thus:

            The door was open.  Well, unlocked.

Angel knows otherwise.  She counters:

            Well, I had a key.

He recovers what she had purloined.   She idles on:

            You take a long shower for a guy.  Were we having some gentleman’s time?

-- Ah!  It’s a great show.  And French politics is un show for sure.  And the Big Apple is a show of its own.   It’s all good, in its own way, even when it’s outrageous.

Cui prodest?

 

The American mixture of furious public puritanism (often enough hiding private debauchery) and a public  avid for such slime (real or invented) as is regularly dished out on cable, or by such tabloids the New York Post, means that anyone who sets foot on our shores, can find his reputation exploded, just like that.   Add Boeotian francophobia, the mixture is lethal indeed.

When Clinton and Spitzer were targeted and brought low, the matter was anyhow intra muros.    But when they (and by “they”, I mean the Post in particular)  went after the chief of the International Monetary Fund during a European economic crisis, and sabotaged the chances of the (by some accounts) leading candidate for the next President of France… they may have bitten off more than they bargained for.

[Footnote:  The Post remains impenitent:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/the_filthy_froggy_is_still_wart_GbGxUl1IfsKzTJ9TJs8sHL ]

So far, official commentary in France, in response to the revelations of the past couple of days, has been muted.  For one thing, Frenchmen are naturally more interested in the possible role played by Accor and by Sarkozy, than in the role of various U.S.-based entities.   But vox populi has been piping up.   Americans, accustomed to having their way in the world, have been little concerned.  But have a care:  France is not Guatemala or Grenada.  

Herewith a selection of today’s Comments.

(1) On the lasting harm to international relations:

http://www.lemonde.fr/dsk/reactions/2011/07/02/nouveaux-soupcons-contre-nafissatou-diallo_1544117_1522571_1.html

Le FMI a été précipité dans les bras de C. LAGARDE, la primaire socialiste a été pourrie, la présidentielle française en a été transformée, un homme a été jeté en pâture aux chiens, emprisonné à Rikers Island ... tout ça à cause d'une affabulatrice, puis de l'emballement policier / judiciaire américain ??? C'est terrible, horrible et dégueulasse. Rien ne peut réparer ça.

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et si dans cette histoire elle lui aurait transmis le sida ???

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/nyregion/one-revelation-after-another-undercut-strauss-kahn-accusers-credibility.html?_r=1&ref=global-home&pagewanted=print

Fritz

Wuerzburg, Germany

The combination of the undisputed facts that (a) there was sex and that (b) the maid has more than $ 100,000 on her bank accounts lead me the not so daring suspicion that Strauss-Kahn may simply fell prey to a New York hooker who had hoped to increase her regular fee by blackmailing this special customer.

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Peppi319

Ireland

Americans, you should review your justice system. This story will tell you that you should stop jumping to conclusions created by the medias. DSK was candidate for the presidential election in France next year, so he was a big fish. A sexual scandal, specialy in a puritan country can destroy a man. This woman maybe knew who he was and thought she can make a lot of money. I hope she will be sued for her lies and the accusative will apologize to DSK.
I was shocked when I saw the pictures of DSK with handcuffs and the stupid jokes regarding French people. All around the world, we are forced to watch your stupid soaps, hollywood celebrities, work management process. So stop thinking your are a model for the rest of the planet

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http://www.lemonde.fr/dsk/reactions/2011/07/03/la-direction-du-sofitel-mise-en-cause-par-des-proches-de-dsk_1544208_1522571_1.html

On aimerait aussi qu'une enquête se penche sur l'arrestation accélérée par la police dans un avion d'AIR FRANCE du fait du caractère d'extraterritorialité de celui-ci.

 

(2) Dark rumblings of a conspiracy:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2011/07/02/01003-20110702ARTFIG00322-premiere-soiree-libre-de-dsk-a-new-york.php

C'est un complot et l'hôtel est dans le coup car l'hôtel appelle la police et il est très rare dans un hôtel de luxe. D'habitude, l'hôtel demande au client de payer un peu d'argent. La semaine précédente de l'affaire, le cours de bourse de l'Accor était très haut. Je pense qu'elle est consentente et fait semblant par la suite pour piéger DSK. C'est pour cela que DSK était surpris quand elle a poussé car DSK baisse [presumably he means ‘baise’] les femmes de chambres à Sofitel régulièrement et jamais problème. Qui (islamiste, candidat socialiste au primaire ou ses alliés, US,...?) organise le complot? A qui profite ce complot?

--

Quand DSK écrivait lui-même le scénario de sa chute

DSK : "Certains ont intérêt à ce que je sois viré du FMI. Les Russes sont les plus intéressés par ça, et Poutine est proche de Sarko..."
http://www.lemonde.fr/dsk/article/2011/07/02/quand-le-patron-du-fmi-ecrivait-lui-meme-le-scenario-de-sa-chute_1543993_1522571.html#ens_id=1522342

--

Il reste à trouver le commanditaire de ce guet-apens

--

Reste à savoir qui a monté ce coup. Une prostituée oui mais elle ne voulait pas se plaindre, c'est l'hôtel qui semble l'avoir poussée. C'est aussi l'hotel qui a prévenu l'UMP en premier avant même la presse.

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un article de Libération il y a quelques années déjà soulignait l’arnaque institutionnel en AFRIQUE se greffant sur les sites de rencontres sur internet européens. De nombreuses familles AFRICAINES « subsaharienne » poussent leur plus jolie fille à draguer sur internet des européens de façon à faire vivre toute la famille, freres et sœurs compris, grace aux mandats Western Union d’un européen ferré. La pression sociale est forte pour que la fille pêche un européen. Le mois dernier une chaine généraliste diffusait un magazine d’enquête sur les «brouteurs » de Cote d’Ivoire : des ivoiriens qui passent leurs journées sur internet à se faire passer pour des africaines amoureuses d’européens sur des sites de rencontres, en faisant fructifier un portefeuille de pigeons. L’un prenant la voix d’une femme pour appeler son « chéri » et lui demander de ralonger la sauce de quelques centaines d’Euros par mandat. A plein temps ils collectent sous divers pretextes des milliers d’Euros par mois (salaire moyen à 300 Euros?). Ils sont fiers d’arnaquer des européens en prenant cela comme une revanche retroactive de la colonisation. (ceux qui ne connaissent pas cherchez sur Dailymotion : "brouteurs Côte d'Ivoire")

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tout a fait vrai. Je vis depuis 10 ans en RepDom. C'est le sport national dans ce pays et son voisin Haïti d'arnaquer le "gringo".

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http://www.lemonde.fr/dsk/article/2011/07/02/nouveaux-soupcons-contre-nafissatou-diallo_1544117_1522571.html#ens_id=1522342

Nous nous retrouvons finalement devant une nouvelle affaire Clinton: une simple relation sexuelle qui tourne à l'émeute pour cause de manipulation politique. Ça sent le clan républicain à plein nez (ça pue). Cette fois-ci, ils sont intervenus avant qu'il ne devienne président (c'est mieux). La justice américaine n'a peut-être pas trop apprécié qu'ils se soient payé sa tête.

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Moi ce qui me fait rigoler, c'est les détails du genre "les policiers ont relevé du sperme sur le sol et sur les murs". Eh ben dis donc ! C'est un geyser ce DSK !

--

Je ne peux imaginer que DSK ne se soit pas protéger, alors dans ce cas où est passé le préservatif ?

---

Résumons : elle monneyait des service sexuels dans l'hotel, elle dealait, ellea été tellement "traumatisée" par sa "relation forcée" qu'elle a continué à faire une autre chambre après, elle a téléphoné à son copain en prison pour lui dire qu'il y avait du fric à se faire sur DSK... mais c'est une pauvre victime violée. Et moi, je suis le Père Noël. La seul question qui vaille maintenant est : qui était le commanditaire de cette mise à mort politique ?

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Si tout cela se confirme, c'est une incroyable bévue de la police et de la justice américaine. Quand même, connaître les milieux de la prostitution et des trafics de drogue, c'est vraiment le B-A-BA du métier. L'hypothèse d'une volonté d'évincer DSK du FMI ne serait peut-être pas si idiote que ça.

---

Update 3 juillet, from Le Parisien (these, not comments, but article)

Des connexions entre le Sofitel et et des «officines» à Paris. Le député PS de l'Eure François Loncle, proche de Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a évoqué dimanche l'hypothèse de «connexions» entre le groupe Accor - propriétaire français de l'hôtel Sofitel de New York, théâtre de ce qui est devenu l'affaire DSK - et «certaines officines françaises».

Un «attentat politique», selon Michèle Sabban. Vice-présidente PS du Conseil régional d'Ile-de-France, fidèle de Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Michèle Sabban dit espérer «que, un, cet homme puisse laver son honneur. Deux, que la réhabilitation soit à la hauteur de sa destruction parce que c'est quand même un attentat politique». Interrogée par RCJ, elle parle à nouveau de «manipulation». Et a jugé qu'il fallait «regarder l'attitude de la direction du Sofitel parce qu'il y a quand même quelque chose qui ne va pas»

From the Nouvel Observateur:

@Kali : ".Quand au sperme de DSK retrouvé sur son col, il prouve au contraire la relation consentie."...
Cela ne prouve même rien du tout. On sait maintenant qu'après le 'viol', la 'victime' a nettoyé une autre chambre avant de revenir 'nettoyer' celle de DSK après son départ avant de se "prostrer" . Nettoyer ou mettre en scène l'agression ? Y avait-il un préservatif qui trainait ? Je n'ai pas souvenir que les avocats de DSK aient même dit clairement qu'il y ait eu une relation consentie avec elle. On a même connu des cas ou le sperme avait été récupéré de préservatifs et congelé pour fabriquer des preuves (est ce décelable scientifiquement, je ne sais pas..). Je pense que nous ne sommes au bout de nos surprises

Ecrit par : Fabrice | 03.07.2011

From Le Monde :

La première personne publique, hors du cercle des proches, à avoir affirmé l'innocence de DSK était Poutine. Quelle était sa source, des micros dans la suite VIP?

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Tenter de faire croire aux citoyens que nous sommes, qu'en pareil cas, les services secrets - français et américains - ne sont pas informés, c'est nous prendre tous pour de réels imbéciles.

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la direction de NY a donner Nafissatou comme employēe modėle ! En fait il fallait lire Top Modėle. Plus sērieusement si le tapinage se confirme, il est impossible que les collēgues et la direction ne soient pas au courant!

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Il ne doit pas être difficile de démontrer qu'une partie des gains de la camériste était reversée à la direction du Sofitel..

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Si "Ophélie" se livrait à la prostitution comme le dit le Washington Post (son pseudo est plus celui d'une escorte girl que d'une femme de ménage ...) et que la direction du Sofitel, au mieux, fermait les yeux sur cette activité, cette direction pourrait être taxée de proxénétisme, ce qui explique l'empressement à faire passer la pseudo victime pour une sainte.

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on peut au moins se poser qq questions sans pour autant plonger dans la théorie du complot. Comment le Sofitel recrute-t-il son personnel, notamment celui qui travaille avec le public VIP? ND était récemment parvenue à NY, et dans son pays d'origine, elle n'avait pas eu de formation et était faiblement scolarisée. Est ce possible qu'en trois ans d'activité on l'ait placée dans cette partie de l'hotel? Quel rôle jouent les syndicats de femmes de chambre? (qui ont organisé la manif shame on you)

  --
De mal en pire: Ce même dirlo qui connaissait sa "bien notée"péripatéticienne:Il y a des connections entre"Le Sofitel, et le commissaire de police de New York qui a été décoré,je crois,de la Légion d'honneur par Sarkozy,il y a peu de temps:Il y a des preuve de connivences qui émergent,de plus en plus,chaque jr qui passe!

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Il était clair depuis le début pour tous les cerveaux à peu près bien organisés que DSK avait sauté à pieds joints dans un piège
--

Pop ! goes the Positivist

 [This is a continuation of a thread begun here.]

Another example of fetishizing the visible (cf. now also this)  occurs in Karl Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations: the Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1962; page refs. to the Harper paperback reprint), p. 284:

In the last pages of Testability, Carnap discussed the sentence ‘If all minds should disappear from the universe, the stars would still go on in their courses.’  Lewis and Schlick asserted, correctly, that this sentence was not verifiable.

They so asserted incorrectly.  After all, we have a pretty good handle on those stars in their courses, beginning from not long after the Big Bang  through the present, during most of which there were no human minds.

And here’s a simpler experiment:  Let’s all just refrain from observing the moon for the next two weeks.  Now we open our eyes.  Surpri-ise!  Right where we expected to find it, and at a phase two weeks more mature than when we last checked (rather than the phase as last seen).

One occasionally observes a very young child shut her eyes and announce in a sing-song: “Youuu ca-han’t seee mee….!”  I doubt the child actually believes that, it’s just fun to say.  But suppose she did. She is then entertaining an erroneous optical theory, but not an erroneous ontological one.  She imagines that the lights went out for you as well; but she never entertains the thought that you yourself have been extinguished, or been transfixed into some mute deaf motionless limbo until such time as she shall be pleased to gaze again – after all, she has just shown this, by addressing you.

Incidentally, the whole Schlick-shop with its merry/morose band of logical positivists, appear to have created enormous problems for themselves, and come up with completely counter-intuitive results, from the basic motivation of wishing to exclude all metaphysical propositions from the outset as strictly meaningless.   (The story here is in line with our overarching defense of theism.)  In other words, it wasn’t enough to denounce as wholly unconvincing,  all purported metaphysical statements hitherto; nor to brand it a particularly uninteresting language-game; nor to marginalize the enterprise with the derision usually reserved for circle-squarers.  Metaphysics as such, and for all time, had to have a stake driven through its heart, the stake itself consisting in pure reasoning from selbstverständlich  (metaphysically a-priori? God-given? -- oops, NOT) first principles.  For a demonstration of the absurdities that apparently resulted, cf. Popper, passim.  As (p. 281, op.cit.)

My criticism of the verifiability criterion has always been this: against the intention of its defenders, it did not exclude obvious metaphysical statements, but it did exclude the most important … of all scientific statements … the universal laws of nature.

Why even go near such a disaster, for the sake of excluding-in-principle all metaphysical statements – which they were ignoring anyway?  Popper goes so far as to hazard a guess in a footnote to p. 175:  “One not need believe in the ‘scientific’ character of psycho-analysis (which, I think, is in a metaphysical phase) in order to diagnose the anti-metaphysical fervour of positivism as a form of Father-killing.”  (Note, b.t.w., the capital initial of “Father”.)

*

Since we were obliged, a moment ago, to deprecate Popper, let us hasten to another example, in which we find him on the side of the angels.  First let us note:

             * Our conduct is guided by moral laws.

             * Our scientific activity is guided by metaphysical principles.

             * Both categories are philosophically vexed, and any concrete application of these laws and principles may prove problematic; but we cannot do without them.

            Here is Popper (p. 287) characterizing the logical positivists: “They implicitly accept the rule: ‘Always chose the most probable hypothesis!’  He goes on:

Now it can be easily shown that this rule is equivalent to…’Always choose the hypothesis which goes as little beyond the evidence as possible!’  And this, in turn [amounts to] ‘Always choose the hypothesis which has the highest degree of ad hoc character!’

an undesirable result for science.   (Cf. Chomsky, passim, re the extraordinarily abstract and roundabout way you may have to precede to get valid results, by no means simply tip-toeing a bit beyond “the evidence”.)

            The principles which we require instead  may be best illustrated by an old joke (presented here in a slightly revised form):

     A zoologist, a mathematician, and a positivist  are touring the hinterlands of Bohemia by train.  Through the window they spot, standing motionless at some distance, a purple cow.

     “Fancy that!” exclaims the zoologist. “There are purple cows in Bohemia.”

     The mathematician, in a low voice, amends: “There is at least one purple cow in Bohemia.”

     The positivist, raising his finger, crisply corrects to:  “In Bohemia there is at least one cow, purple on one side.”

            The joke is that the positivist has the most precise view of the evidence; and of the three statements, only his own is certainly true (interpreting an unmodified “purple cow” in the natural way, as “purple more or less all over”); yet his scruples are absurd.  Science would not progress, were it bound by such fragmented literalism.  (Indeed, we should have to replace “cow” with “an apparently bovine organism”, and always assuming that we can rule out a mirage, or a collective hallucination, or some effect of swamp gas; or for that matter an analogue to one of Hilary Putnam’s pet entities, the Mechanical Cat from Mars.)  And we would have to gloss Quine’s celebrated interjection, gavagai!, as possibly:  “Lo, a rabbit-stage, seen from the east.”

(For more on bovine mathematics, see "How Now, Round Cow".)

To move from this to an outlook useful for science, we need these metaphysical principles:

   (1) a certain uniformity or self-cohesion to nature

   (2) the reliability (not in a logical, but in a practical sense) of induction.

(There are others, of course, such as the usefulness of deduction;  but that applies in every world, not just in this contingent one.)

            Now, both these principles are of vexed and delicate application; as are, indeed, the Commandments.   Just as it is difficult to avoid situation ethics, I see no way around a kind of “situation metaphysics”.   The zoologist, using these principles, together with his discipline-specific knowledge (to the effect that animals generally come in species, not as singletons), concludes the presence of purple cows.  But here I must side with the formulation of the mathematician: there is at least one such cow, but perhaps no more.  For, nature’s uniformity depends on the domain.  Were an experiment ever to identify, say, a Higgs boson, we should conclude the existence of an emphatic plurality of Higgs bosons; that there should only be one in the universe, is inconceivable.  But biology is more mottled than that.  Given our collective prior acquaintance with hundreds of thousands of cows, none of which was ever purple, we would hypothesize here an extremely rare mutation for (bilateral) purple (bilateral because bilaterally symmetric animals generally continue to evolve with bilateral symmetry, pace the occasional narwhal).  Since a cow delivers but a single calf at a time, this one has no identical siblings, so it is probably unique.  Moreover, the bulls will likely shun her for her color, and she shall have no offspring.  The mutation dies with her.

Carnap attempts to avoid the assumption of a metaphysical principle, by declaring (1) to be “analytic” (i.e., more like “2+2 = 4” than like “animals tend to come in species” or “each elementary particle is invariable within its class”).  Popper comments (p.289) that “no such principle of uniformity can be analytic (except in a Pickwickian sense of ‘analytic’)."  In fact, we noticed, the principle is nothing remotely like analytic, having always constraints on its application, which in some domains may be severe.  And as for (2), I concur with Popper (p.292) that it is “a principle of a priori metaphysics.”  And none the worse for that.

[For further notes on ineluctable metaphysical underpinnings of the scientific enterprise, see here.]

Dialectical Minimalism

Her flat, unmusical, decongestant-needing, but somehow affecting voice,

covering an unreleased wondrous

Dylan singing, with his magicalmusical  jangly piano:

and ! the ! strings !!!   in blatant counterpoint !!!!!

Lord -- hear our ragged last confessions,

as we (with aching pity)

do hear this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hMBDw7X2BU&feature=fvwrel

From Before You Were Born

And before I was reborn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSXY5xxZ9UM&feature=relmfu

America !    America !    America !!!!!!!!

Virorum illustrium de casibus

[originally posted 7 VI 2011]

1)

            For her hand did the prince risk all:

            He’d have her, though an empire fall.

Portrait of the Aethiope temptress here.

The lass for whom he lost the world, and was content to lose it

[Update II 2012]  Gone!  Censored!!  Down the Memory-hole !!!


[Update 1 VII 2011:
Pen-portrait here.

-- II 2012.   Now preceded by a wretched ad.
Lest the article itself be deep-sixed,  here is the beginning:

De sidération en sidération. Depuis ce dimanche matin 15 mai où les Français ont découvert, médusés, l'inculpation pour tentative de viol de celui qui allait peut-être devenir leur président, l'affaire Strauss-Kahn n'a été qu'une succession de coups de théâtre.

Incidentally… contrast the stunner in the first picture, with the more typical such employees in the second.  Turns out there may a good reason she is so beautifully turned-out:   It goes with her …. other job.

"When you're a chambermaid at Local 6, when you first get to the US, you start at the motels at JFK [Airport]. You don't start at the Sofitel," the source said. "There's a whole squad of people who saw her as an earner."

The woman also had "a lot of her expenses -- hair braiding, salon expenses -- paid for by men not related to her," the source said.

[Update 10 VII 2011:  An innocent alternate explanation of how Diallo straightaway bagged such a plum job  here:]
http://www.lejdd.fr/International/Actualite/DSK-Nafissatou-Diallo-recrutee-par-une-ONG-au-dessus-de-tout-soupcon-355237/?from=cover

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[Update 2 VII 2011]:
Linguists crack the case !

(2)

            The dovecotes are aflutter,

            all atwitter is the gutter,

            over today’s delicious dirt:

             A Congressman, caught without his shirt!

He blew it, first by lying and then crying.

Gentlemen:  The proper response to the media hordes, in a case like this, is:
“This lies outside the sphere of your legitimate concern.”

A no-punches-pulled retort by Richard Cohen here.

(3)   In France, l’affaire is snowballing.   Ironic commentary here.

(4) [31 July 2011]
The latest wrinkle.

Monostich (XX)

~

~      ~

Blue, unbroken blue;  then God said:      I think I’ll place a cloud r-i-i-ight… there.

~      ~

~

American Dionysus

Διόνυσος

… και μαινάδες

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TLLcvWeiKw&feature=related