Comment du Jour

DSK—Champagne Socialist


The sordid saga of Dominique Strauss Kahn disgraced chief of the International Monetary Fund continues. Allegations that the high-flying money man and presumed heir apparent of the French Socialist Party, sexually assaulted a chambermaid at the posh Sofitel in New York, sadly may be true. Prosecutors have allowed DSK to move from a maximum security facility at Rikers Island, to a decidedly more comfortable house arrest setting in the city’s trendy Tribeca district.

Thus in the course of two weeks, DSK went from the heights of a $3,000 per night suite at the Sofitel, to the depths of Dante’s inferno for the criminal classes, and now to a $50,000 per month Manhattan townhouse.

DSK was the likely standard bearer of the French Socialist Party in next year’s Presidential elections, opposing Nicolas Sarkozy. Now on the fractious Socialist Party side, the field is wide open and the game is about to begin.

In the meantime DSK, the Champagne Socialist, remains under house arrest in his gilded cage of a multi-million dollar townhouse, awaiting trial in New York.

Comment du Jour

Human Rights Council Merry- go-Round


United Nations—It’s one of the traditional Rites of Spring at the United Nations, the election of new members to the Human Rights Council, the 47 member deliberative body viewing and monitoring the pulse of civil and political rights the world over. The full 192 member General Assembly votes for new members within regional groups to serve three year terms. As in the past, most slates presented candidates who went unopposed

Ironically given the composition of some of the Geneva-based Council membership, with countries like China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia sitting in judgment of global human rights issues is like having Tony Soprano sit on a Senate sub-committee on organized crime.

Balloting for the Asian Group, though uncontested, saw India, followed by Indonesia, Philippines and Kuwait. Again good for multi-ethnic India, a working sectarian democracy, which despite the still terrible undertow of poverty, has been able to keep its democratic structures.

Originally Syria was going to run for the Asian Group. Yet political backlash to the current crackdown on civilian protesters put the Assad regime out of the running.

The United States, and European countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands strongly lobbied against Syria’s bid for the council seat.
The prospect of electing Syria, a serial persecutor of its own people, was a political bridge too far even for the majority of the UN General Assembly’s voting members.

In the Eastern European state category, competition became more interesting as three countries ran for two seats. The Czech Republic handily won with 148 votes while Romania gained 131. Georgia however lost with 89 votes, largely due to Russian vigorously lobbying against her candidacy.

For the Western European state category, the two seats were unchallenged and handedly won by Austria and Italy. Bravo, both are good choices as Austria and Italy remain sterling democracies and positive examples of human rights .

The Latin American and Caribbean state selection saw four countries contesting three seats. Chile, Costa Rica and Peru were elected. Nicaragua lost its bid. Given the eroding human rights situation in that country, this poses no great loss.

The newly elected Council members will serve for three years.

In fact, fewer than half of the 47 member council can be characterized as democracies. They nonetheless present another flawed reflection of the world.

Comment du Jour

DSK—Beyond Bizarre

How the mighty have fallen! In what could only be called a bizarre sequence of events, Dominique Strauss Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been arrested in New York, accused of the attempted rape of a hotel maid.

DSK, as he is know universally in France, was one of those global high rollers, the kind of person who was jet setting around the world going to global finance meetings and was slated to be the Socialist candidate in next year’s French Presidential election. Instead DSK has slipped from a $3,000 a night, 28th floor suite in the Sofitel to a holding cell on Rikers Island. Strauss-Kahn originally denied the chambermaid’s allegation, but has since said she agreed to consensual sex.

DSK has, should we say, a well-known reputation for being a womanizer but his recent action has landed the IMF lothario amid New York’s most hardened criminals. While many French are hardly surprised about his recent foibles, most are equally aghast over his high profile handcuffing, sans VIP treatment, and transfer to a tiny cell in one of the USA’s toughest prisons.

Humiliation aside, it’s not clear why this high-profile alleged perpetuator had to be sent to Rikers Island when he could be put under secure house arrest with an ankle bracelet and all the trappings. Sending him to Rikers among the lowest levels of Dante’s inferno for the criminal classes, will only sour Franco/American relations and in the end achieve little.

No matter what the outcome of this sordid case, it’s obvious DSK will not be the Socialist Party’s standard bearer against Nicolas Sarkozy, nor will he be running the IMF.

Beyond DSK's blatant stupidity, criminal malice, and moral-slobbery, there’s a man whose arrogance is yet to be deflated.


**Update
As of Friday 20 May, DSK posted $1 million in bail and was allowed to leave Rikers Island and move into house arrest in a Manhattan apartment where he shall have an ankle bracelet and security. This arrangement evokes the Bernie Madoff melodrama where the financial fraudster was allowed to remain in his Upper East Side apartment awaiting trial.

Comment du Jour

First Man in Space 1961-2011





PHOTO: Spacesuit of Cosmonaut A Leonov circ 1970's and Soviet posters at Bonhams


Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Terrestrial for that matter!
Lost among the surge in media stories covering earth-shattering events from the Arab Spring in the Middle East, to the earthquake/Tsunami hitting Japan, to the terrible floods sweeping parts of the USA, there’s the almost forgotten commemoration of an event, really a saga, which changed the world.

Manned space flight began fifty years ago this Spring. In April 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly into outer space. Shortly thereafter, Astronaut Alan Shepard lifted off in a Mercury Redstone Rocket the morning of 5 May 1961 to become the first American in space. Contrary to popular lore and legend, Shepard, a New Hampshire native, was first to fly into orbit before the more high-profile flight by John Glenn almost a year later.

As a way to politically decompress from a high stress and pressurized news cycle, I visited New York’s Bonhams Auction Gallery on Madison Avenue to view a fascinating selection of American and Soviet Space related material relating to the Project Mercury and Vostok programs, Project Gemini, and Apollo 11, the flight which brought Americans to the Moon.

A plethora of orbital photography, signed crew photos, trajectory charts and maps, and NASA memorabilia graced the small but focused presentation, brought the writer back to the halcyon days to space travel, from the 1960’s Space Race with the Russians to the 1970’s space cooperation with the Soviets.

Names like Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra came back to memory along with the more familiar Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Pete Conrad, and Buzz Aldrin.

Other Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and Mir artifacts recalled the extraterrestrial détente between the USA and the Soviet Union in the 1970’s. An actual spacesuit from Cosmonaut Alexi Leonov was on display as well as a number of old Soviet propaganda posters exclaiming “Glory to Cosmonaut Gagarin” and one 1959 poster extolling the success of Sputnik and vaingloriously proclaiming the USSR as the New “Tenth Planet.”

One Earth Orbit Chart from the storied Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, has notations written on the map; sheet one shows the launch site in Florida; sheet two plots an entire earth orbit with the critical “Go or No Go?” inscribed by Buzz Aldrin, and the third sheet shows the earth orbit with the critical command decision, inscribed and signed, “Go for TLI! Buzz Aldrin.”

These Astronauts certainly had the Right Stuff!


.