This doctor has what seems to be an awfully good idea for a way to reduce health care costs for the patient.
Is insurance really responsible for that much of the cost of everyday medical care? Shocking.
The Atlanta cheating scandal: it’s raaaacism!
The idea of putting the cheating Atlanta educators in prison is racist, say a group of black clergy in Atlanta. Just what’s racist about it they don’t bother to explain.
Do they mean that, if the offenders had been white, there would have been no chance of them going to jail? Are they saying that prison itself is racist, since a disproportionate number of inmates are black? Or is the charge of racism so reflexive by now that they’re not even thinking of a justification for it?
The irony here is that it seems the vast majority of the characters in the story are black: the perpetrators, the DA who wants prison terms for them, and the victims, the schoolchildren and parents of Atlanta. Most Atlanta public schools are virtually all black—and quite a few of them, such as Booker T. Washington High, Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater, have never been integrated, passing seamlessly from the days of de jure segregation to de facto segregation despite official integration.
The Atlanta cheating scandal has shed a light on the current state of public education, particularly for black students in poor urban areas. If education has any chance of countering trends in that community towards family disintegration and the glorification of an anti-academic, outlaw mentality, it isn’t being helped along by certain attitudes of the leadership of the black community, as exemplified in these clergymen—or by some of the moves of the NAACP and the teachers’ unions:
The American public education system is failing many groups, but none more miserably than black males. The numbers are shocking. The Schott Foundation recently reported that only 47 percent of black males graduate from high school on time, compared to 78 percent of white male students…
The way urban city school districts fail black males is more disconcerting considering that black professionals are in charge. Urban districts are among the worst at graduating black males: Atlanta, 34 percent; Baltimore, 35 percent; Philadelphia, 28 percent; New York, 28 percent; Detroit, 27 percent; and St. Louis, 38 percent.
There are surely many reasons for such failure, and family breakdown must rank high among them. Schools may be powerless to transform black family life, but they should not be left off the hook for turning in a dismal performance. In a recent interview, Dr. Steve Perry, principal and founder of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Conn., repeatedly places the blame for the black achievement gap at the feet of the partnerships between the teachers unions and the NAACP, “a civil-rights relic.” The places where black students excel, says Perry, are those where students have access to choice. Sadly the NAACP and the NEA have long undermined the push for low-income black parents to exercise freedom to choose the best schools as a national norm.
For example, even with mounting evidence demonstrating that single-sex education for blacks males from low-income households represents one of the best opportunities for graduation, the NEA petitioned the Department of Education in 2004 to prevent single-sex options from becoming nationally normative, balking because “the creation of an artificial single-sex environment [will] ill prepare students for life in the real world.”
More thoughts on the Casey Anthony verdict
As I wrote yesterday, I didn’t follow the Casey Anthony trial.
But playing a bit of catchup today, and reading an admittedly brief roundup of news about it, I offer these observations:
Our justice system emphasizes people’s actions, not who or what they are. In other words, although most murderers are lying scumbags, not all (or even most) lying scumbags are murderers. Casey Anthony seems to be a lying scumbag, but the act of murder (or manslaughter) would have to have been proven for a conviction. The problems with the proof the prosecution offered seems to have been:
(a) lack of cause of death. This does not make conviction impossible, but it does make it difficult.
(b) shaky or incomplete physical evidence tying Casey Anthony to the corpse.
(c) lack of evidence of any prior child abuse or even mistreatment of the child. The evidence on this score was all for after the child’s death, and it was inferred from Casey’s partying and especially her failure to report the child’s disappearance/death in a timely fashion, plus her lies about a babysitter. But although this goes to some sort of coverup (and a very suspicious lack of grief at the horrendous event), it still runs up against the lack of a prior motive to the alleged killing.
(d) many people have noted that the popularity of such shows as CSI accustom jury members to an unrealistically high standard of forensic proof. I agree. But this case only met a very low standard.
(e) the defendant was a pretty, young woman. This can mean the jury was sympathetic and reluctant to convict. However, it could also have worked against her: “temptress,” “selfish mother,” “amoral slut.”
(f) the prosecution erred by not emphasizing manslaughter, by far their strongest charge.
The case reminds me most (although it’s hardly identical) with the Susan Smith case. Smith was not a sympathetic figure to most people, nor is Casey Anthony. Like Anthony, Smith initally lied (remember her sad pleas for the supposed kidnapper to return her children?) through her teeth, and her attorneys also alleged she was the victim of parental abuse when young (in her case, the abuser had confessed). The motive somewhat resembled the prosecution’s allegations about Anthony: Smith was trying to keep her lover, a man who apparently didn’t want the burden of children. Unlike in the Anthony case, there was a lot of physical evidence against Smith, including an obvious cause of death and intact bodies, and Smith confessed before trial. Her defense was her terrible mental state, and the defense alleged she had originally planned to kill herself along with the children but spontaneously jumped out at the last minute. It was all to no avail for Smith, who is serving a life sentence.
It seems highly unfair that a child murderer—which Casey Anthony may indeed be—could get away virtually scot free. Unfortunately, murderers get away quite often, due to lack of evidence. It’s not unusual for the police to have a very good idea who committed a crime, but to lack the evidence to bring a case to trial. In Casey Anthony’s case they may have brought charges impatiently and prematurely.
[ADDENDUM: And speaking of Susan Smith—sheesh!]
Ah, Phoenix in the summer!
There was a jumungous dust storm yesterday in Phoenix that reached a height of two miles:
Here’s a different perspective:
The storm came at the beginning of Phoenix’s monsoon season—yes, you heard me right, Phoenix’s monsoon season—which is in the summertime and features violent thunderstorms whose winds can kick up huge dust storms in the normally-dry area near Phoenix.
Years ago, I had to stay in Phoenix for a week during July. The good news was that they were practically giving hotel rooms away. The bad news was that there was a reason for that: no one who wasn’t forced to be there at that time of year would ever willingly choose to go.
When I made the reservation, I asked the clerk what time the weather cooled off somewhat. His answer was, “Around Thanksgiving.”
I said no, really—and he said yes, really. I found that during the day it was about 115, and at night it cooled off only a few degrees. The swimming pool water was like a hot tub, but it didn’t matter because you wouldn’t want to be out there, anyway. The city streets featured spritzers that sprayed you every twenty yards or so in order to keep you alive.
There was no monsoon and no dust storm while I was there, but one was hardly needed to make the stay unpleasant. And sightseeing was an ordeal, although sun umbrellas were provided at this place, where Frank Lloyd Wright had a home and working compound (wisely, in winter).
The Atlanta school cheating scandal
[See UPDATE below.]
When I first saw the headline “Investigation Finds ‘Widespread Cheating’ in Atlanta Schools” I almost didn’t click on it, so ho-hum and ordinary that fact seemed to be. Cheating has probably always existed in schools, usually of a rather petty and impulsive sort such as copying from a nearby student, although sometimes it’s more premeditated and widespread. And I have little doubt it’s increased in recent years.
But it turns out that this particular situation is different from the student cheating of time immemorial, because it’s the teachers and administrators who were doing the cheating, not the students. Now, that’s news, a “man bites dog” story, and a terrible one at that:
The report found that teachers, principals and administrators were both helping students on the state’s standardized test, the Criterion-Reference Competency Test, and correcting incorrect answers after students had turned the tests in. Eighty-two educators confessed to the allegations detailed in the report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
Calling it a “dark day” for Atlanta Public Schools, Mayor Kasim Reed said the yearlong investigation “confirms our worst fears … There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a widespread basis in the school system. Further, there is no question that a complete failure of leadership in the Atlanta Public School system hurt thousands of children who were promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards.”
Not only that, but the Atlanta cheating scandal occurred under the watch of a superintendent who had been much-lauded and honored for her success at boosting academic achievement in that beleaguered school system. But the results were bogus:
The investigation tarnishes the record of Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was named national Superintendent of the Year in 2009, due in large part to reported gains in the district. The 800-page report shows some educators reported cheating in their schools, but Hall and other school officials ignored the claims, and in some cases, punished those who came forward. Hall stepped down at the end of her contract on June 30.
“National Superintendent of the Year”—it has a real ring to it, doesn’t it?
Hall is not alone, either. Earlier, a similar thing happened in Washington, DC. Both districts feature especially challenging populations, with high percentages of black students with families mired in poverty and disruption of many sorts.
This report of cheating is just another example of breakdown in our society, not that we needed another example. The dire economic and cultural wasteland in which the students find themselves is the culmination of many decades of problems, some of them the legacy of discrimination but in recent years many of them the legacy of the welfare state. What excuse do the teachers and administrators have?
Investigators appear to be blaming the cheating (at least in part) on high standards:
…[I]nvestigators cited the following as the key reasons that cheating flourished in Atlanta: “The district set unrealistic test-score goals, or “targets,” a culture of pressure and retaliation spread throughout the district, and Hall emphasized test results and public praise at the expense of ethics.”
A fish rots from the head, and I have no trouble believing that if it was widely known that Hall winked at such violations and encouraged results at the expense of all else, it would have encouraged the spread of cheating in order to boost the stats. But that couldn’t have happened unless many teachers were already morally compromised.
Should this be surprising? Probably not. Teachers are just a macrocosm of what’s happening in society, and it seems that the end justifies the means more and more these days. If these are the mentors and role models for students, it does not bode well for our future.
[UPDATE: Just a few minutes after writing this post, I discovered (hat tip: Althouse) a much more detailed article on the subject which is far more shocking than anything I’d read earlier. It makes it clear that the evidence supports a massive, systemic, and coordinated scam of long-standing duration under Hall’s supervision:
Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.
For years ”” as long as a decade ”” this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.
In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical ”” and potentially illegal ”” behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.
The report accuses top district officials of wrongdoing that could lead to criminal charges in some cases.
The decision whether to prosecute lies with three district attorneys ”” in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties ”” who will consider potential offenses in their jurisdictions.
For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.
“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.
This is not just a case of ethically-challenged teachers and an administration that created pressure for them to cheat, and winked at violations. This is a group of of deeply corrupt and even criminal thugs running a school system. If these allegations are true, prosecutions should follow.]
[NOTE: Ironically, it may have been the meeting of those high standards that was the cheaters’ downfall. Results were so good that people became suspicious:
Among the achievements [Hall] cited: a 33 percent increase in graduation rates and one in three elementary students exceeding state standards…
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan praised Hall as recently as last month, noting that under her leadership Atlanta students made double-digit gains on national exams known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.
But over the last two years, APS has faced a series of reports and investigations questioning improbable test score gains at some city schools…Questions about the tests were first raised in December 2008, when the AJC [Atlanta Journal Constitution] published an analysis that showed improbable gains at some Georgia schools ”” including some in Atlanta ”” on tests taken first in spring and then in summer by students struggling to master core skills.
Last fall, a second AJC analysis showed 12 Atlanta schools posted highly unlikely gains or drops on the spring 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, the state’s main academic measure for students in grades one through eight.]
Strauss-Kahn’s accuser sues the NY Post
The Strauss-Kahn case has not only spawned other lawsuits in France, it’s spawned a new one here as well, as Strauss-Kahn’s accuser sues the Post for defamation when it reported she is a prostitute.
It is impossible at this point to know the truth here. But even if she is not a prostitute and ends up winning the defamation suit, the damage to her reputation has probably been done, and any trial of Strauss-Kahn (if it goes forward at all) would feature a tainted jury because of the prior press coverage.
If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Casey Anthony acquitted
I haven’t followed this at all. But apparently it’s big big news.
Why are competitive eaters thin?
Competitive eating is an exceedingly odd—not to mention distasteful—sport. I’m not at all into watching people stuff their faces at rates that seem physically impossible and at the very least highly undesirable.
But I was reminded of it recently because yesterday, the Fourth of July, is traditional for hot dog eating contests, and there were a number of reports about the Coney Island venue, at which the winner managed to stuff 62 of the things down his craw in a mere 10 minutes. And this by no means exceeded his own PR of 68.
You may notice from this photo of the Coney Island contest that, contrary to what one might expect, the contenders are all trim:
This is usual in eating contests, and counter-intuitive. I have often wondered about it, and this time I decided to see what the explanation might be.
Turns out that competitive eating isn’t just an exercise in gluttony, it’s also a sport in which the top contenders must be in the proper shape. And it also turns out that the proper shape is not rotund, it’s lean. There’s a good reason for this—actually, several good reasons:
The size of the stomach at rest is inconsequential. All that matters is the stomach’s ability to expand, to adapt itself to the amount of food being shoved down the esophagus. And as in any other competitive sport, stomach-stretching skills require training.
Kobayashi’s regimen includes shrinking his gut by jogging for hours, then distending it by chugging gallons of water. He regularly feasts on giant meals of low-fat, high-fiber foods like cabbage, which stay in the stomach longer before breaking down. (By the way, the world record for cabbage consumption is 6 pounds, 9 ounces, in 9 minutes, held by American Thomas Hardy.) And he keeps trim: A skinny man’s stomach has little fat to push against it and fight the food for space.
So there you have it: huge amounts of exercise and low-calorie food.
And I don’t even like to think of the results of that cabbage competition.
[NOTE: For those who might be inclined to criticize Americans for being so uniquely depraved as to indulge in these contests (as I read in the comments section of one article), think again—eating contests are neither as popular nor as well-compensated in this country as they are in many other parts of the world.]
The debt ceiling crisis
You may have noticed I haven’t yet written about the fight over raising the debt ceiling. That is probably because not only do I have a tendency to shy away from anything to do with economics, but also because I believe that some sort of compromise will be reached in time to avoid a huge August default crisis, and that a lot of what’s going on now is political theater and strategic maneuvering. If the objection to compromise is that it’s just a method of kicking the can down the road and solves nothing, my answer is that sometimes—when that can is filled with explosives—it is necessary to kick it down the road temporarily and deal with the main problems later.
Ay, there’s the rub. Unfortunately, the two sides are diametrically opposed on the solution for the main problems, and the atmosphere in Washington is so toxic that real solutions seem distant and perhaps impossible unless one side or other (depending on your political leanings) controls the whole shebang. In the meantime, this country is in deep financial trouble.
It is easy to blame Washington, and much of that blame is deserved. Both sides of Congress have been acting like a bunch of children for way too long, and President Obama has only widened the already-existing divisions with his incendiary rhetoric and fake compromises.
But the American people are to blame, too, for sending so many of the players back again and again, term after term—and for wanting the impossible from them: low taxes and high entitlements. Any politician who threatens that unworkable duo is probably going to be unpopular. So how is a meaningful and lasting resolution of this crisis ever going to come about?
[NOTE: tune in here for lots of discussion of the debt ceiling negotiations.]
A memorable Fourth of July
[Bumped up once again: Happy Fourth!!]
Here’s one you might remember. I certainly do:
Fans of the movie “The Great Escape” (and I must confess that I’m one, big-time) will recognize the above as the Fourth of July celebration scene, featuring the incomparable Steve McQueen playing the flute and James Garner with the drum.
Anyone who hasn’t already seen the classic 1963 action movie should rent it immediately and settle in with some popcorn for the long haul. I was a teenager in 1963 when I first saw it on the widescreen, a stirring combination of male pulchritude (not a female in the cast, and what a cast!), suspense, wit, ingenuity, and tragedy.
Although the film’s script merges a number of real people into single characters, and takes a few liberties with time (and invents the fabulous motorcycle chase in which McQueen gets to strut his formidable stuff), it’s historically accurate in the extreme, especially for a Hollywood flick. Oliver Stone, it ain’t—fortunately.
The makers of the film were dedicated to making it as true to actual events as possible. The screenwriter had been a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp, and a former prisoner and expert tunneler from the prison camp depicted in the movie worked as an adviser to the director. Follow the link to read just how much of the film was actually true to life.
Donald Pleasence, who played the rapidly-going-blind forger Blyth, had been a prisoner of war in a German camp during WWII. Hannes Messemer, the German actor who managed to bring an extraordinary humanity to the role of the Kommandant of the camp (a person who in real life was apparently well-liked and respected by the prisoners), had been a prisoner of war in a Russian camp, as had several of the other German actors in the film (these facts are to be found here).
“The Great Escape” was one of the first films I ever saw that defied my sanguine expectations. There was so much humor in it, so many likable characters, and so much Hollywood-type action that I assumed it would likewise have a Hollywood-type ending, in which all turned out well. It doesn’t.
But the Fourth of July scene is delightful. And I wish you all—wherever you are and whatever you choose to do to celebrate today—a wonderful Fourth.
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a post that appeared on this blog in 2005. I’m not sure why the video is so scrunched and makes everyone look skinny (maybe they’re on the Atkins diet?), but I can’t seem to fix it.]
Heroes vs. villains: Independence Day
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post.]
Today is the Fourth of July, our Independence Day. Although the focus is on fireworks—a tradition I intend to perpetuate this evening—deep down, this particular holiday is really about American history.
John Adams, one of our founding fathers, knew this, although he was off two days on the date. As he presciently wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776:
The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.
“Forever more” is a long time, to be sure. But so far the celebration is holding.
History often seems inevitable after it happens, and we tend to forget it is not—and that, most especially, the outcome is not known to those who live through the events in real time. The United States had a precarious existence at first, and Francis Scott Keys’s uncertainty about America’s continuance was not a ploy when he wrote of the fledgling United States in terms of a question, not a statement, “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave/o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Abraham Lincoln was determined to make sure the answer to Keys’s question would be, “Yes.” My old-fashioned education required that we fifth-graders memorize the Gettysburg address, and although at the time the I thought its opening phrase “Four score and seven years ago…”—referring back, of course, to 1776—sounded like a long time had passed, as I got older it occurred to me that when Lincoln spoke the nation was still relatively young and facing the greatest test of its existence, with the outcome unknown.
Lincoln wondered whether a nation devoted to liberty and the proposition that all men are created equal (and for “men” read “humans”) could continue to endure. He knew full well that such “equality” was imperfect under the law of the land; correcting flaws in its application to blacks was part of the reason for the Civil War that was being fought under his remarkable and eloquent aegis.
Independence Day isn’t about being perfect and celebrating that perfection. It’s about acknowledging the wonderful and optimistic vision of the original founders, being thankful for those in the past who have preserved it, and trying to honor it in the future. There are those who think our present government to be so pernicious that it has perverted the intent of the Declaration of Independence. There are others who, like me, think our government flawed but basically sound and that no such perversion has occurred, although course corrections are sometimes required—and have always been required—in our not-so-long history as a nation.
Speaking of that history—I’ve written before about the fact that the criticism of Lincoln by his own contemporaries was at least as bad (and very similar) to that meted out to Bush. This does not mean I’m equating the two in terms of statesmanship or vision or judgment; I am not. But my high estimation of Lincoln—and yours—was not shared by most of his contemporaries.
Here’s a quote on the subject from the excellent book American Brutus, Michael W. Kauffman’s biography of John Wilkes Booth:
The Civil War was unlike anything known in modern times, and the nation came closer to collapse than most people realize today. Emancipation of slaves, confiscation of property, and the draft often led to deadly clashes between the public and civil authorities. The political storm threatened not only the federal government, but state governments as well”¦In the middle stood Abraham Lincoln, blamed for the war and fired upon from all sides. It was not just the fringe element who hated the president; judges, senators, editors, and otherwise respectable citizens left no doubt of their contempt for him as well. One senator compared Lincoln to the tyrants of history, saying “They are all buried beneath the wave of oblivion compared to what this man of yesterday, this Abraham Lincoln, that neither you nor I ever heard of four years ago, has chosen to exercise”¦”
As I’ve written before, this isn’t the sort of thing one hears about in grade school or even high school history classes. Ordinarily one has to be in college level courses to be exposed to these rather startling facts of history as it was actually lived. But most people stop taking history courses before reaching that point, unfortunately, and therefore have little of substance to refer to when attempting to compare our present situation to the past.
Some believe the teaching of the history of the United States should involved focusing on the bad—the errors and misdeeds—over the good, and that teaching the latter is somehow jingoistic. Some believe that anything offending the tender sensibilities of some child or group of children or parents should be excluded, as well, and that history should be a PC endeavor to cater to all interest and ethnic groups.
I would like instead to see the teaching of a realistic and representative balance between the good and the bad in our history; and an awareness of the fact that although this nation is indeed flawed, that is only a reflection of the flawed human condition rather than some special and unique failing of our own. On balance, the US has a more heroic and inspiring vision than most, and has lived up to it far better and far more often than one might have expected, given the nature of humanity. And this is something to celebrate.
Mark Steyn has written that Prime Minister Howard of Australia has said the teaching of history in that country should be taught as a “heroic national narrative.” That’s a novel thought, is it not? But I think our history could honestly be described that way. Remember, real-life heroes are not Supermen; they make errors and have weaknesses, and they struggle to overcome them. Our own Civil War was an example of one of these struggles to correct a major flaw in the execution of the concept that all are created equal, and to more perfectly fulfill the original vision in the Declaration of Independence. There will be other such corrections, no doubt, in our future—hopefully, neither as wrenching not as bloody.
But we must be careful not to overcorrect or overreact; the Fourth of July is not a day of national breast-beating. It’s as good a day as any, and better than some, to celebrate the remarkable and laudable vision under which this nation was founded, and to be deeply grateful for those who have preserved and expanded that vision. The fact that its execution will always be imperfect is no reason to consider ourselves the villains of the piece. There are enough true villains out there for comparison, if anyone cares to look.
The Catcher in the Sofitel
Of all the hard-to-believe scenarios involved in the DSK case (and that includes all of them), this one reported by the NY Post might just be the most implausible so far:
Before she ever walked into Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s dazzling suite at the Sofitel, his accuser was well aware of his VIP status — and planning to get her hands in his deep pockets, sources told The Post.
“She figured he’s a rich dude, and she would get paid,” said a source close to the defense investigation. “She was told by the crew she ran with that this was a gold mine.”
The maid, who routinely traded sex for money with male guests, parked her cleaning cart outside Suite 2806 on the morning of May 14 and keyed her way into the room — knowing what he looked like from a photo hanging in a maid closet that identified him as an important guest.
Multiple versions have emerged of what happened next, but nobody disputes that the 32-year-old maid performed oral sex on the Frenchman known as “the Great Seducer.”
Sources now tell The Post that when the two were finished, the woman demanded cash from Strauss-Kahn — but he refused to pay…
The humiliating exchange sparked the maid’s anger, prosecutors suspect.
The woman’s lawyer has charged that DSK angrily grabbed her breast and vagina, leaving her with bruises to the groin area.
So, what’s so improbable about that? It’s not that she might be a hooker, or that DSK was amenable to a quickie with her before leaving town.
But what hooker doesn’t negotiate a price before rendering services? And what would be DSK’s motive for not paying up? Unless she was asking for some exorbitant amount in payment, what would be the point of his refusal? And if she knew who he was, and wanted that kind of money, then why not blackmail him instead? After all, she had the semen on the dress, and could threaten to go to authorities. Wouldn’t blackmail be far more lucrative? But that has not been alleged so far by anyone connected with the case.
DSK is on record as having suspected earlier that he would be set up for some kind of sex scandal (specifically, a false rape accusation) in order to derail his campaign. If so, then why was he not more on the alert when this woman presented herself? And even if he succumbed to temptation despite his wariness (which he clearly did) and had Clintonian sex with “that woman,” why would he not then pony up the dough, knowing how vulnerable he was to false charges of rape? Why run the risk of angering her? And then why rough her up in the bargain?
I’m not exactly conversant with the world of prostitution in high-priced hotels (or low-priced ones, for that matter), but DSK would be. His alleged behavior makes no sense if a man is trying to protect himself, and hers also makes no sense for the woman in such a situation.
Why have I written so much about this case? I think the fascination with the story of DSK and the maid is that it contains a mystery—actually, several mysteries. It also touches on a number of ancient and modern themes: sexual relations between the high and mighty and the lowly, “he-said she said” scenarios and the near-impossibility of ever knowing the truth in such situations, hints of dark conspiracies to bring a political man to ruin, his cooperation in that possible downfall through character flaws of his own, and differences between American and European attitudes towards philandering.
These latest allegations also put me in mind of a famous scene from Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye (hey, I’m a literary sort; what can I say—and the following may not be perfectly accurate, since I don’t have a copy of the book at hand). Holden wasn’t a rich French politician, but he did contract (with the elevator operator Maurice) for a prostitute’s services in the seedy hotel where he was staying in Manhattan. When the hooker—a very young woman named Sunny—arrives, Holden is flummoxed and loses all interest, although he offers to pay her the contracted-for five dollars (yes, there’s been quite a bit of inflation in the over-half-century since the novel was written). She says the fee was ten, and they have an argument, after which she goes off in a huff. Later that night, after Holden falls asleep, she and Maurice return to claim the money, and Maurice roughs Holden up a little.
One can understand Holden’s refusal to pay—he’s not rolling in dough, and in the end he didn’t even ask her to do anything sexual. But what would be DSK’s excuse?