The Fatal Phrase
A friend of mine once had a minor fender-bender and got out to inspect the damage. The other driver strode up to him and said in a manner suggesting he was untouchable declared “don’t you know who I am?” My friend half-seriously replied, “should I”? The reply infuriated the other driver, as if it were a put-down. Maybe it was. The words “don’t you know who I am” were in the news again in connection with Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The hotel housekeeper that he allegedly assaulted was said to have given this narrative of the attack:
The maid said she tried a variety of tactics to get herself out of the room and away from Strauss-Kahn. She said, “my manager is in the hallway,” which he wasn’t — but the former IMF chief wasn’t scared off. The single mother allegedly told the Frenchman that the job was important to her and any conflict with a hotel guest would result in her losing her job.
“Please stop. I need my job, I can’t lose my job, don’t do this. I will lose my job. Please, please stop! Please stop!” she told Strauss-Kahn, according to law enforcement sources.
Strauss-Kahn allegedly responded: “No, baby. Don’t worry, you’re not going to lose your job. Please, baby, don’t worry,” Strauss-Kahn responded, according to investigators. “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?”
But why on earth should a chambermaid at a hotel know offhand who the IMF head was, or indeed, what the letters “IMF” even stood for? At least DSK has a plausible claim for being known throughout the earth. But what about the man who demanded special treatment because he was contestant on a reality show? Google returns more than 9.3 million references to the famous words “Don’t you know who I am?” and the number of nobodies who have used them is astounding.
Commenters at the Times of India said that DSK “should be awarded an honorary Indian citizenship” because every minister, commissioner and magistrate in the subcontinent used the same argument to justify double parking their cars, tearing up traffic citations or otherwise helping themselves to whatever they wanted. India is not alone. DSK should be an honorary citizen of the world. If anything proclaimed the universal humanity of the IMF Executive it was the alleged use of that famous phrase.
So why do people use the high handed approach? Maybe because it sometimes works. James Taranto cites an article in the Scientific American which found that people who acted imperiously are often treated as important even though they may be absolutely nobodies.
being publicly rude also seemed to engender a perceived sense of power. A hundred twenty-six subjects watched one of two videos. One of a man sitting in a sidewalk café and acting courteously, the other of the same man stretching his legs out on a chair next to him, tossing his cigarette ashes wherever, and barking orders at the cafe staff. Subjects thought the crude man was more likely to be a decision-maker and get his way than the same man behaving himself.
But there’s more to self-importance than the rewards of successfully bluffing. People actually like to feel important. they crave recognition and using the words “don’t you know who I am” indicates they believe they’ve arrived and the waves should part before them. Benedict Carey, in a 2006 New York Times article, explored the lure of fame.
“To be noticed, to be wanted, to be loved, to walk into a place and have others care about what you’re doing, even what you had for lunch that day: that’s what people want, in my opinion,” said Kaysar Ridha, 26, of Irvine, Calif., a recent favorite of fans of the popular CBS reality series “Big Brother.” “It’s strange and twisted, because when that attention does come, the irony is you want more privacy.”
Irene Cara’s hit song “Fame” expressed the desire succinctly. “I feel it coming together, People will see me and cry, I’m gonna live forever, Baby remember my name.” Perhaps the most poignant counterphrase to “don’t you know who I am?” is the question, ‘who was he?’ because strange as it may seem, many people who imagine themselves famous cannot accept there those who don’t know them at sight.
‘Who was he?’ is a sign of the ultimate futility of Fame. When James Cagney expires on the steps of a church in the final scene of Roaring Twenties the police officer asks who the ragged corpse is. The ex-gangster’s faithful girlfriend answers, “he used to be a big shot”.
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Arnold used to be a Terminator…now, not so much.
I see 23 million results when you put the phrase, “Don’t you know who I am?” in quotes on Google. This gives a more accurate count… which makes it even more depressing in the number of people that are using it. A quick review of a few pages of Google’s search results shows a lot of people with 15 minutes of fame thinking that everyone should know who they are.
stephen b. ….Arnold used to be a Terminator…now, not so much. I believe that his new “handle” is now known as “The Sperminator.”
Lest we forget, this was also the cry of John Kerry.
“It’s the punch line to many a tale of ordinary people running afoul of Massachusetts senator John Kerry. In a 2004 essay, Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr said most such stories “have a common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents, breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing), or ducking out before the bill arrives. The tales often have one other common thread: most end with Senator Kerry inquiring of the lesser mortal, do you know who I am?”
Apparently, the article came out of a radio show before the 2004 election where Howie Carr asked callers for their JK story. Airline counters, restaurants, Symphony Hall, car rentals, you name it the story did not vary.
When one asks the question ” don’t you know who I am” the fact that they don’t know who they are becomes obvious. Seeking an identity through notoriety displays a sad display of how little self worth they possess. Too bad !!!!
There is a story attributed to Bing Crosby. He and some friends, coming back from a hunting trip, tried to check in to a high class hotel. They were turned away by the clerk at the desk because of their scruffy appearance after being out in the woods. One of Bing’s companions said ‘Why don’t you tell then who you are?’ Bing’s response was ‘If you have to tell someone who you are, you aren’t.’
Groucho Marx told the story that returning from a foreign trip, he was presented by a US customs officer with a form requiring him to state his occupation. Groucho being Groucho wrote “smuggler”. Supposedly he got into heaps of trouble for doing that. Groucho didn’t think through that it was hard to recognize him as Groucho Marx if he wasn’t wearing his black grease paint mustache.
Maybe if DSK dressed up as Groucho Marx, he might have had more success with the hotel maid.
I like to consider myself well-informed. I do my best to stay aware of what is going on in the world. Yet, before this present scandal, I didn’t have a clue who Dominique Strauss-Kahn was. I didn’t know him from Adam.
Even if I had been told he was the head of the IMF, I would have shrugged. I didn’t care. IMF, World Bank, it all becomes a blur of faceless international bureaucracy that most people don’t know about and don’t care about unless it happens to directly affect their own standard of living. Bureaucrats come and go. Even if one is powerful now, he might not be so powerful a few years down the road.
There’s a word for anyone who asks, “Don’t you know who I am?” Ozymandias.
I can’t believe that you don’t know
Just who and what I am
I’m the guy who runs the show
On every mini-cam
My face is plastered far and wide
My words on every tongue
With lovely women by my side
We walk with pavements strung
With flower petals and with gold
And diamonds fall like dew
The hoi polloi do as they’re told
And yes I speak to you
So when you say that you don’t know
Just who I am and be
Your statements just enrage me so
You’re you, and I am me
Yesterday we happened to be discussing Taranto’s topic regarding “leadership” and people acting like jerks. My friend mentioned some studies about bullying and how it seemed to be a method of climbing some type of social ladder, particularly in middle and high school. But once the pinnacle had been attained, there was no more need for bullying. Probably DSK, Arnold, Edwards, et al, believed they still had a few more rungs to climb in order to achieve type of status they were looking for. Clinton, for example, didn’t have to bully Monica, but earlier women had a different view.
Maybe there is a hard-wiring in the brain…that when the male of the species believes he has attained alpha status, that all females of the species should react to that alpha status and succumb to mating overtures.
Don’t you know who I am, is the alpha lion’s roar at the pride of females. It is the threat to the other males.
Of course, at barely five feet tall…some lion’s don’t quite have what it takes to be the mane man.
The people who really matter will never ask that question.
During WWI, in the trenches (the story is told) a young private was heard to shout at a person lighting his pipe, “Put that damn match out you idiot.”
By the light cast from the flame he noticed he’d just shouted his censure at Black Jack Pershing.
The General looked at the lad and said, “Son, just be glad it was me you said that to and not some Major.”
“I am Apollo!” said the giant figure.
“And I am the Czar of all the Russias!” answered Ensign Checkov.
A guy who I used to work with told me that when he was an enlisted man in the USAF, stationed at a US Army base in Germany, one day he drove out to the airstrip to deliver a load of fuel. While he was off loading the fuel truck a C-54 appeared overhead, unexpected. It landed and out stepped Gen. Ridgeway, US Army Chief of Staff.
The general explained to the awestruck Army troops at the field that he was just passing by and wanted to drop in for a quick visit with an old friend, the base commander. The officer in charge of the airfield stammered out that they had no vehicles available to take him to the HQ but they would get one but it would be 20 minutes or so before it arrived. Standing behind him, waiting to get the fuel receipt signed off, my friend said “You can ride to the base with me, sir.” Ridgeway said that was fine; he was in a hurry.
So they drove to the base together. Pulling up to the HQ building, an officer ran out and yelled. “Get that fuel truck outta here! We got a GDed four star… Oh! Hello sir!”
My friend said “Do you want me to wait for you General?” Ridgeway responded “No, they can probably find someone to take me back to the plane. Thanks for the ride, Airman.”
I gotta say I keep up with financial news and I knew IMF did not stand for “International Moron Force” (although maybe it SHOULD) and I even had heard the name Dominique Strauss-Kahn. But if I had tripped over him in that hotel lobby, I probably would not have known him by sight over one of the ashtrays. If he had asked me “Don’t you know who I am?” I probably would’ve replied, “No, but I’ll call someone to treat your amnesia.”
Even if I had been told he was the head of the IMF, I would have shrugged. I didn’t care. IMF, World Bank, it all becomes a blur of faceless international bureaucracy that most people don’t know about and don’t care about unless it happens to directly affect their own standard of living.
He was staying in a suite at a luxury hotel in NYC, correct? One that ran four figures a night, if the newpapers are to be believed. You think it might occur to him that the maid would realize anyone staying in that room had some sort of connections or influence.
“Nah buddy, I don’t know who you are, but I’m pretty sure I know what you are.”
The Medical Express says that women are attracted to men who swagger.
Interestingly, they also attracted to loser types.
When Charles de Gaulle was asked by a journalist if he was happy he answered, “what do you take me for, an idiot?” So however we may laugh at those who run around town declaring, “don’t you know who I am?” maybe there’s something to it and we would all be well advised to practice our sneers and wounded looks in the mirror.
What does IMF stand for? Immoral Marauding Frauds by any chance?
RWE (snicker)
I have another military ‘do you know who I am’ story: in the pitch dark of a winter night in Northern Japan, an enlisted Navy troop encountered a particularly officious officer, who chewed the junior troop a new one for not having rendered the proper snappy salute. Well, it was as black as the inside of a cow on that evening, the young enlisted troop hadn’t even seen that his interlocutor was an officer until they were about three feet apart.
At the conclusion of the lecture, the young troop asked politely, “Sir, do you know who I am?” And when the officer answered, “No,” the young troop answered with a cheery and disrespectful insult and departure at top speed into the darkness.
Wretchard #17:
Line from the 3 Stooges, Curly Joe saying to a customer sitting down for a haircut:
“Well sir, are you married or happy?”
w@17: When Charles de Gaulle was asked by a journalist if he was happy he answered, “what do you take me for, an idiot?”
“Humanity does not strive for happiness; only the English do.” – Nietzsche
w@17: we would all be well advised to practice our sneers and wounded looks in the mirror.
I can’t stop laughing. Is that what’s called a grimace? Eddie Izzard might be able to pull it off. I’m afraid the rest will have to rely on wit, and, of course, filthy lucre.
I am sure that was the last statement from the lips of many of the French Royalty just before the blade dropped. To those that voice that statement remember the French Royalty.
Another way of looking at the question ‘Do you know who I am?’: [Matthew 25: 37-40]
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
And regarding God’s lack of swagger: from the second-century Epistle to Diognetus:
“Was it then, as one might conceive, for the purpose of exercising tyranny, or of inspiring fear and terror? By no means, but under the influence of clemency and meekness. As a king sends his son, who is also a king, so [God the Father] sent [Jesus Christ]; as God He sent Him; as to men He sent Him; as a Saviour He sent Him, and as seeking to persuade, not to compel us; for violence has no place in the character of God. As calling us He sent Him, not as vengefully pursuing us; as loving us He sent Him, not as judging us. For He will yet send Him to judge us, and who shall endure His appearing?”
Sgt Mom #19:
Encounters with that kind of dialog are legendary in the military. Usually it happens over the telephone and occasionally over the radio.
I read where during WWII a B-17 was damaged badly and the crew had to bail out over occupied France. One of the gunners came down close to a village, and figuring that he was too close to the Germans to even attempt to get away, he walked right into the place to surrender.
He strode confidently up to one group of German troops, who simply turned and looked the other way. He tried it with another group and got the same result.
Frustrated that this surrendering business appeared to be more challenging than he had thought, he wandered around the village until finally a Frenchman whispered from an alleyway. “Pssst. American, Come here!”
Turned out that the German ground troops were used to Luftwaffe fighter pilots being shot down and demanding transport back to their airfield. When they saw a guy in a coverall parachute down and then walk right up to them they figured it had to be one of their own, once again screwing up their day. The French Resistance in the village knew the difference, all right, and got to him first.
Well, this “fox news” (and or NYP) article is a bit of imaginative, since none from justice, nor from police unveiled the details !
like it was said in such papers that DSK was fleeing away, que nenni, since then his flight ticket has been collected “le point”:
http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/pourquoi-dsk-n-a-pas-fui-25-05-2011-1334830_20.php
also that the DSK was trying to bribe the maid’s family, denied by his lawers, and anyways which benefit to bribe them would he have !
http://fr.reuters.com/article/frEuroRpt/idFRLDE74O25E20110525
All that noise around this affair is unsane, and it seems that some have interest to influence the jury deliberations.
“But why on earth should a chambermaid at a hotel know offhand who the IMF head was”
except that DSK pic was exposed in the staff room, where the maid put her uniform on !
I’ll say they are legendary … and now and again, work to the good guys’ and ladies’ advantage!
Last I checked, humility was a virtue, pride a deadly sin.
You shall know who is evil by hearing: “Don’t you know who I am?”
As for woman, I know exactly what you mean. Virtuous woman seek humble guys. They know virtue when they see it. Cool/indifferent and confused woman seek cool/indifferent guys. I always had virtuous woman interested in me – but I was never interested back – or at least not until I was pretty old.
Unfortunately, schooling in America produces cool/indifference by the ton. Really cool people have a great life and miserable children. If that is a large enough portion of the population, we all die.
ybr @ 21:
“Humanity does not strive for happiness; only the English do.” – Nietzsche
Oh reh? Hmm, Google confirms, plus or minus translation. Hmm. Good one. I think. What does he mean by that?
Even the most courageous among us only rarely has the courage to face what he already knows.
Harumph. Ahem. Nietzsche.
funny that we can find some objective truth from a “socialist paper”:
”From the point of view of the American media, the affair has become the latest opportunity to divert attention from the social calamity at home and neocolonial wars abroad. Characterizations of the IMF “big shot” as a bestial, serial “rapist,” with their anti-French and anti-Semitic subtext, are aimed at whipping up the basest sentiments in the population.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/left-m23.shtml
2 more “interesting” articles from Slate:
http://www.slate.fr/story/38465/affaire-dsk-stereotypes-americaine-et-europe
http://www.slate.fr/lien/38569/dsk-sperme-adn-femme-de-chambre-details-agression
“Pore Jud is Daid” – Rodgers and Hammerstein
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s14dTQ7VJPk
Kinda reminds me of Serge Gainsbourg and Whitney Houston.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMdXi6f5KRg
When I was working on Forestry projects in India we used to refer to pompous, rude and overbearing behaviour as “Going Brahmin”. In contrast, in my province of British Columbia our Premiers (State Governor equivalents) are more down to earth. One Premier was driving home after work and saw a motorist with a flat tyre, so he stopped, took off his jacket and helped the guy change the tyre. When staying in the capital while the legislature was in session, another Premier could be seen on a Friday in the supermarket, pushing his grocery cart up and down the aisles. I also saw the same Premier alone in economy class on an airplane. The people sitting next to him were whomever happened to have bought tickets for those seats. They were surprised to find they were sitting next to the Premier of British Columbia.
Neither of these Premiers needed to puff up like a toad and neither was afraid of ordinary people – that’s Western Canada.
J@29: What does he mean by that?
If you googled it, you should know that it was Nietzsche’s short-hand rebuttal of Utilitarianism as proposed by English philosophers, but I’m assuming you knew that and might be asking a deeper question, the answer to which I do not know.
BTW, my first exposure to the citation came from Fukuyama’s End of History.
“Kinda reminds me of Serge Gainsbourg and Whitney Houston.”
What a lot of people would be thinking watching Gainbourg paw Whitney and getting away with it is ‘now if I did that she would slap me so hard it would like a red glove was tattooed on my face’. And they start to wondering why. The common hypothesis is that not all men are made equal; we begin to ask why some guys can walk on water and others can’t.
Thoughit’s an unworthy thought, because nobody should plan on pawing a woman, I think a lot of people envy Bill Clinton and Charlie Sheen for their ability to “get away” with stuff. At least it makes them wonder how they do it.
well actually I wasn’t aware that Nietzsche ever rebutted anything, but if he did, you’d think he’d rebut the French.
DSK as Superman? I thought the IMF’s role was more like, “Here I come to save the day!” which seems a more appropriate slogan for him.
Oh, snap.
When someone demands “Don’t you know who I am?” what he or she is implicitly saying is “Don’t you know who you are? I’m reminding you. You’re an inferior, a serf, so just shut up and submit.”
I know an awful manager who reminds others that he is the boss. Can you imagine General Petraeus reminding another officer of his rank? Pulling rank is sign of weakness, and most of these “don’t you know who I am?” folks are blind to their own very real poverty of character. DSK is no exception.
M-C @ 26: Yes, his pic was exposed in the staff room. But what was exposed in his suite was perhaps not what was on the staff room wall.
I have always believed the proper response to “do you know who I am?” is “you mean you don’t?”
F
“Except that DSK pic was exposed in the staff room, where the maid put her uniform on…” Solfitel has a lot to answer for exposing its female staff to pornography.
OT: http://enenews.com/radiation-dose-reactor-1-hits-new-high-204-sieverts-hour-drywell
Radiation Levels at Reactor No. 1 have hit 204 sieverts per hour. Earlier the TEPCO meme was a faulty geiger counter. It appears however, that TEPCO is lying again since this reading has persisted since the 21 st. Exposure to 0.5 sieverts is apparently certain death. This reading is over 400 times that. It has jumped from under 50 sieverts last week and I believe 1 seivert May 13th. Radioactive material has entered what is called the ‘drywell” and is burning down to the “waterbed” ( watertable?). Experts say all hell breaks loose once it hits the “waterbed”.
The reactor problems in Japan already have greatly damaged it’s economy- down I believe 3.5%, and are hurting ours. Now this. Many could die, and the contamination could spread far and wide. Obama should have sent our naval radioactive experts to fix this when we had the chance. What a clueless, callous evil bastard.
My recollection of a Kerry puffery involved him and Tayrazuh jumping a restaurant queue somewhere in the midwest while campaigning, and when challenged by someone in line, spouted the usual “Do you know who I am?” The aggrieved average man looked him up and down for a moment, then said “Oh, yeah, you’re that gigolo from Massachusetts.”
My fantasy is answering that question with “No, I don’t, but how soon do you need to know?”
#19 Sgt Mom – The same sort of thing happened to me one evening as I was walking across post in Germany. It was still light enough that I could see the outline of people moving around but nothing else. As I walked past one dark figure a female voice said, “Don’t you salute officers on this post?”. I said, “Evening maam”, saluted and walked on. I didn’t think of the snappy comebacks till later, but the thought struck me that maybe she was just asking for informational purposes only, and maybe I wasted a salute for nothing.
30. Marie Claude
”From the point of view of the American media, the affair has become the latest opportunity to divert attention from the social calamity at home and neocolonial wars abroad.
I would not be at all surprised if this was a set-up intended to do just that, Marie. I have that little respect for the sitting Pres.
43. dick : What he should have answered is, ” You are the guy going back to the end of the line, either willingly or on the end of my boot.”
Cynthia McKinney learned the hard way that no one really cared who she was.
dick @43: Better yet is this true story. “C. J.” is a legendary United Airline Agent at San Frncisco. One example why:
When the self-important type asked “do you know who I am?” CJ picked up the microphone and said: “Please give me your attention in the terminal. Will somebody come to the podium and tell this gentleman who he is. He can’t seem to remember his own name.”
#45 – Aren’t conspiricy theories fun?
Big Dogs Don’t Bark
When I was Supervising I once briefed my staff that they absolutely and positively could not respond to “DYKWIA?” by yelling to all and sundry “Can someone please help this poor man? He does not know who he is.” but they could remember me saying it and smile.
Unsk, I followed your link. I spent a lot of time reading up on whole-body equivalent dose terminology for some work I did in the 1980′s on Civil Defense preparedness, use of various dosimeters, fallout shelter design, biologic effects of ionizing radiation, etc. (Despite more reading since, it feels like my ignorance is growing faster than all available data. AAUGH!)
In the articles dredged up by several different keyword searches, I keep finding serious confusion in the use of terms Seivert, microSeivert, and milliSeivert. I seriously doubt many of these writers know a proton from a crouton, they’re just parroting stats from other sources. It’s awfully easy to mis-type the english “m” indicating “1000th part” for the greek “µ” (“myu” for “micro” or Millionth part) or leave off the prefix entirely.
If any other Belmonters know what goes on inside a working reactor, maybe someone could give us some basis for grasping the scale of intensity from, say, a dental X-ray versus the dose that would turn you to bacon in ten seconds.
mf @ 49: I’m no expert and I just glanced at the link, but I think they do mean full Sieverts, as in a couple of minutes and you’re dead in hours pretty much like Spock in whichever movie that was. The article implies things are getting hotter and may be about to set a world record, plus or minus the still secret Soviet blowup(s) of the 1950s. In which case Tepco has let it get much worse over the last month. Still, even if it’s bad in the well, that has not yet let it get bad outside the plant. Yet.
MF@49
I have found the following blog to have good scientifically based info on the Fukushima Power Station issues.
wormme.com/2011/05/25/tepco-management-just-keeps-looking-worse-and-worse/
#49
A good link that explains the workings of the power plant may be found at
http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/30/areva-fd-presentation/
I refer to Dr Braun’s power point presentation.
The funny thing is that he achieved the fame he wanted. Now everyone knows who he is and when asked we can all respond, “Sure I do, you’re the little french guy who thought he could rape American hotel maids. By the way, I’d like my tax dollars back.”
19 Sgt. Mom
There’s an academic equivalent of that story, from back in the pre-internet days. A student enters the professor’s office to hand in his end-of-term paper, a day late. The professor, sitting at his desk poring through the pile of papers (it was a large class), very politely informs the student that he can’t accept the paper after the deadline as it just wouldn’t be fair to all the other students who sweated to get theirs in on time. The student tells his sob story and still no dice. So he turns hot-headed and growls, “Do you know who I am?!!!”
The professor, hesitating, “uhh, no”.
“Good!” says the student, and shoves his paper into the middle of the stack on the prof’s desk and runs away.
Lost in all of the hysteria…
These readings are INSIDE the containment vessel.
Swell.
I’m only concerned with what escapes into the biota.
Cheers.
Disclaimer I can’t read Japanese so I have to depend on expats blogging, English language newspapers from Japan, and etc. Right now the old system of government seems to be breaking down and change is afoot. The Old Boy network, the MSM press club lock on access to government officials, and internal party discipline, is coming unglued. It is kind of like a slow motion molasses version of the US Tea Party movement. The Japanese will put up with a degree of corruption and bull, as long as it delivers in a stable manner. “The System” hasn’t been doing that for decades and the current crisis has really brought that out. For instance with government collusion regional power companies have monopolies in their regions to the extent that one region runs 50 Hz household and a neighboring one runs 60 Hz household. Kan is something like the Obama of Japan, he is hanging on by the skin of his teeth. Crony capitalism at its worst. Regional leaders and parties are starting to pop up in opposition and Internet as an alternate news source is developing. The Japanese for what ever reasons have been slow to indulge in political blogging. The exchanges in the comments section of the English speaking “outsiders” and Japanese English readers has started to get interesting though.
Japanese news readers and Japanese government officials have all gotten confused on the milli, micro, meanings. Even in the pro government papers Kan is taking heat as part of the problem so their is starting to be a lot of the typical finger pointing, cya, on the power plants. Kan has a real “Don’t you know who I am!” Problem going for him, cause lately the answer has been “You’re the guy who is supposed to resign and call for a general election!”
“Don’t you know who I am?”
this is a scenarist supposition, still not avered truth, so it’s all blah blah to ternish a man that symbolised power, and by his nationality, France, what a avenge on these surrender-monkeys !
Never I’ll go to your country, as I have many sins that could get me arrested too
Marie Claude @ 57: But if they try to arrest you, just tell them who you are. Rien de probleme. …So how would one render “Do you know who I am?” in proper French?
My stock standard rejoinder to Do You Know Who I Am? when I was yonger and fitter was, do you have any idea what I am going to do to you if you don’t get out of my face?
I never held a job I wasn’t ready to walk away from. I almost never had to do so but it made me, in many ways, free to act appropriately in challenging circumstances.
As a journalist my standard retort was, one good thing about being a journo is I always get in the last word, I will get paid for delivering it and a lot of people will read it. Or, Jeez, do you want to be even more famous? I can help you out, here, if you insist.
People that spout that line owe their perceived power to social status or organizational status or some other attachment. It is not inherent. They are very vulnerable (for the most part)to high profile exposure of such arrogance. ‘Sides, it’s good sport.
Sometimes they are shocked to run into someone who is just not on the game. Come to think of it, so are most of the Lefties I deal with.
Yes, I agree, it’s dangerous to be French and a DSK supporter here in the States right now, with even TV talk show hosts like Jon Stewart mocking the great and noble DSK. Before you know it, perfectly innocent French tourists will be dragged off the streets and arrested for the crime of having zee outrageous accents. They will be forced to stand in tumbrils and ride through Manhattan while bystanders laugh and throw baguettes and wheels of Camembert at them. Then it will be off with their heads in Times Square, without even the comfort of one last Gitane (because Bloomberg doesn’t let anyone smoke in New York).
Oui, it is very sad and unjust. Therefore, I recommend, M-C, that you visit a country which mirrors France’s enlightened and progressive attitudes toward the rape of hotel maids by important men. May I suggest Saudi Arabia? There are drawbacks – you’ll have to wear a bit more at the pool then they do in St. Tropez and you might run into some problems at Avis-Rent-A-Car. But at least in Saudi Arabia, they have no stupid Yankee ideas about little African nobodies, insignificant maids, having rights.
Here is a chart that shows the relationship between microsieverts, millisieverts, sieverts, and corresponding effects on the body:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/radiation-dosage-chart/
60. Donna V
Excellent takedown.
I always enjoy Marie Claudes comments here, even when I disagree, which is often. But I think the ones here are off base, and needed a response. Can’t beat yours.
Oman
“I’m nobody”, would it be a good response for being released?
Donna, thanks for your kind advice, Saudi Arabia is more fitting the usual american behaviour towards immigrant maids though:
With the arrest of the once powerful head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, following allegations that he tried to rape a maid in his 3,000-dollar- a-night penthouse suite at the Sofitel Hotel, a spotlight has been turned on the treatment of female cleaning staff, many of whom are immigrants who keep silent for fear of losing their jobs or being deported.
Interviews with hotel workers revealed numerous incidents of sexual comments, proposals and harassment, with management frequently turning a blind eye out of deference to their high-profile guests.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former female employee at the luxury Mercer Hotel in Soho told IPS, “It happens all the time. I think this case was a bit extreme, but yes, it is not uncommon for hotel maids to be harassed or even attacked. I would always hear disrespectful comments, or be asked to join male guests in exchange for money when I worked at the hotel.”
“Most guys who stay at these establishments are high-class businessmen. They have the money and the power to do whatever they please and think they can get away with anything,” she said, adding that cleaning staff is reluctant to complain because they are afraid that the hotels will not back them up under the theory “the customer is always right”.
“If the employee is unsatisfied with the treatment received, they are more than welcome to find a new job,” she said about the prevailing attitude.
But for many hotel maids, finding a new job is not an option. Some are undocumented, while others are in the United States on a work visa that ties them to a specific contract. Both situations make these workers vulnerable to long hours, low wages and in some cases, physical or sexual abuse.
“The control that employers often exert over their foreign national employees and the perception of ‘ownership’ that exists in such relationships creates a sense of fear carried by foreign workers in the United States of losing their employment or being removed,” said Jeremy Richards, an attorney specialising in immigration law.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55744
while Maids, often fromm a maghrebin and or subsaharian origin, are guaranted with a labor contract, they are paid like would be a french’s one, and not fired out if such a event would occur, plus they are trained to respond to such “demands”, and besides that, they have very tempered, so if a old fatty breathless man would try sumthin on them, be sure that he’ll get his nuts broken !
dtmack
hmm, according to your wish, should I always be pleased with the analyses of the case?
I have read almost falsh assumptions, and lot of rubbish on my countrymen
WRT the Fukushima fiasco: How many layers are there between the chump reading the meters a hundred yards from the reactors and the guy making the public statements on behalf of the government.
A guy I know who works in Japan from time to time said, “too many”, and they all have a problem sending bad news to their higher.
http://www.slate.com/id/2294216/ You think the French tolerate political infidelity? Look at the United States.
Here is how this should play out.
Guy gets into a spot of trouble with whoever.
Guy: “Don’t you know who I am?”
Whoever: “Um, no, not really, should I?”
Guy: “Good!” Flees the scene . . .
Marie Claude @ 63: interesting aspect. Hardly surprising that illegal (uh, sorry, “undocumented”) workers would be easier prey. And it’s likely that this poor woman is not the first, nor will she be the last, to be abused by The System. But is that the point here? If so, it broadens the discussion to the point of triviality. I frankly suspect bad intent in those who are trying to generalize the problem from DSK to “everybody does it,” or “Institutional Corruption” because that erases the dynamic range for our morality meter –very handy, the Left is particularly good at throwing up that rhetorical “chaff” at every chance. DSK’s defense team may be salting the narrative with these tasty “other people’s testimony about other people’s bad behavior”…or it may just be the media trying to keep the scandal going for another few cycles.
I would also note that the nature of the problem –of alleged systemic abuse/harassment/hostile work environment/anxiety and mental suffering, against undocumented workers whose communication skills are not the best and whose willingness to come forward is inversely proportional to the danger they pose to the powerful– renders it particularly difficult of analysis. What statistics are there, or could there be, of the incidence and prevalence of “bad behavior”? Who keeps them? How sound are they? Have the alleged miscreants accepted the accuracy of the statistics? Is every workplace the same or are there distinguishing features of better/worse places and practices, that would allow us intelligently to discuss how big and intractable the problem is, and what if anything to do about it?
No. What we have is hand-waving and “look over there! Squirrels!”
Oman
“I frankly suspect bad intent in those who are trying to generalize the problem from DSK to “everybody does it,”
yet, this step is easily crossed by your medias when the focus is put on a particular french man
There is a tale of a General in civilian clothes who attempted to breach an armory in a Line Battalion of Marines, who stated to the sentry, “Son, Do you know who I am?” and the sentry replied, “No sir I do not, But Sir, do you know who I am?” The General said “No I do not” and the sentry stated “I am the Man holding a loaded M-16 and aiming at your head” sometimes it pays a great deal to know who you are talking with but pays even more to observe who has the loaded rifle.
The most striking aspect of all this is the concentration on DSK and his bad behavior. Yes, it is both interesting, titillating and disgusting all at the same time (if the worst of the allegations are true). I hate to be a wet blanket, but for my money, the equally large scandal in all this is: What is this “undocumented worker” with only a green card doing in the USA, (with a kid), and taking a job from an American Citizen? Why are our upscale hotels providing employment to illegal criminal aliens when these jobs could go to Americans? This is at least a big a scandal as whether or no DSK thought he could force himself on a Nobody.
This woman needs to be put on the next boat back to Africa. And all other illegal immigrants need to go back to wherever they come from. They are not needed here, they are not wanted here, and we (Middle Class Taxpayers) cannot afford to support them via Welfare. I say to all of them: Go Home, You Are Not Wanted Here!
Bring the 82nd Airborne Division back from Afghanistan and secure the US/Mexico border with orders to shoot to kill.
blert @ 55 said:
“These readings are INSIDE the containment vessel. … I’m only concerned with what escapes into the biota.”
I agree with Blert. The Japanese nuclear reactors were subjected to a Richter-9 earthquake and then washed over by a tsunami that killed over 10,000 people. All of the reactors shutdown as designed and most of the radioactive material remained within the containment vessel. Sure, the reactors are a wreck but everything in that part of Japan is a wreck. It’s not reasonable to expect any mechanical design to withstand the full fury of nature. Remove the hysteria and one is left amazed at how well the Japanese reactors survived the disaster.
Personally, I don’t want anyone to know who I am. Just leave me alone! But I don’t crave attention from people – if I did, I would have learned how to play guitar and become a rock star!
This situation at the Fukushima reactors should not really be a reflection on our nuclear policy. I have no doubt that if the appropriate concern and resources were applied to the crisis immediately by both the governments of Japan and the United States, this crisis would long be over. But that appropriate response, for whatever reason, appears not to have happened.
The readings are only a symptom at this point, but a very disturbing symptom of something very wrong at that reactor. We are only getting snippets of info from the authorities, so we really don’t know what is going on, but it appears that if the radioactive material now in the drywell burns down to the waterbed, which by at least some expert accounts, it is doing, containment will be breached. Then those very high readings will mean deadly contamination to the surrounding area. I’m no expert on nuclear reactors, but the latest developments should be cause for grave concern.
#72 Eggplant
I too, am impressed with how well the Japanese reactors survived the disaster.
I have no experience with nuclear engineering, however, a precursory design review at the planning stage could have exposed the following points:
1. Place the emergency generators and their fuel tanks at a higher elevation in order to be above a tsunami wave (as pointed out in prior comment)
2. Likewise, the replacement water for cooling the spent fuel rods should be stored in a tank placed on ground above the plant. A gravity system could then be employed to refill the spent fuel tanks in the case of power failure.
3. The spent fuel tanks should not have been designed to be on the upper floor of the reactor building. The tanks should have been placed into the earth where the possibility of entombing them with concrete in the case of a catastrofic event is enhanced. The slide show in comment 52 illustrates this.
4. The location of several reactors in close proximetry complicates remedial action in the case of a disaster.
Xylourgos @ 75,
In earlier posts to Belmont Club, I was guilty of nit-picking the design of the Japanese reactors. In particular, I was annoyed that the engineers did not adequately protect the backup power supply from a tsunami. However it is my understanding that the Japanese engineers did build an anti-tsunami wall around the diesel generators. Apparently the tsunami washed over those walls and formed a nice lake within them. Nobody can design a practical mechanical system against the full fury of nature. Any economically practical design can only guard against reasonable probable causes of failure. There really can be no immunity against once-in-a-century catastrophes.
I should mention that one of my pet ideas is that nuclear power systems be built on floating platforms protected within an artificial atoll. The beauty of the concept is that in the event of a complete cock up, the entire facility could be towed to over the deep oceanic abyss and scuttled there. The Japanese will probably have to bury the Fukushima mess in concrete much like the Russians did with Chernobyl.
Marie Claude – Equal standing before the law is the concept, but execution depends on judgments made by humans, who are all imperfect. He has been accused. At some point in the process, a jury may be compelled to decide whether or not he will be held responsible for a criminal offense. Doesn’t really matter if you or I believe the sordid tales about his past behavior and proclivities. That’s just titillating meat scattered before the crowds to sell advertising.
The case regarding John Adams’ defense of British soldiers after the Boston Massacre is an interesting lesson.
As a nuclear engineer who has been designing and operating commercial nuclear power plants all my professional career, I too was surprised by how well the Fukushima reactors held together and how minimal have been the releases. My collegues too, some of whom actually helped design and build these units.
So we had that great bugaboo – “core on the floor” yet, so far as we can ascertain, no member of the public has received health-impacting doses. Of the 30,000 Japaneses killed or missing, only two plant workers suffered serious radiation overexposures.
We in the industry are spending a LOT of time digging into the events there. My immediate manager flew to Japan to help and our senior project director has been there since the first week. I’ve proposed a modification that would significantly increase the time a plant could survive with no AC or DC power and have been granted a largish sum by management to perfect and market the product. Personally, I’ve been studying this event sequence (“station blackout”) for over 25 years.
There are several “lessons learned” coming out of the events in Japan and you can be darn sure that every plant owner will do what is prudent to protect their HUGE investment in these essential infrastructure investments.
There are several more fundamental public policy issues raised here. Given a society with finite resources (like they all are), where and how much should be put into non-productive insurance investments like tsunami sea walls? Would another billion dollars be better spent on higher seawalls for nukes or for higher seawalls for coastal cities? No society can afford perfect protection against the forces of nature, be they earthquakes, tsunamis, or tornados.
Eggplant’s notion of floating nukes was almost a reality back in the 70′s. A production facility was being planned for Audubon Island near Jacksonville, Florida to crank out 1 GW floating reactors. The market for reactors crashed with Jimmy Carter and so the plan was laid aside.
You mean floating nukes that aren’t aircraft carriers or surfaced submarines?
Chicago Lawyer Files Motion Complaining About ‘Large Breasted Woman’ At Opponent’s Table
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/25/chicago-lawyer-files-moti_n_866762.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec3_lnk2%7C65527
ahaha !
Whitehall @ 79 said:
“Eggplant’s notion of floating nukes was almost a reality back in the 70′s.”
Story of my life…. The best ideas in aerospace were published in the early 1960s in “ACTA Astronautical” or the “Journal of the British Interplanetary Society”. It’s almost impossible for a modern aerospace engineer to come with an idea that was not thought of, published, debated over and then forgotten over 30 years ago. My most embarrassing innovation was rediscovering Hill’s Spherical Vortex which was first discovered in 1894.
Mr. Exhelodrvr @ 80
They were to be the standard pressurized water reactors, identical to the land-based version except for the foundations, cooling water arrangements, life preservers, etc. The breakwater was to be large concrete pieces that looked like giant jacks – dolos. Underwater cables carried the power to shore.
A meltdown wasn’t too much problem. The hull bottom was a good heat sink so the corium would solidify – don’t have the details on that calc!
The Russians were working on a similar concept and I think they built a couple small units.
Compared to offshore wind farms, floating nukes would make much more power at lower cost with much less ecological and visual impact.
W-
I want to share an interesting exchange that happened while I was living in the Philippines. At the airport outside Laoag City, I. Norte, a buffoon of a mayor of a near-by publicion, roared up in his car and left it in a “No Parking” zone in front of the terminal. The security guard, pointing at the numerous NP signs, said “Sir you can’t park here”, to which the mayor relied, “Don’t you know who I am?”. The guard said:” No sir”. The mayor then said:” I’m the mayor of ———”. The fearless guard retorted:”Well then you should be able to read!”. The enraged mayor punched the guard, and sadly, had him fired. There the politicos rule!!!
dtmark wrote:
“I always enjoy Marie Claudes comments here, even when I disagree, which is often. But I think the ones here are off base, and needed a response. ”
Well, thanks. And while I too like reading M-C’s different perspective on things, I wonder: why the constant defensiveness? M-C, you often react as if any criticism of a French person, or of a particular French policy by Americans is proof of francophobia. Or else your almost automatic response is “But look, here is a link to a story about an American behaving badly, so you can’t say anything negative about this French person,” as if there’s some sort of international scoreboard. It’s one thing to be a patriot – I respect that, because I love my own country – and another thing to present France and the French as superior in all ways and above any criticism by foreigners.
In your own way, you are saying “Do you know who WE are?” Well, yes, we do. You’re a bunch of human beings and,as a nationality and a culture, you have your strengths and weaknesses and blind spots like all others – including us.
If you read this blog regularly, you know that Americans do not shy away from self-criticism of their own society or politicians. And I doubt very much the French pretend that everything in French society is perfect when they are talking among themselves.
DSK is not being prosecuted because he is French, but because he allegedly committed a very serious crime. I’d feel the same about him if he were Dutch or Indian or Korean – or American, for that matter.
What is troubling is that while you and many other French people are grumbling that we have convicted DSK before the trial, it sounds to me like you have convicted the maid before the trial – you are already sure she must be lying, it is a set-up, there must be a conspiracy, the Americans are in on it(although why Obama would have any desire to destroy a fellow champagne socialist is beyond me.) I suspect that even if solid evidence against DSK is produced – say, a video of him in the nude (Jesu! My eyes!) chasing the screaming maid down the hall – no evidence will ever convince many of his countrymen and women, because the story of the powerful Frenchman brought down and persecuted by the evil Americans is too attractive a story to give up.
#85 – “you have convicted the maid before the trial – you are already sure she must be lying, it is a set-up, there must be a conspiracy, the Americans are in on it.”
That is exactly right. The possibility that DSK may be guilty as hell doesn’t even enter into it apparently.
I have had the privilege of meeting about 15 of the 85 living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Seriously.
Not a damn one of them would ever utter these words. However there is no greater and more select club on the face of the earth.
Any dumbass who asks a Citizen of this Nation that question should be slapped with a blow that starts from last week.
the last pearl on the French
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sexist_dsk_had_france_in_his_pants_RiAMAsbSsV9594enNROtqM/1
Donna V
check your papers that give the last news on DSK case
NYP wins the cristal award for messing around.
http://www.arretsurimages.net/contenu.php?id=4051
DSK, le bêtisier Approximations, erreurs factuelles et témoignages invérifiables :
we never reach the stoopidity of certain of your medias
We never said that the Maid is lying, nor that DSK is guily before being proved guilty in a fair trial, though looks like that some don’t want that
and sorry, Donna, some of your journalists are more in the line of Geobbels in displaying their anti-french xenophobia, and you’re questionning my defensive position ! poor US !
bell curve @71: Exactly which side of the Bell Curve are you on? If the woman has a green card, she is a legal permanent resident and lawfully entitled to work.
An undocumented worker/illegal alien is somebody who is in the country illegally. Green Card holders are automatically excluded from this category. And how does sending the eighty-deuce to the Big Bend keep out
illegal immigrants from Africa??????
Hey, Marie Claude: Would you do us poor Americans a favor? Get him a couple of trimesters in one of your extra special lycees so maybe he will become fit
for polite company in spite of himself.
Now back to the nuclear physics. Sorry fellers, I just could not let that one go by me.
Well, M-C, there’s this:
“Another Socialist, Jean-François Kahn, founder of the left-wing publication Marianne, made light of the whole incident:
Here is a rough idea of what he said:
J.-F. Kahn: I am certain, anyway practically certain, that there was no violent attempt to commit rape, I do not believe that. I know this man, and I don’t think so. That there was an imprudent action we can’t… (hearty laughter), I don’t know how to say it,he lifted her skirt …
A.-G. Slama: He called it an error of judgment (cackles).
J.-F. Kahn: He lifted the skirt of a servant, that’s what I mean, it’s not right, but, there, it’s my impression”
“He lifted the skirt of a servant??” And you wonder why the writers at the NYP are (justly!) criticizing the French reaction…
You’re saying our journalists are like Geobbels – well, I really doubt that Geobbels would rush to the defense of a poor black cleaning lady.
I won’t say this so-called man of the people Jean-Francois Kahn, or Bernard-Henri Lévy are like Geobbels. No, what they sound like are French aristocrats from the ancien regime; the ones who thought that the rich and powerful are entitled to special privileges, including “lifting the skirts” of the servants.
Looks like a lot of ordinary French people agree with the new aristocrats.
So much for eqalitie. But, go ahead, continue to be angry at the American journalists who point that out.
Peggy Noonan (one-time speechwriter for Reagan) wrote this about DSK:
But what is most startling about the story is not the charge that a powerful man did a dreadful thing. It is the utter and profound difference between the U.S. response to the story and the French response.
America was immediately sympathetic to the underdog. The impulse of every media organization, from tabloid to broadsheet to cable to network, was to side with the powerless one in the equation. The cops, the hotel’s managers, the District Attorney’s office—everyone in authority gave equal weight and respect to the word of the maid. Only in America (and not always in America) would they have taken the testimony of the immigrant woman from Africa and dragged the powerful man out of his first-class seat in the jet at JFK.
In France, the exact opposite. There, from the moment the story broke, DSK was the victim, not the villain. It was a setup, a trap, a conspiracy. He has a weakness for women. No, he loves them too much. Hairy-chested poseur and Sarkozy foreign-policy adviser Bernard-Henri Levy sneeringly referred to “the chambermaid,” brayed about DSK’s high standing, and called him “a friend to women.” Jean Daniel, editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, sniffily asked why “the supposed victim was treated as worthy and beyond suspicion.”
Why wouldn’t she be treated as worthy, buddy? One is tempted to ask if it’s the black part, the woman part or the immigrant part.
As David Rieff wrote in the New Republic, to French intellectuals, DSK deserves special treatment because he is a valuable person. “The French elites’ consensus seems to be that it is somehow Strauss-Kahn himself and not the 32-year-old maid who is the true victim of this drama.”
Americans totally went for the little guy. The French went for the power.
Lafayette would weep.
Someone once sniffed, “In America they call waiters ‘Sir.’ ” Bien sur, my little bonbon. It’s part of our unlost greatness.
The French are a very great people. They have filled the world with so much beauty, you have to wonder if God didn’t send them down here just for that. As David McCullough observes in his tender new book, “The Greater Journey,” generations of Americans, starting in 1820 or so, journeyed to Paris to learn the best in art, medicine, science and literature. They came back and filled our nation with the innovation and expertise they’d acquired there. The French didn’t just enrich us, they helped America become itself.
Today they are great talkers, but for all their talk of emotions, and they do talk about emotions, they need, on this story at least, an attitude adjustment. They need to grow a heart. If the charges are true, this isn’t a story about sex, romance and the war between men and women, it is about violence, and toward a person who is almost a definition of powerlessness.
Their mindless snobbery is unworthy of them.
Not one person has picked up on the fact that DSK p*ss*d in the wheaties of Hilary Clinton. There is an investigation on going of financial malfeasance by the congress or senate, he gave evidence that possibly could implicate some very important people.
People like DSK get away with some very dodgy stuff all the time and usually charges are buried very quickly. He made a bad enemy and this time let him hang himself or the sheer fact a charge like this has made his testimony moot at this time.
I can tell you that the powerful and well connected can do things to your life you have no idea about. My father in law is one and with one phone call can ruin your business or your life if you mess with him or his family,he has known many Presidents and VP’s. He’s not malicious or well known but he does not tolerate idiots gladly. I know of things he has done to punish those that have mistreated my wife in greedy or nasty ways they have been punished in rather ingenious not physically harmful ways and I mean punish and they are all legal.
The well connected can do things to you like you have no idea all your skeletons are shook out of that closet. A word of advice don’t mess with these people they can destroy you. They punish their own once they venture of the reservation hence DSK.
Donna V: Sure you got the straight dope on Bernard Henri Levi (BHL)? I caught one of his lectures on Canadian TV two years ago and got a pretty favorable impression of him. While he insisted on identifying with the left, he deplored and denounced their winsome ways.
There are international “filters” that sometimes seem to let through only erroneous information/images.
For example, another French-based blogger of my aquaintance recently called Michelle Bachmann a “simpleton”. So go figger.
BTW Silliest write-up so far comes from a Ugandan paper/pundit who swears that DSK was framed because he had advanced plans to eliminate the US Dollar as a reserve currency. That would keep the USA from terrorizing black people any more. Therefore DSK was lured to New York because that was where his enemies had a treasonous black woman who would cooperate with their racist scheme. Silly but watch out for those that actually believe that stuff.
95. Dave: First of all, let me note that the mention of BHL above is Peggy Noonan’s, not mine. I am sorry if this is not clear, but in post #93, I wrote only the first line. I thought I had italicized the quote I pulled from Noonan, but apparently not. I certainly agree with what she wrote though.
I agree Dave, that on Islamic terrorism, BHL can be impressive. But I couldn’t get past page 20 when I tried to read his book on America. Americans can still read Tocqueville and profit from his insights (although Tocqueville wrote in the 1830′s and was far from being uniformly complimentary about Americans), but BHL’s book sounded like BS to me right after it was published. I simply didn’t recognize my country as the one he described. It didn’t read like “the US from a different perspective,” it read like pompous BS and I tossed the book aside as unreadable. Then BHL defended Polanski, a man who certainly raped a 13 year old – that was the last straw for me. You hold a warm corner of BHL’s heart if you are a sexual deviant- well, one in elite French society at least. The victims, well, he never has much compassion to expend on them. I suppose they should be happy that “great men” found them worthy of a scr*w.
@91. Dave, thanks for getting there ahead of me.
The maid’s legality is firmly established by virtue of her documentation. In fact, as a permanent resident she is (on track at least) to a quintessentially American story. (Most) Americans identify and will defend that regardless of their feelings on illegal immigrants. Also, her green card means she is not powerless unless she just doesn’t want to look for work, in which case she’s in the same boat as many citizens.
That said, she is also a human being, and were she an illegal it would not in any way change the seriousness of the claims against DSK. It would likely result in certain repercussions against her and the hotel, later, but that’s about it.
That the weak are protected from injustice is a heavenly virtue found rarely on earth these days. That the powerful is not protected from his own indecency may be because of his aggravating other powerful, but is moot–bad behavior eventually brings consequences.
–JC
The maid is legally present in America, unless someone can prove fraud on her visa application. Interesting though how fast the illegal immigration pimps were to piggyback onto this issue. Ideally the counter meme should be exploited with Conservatives loudly trumpeting their support for Law and Order on behalf of the legal resident and the hotels vigorously protesting the defamation of themselves and their employees by the Left.
Donna V
BHL and JF Kahn (he had to resign as a director of Marianne) and alikes are trashed in France for what they said. Again, like NYP, you make a amalgam : a handful of Bobos don’t represent 65 millions of French.
“If the charges are true, this isn’t a story about sex, romance and the war between men and women, it is about violence, and toward a person who is almost a definition of powerlessness.”
Doesn’t look like that anyone on your side is allowing him the innocence option !
And we were the first in France to hold BHL’s books as jokes, some kind of philisophy for jet-setters, or hairdressers salons.
You keep on repeating the same ol Polanski’s case, as it would be the referrence for french society behaviour, this is some short-sight and sided view !
We don’t care of Polanski, his case is prescripted, as older than 30 years, and as the victim removed her complaint,as so he can’t be extradicted by our laws, but if you invite him, he might want to go into your honey trap.
“everyone in authority gave equal weight and respect to the word of the maid.”
Like if the NY cops were “all” fair, they just released two of them that are guilty of a violent rape on a supposed ‘drunk’ woman
hmm, the victim? like if you cared for her, then you should inquiry for the thousands maids that are harrassed and or assaulted too in your country.
“In France, the exact opposite. There, from the moment the story broke, DSK was the victim, not the villain”
NO, iT wasn’t really a surprise, just some kind of april joke happening, but we were shocked by the perp parade, and the press pressions on his supposed certain guiltiness before he is judged ! and also by the amalgam made like if DSK was representing the usual french way of behaving !
DSK was a threat for many people, in IMF, in France in the finance world, for the US, he would have been lesser a State Department puppet, but a pro strong EUrope, kind of remnent worry in the US, since the creation of EU, the US policy has always been messing around, like this article shows:
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/US_secretly_helped_French_nuclear_program_documents_999.html
Now his reputation of womaniser opportunly serves the accusation, when he was on the verge to solve the eurozone problem….
Now, I’m not saying he didn’t made what he is repproached, in a fair trial, one would consider the political and economical context for that it happened at this precise moment
and I don’t buy into your “train station” moral, the maid is the useful idiot for your argumentation, “’Quand la presse joue le rôle de police morale, elle devient un instrument de totalitarisme.’ Christian Delporte (historian of the political and scandal press)
Dave, if he hadn’t so many millions in banks, you would send him back right now !
“Do you know who I am?”
“That’s not the correct question, Sir/Madam.”
“What is the correct question?”
“Do I care who you are!”
I don’t care if this maid is now a “legal” resident. I am 100% sure she got into this country illegally. She doesn’t belong here, and she should go home.
Of course, for her Africa is home and I wouldn’t want to go home either if I were in her shoes. Again, she isn’t wanted here, she isn’t needed here, and I don’t want to pay my taxes to be substitute father for her kid.
As for putting real military forces on the US/Mexico border, it may seem extreme now, but once a WMD comes into the USA via the US/Mexico border and detonated in an American city, having real military seal our borders won’t seem far fetched at all.
It’s not just hordes of illegals coming here to steal jobs from Americans in this recession, terrorists are going to come into this country too due to our open borders. As for Africans coming here illegally, I don’t care how they sneak in, they need to be rounded up and sent back, this includes Obama/s aunt.
“The Strauss-Kahn Case: Free Press, Fair Trial?”
the differences of the two legal systems explained to the dummies
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/26/can-strauss-kahn-get-a-fair-trial/the-french-have-a-legal-point
It’s only an atmospheric re DSK case, but France is the only country to treat George Soros as if he were just a guy named George Soros who made a bundle on some insider trading deal over which France had sufficient jurisdiction to convict him of a felony –for which he is still in dutch, so to speak. But for that court, Soros could claim a spotless record of financial probity, when we all helplessly know that if he is spotless, it’s because all the spots have run together into one big spot, which now has no spots on it because nothing clean can break thru. Now thanks to that court, we have proof of his felonious mind, and the monkey has climbed onto the back of other national legal systems which inexplicably do not look into his affairs.
Buddy
source?
MC he was convicted in abstenia for ripping off the French Government and a couple of big French banks.
For Soros it’s always the same game plan: attack the currency and clean up with massive shorts.
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The odd thing about the maid’s green card is that she’s staying in a condo dedicated to HIV victims.
Since such space is in high demand for the afflicted — and risky for those who are clean — the press has assumed that she’s HIV positive.
Forever and ever, immigration is denied to anyone who is infected with nasty, lethal diseases.
I understand that some special provision has been legislated by Congress as a sop to the gay community — but the maid doesn’t look to be any kind of candidate for special treatment.
The idea of permitting, enabling terminally ill Africans to immigrate to America is a catastrophe. All treatments are mighty expensive — and our medical tab is already destroying the Federal budget as it is.
A welfare state simply cannot permit open immigration. The economy will blow up.
I’d say that it already has. We are in that Wile E. Coyote moment — don’t look down.
Our ability to export our taxes overseas is coming to a brutal close.
Blert I did some researches, at the era I had other occupations than to worry of policies
yes, and his case went up to the EU court, Beregovoy, the french PM of the era, is said to have committed suicide, but his family still believe that he was assassinated
“Michael Vachon, le directeur de la communication du Soros Fund Management, un ancien cadre du Commonwealth Fund, qualifie alors le verdict d’« absurde erreur judiciaire » et Soros se lamente que le verdict est « un cadeau fait à mes ennemis » aux Etats-Unis.
Soros persistera à vouloir rétablir son honneur bafoué en portant son cas devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme à Strasbourg. Son avocat, l’américain Ron Soffer, interrogé par la presse, déclare que sa défense sera basée sur les articles 6 et 7 (Titre I) de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme. L’article 6 stipule que toute personne « a droit à ce que sa cause soit entendue équitablement, publiquement et dans un délai raisonnable », et que vu la longueur du procès, cet article n’est pas respecté.
Soros bénéficie clairement d’une section de la classe politique britannique. Son deuxième avocat pour le procès devant la cour européenne est Lord Anthony Lester of Herne Hill, l’un des membres dirigeants des Liberal Social Democrats de la Chambre des Lords et membre du conseil exécutif de l’Open Society Institute Justice Initiative depuis 2000. Lord Lester est membre du Queens Council (QC) et l’un des dirigeants de l’Association britannique du planning familial. Grand avocat des droits de l’homme, Lester fut nommé conseiller spécial auprès du ministre de la Justice par Gordon Brown après son élection en 2007, bien qu’il ait récemment démissionné de son poste suite à une série de désaccords avec le Premier ministre anglais.”
http://www.solidariteetprogres.org/Quand-la-justice-francaise-condamna-George-Soros_05165
“In France, a suspect is presumed innocent until the final appeal is completed. Unlike in the U.S. where appeals courts rarely re-examine facts, French appeals courts can review the finding of facts in the original trial. The Feb. 10 hearing and the original trial covered much of the same ground.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGuDYI_pnWRo&refer=news_index
MC…
He also tried to scam Kuala Lumpur in the late 90′s and was tossed out. Their politicos consider him to be a rogue menace — if not the anti-Christ.
Moscow hates him, too.
His game is always the same: corrupt officialdom so that he gets advance intel WRT changes in government money-policies. ( exchange rates, interest rates, capital controls and the rest )
Such advance word is then exploited with mega leverage to produce astounding returns. IIRC he made over $10,000,000,000 in ONE day shorting the British Pound Sterling. His total take was higher still.
This is how he can afford to fund simply no end of economic parasitism via his ‘charities.’
‘Gifts’ – -that’s rich.
The number of media personalities on his ‘pad’ ( aka payroll ) would astonish you.
He’s a global force for aristocracy and influence buying.
Blert, since people know where is his mansion in the US, Why still none tried to send a drone on it?
We are really small pawns with no identity but part of a massive number of serfs
mc/105, sorry, i was off line. Blert said everything i would’ve said tho, except for ”Moscow hates him” –of which i’m not so sure. He made his world stage debut with the attack on the Pound Sterling in 1992, just as kremlin fear of western financial power taking advantage of the Wall Fall was high. His seed money is said to be Rothschild, who is all over the Caspian nowadays (Kazakh real estate boom actually has his name on a third of it) with official blessing, and the fund he attacked UK with was named ”Double Eagle” –like the Slav two-headed eagle heraldic symbol which ‘must look east and west’.
Also, he attacks every region destructively, but Russia only ‘apparently’ destructively. For example, the ‘color revolutions’ wherein he jacks up the independence movements until they make enemies of Russian-speakers and get pro-Russia parties going in oppo, which then snap into the Kremlin line, only better, since they can subvert and swindle the west while Russia says ‘tut-tut, boys, you should behave’. Ukraine, those Oranges rotted fast, and Georgia –well, need i say more?
And as an American citizen obsessively working for state power and confiscatory taxes, he runs his companies out of Caribbean tax havens and pays taxes only on the salary he pays himself –which is a secret and so probably around one dollar a year.
Sorry Buddy, I don’t quite buy the notion that Soros has ever been on Moscow’s payroll. But there certainly is more to it than him just being Moscow’s enemy, otherwise it’s hard to see how he managed to hang on to one of the largest steel mills in Siberia during the vicious ‘metal wars’ of the 1990s long enough to sell it to the current owner, Vladimir Lisin (he at the top of Forbes 2010 list of the richest post-krizis Russians).
I think Glenn Beck was shut down before he could start digging into Soros Eastern European NGOs and whether there was any connection to his politics/influence buying stateside. You do have to ask yourself the question of who has used whom worse. I’d say Soros came out far ahead of the intelligence agencies he allowed his NGOs to be used for as fronts, rightly earning them the boot from the Putin.
As for the Rothschilds in Kazahkstan and Baku, wasn’t that just a case of rebuying up cheap real estate in real terms for a song that would have been more expensive in 1910, when Baku was the largest oil producing city in the world? The Rothschilds had real estate there before the Revolution (Baku was the target of the Wehrmacht in 1942 and Churchill would have bombed it to bits from Iraq if the Germans had made it over the Caucuses passes, but since their rear was secured by Romanians, Italians and Hungarians, they had to fall back by winter).
Mr, my evidence is all circumstantial to be sure. Alas i have no canceled checks made out to SOROS and signed THE KGB, so you can hold the line with the Parthian Shot.
that WW2 wehrmacht run at Baku –just think, if them nazzies had gained lodgements on the south side of the mountains before the winter of 41-42, say in what is now South Ossetia, and a sea supply port in what is now Abkhazia, they’d have had Baku anytime, a few days after jumping off, maybe a week if opfor tried to push a tank-country blocking force up in time from faraway Cairo.