Clinton Makes Trouble For Cuomo
Until Hillary Clinton decided to destroy 33,000 allegedly personal e-mails, all was quiet on the document-retention front in her selected home State of New York. Governor Andrew Cuomo was quite happy with the secrecy provided by his own refusal to send written memos or e-mails, and the practice followed by his staff and state agencies (at his insistence) of destroying e-mails older than 90 days. No footprints. Which is the way the famously secretive Cuomo likes it.
Along came Hillary and her electronic eraser, and the New York legislature swung into action to disable what one transparency advocate calls "an electronic shredder that's always on". A decidedly annoyed governor agreed to changes in retention policy if they would include removal of the legislature's partial exemption from the Freedom of Information Act. According to the New York Times, on which must of this comment is based, the new Democratic head of the state assembly responded, "There are certain things under the legislative guise that should be protected. I believe in that." Just what "legislative guise" means is uncertain, but it is certain that Justice Louis Brandeis' observation that "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" is not included in that particular "guise".
Republican legislators joined the fun by proposing that any new legislation reducing their exemption from the FOIA be coupled with a requirement that anyone living with a state employee file financial disclosure forms -- meaning that Cuomo's long-time partner, a famous chef and television personality would have to do so. Cuomo countered with a proposal that disclosure rules be expanded even more, to include "all girlfriends, even those of married members of the legislature."
All because Hillary Clinton wanted a bit of privacy.
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The Feather Touch of Regulation
You undoubtedly have heard of the Department of the Interior. You may even have heard of its Fish and Wildlife Service. But I doubt whether you know that its almost 60,000 employees include those charged with running the National Eagle Repository. Until the Wall Street Journal detailed the working of that Repository, Interior was most famous for its National Park Service's decision, during a government shutdown, to force its usually obliging park rangers to increase public inconvenience by taking ten days to approve a plan for state funding to keep the parks open. Now its feather keepers, after a long undercover investigation, have threatened to jail a Native American who leads some of his fellows in worship, which requires use of eagle feathers, a few of which were a gift to him from a soldier returning from Afghanistan. Alas, although his tribe is recognized by the state of Texas, it is not recognized under federal law, making his acceptance and use of the feathers illegal under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It's now up to the courts to determine whether the government is infringing on religious freedom, as it was found to be by the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case. Either way, one wonders why Obama is complaining about inadequate funding and calling for higher taxes when it has resources to pursue a challenge to its feather monopoly.
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Sex and the Single Politician
Enough of such trivial matters as whether Germany should pay Greece for the terrible costs inflicted by the Nazi occupation, or Britain should unspecial its relationship with the U.S. by backing China's competitor to the World Bank, or just how annoyed Angela Merkel really is with the European Central Bank's decision to try quantitative easing. On to the stuff of which European politics is really made. Not the multiple mistresses of the French President, at least not so long as the incumbent in that positions survives. Instead, Silvio Berlusconi and Dominique Strauss-Kahn's victories, the one certain, the other likely.
When Italy's highest court upheld the former Italian prime minister's acquittal on charges he paid for sex with an underage prostitute at "bunga bunga" parties at his Milan villa, and later used his influence to have the police release her rather than charge her with theft, it did more than revive the political career of a man "who has done what every Italian man of that generation dreamed of," according to one voter interviewed by BBC, but still faces charges of witness tampering and political corruption. It confirmed his view of himself. One Annalisa Amicucci, a lawyer, says "Women adore him, including myself....He does not need to pay for sex." "I never understood where the satisfaction is when you're missing the pleasure of conquest," said the acquitted party giver. Things are also looking up for DSK, former head of the International Monetary Fund, in the dock for pimping. Prosecutors have urged that the charges be dropped, perhaps persuaded by Strauss-Kahn's challenge, "I dare you distinguish between a [naked] prostitute and a naked socialite." The accused justified his presence at these events in two ways. They were infrequent, twelve times in four years, which is less often than his corporate friends have to report to their investors. And his "very hectic life, [left] few outlets for recreation, and these sessions [aka orgies] were part of that". Presumably, DSK's new life is not as hectic as his old one.
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The Fat's In The Line of Fire In France
Talk to any doctor, or squeeze into a seat on an airplane, and you will know that there is an obesity epidemic in America. Whether it is because doctors make that bloated condition respectable by telling patients that they are suffering from obesity rather than "You are fat," is a subject of discussion in op eds and journals. However, help is at hand, coming across the ocean to us from Britain and France.
"The waist-shrinking corset is making a comeback," announces the Sunday Times (London). Sales of corsets are up 54% on eBay and 50% at What Katie Did, a retailer of steel-boned women's corsets, while designer Stella McCartney's version, a bargain at �185, is sold out online and at shops. These garments, or devices, contend their advocates, are a sign of female empowerment -- being "confident, powerful ... It has absolutely nothing to do with men," says the founder of What Katie Did.
Corsets, of course are aimed at the merely plump, rather than the obese, and there are serious doubts that they provide post-removal benefits from their "waist training". The French have a better solution, reports Reuters: eliminate the glamour associated with thinness, countering the Duchess of Windsor's observation that "You can never be too rich or too thin". Health Minister Marisol Touraine is backing a bill that would have France, the home of a multi-billion euro fashion industry, join Italy, Spain and Israel in banning excessively thin models. Modelling agencies and fashion houses that hire the skinny beauties would be fined $79,000 and the models' agents jailed for up to six months for hiring women who cannot not present a medical certificate proving they have a body mass index of at least 18 (about 121 pounds for a model 5 feet, 7 inches tall). The goal is to preserve the health of models, eliminate young women's emulation of these ultra-thin sashayers of the catwalks, and cut the incidence of anorexia (30-40,000 sufferers in France), and, as a by-product of the legislation, allow young women to enjoy their foie gras, cr�me brulee, and other justifiably famous French delicacies. If they overdo a bit it is only a short hop across the channel to What Katie Did's shoppe, a trip many youngsters have already taken in pursuit of jobs that are not available in France, where socialists still fight reform of labor markets.
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All's Well That Ends Well
Exercise strenuously four-to-seven days per week and increase your risk of heart attack. Or so some doctors now say. But cheer up: you can turn your early departure from this world into a joyous occasion, and not only for your well-placed heirs. Just contact Julie Moore, at work in her North Carolina studio crafting urns to contain your ashes. And select "the party jar." No, you will not be at the party, at least not in your present incarnation, but if you are "vivacious and celebrate life" you will have selected a home for your remains that is "a piece of art that [your children] look at and ... don't think, "Oh. That's Dad's ashes,'" says Ms. Moore. Right, adds Robin Simonton, executive director of the historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, "If you're going to put someone on your mantle, you want them to look nice." Simonton is sponsoring an Urn Art & Garden Fair, and has already received more than two dozen entries. It's still not too late to buy what might become a prize-winning permanent home that your survivors can admire.
