Vintage Turquoise and The Other Topic of the Week

Janet over at The Gardner's Cottage has been busy this week.
First she posted her amazing recipe for artisan bread

Doesn't this look amazing?

I may actually attempt to try making it this weekend

Then she posted fabulous photos of her favorite Ralph Lauren looks

and included this image of her vintage turquoise jewelry

Great pieces aren't they?

Of course seeing her jewelry inspired me to post some pictures of moi

with some vintage turquoise jewelry from Beladora2.com

Vintage American Indian Turquoise and Bear Claw Jewelry

necklace

earrings

cuff

Vintage Turquoise Cuff Bracelet

Vintage Victor Beck Turquoise, Jet and Coral Belt

Vintage Kingman Turquoise Squash Blossom Necklace

Vintage Turquoise Cuff Bracelet 

Vintage Kingman Turquoise Cuff Bracelet

And back to the topic of the week

Kate at Make Do Style has a great post 

and

Miss Whistle has another excellent post

Go read their posts

A Narcissistic Clique With A Monstrous Sense Of Entitlement

This is the week that keeps on giving, isn't it?
Gawker has been all over the Schwarzenneger story
including publishing a photo of the housekeeper/other woman/mother of the love child.

and the Daily Beast...yes I get my scandal news from the best sources...
has a well written article on DSK.
The Narcissists Defending Dominique Strauss-Kahn by Michelle Goldberg

So this is the dark side of the famed French sexual sophistication. For decades now, American liberals, myself included, have bought into the notion that the discreet French approach to the private lives of public figures is superior to America’s tabloid Puritanism. Often, after all, the same qualities that make men effective leaders—ambition, grandiosity, love of power, and an unquenchable hunger for affection—make them bad husbands. The French system of accommodating this complexity seemed admirable, especially during the years when Bill Clinton was nearly hounded out of office for a seedy but consensual affair.

But the aftermath of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest puts the French approach in a rather different light. Rather than evidence of liberality, the silence that protected Strauss-Kahn seems like a conspiracy allowing a powerful man to prey on powerless women. And the apologists for Strauss-Kahn, like the egregious Bernard-Henri Levy, reveal themselves not as worldly humanists, but as members of a narcissistic clique with a monstrous sense of entitlement.


A narcissistic clique with a monstrous sense of entitlement
what an excellent description

In a piece published, alas, in The Daily Beast, Levy, erstwhile defender of admitted rapist Roman Polanski, declared himself outraged by the treatment his friend Strauss-Kahn was subjected to after his arrest on charges of attempted rape, sexual abuse, and unlawful imprisonment. “[N]othing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to the dogs,” he wrote. If Levy wanted to argue that the American justice system is brutal to all those caught up in it, that it treats people in a way at odds with the presumption of innocence, he’d have a point. But his argument wasn’t so universal. Instead, he raged at “the American judge who, by delivering him to the crowd of photo hounds, pretended to take him for a subject of justice like any other.” As opposed to what? If our criminal justice system is indeed refusing to accord special treatment to a rich and powerful foreign official accused of attacking a maid, surely that is to its immense credit. That Levy believes otherwise should forever disqualify him as a credible champion of democracy.


Of course, I am not a fan of BHL for a multitude of reasons
including the fact that I just can't take seriously a man who poses with his shirt as such

Bernard-Henri Levy in all his brawny Gallic glory

Can you?

The Sad Schwarzenegger Shriver Story

After occasionally posting about lying cheating hypocritical politicians...on both sides of the aisle
I was going to let this one go
Why, you ask?
Because everyone I that I know who actually knows Schwarzenegger and Shriver personally says only the nicest things about them.  Intelligent, attractive, educated, accomplished, philanthropic, connected and wealthy, they are our royal couple, our Wills & Kate.
They are our power couple, our living example of the kind of Democratic/Republican detente that can make our State better.
And can I repeat that they are known to be genuinely nice.
But really come on. 
When they announced their separation a week or so ago, no one was all that surprised.  They had led physically separate lives over the last 8 years with Schwarzenegger working in the State Capital and Shriver raising the kids in Brentwood. Naturally couples grow apart with physcial separation, but that wasn't the issue.
It was this
Schwarzenegger reveals he had child with staffer

The Times did not publish the former staffer's name nor that of her child but said the woman worked for the family for 20 years and retired in January.

In an interview Monday before Schwarzenegger issued his statement, the former staffer said another man — her husband at the time — was the child's father. When the Times later informed the woman of the governor's statement, she declined to comment further.
The child was born before Schwarzenegger began his seven-year stint in public office.

Of course the first thing that I did after reading this was email my friend, who has worked for the S&S family for 20 years, and inquire as to the possibility of her having been the staffer with Arnold's love child.  No such luck, but she did inform me that there are a  few people who have been consistently with the family for two decades.  The family inspires loyalty in their staff.

Loyalty is one thing, a love child is another.

What amazes me is how could this have been kept on the down low for 10 years.  Didn't the child show a physical resemblance to Schwarzenneger?
Could the couple have a reconciliation for the sake of the four children?
Of course. 
Perhaps Maria, like so many other wives in the extended Kennedy clan, can overlook the disrespect and the disloyalty for the sake of the family.
But I doubt it.
Could you?

Dominique Strauss Kahn - "The Great Seducer" Gets Nabbed In New York

DSK Laughing All The Way To The (World) Bank

The big new today - Dominique Strauss Kahn, the Socialist head of the International Monetary Fund
was pulled off a Paris bound  Air France flight and charged by the New York police for sexual assault.

From the NY Daily News
Strauss-Kahn, 62, allegedly crept up behind a maid after she entered his room and forced her to perform oral sex on him, sources said.

The woman broke free and ran out of the room. Strauss-Kahn quickly headed for the airport, sources said.
Charges against Strauss-Kahn, who is married to well-known French TV journalist Anne Sinclair, were pending Saturday night, sources said.
Hours before Strauss-Kahn was pulled from the flight, a close Socialist Party ally claimed he was the target of a smear campaign by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"There is now a totally structured and orchestrated campaign, which has already been announced by Mr. Sarkozy and his closest allies, to attack the character of Strauss-Kahn," Socialist politician Jean-Marie Le Guen told Europe 1 radio.
This is not the first time Strauss-Kahn has been embroiled in a sex scandal.
Two years ago, the former French finance minister was accused of having a fling with a former underling at the Davos international forum.

And from the NY Post
The trouble began at around 1 p.m. yesterday when a 32-year-old housekeeper entered Strauss-Kahn's $3,000-a-night suite at the luxury Sofitel on West 44th Street -- apparently unaware he was still inside.

The married Strauss-Kahn was in the bathroom, and emerged naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where "he jumps her," a source said.
"She pulled away from him and he dragged her down a hallway into the bathroom where he engaged in a criminal sexual act, according to her account to detectives," Browne said. "He tried to lock her into the hotel room."
Soon afterward, Strauss-Kahn got dressed and headed off to JFK for a flight to Paris.

When he was approached on the plane by Port Authority cops, he said, "What is this about?" sources said. He was taken off the aircraft without handcuffs.
Two law-enforcement sources said Strauss-Kahn was trying to flee authorities. Police said he left his cellphone and other personal items in the room.
"It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," Browne said.

The shocking arrest came hours after a Socialist Party ally of Strauss-Kahn accused Sarkozy of kicking off a smear campaign against his longtime rival -- focusing on his lavish lifestyle, including his preference for suits from the same tailor favored by President Obama.

"There is now a totally structured and orchestrated campaign, which has already been announced by Mr. Sarkozy and his closest allies, to attack the character of Strauss-Kahn," Socialist politician Jean-Marie Le Guen told Europe 1 radio.

Way back in 2008 I blogged about DSK and his misdeeds
In the IMF - If You Kahn - You Will
DSK Kahn't Get Enough
and
Kahn't Stop The Love


So...was is sexual assault at the Sofitel Hotel in New York or a set up by Sarkozy?
I don't know
But a pattern of misbehavior is....well...a pattern of behavior
and men who consistently misbehave and get away with it, will continue to misbehave


Note:  DSK does not have diplomatic immunity

There are 300 plus comments on the subject on the Wall Street Journal online.

I like this one
The IMG usually just screws countries...broadening their service?
and this one
It's too bad that this guy didn't call Elliot Spitzer and get the name of the call service he used. Or maybe the guy was just such a cheapskate, he didn't want to pay for it. He's in a heap of deep trouble now. But, more than likely, he's got the attitude, what's the big deal? I guess he was absent that day when they held the "Sexual harrassment training."

He's going to need an awfully good lawyer. Maybe he can blame this on the fact that he was molested as a child, or they he's was taking Viagara and it went to his head. Or, he could say that the devil made him do it.
Or maybe, somehow he could blame the Democrats or the Republicans.
The Wall Street Journal ought to file this under the heading of "Men who couldn't keep their zippers zipped."
What a wonderful idea. Famous people caught in a compromising position. What will they think of next.

Anthem - Rolling In The Deep

La Belette Rouge recently posted about our need for having personal anthems at different points in our lives.  We've all had them haven't we?

Well, after certain events last weekend that resembled a French farce
this is my current life anthem.

Luckily, the timing for these events couldn't have been better as Easter, at least for me, signifies Spring and a time for new beginnings and paying more attention to the things that add value to my life.
Bon, on y va.