Avenue Montaigne And The Legendary Marlene

One of the most famous actresses (and most celebrated beauties) of the 20th century spent the last 14 years of her life as a veritable recluse in a two-room apartment on a swanky Paris boulevard.

Just across from the plush Plaza Athenee Hotel and down the street from the Champs Elysees -- that's where the legendary Marlene Dietrich resided at 12 Avenue Montaigne in the City of Lights.

But she didn't see much of the lights -- not by day nor by evening.

La Marlene didn't want the world to see her at such an advanced age. So, in 1978 she encamped at her Paris flat and she remained there until her death at the age of 90 in 1992. She accepted few if any visitors but she did receive and initiate phone calls.

Marlene Dietrich suffered several bad falls in the waning years of her legendary nightclub act and she never fully recovered. She was weary, cash poor and simply unwilling to be seen in public.

During her final five years she was bedridden and she spent a good deal of time chatting with friends around the world on two phone lines, sometimes running up phone bills as high as $700 a month. Even though some of her personal belongings had to be sold to pay her bills, many felt this was her way of saying goodbye.

More than 1,500 people mourned at her funeral at the Madeleine Church in Paris. Her closed coffin, draped in the French flag and adorned with a simple bouquet of white wildflowers, rested beneath the altar. Three medals, including France's Legion of Honor, were displayed at the foot of the coffin, military style, for a ceremony symbolizing the sense of duty Dietrich embodied in her career as an actress, and in her personal fight against Nazism. Her daughter placed a wooden crucifix, a St. Christopher's medal and a locket enclosing photos of Dietrich's grandsons in the coffin. Then, Dietrich was flown back to her birthplace in Germany, for burial near her mother Josefine von Losch.

Dietrich is buried in the Friedenau Cemetery, in Berlin.

We weren't at Dirtrich's funeral in 1992 but we did see her perform her one-woman show in Philadelphia in 1974. It's not something one soon forgets.

So, while we were in Paris we took a walk down the Avenue Montaigne and snapped these photos of the last residence of Marlene Dietrich -- a great patriot, a daring freedom-fighter, a timeless beauty and a luminescent star.

Obama's Sneaky Double Standard

From Michelle Malkin via Ace of Spades:

A family's right to mourn their lost loved one in private? Not important.

Obama's right to protect himself against political embarrassment? Critically important to this nation's security. Michelle Malkin:

The Obama White House rushed to reverse an 18-year ban photographing the flag-draped coffins of troops arriving back on American soil. And at the behest of the American Civil Liberties Union, his administration is set to release at least 21 classified photographs by May 28 showing detainee abuse in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. Openness in government is fine if it hurts America's reputation, but not if it harms Obama's.

And she's filing FOIA demands:

Specifically, I requested all public records related to and including the flight manifests and related to the origin of the request for the mission. The second filing requests any and all photos taken during the planned federal aerial mission approved by the White House Military Office.

What rationale could they possibly use to stifle public disclosure? National security? These were glamour shots to enhance the Air Force One photo portfolio. That's no secret. The White House 'fessed up on that. Withholding the photos serves only one purpose: protecting the backsides of those involved in this botched PR mission.

How many members of the liberal media do you imagine filed FOIA requests?

Apology Tour: Latin America

From Ace of Spades

Commenting on Obama in South America:
Predictable and nauseating.

"We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms," Obama said to loud applause. "But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations."

And while promising not to dictate anymore (as if that's what really happened*) he promised to talk to, er, dictators.

"The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba," Obama countered in his own speech. "I know there is a longer journey that must be traveled in overcoming decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day." Earlier this week, Obama lifted restrictions on travel to the island by Cuban Americans.

And of course there's his new buddy Hugo (see photo) who gave him a book outlining how horrible Europeans and Americans have been to Latin America. I'm sure Obama will find much to agree with in it.

More: Just a reminder, Obama opposes the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. That's a position even the LA Times Editorial Board takes him to task for.

Obama's trade statement mentions setting "benchmarks" for Colombia and "conducting extensive outreach and discourse with the [American] public," which is beyond exasperating. Colombia has listened to labor concerns and implemented changes in its judicial system to address them. The country has earned this agreement; the United States should approve it.

All that capitalism and deals with democratically elected governments is just icky or something.

*Just to be clear, I took Obama to be talking about the evil Bush administration. If he was making a broader historical point, that's a different discussion but to date his mea culpas have been for the evils of the last 8 years.

Deficit's Taxing Burden

From Ace of Spades:
Obama's not going to cut taxes for the middle class. He has created a staggering, unprecedentedly large, jaw-dropping, eye-popping structural deficit that can only be reduced by going where the money is: The middle class, which has both the huge numbers of tax-filers to make a difference, as well as enough money to pay more.

The poor have the numbers but not the money, the rich have the money but not the numbers. Only the middle class has that wonderful combination of big numbers and ample income.

Yes, it's coming. As the ship's architect said in Titanic about the sinking of the ship: It is purely a simple mathematical problem at this point with only one solution. "It is made of iron; I assure you, it will sink."

Those 'Man Caused Disasters'

Joe Queenan spoofs the Obama administration's resort to absurd euphemisms like "man caused disasters" and "overseas contingency operations:"

Yet, if the intention of the Obama administration is to tone down the confrontational rhetoric being used by our enemies, the effort is already reaping results. This week, in a pronounced shift from its usual theatrical style, the Taliban announced that it will no longer refer to its favorite method of murder as "beheadings," but will henceforth employ the expression "cephalic attrition." "Flayings" -- a barbarously exotic style of execution that has been popular in this part of the world since before the time of Alexander -- will now be described as "unsolicited epidermal reconfigurations." In a similar vein, lopping off captives' arms will now be referred to as "appendage furloughing," while public floggings of teenaged girls will from here on out be spoken of as "metajudicial interfacing."

A Taliban spokesman reached in Pakistan said that the new phrasing was being implemented as a way of eliminating the negative associations triggered by more graphic terminology. "The term 'beheading' has a quasi-medieval undertone that we're trying to get away from," he explained. "The term 'cephalic attrition' brings the Taliban into the 21st century. It's not that we disapprove of beheadings; it's just that the word no longer meshes with the zeitgeist of the era. This is the same reason we have replaced the term 'jihad' with 'booka-bonga-bippo,' which has a more zesty, urban, youthful, 'now' feel. When you're recruiting teenagers to your movement, you don't want them to feel that going on jihad won't leave any time for youthful hijinks."

Hat Tip: Ace of Spades