[/caption]Carol Forsloff - Whether it happens in France or the United States or somewhere else in the world, the saga of sex, sin and powerful men remains mesmerizing in the same way Greeks enjoyed the antics of the gods, seeing they could fall like others from great heights. It is the same old story, written for the modern world.
A young man and woman stood on a Portland, Oregon train, eyes for no one else around as the time became a way to weave a tale of love for an audience that sat transfixed, as if in theater seats. The scene spoke of young love eternal, but within the view of all who watched there were some imperfections that marred the drama that took place that day. The young man wore an earring, and the woman a piercing of her lip was held by glitter threads. These aberrations in the scene of love were likely part of what those watchers thought about, as they wondered about the public display of private intention by imperfect lovers in an open place. But these weren’t gods that acted in the play, as happens on the world stage with sex and sin of men in places like the gods.
John Edwards had become a god in the United States, a former Senator who reached the heights of fame in his pursuit of the Presidency of the United States. His wife, Elizabeth, stood beside him upright as a woman mate, the kind the gods might seek, of stature and grace that lent an aura of eternal love her husband's subjects viewed with awe. But Edwards sought a liaison with a servant woman of a type, an aide in Edwards' entourage, a woman not of power nor prestige, nor from the ranks of bejeweled beauties that become the gold of gods. So Edwards fell like other mortal men, descending into the throes of political hell where the souls of men like him now dwell, their pride and power gone, as he has been indicted for wrongdoing just this week. The men, who fell just like him, had been stripped of godlike powers they once held, cast then cast aside as part of human myth.
Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar of California performed his character of father, family man beyond the time most gods have done before, which brought a new excitement to his stage. He put aside his queenly wife Maria, replacing her with a servant in his house, who bore a son as happens in those myths we all remember and enjoy. And Arnold's pain, his fall, his glittering crown now soiled, becomes another tale that will be told again, next time in lives of other men like him who achieve the greatness of the gods only to lose it in the arms of sin.
But more intriguing, captivating stories come from France, a place identified with sin and sultry ways. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a wealthy man of power and prestige, with full abandon that the gods can choose, strode mightily among the servants in his realm and forcibly took one as from those heavens one might snatch a life below. Yet when the gods steal women from the arms of humankind, they lose the luster from their crowns when those women are plain and simple folk and not a lusty queen.
The tale is ended. Edwards waits to see what courts might do, while all alone he faces others’ fates. And we his audience, don’t watch as we do lovers on a train, but with the cynic’s eye that knows that gods fail every day, and now another one has fallen once again.
