Frau Mosley Did It Her Way

"'I regret nothing,' [Diana Mosley] told the daily Le Figaro in a 2002 interview, when questioned about her life." Gulf Daily News (14 Aug. 2003).

Filial Piety

"[Diana Mosley's] son, Alexander Mosley, said: 'She had many friends and a very active life, especially considering she was 93 when she died.'" The Scotsman (14 Aug. 2003).

"In 1998, with her health failing she moved to Paris, close to her son Alexander and his wife." Mirror.co.uk (14 Aug. 2003).

Several Degrees of Separation: Alex Mosley & Jessica Mitford

The New York Sun today reports the death of Diana Mosley, the wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, the hated British fascist. (The Sun reports that Diana Mosley never abjured her admiration of Hitler.)

In 1969 or 1970 I accompanied a person, a newspaper reporter, who interviewed Jessica Mitford in northern California. Jessica Mitford was one of Diana's sisters.

In the summer of 1961, in Columbus, Ohio, I met a tall British youth who called himself Alex Mosley and who claimed he was the son of Oswald Mosley. If the story was true, he was also the son of Diana Mosley. See British Boyhood: Alexander Mosley

It seems that in 1980 there was a publishing company in France called "Alexander Mosley Publications." My cursory internet research suggests the possibility that this publishing company published Diana Oswald's memoirs.

This is all very improbable.

Was the fellow in Columbus an impostor? But why would he have wanted to pretend to have such despicable parents? (The person who called himself "Alex" said that he had to leave Britain because he, "Alex," faced too many difficulties in Britain because his father was a notorious British fascist.)

Relatively More Cheerful News from Lands Across the Waters

I learned much from my colleagues at the Konstanz 2003 International Summer School. As I had expected, a law teacher must approach scientists, mathematicians, biologists etc. with humility and respect -- with awe, really -- since scholars in such fields employ a degree of rigor -- I speak here not merely of "formal rigor" --, scholars in the sciences employ a degree of rigor that is rare in the world that law professors inhabit. (This is not to say that law teachers have no interesting tidbits or problems to offer mathematicians, physicists etc.; certain types of problems that routinely arise in legal proceedings only rarely surface in many fields such as physics, biology etc.)

I have much news to report -- but too much to report just here and now. Stay tuned!

Innocence Abroad

I am back from my trip to Germany and Turkey.

America's reputation abroad seems to be at an all time low. But I grow defensive: many Europeans and Turks seem to place an extraordinary low value on human rights.

Reasonable people can differ on whether war against Iraq was justified. But reasonable people cannot differ on mass torture and extermination. I saw little concern in the European media about the widespread use of torture by Saddam Hussein and the estimated extermination of some 200,000 people. (I am not even counting the fatalities in Saddam's various wars; I am speaking only of "jailhouse executions," death by firing squad or worse.)

Perhaps it really is true that "old Europe" is too sophisticated -- too cynical and indifferent -- for its own good a/k/a for the good of humanity?