Hello Wikipedia Review.
Respect to all. I am honored to be able to (perhaps) have a chance to make a tiny contribution to the tremendous work you are doing (especially Mr. Brandt, whose style and courage I admire).
I start with a disclaimer. Folks discussing the foibles Wall Street often raise issues of ethnicity. I respectfully divorce myself from such reasoning. That angle is false (ethnicities are not monolithic), graceless (in my case) towards my greatest professors as well as my boyhood friends, counterproductive, and ignorant (different professions draw ethnicities in statistically odd ways, but we can discuss the professions without discussing ethnicities). To expose a corner of a financial scam I filed a suit against Marc Cohedes (Greek?), Carr Bettis and Donn Vickrey (north European?), and David Rocker. As I think your Wikipedia fight may be a different corner of the same issue I would like to provide you information, but divorce myself from ethnic issues. I am not holier-than-thou, but am staking a personal position while sharing information that might be useful.
Our fight (your fight to expose Wikipedia, and mine to expose a form of corruption on Wall Street) seem at times as though we see an elephant in the room, and the whole world seems to be cooperating to keep from admitting there is an elephant in the room. Even worse, those who do catch a glimpse of it are scared by it.
How do you eat an elephant? "One bite at a time." Let's go one bite at a time.
I am sure you, dear reader, share my discomfort in confronting a woman such as SlimVirgin. I have no interest in hurting anyone, especially a fragile woman from my past. On the other hand, we didn't go at SlimVirgin, SlimVirgin came at us, and she is hurting dozens and misleading millions. I want to take the sniper down with a shot to the knee. You may think it silly of me to give you the detail I give here, but if you are welling to suffer a lengthy story, I believe I can give answers to questions you are debating.
I do not have a photo of Linda, but she is worth describing. She was my age, that is, in 1988 we were both mid-twenties, older than the other students by a few years: I had been sick for a few years before starting grad school, and she had taken a few years to do other things as well. Pretty, if not quite beautiful (though she might have been if she wanted), and very, very striking, so much that the few months I knew her left me with vivid mental snapshots of her after these eighteen years.
Medium height, well proportioned but not athletic, skin so pale it was a bit eerie. Her hair was either red-dyed-black, or black-dyed-red, and was quite long except for bangs cut flat across her brow (think of "Morticia"). She wore blood-red lipstick. Here I confess a data corruption error, because in most images her eyes are unremarkable, but in one they are not. We had been sitting on a bench in the afternoon, talking, then I said something that I thought innocuous, and she responded, "Patrick (dramatic pause) I'm so hurt that you said that." I thought she was kidding and looked into her eyes. In this memory alone they are incredibly light blue, huge, with thick lashes curled back, welling with tears.
I felt badly, but it also felt like a trick. This was probably the first time in my life I did not fall for it automatically, and realized I don't have to give the click-whrrr response expected of me. I apologized, but made a note. Generalizing from my own experience (pardon the supermarket psychology and latent sexism): you get to know a guy, he says some frat-boy thing, and you say to yourself, "Ah, fratboy." Or a gal says something really strong and confident and you say to yourself, "This woman has it going on." Or a guy says something that shows he is not about fighting to be alpha and you say, "Cool guy" (and you give him the same sign, I hope). I think there are dozens of categories we develop like this over time. There is one I have had only a few occasions to use, from a line in an old Western: "The Indians will leave you along now, Woman, because you are 'touched'." On a small number of occasions I've gotten to know a woman and realized fairly quickly that she was not just fragile (which is fine), but "touched" and had to be treated with kid gloves. I'd say, example #1 from my life would be SlimVirgin.
I mentioned SlimVirgin's Victorian dress to convey what I just explained above. In a student pub in which kids wore jeans and tee shirts, she wore flowing, ruby red and emerald green dresses that were more costumes than attire. I am the last guy in the world to criticize another's dress (as a student, I'd change my shirt once/week whether it needed it or not, and I chose clothes less with an eye to fashion than utility: for example, I spent my undergrad years in cowboy boots and a Mexican poncho). But in a 1988 English student pub at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, SlimVirgin would show up dressed like she was ready for the start of the evening shift at Denver Dolly's Saloon and Cat House, c. 1890.
There were occasional student dances in the basement: SlimVirgin stood out as a dancer (not hard to do in England, where even women dance poorly and men think Sid Vicious is hip). She was a great dancer in a Grateful-Dead-Seaweed-Wave kind of way, but with more style and rhythm than you'd see at a Dead show. But what I remember about her was her sense that she was Den Mother, somehow in charge of the party.
I hope the reader understands now why I described SlimVirgin at this length. She's the kind you meet and realize, you'd better not only be on best behavior, you'd better walk on egg shells, and not return any flirty overtures, even in a good-natured way, or else you are going to come in one day and find that someone boiled your bunny.
I vaguely recollect what I said over dinner that upset her, but am not completely sure I am not confusing incidents. So as best as I remember, it was this: a group of us were stretched along both sides of a dining hall table. Nearing the end of dinner and feeling like clowning around a bit, I reached across the table for a French Fry from my friend Jeremy's plate, and said in a posh English boarding school boy's accent that I was just learning to imitate, "Say, may I have one of your ch-ips, lad?" Everyone froze. I suddenly remembered that Linda been using a British accent for a few weeks, people froze because there were wondering if I were making fun of her, or if Linda would think I was making fun of her, and there I was stuck with a fry half-way to my mouth, so while the others stared at their food I popped the fry into my mouth and smiled at her in an attempt to show friendliness, but instead she threw her face down in her hands.
As I said, I cannot swear with certainty that those were the events. But if it was not that exactly, it was something very much like it, and I remember wanting to reach out to her to say, "No, I was not even been thinking of you when I made the joke, it was thoughtless of me, I don't think you're being pretentious for switching to a British accent," or whatever I had to say to soothe her.
I backed away as some women there (led by a lovely Scottish woman called, “Kanya†I think) tried to console her, and when some time later another guy came to the pub to tell me, "Linda's very upset at what you said," I did go back to apologize and explain, but a few women and J_____ were sitting there with her, and J_____ waved me off. It was the first time I recall seeing J_____ and Linda together, and they began dating that evening. I believe he left Cambridge and was killed over Lockerbie the following week, or one or two after that at the latest.
After J_____’s death, she wore long black gowns.
No one has the right to say to anyone, "You only dated a guy for a few days (or a few weeks or whatever) before he was murdered, so you don't have the right to consider yourself, 'a widow.'" I know I have had brief flings that, had after we parted the gal been murdered, I would certainly have been crushed and felt a duty to avenge her. So no one has a right to judge another in such circumstances. So I never bought into the snickers that started to go around, mostly among women. I suppose what did seem a little inappropriate, however, was her emergence as one of the "leaders" of the Pan Am #103 families: as word of that spread, it did seem a bit off, and we all wondered how exactly she was portraying her relationship with J_____.
Her use of "families" in my earlier story was definitely intended in the "Families of Pan Am 103" sense. That said, she did project a sense of having “come from a good family" in Canada, used not as a crass euphemism for "wealthy," but simply, she was cosmopolitan and well-mannered (albeit dramatic). In short, she was from a family of well-educated people, and spoke of relations who were artists, writers, or teachers, I seem to recall.
I just rang up a friend of mine from those days, an English woman with whom I have not spoken in years (the one who told me, when I asked about (first name redacted) in 1989 or 1990, that she had moved off to London or New York, and was making Pan Am #103 her life's work). I just tracked down this old friend of mine in London. I'll summarize her recollection: "Yes I remember J_____. He was a very nice boy. Linda was a weirdo. She came to the King's Bar dressed like a Goth, and was always crying in public. After Lockerbie she was a wreck, but she was a wreck before it as well. We felt badly for her, but after a time it seemed like she was milking it, there with the wives and brothers and children of the deceased. I think I said something awful about it, but I mean,
really. I recall thinking she was parlaying it into getting a job as a glamorous reporter. And she did: didn't she leave and end up working for ABC?"
I find it highly improbable that she was ever employed by any intelligence service. I would imagine that such groups have psychological filters through which to screen candidates to select those who are emotionally tough and stable. SlimVirgin's instability could be spotted from across the street. It is not out of the question that she could be used by one or more of them, simply by holding out the promise of feeling important. However, she would be of extremely limited use, I would imagine, and one would always have to fear her stability.
That, in excruiating detail, is that. If you have read this far I do hope you accept my apologies for the length. I have followed your efforts to expose perfidy within Wikipedia, perfidy which seems to cluster around SlimVirgin. I knew I had information that might answer some of your questions, but thought that if I just wrote out my impressions it would come across as simple gossip, though by sharing details I could convey the broadest possible picture that could be of use to you.
In sum: you are facing a person who is intelligent but went from unstable to unhinged, someone who floated around the international press corps then disappeared. She would be, I think, incapable of designing on her own any grand plan such as what you imagine, but she would be an easy target for someone who wanted to manipulate her into devoting her energy and intelligence to a bad cause, probably by flattering her desire to play an important role while confusing her with talk of higher purpose.
I wish you the best in your own efforts, and hope we meet someday. Until then, I remain,
Your humble servant,
Patrick
One more thought:
Judging from my previous post and how it showed up, I had better lay off the heavy formatting.
Since I see that you folks have caught the trail of Michael Steinhardt, I thought I would drop down something from an interview (of sorts) I did earlier this year with BusinessWeek.
http://thesanitycheck.com/DrByrneJournalis...90/Default.aspxI apologize if this is old hat to you, but if not, you might find it relevant:
I was referring to the fact that one does not have to dig very deep into Wall Street, especially the hard-core short-selling crowd, to find mobsters and mob connections. For example, the whole Lucky Lucianno, Genovese family, Bugsy Seagull, Meyer Lanksy, Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo.
Lanksy had a fence named Sol "Red" Steinhardt whom the Manhattan district attorney Frank Hogan called "the biggest mafia fence in America" (or words to that effect). Did some time in Sing Sing, while there, made sure his son went to Wharton. That son, Michael Steinhardt, started Steinhardt, Fine, Berkowitz (as one friend on Wall Street described them, "That's when the bad guys showed up on Wall Street"). Financier for Marc Rich, who got busted trading with Libya and Iran, fled (with his buddy Pinky Green) the USA for, I believe, Zug, Switzerland.
Steinhardt got busted for trying (with another firm, I believe it was Caxton) to corner the US Treasury market in the early 1990's, (making him a second generation racketeer) paid $40 million and "retired" (I believe the DOJ was seeking an injunction to keep him out of the markets). Stayed in contact with Rich, negotiated Marc's pardon by Bill Clinton.
Rich is connected to Ronald Greenwald, who sponsored Evsei Agron (the guy who brought the Red mafia to the USA), who until he got whacked was apparently linked to the Genovese family, and so on and so forth.
You know, those guys.
Here, you may have missed the couple thousand stories like this:By GREG B. SMITH
Daily News Staff Writer
Sunday, September 10, 2000
"They are getting more together," said Barry Mawn, director of the FBI's New York office. "They're apt to be taking advantage of the good times. They know how we look at them. If they can branch out in a new area where we're not as aware, that's to their advantage."
Investigators, prosecutors and regulators with the National Association of Securities Dealers and the Securities and Exchange Commission all agree that the mob has lurked at the margins of Wall Street for years.
At 17 State St., from 1993 through 1996, White Rock Investments was a cooperative agreement between the Bonanno, Colombo and Genovese families, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors.
At 30 Broad St., in 1996 and 1997, Meyers Pollack Robbins was controlled by the same allegiance of the Bonanno, Colombo and Genovese families, according to court papers.
At 80 Broad St. and 84 William St., in 1996, First Liberty became a "joint venture" between the Bonanno and Colombo crime families, prosecutor Smith said.
And most recently, in 1998 through this June, DMN Capital Investments at 5 Hanover Square was run by the Bonanno and Gambino families, an indictment brought by a Manhattan federal grand jury alleges.
Investigators say Wall Street is a perfect spot for La Cosa Nostra strong-arm tactics: The mob is threatening white-collar yuppies, not longshoremen or Teamsters.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Smith, who is leading the 120-defendant mob-on-Wall-Street case for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, said the money is funneled through Persico's cousin, Frank Persico, a registered broker since the end of the last bull market in 1988.
Frank Persico, an alleged Colombo associate, along with Gallo and Vincent Langella, another reputed Colombo associate, represents the new breed of rising Mafia star, the wiseguy broker.
Etc.
However, it is clear that when she came to Wikipedia, going after LaRouche was one of her first agenda items. She sought out Adam Carr after beginning her campaign. She knew or knew of Berlet before coming to WP, because he authored most of the "Justice for Jeremiah" site that she mirrored in her article.
