Even Supermodels Suffer

Christie Brinkley, the famous former SI swimsuit model, and Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous renegade classicist and would-be anti-Christ, are two names that one would not normally associate with each other.

Brinkley recently used one of Nietzsche’s maxims, however, to sum up her attitude toward a painful time in her life. Though she did not quote Nietzsche directly, she had this to say in an interview in Prevention magazine about her divorce from a man named Peter Cook. "I really believe in the old expression that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's through adversity that you find the strength you never knew you had."

Considering that the Nietzschean Ur-source dates to 1888, I suppose one could call the expression “old.” For it was in that year, in Twilight of the Idols, that the 44-year-old Nietzsche wrote (in English translation): “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.”

How odd that Nietzsche, the fierce, solitary critic of traditional Christian values, should — indirectly through his aphorisms — end up offering words of consolation to an aging American pin-up idol.

Yet the thought about pain, perseverance, and the ubiquity of suffering is universal enough that it rings true. Indeed, it provides evidence that the French man of letters Alain de Botton was on the right track when he vulgarized Nietzsche’s insights down to a single slogan: no pain, no gain.

Mandela Tops the SERP

I'm making my way, in fits and starts, through Kate Braestrup's Marriage and Other Acts of Charity. It's a thought-provoking essay on the religious dimensions of the marital state, penned by a minister who lost her husband (and father of her four children) to a tragic accident.

Last March, on a solo spring break ramble, I happened to see the book, and purchase it, at Prairie Lights in Iowa City.

Tonight, I decided, as a little experiment, to see what would come up on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) for a Google search on the terms "marriage, sentencing, corrections."

The answer was Nelson Mandela, who remained married to his second wife, Winnie Madikezela, throughout his 27 years in prison. She endured an 18-month incarceration of her own and was there to meet him upon his release in 1990.

Winnie had been unfaithful to Nelson while he was imprisoned, however, and the couple had political differences over the proper means by which to resist apartheid. Her rhetoric had turned violent, including an endorsement of the practice of "necklacing" - burning people alive using tires and gasoline. She was also found criminally complicit in the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old boy by her bodyguards, for which she paid a fine after originally being sentenced to six years in prison.

Amid all this, the marriage of Nelson and Winnie Mandela - nominally intact for so long - finally ended. They separated in 1992, two years after Nelson Mandela's release from prison, and were divorced in the mid-1990s.

In recent months, Winnie Madikizela has become even more estranged from Nelson Mandela. In March, she gave a notorious interview in which she accused him of betraying the blacks of South Africa by not doing enough for the poor.

I doubt that Winnie Madikizela has read Kate Braestrup's book. But she should. If she did, she might find it in her heart to be more charitable to her former marriage partner.

Denny Hecker Goes to Jail

Denny Hecker, the former Twin Cities auto mogul, is experiencing a perfect storm of legal needs. His businesses fell apart in the wake of the Great Recession, amid allegations of fraud concerning his dealings with lenders. His personal finances went Way South - resulting in bankrupcy proceedings. And his marital money matters took on the trappings of farce; last week, he faced lawsuits by his second ex-wife, for nonpayment of alimony, and soon-to-be ex-wife number four, for withholding key information and hiding assets.

Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield, or any comedian worth his or her salt, take it away.

It's hard to find much empathy for someone who lived the high life for so long, and seems so unwilling to take responsibility for his actions. So it was perfectly understandable when Judge Jay Quam decided to give Hecker a taste of jail, to remind him of the importance of candor before the tribunal.

Four days in the Hennepin County workhouse left Hecker gasping for air. Sentenced to 90 days for civil contempt, after failing to comply with numerous court orders, Hecker was released after only 72 hours. The experience of jail for that long, he told the judge, was something "one would not want to experience in a lifetime."

If I were Judge Quam, I might recommend to Denny Hecker that he read Ted Conover's book Newjack, about working as a guard at Sing Sing prison in New York State. Connover recounts how, in the original prison building - built in 1826 by inmate labor and used until 1943 - two prisoners shared a 3 1/2 by 7-foot cell, at first with no central heating, open sewer channels, and little light.

Might Denny, by that standard, be a little pampered?