-Just because life in the Sudan isn't bad enough, 29 people died when an airplane caught on fire after landing. I guess God is just a sleazy trickster? Any better explanation coming?
-George Bush took a trip overseas, and something tells me it will be the last time you ever see those words printed. Besides this being his last official one, I think somebody would rather be riding a lawnmower in Texas right now. Besides Patrick Dempsey.
-Britain is hell-bent on re-making In The Name Of The Father, except having it not be a movie, feature every vaguely Arabic individual they can find, and calling it their new justice system, as Gordon Brown gets his 42-day imprisonment without actual criminal charges thing passed. Yes, this was the week that "Turkish prisons" became less frightening than "bobbies and a spot of trouble."
-On the "not news to internet news readers" front, part of the reason for the lower iPhone cost is due to subsidies from mobile-phone operators, but I thought it was interesting enough.
-Fosters is now Australian for beer that is to expensive to purchase in America, due to the appreciation of the Australian dollar and surplus production, which is just as good a tagline as the old one.
-The various countries that give Afghanistan got together in Paris to decide if they should give Afghanistan $50 billion over the next five years. I just think that's an odd little factoid, that there's people in a hotel right now trying to figure out whether they should give a country $50 billion. Like, those are just regular people making that decision. They used to shit in diapers, and now they determine the fate of an entire country. Some of them are probably excited to go see The Love Guru.
Leaders
-The Economist pretty much flat out says, "This newspaper was wrong to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq." I remember reading this publication back then, and they presented a pretty cogent, non-hysterical argument for the invasion, but they didn't hesitate to express their immediate disgust and regret after things went so far awry. Although the focus of this leader, and the later article regarding the areas where progress in Iraq have been achieved, isn't the invasion, the mistakes, or the lies that helped bring the war about, I think it's a mild sign of the integrity of the publication that they don't try to pull out of what they've previously published. It's not hidden in a box on some page covered with advertisements, it's right there, right in the part of the article where a reader would start remembering, "Hey. You were pretty gung-ho for going after Iraq before." It's a respectable and mature response, as opposed to the way (mostly) American politicians like to deal with their own behavior towards that entire debacle.
-If Hugo Chavez can truly convince the world to ignore the damning evidence that he used Venezuelan oil money to subsidize the Columbian FARC guerrilla army by dumping his support for them wholesale, then that will be the finest parlor trick since that video of the tribe of people that walked backwards. While it shouldn't really matter how the FARC finally comes crashing down into a bloody footnote in Columbian history, it would be rather revolting if Chavez can walk away from his shady deals clean.
-There will never come a day where the amount high-level executives get paid becomes something the majority of the labor force is comfortable with. Never. If it does, that means a whole lot of protesters have decided to focus on something that, seriously, belongs on the list of problems that should be dealt with after starving people, AIDS in Africa, un-spayed kittens and that CW network have been eliminated.
Letters
-Oi, 'ello, I'm a prissy little art freak from Cradley, over in Herefordshire and I've got a rilly GREAT anecdote for you about Marcel Duchamp! Went ahead and wrote a letter about it, all doily and chocolate finger style! Don't you just want to kiss me on the head? My name is Roger!
United States
-Before they dive into the full US section, there's this little segue way from the Iraq articles about the possible impact the war will have on the coming election. First off, they deal with the actual context behind McCain's now infamous sound bite regarding troops remaining in Iraq for 100 years (he meant the way they've stayed in Germany, Japan and South Korea) and, in even more informative and painfully accurate observation, it's pointed out that only 4% of network news coverage is currently given to Iraq, and the economy will continue to eat into that as the election draws near. Or, as the Economist coldly puts it, come election day, "It is likely that no one will be paying much attention to the war."
-While I don't imagine it will matter to the more hysterical of voters, this article is what every Barack Obama supporter should have memorized by the end of the week: as it is titled, the "Who's who in Obamaworld" runs down the major forces behind his campaign, both those in charge of policy and, of course, the people who make sure that his rallies closely resemble those of revival tent gatherings. While there will always be a large group of people who base who they support in on election on knee jerk politico sound-biting, figuring out who and what a vote goes for should be figured out here. That being said, this shit is totally less interesting than repeating catchphrases with the words "change" and "hope" in them.
-Al Franken is running for senator of Minnesota, which is....well, fine I guess. He's smart, but he's so fucking obnoxious. The Economist doesn't say that explicitly, but you know they're thinking it. I'm sure he's got great, really heart-warming political views, and they're really agreeable in a kind of Fantasia way, but geez. Al Franken, you know?
-For all the talk of "change," from both of the candidates, it's pretty explicit that their tax programs are yet another carbon copy of every single one of the tax plans that their respective parties have come up with in the past 30? 40? Ever? McCain: "I'm gonna skew benefits towards the wealthy!" Obama: "I'm gonna help out poor folks and middle class families!" Hey, wait, the new boss--shit, isn't he the same as the...
-Lexington probably could churn out these "both candidates are sort of great and sort of terrible" columns for every election in the US, just because he/she is Lexington, and Lexington never, ever, let's me down. In a lot of ways, I wish the Economist would hurry up and make their mind, for the exact same reason that I'm glad the Economist doesn't hurry up and make up it's mind: because the Economist handles American politics with sense, intelligence and class.
The Americas
-While this Hugo Chavez article is mostly just more about the whole "hey, I'm busted, but I hated those FARC dudes anyway, can I have more cookies, mwarrr, mwarrr, smooches," BUT: it does include the totally awesome and rad news that regular old Venezuelans took away the secret police laws that had been set up on June 10th. That's pretty fantastic, especially because nobody died or got busted or anything to make it happen. Just protested, and the law was repealed. Awesome Town, population: entire country of Venezuela, for now at least.
-Well, I guess Cubans weren't just running away from Fidel Castro, since they're running away on an even higher level then they were last year, which was a pretty high year already. They love it when they say goodbye to you, Big Poppa.
-Remember that reparations skit on Chappelle show? It's where they got the "I'm rich, bitch" thing from. Imagine that, instead of African-Americans, it was Canadians indigenous people. Okay, now look up: Totally happening, right now.
Asia
-Why the South Korea article is buried on the final page, I don't know. But yeah, check this shit out: 700,000 people, candlelight protest, all 15 of South Korea's cabinet ministers offered their resignations along with nine of the president's senior aides and the prime minister. Yes, that's right. Everybody who runs South Korea except for President Lee Myung-bak offered their resignation. (He's probably going to accept six of them, including the prime minister.) And why? Because the entire country is pissed at him for bowing to American pressure over beef imports. That's why they are protesting. Not for any other reason. Just American beef. Git r done, eh?
-It's already difficult enough for Pakistan to maintain the increasingly "How does this help us" relationship they've got going with the US, and when the Air Force screws up and kill 11 of the Pakistani paramilitaries that are helping fight the "war on terror" that makes it--oh, just make up some ridiculous proportion based metaphor. It's easy. If it helps, the military killed them in Pakistan, with airplanes.
-Is it sleazy and weird that the Chinese Communist party has turned prime minister Wen Jiabao into a giant Care Bear of feeling and crying? Probably. Certainly seems to be working though, although a crying hugging guy is a lot less cool than all those iconic red posters.
Middle East and Africa
-Currently, Ethiopia is heading back into depressing horror-show-ville, courtesy of another famine. This time though, they're making it extraordinarily difficult (if not illegal, the article isn't clear) to show off pictures of crying infants who look like they are dying on camera. The Economist ignores the new rule, shows the picture and yes, it's awful and upsetting. But there's an interesting dynamic to Ethiopia's plans here--there strident desire not to return to the days of 1984, when the countries name was synonymous with starvation is a wildly different tactic than that which any moderately open country has dealt with the problem before. I'm at a loss to explain their motives, and the article itself doesn't even try, but if that's the way they want to roll--well, for now, their country, their rules.
-Usually, any article about Israel is worth looking into, as what goes on in that part of the world is an integral factor in the entirety of the Middle East. However, I-don't-care-about-the-Israeli-Philharmonic. Guess who else doesn't? Rest of the world. And the Israeli government. So guys? Shudafukup.
-Literally, the only thing to brag about in this review of the current state of the Congo, which continues to be rape with a side of murder, covered in a gravy made out of nobody caring, is that they had elections in 2006, and they were pretty much free and fair. And yeah, that's fantastic, we're all wearing tight leather pants and kissing each other while the confetti falls around us. Of course, the Economist also points out that the Congo's first democratically elected leader in over forty years has had to resort to repression and violence to keep things from turning into a non-stop blood festival. But yeah, baby steps. Baby steps around dead bodies and rape victims, but baby steps.
Europe
-How long before Turkey's abhorrent dealings with peaceful, law-abiding Muslims produces a country that proves every hateful terrorist claim right? A country that should know, far far better, is currently ensuring that when Al Queda or the rest want to point to a place where Islam is suffering under the boot, Turkey will provide it. Meanwhile, French and Austrian nitpicking continues to push the help the EU could provide even further off. Sometimes, you don't have to be Robert Mugabe to completely sicken me.
-Decent news out of the St Petersburg economic forum--regardless of the trickling of frightening sounding Putin-style controls, plenty of people are also speaking out about the merits of property rights and a less hands-on role for the economy, courtesy of the state. Unlike previous articles, these are actual power individuals, instead of journalists on the way to odd deaths at the hands of...well, are we calling them KGB assassins again yet?
-Charlemagne writes another column that is such a directly confrontational take down of an issue (this time, it's European fisherman and their current protest-motivated demands) that I have to remind myself that, since this is just one voice on an issue, I shouldn't totally agree with him/her. That being said, it's well-nigh impossible to feel sorry for these clowns, all of whose protests would be met with a "Tough shit" response if there weren't so many Europeans in love with pleasing the people who have nostalgic ways to make their income. Nobody wants cutesy dinosaur positions to go away, but unless you want to pay out of your own pocket so that a bunch of whiners can play Old Man And The Sea, dinosaurs have to go somewhere.
Britain
-The shadow home secretary, one of those totally awesome job titles that every other country should have, resigns, and you can tell the Economist is staying up late reading gossip tabloids because, while they can't speculate, they really want to know what "personal" motives brought about David Davis bailing out on June 12th. I don't know much, but I do know that show MI-5, so here's the scoop: he killed a woman and left her in the woods.
-Whereas the numbers for child poverty seem to be going up in Britain, so does the volume of debate on what numbers are being crunched to produce that rise. Either way, they have something called the "British Social Attitudes Report"--according to that, British gents and ladies are reaching that oh-so-wonderful point where they stop caring. Which is what happens when Roman Polanski makes a crappy version of Oliver Twist, I guess.
-The first Bagehot column in a while that I'm less than enthused by, mostly because it's a big old "watch out for them scary terrorists," which is the sort of the thing that appeals to precisely no one, because when we think Britain, we want to fantasize about Gordon Ramsay calling us a donkey, not about exploding stuff with crying schoolboys.
International (Okay, this couldn't really fit anywhere else this week.)
-Maybe it's a hint of future cutting to come as the International section only contains one article, a quick two-pager about the varied cross-religious dialogs between various faiths. As it's two pages, it doesn't have much to offer in the way of new information, so it mostly sticks to riffing on the recent gatherings of things like the Cordoba Initiative and the "Alliance of Civilizations," where you can count on important members of Islam, Christianity and Judaism to get together and bullshit about togetherness while purposely not talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or how to get zealots to listen to calmer members of the faith. Togetherness is nice, so are prayer circles and hand-holding across borders, but if the biggest and the smartest of religion can't be bothered to discuss controversial issues, then these summits are basically an exaggerated version of an ineffectual coffee-shop debate. Ending hate takes more than renting a hotel's conference room. Then again, I didn't go to seminary.
Business
-In France, they've recently taken on a new measure to control massive severance packages for CEO's, tying golden parachutes to revenue targets over the course of leadership. Whether it works remains to be seen--as the article points out, it sounds a lot more attractive and realistic than it actually is. Then again, it will take a while for it to have any real-world evidence first.
-No more speculating: InBev made an unsolicited bid for Anheuser-Busch. While public response seems to be along the "gosh darn Belgians should mind their own business," Warren Buffett owns 5% of the brewery, and if Warren Buffet says go for it, you can expect everybody else, red, white & blue notwithstanding, to get in line. But for Chrissakes, does the article really end with a reference to those old Wassup commercials? Hell yeah it does.
-It's hard to distill how odd and Orwellian the new Swedish schools sound into a little soundbite, but here I go: it's like an Ikea catalog with children in it, and it's really successful. But it's weird, and sounds like a the Swede's are turning education over to Hal.
Finance and Economics
-While it's tempting to dismiss the multi-page article dealing with the growing movement by corporations away from defined-benefit pensions towards defined-contribution ones as yet another "If Johnny saves a nickel a day from when he's 13 on, he'll be a gradzillionaire before you're a monkey's uncle," it's still an excellent exercise in information that is basically always applicable and informative, no matter how many times you have to re-read them. Now let's hug and make s'mores.
-Buttonwood lightens up a bit this week, but still doesn't get a full page. The space left is used to talk about the same shit that the oil articles talked about last week--high fuel prices are good, because they help to dismantle high oil consumption, but high fuel prices are bad because of all the reasons everybody already knows. (Except for the one not enough people talk about, which is using all that corn for biofuel means poor people in various countries don't have corn to eat, and are starting to starve. Dude your hybrid is so awesome, you're really fighting global warming. So totally fighting it!)
-Under the current tax system, it makes more sense for American's working overseas to renounce their citizenship as soon as possible, in hopes that they won't have to double-pay taxes that grow exponentially the longer they don't live within US borders. That seems like something worth changing, due to the fact that, usually, when you've got Americans making a shitload of money overseas for large financial firms, it's because they are the type of people who are pretty bright and make America a pretty bright place to be whenever they come back and make babies.
Science and Technology
-From now on, instead of decrying an absentee Highfather, parents dealing with ADHD stricken children can blame it on the genetic legacy of nomadic tribes. At least, that's what the article implies.
-There's a ton of information in this article about the coming changes in how technology is powered, as it's becoming more likely that Methanol (that which maketh moonshine, yes Jethro Tull) can be squirted into future computers to power them. Well, squirted isn't the right term, they'll probably come in little capsules, sort of like those things they keep amethyl nitrates in. Weirdly, there's some odd system for certain individuals worked out so that testers can use the technology on flights, as long as they limit the amount they bring on board. Ehh. What?
Books and Arts
-One gets the sense that The Economist really wanted to enjoy a 304 page book on the guy who invented the Gatling gun, which might be why the tear it down so much in their review. High expectations, but no clear reason why. You'd think the Economist would stop expecting the review pile to produce gems on a regular basis--hell, I certainly learned that, and I've only been getting shitty mp3s of terrible rap music for nine months.
-By the time enough people learn how hedge funds work in that magical way they do, they pretty much stop working--sort of like why you should never tell people when you've found a really great file-sharing system. As soon as the word gets out, everybody wants a piece, and you're stuck paying to go watch Indiana Jones, instead of re-seeding the torrent with a new soundtrack ripped off a copy of Shaving Ryan's Privates. There's a book review, somewhere in that terrible excursion into complaining.
-The review on James Cuno's new book on the conflict over who owns antiquity is one that I'd like to see expanded to a more cogent article on the subject--while Cuno's book would probably be a necessary text for that imagined article, it's obvious that his viewpoint would be better served alongside a conflicting one. While the point culled from his article, that Nigeria's claim of ownership over 2,000 years old Nok sculptures is invalid due to Nigeria not being anywhere near that old, is a valid one, it brings up the classic criticism of rich privileged museums making choices over what to do with things outside their own borders. Nationalist fervor versus archeology is an old battle, but as untamed lands are forced to deal with growwth, it's one that certainly won't be disappearing anytime soon.
Obituary: Jack Simplot
-Never heard of him, but I'm hard-pressed to believe I'm the only one who hadn't heard of the 99 year-old king of potatoes, whose favorite restaurant was McDonald's, where he always ordered either french fries or hashbrowns, was (according to the obit) a shitty father, and lucked into funding a highly successful semiconductor producer back in 1980. If you can't find your sister-in-laws copies of Chicken Soup books underneath the divan, then here's a up-by-the-bootstraps story of success from a guy who said both of the following things: "Onion powder is like gold dust" and "Goddamn parking spaces for cripples!"
Next week in the Economist, it's time for more about Energy, and I'm wishing that I'd kept a running total of the amount of times I read the word crisis, because it's got to be a lot more than any year since the 80's.
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