The World Last Week
-If you curse on live television, even if you just curse once, you could get the broadcaster who trusted you sued. That's what the Supreme Court was doing last week. They were dealing with that. That was something important enough to take up their time.
-The White House is totally sorry that they felt the need to fly a presidential jet right by the skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan without making sure that wouldn't freak a bunch of people in Lower Manhattan out.
-Albania asked if they could join the European Union. I hear they asked nicely.
-I like that the Kremlin "promised" that the mayoral election in Sochi was going to be fair. Doesn't it seem like you really shouldn't have to make that kind of promise in advance? That's like promising your girlfriend you aren't going to bang her friends every time you leave the house for work. Just don't bang her friends. Making promises you won't points to a deeper problem.
-They only mention a few of them here, since they were so close to press time, but there were quite a few car and suicide bomb attacks in Iraq last week.
-82 men got sentenced to death in Sudan. They were allegedly all involved in the attacks on the capitol last year. 82 people. You gotta imagine they can't all be guilty. Sudan isn't exactly graced with an amazing investigative police force.
-North Korea, once again, decided not to participate in the six-party nuclear talks. They also threatened to carry out more nuclear tests. And then they flew to the moon on a skateboard.
-Pharmaceutical companies are still doing okay, with Bristol-Myers Squibb reporting a profit increase, thus proving the old adage: if you name your company something really stupid and unattractive, and you keep adding stupid words on it, you will never, ever, go broke.
-Conde Nast is shutting down Portfolio magazine. I think it's kind of funny that this is the first time the Economist has mentioned a magazine being cancelled, considering that there's a dead one about every seventeen minutes.
-The European Commission isn't waiting for a global agreement, they're looking to go ahead and regulate hedge funds and private equity funds on their own. No word yet on what the European Commission will do when all those funds just say "Fuck you very much" and bail out for Antigua.
Leaders -First up, here's why the world is sort of ready for a pandemic, if it happens: because we've been freaked out about a potential Asian bird flu for the last ten years. Like, maybe you, me and granny haven't been freaking about Asian bird flu, but scientists have, and they were taking names and getting ready. While there's been a late stage scramble to cover ass
when it turned out to be Miss Piggy related by way of Mexico, things are still cooking with kerosene. Oh, and 30,000 people die in America every year from regular flu. That won't be changing, no matter how this plays out. And if a pandemic doesn't officially happen with swine flu, that just means the eventual pandemic will be a different disease.
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Editorial number 701 about why the Economist hates Silvio Berlusconi. This one is funny because it includes advice for Berlusconi. Does the
Economist really think that the dude is going to take advice from them? I'm not saying he shouldn't, hell yeah, take advice, I don't give a fuck. But seriously, if all you do is burn some dude at every window of opportunity, don't expect him to flip the listening switch somewhere down the line.
-One more time, because I never get tired of this shit: Jacob Zuma told people he took a shower to prevent catching AIDS from a family friend he's just finished having sex with. (And in some corners, that wasn't "having sex", it was rape.) He's the president of South Africa.
Like...that's the guy in charge of a country that has a serious AIDS problem. Guilty or no, corrupt or not, I can't fathom why the fuck you elect somebody that stupid. I mean, sure, it was a fair election by all reports, so I guess I'm saying that the majority of South African voters completely screwed themselves--but what other excuse is there? I'll just hope they don't know he said and believed that.
-There's going to be a week where I have to knuckle down and write one of these little sarcasm junkets about the new British tax shit that the
Economist is burning Gordon Brown in effigy for coming up with. This isn't that week:
you can read about it here. It seems fucking stupid, but hey: it's taxes. When don't they seem fucking stupid?
-This Pakistan assault on the Taliban--do they mean it?
Like for real mean it? Like, forever-ever? The Economist wants to believe they do, but when they have to write about it for three pages, they eventually just kind of say "Okay, no, probably not."
Letters
-You know who should really not write letters? Prissy fucking jackals who work at CBS. Even if Gil Schwartz didn't come across like a goddamn tool with his "CBS is doing fine, we had some good ratings" letter that concludes with a cheeky "at least we aren't a faggy magazine" bullshit, even if Schwartz had written some kind of majestic piece of letter-writing magic, he's still the whore that works for the same network that broadcasts CSI Miami.
United States
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Most Americans still like their President, which is a story I think you knew about before the
Economist wrote about it. Again. I'm just struck how few pictures there are of the dude smoking, which he apparently still does? Not because I care or think that's bad, I'm just surprised that people who don't like him don't try to get those pictures out there more often. Liberals hate smokers almost as much as they like killing unborn children.
-Okay, I don't really think that. I just wanted to upset you.
-I find it oddly touching how the
Economist still believes--as Barack Obama does--
that the Doha trade agreements can be resurrected. I've been clear about how I feel about them, I think they definitely should--I just also think it's completely fucking unlikely, like win-the-lottery unlikely. Quite charming stuff, that optimism.
-Arlen Specter becoming a Democrat has just as much to do with Arlen Specter wanting to be re-elected Senator as it does with how little he loves the Republican party, according to Lexington. Other than that,
this is another one of those articles about how conservatives are getting sick of being represented by Rush Limbaugh, but still defining "sick of" in a way that negates them doing anything about it.
The Americas
-That ex-bishop who became Paraguay's president has a few paternity claims laid against him, the worst of which could have been avoided if he just paid his fucking alimony. Who does this guy think he is, Ol' Dirty Bastard?
Look, pal: you're the president of Paraguay. You're not Ol' Dirty Bastard.
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More troubles in Mexico completely unrelated to swine flu or drug gangs. (Well, peripherally related to drug gangs.) In 2006, Felipe Calderon started using the military to back up his weak police force to deal with the drug gangs, and he's now bearing the bitter fruit of that tree: violent abuse of power on the part of the military. As is the norm with quite a few countries, soldiers are tried in military courts, which means that they don't end up getting punished as frequently or harshly as regular citizens. It's not widespread, at least, not yet, and the civilian population has been up against the gangs for so long that they seem willing to tolerate it for now. The question of "how long" they will turn a blind eye won't be answered quite yet.
Asia
-Hey, here's two quick trivia questions for you:
1) How are things going in Myanmar now that were hitting up on a full year later?
2) How are things going in Sri Lanka now that the conflict is entering month two of the "end of the conflict?"
Kisses!
-Chinese film director Lu Chuan has been getting death threats for the release of his upsetting film about the
1937 Japanese attack on Nanjing. Not because the film depicts the Japanese as doing awful, horrible shit--which yes, they totally did--but because there's one Japanese character in the movie is presented sympathetically. (That's ONE character.) I don't even know what you call this story. Progress? Upsetting? Factual?
Middle East & Africa
-Nigeria is trying to "rebrand" itself for the second time to being known as
"Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation", after the last phrase "Nigeria: Heart of Africa" didn't take. I hope the new one works, because there's no way but down when the best you come up with is "Good People". Maybe add a question mark?
Europe
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Canada has turned out to be a decent location for persecuted Roma to find asylum in, and there couldn't be a better time--the Czech Republic seems to have abandoned any desire to rectify the continuing scourge of racist rhetoric begun by their former deputy prime minister, leaving at least 80,000 Roma to live in ghettos, the majority of which came about in the last ten years. It's nice that they can escape to greener pastures. But it would be preferable that "escape" wasn't anyone's best option.
Britain
-Are they ever going to catch the guys who helped set up the London bombings?
No, they are not.
-The Gurkas versus Britain, with the power of Johanna Lumley by their side. As the subtitle to the article puts it, "Guess who won?" You, dear reader, I will not make
you guess. The Gurkas won.
Because the Gurkhas are awesome.
International
Look, if you want to write about
Muslims in Britain and South Asia, that's totally fine. But don't put that shit in the International section. It belongs in the Britain or Asia section. I shouldn't have to tell you this. I forgot how to tie my shoes this morning.
Business
-Whereas usually the Face Value column throws down with established business types either on the verge of massive success or potential failure, this week it's about Shai Agassi, a really slick salesman type for a company called Better Place. While they admit that Agassi has very little history behind him, the Economist makes the bold claim that he's "the best salesman in the technology industry after Steve Jobs". Really? What's he selling? Better Place is Agassi's start-up firm intent on building a massive, global network of "charging points" for electic cars as well as battery-exchange stations. Here's my ignorant, Idiot answer: he's selling a dream. If he's right, and Better Place is the right company for it--which apparently is something that Agassi can convince anyone of--he'll get a legend to match his hype. If he's wrong? Maybe Neon Neon will make an album about him in a few decades. Way I see it right now, there's no way to tell, and this profile read like free advertising.
-I don't much give a shit about William Morris, but I always liked Endeavor. Talent agencies mergers are usually only interesting in the horrible stories they provide for tell-all books, so it'll be a while before we find out whether we've got another Michael Ovitz situation on our hands, but hey: monolithic talent agencies. Crazy shit always comes out of that.
-Why are Microsoft, Google and Apple weathering the storm so well? The man-on-the-street answer would probably be "because of the Internet, I think", but the truth is way more old school. It's because they, unlike the rest of America's biggest non-financial corporations, held onto money like they were keeping it in a mattress. Cash on hand, bitches.
-UPS, DHL, TNT and FedEx were all making their way into China, kicking ass, providing good jobs and firing up local entrepreneurs--of which China has never had enough--until the Chinese government decided that it was time to look after their old monopoly, China Post. Thanks to a recent, confusing law, China Post is once again the only company in the country allowed to handle domestic document delivery. That effectively destroys all those local entrepreneurs, the vagaries of the law will force all the non-Post companies into a strangled Kafka-esque "registration" system, and once again, China has made it that much less attractive to the companies of the world. Oh, and one more thing: China Post needed the help because the Chinese people hate the service, since it loses letters and is slow as fuck. Good one, guys.
Finance and Economics
-You've always been able to use the internet for high quality pornograpy, but now it can meet another need as well: you too can become a knee-breaking loan shark. That's right! If you live in California, you can buy a piece of somebody's car, consumer or small business loan, thanks to the just SEC registered website Prosper. Why fuck around with the piddling shit though? DebtX sells commercial property loans. I swear to God, I'm counting the minutes until some teenager makes millions doing this. You know that's next.
-Here's a recap article on one of Wall Street's more irritating legacies: how the worst of the non-incarcerated finance types have no problem jumping into new jobs. All your favorites are here: Dick Fuld, Chuck Prince, Alan Schwatz and John Thain.
-If the Federal Reserve were a big company, it would be a big company we are all real proud of, because it's pulling in some fantastic profits. It's not, so we're just kind of like "look at this surprising turn of events."
-You know how there's a tendency to start getting a little irritated at shareholders in crashed companies when its revealed how little their involvement was prior to meltdown? How we all wish it could be easier to just adopt a sort of knee-jerk "blame the thieves" mentality, despite it being historically and intellectually accurate that part of being a shareholder in a company-especially when it's a large one, even more so when its collapse could ruin your life--means taking on the responsibility of paying attention to what that companies doing, and how it's doing it? Yeah, that's a debate and discussion you can have when you're talking about people. But when you're talking about a huge portion of an entire fucking country--like Italy--and you're dealing witha bunch of city councils failing in their due diligence as they lost millions of dollars in derivatives...well, that's when you get Italy seizing $634 million from banks. And while that's definitely something that's nice to cheer for, since the banks did fuck up, it doesn't change the truth, which is that when you start investing the money of the people who elected you, you really should know What In The Fuck You Are Investing It In.
Science and Technology
-While it will be a while before we get to see the actual finished results, it's probably going to be pretty fucking cool--in that way that real life makes adult men feel like little boys--when the American military figures out their new "seabasing" technology, where they make little baby block floating islands connected by electric bridges. They're still at work on some crazy ass robot Tetris program that will automate the moving of containers, but when it's done, there's going to be a computer system that looks at a gigantic collection of shipping containers and knows the least possible moves to get to the one that's full of tanks. (As is the standard with this type of work, there's going to be some pretty interesting trickle-down consumer based technology, but what might be more important, which the article doesn't go into in any detail, is how that technology will impact industrial port management. While stacking at ports isn't as tight as it will be on a seabase, this program could drastically change the amount of space required for storage: less space, reliable technology? That's bad news for a unionized job that's already suffering a lot.) It also gives me the chance to show Sobotka some love for the second week in a row.
-Hey, if you look at your spouse's yearbook photo and they aren't smiling? Get ready for your marraige to end in divorce. Science doesn't lie!
-I know you love using that antibacterial gel. You love it because you hate bacteria, I get that. But seriously dude: what you love, and what concrete needs? They aren't the same thing. Let concrete have some bacteria.
-Over two million people have watched the Youtube video fo a dancing parrot named Snowball. Some of those people were bored scientists, and their interest was peaked enough to start a "can animals dance" study. Normally, this is where I'd point out my whole "Who gives a shit, go cure cancer" and "I better not be paying for this" claim, but considering how many people are out of work right now, they can have a pass. After all, they do have to sit around and watch Youtube videos of dancing birds all day, and apparently the most popular video is soundtracked by the Backstreet Boys. That's not an easy gig.
Books and Arts
-You'll never convince me to drop forty-five bucks to read about the capitol of Lithuania when a review includes the line "The most poignant chapter is on cemeteries past and present". Besides the implication that the book is packed to the brim with depressing ass chapters ("most poignant", not "only poignant" is the tell), the next sentence goes for the gut: mass graves! Victims of the NKVD! Of the Nazis! The defeat of Napoleon's Grand Armee! Brother, I ain't got that kind of time, and my eyes ain't got that kind of tears.
-Jeez, why don't you blow Thatcher a little bit harder next time. I think there's still some juice where her heart was supposed to be.
-Although not every American living in Paris during the Nazi occupation was totally awesome, Sumner Jackson was. Helping American and British military men escape from the very beginning, and continuing all the way until he was arrested near the final days, he ended up dead when the British bombed the prison ship he was on, five days prior to German surrender. Americans In Paris covers them all, good and bad--from the fucking kowtowers to the lesbian owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and while it's not on the books for American release just yet, it will make it here eventually. I'm game.
-Is Rupert Goold a great director with a nose for publicity, or is he a publicity whore with a hang-around-theaters hobby? The Economist seems to want to split the difference, but his work seems solid to me. Still, he should get over himself when it comes to talking about his hair. Nobody gives a shit about your hair, dude.
Obituary: Samuel Beer
-In the annals of fascinating lives, I wouldn't imagine there's too many college professors with tales of toe-curling excitement. Samuel Beer sounds like an exception. Considering his age--he was 97 when he died a few weeks ago--this obituary is probably one that the Economist had on file for a while, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's because some of his former students now haunt the Economist's hunting grounds. Speechwriter for Franklin Roosevelt, a bronze star won in Normandy, and a job asking defeated Germans what it took to be "a good Nazi"--this was what paved the way for him to end up teaching at Harvard. Apparently he was still at the top of his game last year, as the description of an improptu speech describes. Interesting stuff, this one.
All art from The Economist, unless we're talking about: That dude vaccinating that rooster is totally trying to save your life,
he works here, Better Place picture comes from
their site, that Thai woman is a loan shark, the guys with her are her "hard boys", and I don't give a shit about crediting her, publicity photo of Chris Bauer from
HBO, and that picture of Rupert Goold's amazing locks belongs to
Tristan Fuge.
I learned that fact about Zuma and his cleanliness from Tom Spurgeon, when he was talking about his nemesis, the cartoonist Zapiro, who now always depicts Zuma with a shower head sticking out of his head, which I think is a hilarious "fuck you" to Zuma.
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2009.05.10 at 16:24
Speaking of Zuma's showerhead: http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/zapiro_removes_zumas_showerhead/
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2009.05.12 at 11:38
better than the daily show. I kid you not.
Posted by: Zebtron A. Rama | 2009.05.13 at 15:02
Geez, thanks zebtron. I'm still getting back into the routine, it's good to hear that.
And Brady--ugh, right? The guy is such a fucking scumbag. I can't believe how easy he won the election, it's so depressing.
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2009.05.13 at 23:29