On The Turning Away

(more…)

We would be remiss if we don’t cool your day with J. Crew’s (JCG) IPO news.

The preppy clothier began life in 1983 as a mail-order business, and is known for upscale casual men’s and women’s clothing and accessories. Its first flagship store opened in 1989 at the South Street Seaport in New York and its website was launched in 1996. Now J. Crew has 165 retail stores in the US and 43 outlet stores and its catalog has a circulation of over 80 million.
(more…)

The end is nigh, says Bible scholars. End of June, that is.
(more…)

Newspapers are our pet love, so here’s more. Paid search - the bread and butter of search engines - is finding its way into newspaper sites, according to Newspapers &Technology.

As we noted earlier, newspaper websites of today are adding blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts and multimedia and adopting new business models powered by multiple revenue streams such as syndication, subscription, licensing, e-commerce and even brand leverage. It’s an uphill battle because they have to compete with nimble new media players, such as news blogs that have attracted a cult following, for the ever elusive advertising dollars, digital and otherwise.
(more…)

“In the long run,” John Maynard Keynes famously said, “we’re all dead.” Or even worse, you “tend to regret having missed out on opportunities for pleasure,” according to a paper entitled, “Repenting Hyperopia“, in the September issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

What they find intriguing is, people’s attitudes reverse over time. In the short run, you’re proud of our ability to work hard and delay gratification. But years later, you are stricken with remorse. Why the reversal? The reason, they suggest, is in the psychology of guilt: It’s an intense and painful emotion in the here-and-how, but fades over time.
(more…)

AP via Yahoo News, on June 28 -

In 1491, England’s King Henry VIII was born at Greenwich.

In 1838, Britain’s Queen Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.

In 1914, Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Sofia, were assassinated in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist — the event that triggered World War I.

(more…)

Crooks and Liars followed up on Limbaugh’s bulge pills and shed the light on crook doctors.

Both California and Florida’s medical boards dictate that “it is unethical and illegal for a doctor to write a prescription for him/her and then give it to another patient.” The line of American Medical Association is similar: “Physicians generally should not treat themselves or members of their immediate families.”

On the record, we’ve known doctors who are recreational Rx users who prescribed ED pills to their (physician) friends and dispensed Vicodin pills, Schedule II substance, to friends and acquaintances, worse still, without their knowledge. Their criminal intent has caused irreparable damage to the unsuspected. It’s a flagrant case of abusing their privilege. They should be prosecuted according to the law and their privilege should be revoked.

InformationWeek reported that NBC would partner with YouTube to promote its fall lineup. The network would create an official NBC channel that would include a “Fall Preview” area.

Hoping to reach the millions of people using YouTube, NBC also wants to discourage copyright infringement that have occurred on the site. Case in point: YouTube recently removed the popular SNL clip, “Lazy Sunday”.

NBC”s decision further highlights the growing importance of the Web as an advertising vehicle. It’s a classic line of “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

If you, like us, are in the mood for supermensch, we’d like to share this quote from Nietzsche, “Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and superman - a rope over an abyss.”

In a review of Superman Returns, the NYT pointed out that the overwhelming majority of American action movies produced since the 1980’s involves what academics call “homosocial relations.” The speculation about superman’s sexuality speaks more to our “social panic” than anything in the film. Superman may be a super-creation, but it’s his villains rather than his dual identity that have usually given him a kick.
(more…)