On The Turning Away

If you’re a regular gym goer, you may have your fair share of enduring the nuisance of someone grunting, pathetically, while lifting weights. The other top “pet peeves” include not racking weights when done, slamming of weights, and lounging around.

What about people who “war-whooped”, “hollered, ‘Great song!’ and ‘You go, girl’”, ad nauseam, next to you, pedaling?

The “gym spin-out” incident maybe extreme, but the media miss the point if they only spotlight the altercation. What needs to be addressed is, among others, gym etiquette. While gyms have rules posted on the wall, there are also unspoken ones self-respecting exercisers observe.
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When you’re born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front-row seat.
- George Carlin (1937 - )

According to The Economist’s man in Beijing, one of the bons mots he heard is a definion of a happy man: “Japanese wife, English house, Chinese cook.” The validity of the last two maybe up for debate but the sought-after Japanese wives? Is it because Japanese women who, until recently, largely consume Western brand shampoos from Unilever and P&G?

That fashion houses like Vuitton, Dior and Gucci are extremely popular in Japan is well known. Dana Thomas, author of “Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster”, argues that Asian fetish for Western luxury brands, e.g. “40% of all Japanese own a Vuitton product”, may have been attributed to the downward spiral of the quality democratization of those products.
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As a great admirer of tradition, we find it slightly discomforting that embattled AG Alberto Gonzales would choose today - the start of one of the slowest news weeks of the year, otherwise known as the time to chill and take it easy - to step down.

An intensely loyal “Bushie”, Gonzales, who infamously repeated “I don’t recall” or “I have no recollection” more than 100 times in testimony to Congress this year, will go down as one of the most secretive cabinet officers in modern US history. He’s also the latest in a trick-to-torrent of departures of the Bush aids, two weeks after Karl “boy genius” Rove rejoiced liberal quarters of the country with his taking leave of the man he helped put in the White House.
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Yahoo pioneered MyYahoo in 1996, Google rolled out iGoogle last May in hot pursuit of SEO, now the Paper of Record, the NYT, following in their footsteps in the personalization path, has strutted out MyTimes. Alas, how timely - a decade late in the digital game.

Among the touted benefits is “receiving recommendations from Times journalists for their favorite sources of news and entertainment”. A cursory glance reveals that most Times’ journalists offer nothing more than a staple of mainstream media: BBC, The Economist, WSJ, whatnot, affirming the incestuous nature of MSM. Unless you can’t find a black rose for a gesture of platonic love, get yourTimes.

This summer we’ve watched a slew of flicks, of assorted varieties, both in theaters and on DVD. Of note are “Ten”, a witty 1979 comedy; “Mon meilleur ami (My Best Friend)”, a 2006 French “sweet comic fable“; “Rescue Down”, Werner Herzog’s remake of his 1997 documentary, “Little Dieter Needs to Fly”; and “The Bourne Ultimatum”, one of the “fastest, smartest American action” franchises that has grown on us since “The Bourne Supremacy” came out on DVD.

For those in the know - why we have to resist the temptation to retreat to incommunicado? Because communicado is only a stone’s throw from cognito.

Perhaps not surprisingly, no fewer than five Chinese Twitter clones have been launched in the last few months. To anyone with a modicum knowledge of China’s digital landscape, or the Chinese brand of innovation, if you will, the Twitter look-alikes simply follow in the footsteps of Sohu.com, sina.com, and Baidu.com, to name just a few examples.

Although China’s web culture - linguistic and social differences - and regulatory regime remain very different from those of the US, local entrepreneurs seem to jump at the first opportunity to replicate whatever hot across the Pacific. The very fact that China’s best and brightest are so closely attuned to the buzz, ephemeral or otherwise, validates America’s market dominance.

However, being just a Chinese knock-off of American giants is far from enough. Alibaba’s success can testify to the pivotal role of tweaking, if not altogether transforming, of foreign business models to cater to indigenous culture.
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If the drip of drivel is any guide, August is the time when summer can feel stupefying. Where else would one find “abandonment and desolation” such a joy? After all, it’s time to chill, not cock a snook.

Chill, we did. Not in better fashionable places like the Hamptons or the Vineyard, but in North Country. The high peaks of the Adirondacks were a delight, offering a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of the city, whereas Lake George was nothing but the riviera of the ghastly proles.

You may be forgiven for sensing a whiff of snobbery, which is nothing but bad manners trying to pass themselves off as good taste. Speaking of which, the prosaic and mundane walking (in the streets of New York) is back in vogue. Talk about the whole “Eros of walking”. Who knew?
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The markets are in for an “interesting quandary”. The credit crunch has morphed into a credit freeze, evidenced by ECB’s surprise liquidity injection in two consecutive days.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of Canada, and other central banks followed the ECB’s Thursday lead by signaling that they would provide enough temporary liquidity to keep markets running smoothly.

Hedge funds have hit a rocky patch amid credit turmoil. Two Goldman Sachs funds have reportedly been forced to liquidate positions to “curb” their risk profile. Elsewhere, venerable “quant” funds - those use mathematical models to drive investment decisions - such as Renaissance, Highbridge, and Tykhe - are hemorrhaging as their models, confounded by sudden wider credit spreads resulted from subprime debacle, experience a “psychotic episode”.
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All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)