Love dividends

News of a Dresdner Bank global equity strategy report for clients urging them to have sex in order to be happy has been making the rounds of newswire outtakes. I've gotten my hands on the original [PDF]. It's actually a good read. Our happiness expert in residence Charles should be aroused into commenting.

Row, row, row your boat

The annual Tuen Ng Festival, better known to the rest of the world as dragon boat racing day, is Hong Kong's best holiday and a signature piss-up. This year did not disappoint.

There's a storyline about a mandarin who offered some polite criticisms of the emperor but, rebuffed, threw himself into the sea. The local fishermen raced their boats into the ocean to scare off the fish so that the dead mandarin's spirit would not be troubled. Yada yada yada. Let's get to the beer and babes.

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Jaw-jaw with Jong-il

The Bush administration, after three years of paralysis masked by a 'refusal to submit to blackmail', has finally suggested a deal to North Korea. This promises goodies and a 'provisional' agreement not to invade if the North verifyably halts and dismantles its nuclear program along identical lines to Libya's volte-face.

This offer is too little, too late. It was made under intense pressure from America's Asian allies and from the Kerry campaign, and doens't resolve the internal argument in the White House about whether to try to negotiate with Kim Jong-il or if the US should do its utmost to oust his regime.

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Fainter praise, please

The downside to building a cult of personality is that you get surrounded by sycophantic hagiographers and professional yes-men. Nobody tells you what they really think, and we all know what a drag that can be.

Spare a thought, then, for Turkmenistan's president-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov, who has been reduced to pleading for less credit for his fatherhood of the nation:

You praise me too much. I am upset when all the achievements of the epoch of independent Turkmenistan are linked only to my name. In reality they are the merits of the whole Turkmen people. [...] The glorifying odes make me wish the earth could swallow me up. Each song is about me. Shame makes me look aside.

He must be devastated, then, by a new 6-meter statue being erected at Turkmenistan's parliament in honor of his 12 years as Turkmenbashi. I cannot begin to imagine what they will get him for his 13th anniversary.

The Newdow debate

When the Supreme Court dismissed Michael Newdow's Pledge of Allegiance case on what seemed to be a technicality, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick stepped in with an essay saying that if SCOTUS had actually got around to addressing the case itself, they would have "thrown millions of custody arrangements into question".

A few days later, Michael Newdow himself appeared in Slate, arguing that both parents should always have custody of every child, except where real harm would result. But he didn't directly rebut Lithwick's argument about whether the Supreme Court made the right decision. For that, we have to turn to the New York Times op-ed page today, where Newdow writes that "this decision sets a dangerous precedent that violates the rights of citizens to have the federal judiciary address their claims."

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Better late than never

Matthew wants me to link to his little octopushy graffiti photoblog entry because he "needs to check if his trackback system works." The things people will say to get a mention on MemeFirst. Honestly.

When Prosper Assouline met Solange Azagury-Partridge

Following in the footsteps of Alex Ross, here's a list of names found in the Sunday Styles section of today's New York Times:

Alex Kuczynski, Sherrell J. Aston, Muffie Potter Aston, Kalliope Karella, Martine Assouline, Prosper Assouline, Kelly Killoren-Bensimon, Rena Kirdar Sindi, Bettina Zilkha, Milly de Cabrol, Strawberry Saroyan, Leza Piazza, Julia Peyton-Jones, Sienna Miller, Susannah Constantine, Geordie Greig, Tamara Mellon, Eva Cavalli, Priti Paul, Solange Azagury-Partridge.

How the Irish saved civilization, again

The EU constitution has been agreed upon. (Fortunately, God didn't make it in.) We have Irish PM Bertie Ahern to thank for this amazing feat:

The leaders gave a standing ovation to Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who resurrected negotiations that collapsed last December and steered them to success through Dublin's six-month presidency of the bloc.

Now all we have to do is wait for is a couple of hundred Maltesers or Cypriots to decide to refuse to ratify it or somesuch.

Not that I'd want him writing Gawker

I've raved about Alex Ross, the New Yorker's music critic, in the past, and I'm now overjoyed that he has his own blog. This is the best new blog I've come across in a long time: the entries are not too long, not too short, and always interesting. On Tuesday, he gave us some wonderful analysis of the connections between James Joyce and Richard Wagner, while today I've reread his list of obscure composers many times, never without a smile on my face. This has to be the blog sentence of the year so far:

Vernon Leftwich, Fleetwood A. Diefenthaeler, Armand Balendonck, Bainbridge Crist, Julia Klumpkey, Edna Frida Pietsch, the Right Rev. Fan Stylian Noli, Alexander Skibinsky, Lamar Stringfield, and Uno Nyman.

Neologism of the week: Mailage

mail·age  Pronunciation Key (mlj)
n.

   1. Text from previous emails that accumulates at the bottom of new messages because of constant replying in a heated email conversation.

Putin to the rescue

It now seems it wasn't just Iranian intelligence Bush relied upon in his decision to go to war. Russian intelligence pitched in as well.

Mosh

Reverted to teenagehood last night when Linkin Park blasted its way through Hong Kong. Battered my way to the front and slammed like a molecule throughout a tight, concise set, along with, uh, a lot of teenagers. Massive primal release, fueled by Heinekin, Yeagermeister and some kind of brown shot whose name I never learned. Awesome.

Although I very much feel 34 years old today! In truth I don't know if I could have survived this band had I seen them in the US or Europe. The local authorities were obviously nervous about what the youngins might get up to when tempted by nu-metal, and security was ridiculous. The cops also forced the band to keep the volume moderate, which was annoying. Only the tremendous energy of the band and the crowd overcame nanny state BS. But still, moshing with International School seniors is probably not that intense, which is a good thing for someone who spent much of last week at a chiropractor's.

Toys in Babel-land

Lance Knobel points me to one of those productivity-destroying internet tools which can quickly eat up hours of your day: the Modern Language Association's interactive Language Map. You can see the density of speakers of thirty-seven languages and language groups from the national level right down to individual zip codes, or even by age groups; you can generate charts of the distribution of languages in each state; you can compare and contrast different states or towns... the list is almost endless. Above is the density of Spanish speakers in New York: pretty, no?

In Flanders Field

Hélène's funeral was this past Saturday, in her hometown of Kortrijk, Belgium. Two thousand friends, family, and colleagues showed up; even more of us were there in spirit.

With the blessing of her boyfriend and family, we have talked to Médecins Sans Frontières, and they have agreed to let us make donations in Hélène's name towards their efforts in Afghanistan. Those of us who knew her in Bologna would like to keep the work of MSF in Afghanistan going as a living monument to Hélène.

So today, on what would have been Hélène's thirtieth birthday, I ask you to consider joining us in making a donation to MSF. They do wonderful work in many places that we hear about and more that we don't. Here in the United States, donations can be made via their website or a check made out to "Doctors without Borders" and sent to:

Doctors without Borders
Attn: Sarah McGowan
333 7th Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10001-5004

For those of you beyond the US, let me know below if you need help contacting your local MSF chapter.

As she was always one to have the last word, I leave it to Hélène to remind us of why it is important to take note and remember events like this. As she wrote in response to a query about the muted bolognese response to the Istanbul bombings in November:

What is there to say when such a thing happens? I think everyone feels despair in their heart and of course condemns this atrocity. It is not because we do not speak out that we are insensitive. I am sorry if you believed this and I would like to set the record straight... I feel deeply grieved that it happened in such a beautiful and hospitable city.

I don't think the scale of violence is important at all. Even when one single person dies at the hands of hate it is "big enough" and I mourn every time it happens. I've seen a lot of hate having worked in Afghanistan, Iraq and West Africa over the last year. It is everywhere but the only thing we can do is to resist it with all our might.

Hélène

Microsoftly into the night

I have long felt Microsoft's finest hour was over around the time it won the browser wars, and that anti-trust moves were pointless, much like with IBM ten years earlier, because Microsoft would have a much tougher time in a saturated market selling upgrades than when it benefited from the network effect during times of rapid growth, but I've never really have the knowledge to back up my hunch. Joel Spolsky does. A long and technical but important and accessible read.