The least surprising item of news: Obama’s Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
NY Times’ Thomas Friedman on the irony of the current economic crisis:
The stranger, a Western businessman, slipped into the chair next to me at an Asia Society lunch here in Hong Kong and asked me a question that I can honestly say I’ve never been asked before: “So, just how corrupt is America?” [….] It’s the whole bloody mess coming out of Wall Street — the financial center that Hong Kong moneymen had always looked up to. How could it be, they wonder, that such brand names as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. could turn out to have such feet of clay? Where, they wonder, was our Securities and Exchange Commission and the high standards that we had preached to them all these years?
One of Hong Kong’s most-respected bankers, who asked not to be identified, told me that the U.S.-owned investment company where he works made a mint in the last decade cleaning up sick Asian banks. They did so by importing the best U.S. practices, particularly the principles of “know thy customers” and strict risk controls. But now, he asked, who is there to look to for exemplary leadership?
“Previously, there was America,” he said. “American investors were supposed to know better, and now America itself is in trouble. Whom do they sell their banks to? It is hard for America to take its own medicine that it prescribed successfully for others. There is no doctor anymore. The doctor himself is sick.” [….]
The Madoff affair is the cherry on top of a national breakdown in financial propriety, regulations and common sense. Which is why we don’t just need a financial bailout; we need an ethical bailout. We need to re-establish the core balance between our markets, ethics and regulations. I don’t want to kill the animal spirits that necessarily drive capitalism — but I don’t want to be eaten by them either.
I’m not saying that capitalism is bad – but regulation and rule of law exist for reason that should be obvious. Or so we would like to think are obvious. What a mess the economic crisis (recession; depression?) is turning into.
With the scandal in Illinois of Governor Blagojevich, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is the attorney in the news. Time.com did a profile on Fitzgerald – ex-New Yorker. At one point one of “People” magazine’s “Sexiest Men,” he’s married now – but seems to be still a workaholic and what a job in prosecuting the Illinois thing… (hey, sort of a follow up to the year where he had been Lawyer of the Year, huh?).
Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker on the revitalization of the Law side of “Law and Order,” with the legal wrangling between DA McCoy (Sam Waterston) vs. ADA Cutter (Linus Roache). I agree – it has been good stuff to watch. Yes, last night’s episode had a ripped-out-of-the-headline plot (man and his family living a green lifestyle to decrease their carbon footprint) with the non-headline twist that the wife died in a murder, but the heartbreaker was the law portion. It was sad watching the trial judge (Ned Beatty) be revealed as turning to dementia and the law clerk (Sherry Stringfield) was trying to prop him up to keep her job going (and not because she (kind of) had something romantic going with Cutter), and she was a law clerk (actually court attorney, but oh well) who had graduated from middle of her class of her middling law school (or so she told Cutter; so what law school did Cutter go to?). She came off creepy, and made me wonder why on earth Cutter was attracted to her (well, give him credit for being a sucker for smart pretty women; although it was funny how McCoy and ADA Rubirosa raised their eyebrows over Cutter’s implied dating said law clerk).
Ultimately, Cutter moved forward to try to get the judge off the trial, because he did not feel it was right that the judge remain because of the incompetency. He earned the ire of the judiciary (not like McCoy didn’t warn him that would happen; but it is uncomfortable that even McCoy would rather get the conviction than be concerned that the judge wasn’t competent). Plus, people were grumbling about the questionable romance that was going on in the background, and how Cutter foolishly approached the judge in an ex parte manner (after he and Rubirosa spied on the law clerk and the judge during lunch at the Odeon on West Broadway (not some fake restaurant!)), risking disbarment (seriously, Cutter’s been on the series for a second season and the man’s still juggling chainsaws).
No easy stuff. Oh, and the defense attorney was also great this time – I recognize her as the Broadway actress who won the Tony this year. At least, I think so – I can’t seem to dig up credit on the imdb.com or other sources.
Neither law nor politics:
A scientific approach to procrastination (fighting it, that is).
Maybe this media theme lately is procrastination: Newsweek has an article too; I had put off reading the article, but then decided I couldn’t keep avoiding it.
Last but not least: Mark “The Minimalist” Bittman on using leftover egg whites to make little meringues. Mmm! He makes it look real easy on the video, using a ziplock bag to squeeze the meringues into being meringues.