Media-Whore D'Oevres



"In 1998, Bill Richardson, then the United States ambassador to the United Nations, flew to Japan in search of backing for potential military strikes in Iraq. Landing in Tokyo, he asked how a previous session, conducted by his boss, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, had gone. Not well, Mr. Richardson learned. Dr. Albright’s Japanese counterpart requested permission to smoke, she lectured him on the dangers of tobacco, and things never improved from there. So Mr. Richardson began his meeting with a question. 'Mind if I smoke?' he asked, pulling out the cigar he had tucked into his jacket a moment before. He left Japan with the assurances for which he had come." (NYTimes)

"At the opening of the Costume Institute's new exhibit, Blog.Mode: Addressing Fashion—where host Manolo Blahnik welcomed Vogue's Anna Wintour, Amy Fine Collins, and Rodarte's Kate and Laura Mulleavy, among others—guests were invited to visit the 'blogbar' of computer terminals and post their sartorial musings. After thinking it over, Sue Stemp decided to wait until inspiration struck. 'I'll have a few drinks and do it from home,' she said. 'The comments will be much more creative then.' Downtown, at Chelsea's Metropolitan Pavilion, meanwhile, Jessica Stam and Adrian Grenier shared hosting duties at a fundraiser for Charity: Water, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing clean water to impoverished communities. The evening's highlight (aside, of course, from raising money for an important cause) was a surprise performance by Chaka Khan." (Style)

"Meanwhile, what socialite's mama was just being herself when she tried to return a fur to Bergdorf's a year and a half after its purchase? And can you believe they accepted it?" (Musto)

"Bill Gross, founder of Pimco, one of the world's largest fixed-income managers, sounded a downbeat note on the US economy by saying it had gone into recession. 'If I had to be bold I'd say we began a recession in December,' he said in a Financial Times interview, in which he called on the Federal Reserve to bring interest rates down to 3 per cent. The recession would last 'four to five months,' he thought, but would be prolonged if the administration and Congress failed to 'take some rather unperceived and unforecasted measures in terms of fiscal stimulation' ... He also had stern words for hedge funds, describing them as a 'con.' A hedge fund, he said, was 'an unregulated bank. A bank isn't a con but a bank is a regulated entity. A hedge fund is not . . . it's been a con on the government in terms of their unwillingness to regulate the industry.'''(FT)