Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Speaking at a gala hosted by the Canadian International Council in Toronto, Mr. (George) Soros said China's devalued currency manipulates global trade and distorts the global economic recovery. '[President Barack] Obama got the short end of the stick,' Mr. Soros said. Not only is the President getting attacked within his own country, foreign governments are against him even though China's policies are just as significant. In Mr. Soros's view, both countries are at fault, yet he added that both of their policies can work together, if used in moderation. 'There ought to be some kind of balance or compromise between them,' he said. Mr. Soros did not let the U.S. off the hook, noting that quantitative easing has 'harmful side effects.' 'History shows that it gives rise to asset bubbles and it disrupts the foreign-exchange markets,' he said. Mr. Soros devoted much of his talk to China because the country's rapid rise is taking place at the exact same time that the U.S. is losing its global economic dominance. 'There is a really remarkable, rapid shift of power and influence from the United States to China,' Mr. Soros said, likening the U.S.'s decline to that of the U.K. after the Second World War. Because global economic power is shifting, Mr. Soros said China needs to change its focus. 'China has risen very rapidly by looking out for its own interests,' he said. 'They have now got to accept responsibility for world order and the interests of other people as well.'" (GlobeandMail)

"From Daniel, I went four blocks down the avenue to Feinstein’s at the Loews-Regency where Joan Collins was opening in her 'One Night With Joan,' in which she’ll be appearing through the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 27th. There was a big crowd for this. Feinstein’s is a supper club, so there was dinner and drinks before. The bitch is back. I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist because it’s funny. She’s funny. Joan plays that role maybe better than anybody since Crawford or Davis (she relates a couple of priceless moments with both those girls). The difference between her and those two, however, is one of wit ...  In the audience last night anticipating this first-time-ever Joan Collins club act (was she going to sing?): Reinaldo Herrera with Lee Radziwll and William Ivey Long; Rick Friedberg and Francine LeFrak, Bob and Barbara Taylor Bradford with Liba and Neil Sedaka, Randy and Connie Jones; Marc Rosen and Arlene Dahl with Robert Zimmerman; Clive Davis with Nikki Haskell, Audrey Gruss and Mario Buatta. Even Michael Musto, Mr. Downtown looking very Uptown for Joan."(NYSocialDiary)

"Tina Brown was in a state. It was Tuesday morning, Nov. 9, and the Daily Beast editor was in Barry Diller's office at IAC headquarters on the West Side. Talks with Sidney Harman about merging the site with his recently acquired Newsweek were back on—big time—and to Ms. Brown, they teetered on the brink of inevitability. 'Oh my God,' she thought. 'This is really going to happen.' 'We don't want to do this! Ms. Brown and Beast president Stephen Colvin told Mr. Diller. The IAC chairman, who wanted a deal, asked them to reconsider. Go off and sit in a room together, he said. Think about it. No pressure. Then come back in an hour. Off Ms. Brown and Mr. Colvin went. They talked. They paced. They called Sir Harold Evans, Ms. Brown's husband. She downed a tuna sandwich and a Sprite Zero."(Observer)

"'Rappers refer to themselves a lot,' (Jay Z) writes in Decoded. 'What the rapper is doing is creating a character that, if you're lucky, you find out about more and more from song to song.' It bears mentioning that a huge percentage of Jay-Z's audience still doesn't really know this—that they still expect to see, as Jay puts it, the rap equivalent of Matt Damon 'assassinating rogue CIA agents between movies.' But as Decoded makes clear, what the rapper's project actually is is a kind of self-novelization: person meeting persona in 16 measure bars. 'The flow isn't like time,' he writes about the craft. 'It's like life.' Wed this revelation to a very real origin story and you have perhaps the most comprehensive account of the art ever written. "(VillageVoice)

"To the outside world, what House Democrats are poised to do later this morning seems to defy logic: Why would politicians who supposedly care above all about public opinion and their own hides stick with an unpopular leader who just carried them through one of the worst election drubbings in decades? Talk to lawmakers privately, and many will freely acknowledge that from a public relations perspective it makes little sense for Nancy Pelosi — who made history as speaker and is now fighting hard to be minority leader — to remain the face of Democrats. But many of those same lawmakers will cast their votes for Pelosi in this morning's closed door Democratic caucus meeting — and the embattled San Franciscan will almost certainly win the validation she seeks. (See: Nancy Pelosi allies try to tamp down rules rebellion) It's a vivid illustration of how congressional leadership elections are decided by factors often barely visible to the naked eye. It does not matter much what the pundits think, where the polls stand, or who can be easily demonized by the opposition." (Politico)

"A handful of New York's coolest artists were doing something cooler than usual last night—supporting RxArt, a nonprofit devoted to livening up children's hospitals. It was the kind of evening that had Nate Lowman on DJ duty and KAWS (a.k.a. Brian Donnelly) watching one of his own über-hip art toys spur a heated silent auction. Will Cotton was keeping a safe distance between himself and the lithograph he'd donated to the cause. 'The having-my-own-art-auction thing always makes me nervous,' he confessed. Cotton's hospital spruce-up is in Memphis; the organization unveiled a cheery Jeff Koons installation in Chicago this summer, and has a Chris Johanson project in the works there that is slated to open in early 2011. Ryan McGinley was circulating inside the Art Directors Club in a dapper Calvin Klein suit. Aaron Young and Terry Richardson hadn't made quite the same effort, nor had the evening's late-arriving host, James Franco—but it's hard to blame a guy who made the trip all the way down from Yale." (Style)