Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Fareed Zakaria is one of our most perceptive analysts of America's role in the world, and I generally agree with him. But in the case of his new special essay for Time, 'Are America's Best Days Behind Us?,' I think he paints too gloomy a picture of American decline ...  Zakaria lists other worrying indicators related to education and infrastructure. According to the OECD, American 15-year-olds rank 17th in the world in science and 25th in math. The United States is 12th in college graduation rates, 23rd in infrastructure, and 27th in life expectancy. On the other side of the ledger, America ranks first among rich countries in guns, crime, and debt. All these are very real problems ..." (ForeignPolicy)

"'I’ve got a story idea for you. The rebuilding of Indonesia. Or New Orleans. Or both. Go there. I’ve just been. You will never think the same way about anything again.' So spoke not Bill or Melinda Gates, but Ghislaine Maxwell, the 48-year-old woman being written up everywhere at the moment as the alleged 'procurer' of young women for billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, 57, is the financier who spent a year in jail on charges of soliciting prostitutes—and now there is talk of another investigation because various women, now in their 20s and 30s, have come forward with allegations that he molested them when they were under-age. The allegations first surfaced in British newspapers, which have zeroed in on Epstein’s friendship with Prince Andrew, who has recently tried to publicly disassociate himself from his old pal. I wrote a piece for Vanity Fair in 2003 called 'The Talented Mr. Epstein.' It was largely a business piece that focused on his mysterious exit from Bear Stearns in 1981 and on his close relationships with Jimmy Cayne, Les Wexner, the chairman of Limited Brands, and, above all, the man who claimed to be his mentor, Steven Jude Hoffenberg, who is currently serving a 20-year-jail sentence for bilking investors in Towers Financial out of $450 million. The piece alluded to Epstein’s great friendship with Maxwell, and how she introduced him to young women with whom he had sexual relationships ... In many ways, the socially awkward Epstein, with his big house, plane, island, and ranch, was the perfect replacement for her father, the late Robert Maxwell, newspaper tycoon and criminal. Sure, Jeffrey had his sexual peccadilloes, but then Ghislaine’s father was not without his oddities. After all, it was he who died leaving a massive 'black hole' he’d fraudulently created. To Ghislaine, Jeffrey’s habits may not have seemed that strange. In fact, she probably figured, rather like I have, after years of writing about the very rich, that most successful people in the end either have some weird habit (the late Bruce Wasserstein had the weight issues and the girl issues, and moved countries to avoid paying tax) or break the law (Sam Waksal, Martha Stewart). You don’t tend to get to the top by being the world’s most balanced human being. Even the folksy Warren Buffett didn’t quite manage a normal life—whatever that is. He had a second 'wife' for many years whose existence he has been open about." (VanityFair)

"The first thing you see on entering Gawker’s loft-size open work area is a huge screen that looks like a nicer, higher-def version of what you might see in a brokerage house. The top part of the screen shows live views of the home pages of the main Gawker properties—Gizmodo, Jezebel, Lifehacker, Deadspin, Gawker itself, and others (excluding Gawker’s sex-oriented site, Fleshbot, which accounts for about 5 percent of the company’s total traffic). Together, according to Denton, the sites bring in some 32 million unique visitors worldwide a month, about the same as The New York Times and twice as many as The Washington Post. Meters display the second-by-second traffic to each site. As users log on to a site, and leave, the needles on the meters go up and down to register its popularity. The bottom part of the screen lists specific stories from each of the Gawker Media sites and across the company as a whole, ranked by how many people are viewing them at each moment—and those numbers are listed. As you watch, the stories switch places on the screen, each with a green arrow if it’s trending up or a red arrow if it’s heading down. When I arrived, 'Your Horoscope May Have Changed' still led the chart for all sites but was heading down, while 'The Horrible Life of a Disney Employee' was in second place and on the way up. 'Loose Rat in New York City Subway Car Crawls on Man’s Face,' with a 26-second amateur video of exactly that, was the lead item on Gawker.tv, and “The Greatest Scam in Tech,” from Gizmodo, was the most popular technology item. (It was about a 'free' mobile-phone service called PeepApp.) 'The Hilarious Agony of Watching a Computer Illiterate' was in second place among tech items. Two weeks after my visit, as I write this story, 'How Good Is Charlie Sheen for a Porn Star’s Career?' is No. 1." (TheAtlantic)

"In London, Prince William and Kate Middleton have announced the names of their wedding party. The Daily Telegraph of London ran some photographs of the players: four bridesmaids and two page boys. They are ages 8 and 10, (the boys), and two of the girls are 7 or 8, and two are age 3 -- except for the Maid of Honor, who will be Ms. Middleton’s sister Philippa (known as Pippa), and Prince William’s brother, Prince Harry, who will be his best man." (NYSocialDiary)

Cable Time Period Rank - Week of 2-28-11 (Live+SD)

"For the second consecutive week, Fox News Channel was the number two network on all of cable television in primetime, behind only USA Network. The last time FNC placed second for two straight weeks was late March/Early April of 2010. MSNBC placed 23rd overall, down from 21st last week, while CNN was 29th, down from 28th last week. In total day, FNC placed sixth overall, down from fifth last week, while CNN was 27th and MSNBC 28th."(TVNewser)

"Last summer, outside the Starbucks on Second Street and Covina Avenue in the Belmont Shores neighborhood of Long Beach, Calif., Catarina Toumei stepped out of a beat-up car and made her way to a coffee shop. She had just driven two hours from San Diego to meet with a man named Wolfgang Baron von Hildebrandt. The bearded singer-songwriter and self-proclaimed human rights activist was looking for someone to help him in the PR push for his forthcoming single, 'United Nations Song.' Ms. Toumei introduced herself to the balladeer as 'Lady Catarina' and began to regale him with tales of her upcoming trip to Monte Carlo and Cannes. The talk didn't interest Mr. von Hildebrandt, who after all just needed a publicist.  But something was amiss about Lady Catarina ...The many mundane falsehoods that surround Ms. Toumei make it difficult to pinpoint what parts of her life, and which people in it, are authentic. Nevertheless, after consultation of public records, her college yearbook and people who know her, even a skeptic can justifiably believe the following: Catarina Toumei was born Rina Nastopka on Sept. 12, 1966. She grew up in Maryland and graduated from the University of Maryland-College Park with a B.S. in journalism in May of 1987. Also true: Ms. Toumei was married three times: once to a tax attorney; once to a Presbyterian minister turned mortgage broker; and once to a real estate investor. (According to court documents, she falsely claimed to be married to John Ratzenberger of Cheers; according to emails obtained by The Observer, she also claimed to be an ex-fiancée to Prince Albert of Monaco.) The marriages, combined with Ms. Toumei's own penchant for self-reinvention, resulted in a slew of name changes." (Observer)

"Last month, oil prices topped $100 a barrel, setting alarm bells ringing in Western capitals still reeling from the last economic recession. We have been here before, of course: In 2008, oil prices started below $90 per barrel, spiked above $140 by midyear, and plummeted below $33 only six months later -- signaling both the economic bubble and its collapse. But unlike three years ago, the current rise in prices is not driven by surging oil demand and shrinking spare production capacity. Instead, widespread anxiety over unpredictable consequences of political upheaval in the Arab world reveals again the fragility of the global supply system for the one essential commodity of modern life.  The United States should not need an international crisis to be alert to this critical vulnerability. In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast where U.S. oil and gas production and refineries are concentrated, causing major supply disruptions. Last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill underscored the risks undertaken to explore in deeper waters and remoter areas under ever harsher operating conditions in order to satisfy America's thirst for oil. Yet that massive spill -- 200 million gallons of crude in all -- represented only six hours of U.S. daily petroleum consumption. Nor were these the first alarms." (ForeignPolicy)