Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"The death sentence for the News of the World was composed by James Murdoch. 'It’s only right ... that you hear it directly from me,' News Corp’s deputy chief operating officer wrote, clinically executing the 168-year-old British Sunday scandal sheet. But a stunned newsroom heard it instead from Rebekah Brooks, a former editor of the title and head of the global media group’s UK news­paper arm, who read his statement out, pallid beneath her shock of red curls as security guards hovered.. Seven timezones away, his 80-year-old father sat in a ski lodge in the green foothills of the Sawtooth Mountains, listening to Charlie Rose interview fellow-broadcaster Oprah Winfrey. From the moguls’ annual retreat in Sun Valley, Rupert Murdoch assented to his second son’s proposal to kill the title that had put the News Corp chairman and chief executive on the world stage. When in 1969 the upstart Adelaide press baron bought what was then the world’s biggest-selling newspaper, it was 'his first poke in the eye for the British establishment', says a former Murdoch editor. This week, by standing behind Ms Brooks as politicians and some in his own company urged her to resign, he was facing off against that establishment again. In the intervening 42 years, the outsider whose Australian origins and taste for muck-raking journalism earned him the nickname of 'Dirty Digger' became the most powerful media owner Britain has seen. With influential interests from The Times to Sky News, he has been courted by politicians mindful of his daily tabloid’s boast after the 1992 general election victory by John Major’s Conservatives: 'It’s The Sun wot won it'." (FT)

"Billionaire Ron Burkle says hiring former President Bill Clinton as a consultant at his investment firm Yucaipa Cos. was 'the dumbest thing I ever did' after media scrutinity of their friendship damaged his reputation and made him a frequent boldfaced name in gossip columns. Burkle sounds off on his soured relationship with Clinton in a candid interview with Michael Gross for his new book, 'Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles,' coming in November from Broadway Books. It profiles owners of 16 estates, including Burkle and his palatial LA home Greenacres. Gross writes that Clinton stayed there about 80 times and flew on Burkle's private planes, but their relationship became raw meat for vulturous media once Clinton was hired as an adviser to Yucaipa in 2002. 'We were friends the whole time he was in the White House,' Burkle told Gross. 'He spent a lot of nights in LA and, frankly I never read about it. I went to Camp David and I went to the White House. Nobody was really paying attention. So I frankly, didn't give a lot of thought to what the downside was. Maybe I should have.' Vanity Fair ran a scathing profile of Clinton in 2008, which mentioned that Burkle's jets were nicknamed 'Ron Air' and 'Air [Bleep] One.' Burkle told Gross, 'I didn't create Clinton's reputation for issues with women, but I became part of it.' (PageSix)

"South Sudan is being baptized in blood. On Saturday, July 9, when the south formally declares its independence from Sudan, civilians in the disputed border region of Southern Kordofan will be scrambling to survive a sustained campaign of aerial bombardment. A report by an aid worker in the Nuba Mountains of Southern Kordofan described a campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' carried out by 'troops, artillery, tanks, and machine gun carriers' as well as Antonov bombers. Since Khartoum has blocked the United Nations, NGOs, and the media from the region, it is impossible to know how many civilians have been killed in recent weeks, though aid workers cited in the New York Times put the number at 'hundreds.' And hundreds more were killed last month in Abyei, another border state. You might think that Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for carrying out genocide in the western region of Darfur, has decided to violently nullify the January referendum in which the people of the south voted overwhelmingly for independence. But that's almost certainly not the case. A recent report by the International Crisis Group speculates that Bashir has launched the onslaught in order to improve his negotiating position on a range of issues between north and south, including the drawing of borders and the division of oil revenues. This is Bashir's idea of statecraft. As Sudan scholar Gérard Prunier once wrote, the regime's 'policy and political philosophy since it came to power in 1989 has kept verging on genocide in its general treatment of the national question in Sudan.' The essential story of Sudan over the last several decades is the story of the regime against the people. This is, of course, a perfectly familiar African story, but what makes Sudan's story distinctive is the way a small, homogenous class of riverine Arabs has used massive and barely controlled violence to maintain control over an immense and vastly diverse country. In Darfur, it has succeeded. In the south, it has failed; and on Saturday's independence day the beleaguered people of the south will explode with euphoria before settling down to face an extremely grim future, for South Sudan will be one of the world's poorest and least-developed countries." (James Traub/ForeignPolicy)

"It was March 2003, and Rebekah Brooks, then the editor of The Sun newspaper, was being interrogated by the House of Commons select committee on culture and the media. The topic: dubious tabloid practices. Asked whether she had ever paid the police for information, Brooks, a supremely confident and striking figure with her shock of wild red hair, looked unabashed and unperturbed. ''We have paid the police for information in the past,'' she declared. She was, in fact, admitting to breaking the law, which was pointed out to her soon afterwards. But she backtracked as fluently as she had come forward, declaring that she could not remember any examples and then proceeding, it seemed, to brush off the whole thing as another cheeky, walking-the-line incident in a career full of them.
Now 43, Rebekah Brooks has used a combination of charm, effrontery, audacity and tenacity to thrive in the brutal, male-dominated world of the British tabloids. She has risen to become chief executive of News International, Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper subsidiary. Her closeness to Murdoch, who is said to regard her as a kind of favourite daughter, has protected her during the recent scandal engulfing the company, even as parliamentarians have called on her to resign." (SMH)

"Until last autumn, (Michelle) Bachelet, 59, was best known as the first female president of Chile. It was just the latest twist in an extraordinary life: a leftwing activist in her youth, Bachelet came from a family that was tortured under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s; she went into exile and studied medicine, eventually returning to Chile and entering national politics, where she held ministerial posts before being elected as president in March 2006 and serving a four-year term in power. Last autumn, six months after stepping down as president, she was appointed undersecretary-general of United Nations Women, a high-profile UN attempt to put 'pink' issues firmly on the global policymaking map. As she sits down, I ask how she has settled in at the UN ... The waiter appears. The restaurant is charming, but basic, with dog-eared menus. Bachelet says she selected it for convenience and I observe that it is also cheap. “Well, I haven’t noticed that,” she admits, surprised. 'But it’s OK. It’s a normal restaurant, it’s nice, the food is good.' After some debate, I order a chopped rocket salad and soft-shelled crab; Bachelet chooses two appetisers: another chopped rocket salad, and steamed mussels. She shuns wine, without a thought. 'Are you on a health kick?' I ask. New York women who want to stay rake-thin usually only order two appetisers. Bachelet sports a middle-aged spread; indeed, elements of the Chilean media nicknamed her 'fatty' when she was president. 'No. I should and I try, but ...' She says she has no idea how New York women stay so slim: 'They drink! I have seen it myself! For me, I wake up very early, but I don’t work out because I’m preparing documents and things like that. Any meeting ... I go walking, but it doesn’t help much.' Her casual approach to ordering, like her indifference to the inexpensive restaurant, is another sign of Bachelet’s apparent lack of interest in the trivial and material."  (Gillian Tett/FT)

"Step into my time-travel machine for a short journey back to the early summer of 1997. Bill Clinton is six months into his second term, Tony Blair has just become prime minister in Britain. Princess Diana is eyeing up an unsuitable lover. Apple is dying without Steve Jobs as CEO. Broadband is something people wear around their heads while playing tennis. All so long ago, a time before time. On June 30 that year, a book was published that blew apart one of the iron rules of publishing. Children's books, a literary agent assured me around this time, when I submitted a proposal, did not sell. Kids had ceased reading, full stop. Only a television tie-in could make chain stores stock a children's book, and even that was unlikely. Twelve London publishers turned down 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' before an independent, Bloomsbury, offered J.K. Rowling's agent, Christopher Little, a paltry advance of £2,500. The original edition appeared on June 30, 1997, in a run of 500 copies, most of which went to public libraries. That's how few children were expected to read. Sales were sluggish until two awards—one from a confectionery brand, the other an industry award as Children's Book of the Year—put 'Harry Potter' into reprint. An American publisher, Scholastic, pitched in with $105,000—a record advance for a children's book—and amended the title to 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' when it brought it out in August 1998, by which time a second volume was out in the U.K. It is difficult to date exactly when, in the following months, Harry Potter went 'viral.' My family experience traces the phenomenon to the school library. Our youngest daughter brought home a copy around year four, when she was 9. Her elder sisters commandeered it and insisted that the parents read as well. What Ms. Rowling achieved—long before Warner Bros. adapted her work into films, the last of which will be released next week—was a children-led read-in that crossed all age barriers, uniting families in a primal fireside act of sharing an unfolding story, page by page." (WSJ)

SchadenMurdoch

Schadenfreude is best savored when its intended victim falls from Alpine heights. And Rupert Murdoch, #4 on the Vanity Fair 100, comes from the thinnest of atmospheres and appears to be in the slow-motion process of being brought low. It is hugely ironic that one of the greatest media companies of the modern era is so completely bungling the PR as this bad operetta plays itself out. It would appear from the outside that Murdoch's media clumsiness, his bad decisions -- protecting Rebekah Brooks, being the most glaring example -- may have something to do with the way he runs his particular court, his imperial style, and not good business or, adjacent to that, good media practices.

There is some virtue to that. Murdoch, like Si Newhouse and any other media mogul worth his weight in postmodern Sun King gold, has his favorites. And to those favorites Murdoch is loyal, for loyalty to one's friends is an aristocratic virtue. Further, corporate culture -- media culture to be precise in this particular case-- resembles nothing if not aristocratic forms of government. An aristocracy within the American democracy, so to speak. How else does one explain golden parachutes not tied to performance?

But back to Murdoch. It was under Brooks, whose career advanced at bacterial velocity, that the paper became such a toxic mess. Good business and good media would have been to throw Rebekah Brooks to the wolves. NewsCorp is, after all a public company as well as a family organization. Brooks certainly deserved it. And so might James Murdoch, his son. One can easily conjure up a scenario in which someone like a Ted Tuner would have cut professional though not personal ties, smiling, with a "nothing personal" playing upon his thin media mogul lips (he actually did something like this to his own son). And, of course, it wouldn't be personal. They could fight it in the courts together, but a public business is not a personal family feifdom.

There is, of course, a lot of damning to go around. These things tend to happen when 168-year old media institutions evaporate and 500 people are forced to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. What News of the World did, particularly with the family of the missing little girl, showed more than just a lack of journalistic ethics -- it was sociopathic, devoid of any sense of decency. Simon Dumenco is particularly damning in AdAge:

More than nine months ago, I predicted that News Corp.'s News of the World phone-hacking scandal would only escalate and could amount to "The End of Rupert Murdoch." I suggested that while News Corp. was likely big enough to be able to absorb the spiraling legal costs associated with the scandal without materially affecting its bottom line (the company gets most of its revenue from its non-newspaper operations, including 20th Century Fox), the real cost would be highly personal: The world's most powerful and feared media mogul would be going down.

Remember, the years-old phone-hacking scandal only really heated up last fall -- and is only coming to a boil now -- because Murdoch's archnemesis, The New York Times, rekindled interest in it with a major investigative feature in its Sunday magazine ... I also pointed out Murdoch's age (then 79, now 80) and the reality of actuarial tables (the average Australian man lives 79.33 years).

Ouch. But Dumenco does seem to have a point. It's not so much the crime now, but the cover-up, the falling upwards under protective corporate cover of people that really ought not to be protected. What gives it more pathos is that the workers -- the journos that until Sunday worked at the paper -- by and large had nothing to do with the previous regimes's excesses and they are getting fired anyway. That, dear reader, is a sure formula for SchadenMurdoch. The difference between the lofty heights of Murdoch and his court and the lot of the newly unemployed as well as the phone hacking victims is how I define ScahdenMurdoch.

This story does not appear to be going away, and is now ensorcelling all the players in High British Politics ("We've all been in this together" PM Cameron) and, because of the highly political nature of NewsCorp's content -- at least on the cable and print side -- one can imagine that the story will remain a profoundly partisan issue for the foreseeable future. Already anti-Murdochian stories dominate HuffPo's Media section. One can already hear the "media elites" counterspin on the right.

Let the long, hot media summer begin.

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"In 2006, New York-based freelance photographer Tim McKulka took a job with the U.N. Mission in Sudan based in the southern capital of Juba. 'At the time, I had only read about Sudan from a distance, and knew some vague things about it,' he says. 'I certainly wasn't an analyst by any stretch.' Once there, McKulka discovered that his U.N. affiliation gave him a unique freedom of movement in a country whose government is often chary about foreign journalists. After a few years he had amassed a formidable archive of images, and started thinking about what use they might serve to Africa's largest country at a moment when it was coming apart at the seams. The result is We'll Make Our Homes Here: Sudan at the Referendum, a U.N.-published book that joins McKulka's photographs with reflections on Sudanese identity from 17 Sudanese writers, spanning everything from political analysis and journalism to fiction and poetry. (The book is being published in a limited print run by the U.N. Mission in Sudan, and will soon be available in digital form as a free iPad app.) 'I had originally envisioned it as a kind of peace-building tool, to foster dialogue to let people hear other perspectives, or at least have them out there,' McKulka says. We'll Make Our Homes Here is the first book to include photography from all 25 Sudanese states -- and, thanks to South Sudan's decision in January to secede on July 9, also the last." (ForeignPolicy)

"America’s public sector has not produced many pleasant financial surprises this year. This week, however, one emerged: John Liu, New York City Comptroller, announced that in the year to June 30, the City’s pension fund produced returns of more than 20 per cent, raising total assets to $119bn.
Admittedly, that level is only slightly higher than in June 2008, or just before the financial crunch. But it does, at least, mean that the losses of 2008 and 2009 have been erased. Better still, Mr Liu is not the only comptroller with good news to share: this year a host of other public pension funds, like their corporate counterparts, have also produced large gains, as rising stock and bond prices have boosted asset values. So far, so welcome. But before any politician – or pensioner – gets too excited, it is timely to ask some hard questions about how these state pension pots are managed. For, there is a paradox hanging over America’s vast state pension sector. On paper, it would seem as if these giant funds should be bedrocks for America’s financial system. They are not only crucial in policy terms, but vast in size: New York State, Texas and California all have pots worth more than $100bn, giving them clout in the stock and bond markets, as well as in the private equity and hedge fund worlds.
But while these funds are vast, the system used to run this money is often antiquated .." (Gillian Tett)

"Harry Smith, who has been with CBS News for 25 years, is leaving the network, we’ve learned. In a note to the staff, obtained by TVNewser, CBS News president David Rhodes writes, 'Harry Smith has been a fixture here at CBS News for a generation — he joined us in Dallas in 1986 — but today he’s decided to move on.'Late last year, Smith was part of a shuffling of anchors at 'The Early Show.' The team of Smith, Maggie Rodriguez and Dave Price was moved out, as Erica Hill, Chris Wragge, Marysol Castro and Jeff Glor took over. We hear Smith is headed to NBC News where he’ll be a part of the new primetime news magazine show anchored by Brian Williams." (TVNewser)

"Even before Michael Rapaport's documentary 'Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest' was officially released, the film had kicked up controversy in the hip-hop world. Q-Tip refused to attend the Sundance, Tribeca and Los Angeles film festival screenings of the movie, claiming Rapaport had not gotten sign-off from him and the other band members. Now Tip and the rest of the band are urging fans to see the film. And that's not surprising: Rapaport's film is as close to a Tribe Called Quest love letter as you can get. 'Beats, Rhymes &Life' captures the essence of the seminal group formed in 1985 in Queens by Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White and is a moving, fun portrait of what the band looks like today. WNYC's Abbie Fentress Swanson spoke to the Upper East Side actor-turned filmmaker about hip-hop, sampling and the drama around the movie, which opens in theaters on Friday. Abbie Fentress Swanson: First, what’s your favorite Tribe song? Michael Rapaport: It’s hard to pick one Tribe song that is my favorite. I'd say “ Lyrics to Go.” I love that song -- I love the Minnie Riperton sample. AFS: When I saw your film at Tribeca, a lot of people were dancing in their seats. But how do you think your film will be received by people who aren't fans of A Tribe Called Quest? MR: Well, the music is easy. Tribe did all the hard work ... So I’m just sort of putting that out there. I think for the non-Tribe fans, aside from the music, I think that the emotional core of the film, and the humor, which was a big surprise to me, of the film, would be something that can appeal to film fans. The humor was the biggest surprise for me ... There are scenes that are like funny scenes. AFS: Which ones? MR: Well, Phife is funny a lot ... Q-Tip is really funny, too .." (WNYC)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"James Murdoch made a symbolic sacrifice when he announced the closure of the News of the World, the News Corp. Sunday tabloid that has been publishing for 168 years and is among the world’s largest newspapers. Just last week the company said it was going to combine elements of the News of the World and its sister tabloid, the Sun, which is published on weekdays. Shutting down the Sunday paper is a good way to create the appearance that the company is taking phone-hacking seriously, without really putting anything at the top of the company at risk. Murdoch bought time for Rebekah Brooks, the C.E.O. of News Corp.’s U.K. newspaper group, and maybe even for News Corp.’s deal for BSkyB. Rupert Murdoch's proposed acquisition of 100 percent of huge satellite operator BSkyB, in which News Corp. already holds a stake, has been waiting for nearly a year to get approval from regulators. The phone-hacking scandal has dogged the proposed takeover, as U.K. politicians and News Corp. rivals have argued that Murdoch should not be able to amass more power in Britain while the criminal investigations are ongoing. A decision was expected this week, but given new phone-hacking revelations earlier this week, Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, is reportedly expected to delay until September his final decision to approve the deal. But James Murdoch obliterated the newspaper that gave his father his start as the scourge of the British upper classes. As with all things News Corp., there are a lot of 'daddy issues' at play." (VanityFair)

"Republicans have loudly proclaimed they won’t budge on even minor tax increases, citing fears they’d hurt the economic recovery. But some are more worried about being targeted for defeat by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and have been searching for semantic detours around his no-new-taxes pledge, which many of them signed. And while Obama’s party has spent months accusing the GOP of trying to gut Medicare, a Democratic congressman offered a plan behind closed doors to slice $480 billion from federal health programs—if Republicans would swallow some tax hikes in the process.

Politicians have always postured in public and played poker in private, but as both sides dithered over the debt ceiling, even grizzled veterans grew disgusted. 'My side’s just as guilty. I think we’re going to have a crisis because politics is going to trump the good of the country,' says Republican Sen. Tom Coburn. 'It doesn’t sound like there are any real adults any more, including in the White House.'

This time may be different as Americans, beaten down by a painful recession, are hungering for leaders who can rise above the media frenzies about financial Armageddon and get them on a common-sense road to recovery. Even as each party stubbornly stuck to its talking points, strong signs of compromise emerged this week -- raising hopes for a $2 trillion-to-$4 trillion deficit-cutting package that would spread the pain around. Much work still needs to be done, and the cautiously good feelings that emerged from a bargaining session Thursday at the White House could dissipate anew into partisan bickering. The next big moment comes Sunday when the two sides return to the bargaining table, hoping to settle on an exact size of spending cuts. Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich once managed to close down the government back in the mid-1990s, but they eventually suspended their sniping and passed a balanced budget. But that was in an era before Web warfare." (Howie Kurtz)

"New couple Cheryl Hines and Bobby Kennedy Jr. stayed close all night during the screening of the season premiere of HBO's 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' at Time Warner Center and later at dinner at Porter House on the building's fourth floor. The two -- who insist they're  'friends' -- celebrated with series star Larry David, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, cable TV vet Henry Schleiff, Regis and Joy Philbin, Ana Gasteyer, Ari Emanuel, Kenneth Cole and HBO co-president Richard Plepler. The hit comedy's eighth season premieres on Sunday." (PageSix)

"James Murdoch’s decision to close the News of the World is seen here as the biggest gesture News Corp can make to try and save its takeover of BSkyB. Jeremy Hunt, the UK culture secretary in charge of approving the BSkyB deal, has saved face by announcing that any decision over the deal will be delayed until the fall. Hunt was due to finally approve the deal tomorrow. Owning BSkyB outright would mean News Corp getting its hands on its swelling £5.7 billion ($9 billion) revenues. It would also cement Rupert Murdoch’s position as the most powerful media magnate in Britain.
The decision to close the News of the World tabloid at the center of the deepening phone-hacking scandal has stunned media over here. One insider at News International -- Murdoch’s newspaper arm -- has told the BBC that 'Rupert Murdoch is losing his judgement' in deciding to close the paper rather than fire CEO Rebekah Brooks, who was editing the News of the World at the time of the alleged phone hacking of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler and the families of the London bombing victims. Questions are being asked as to why around 200 journalists on the News of the World should lose their jobs when those at the top of News International such as Brooks or indeed James Murdoch himself are still in place after self-admitted management failure." (Deadline)

"Nat Rothschild, the banking dynasty scion who's been linked to Natalie Portman, is throwing himself a lavish 40th birthday bash this weekend for 400 guests in sumptuous locations overlooking the Adriatic in Montenegro. Blackstone billionaire Steve Schwarzman, Princess Firyal of Jordan, Jimmy Choo's Tamara Mellon and billionaire Nicolas Berggruen are on the guest list, sources said. Rothschild has been friends with the son of Libya's Moammar Khadafy, Saif al-Islam, who had his own Montenegro birthday at the Splendid Hotel in 2009, and with Britain's Prince Andrew, but it's unclear whether either will be there this weekend. Guests will stay at the Splendid as well as the Aman Sveti Stefan resort. The festivities began yesterday with an arrival dinner. The rowdier-sounding 'Nat's Disco Soiree' is tonight at the Lido Mar Pool in Porto Montenegro, with a 'disco chic' dress code, followed by brunch tomorrow and then a nighttime marina party." (PageSix)

"They were all there ... British Royalty, Hollywood A-Listers, legendary athletes, beauty queens, NYC socialites and top business executives. They all came together to support the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award and Young Americans’ Challenge at the Pierre Hotel ... The event benefited the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award and Young Americans’ Challenge, an award program started by HRH Prince Philip in 1956. Since its introduction, the self- development initiative has been implemented in more than 130 countries. Seven million young people have taken the Award Challenge. The Award is dedicated to the personal development of people aged 14-25 from all backgrounds ... Sam Haskell, President of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Young Americans’ Challenge introduced HRH The Prince Edward to speak. When His Royal Highness’s microphone abruptly cut out, he joked, 'You can’t get rid of me that quickly!' creating a roar of laughter amongst guests. BILLY ELLIOT performers Jacob Clemente and Liz Pearce wowed the crowd with numbers Electricity and Shine from the Tony Award winning Broadway musical. Guests included Kirstie Alley, Ed Westwick, Lucie Arnaz, Laurence Luckinbill, Rob Gilbert, Marilu Henner, Miss America 2011 Teresa Scanlan, Bruce Levingston and Stephen Baer. After spending much of the evening at an event with President Obama and stuck in a frozen zone, Whoopi Goldberg made her way across town for friendly hellos and photographs with some lucky guests." (NYSocialDiary)

Where to Follow the Closing of the News of the World

This is a fast evolving story. No way I'm going to get all of it. Here are some places/voices covering the closing of the NOTW, a 168 year old institution that had gone to seed of late regarding journalistic practices. For the first time in a long time we are seeing vulnerability in Murdoch land.

Old Media

The Guardian (live coverage)

The Beeb
Sky News Break

New Media
Mediagazer

Hashtags

The #NOTW hashtag on Twitter (for Twittersphere atmospherics)

#Hackgate
Journos on Twitter

Paula Froelich
Rob George

John Koblin

Brian Stelter
Rafat Ali
Jemima Kiss

Alex Barnett
Some  Impromptu Anti NOTW Hacking Activists on Twitter:

Jemima Khan
ProfanitySwan

Erotic Puffin

The Great Gonzo

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Another carcass has been found. On the Kuku Group Ranch, one of the sectors allotted to the once nomadic Maasai that surround Amboseli National Park, in southern Kenya. Amboseli is home to some 1,200 elephants who regularly wander into the group ranches, these being part of their original, natural habitat. More than 7,000 Maasai live in scattered fenced-in compounds called bomas with their extended families and their cattle on Kuku’s 280,000 acres. Traditionally, the Maasai coexisted with their wildlife. They rarely killed elephants, because they revered them and regarded them as almost human, as having souls like us. Neighboring tribespeople believe that elephants were once people who were turned into animals because of their vanity and given beautiful, flashy white tusks, which condemned them, in the strangely truthful logic of myth, to be forever hunted and killed in the name of human vanity. And Maasai believe when a young woman is getting married and her groom comes to get her from her village she musn’t look back or she will become an elephant. 'But in the last few years, everything has changed,' a member of the tribe told me. 'The need for money has changed the hearts of the Maasai.' In 2008, post-election ethnic violence followed by the global recession halved tourism to Kenya, making the wildlife in the parks even harder to protect. Then, in 2009, one of the worst droughts in living memory hit much of the country. More than 400 elephants in Amboseli died. The Maasai lost many of their cows and are still struggling, while the price of ivory is higher than ever, so increasing numbers of them are risking the misfortune that killing an elephant could bring on their families, according to their traditional thinking, and are getting into poaching. There are brokers just across the Tanzania border who are paying cash—around $20 a pound—for raw ivory and selling it to the Chinese." (VanityFair)

"Before hopping a plane to Sudan tonight, the Christian leader and son of iconic Evangelical Billy Graham talked to Foreign Policy about his work in the African nation, why the American Evangelical community is so passionate about it, and what he plans to tell President Omar al-Bashir when he meets with him ... FP: It is one of the foreign policy issues that has really resonated with the Evangelical community. How come? Graham: I don't think it's just Evangelicals. I think it was Christians in Europe and around the world that saw where Islam was trying to annihilate the Christians in the south. It was Arab against black, for the most part. But I try to make friends on both sides. Our hospital in Lui [in South Sudan]was bombed on seven separate occasions by the government in the north. I finally went to see President Bashir and I asked him personally if he would stop bombing our hospital. And he did. I since have had a number of meetings with him. And these meetings have always been productive. I found Bashir to be somebody you could speak with, could negotiate with. You know, he signed the comprehensive peace agreement. He's a key player to the peace program. I find that you have to talk to both sides if you want to have peace. FP: You plan on meeting with him again this trip. He's a leader who has been indicted on war crimes by the International Criminal Court. What do you plan on saying to him? Graham: History can remember him as a criminal or they can remember him as a man who tried to repair the damage that was done by maintaining peace. There's fighting right now. Some of the churches we rebuilt have already been burned. He can uphold the peace agreement. He can be known as a man of peace in history. I don't think it's too late for Bashir. But time is running out." (ForeignPolicy)

"It was March 2003, and Rebekah Wade, then the editor of The Sun newspaper, was being interrogated by the House of Commons select committee on culture and the media. The topic: dubious tabloid practices. Asked whether she had ever paid the police for information, Ms. Wade, a supremely confident and striking figure with her shock of wild red hair, looked unabashed and unperturbed. 'We have paid the police for information in the past,' she declared.  She was, in fact, admitting to breaking the law, which was pointed out to her soon afterward. But Ms. Wade backtracked as fluently as she had come forward, declaring that she could not remember any examples and then proceeding, it seemed, to brush off the whole thing as another cheeky, walking-the-line incident in a career full of them.  Now 43 and known by her new married name of Rebekah Brooks, she has used a winning combination of charm, effrontery, audacity and tenacity to thrive in the brutal, male-dominated world of the British tabloids. She has risen to become chief executive of News International, Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper subsidiary.  Her closeness to Mr. Murdoch, who is said to regard her as a kind of favorite daughter (although he has four actual daughters), has protected her during the recent scandal engulfing the company, even as parliamentarians called on her to resign. The long-running saga reached new heights this week when British news reports revealed that the phone of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl murdered in 2002, was hacked by The News of the World after she went missing but before her body was found, hampering the police investigation and adding to the distress of her parents. Ms. Brooks was editor of The News of the World at the time; she has condemned the hacking and said she knew nothing about it. She declined a request to be interviewed for this article." (NYTimes)     

"Billionaire high-stakes poker fan Andrew Beal 'lost up to $50 million' in recent months in a series of games where players put up a $1 million buy-in, a source tells us. The Texas-based mogul, who made his fortune in banking and real estate, suffered a series of huge losses in at least three games, according to the source, who also said the games involved 'Spider-Man' star Tobey Maguire and billionaire private equity investor Alec Gores. While Beal, the richest man in Dallas worth $6.6 billion, strongly denies losing so much cash, he's famed for his love of high-stakes poker and is said to have once won more in a single day than any other known player -- $11.7 million at the Bellagio in Vegas, in 2004. In 2006, he famously lost $16.6 million in days. A source told Page Six Beal participated in three games this year -- one around the Super Bowl, one four months ago and another a few weeks ago. 'All the players had a $1 million buy-in,' the source said. 'Each time Beal lost big time, with a total loss of around $50 million.' The source said Maguire and some pro players were involved, and the games were legal because the house didn't take a cut. Dad-of-six Beal's quest for the highest-stakes poker match ever is described in the 2005 book 'The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time,' by Michael Craig. It ends when Beal loses $16 million ... Maguire was recently slapped with a lawsuit after being linked to an A-list gambling ring. But he denied any wrongdoing when he collected $300,000 from poker matches that were organized in Beverly Hills by a convicted investment scammer .." (PageSix)

"Down at Swifty’s, where it was sunny and cool, they packed them in at a birthday luncheon that Palm Beach based interior designer Scott Snyder gave for his friend Audrey Gruss. Mrs. Gruss is always one of the best-dressed women in New York, so you can be sure the ladies and the gents attending came looking the part ... There were twenty including the host and his honored guest plus Kitty McKnight, Sharon Handler, Carole Guest, Bennett Liefer, Margo Langenberg, Muffie Miller, Christopher Mason, Ellen Graham, Hunt Slonem, Cornelia Bregman, Dane Bailey, Karen LeFrak, Sharon King Hoge, George Lewis, Victoria Wyman, Richard Zieglasch, Kim Heirston, and Jose Carlinos." (NYSocialDiary)

"For Rupert Murdoch it’s contrition time. In a statement on Wednesday, the media mogul said behavior of staff at his British tabloid, the News of the World, had been “deplorable and unacceptable.” Police could expect full co-operation in their inquiries into the phone-hacking scandal that’s rocked his British operation, News International, and 'important steps' had been taken to ensure that illegal practices were never repeated. A powerful player in British politics for more than 40 years, Murdoch knows that a recognition of wrongdoing is now vital. But the harm is done. One glance at the British press suggests a deepening outrage that apologies won’t satisfy. Among the latest crop of allegations: hackers paid by the News of the World tapped into the phones of the relatives of servicemen killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the families of victims of the 7/7 terrorist bombings in London. (The timing of the revelation is especially unfortunate: Thursday marks the sixth anniversary of the attack). Already, the paper stands accused of intercepting messages left on the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl in 2002. Barely less damaging, it’s now claimed that the News of the World illegally paid police officers for information. Reflecting the national mood, Prime Minister David Cameron denounced the behavior of the News of the World as 'absolutely disgusting' on Wednesday. The fallout will be widespread and unpredictable. According to the Times of London, the Murdoch flagship daily, which ran four pages of coverage of the affair in Thursday’s edition, the arrest of five journalists and newspaper executives was likely 'within days.' That could be just the start. In parliament on Wednesday, Cameron promised a wide-ranging inquiry into media standards once the police investigation were completed." (TheDailyBeast)

"When Mark Zuckerberg really wants to hire you, he takes you on a walk from the company's headquarters through the woods to a scenic overlook of Palo Alto, reports Nick Bilton at the New York Times. Once Zuckerberg reaches the scenic overlook he makes his big pitch. Here's how one person described what happens to Bilton: 'He pointed out Apple’s headquarters, then Hewlett-Packard and a number of other big tech companies ... Then he pointed to Facebook and said that it would eventually be bigger than all of the companies he had just mentioned, and that if I joined the company, I could be apart of it all.' Another person who was courted says he visited Facebook's HQ after getting an email from Zuckerberg. ('I opened my e-mail one morning and there was a message from Mark Zuckerberg. I almost choked on my coffee.') As soon as he arrived they took off on a walk." (Businessinsider via NYT)

"What is there to say about Hemingway that hasn’t already been said or written? He was the first literary pop star before the p-word was invented. He wrote about the beautiful active life, the tranquil exhilaration of fishing, but also about the brutality of big-game hunting, bullfighting, and war. He resolved this dissonance in art by turning writing into marvelous prose. His masculine prose had the effect of the utmost subtlety. It was the hardest way to write because it seemed so easy and natural. Literary types called it non-literary and vulgar—in the beginning. But Papa was following his idol, a certain Mark Twain, who was never one to follow literary conventions. After The Sun Also Rises became a great hit, men started to talk the way he wrote. 'Have a drink' became a watchword. Heroic dissipation turned into a lifestyle for romantic wannabes. Hem was criticized for glorifying and making martyrs of bullfighters—Edmund Wilson, a Papa fan, called it neurotic and drunken—but Papa gave back as good as he got: 'Bull fighting is not a sport. It was never supposed to be. It is a tragedy. A very great tragedy. The tragedy is the death of the bull. It is played in three definite acts.'" (Takimag)

Elliot Spitzer Signs Off at CNN



Former disgraced politicians can't hang?

Former Empire state Governor Elliot Spitzer, host of the lowest rated show on CNN's evening lineup, signed off on his last show quoting another former New York Governor, Teddy Roosevelt. I wonder what effect Spitzer's cancellation will have on Weiner's possible future as a possible cable host?

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Since the first few Julian Assange-saturated months of 2011, the U.S. media have largely moved on to Arab revolutions and other sex scandals. But WikiLeaks has continued releasing embassy cables -- fewer than 16,000 of the more than 250,000 have been published so far. In contrast to its early, now-frayed partnerships with the Guardian and the New York Times, WikiLeaks is now working with local papers in countries like Peru, Haiti, and Ireland to release cables of national interest. Here are a few of the highlights ... Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is already facing a long series of corruption allegations that have prompted street protests and calls for his resignation, and the soft-spoken economist took another hit in March when the Hindu obtained a U.S. Embassy cable from WikiLeaks detailing corruption in its most blatant form. The cable, dated July 17, 2008, describes a meeting between the embassy political counselor and Satish Sharma, a high-ranking Congress Party MP, in the run-up to a parliamentary confidence vote on a U.S.-India nuclear deal, which was expected to be close. Sharma told the embassy official that the Congress Party was working hard to ensure the Parliament's support for the deal and as proof, showed him 'two chests containing cash and said that around Rupees 50-60 crore (about $25 million) was lying around the house for use as pay-offs.' Another Congress official at the meeting mentioned that about $2.5 million had been paid to four MPs to ensure their support for the agreement, considered one of the Bush administration's signature foreign-policy achievements." (ForeignPolicy)

"Hollywood arrived at the annual Allen & Co investment conference in Sun Valley today -- but I don't know why. It'll be a showbiz snorefest. Because only 'A Conversation With Oprah Winfrey' is scheduled and no one is interested unless she comes clean about how much money she's caused Discovery's David Zaslav to piss away. That's a departure from last year when showbiz came back into favor at Camp Allen because of an 'Entertainment Panel' consisting of Barry Diller, Peter Chernin, Jeff Katzenberg, and Bobby Kotick (the CEO/president of Activision Blizzard). The YouTube/Twitter types will participate in 'The New Breed' panel. And Bill Gates interviews Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Otherwise, there's an emphasis on overseas: 'Building A Business In China' confab, 'Mexico Today', 'The Middle East', a sit-down with Jordan's King Abdullah II (who just endorsed a Cabinet reshuffle on Saturday in the wake of scandals and resignations), a confab about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a how-to panel on 'Managing Global Enterprises in Turbulent Times' ...  Gawd, Camp Allen isn't worth covering anymore." (Nikki Finke)

"When affluent families come together to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend, fights invariably break out over long-standing, emotional sensitivities. Relatives who are free to avoid each other for most of the year suddenly square off and spar, hoping to gain an advantage in long-term internecine struggles. What’s unusual about many of these battles is that instead of lining up properly and exchanging direct blows, well-fixed family members often clash by proxy—staging high-stakes competitions between members of their respective staffs. On such special occasions, when all branches of the family congregate at the patriarch’s (or matriarch’s) summer compound, it is customary for individuals to travel with their own service attendants—private chefs, nannies, and housekeepers—and, on the contested playing field of the elder’s estate, to attempt to obtain the upper hand by showcasing the superior domestic skills of their help. The hope is that these hostile progeny will weaken rivals while increasing their own comparative appeal in the eyes of the family’s principal asset holder. Private chefs are directed to upstage their colleagues in the kitchen. Nannies must do their absolute, high-profile best at rearing young children, without making any conspicuous mistakes. In dynastic situations, where everyone wants to be in good favor with the king, having your chef pull through with just the right recipe for a family meal can be a game changer. It’s considered an honor in such clans to have the patriarch or matriarch recognize the talents of one extraordinary employee, for example, by publicly choosing one nanny over the rest to assist in an outing that features grandchildren. Such honors can have real consequences in the petty feuds that persist among the well-positioned offspring." (Jamie Johnson)

"President Barack Obama swept into office as the anti-Bill Clinton, even saying at one point that he wasn’t sent to Washington to 'do school uniforms' — political shorthand for the former president’s downsized ambitions against a Republican Congress. But confronted with similar limitations, Obama is looking a little more like Clinton in the second half of his first term, pushing modest jobs proposals and a diet of bite-size policy talkers: a new fatherhood pledge, graphic tobacco warnings, updated sunscreen requirements, an anti-bullying summit and entertainment discounts for fathers to spend more time with their kids. The slimmed-down agenda is the consequence of a resistant Congress and no money to spend, but it also aims to address a political problem for the president headed into a tough reelection fight. Just like Clinton, Obama is attempting to show voters that, at a time of Washington gridlock, he can still work to solve people’s problems, no matter how small they may be ... Obama’s embrace of the softer powers of the presidency — most conspicuously, the bullying summit in March — has been 'a source of some amusement' to former Clinton aides who cringed at the mocking of their boss’s legacy, one Clinton veteran said ... Beyond that, the White House isn’t going big anymore. Immigration, education, climate change and clean energy bills remain on the wish list, but Obama has devoted equal time to promoting piecemeal economic ideas that don’t require congressional approval. Aides say the more modest approach is part of a natural evolution for any presidency." (Politico)

"Those who stayed in Washington during the long holiday weekend have a secret: it was a great place to be away from it all. Apart from the hordes massed on the Mall for the annual July 4th celebration and fireworks, everywhere else was quiet. Believe it or not it’s possible to live in Washington and ignore Congress and the White House – that is unless it’s your livelihood. Otherwise summer can be a sweet time to disengage from the 'official' city. The politics of the budget notwithstanding, there’s a lot less going on... A few days earlier we were also on Maine Avenue, but this time on the water, aboard “Sea Loafers,” the handsome 112-foot motor yacht owned by Jeff Pfeifle. Jeff and Adam Mahr hosted a party for their Washington friends as the boat made its way from its winter home in Florida to Sag Harbor, where it will spend the summer, serving, as usual, as Jeff’s home away from home when he’s not in Manhattan." (WashingtonSocialDiary)




"In its first season, 'Breaking Bad' seemed like the story of the nuttiest midlife crisis ever, told with elements that felt vaguely familiar. The structure — felonious dad copes with stress of work and family; complications ensue — owed an obvious debt to 'The Sopranos,' and the collision of regular people and colorfully violent thugs nodded to Tarantino. The story and setting were an update of the spaghetti Western, minus the cowboys and set in the present. But it was soon clear that 'Breaking Bad' was something much more satisfying and complex: a revolutionary take on the serial drama. What sets the show apart from its small-screen peers is a subtle metaphysical layer all its own. As Walter inches toward damnation, Gilligan and his writers have posed some large questions about good and evil, questions with implications for every kind of malefactor you can imagine, from Ponzi schemers to terrorists. Questions like: Do we live in a world where terrible people go unpunished for their misdeeds? Or do the wicked ultimately suffer for their sins?" (NYTimes)

"Tina and Sir Harry, Ken and Binky, Nan and Gay — the long-standing Old Guard of media couples are well known. But who else is at the top of the love-in-journalism field? We’ve compiled a primer. And what of the next generation of ink-stained hot-and-heavies? We’ve also included the next generation of media power couples. (Be prepared to feel old, underachieving and poorly dressed.) As we all know, love in the media world is a many-splendored, competitive and often transient thing: we can only vouch for these relationships at the time of publication. Is there anyone we left sitting on the bench?" (Observer)
 

"Peru's 2011 election, in which leftist former army officer and one-time coup leader Ollanta Humala defeated Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the country's jailed former president, may be the first time WikiLeaks revelations have had a major role in determining the outcome of an election. The newspaper El Comercio obtained access to the cables and published reports throughout the election with new revelations about Keiko who had been leading in the polls up until election day. In one 2006 cable, U.S. officials recounted a meeting with Keiko and several other prominent Fujimoristas in which they suggest they might cut political deals with the government in order to end the 'persecution' of Alberto, then imprisoned in neighboring Chile. For those wary of the Fujimoris, the cable reinforced the perception that Keiko was running simply to restore the political reputation of her family .." (ForeignPolicy)

"Prince William has a plastic surgeon reserved for his upcoming visit to Southern California — but, no, he’s not getting any work done. Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Toby Mayer will be on standby at the charity polo match Prince William will participate in Saturday afternoon at the Santa Barbara Polo Club. Mayer’s job? Making sure that if the Duke gets hurt he’s quickly taken care of. Mayer, a polo player himself, said he was pleased that Buckingham Palace had asked him to help. 'I’m very happy,' he said. 'But I’ve been doing this for 30-some years, so I’ve sewn up the great and the near-great.' Should an injury happen, Mayer said, it would most likely be a laceration — a stray ball or mallet can often swipe a player in the face. Though broken bones and concussions are par for the course at polo matches, Mayer said he doesn’t anticipate this happening at a charity event with royalty present. 'With the prince around, I think most people will be on their best behavior,' Mayer said. It’s not common to have a plastic surgeon on site during polo matches, but Mayer said he helps evaluate injuries and can treat some — stitching up wounds or setting broken noses, for example — in locker rooms, often saving players a trip to the hospital and the team from forfeiting a match." (Los Angeles Times)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"A friendly wager -- the Kremlin Contest: Among friends, I'm regarded as a bit of an outsider for my call on next year's Russian presidential elections -- a forecast hereand elaboration herethat strongman Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will opt not to return to the slot he held for eight years, and instead will select his friend, President Dmitry Medvedev, to run again next March. Over at the Washington Post, my former colleague Fred Hiatt is upset with the Kremlin's approach to electoral politics, but that's beside the point. The prevailing opinion is that Putin will return to the Kremlin, but I bet a glass of Rioja on Medvedev with the husband of a senior FP editor who sides with the conventional wisdom (she herself declined to reply to the challenge). None of this sways my colleagues. The other day, one fellow in the office called my prediction 'implausible.' So I am throwing out a public wager -- an election pool of a sort. Here are the rules: The winner must correctly name who is Russia's next president and prime minister, plus the date when Putin makes the announcement." (ForeignPolicy)

"'I hate litigation,' Sumner Redstone once told a gathering of his fellow moguls. 'I’m a lover, not a fighter.'  Had Redstone, Viacom founder and Harvard-trained lawyer, uttered that under oath, he’d have risked a perjury charge. Just four months earlier, Viacom had sued Google for $1 billion. The search giant's YouTube portal was allegedly trafficking in stolen, popular content from the media giant's cable channels, including Comedy Central and MTV. And with fresh lawsuits this year against Time Warner Cable and Cablevision over streaming rights on iPad -- plus the four-year-old Google case -- Viacom is showcasing its flair for the art of legal pugilism. These days, CEO Phillippe Dauman, who began his climb at Viacom as Redstone's young outside corporate attorney, is directing the legal fire. But Viacom's litigious nature traces straight to Redstone, its 88-year-old executive chairman and founder, who once worked at the U.S. Department of Justice. He hasn't spared his family either. For decades, as chronicled here, Redstone has hung soiled family laundry in lawsuits. Now corporate lawsuits are filling a lull in the family warfare." (TheWrap)

"This past weekend I finished David McCullough’s 'A Greater Journey' about the first American 'tourists' who went to Paris in the 1820s and thereafter throughout that century.  Mr. McCullough takes us on this voyage but also reminds us of who we were and where we came from. It’s entirely enthralling. I am not one who has always had a romantic notion of Paris as a place, a city, a cultural phenomenon. I see now that it’s only because I never had the notion, that it was a road not taken for me. I got it, however, while reading this book. By the end of the book, as we approach the 20th century and America has developed into this gigantic marvel of innovation and invention and creative energy, Paris remains the majestic conning tower for some of our greatest writers, thinkers and artists." (NYSocialDiary)

"The face of the woman likely to become Thailand's first female prime minister has been staring out for weeks from thousands of political campaign posters here in the country's capital. On one poster, the 44-year-old Yingluck Shinawatra is dressed in a sober black and white suit, dark locks cascading over her shoulders; in another, she greets a sea of supporters, hands pressed together in the traditional Thai gesture of greeting. The front-runner in Sunday, July 3's national elections, Yingluck has campaigned masterfully. Since being appointed candidate of the opposition Pheu Thai party in May, she has traveled across the country, donning a hijab in the Muslim south and electrifying audiences in the rural northeast. And she has also amply leveraged her family pedigree to vault herself from relative obscurity to ubiquitous fame. But if her last name helps her to win the vote, she's likely to discover it will also deepen the tensions of her increasingly divided country. Indeed, while Yingluck is a political newcomer, her family surely isn't. She has not attempted to hide the fact that she has succeeded in large part because of her older brother, the fugitive billionaire and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who described her, from his exile in Dubai, as his 'clone.' Thaksin was overthrown in a military coup in 2006 -- allegedly for abusing his office and insulting Thailand's revered king -- but remains overwhelmingly popular in the rural hinterlands, where he is seen as a champion of the poor. Although he faces a two-year jail term for abuse of power, he and his supporters say the charge was politically motivated. 'If you love my brother,' Yingluck has asked her supporters in countless campaign stump speeches, 'will you give his youngest sister a chance?'" (ForeignPolicy)

"She has made a career of modelling show-stopping outfits as a world famous catwalk super star. But you would have thought Naomi Campbell would have toned down her wardrobe for just one day and allowed the bride to take centre stage. After dazzling everyone in a Girogio Armani gown, Charlene, 33, changed into an Armani prive cocktail dress for the official reception and ball. But it seems she was upstaged by Campbell whose white floor-length gown turned heads and put Princess Charlene's slimline evening dress to shame." (DailyMail)

"Which young Hollywood actress has been hooking up with a fellow hot actor? Leaving his apartment one morning, she was horrified to cross paths with another young woman going into his place for a good time. Next! . . . WHICH starlet's team insists that size-6 tags be cut out of her dresses by designers and a size-2 tag sewn in its place to preserve her vanity and prevent a body image-inspired meltdown? . . . WHICH heir to a luxury fashion house has been rounding up a bevy of models to fly to St. Tropez aboard his private jet?" (PageSix)

"It’s an old adage of addiction that you have to hit bottom before you can start to recover. But who knew the same principle applied to people with a fashion problem? Well, it seems Princess Beatrice does now. The redheaded granddaughter of the queen (mom is Sarah Ferguson, pop is Prince Andrew) was widely ridiculed for wearing a Philip Treacy fascinator that resembled an overly complex pretzel to the royal wedding, but it seems the incident has sharpened her fashion sense and led her to hire one of the U.K.’s top stylists. The 'hat thing,' as Beatrice apparently now refers to the incident among friends, wasn’t totally her fault. Treacy must bear some of the blame for creating the item that was placed upon the minor royal’s head in the first place, for the truth is, that hat wouldn’t have looked good on anyone. (For evidence, click here.) But such was Beatrice’s mortification at the global headline lashing she received as a result of her ill-advised foray into excessively dramatic millinery that she has now hired a stylist—the £1,500-a-day former fashion editor of British society glossy Tatler, Charlie Anderson—to help her improve her dress sense. Recovery, of course, is generally considered impossible without a little humility, and it seems Beatrice’s wedding-day disaster was the trigger that finally forced her to ask for help. But the day of reckoning has been a long time coming." (Tom Sykes)

Happy 4th! Be Back Tesday July 5


Royal Firewroks from Zephyr Mann on Vimeo.


The forth of July -- the height of Summer in all its fecund glory -- and New Year's are my two favorite Holidays. Enjoy. I'll be back on Tuesday