Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Europe is a generalization. As recent events have demonstrated yet again, sharing a continent with someone doesn't necessarily make you their countryman … or even capable of cooperating with them when it is in your mutual self-interest. Yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, when we talk about the crisis in Europe, we talk about it as if it were a Europe-wide crisis. Worse, recently, political opportunists on the right have begun to argue that the problems in Greece, Italy, and Spain are an indictment of Europe as a whole and of 'European' ideas like the welfare state. But of course, the economic mess in which the Greeks, the Italians and others find themselves has nothing to do with their being European. It has to do with them being financially irresponsible. It has to do with them being baited into reckless practices by bankers with whom they were too cozy … and who themselves were so eager to lend that they suspended sensible risk assessment practices. Admittedly, the problems within these states have pan-European consequences and they have revealed serious shortcomings both within European Union institutions and among EU leaders. But it would not only be misleading to lump all the countries of Europe into one basket in terms of the issues that have been raised, it would also obscure the fact that within Europe itself exist superb examples of what these floundering countries might aspire to. (And the contrast between the success stories and the failures needs to be understood to begin to grapple with the real problems of economic and political integration that have not been sufficiently addressed to date in the context of the European Union.) What's more, Europe's success stories not only quash absurd assertions that having a state with a strong social safety net is the problem, they offer examples that might be well followed outside Europe; say, in the United States, home to another broken, corrupted version of capitalism." (David Rothkopf)

"On Wednesday night we witnessed a political suicide live on national television. Rick Perry is now the official Charlie Brown of presidential candidates. He reminds me of the kid who got held back in high school. Even though he’s been there longer than the rest of the class (or governor for 10 years), he still doesn’t know the answers. It’s one thing to not be able to tick off all of Mitt Romney’s 59-point economic plan. Or even a 10-point plan. But when you can’t get past two in a three-point plan, you’re done. Disqualified. Perry is now a dead man walking. He’ll go through the motions to save face, but he won’t get a single new voter. And he will quickly lose the ones he had. Once they’re laughing at you, you’re finished. Perry supporters Wednesday night were running out in the dark and pulling out yard signs." (Mark McKinnon/TheDailyBeast)

"Last night was a social marathon. Over on 77th and Central Park West they celebrated the re-opening of the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library. There was a Statue dedication at 5:30, followed by an Exhibition Preview of the museum's new show 'Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn,' and the premiere screening of 'New York Story,' a film experience narrated by Liev Schreiber. Hosts for the evening (with a big crowd) were Diana and Joseph DiMenna, Simone and David Levinson, Jacqueline Sackler, Rory Tahari. If you happened to have been watching over the last few years, the N-YHS has been going through a re-birth led by several individuals starting with Richard Gilder, Roger Hertog who is the chairman of the museum, Louise Mirrer, President and CEO and Pam Schafler who is Vice-Chair. The theme of the evening was 'This Is What A Revolution Looks Like.' ... Also on the calendar. Love Heals celebrated its 20th Anniversary at the Four Seasons restaurant. They honored Julianna Margulies, Cristina Greevan Cuomo, and Michael Lorber ... Then there were the book parties which are hosting with increasing frequency as well as much frequented by a wide variety of New Yorkers who like getting out and about. Solomon Asser, Ian Graham, Cathy Franklin, Raphael de Niro hosted a book launch for Ellen Graham and her new book Talking Pictures at Mr. Asser's newly renovated townhouse on the Upper East Side." (NYSocialDiary)

"Between 1971 and 1984, (Daniel) Kahneman and (Amos) Tversky had published a series of quirky papers exploring the ways human judgment may be distorted when we are making decisions in conditions of uncertainty. When we are trying to guess which 18-year-old baseball prospect would become a big-league all-star, for example. To a reader who is neither psychologist nor economist (i.e., me), these papers are not easy going, though I am told that compared with other academic papers in their field they are high literature. Still, they are not so much written as constructed, block by block. The moment the psychologists uncover some new kink in the human mind, they bestow a strange and forbidding name on it ('the availability heuristic'). In their most cited paper, cryptically titled 'Prospect Theory,' they convinced a lot of people that human beings are best understood as being risk-averse when making a decision that offers hope of a gain but risk-seeking when making a decision that will lead to a certain loss. In a stroke they provided a framework to understand all sorts of human behavior that economists, athletic coaches, and other 'experts' have trouble explaining: why people who play the lottery also buy insurance; why people are less likely to sell their houses and their stock portfolios in falling markets; why, most sensationally, professional golfers become better putters when they’re trying to save par (avoid losing a stroke) than when they’re trying to make a birdie (and gain a stroke). When you wander into the work of Kahneman and Tversky far enough, you come to find their fingerprints in places you never imagined even existed. It’s alive in the work of the psychologist Philip Tetlock, who famously studied the predictions of putative political experts and found they were less accurate than predictions made by simple algorithms. It’s present in the writing of Atul Gawande (Better, The Checklist Manifesto), who has shown the dangers of doctors who place too much faith in their intuition. It inspired the work of Terry Odean, a finance professor at U.C. Berkeley, who examined 10,000 individual brokerage accounts to see if stocks the brokers bought outperformed stocks they sold and found that the reverse was true." (Michael Lewis/Vanity Fair)

"Last night, two of the cities most dapper fellows: fashion designer Thom Browne and man-about-town Euan Rellie hosted the launch of Browne Bag, the designer's collaboration with Dewar's scotch whiskey at Hudson Clearwater in the West Village. DJ Mike Nouveau kept the stylish gents' toes tapping. Guests included Kate Schelter, Pamela Berkovic, Martin Marks, Darrell Hartman, Jackie Astier and Stan Parish." (Papermag)

"A coalition of conservatives is working to organize the disparate groups opposing Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee. While much has been made of Romney’s lack of support among conservative Republicans, the sense of malaise has mostly manifested as a lack of enthusiasm rather than outright opposition. That could all be about to change. The new coalition is seeking to push back against the narrative that Romney is the 'inevitable nominee,' according to spokesman and activist Ali Akbar. The group's website, NotMittRomney.com, launched this week. Akbar said that although the group is open to becoming a political action committee in the future, right now it is focused on becoming an online gathering place for the anti-Romney movement. The 'inevitable' Romney storyline has been growing. The former Massachusetts governor has been at or near the top of the polls since the race began; conservatives have not rallied around a candidate to oppose him; and his nearest competition, businessman Herman Cain, faces allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior." (TheHill)

"Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer will take the reins as producer of the 84th Academy Awards after Brett Ratner dramatically stepped down, it was announced last night. Sources tell Page Six the show under Grazer may now include an ensemble of 'hot' presenters rather than one key host. Grazer was due to meet last night with brass from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, sources said, to discuss new host ideas and to rescue the Feb. 26 live telecast. The move to hire Grazer -- in the wake of Ratner’s and then host Eddie Murphy’s dramatic exits -- came as Imagine Entertainment honcho Grazer touched down in Los Angeles from New York late Tuesday after he’d screened his Clint Eastwood film, 'J. Edgar,' which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is gaining big Oscar buzz. No decision has been made about who will take over the hosting duties,” said a source. 'Brian has some ideas, but he wants to see who the Academy has already spoken to and what they think.' Also, events producer Don Mischer has stayed on to co-produce the show ... Hiring Grazer, who produced the Best Picture-winning 'A Beautiful Mind,' will certainly keep many of the Academy’s more traditional guard happy after its experiment to be hip with Ratner backfired." (PageSix)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Not many people survive the kind of beating Oleg Kashin got a year ago. Around midnight, on Nov. 6, 2010, two men holding a bouquet of flowers met him outside his home in the center of Moscow. Fifty-six whacks with a crowbar savaged his left hand, broke his leg, cracked his skull at the temple, and shattered both his upper and lower jaw bones. Almost exactly three years earlier, Yuri Chervochkin, an activist in the radical National Bolshevik Party, had been attacked in a small town not far from Moscow. His assailants got him with a baseball bat, and their first blow was enough: He choked on his own vomit and slipped into a coma. His mother spent the critical days after his beating trying to enlist reluctant doctors to help her son. They wouldn't, and he died three weeks later, just shy of his 23rd birthday.  Kashin, who wrote about Chervochkin's death at the time, was luckier. 'I understand that the fact that I didn't die is all luck and good genes, because I had about a dozen chances to die,' he told me, sitting in a cafe a few blocks from the courtyard where he nearly lost his life a year ago. 'I could have easily lost consciousness and laid there for an hour, and that would've been it. Or if I got to the hospital just a little bit later.' But it wasn't just timing that saved him or even the extraordinary fact that Kashin stayed conscious long enough to call the janitor of his building, who sat Kashin on some plywood, shielded him from the rain with a tarp, and kept him awake until the ambulance arrived. It was also the fact that Kashin was not a marginal or radical figure. He was already a famous blogger and a well-known reporter for Russia's biggest daily, Kommersant, which is owned by Alisher Usmanov, a metals magnate with close ties to President Dmitry Medvedev. Usmanov flew a Russian neurosurgeon back from vacation to operate on Kashin. When Kashin was stabilized and in a medically induced coma, he was operated on by four big-name surgeons, simultaneously and for free. Kashin's vast social network -- he was always the most gregarious of the Moscow journalists -- also worked in his favor. Within an hour of the beating, a friend living near Kashin blogged about what happened." (ForeignPolicy)

"Swing voters asserted their independence again on Election Day 2011, repudiating Republican ideological overreach in key votes but denying Democrats clear-cut victories heading into 2012, as the cycle of over-reach and backlash continues. In Mississippi, the anti-abortion 'personhood' amendment to the state constitution was decisively defeated 58 percent to 42 percent, while at the same time Republican gubernatorial nominee Phil Bryant won 59 percent of the vote over Democrat Johnnie Dupree. The two votes are evidence of significant ticket-splitting, even in this bastion of the Bible belt—a recognition that some measures are simply too extreme, and Republicans do not automatically vote in lockstep with the religious right ... For those keeping score at home, the personhood amendment has now been rejected in three consecutive elections—Colorado in 2008 and 2010, and Mississippi in 2011. If it could not succeed in a low-turnout, off-cycle election in one of the most conservative states in the nation, this particular attempt to do an end run around Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose seems to have come to an end, though supporters will no doubt keep trying in other states. In Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich’s collective bargaining reform was decisively defeated by a margin of 63 percent to 36 percent, marking a major victory for union forces in a test of their ability to get out the vote in advance of 2012. The Buckeye State’s public-sector collective-bargaining reform followed the same lines as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial measures. Advocates said they were necessary to rein in long-term costs, while opponents called them ideologically driven union-busting legislation. In the end, there seemed to be broad recognition that the Republicans had overreached with the scope of this legislation, even as specific portions of the bill ..." (John Avalon)

"Beginning with the (Tuesday) lunch at Michael’s madhouse du jour. Jampacked with conversation, (surely not without controversy here and there). At Table One in the bay (I got this from a little birdie Tweet-Tweet): Bonnie Fuller, Gerry Byrne, Nicole Miller, Aly Racer, Ashleigh Banfield, Noreen Dodge, Dari Marder, Evernolia Gillespie, Maryse Thomas, Diane Clehane, and Heather Thomson (the Yummie Tummie designer of the three panel tanktop -- but you knew that, right?). Here’s a picture of the crew, with Mr. Byrne the first and last man standing. Some people think DPC goes to Michael’s more than any other individual. T’aint so: you’re looking at the champion, Mr. Byrne. And what’s in all those glasses besides the obvious water? Iced tea, except for that single imbiber of the Rose (probably Domaine Ott). " (NYSocialDiary)

"(Brett Ratner) told a magazine interviewer his tale about receiving his first fellatio at age 13 from someone he thought was a woman but turned out to be a transvestite. He turned the hilarious incident into a scene in Rush Hour 3 ... According to the New York Post, he once assigned an assistant to gather the phone numbers of every female extra on his set (a charge he denies). Despite this background, the Academy was dumbfounded Monday when Ratner, at a public Q&A session following a Sunday screening of Tower Heist, responded to a question about rehearsal time on his films with the bon mot 'Rehearsal is for fags' ... As the day drew on, Ratner dug even deeper, appearing on Howard Stern's show to deny he was the pseudonymous, poorly endowed, public-exposé-prone lover described by comedienne Olivia Munn in her memoir, and to make clear that he had sent then-girlfriend Lindsay Lohan to the doctor to take an STD test before he slept with her at a time when the actress 'was really young.' Nonetheless, at the end of the day, the Academy gave Ratner his mulligan after all. Academy president Tom Sherak gave an interview to Deadline announcing that Ratner had been very definitely warned that 'this won't and can't happen again,' while reminding readers that the director 'has many friends who are members of the gay and lesbian community.' The rehearsal comment illuminates two things that the august Academy should, under normal circumstances, be ashamed to associate itself with: (1) that Ratner is a vulgarian frat boy with no respect for the feelings of others, and (2) that he's a lazy filmmaker who has shown himself time and again to be indifferent to many of the basic tasks of storytelling, even as he is manically obsessive about the glitz and volume of his films. The two facts are not necessarily unrelated." (TheDailyBeast)

"On Tuesday, Brett Ratner, the designated co-producer of this year’s Oscars, resigned after he used a gay slur during a Q. & A. session about 'Tower Heist,' his latest blockbuster. One of the stars of that film, Eddie Murphy, is still scheduled to host the event. Perhaps the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences thinks it has inoculated itself against exposure to homophobia, but we’d ask, have they forgotten 'Delirious,' Mr. Murphy’s famously scabrous rant against all things gay? And no, we aren’t posting a clip, thank you. Mr. Ratner, whose coarseness is legendary, seems positively refined by contrast." (David Carr)

"After Brett Ratner’s spectacular self-inflicted demise as Oscarcast producer, the Academy gets down to business finding a replacement to join Don Mischer in picking up the pieces. I’ve heard speculation ranging from Scott Sanders (who was eyed before Ratner got the nod) to previous Oscar producers Joe Roth, Adam Shankman and Laurence Mark. Harvey Weinstein offered an out of the box suggestion last night. Weinstein, who has sat through plenty of Oscarcasts, suggested drafting Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, and getting Tina Fey involved in the writing. The idea is they would make Eddie Murphy comfortable and give the broadcast a strong comic focus." (Nikki Finke)

 

"This past summer, we ran a piece on the greatest writers’ rooms ever, taking a look at some of the most influential groups of comedy writers in TV history. The staffs of classics like Your Show of Shows, Mary Tyler Moore, and SCTV, as well as the writers responsible for The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live’s golden eras, made our original list. In putting the piece together, though, we were reminded of the sheer number of amazing TV comedies that have made it to air since the medium’s inception, each one boasting its own eclectic roster of comedic geniuses. TV history is littered with enough murderers’ rows of comedy writers to fill 10 lists, so why not make just one more? Take the original writing staff behind Late Night with David Letterman, for example." (Splitsider)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"For the past 20 years, the world has been reshaping itself. Since 1991, then, the countries of the world have been feeling out the edges of the new system. The past two decades have been an interregnum of sorts, a period of evolution from the rule of the old to the rule of the new. Four things had to happen before the new era could truly begin. First, the Americans had to learn the difference between extreme power (which they had and still have) and omnipotence (which they do not have). The wars in the Islamic world have more than amply driven this distinction home. Second, Russian power needed to rebound from its post-Soviet low to something more representative of Russia’s strength. That occurred in August 2008 with the Russo-Georgian war, which re-established Moscow as the core of the broader region. Third, China — which has linked its economic, political and military future to a global system it does not control — had to face a readjustment. This has yet to happen, but likely will be triggered by the fourth event: Europe’s institutions — which were created to function under the rules of the previous epoch — must be rationalized with a world in which the Americans no longer are suppressing European nationalism. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the 2008 financial crisis initiated the last two events. The first result of the financial crisis was the deep penetration of the state into those financial markets not already under state influence or control. The bailouts, particularly in the United States, created a situation in which decisions by political leaders and central banks had markedly more significance to the financial status of the country than the operation of the market. This was not unprecedented in the United States; the municipal bond crisis of the 1970s, the Third World debt crisis and the savings and loan crisis had similar consequences. The financial crisis, and the resultant economic crisis, hurt the United States, but its regime remained intact even while uneasiness about the elite grew. But the financial crisis had its greatest impact in Europe, where it is triggering a generational shift." (STRATFOR)

"If, as many Republicans hope and most GOP political operatives seem to expect, Virginia Republicans win enough seats tonight to take control of the state’s Senate, you will hear another round of talk about Gov. Bob McDonnell as a potential running mate for the Republican nominee in 2012.
A Republican victory would be seen by many as a victory for McDonnell because he has been actively involved in promoting his party’s legislative candidates and also because local and national reporters always want to draw big conclusions for every political development, regardless of whether those conclusions are justified. Republican control of both chambers of the Legislature and the governorship in Virginia would let Republicans redraw the state’s Congressional lines. Currently, the Democratic-held state Senate and the Republican-held state House have been unable to agree on a new map, and political insiders believe state Democrats would be happy to let a federal court draw a new map for the next decade. GOP operatives are concerned that a court might decide to create a new minority-influence district, which might end up forcing two Republicans to run against each other in southeastern Virginia, thereby costing the party a House seat. But while a Republican takeover of the state Senate would allow party strategists to solidify their Congressional incumbents, it probably wouldn’t mean very much for McDonnell. His potential attractiveness as a running mate predates the election results and has more to do with his attributes and appeal." (Stuart Rothenberg)

"That’s what the struggling Internet search company hopes to accomplish as it unveils today what it calls 'the first stage of an ambitious yearlong program' to build on its partnership with ABC News and cover 2012 campaign issues — and especially the horse race. The effort includes a 'TV-quality web show' called Remake America that will launch in January and track how eight families perceive the unfolding national debate. (People who want to be considered for the show can apply here.) Yahoo also plans to create social networks for groups such as mothers and young voters who want to discuss common interests. The Internet company has beefed up its political reporting and analysis staff under Washington Bureau Chief David Chalian, who used to oversee political coverage at ABC and the PBS NewsHour. In addition to its original content, the company will tap reporting and analysis from The Atlantic, The Blaze, FactCheck.org, Forbes, National Journal, Reuters, and This Week. Yahoo promises “deep integration” with ABC News, including lots of newsmaker interviews based on questions solicited from Yahoo users." (Nikki Finke)

"Last night at the Stephen Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, the Board of Trustees hosted their annual 'Library Lions' dinner, which honored authors Jonathan Franzen, Tony Kushner, Ian McEwan, Stacy Schiff, Isabel Wilkerson and poet and recording artist Natalie Merchant. The Library Lions gala is a fundraiser for the library and although I don't have the final tally for last night's, I believe last year they raised close to $3 million. The library's new president Anthony Marx opened the evening by presenting the medals to the honorees. He then introduced City Council president Christine Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg, who had a special gift (a book of memories) for Catie Marron, who has served with great distinction as Chairman of the Library. She is succeeded by Neil Rudenstine, literary scholar and former President of Harvard University. This annual dinner holds a very special place on the calendars of a lot of the city philanthropists and citizens active in civic institutions. The list of its Gala Co-Chairs provide a clue: Mr. and Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, Ms. Antoinette Delruelle and Mr. Joshua Steiner, HRH Princess Firyal of Jordan ..." (NYSocialDiary)

" week ago last Thursday over at Bergdorf's, there was a reception for Martha Stewart and her new book Martha's Entertaining: A Year of Celebrations. Many in the crowd were from the worlds of fashion, food, design and media including Clive Davis, Sirio Maccioni and his wife Egidiana, Alex von Bidder, Richie Notar, Todd Eberle, Johnny Pigozzi; John Derian, Jeffrey Bilhuber, Cornelia Guest, Charlotte Beers, plus Bergdorf's Linda Fargo. Pierre Schaedelin made a great selection of hors d'ouevres inspired from the book ... Martha Stewart lives better than almost any rich person that I know. She is obviously rich herself. But it's not the money part, it's what she gets from it. Her estate in Seal Harbor, Maine, which was built by Edsel Ford I for family summers, looks like the ideal summer house -- mansion really -- by the sea. But that's just the beginning. The weekend parties she gives –breakfast, lunch, dinner – photographed with the guests at table. And then the table after the guests have gone --- you want to be there even for that. The life you see in these pages is made for a magazine layout. Yet the life that you see in these pages is also the life of the author. She created it that for herself, as well as the fortune needed to acquire it. The power, not to mention the wit and intelligence to pull it off defines a kind of genius." (NYSocialDiary)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"No one is willing to flat out say it, but the Republican and Democratic Party establishments have already written off Herman Cain. Here’s the tell-tale sign: With less than two months to go before the Iowa caucuses and the insurgent presidential candidate polling near the top of the GOP field, none of his foes in either party has taken a hard whack at him — despite the fact that he is engulfed in controversy, battling reports of sexual harassment dating to his time at the National Restaurant Association. Cain’s rivals on the right hope his support will bleed away on its own, and they don’t want to anger Cain’s remaining fans. But for other Cain critics, the whole harassment saga has confirmed what they believed to begin with: that there was never really a chance voters would put the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza in the Oval Office. 'He’s not going to be the nominee, if I can just be honest here. He was never going to be the nominee,' Weekly Standard editor William Kristol said on 'Fox News Sunday.'" (Politico)

"It was the middle of July, and Rupert Murdoch sat next to his son James in a packed room in the vast parliamentary complex at Westminster. They had been summoned to answer questions about the phone-hacking scandal that had erupted at one of Murdoch’s most notorious tabloids, the News of the World. Members of Parliament had never questioned a Murdoch, much less two of them, in such a setting, and Rupert, now 80, appeared so frail and confused that many commentators wondered if his apparent weakness was simply an act. It was not. He had arrived from Sun Valley, Idaho, and was weighed down by jet lag; by a recent confrontation with both James and his daughter Elisabeth; and by the sheer volume of responses he had been made to rehearse. By the time he arrived at the hearing, Murdoch had accepted the resignations of some of his most loyal lieutenants. He had closed the newspaper that had opened up Britain to him, 42 years earlier. And he had abandoned a business deal that would have been the largest in his company’s history. When an M.P. asked Murdoch if he believed that the notoriously competitive pressure from the top of his organization had caused people at his newspapers to break the law, Murdoch said no, and then added what seemed like a non sequitur:'I just want to say that I was brought up by a father who was not rich, but who was a great journalist, and he, just before he died, bought a small paper, specifically in his will saying that he was giving me the chance to do good.' The M.P. tried to return to his question, but Murdoch pressed on. 'That just addresses the question of it being a family business,' he said. 'I would love to see my sons and daughters follow if they are interested.'" (VanityFair)

"This Weekend’s Winner: DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots proved itself a copycat, earning a little over $33 million a weekend after opening at $34 million the weekend before. This Weekend’s Losers: Universal Pictures’ Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy ensemble comedy Tower Heist ($25 million) and New Line Cinema’s A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas ($13 million) both failed to reach their expected, uh, highs. How It All Went Down: Last weekend, some commenters called into question our assertion that Puss in Boots was a success, as it underperformed studio expectations by $10 million. But not since My Dog Skip over a decade ago has a wide release held on so well in its second week. Skip actually increased its audience, while Puss lost only 3 percent of its crowds, but still: Holy frijoles! (Does your cat have 'golden eggs'? I didn’t think so.) We like its chances next weekend, too, when the major releases will be Immortals and Jack and Jill, leaving the cat-door wide open for Puss to do even more business with young families next weekend, before penguins invade on the weekend of the 16th." (NYMag)

"On his blog, film critic Roger Ebert warned last night that 'unless we find an angel, our television program will go off the air at the end of its current season… We can’t afford to finance it any longer.' Ebert relaunched his weekly syndicated movie review show, which had been cancelled by Buena Vista TV in 2010, at the beginning of the year on PBS TV stations and currently has distribution in more than 90% of the country. But Ebert notes that he and his wife Chaz Ebert, who executive produces Ebert Presents At the Movies, don’t receive any money from PBS or its stations, so they have had to finance the show themselves and can’t continue to do so." (Nikki Finke)

"With congressional approval ratings at record lows one year before the 2012 elections, Republicans and Democrats are both expressing confidence that voters won’t blame them for the ailing economy. Political analysts maintain that control of the House and Senate is up for grabs, though Democratic chances of winning back the lower chamber are seen as not much better than 25 percent. It is clear that voters are angry, and they will be looking to express their frustrations at the polls one year from now. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) declined to make any predictions, saying, “This will be one of the most unpredictable and volatile elections in the history of the United States' ... The GOP presidential nominee will not be determined for months, and the three successive waves of 2006, 2008 and 2010 means that no majority is safe. Furthermore, the redistricting process has not been completed in many states, making it all but impossible to forecast which seats will be in play in many parts of the country, such as Texas and Florida. Other factors that could shift the political winds include a possible deal on the debt supercommittee, the nation’s unemployment rate in the fall of next year and the future of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Andrew Bauman, vice president of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a top Democratic polling firm, said voters are upset at both parties but it’s Obama who’s getting most of the blame for the economy. And that could be a drag on Democratic House candidates in GOP-leaning districts. 'It’s going to be a tough haul for Democrats, but I believe there’s a decent shot of taking the House back,' he said." (TheHill)

"Over the past few years, Mr. Cooper occasionally filled in for Regis Philbin next to Kelly Ripa on 'Live! With Regis and Kelly,' to warm reviews, in part because he could play straight man to Kelly’s bubbly persona. He was known to covet that show and was considered a strong candidate to replace Mr. Philbin when he retired. But those retirement plans were uncertain and no real offers were made, so when Oprah Winfrey announced that she was retiring as the unchallenged ruler of daytime talk, Mr. Cooper saw his chance and he took it. (His timing, it turns out, was terrible. Mr. Philbin announced his own retirement a few months after Mr. Cooper committed to doing 'Anderson.')" (NyTimes)      

"Last week’s Senate decision to kill a modest $60bn bill to upgrade America’s infrastructure before it came to debate may have exceeded even that august chamber’s recent record. The package, which included $10bn in seed money for a public infrastructure bank, was blocked by every Republican and two Democrats. They objected because it would have been funded by a 0.7 per cent surtax on earnings over $1m. And that was that. At a time when US businesses prefer to hoard rather than invest their cash, and when long-term interest rates are so low the money is virtually free, the political system is unable to accomplish what ought to be a no-brainer. Until now, America has never faced an ideological divide on infrastructure: both parties accepted the need to upgrade roads, dams, bridges, energy and water systems. Forget Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower, the presidents most often cited as having unleashed growth-boosting infrastructure – transcontinental railroads and federal highways respectively. Forget even Bill Clinton’s cheerleading for the 'information superhighway', which helped pave the way for the spread of the internet, even if Al Gore did not invent it. We need go back only to 2005 when a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill pushed through the infamous $280bn Highways Act, which was the largest transport bill in US history. Dubbed the 'Bridge to Nowhere' because it was stuffed with boondoggles, including the notorious $223m Alaskan bridge to an island of 50 people already served by ferry, the bill won near-unanimous support. A few years later, those seem like the good old days. Whether you are the victim of another domestic flight cancellation, sitting bumper to bumper on a Los Angeles freeway, or wading through electronic gateways for a human voice at your 'fast-speed' broadband provider, America’s infrastructure is fast descending to second world status." (FT)

End Galactic Corporate Greed

via SusanBeebe

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"President Obama and his Democratic allies made two key political missteps in recent years, according to former president Bill Clinton in a new book to be released Tuesday. First was not raising the federal debt ceiling in the first two years of the president’s term, when Democrats still had a majority in Congress, and then failing to devise an effective national campaign message during the midterm elections of 2010 ... Clinton also suggests, obliquely, that Obama’s criticism of Wall Street has been too harsh and counterproductive.The 42nd president periodically surfaces with cheerful tips on how he managed the economy and offers these observations in his book 'Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy.' ... But the subtext of the book is that Obama has struggled, both to identify workable economic policies and to outmaneuver his Republican foes.
'The Democrats did not counter the national Republican message with one of their own,' Clinton writes of the Democratic losses in 2010. 'There was no national advertising campaign to explain and defend what they had done and to compare their agenda for the next two years with the GOP proposals.' He compares it with his own congressional defeats in 1994. The very existence of such a book by the former president — which Clinton says was inspired by the 2010 midterm losses — has produced some eye-rolling among senior Obama advisers and is certain to spur a new round of unwelcome comparisons between the 1990s and today." (WashPo)

"VISITORS to Qatar tend to share the same bafflement that Hosni Mubarak expressed when shown the Al Jazeera satellite channel’s news studio in the Qatari capital, Doha. 'All that noise from this little matchbox?', Egypt’s then strongman grumbled, amazed that the station, paid for by Qatar’s rulers, could stir popular passions and big trouble for governments from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic. Such wonder is not surprising. Until oil and gas made it rich, beginning in the 1960s, this tiny, scalding, pancake-flat peninsula scarcely boasted a settled population, let alone a town of any size. Even now, with a population that has trebled in the booming 16 years since Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani overthrew his father, the emirate holds just 1.7m people. Fewer than one in seven of them is a native-born citizen, which helps explain why Qatar’s army is the smallest in the Gulf.That minority status is also a reason for the Qataris’ feeble appetite for democracy. Their general response, when Sheikh Hamad announced recently that a first-ever parliamentary election would be held in 2013, was a mild nod of approval, even though the emir has dragged his feet on promised democratic reforms for a decade. The bigger reason for such complacency is simply cash. Statistics showing Qatar’s residents to be the richest in the world, with a GDP per person of $80,000-plus at purchasing-power parity, vastly underrate the wealth of a pampered 250,000 or so who hold the privilege of citizenship." (The Economist)

"Elisabeth Murdoch has always had to fight for her father’s attention, never easy in a family that was focused on the sons. Though she was the eldest of the three children from Rupert’s second marriage, Rupert had never taken her seriously as a possible contender to run the company some day. In 1997, he’d announced that in the competition, Lachlan was 'first among equals,' and then, when Lachlan ran into troubles, he seemed to give James, now the deputy COO, the inside track. 'Liz is the most overtly ambitious of the three kids,' a former News Corp. executive told me. 'She was driven to prove to her dad that she could more than hold her own with the boys.' So, over a decade ago, Elisabeth walked away from the family business to venture out on her own, starting Shine, a television-­production company that she built into one of the most successful in Britain. In 2008, she acquired Ben Silverman’s production company Reveille in a $125 million deal, which made her a significant player in Hollywood. She’d loved her independence, the more because it proved her worth to her father. When the elder Murdoch tried to bring her back into the fold, Liz, 43, played a bit hard to get, savoring the moment. Finally, this past February, she agreed to sell her company to News Corp. for roughly $670 million. Liz made more than $200 million off the deal and was promised a seat on the board alongside her brothers. 'The validation was absolute,' a London media executive told me." (NYMag)

"Around 9:40 p.m., a trim man in a red sweatshirt, blue and white checkered shorts and a blue baseball cap arrived carrying a stick and bag over his right shoulder and wordlessly navigated his way through the maze of half-dressed players as he headed toward a private dressing area. Roughly 20 minutes later, that man, the former Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York, appeared again, this time in an orange jersey with a No. 1 on its back, an image of a jack-o’-lantern taped to the back of his mask. Followed by the other members of his team, the Falcons, he skated to one end of the ice, shielded from a lone spectator by a wall of Plexiglas. Many things have changed in the five months since Mr. Weiner resigned his Congressional post after sending a sexually explicit photo of himself to a college student over Twitter. He and his wife, Huma Abedin, a deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, have confirmed to friends they are expecting their first child in late December. The couple has moved out of Mr. Weiner’s co-op in Forest Hills, Queens, in his old Congressional district, and into a Manhattan apartment. And all talk that Mr. Weiner might run for mayor of New York in 2013, an office that once seemed well within his grasp, has been silenced." (NyTimes)

"Last night I went down to Cipriani 42nd Street to the cocktail reception before the dinner at the Silver Hill Gala. This is not the first annual gala, maybe not the second either. As modern philanthropy goes, this is an interesting situation. Silver Hill is a distinguished, private mental health care facility, or hospital. Those words would not have been used to describe it 50 years ago. Fifty years ago Silver Hill was known as a private sanitarium for the rich. People went there to 'dry out,' the popular euphemism for not drinking booze. Many had the other problems too, like sex and drugs. Others were just exhausted from living high and hard. Or down and out. Truman Capote had been a patient there. People went there more than once or twice. So had Vincent Astor who went there to 'dry out,' and coincidentally first met Brooke Marshall who was volunteering there at the same time ... Silver Hill is a new charity in the New York calendar. Starting new charities is not easy. You can always get something going but being successful and hiring a hall like Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City requires a lot of work and a lot of social networking forces. The Honorary Chairs for this evening, for example, were Dennis Basso and Michael Cominotto ... Last night's Guest of Honor was Carrie Fisher ...  Carrie is looking good at this time in her life. Her mother had the looks in the family, as the world knows. Well, Carrie looks like her mother more than ever, so what can I say? ... She also had her daughter Billie joining her for the dinner. Debbie's granddaughter." (NYSocialDiary)

"Hang on tight, folks, because this is turning into a bumpy ride. North American box office is still unsettlingly weak just as it’s been since the beginning of August. This weekend’s total gross is running a bad -25% behind last year’s. ”The fear is that our total business is in the toilet,” one studio executive sighed to me tonight. Friday’s numbers were too ill-defined for me to declare hits and misses early on. But now, in a big surprise, DreamWorks Animation’s week-old 3D holdover Puss In Boots distributed by Paramount looks like it’s giving Universal’s 2D Tower Heist a run for #1 by Monday morning because of higher ticket prices and more theater bookings. One studio already is counting on the cat beating the cons. Remember, last weekend’s surprise East Coast snowstorm and power outage resulted in the toon’s mediocre debut. The tie depends on Saturday when strong family matinees may swamp nighttime adults at the multiplexes. (Uh-oh: is this another Smurfs beats Cowboys &Aliens situation in the works? But, unlike expensive C&A, the studio claims TH cost only $85M.)" (Deadline)

"Troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan crashed the party for Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie 'J. Edgar' and made such a scene she made A-list attendees 'uncomfortable.' Lohan, fresh from her Playboy shoot and about to go to jail for probation violations, insisted she was an invited guest to the party for the Clint Eastwood-directed biopic about legendary FBI director Hoover, and talked her way past security at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday night. A source at the bash told us, 'Lindsay was arguing with the security to let her in, dropping every celebrity’s name to get in. She could be heard saying, ‘I have to go and see Leo.' Eventually they let her in, but she made everybody uncomfortable. She was aggressive and random, storming around. She tried to get to Leo, but he was surrounded by his security and a posse of his friends. 'Clint and Leo and Dustin Lance Black were talking, and Lindsay sent one of her aides over, demanding to get a photo with them, but security shooed them away.' Another spy at the party, attended by Ron Howard, Harvey Weinstein, Brett Ratner and actress/producer Christie Cashman, said Lohan kept asking to meet Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer, who’d already left. The movie, generating considerable Oscar buzz for DiCaprio, opened the AFI Fest at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. It wasn’t clear how Lohan managed to get past AFI security, which sealed off the whole block and would only allow their official limos in. Lohan has to turn herself in to jail by Wednesday to serve a 30-day sentence. But this didn’t stop her from turning up at the Hollywood Roosevelt with her hair and makeup still done up from her earlier Playboy shoot." (NYPost)

"Housing activists love principal reduction because they tend to see it as a just solution to an unjust situation — it’s a way of making the banks pay a real price for their sins during the subprime madness while allowing people to keep their homes. Conservatives, on the other hand, hate principal reduction. They believe that borrowers who made poor decisions by taking out mortgages they could never afford have to take responsibility for those decisions. If that means foreclosure, so be it. Enter Laurie Goodman. One of the country’s foremost authorities on mortgage-backed securities, she is also one of the most data-driven people I’ve ever met; at breakfast, she was constantly pointing me to one chart or another that backed up her claims. 'She’s not into politics,' says my friend, and her client, Daniel Alpert of Westwood Capital. 'She is using data to tell us the truth.' Her truth begins with a shocking calculation: of the 55 million mortgages in America, more than 10 million are reasonably likely to default. That is a staggering number — and it is, in large part, because so many homes are worth so much less than the mortgage the homeowners are holding. That is, they’re underwater.  Her second calculation is that the supply of housing is going to drastically outstrip demand for the foreseeable future; she estimates that the glut of unneeded homes could get as high as 6.2 million over the next six years. The primary reason for this, she says, is that household formation has been very low in recent years, presumably because of the grim economy. (Young adults are living with their parents instead of moving into their own homes, etc.) What’s more, nearly 20 percent of current homeowners no longer qualify for a mortgage, as lending standards have tightened. The implication is almost too awful to contemplate. As Goodman put it in testimony she recently gave before Congress, the supply/demand imbalance means that housing prices 'are likely to decline further. This may recreate the housing death spiral — as lower housing prices mean more borrowers become underwater.' Which makes them more likely to default, which lowers prices further, and on and on. The only way to stop the death spiral is through principal reduction." (Joe Nocera)

"People didn't understand the iPad immediately. No one believed in the form factor. 'Just a big iPhone,' people called it. But it caught on, it took off, and now consumers can't let go of their tablets. The intimate, intuitive interface has created its own use case. People curl up with the device and they read. Publishers and app developers have provided a bonanza of ways to read on the iPad and iPhone. Some are free, some cost money, some require monthly subscriptions. All of them are vying for your attention in that new, valuable hour or two of tablet time in the evenings. But one app, Instapaper, sits in the iPad Hall of Fame on iTunes, pushing forward reader behavior just like the iPad itself. Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, answered some questions for us about where this is all heading." (ReadWriteWeb)

"For many years, the Bize Savignys have been an insider's secret for budget-conscious connoisseurs. Mr. Bize isn't prone to hype—he doesn't say much of anything as he hands me samples of his '09s from tank and cask, or later when we drink some older wines in front of a roaring fire in his office. When pressed about the 2009 vintage, about which most critics and winemakers are rapturous, he ventures only that "it's a good vintage.' Mr. Bize doesn't do anything cutting-edge in the winery but his yields are always well below those allowed by the authorities, which means more sugar and flavor components in each grape, and makes for wines with more concentration. He's also willing to pick later than his neighbors and risk losing his crop to ensure ripeness. That wasn't really a problem in the warm 2009 vintage, where even the basic village-level wines from less-favored exposures got more than enough rays to ripen, and even Mr. Bize's less-conscientious neighbors managed to produce some pretty voluptuous juice. That said, even in a hot vintage Mr. Bize's wines can be forbidding in their youth—especially the premier crus—and generally need a few years of bottle age after release. (Mr. Bize recommends as much as 10 years for the premier crus.) Traditionally, Savigny was known to produce a light and delicate red wine, and cultivated this image to the point of blending white grapes in with the reds when the wines were too robust, according to importer Peter Wasserman. In recent years, the reds have gained weight, in keeping with contemporary tastes. White grapes, grown mostly on limestone-rich sites, are vinified separately to create some tasty Bourgogne and Savigny blancs—not so surprising when you consider the proximity of the hill of Corton just north of the appellation, source of the majestic Corton-Charlemagne." (Jay McInerney)

"Dia's on the move. Having acquired a space on 22nd Street this year, the upstate art foundation is planning a return to its Chelsea roots, and at its fall gala at Tribeca Three Sixty last night, it seemed as though everyone in art and fashion (from Julian Schnabel to erstwhile designer Helmut Lang) wanted to be there for a sort of preliminary Welcome Back. Parker Posey attended (without her boyfriend, the painter Scott Lenhardt) as a guest of Ingrid Sischy and Sandy Brant. 'I know them from a long time ago, way back,' she said. Ingrid was a big supporter of mine when I was the It girl. Now, I'm not an It girl anymore. I'm a woman!' ... Uptown, the Apollo Circle was fêting another New York arts institution: the Met. Carolina Herrera sponsored the black-tie ball again this year, but she didn't linger to watch Selita Ebanks, Arlenis Sosa, Lauren Remington Platt, and Lily Kwong try to break it down to Kanye West and Jay-Z in her gowns. 'Tonight is about the young,' she told Style.com. The evening was an art lesson of sorts for the upwardly mobile twentysomethings in the crowd, with works from the Met's collection by the likes of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns projected on a wall of the Temple of Dendur.  'Andy was one of my best friends,' Herrera said. 'I love Pop art.'" (Style)

"Despite Herman Cain’s front-runner status and rough week in the news, Mitt Romney has continued to ignore the Georgia businessman and train his fire on Rick Perry, who trails Cain in polls for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. It is the latest sign that Romney is much more concerned about Perry’s millions in cash than Cain’s rapid rise. Romney’s campaign sent out a news release Friday morning touting 'Rick Perry’s tough week,' hitting the Texas governor on his rhetoric and views ... This follows another campaign release from earlier this week titled 'Rick Perry: Wrong for Iowa.' ... Romney has largely ignored Cain, a former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. Since pointedly questioning Cain’s tax policies in the last debate more than two weeks ago, Romney’s campaign has been radio-silent on Cain, refusing to give him any public attention. Even when speaking on the same stage a few minutes before Cain at Americans for Prosperity’s annual convention Friday, Romney made no mention of Cain. This focus on Perry to the exclusion of Cain is unusual: A maxim of politics is to never engage with candidates who are trailing you in the polls and instead focus on dinging those to whom you need to catch up. The strategy could mean that Romney is letting the media narrative take its own toll on Cain, rather than getting involved in the story." (TheHill)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Mitt Romney was firm and direct with the abortion rights advocates sitting in his office nine years ago, assuring the group that if elected Massachusetts governor, he would protect the state’s abortion laws. Then, as the meeting drew to a close, the businessman offered an intriguing suggestion — that he would rise to national prominence in the Republican Party as a victor in a liberal state and could use his influence to soften the GOP’s hard-line opposition to abortion. He would be a 'good voice in the party' for their cause, and his moderation on the issue would be 'widely written about,' he said, according to detailed notes taken by an officer of the group, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.'You need someone like me in Washington,' several participants recalled Romney saying that day in September 2002, an apparent reference to his future ambitions. Romney made similar assurances to activists for gay rights and the environment, according to people familiar with the discussions, both as a candidate for governor and then in the early days of his term." (WashingtonPost)

"Speaking of Uncle Sam, the TV networks should be ashamed of themselves. All this week they have given saturation coverage to the Madoff family, probably the most disliked bunch since the Manson gang. TV in America looks to satisfy the lowest visceral needs, hence the Madoff saga invading our drawing rooms nonstop. The Madoffs come across as vain, greedy, dysfunctional, and out to play the victim. Although very well-off, the son, two daughters-in-law, and the wife are selling their story, and the American public is buying it. They’ve come up with a failed suicide story that smells to high heaven. They’re shilling a book proclaiming their innocence and their victimhood. It’s a sordid business that was timed perfectly. Here’s the latest Madoff con: In September, Manhattan federal judge Jed Rakoff threw out nine of 11 counts brought by the trustee Irving Picard against the New York Mets’ owners. He judged that the 'clawback' should apply only to the two years prior to Madoff’s coming clean. This ruling lets the owners—two very shady characters named Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz who were Madoff’s very close buddies—off the hook. It not only severely limits the amount the trustee can recover from the shady ones—only 386 million big ones—it lets the two shady ones keep around 750 million greenbacks Madoff threw their way during his heyday of stealing. The two-year cap is a scandal in itself, and it stinks to high you-know-what. The trustee had argued that the clawback should go back at least six years, and that by limiting it to two, the judge is reducing monies available for victims by many billions. But it gets worse. Under the six-year rule, the disgusting Madoffs would have had to give back a total of $141 million. A two-year statute would require the disgusting ones to return close to $59 million. You do the math, dear readers." (Taki Theodroacopoulos)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Richard Holbrooke came as a package. To know the man in full was to appreciate the most important contents. His was a unique combination of talent, intellect, energy, courage, conviction, gumption, panache, and compassion. Many of those who 'got' Richard were confident that he would, someday, receive proper credit for the contributions he made to his country and the world. However, few of us anticipated how quickly that would happen once he was gone. It certainly came as a surprise to me, and it would have been considerable consolation to him, especially since his last mission -- as President Barack Obama's and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- had been as thankless as it was grueling. The State Department's announcement of his death early in the evening of Dec. 13, 2010, triggered an outpouring of testimonials from around the world and from the various realms in which he had been a seismic presence: from heads of state and international luminaries; from representatives of humanitarian organizations, especially those that fought for the rights of refugees and battled against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria; and from journalists and columnists who not only wrote about him, used him as a source, and let him use them to advance his many causes, but who also saw him as a master of their trade. In those weeks of mourning, my mind kept going back two decades, to a crisp Sunday morning in the spring of 1991, near the end of Richard's long interlude on Wall Street when Republicans controlled the White House. My wife Brooke and I were spending a weekend at a home with a tennis court and pool that Richard owned in one of the plummier exurban communities of central Connecticut. After a vigorous set of Canadian doubles and a swim, we went to a brunch at a neighbor's house. Richard's eyes lit up when he saw that their recreational facilities included a trampoline on the far side of a manicured lawn." (ForeignPolicy)

"Michael's on Wednesday; the usual and not-so-usual suspects. Jammed, front and back. They were turning people away. One thing there was a big book party for William Boyd the British novelist in the backroom. Upfront among the masses there were Da Boyza Michael's: Dr. Gerry Imber, Michael Kramer, Andy Bergman, Jerry Della Femina; Maury Perl of Conde Nast; Steven Rattner; Nikki Haskell, Beverly Johnson and Morgan Fairchild all of whom are engaged in making an infomercial for a new product of Nikki's; Melanie Brandman, Lynn, Lady Rothschild, Diana Biederman, and Michael's very own Brenda Starr, Diane Clehane; Barry Diller; Herb Siegel; Kay Pick in from Beverly Hills; Jason Binn with Andrew Lauren; Joan Gelman and Joan Hamburg; Todd Meister; Edward Minskoff; Richard Bressler, Henry Schlieff, Leonard Lauder, Jolie Hunt with Jay Kriegel; Edward Minskoff, Diane Coffey, Kate Taylor, Ralph Baruch, Kurt Andersen, David Sanford of the WSJ; Lou Cona, Larry Aiken, Pamela Baxter, Joe Armstrong, Missy Godfrey, Tony Hoyt, Caroline Manzo of New Jersey Housewives or whatever it's called, everybody knows; Catherine Saxton; Ira Neimark and Marvin Traub. Bergdorf's and Bloomingdale's in a fashion and retailing heyday that is good but doesn't generate the excitement and day-to-day talk about "stores" that these two gentleman created and presided over." (NYSocialDiary)

"The Hollywood Reporter: How does this MovieTracker technology separate itself from other sites and tracking out there? Scott Robson: There isn’t really another product quite like this for movie fans. The MovieTracker isn’t based on box office performance, which is how most movie rankings are compiled. Instead, it’s driven purely by the social conversation around movies. It’s the first time that what movie fans say – on Twitter, on Facebook and in the blogosphere – really matters in a quantified way. It also allows fans the opportunity to add their voice instantly to the conversation around any given movie in the rankings, and to access the latest content for that movie—along with show times, trailers, cast and crew info and more—on NextMovie. THR: How will it work within the Viacom Networks? SR: The MovieTracker will launch initially on NextMovie.com, but it will appear soon after across multiple Viacom Media Networks properties, including MTV.com, VH1.com and the Logo sites. It’s also possible that versions of the MovieTracker at some point will appear on air, on the MTV Radio Network and more. Senior management, including MTV Music Group President Van Toffler and MTV Digital EVP Dermot McCormack have been incredibly supportive of the MovieTracker and its potential to serve both casual and hard-core movie fans." (THR)