One last bit of Paul Wolfowitz fun, from an interview in this morning’s Volkskrant with Herman Wijffels, the Dutch executive director at the World Bank who led the internal commission that investigated the Wolfowitz scandal. (And yes, I too find the repeated involvement of Netherlanders in this mess–former World Bank ethics chief Ad …
Business Cards Go Digital
During the year and a half I worked for TIME as a Tokyo correspondent, I handed out approximately 41,325 business cards. Well, okay. Maybe a few hundred less. But seriously, business cards–meishi in Japanese–are serious business over there, requiring proper etiquette in everything from their handling (always receive one with both …
Hallo Berlin!
The Hallo Berlin cart at 54th Street and Fifth Avenue is among the most acclaimed purveyors of street food in New York. So acclaimed that every time I’ve walked by in the past the line was so dauntingly long that I kept going. Not today, though.
I got the “single soul food mix”: bratwurst, German fried potatoes, and red cabbage. Which …
What I’d Do for Money
What would you do for a million bucks?
Me:
• Eat a pound of cilantro.
• Walk around Times Square in briefs and cowboy boots singing God Bless America.
• Curse at my boss in Japanese.
Our sister magazine Money conducted a survey on ethics and money that will appear in its June issue. Some findings:
• When asked what they’d be
…
Wolfodämmerung II: So what does the World Bank do now?
Paul Wolfowitz is now really, truly on the way out (although he is, as has become his custom, dragging it out for as embarrassingly long as possible). So now President Bush will pick a replacement. Whose job should be what, exactly?
The answers to this question I’ve been seeing have mostly been about healing wounds at the bank and …
New column: Health-care providers masquerading as carmakers in Detroit
My latest dead-tree effort is out today, in the issue with Al Gore on the cover and online here. It’s actually in the magazine as a two-page story, part of the thing called “The Well.” But I wrote it as just a slightly longer-than-usual column. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the theme:
On May 14, German automaker
…
Wolfodämmerung: The least graceful exit ever
Paul Wolfowitz’s painfully drawn-out exit from the World Bank continues to draw out painfully, as the man with the holey socks tries to work out some sort of deal whereby the World Bank board apologizes for being so mean to him, and he in turn resigns with head held high. In reality, of course, this insistence is making him look ever …
Those highly paid Indians again
The news about the Pasadena website that has hired two people in India to cover city council meetings from 8,000 miles away, which I wrote about last week, stirred up an awful lot of pontification all over the media and blogosphere (a nice collection of links can be found here).
Most of the virtual ink was spilled lamenting the horror …
What Constitutes a Firing Offense, Anyway?
I don’t normally stray into politics in this space; I leave that to the swamp creatures (and I provide a link because I’m a good colleague, not because they need my help in the traffic department…trafficwise, Swampland is Disneyland and Work in Progress is the cubicle down the hall with the mini-Snickers in the jar).
But a comment by …
Club Penguin is worth $450 million?!?
The seven-year-old Curious Capitalist Jr. is allowed dominion over the family iMac on Saturday mornings, and one of his favorite destinations is Club Penguin, where he sometimes arranges to chat with friends from school but mainly just plays the lame-seeming games to win more swag for his penguin avatar.
What’s his and a whole lot of …
Parsing “it’s the cars, stupid” explanation for Detroit’s troubles
Whenever I write about the burden that pension and health care costs place on the Detroit-based automakers, I hear from readers who think that’s a sorry excuse for Detroit’s problems. Here’s a thoughtful example from my e-mail inbox:
Your article on the buyout of Chrysler did a great job highlighting the high costs of healthcare for
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Veterans Discover Online Jobhunting–and Vice Versa
Something to chew on as Memorial Day approaches:
Did you know that close to 300,000 members of the military enter civilian life every year? And that many of them–despite their honorable service and sharp skills and the earnest promises of politicians–will struggle to find work?
I have a story up on Time.com titled “Finding Jobs for …