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Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, February 26, 2002
Vern, Git Mah Shotgun
Chris: I don't fancy myself as having "raged". The $300 tax was, apparently, a whopper on Krugman's part. It's a shame to see it repeated here, and elsewhere. OK, you win, Bush has a funny accent--and we cain't take serously peeple with furny accents, ken we?
Here's what the Times says on Bush's verbal gaffe (and just yesterday I said "Jane's Addiction" when thinking "Alice in Chains" -- roast me for it!) : "By saying "devaluation," Mr. Bush inadvertently alluded to discussions in the international marketplace suggesting that a way out of Japan's economic crisis would be to devalue the yen against the dollar, making Japanese products cheaper in other countries. If Mr. Bush was briefed on the Japanese economy before the trip, both words probably came up."
For the record, Bush also mispronounced the Japanense word for competition Kyoso (saying, "Kyosho") and the name of Japanese scholar Inazo Nitobe (saying "Nitoybe"), clearly proving a lack of skill at foreign relations. He did, apparently, correctly use the phrase "chomping at the bit" in discussions with Chinese leaders--which caused however interpretive chaos.
Moving beyond such puny pecadillos, the thing that catches my eye today is Michael Lewis's column on Enron (disclosure: saw this cited on another web site)--in which he speculates that many, many non-senior management Enron employees must have colluded in the various shenanigans, and far from being victims, aren't these now 401K-less workers part of the consipiracy? He writes:
"Why are Enron's employees, who helped perpetrate one of the great corporate frauds of all time, more deserving of reparations than, say, Enron's creditors or, to expand the field of vision, actual poor people who never worked at Enron?"
--Mac
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