Readers

I like David Brooks’s article today about people identifying themselves as readers versus becoming part of the internet culture. As someone who has simultaneously felt her attention span get shorter and, because of a longer commute and Brazil, read more books, I like this dichotomy.

Brazilian Beauty

We never really made it to Southern Brazil.  We went to Floripa and Pontos dos Ganchos, but not to Curitiba or Rio Grande do Sul.  This article in today’s New York Times about model scouts who head down there to pluck out the perfect blend on German, Italian and maybe some Slavic models who have the right combination of light eyes, legginess, and straight hair, is pretty interesting.  This piece makes it sounds like it’s changing and agencies (and the public in general) is embracing a wider variety of looks, but it seems a little late in the game, no?

F*ck BP

So why didn’t they use the diamond laced wire saw if they knew it was going to work better? This New York Times article about cutting the oil pipe to be able to cap the leak just blows my mind.

Disappointment in Lula

Tom Friedman wrote about Lula and Iran today.  His piece is good, unfortunately the news is bad.

Throw Backs

This New York Times article is pertinent to my last post…

Tiradentes

For those of you who have been following our adventures through Brazil.  We’re going to Tiradentes today.  Seth Kugel, the New York Times writer based in Sao Paulo, wrote about it in October in the Latin America focused travel section.  The article is here.

Açaí from the New York Times

In an article published yesterday, Seth Kugel, who I think lives in Sao Paulo, wrote about açaí in the New York Times. I think it’s the thing I’m going to miss the most when we return from Brazil.

Police Occupation in the Favelas

The New York Times just printed this article about Rio’s new initiative to clean up the favelas.  They’re looking to establish a police rule in forty of the biggest Zona Sul communities.  I guess they had to do something with the World Cup and the Olympics on their way, but this doesn’t seem to be the right answer. Is the Rio government skillful and subtle enough to pull this off without extreme violence? I think there will be fighting that’s likely to spill into what are currently safe neighborhoods.  While living there, I definitely felt like there was an equilibrium between the drug organization ruled favelas and the other parts of the city–they fed off of each other and there was a balance.  I think the Rio government would be much better off offering some kind of incentive to entice the favela communities to buy into these lucrative events, rather than imposing by brute force (and who knows which side has the upper hand) a police presence.  There’s talk of bringing Guiliani in as well, which is sort of interesting.

Getting it Right

David Brooks has it exactly right in his column today.  He’s critical of how foreign aid has been distributed and implemented, and I think he articulated the challenges and shortcomings so well.  I just hope that Haiti has a chance and the motivation, once the immediate disaster is dealt with, to build up better than before.

Also, I can’t wait to read Samuel P. Huntington next…

Flip Flops

The health care kind, not the Havaiana kind.

At the risk of being too much of a New York Times groupie, I think David Brooks is great today.

Intelligence

I could kiss Gail Collins today.  Such a great, scathing line:

“It’s certainly easier to leap from one position to its total opposite if you never understood your original stance in the first place…”

Kristof should get a nod today, too.  Dave Eggers book was good, and Deng’s story is pretty exceptional.  Plus, my brother’s working on turning it into a movie.

Skimmer

I got used to the New York Times Reader, sort of, slowly.  I have to admit that I still often just go to the NYTimes webpage–I’m already on the internet, it’s faster than opening another program, there’s more there.  As I went to go find out what was happening in the world today, I noticed a prompt for the New York Times Skimmer at the top of the page.  After perusing for a few minutes, I think it’s pretty awesome.  It has more content than the reader (it seems) and is a closer experience to reading the paper in print.  My biggest objection to reading the paper online is that it’s too self-selective.  I can read only things that interest me in a way that’s more immediate than when you’re slowly turning the pages of the paper and can browse through articles you might not necessarily be inclined to click on.  I wonder where this new presentation of news will go.  So far I vote for the skimmer.  New York Times, are you going to make me pay for it?

Geithner and Asian Islands

Today, David Brooks gets the shout out for his column on Timothy Geithner.

Also, I know that I am betraying my deep, current adoration for Brazil, but this is a great article written by a woman I was friends with in Vietnam.  She used to work for Budget Travel in New York and we ran into each other a few time while I was at Cookie.  She now lives in Phnom Penh with her husband who works for USAID.

Tom Friedman’s Take on Israel

Here’s his column from today:

Call White House, Ask for Barack

It’s pretty interesting, and I’m not sure I disagree.  It might be time for the U.S. to step back.  We kept hearing over and again that the constituents who live in Israel, live the bombings, the day to day tensions, are much more lenient, much more willing to make a deal, than the academics and foreign peace facilitators who step in.  Maybe Tom’s right.

World Lumberjack Championships

Is this really on the cover of the New York Times homepage right now?

Timber Sports Still Grunt it Out

Are people just tired of talking about healthcare?

Here, even Malcolm Gladwell is better than that…

Also, if anyone gets to Momofuku Noodle Bar to try their new fried chicken any time soon, report back, pleaaasee…