FT Reviews "Turbulence" by Giles Foden

John Sutherland, writing for the Financial Times, gives a positive review to Turbulence, a new book by Giles Foden. Foden is the author of The Last King of Scotland, which was turned into a popular film.

Turbulence, the FT reports, takes as its central event “'the most important weather forecast in history', for the D-Day Landings. The timing depends on that most perverse of things – the British weather." Mr. Sutherland calls the book "high-suspense plot" and "a classy page-turner, with a terrific D-Day climax."

Global Trash Talk: "Wen and Putin Lecture Western Leaders"

The Financial Times reports that Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, took time at the World Economic Forum to lecture Western nations. According to the FT, Mr. Putin "mocked" American delegates, and Mr. Wren made "scathing comments" about unnamed countries economic policies.

These comments are, if I may say, so "yesterday." Get with the times, boys.

Voters in the United States have been moving for the last two years away from old thinking and strategies, culminating with the election and inauguration of President Obama. And while our economy shakes-out, our culture has an arsenal of weapons for economic recovery that neither China or Russia can match: We have individual liberty, due process of law, civil rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, public education for all people. We have a culture of creativity and entrepreneurship. We have Lou Reed.

Maybe Mr. Wen and Mr. Putin haven't heard Lou Reed's song "Foot of Pride." Well, when they are back home with their gangsters, gulags, and prisons, their censorship, their poison milk, poison children's toys, and poison dog food, they can listen to what Mr. Reed says about getting a bit too proud:

"You know what they say about bein' nice to the right people on the way up
sooner or later you gonna meet them comin' down
Oh, there ain't no comin' back when your foot of pride come down
ain't no comin' back"



T.G.I.F.

Bernard Madoff: The Fine Print

Drafting documents clearly and correctly is not the type of exciting legal action featured in books, movies, or on the news. That's why a recent story in the Financial Times caught my attention. The story discussed the warnings contained in some of the prospectuses of feeder funds that turned money over to Bernard Madoff.

The fine print in one hedge fund said, ""There is a risk the broker-dealer could abscond with those assets,"" according to the FT. Another fund told investors ""information supplied by the investment adviser may be inaccurate or even fraudulent."" A third said, in block capital letters and bold type: ""Participation by investors in the fund should be considered a high-risk investment.""

So there are those few folks out there who drafted these documents and are probably feeling good about that bit of work. And as noted in the FT story, investors are now probably wishing they had taken more seriously the words "abscond", "inaccurate", "fraudulent" and "high-risk".

Food and Drink Part II: Pastry as Art

As someone who loves to bake, I took notice of the recent death of Gaston Lenotre. Lenotre, 88, died on January 8, 2009, at his home in France. He "was considered the best patissier of 20th century France, and therefore, arguably, the world" wrote Phil Davison in The Financial Times. Not only a leader in the art of pastry, Lenotre made his mark with restaurants, a cooking school, and in catering and retail.

The FT quotes Lenotre from one of his final interviews as saying, "I was born with a palate like the best parfumeurs [perfume creators] are born with a nose . . . I have never had [high] cholesterol despite all the desserts I have devoured . . . all my life I have loved hard work, women and cakes."

Inspired by this joie de vivre, I decided to bake savory gougeres. Gougeres, as you may know, are French cheese puffs. They are made from cream puff dough (pate a choux). While a sweet item, such as cream puffs, may have been more in the spirit of Gaston Lenotre, that project is being postponed a few weeks until some special house guests arrive for a visit. For today: gougeres.

Here they are:

I followed this linked recipe from Food and Wine by French chef Alain Ducasse. As with many delicious things, they are shockingly easy to make.

Give gougeres a try, and bon appetit!

For English Majors: A Literate Explanation of the Current Financial Crisis

News coverage of Wall Street's melt down illustrates again that many business people talk in clunky jargon which communicates nothing concrete. If you are looking for a literate explanation of the financial crisis, the Book Doctor offers one in this weekend's Financial Times.

Jan Dalley of the Financial Times: "The death of the book, yet again"

Books, like old barns, may be harder to find in the future, but they won't disappear.

This weekend in the Financial Times columnist Jan Dalley writes about her slow conversion to the idea of electronic books or "eBooks".

My concern about eBooks is not the format, but the impact on the price of reading. The format, if properly done, seems ideal. Imagine going on a beach vacation with 10 books to read, all available on one electronic reader. And for the college English major, or law student, the convenience of having all course materials available in one package is appealing - and also a means to prevent back injury from toting a ton of books around campus.

Yet, what about price? One benefit of real books is that they can be obtained for free from the library, or obtained inexpensively elsewhere from library book sales, on-line sources, used-book stores, yard sales, free from your friends and family, and so on. Thanks to the internet, students can search the globe for a good price on a required text. Dalley writes that when testing the Sony Reader, she found that one title she attempted to buy cost more in electronic format than in paper.

Dalley gives the Amazon Kindle a positive review. I'm not ready to jump in yet, but her column has prompted me to consider a future with eBooks. For now, however, I'll still head to the beach with my carry-on crammed with books I've picked-up inexpensively and will leave in the hotel library for other guests to enjoy - for free!

Big Business Says 'Trust Me' ; I say 'I Don't Think So'

To the extent possible, I resist wearing clothing that turns me into a billboard for the manufacturer. If a major corporation wants me to advertise for it, then I want to be paid to do so. Why should they get a free ride?

Another place business attempts to get a free ride from consumers is on the web. Today in the Financial Times, John Gapper writes about how online advertising companies tack cookies on your browser and track your movements on the internet. You can find out what companies are tracking you by going to www.networkadvertising.org. The information collected by these companies is ostensibly used to target advertising to particular consumers. But as Mr. Gapper points out, this activity raises serious privacy issues.

Do we trust business to do the right thing while shadowing us on the web? I don't. The health care community couldn't be trusted with our medical information, so Congress had to enact an extensive privacy law known as HIPAA. If the medical community, whose key participants are physicians who have professional standards for patient confidentiality, can't be trusted then why would we trust advertisers?

Fresh Water is the New Oil

If the troubles caused by oil dependency aren't enough for you, The Financial Times today has an article outlining new economic and political pressures flowing from a future where fresh water will be scarce. The article cites one financial group's estimate that by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population could be living in conditions of water stress.

Below: Lake Monona at sunset. Monona, Wisconsin.

The New Yorker Cover Controversy

The Financial Times today has a story about this week's controversial New Yorker cover. The cover depicts Senator Barack Obama as a Muslim and Michelle Obama as a terrorist. The New Yorker says it's satire.

An item presented as satire can, of course, at the same time be offensive. Given the amount of prejudice and violence in our country, past and present, I think that the cover shows poor judgment.

The FT reports that 19 percent of rural voters believed Sen. Obama was Muslim. If the fact that Sen. Obama practices Christianity cannot penetrate into this group of people, how likely are they to believe that this cover is satire?