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May 21, 2005
A sound banker
A sound banker, alas, is not one who forsees danger and avoids it,
but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and
orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame
him.
-- John Maynard Keynes
"Consequences to the Banks of a Collapse in Money Values", 1931
Posted by omor at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2005
Reporting bad news: timing is everything
I suspect the public would welcome a respite from gore, like the one
that New Yorkers got when Rudolph Giuliani became mayor. He realized
that even though crime was declining in the city, people's fears were
being stoked by the relentless tabloid and television coverage of the
day's most grisly crime. No matter how much the felony rate dropped,
in a city of seven million there would always be at least one crime
scene for a live shot at the top of the 11 o'clock news.
Mr. Giuliani told the police to stop giving out details of daily crime
in time for reporters' deadlines, a policy that prompted outrage from
the press but not many complaints from the public. With the lessening
of the daily media barrage, New Yorkers began to be less scared and
more realistic about the risks on their streets.
-- John Tierney
[via NYT]
Posted by omor at 05:39 AM | Comments (0)
May 07, 2005
Ballot stronger than the bullet: before or after getting shot ?
The egomania required to be president or a presidential assassin makes
the two types brothers of sorts. Presidents and presidential assassins
are like Las Vegas and Salt Lake City that way. Even though one city
is all about sin and the other is all about salvation, they are
identical, one-dimensional company towns built up out of the desert by
the sheer will of true believers. The assassins and the presidents
invite the same basic question: Just who do you think you are?
If I can summon this much bitterness toward a presidential human
being, I can sort of, kind of see how this amount of bile or more,
teaming up with disappointment, unemployment, delusions of grandeur
and mental illness, could prompt a crazier narcissistic creep to buy
one of this country's widely available handguns. Not that I, I repeat,
condone that. Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is
stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got
shot.
-- Sarah Vowell
My first impression of Vowell came from her excellent pre-emptive
obituary of Frank Sinatra.
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell.
[via NYT]
Posted by omor at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)