Passing Comments

Yesterday, Germany’s Der Spiegel (SPIEGEL ONLINE International) ran a fascinating piece about the hows and whys, and what’s yet to come in the ongoing, lopsided relationship between the dollar and the euro.

Writing about the Federal Reserve in the U.S. and the European Central Bank, Christian Reiermann offers a snapshot comparison of the two men in charge of them, and a history of how the contrasting philosophies of the two institutions came to be (“KEEP CALM AND DON’T PANIC” April 29,2008).

The article’s intro:

Never before have the central banks of the United States and Europe pursued such divergent strategies when it comes to dealing with a financial crisis. The increased value of the euro against the dollar reveals which strategy is working.

Reiermann writes in clear, straightforward prose that illuminates a subject that’s often presented — at least for mere mortals –as if it’s organic chemistry poorly translated from the original Swahili. Grazie!

Read more here.

An article last week in InformationWeek online highlights some gloomy numbers for recent sales of Microsoft’s Windows operating system (“Microsoft Windows Sales Plunge 24% Amid Rising Competition” by Paul McDougall, April 25, 2008):

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) on Thursday revealed that sales of licenses for its desktop Windows operating systems fell 24% in the company’s fiscal third quarter, a sign that the Redmond’s stranglehold on the PC market is weakening as new competitors emerge.

Microsoft posted revenue from all desktop versions of Windows of $4 billion for the three months ended March 31, compared with Windows sales of $5.3 billion during the same period a year earlier.

Read more here.

Today the blogger writing as Hunter on DailyKos offers an acerbic and (painfully) funny list of “Lessons Learned” from the U.S. Presidential primary campaign that is now well into its third millennium.

A sample:

In a race that includes a former First Lady of the United States and a multimillionaire Republican senator rumored to share up to eight residences with his wife, the black guy from Chicago is unforgivably elitist.

Racism in America is caused primarily by black Chicago preachers.

Complete list here.

Last week, Beacon Broadside website printed an excerpt from the essay “My Green Manifesto” by David Gessner. Below I’ve excerpted from Beacon’s excerpt. If you want to read Gassner’s full essay, you can find it here.

In Manifesto, Gessner himself excerpts one of his earlier essays:

The essay came about when, after throwing a book against a wall in which the author had droned on serenely about “being the present moment” and “living in the natural woods,” I went for a walk on my unnatural beach carrying my unnatural micro-cassette recorder, into which I spoke the beginnings of an essay. When the essay was later published it began exactly the way I spoke it that day as I tramped along the beach:

I am sick of nature. Sick of trees, sick of birds, sick of the ocean.

Of course I wasn’t really sick of the natural world, just of the way some writers chose to portray it. I was sick of the hushed voice, sick of the saintliness, sick of the easy notions of the perfectibility of man, sick of the apocalyptic robes, sick of the scolding. But most of all I was sick of the certainty that seemed to ooze out of the words. Writers certain that they knew what would happen in the world and certain that they knew how to be in that world and certain that they should tell us these things. The odd thing was that, for all their certainty, the world they described didn’t sound much at all like the world I happened to live in.

A team of scientists studying the barks of dogs have concluded that when a dog is barking because it’s lonely versus barking when a stranger wanders along, other dogs can tell the difference, according to a story today in New Scientist (“Dog’s bark means more than its bite” by Ewen Callaway, April 2008).

Okay. (But any dog owner could have told them that, if they’d just asked). Good they’re finally catching on, though.

EIAA (European Interactive Advertising Association) reported this month that adults living with children spend more time online than adults in households without minors. The findings about online trends in Europe are from EIAA‘s first ever “Digital Families” report, according to the media trade organization.

“Almost three-quarters (73%) of people living with children are logging on to the internet each week, compared with only half (52%) of those without,” the EIAA report reveals.

Overall, digital parents are ramping up their web time, spending 11.6 hours online each week (up 36% since 2004) and over a quarter are heavy users of the internet (27%). Digital families are also more likely than those households without children to use the internet at the weekends (58% vs. 40%).

This online activity has meant that digital families are consuming other media less as a result of the internet – 44% of digital parents are watching less TV, almost a third read fewer magazines and newspapers (31% and 30% respectively) and almost a quarter (24%) listen to the radio less.

Read more about the study here.

Weep, probably, judging by some conclusions in a series of articles beginning today in Advertising Age. Taking a look at the ongoing decline of newspapers, the report focuses on what’s being done to forestall collapse (“The Newspaper Death Watch” by Nat Ives, April 28, 2008).

One expert quoted in the article predicts that newspapers will survive only about 20 to 25 more years:

Of course, newspaper owners aren’t going to just give up and wait — and that’s why Ad Age is launching this series about the 1,437 dailies still working hard in the U.S. It’ll look at the thought leaders in the industry, their attempts to leave the past — and even formats — behind and their strategies for finding new business models.

(Link to this story came from mediabistro.com).

Each month, TateShots posts some videos online focusing on modern and contemporary art exhibitions at The Tate in London. Last month, artists Paul Harrison and John Wood were featured talking about the ideas behind some of their works. The duo are described by TateShots as “an art-world equivalent to Laurel and Hardy.”

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s recently-released, first solo album “Gurrumul” has shot to the top of mainstream music charts in Australia. The 37-year-old musician, who was born blind, is now outselling major stars such as Mariah Carey, according to the International Herald Tribune (“Aboriginal musician astonishes Australian audiences” by Tim Johnston, April 22, 2008).

This video featuring Yunupingu is from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica (Italian text, in translation, paraphrased):

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu sings in the language of his native Aboriginal tribe, Yolngu, and recounts the difficulties of his people.

Russell Morse definitely knows how to bring fresh meaning to the saying “telling it like it is.” In a commentary piece for New America Media yesterday, Morse begins:

PHILADELPHIA, PA — I’m concerned that this election is turning me into a misogynist.

Last night, I watched Hillary Clinton deliver her victory speech in a hotel in downtown Philadelphia, cringing. I looked around nervously and realized I was in a ballroom full of my mom. Instantly, I became terrified of this middle-aged white woman army, marching through America, stomping young people’s dreams out with their sensible shoes.

If you’re in Barack Obama’s camp during this hundred-year primary, you may love every word Morse writes. If you’re in Hillary Clinton’s, probably not so much.

Maureen Dowd, eat your heart out!