Memoirs by Hillary Clinton & Polished Lewinsky Almost ...

After the White House intern conducted an infamous affair with President Bill Clinton in 1995 and 1996, Lewinsky's name became a punch line in the corridors of the NSW Parliament...

Monica Lewinsky says she became reclusive during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president in 2008 for fear that she would be used for political purposes and that she feels “gun-shy” even now as Mrs. Clinton considers another run in 2016. Bluest dress in the world

“I am determined to have a different ending to my story,” she writes. “I've decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past. (What this will cost me, I will soon find out.)”New ending

Vogue Has an Excerpt of Hillary Clinton’s New Memoir

By Dianna Dilworth on May 12, 2014 1:35 PM

Vogue has published an exclusive excerpt from Hillary Clinton’s new memoirHard Choices, which comes out in June from Simon & Schuster.

The excerpt was timed for Mother’s Day and included a passage about the former secretary of state’s relationship with her own mother.

Mom loved mystery novels, Mexican food, Dancing with the Stars (we actually managed to get her to a taping of the show once), and most of all her grandchildren. My nephew Zach Rodham’s school was just five minutes away, and he came over many afternoons to visit her. Spending time with Fiona and Simon Rodham, her youngest grandchildren, was a precious delight for her. For Chelsea, her grandmother was one of the most important figures in her life. Mom helped Chelsea navigate the unique challenges of growing up in the public eye and, when she was ready, encouraged her to pursue her passion for service and philanthropy.

Comment Now!

Share

inShare

Rude salespeople make you buy fancy things by Tyler Cowen

What makes a work of art an icon? Maybe a historical fluke. The “Mona Lisa” became famous when it was stolen, and popularity begets popularity... Good to see why Cold River is an icon

Rude salespeople make you buy fancy things

Here is a new result, although it is based on surveys rather than market data:

It’s no secret that salespeople at upscale shops can be a little snobbish, if not outright rude, the researchers note. Consumer complaints recently have pressured some luxury retailers to train their staffs to be more approachable; Louis Vuitton even went as far as decorating the entrance of its Beverly Hills store with a smiling cartoon apple in 2007. But if luxury retailers want to continue to rake in the dough, they actually should do the exact opposite, the study found. The ruder the salesperson the better.

In four online surveys, Ward and Dahl had participants imagine interactions with different types of salespeople under a bunch of different conditions. Variables included the imagined store’s level of luxury, the extent of the salesperson’s haughtiness, how well the salesperson represented the store’s brand, and how closely participants themselves related with the brand. The results:

• Rejection makes people want to buy luxury goods. A salesperson’s condescending attitude has little effect on consumers’ desire to buy more affordable brands like Gap and American Eagle, though.

• Rejection is stronger when salespeople convincingly embody brands in the way they act and dress. Sloppy salespeople aren’t as intimidating. 

• People who really want to own a particular brand are even more influenced by rejection. Instead of switching their loyalties, customers just become more attached.

• Rejection works best in the short term. While great at pressuring people into buying something in the moment, dismissive staff may still alienate customers in the long run.

The results fall into a long line of research that demonstrates the extent to which rejection can jar our fragile self-conceptions.

The article is based on:

…a forthcoming study in theJournal of Consumer Research,Morgan Ward of Southern Methodist University and Darren Dahl of the Sauder School of Business…

The pointer is from Roman Hardgrave.

Bohemian Vampires Draculas and Media Dragons

All the leaves were gone and they stood, reaching out their branches, like empty arms ...

– Anne Donovan, Gone are the Leaves 

At the beginning was the big bang. What banged, why, or what happened before, we could never know. Now we do...Knowledge is power

NYTimes: Two teams of scientists published studies on Sunday showing that blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice, rejuvenating their muscles and brains. As ghoulish as the research may sound, experts said that it could lead to treatments for disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease.

The key papers are enclosed:  reference (1) and (2) and (3). Some of the papers are pointing to a specific protein but the last paper suggests that simple transfusions also work and that raises a number of issues of public policy. As Derek Lowe Shares his views on this complex topic

(Via blogroll link - Marginal Revolution)

"The most fundamental constraint is limited time." - Gary Becker, 1930-2014 bit.ly/1iZi5ZR

The Nobel Speech

Packer V Gyngell Punch Up: One Punch Law & High Wealth White Collars

"Those who heard him lecture never forgot the experience--how he once said, with memorable bite: 'whenever you hear a man speak of "realism," you may always be sure that this is the prelude to some bloody deed.'"
~ Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin: A Life

It is the titillating tanty between tycoons that has every media outlet in Australia clawing to get their hands on the first

And while an intense bidding war between outlets takes place for picture rights, savvy social media users have taken their own angle on the dust up between James Packer and Channel Nine CEO David Gyngell’s punch up.

It was a bromantic falling out of epic Sydneyrella's proportions...

Mogul against TV boss.  Groom against best man.  Mate against mate.

They insist they’re still friends, but whatever caused (unknown woman - other woman- - amen )  the roadside punch-up between billionaire businessman James Packer and Nine boss David Gyngell, you can bet the bad blood will continue to simmer...

Sydney Social-Mediadragon Spies ( on a brighter note, czech out dolphins at Bondi Iceberg)

A surfer watches a group of dolphins leap in the waters of Bondi Beach in Sydney.

  

Taking The Kafkaesque Out Of Kafka

Death is inescapable, but so is a craving for immortality. And for carbohydrates. You’d better skip those if you want to see 120... Plans of men & mice ....     ~~~ Kafka - Black on Black The first born daughter of the Czech Velvet Revollution of 1989 .. Kafka's Second Star ...

The story, “The Judgment,” I wrote during the night of the 22nd, from 10 P.M. to 6 A.M., in one sitting. I could hardly pull my legs out from under the desk; they had become stiff from sitting. The frightful exertion and pleasure of experiencing how the story developed right in front of me, as though I were moving forward through a stretch of water. Several times during the night I lugged my own weight on my back. How everything can be hazarded, how for everything, even for the strangest idea, a great fire is ready in which it expires and rises up again.... At 2 A.M. I looked at the clock for the last time. As the maid came through the front room in the morning, I was writing the last sentence. Turning off the lamp, the light of day. The slight pains in my chest. The exhaustion that faded away in the middle of the night.... Only in this way can writing be done, only in a context like this, with a complete opening of body and soul.  Only in this way can writing be done, only in a context like this, with a complete opening of body and soul

Whoever utters “Kafkaesque” has neither fathomed nor intuited nor felt the impress of Kafka’s devisings. If there is one imperative that ought to accompany any biographical or critical approach, it is that Kafka is not to be mistaken for the Kafkaesque.  The New Republic 

• Power and Culture on the Internet
  HOW has the Internet changed our culture, politics, and economic structures? One of the smartest answers to this complicated question comes from lefty filmmaker Astra... Taylor 
  

  
  

Bohemian Escapes & Letter Writing Habits

• Asteroids caused 26 nuclear-scale explosions in the Earth’s atmosphere between 2000 and 2013, a new report reveals...
• 
  
Rare Pathé film: Kubelik conducts at Skoda car plant
• 
  
  
  
  
  This must have been January or February 1948, just before the Communists forced Rafael Kubelik to flee Czechoslovakia About the same time my auntie Ota crossed the dangerous Sudeten Lands ... Escape of 1980 across the Iron curtain via Morava River was inspired by those who crossed the uninhabited hills and swamps of Sudety in George Orwell's 1948 aka 1984 ... Via Slipped Disc
  
  
  A new literary diaspora has taken shape, propelled, as Isabelle de Courtivron has written in “Lives in Translation: Bilingual Writers on Identity and Creativity,” by “immigration, technology, postcolonialism and globalization,” powerful forces that have “dissolved borders and increased cross-cultural mobility.” The New York Times 
  
  
  
  

  Here’s What Happens When A Millennial Decides To Write Snail Mail Letter

  
  

  
  

  “I completely forgot to check my mailbox for a good two weeks. But I had a lovely, unexpected surprise when I checked it twenty minutes ago – a perfect addition to Valentine’s Day; there’s nothing more poetic than sharing your handwriting the good, old fashioned way with a good, old friend.” This Recording

  
  
  

  
  

  Essays Have A Newfound Popularity – Maybe Because Of Reality TV

  
  

  Roxane Gay: “I think it’s very similar to why we watch reality television. We want to see people open themselves up and we want to see where they’ll take that openness.” Salon

  
  

  
  

  
  

Taxes and Marginal Revolutions

Some on the left argue that consumption taxes will favor the ultra-rich because they consume a very small share of their income.  But if that’s so, then no tax regime will put much of a tax burden on the ultra-rich.  Just as you can’t squeeze blood from a stone, you can’t put a tax burden on misers.  As Steven Landsburg pointed out in one of my all time favorite posts, society views misers like Scrooge as being selfish individuals, when actually it’s people who consume a lot who are selfish. Misers leave more for others to consume.

In my only slightly cynical view, a lot of the debate about taxation is more about showing the wealthy that they need to lose (or win, on the other side of the debate) a few political battles than it is about actual canons of efficiency or for that matter even well-specified theories of egalitarian justice.  For instance I find that few proponents of a higher inheritance tax realize it will increase currentconsumption inequality, by encouraging the wealthy to consume more rather than paying the tax.  Nor do they seem to care, once this is pointed out.  I call this “the comeuppance” theory” and it is another example of Robin Hanson’s motto that “politics isn’t about policy,” but rather is a spat about which monkeys should have a higher or lower status.

Scott’s post is here, and it contains other points of interest.

Bear Pit - Fight Club - IKEA Factions - Dirty Tricks

From the Bear Pit to Brad Pitt's fight club

They were Young Liberals on a covert mission, codenamed Black Ops. The dress code was black, the meeting time was 10pm, and it was BYO ladder. Their mission: to tear down ''illegally'' posted campaign posters on telegraph poles, allegedly including their own. Inspired by the buff Brad Pitt in cult movie Fight Club, a former adviser to minister Chris Hartcher fired off an email on August 11, 2011, to whip the party's youngest members into action. The way we are governed

Fight Club: snake oil spivs and ladders

A state Liberal MP who was allegedly used by his former ministerial colleague Chris Hartcher to do a favour for a company making illicit donations has told a corruption inquiry: "There are no friends in politics."

Charlie Lynn, who is not accused of wrongdoing, gave evidence at the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Wednesday that he was "supposedly" part of the same conservative right faction of the Liberal Party as Mr Hartcher, but they were not friends. "I think they call it the IKEA faction now," said Mr Lynn, a member of the state's upper house. "You join it together when you want something done." The sadness of factional politics Factions without morals

Dodgy pamphlets stolen posters and other dirty tricks

MON # AC DC of Irish Courage

SOMO researchers Roos van Os and Indra Römgens published an article in 'de Volkskrant' (Dutch newspaper) about the question: Why does the Netherlands make it possible for dubious mining companies, tax dodgers, dictators and arms dealers to hide their identity?

With one click of the mouse, you can order an ‘anonymous tax free private or public limited company’ and benefit from guarantees of ‘absolute confidentiality for the company’s beneficiaries and shareholders and the highest possible protection for the company’s management and executive’. This is how the self-proclaimed biggest legal advisor for offshore holding constructions in the Netherlands, Quaedvlieg Juristen of The Hague, presents the attractive Dutch tax climate.

The More Laws Change The More They Favour The Powerful