It was 8:50 before I got up this morning. I’d have stayed in bed longer, but that gondola appeared just beyond the balcony, and two little men hopped out of it and got to work, making further relaxation impossible. They nailed a square plank over the door, which opens outward, and then they removed the (very tacky) partition that separated our space from the neighboring apartment’s. (We haven’t had an actual neighbor in some time.) By degrees, I got dressed and ready to go to the doctor, the Mohs surgeon in this case, to have the staples removed from my scalp. I walked down to 69th Street in the ongoing glum weather, and was in and out of the office in minutes. The staples were removed without anaesthetic. I felt nothing; it was the listening that was disagreeable. (But not very.) Back on the street, I headed to my internist’s office to fetch a prescription, one of those that has to be submitted in writing. (All of my doctors have offices within a fairly small area, convenient to New York Hospital and to the Hospital for Special Surgery.) I headed up First Avenue to the man who shines and repairs my shoes, and then crossed the street to Agata & Valentina, where I bought some veal scallops for the weekend. (And a few other things — but only a few; the total came to only $45.) By now, it was time for lunch, at Hi-Life, a block away on Second. I read Daniel Mendelsohn on Horace while I ate a club sandwich — a yummy combo. I resolved to read more in Italian.

***

The walk to the doctor was helpful because it wore off the shock of reading about the Krim Family tragedy. Later in the day, Megan told me about the cannibal cop — I hadn’t heard about him. Actually, he hasn’t caused any bodily harm yet, unlike the presumably deranged nanny. I asked Megan to give Will an extra hug from me. Nothing is sure or truly safe in this world.  

***

Ms NOLA just tipped me off to a sensible piece by Tamar Adler, author of The Everlasting Meal (a book that I need a few days of peace and quiet to study), at The New Yorker blog. Her complaint, with which I could not more wholeheartedly agree, is that there is something poisonous and, worse, infectious about Anthony Bourdain’s vulgar machismo. Adler praises Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain’s first book, and I must confess that I got a few things out of it as well — but that was enough for me. Bourdain writes too well to be the boor that he affects to be. Pandering to men whose greatest fear in the world is being taken for a closet sissy is no way to serve the culinary profession. Guys who worry about how tough they really are don’t need encouragement. They need space travel.

At the other end of the journalistic-wisdom spectrum, we have this week’s Economist cover story, “The Man Who Must Change China.” I have seen headlines just as stupid but nothing more stupid; that this pointless statement graces the cover of the world’s most expensive “newspaper” greatly amplifies its moronic quality. China needs reform, agreed. Almost everything needs reform. But what’s that must doing there? Says who? The editors of The Economist? I hope that it made them feel better to say so. Otherwise, they’re wasting everybody’s time with their retrograde assumptions about the purpose of journalism.

I would have canceled my subscription by now if I had the energy to spare on the exercise; as it is, I’m waiting for it to run out. About a year ago, I realized that the magazine is stuck in amber, working under the misapprehension that it is still 1985 or 1990. Its view of capitalism rejects distinctions on the point of size; all chief executives have the same powers and responsibilities no matter what the size of their outfits might be. And it is bedazzled by notions of “economy of scale” that have not been adapted to the emergence of the Internet.

To be sure, few business writers seem to have a clue about where business is going, which is why we’re barreling toward the future predicted by Alan Blinder several years ago in Foreign Affairs: a world composed of rentiers and their professional or menial personal servants. The Economist ought to be a visionary publication. It settles instead for a more reactionary tone. A recent header calling for “True Progressivism” ended thus:

The right’s instinct is too often to make government smaller, rather than better. The supposedly egalitarian left’s failure is more fundamental. Across the rich world, welfare states are running out of money, growth is slowing and inequality is rising — and yet the left’s only answer is higher tax rates on wealth-creators. Messrs Obama, Miliband and Holland need to come up with something that promises both fairness and progress. Otherwise everyone will pay.

This is not helpful. Why don’t the editors “come up with something”? They talk about means-testing welfare benefits. I’m all for that, assuming that the health-care industry can be steered away from wealth-maximizing operations and restored to the path of public service. (I’m not opposed to doctors getting rich, but Big Pharma is a runaway train.) Why don’t the editors give union-hating a rest, and concentrate instead on ways of dissociating school funding from property taxes? Why not try to work with the best ideas on both sides of the aisle? Because The Economist is preaching to its choir, not to the rest of us. Bear in mind that fewer than a million people read it.

As for the “ultimatum” to Xi Jinping (apparently China’s incoming leader), it is high time that the West stopped barking admonitions at the Chinese. What’s needed is not The Economist‘s list of reforms (independent judiciary, the release of political prisoners, an easing up of political correctness, and an end to censorship), obviously desirable as those might be in Western eyes. What’s needed is a genuinely Chinese critique of China, a critique that would help China become a better China. The only alternative is a worse China. China will always be a relatively authoritarian sovereignty, and I cannot say that the example of Western democracy provides any kind of lesson to Party leaders. Instead of aiming for transparency, which will not happen in the foreseeable centuries, the Chinese need to learn how to make their belief in personal business connections more constructive. One way to begin would be to develop an ethic of marginalizing violent or larcenous family members from within the family itself. A tall order! But one that harmonizes with the persistent Confucian mindset. Another: to make women first-class Chinese people, again within the family. This would not be a matter of entitlement but rather one of expectation. Another very tall order. But imaginable, unlike the West’s arrogant pipe-dreams. “[Xi] must be ready to break with the past” — such emptiness!

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2012 at 1:42 pm.