[family feud] philanthropy or misanthropy

John Jacob Astor

Interesting to see the arcane crew in the news. Anthony D. Marshall, 82, [son of the socialite and philanthropist Brooke Astor] with his wife, Charlene, 61, will have to pay more than $1.3 million, return valuable artwork and jewelry, and give up his role as steward of his mother’s financial and health affairs as part of an agreement announced yesterday to settle a legal dispute involving the Astor fortune. J. P. Morgan Chase and Mrs. Astor’s longtime friend Annette de la Renta will serve as her permanent guardians. Mrs. Astor, 104, has been in fragile health for several years. Philip Marshall, 53, who had enlisted the help and testimony of David Rockefeller, Henry A. Kissinger and others as he sought to wrest control of Mrs. Astor’s affairs from his father, had his own blunt remarks: “We are overjoyed with today’s outcome, which puts Friday the 13th in a new light,” he said, presumably in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the 13 families. Here is one history. And here is another.

[grameen] the other side of the coin

This blog tries to put two sides if there are two to put. Tim Worstall has put the other side of Grameen [earlier post below] in stating: Grameen Bank - with the Nobel Peace Prize going to Muhammud Yunus and the Grameen Bank we're seeing pieces all over the papers trying to explain the success. Unfortunately, all too many are missing the point. Like this in The Times. He then goes on to say why this ain't so hot. He also posted a piece above it called Morons out there and I have to confess I anxiously looked to see if he might have been referring to me.

[peru] shining path lovers get life

Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman [71] and second-in-command longtime lover Elena Iparraguirre, 59, have been found guilty of aggravated terrorism and sentenced to life in prison. The former philosophy professor stated: “I am a revolutionary combatant and totally reject being a terrorist.” The Shining Path enjoyed bombing electrical towers, bridges and factories, assassinating mayors and massacring villagers, shooting and hacking children to death their speciality. “They killed them with machetes, stones, axes — and for those who did not die in agony in this way, they even put them into a vat of boiling water,” said Ignacio Tacas, a 35-year-old farmer. Guzman’s team would then celebrate the bloodshed in songs and slogans, declaring that blood was necessary to “irrigate” their glorious revolution. Needless to say, these were not your usual terrorists but more in the Al Quaeda, Abu Ghraib, Taliban, Beslan, Janjaweed tradition and their name, an open variant of Illuminatis, Enlightenment, Lucis [check with the UN about them] and various other offshoots, is a good indicator of their boss.

[workplace] mcjob or mcfuture

When Douglas Coupland coined the phrase McJob in his 1991 book Generation X, it needed little explanation and it’s a term McDonald's has been fighting for years, often applied to the service industry as a whole which accounts for 82% of the total number employed in the UK last year. The Brighter Futures report says though, that far from being brain-dead dropouts, youngsters in the industry see it this way: 90% show high levels of engagement; 85% said job was better than they'd expected; 83% had seen positive change in themselves since starting work and 74% saw a long-term career at McDonald's. Of course, low initial expectations could account for this and the survey was commissioned by McDonald's and yet it was independently run. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) disagrees and says the results are flawed. One young male employee concludes: "While other business wouldn't have given me a chance, I showed I was willing to work and they rewarded that. They realise it's not in their interest to hold someone back who wants to do well." Whom to believe? [Based on a report in BBC Online from June 2006 – link now lost, sorry.]

[dannatt] remarks taken out of context

Tony Blair says he is in full agreement with comments his army chief made in a newspaper interview about British troop deployments in Iraq. Blair - who said that he drew his conclusion about the interview after reading the full transcript of it - said Friday some of Dannatt's remarks may have been taken out of context. "Now, in terms of what he (Dannatt) was saying about Britain coming out of Iraq, he was saying exactly the same as we've all said. I know you guys like to portray it as if our policy is to remain in Iraq forever, it isn't. It's to withdraw," Blair told a press conference. Dannatt denied attacking government policy, insisting he meant a phased pullout of British forces over two or three years. I continue to say Dannatt's remarks have been taken out of context. Tony Blair's reasons for accepting this are his own.

[2006 nobel peace prize] muhammad yunus

Muhammad Yunus gave a $90 loan to a Bangladeshi villager, which pulled her out of a cycle of poverty and into business. She used the money she borrowed from Garmeen in 2001 to buy egg-laying chickens, and parlayed her investment into a business that today sells construction materials. She's not alone. Yunus' micro-credit has spread around the globe and is said to have helped at least 100 million people take their first steps out of poverty. "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty," the Nobel Committee said in its citation in Oslo. The 65-year-old Yunus said he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million award to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food to sell to the poor at a nominal price. The rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor. But Grameen is not without critics, many of whom focus on the bank's high interest rates. Its business loans carry a rate of 20 percent, significantly higher than the 10-15 percent charged by commercial banks.