How Do You Say "Paul Wolfowitz" in French?

Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Proving that one good sex scandal at an international finance institution deserves another, Mr. Strauss-Kahn, formerly France's minister of the economy and now the International Monetary Fund's managing director, reportedly gave a padded severance package to his mistress working at the IMF. Mildly ironically enough, Mr. Wolfowitz gave his World Bank mistress a higher-paying job and promotions, which may be some comment on French and American approaches to capitalism: on one side, greater safety net during unemployment; on the other, conniving upward mobility. Also worth noting, while the Times was all over Wolfowitz, one of the architects and champions of the failed Iraq war, the main reason why he was eventually forced out of the World Bank -- the rest of the international community gleefully wanted his (deserved) comeuppance -- it's coverage has been quite passive of Strauss-Kahn, even using AP briefs. And the Wall Street Journal has been breaking the Strauss-Kahn story -- that freedom-hating Frenchie. Editorial policy never influences coverage.

Though an internal investigation has cleared Strauss-Kahn, I remain skeptical, as gladly does the WSJ's editorial page. As the generally vitriolic posters to my newspaper's comment boards often say, Throw them all out. Maybe they're right sometimes.

Grey Lady, Vermillion Leaves: The Beauty of Fall Foliage

In case you needed another reason to love the Times: the priceless, ridiculous, daily descriptions of fall foliage in the bottom right-hand corner of the weather page. From today's paper: "The brilliant blazes of vermillion, maize and orange have spread south to the southern New England Coast, upper Ohio Valley and souther Great Lakes. Color is also nearing peak in the southern Appalachians. Leaf loss is high over the interior Northeast, where a myriad of diluted colors carpets the ground."

Could Frost or Thoreau have phrased it any better? Who composes this for the Times? Do they employ someone only for autumn to write it? Or maybe they can still afford to send 20 correspondents driving around the Northeast for six weeks to relay dispatches about leaf loss.

Not looking forward to the required raking of imminent post-peak....

Speaking of Black, Thick-Framed Glasses

Weezer's new single, "Troublemaker," is abominable. It's about one notch above nursery school rhyme on the songwriting scale, with a ridiculously simple guitar riff that circles over and over and asinine lyrics whose first couplet rhymes "school" with "fool" in exactly the way you'd expect. (You can listen to it via the previous link at the band's home page or at my gym, where the preferred radio station, which I've complimented in these "pages" before, seems to play it each time I'm there.) Now, yes, one of the defining characteristics of rock 'n' roll is its simplicity and structure: three chords may be all you need and unlike classical music, the main theme returns every 45 seconds, not 25 minutes, and there's rarely a complicated interlocking of parts. But this song extrapolates it to an offensive degree.

The case of Rivers Cuomo, the band's lead singer and songwriter and longtime wearer of black, thick-framed glasses, will always be a curious one. His career arc: refreshing, poppy, excellent record for a debut; emotive, widely praised but commercially shunned follow-up; prolonged reclusion; increasingly meaningless records that still sell well; and amid it all, hundreds of unreleased songs, mercurial relationships with his label, and a persona that after what I believe is acknowledged depression is almost uncomfortable and straitjacketed.

Most people my age take "Pinkerton" over the "Blue Album," but I choose differently. The latter is much more fun to listen to without being vapid. In short, it delivers. I read somewhere that current rock critics are so hard on Cuomo because they were all between 12 and 20 when those two records were released (myself included), and since those were so resonant for that stage of life, they expect even greater as time moves forward, which is unsurprising and generally unfair to Cuomo. But maybe Cuomo's songwriting skills are just stunted and he only knows how to write songs for teenagers. (Also a possibility considering the conventional storyline says he started suppressing emotion in his music after "Pinkerton" imploded.) While no one my age can find anything profound in "Troublemaker," maybe its lyrics about leaving school behind for insolent, guitar-playing trouble-making are perfect for that restless 15-year-old spirit, which was once mine and is part of so many boys right now.

Joe Maddon's Glasses

Black, thick-framed glasses, like the musical genre they're most commonly associated with -- emo, which hasn't produced a good record since "Something to Write Home About" in 1999 -- have probably been reduced to caricature by now. Over-intellectualism, introspection, introversion, bad lyrics, etc. That's why it's so nice to see them on the face of Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays manager Joe Maddon every game.

Managers, by nature, have to be even-keeled and reasonable -- they oversee an office of egomaniacs for at least 162 games per year -- but usually they seem like the aged jocks they are, somewhat kind but also somewhat gruff, without too much, oh, well, introspection. (Not that I have much against jocks.) But Joe Maddon not only looks intellectual thanks to those frames, hearing him explain his managing philosophy on TBS a few nights ago, he sounds compassionate, genuine and thoughtful. While someone needs to tell the Rays that the ironic mohawk is so fall 2002 (you remember, when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs became thrilling and were poised to do something big), giving himself one and inspiring all the players to do the same is about as cool a thing as a manager can do to lighten his team's spirit. He almost makes me want to root for the Rays, even though they play in a city that probably doesn't deserve a professional franchise.

Making a prediction for the rest of this series is hard: The Rays were so thoroughly dominant for two and two-thirds games, it seems impossible they could collapse. But then, their loss last night was so flabbergasting that it proves as cursed as the Sawx were for 86 years, they're certainly making up for it these days, and could ride the momentum for the next two games. Either way, the Sawx have cemented themselves as the team of the oughts. And, as much as their management perpetuates the myth that they're the scrappy underdogs compared to the corporate behemoth of the Yankees, the Sawx have ascended to the top for the same reason the Yankees did the previous decade: a core of homegrown talent in the lineup and pitching staff, complemented by shrewd trades and free-agent signings.

Greater point in this series, though: Even though they lost last night, the Rays still scored seven runs, and the Sawx pitchers don't seem to know to control them. Rays in seven.

Thank You, Jeni's Ice Cream

With each passing year, I eat less ice cream. Flavors such as chocolate chip cookie dough and mint chocolate chip are nice, but familiar. I'm no longer that excited about eating ice cream, which is perhaps heretical in a city that has lots and lots of ice cream shoppes. Jeni's Ice Creams' cider and five spice sorbet changes that. It faithfully tastes like cider, but in a subtle, not saccharine, way that's like nothing frozen I've had before. I've taken spoon to pint over and over in a way I haven't in years with ice cream. The sweet corn and blackberry and raspberry sorbet are also very good.

So thanks to Jeni's -- of Columbus, a vastly underrated city -- and if it ever needs an "average customer as a spokesman," I'm more than willing. And thanks to the two people who got the six pints (!) of it for my birthday, though, thankfully, they don't read this blog.

Oh, So Now, Wachovia's Board Does Its Fiduciary Duty

Wachovia's decision to leap from Citi's government-induced bear hug to Wells Fargo's open-armed, gently caressing one is the latest sadly amusing chapter of the past month. Of course, it's the duty of Wachovia's board to seek the best value for its shareholders, and Wells Fargo's deal is seven times as lucrative. But why for the past three-plus years, most especially when buying Golden West, the godfather of the option ARM, for $25 billion, could no one on Wachovia's board or in its executive suites recognize what they were doing was driving the company into the ground?

Perhaps even farther up the "sadly amusing" ladder are Herb and Marion Sandler, owners of Golden West when they sold it to Wachovia. Fierce Democratic donors, their lending practices are a (sub)prime example of why the country's economy is swooning -- just because expanding home ownership is a just cause doesn't mean everyone in the world should qualify for a mortgage, which, hopefully, they've now learned. (Thanks to Seeking Alpha for being more prescient than nearly all.) With all their wealth, the Sandlers have used part to found ProPublica, a nonprofit organization of investigative journalism that thankfully fills the gap when the newspaper industry does nothing but implode. Maybe their first assignment can be exposing themselves?

Oh, and for those looking for more heaps of morbid amusement, join the FDIC's press release list. Every time you open your Inbox: "Whose gone under now?"

Update (12/26/08): The Times beat ProPublica to the punch, publishing an excellent, unflattering article on the Sandlers' and Golden West's business model. The company popularized loans with "pick what you pay" monthly installments, meaning it was very possible, if not likely, that a borrower paid less than the interest rate so the mortgage's size actually grows with time. Mr. Sandler defends the lending vehicle as an excellent one, except when housing prices decline by 40 percent, as they have in many places in California, where the company had its largest market, which shifts poor decision-making to nebulous, overriding market forces. No one is culpable, everything is a vast mix of factors beyond our control. The 21st century in a nutshell. Doesn't lending to unqualified people in enormous quantities through such vehicles such as option ARMs also (in)directly inflate the housing bubble? In Mr. Sandler's defense, Michael Moss and Geraldine Fabrikant, the story's authors, don't let him do much more defending, perhaps because there isn't much left or because they've written a slightly slanted (but still-deserved) story. Furthermore, borrowers need to understand the terms on which they're borrowing. A contract is a contract is a contract. They need their own story in "The Reckoning" series.

Why Choose? Have Both

Unfortunately for Mayor Bloomberg, my family's mantra for the former (but reviving?) star of the Borscht Belt does not apply to 21st-century politics. Term limits, approved soundly by NYC voters in two referendums, do not get to be loosened one time only because you think you're going to be bored when you leave office in a year.

Arguments that we need an experienced, venerated mayor in times of financial crisis -- no matter how much of a financial genius Mr. Bloomberg is -- despite what city law says are those used by autocrats, not the best mayor in the world (and the city council). That Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir and patron of term limits, supports this is odd, especially because it lends an air of politics as oligarchy. That the Times endorses it is odder because, if I remember correctly, it didn't support Rudy Giuliani's arguments for an extension of his second term when his mayoralty was expiring just as Sept. 11 struck, though maybe that was just my mom, who rightfully hates Guiliani. (Giuliani, who's had a contentious relationship with Bloomberg, seems to support his successor's idea here. For the sake of clarification, I agree that term limits are "arbitrary," but if enough voters were motivated enough to enact them, then it's the voters who should remove them, not the council.)

Mayor Bloomberg, you can run for governor of New York and not even have down time between your last day in office in the city and your first day on the campaign trail. You'd surely win and run the most important state in the world. You also certainly had your chance to be a VP candidate (and, if Obama chose you, the coolest VP ever, and perhaps eventually, the coolest president ever). Now, you're on the verge of subverting democracy. Here's part of the presser yesterday:



Speaking of vice presidents, if anyone needed any more reason not to support Sarah "Narrow Maritime Border" Palin, as Alaska's governor she sued the federal government so not to have to list the polar bear as an endangered species. All those polar bears deserve gigantic hugs.

Update: Clyde Haberman's column in today's Times is a good, succinct, acerbic explanation for why Bloomberg's push for a third term blemishes his record.