Dwight Garner: The Pride of West Virginia

The Times' published a whimsical little essay by Dwight Garner this week, supposedly about his soul-searching trip to West-Virginia. Of course Mr. Garner couldn't have just hopped in his car for a good ol' fashioned doobie ride, he had to undergo a "cultural cleanse" on Interstate 79-- and then write about it.

Two things struck me about this essay:

1) The short film clips at the top of the essay -- I'm pretty sure these are just GIFs. I understand why the editors thought a constantly looping five-second shot of a nameless highway would be cool, but I personally think it looks pretty amateurish and a bit choppy. Shoulda gone with a full video, Timesmen.

2) Unless I missed an entire extra page to the essay, the only thing Garner talks about is how much he loves music when he travels. That's cool man, I guess only a lucky few can get paid to write about how "music is ridiculously important to me." You must feel very unique in that regard, Garner...I would've been interested to hear about what you actually "found" on your journey, since the title clearly stated you are "in search of" yourself, but I guess providing any sort of legitimate analysis or fact is anathema to you metaphysically mysterious essayists.

John Denver be not proud of you, Mr. Garner

First off, I acknowledge I'm the fool for clicking on the Times' "Arts" section and expecting to find hardcore analytical arguments. But before this blog turns into a twice-weekly hate letter to the NYTimes, I should explain what boils my bean about essays like Mr. Garner's. All too often, the writers churning out the most self-serious, self-pitying lifestyle essays are also penning mournful dirges about America's income inequality, corporate structure, lack of business ethics, etc. I agree Wall Street's contributions to the economy appear increasingly dubious. However, if you receive an upper-middle-class paycheck every month for doing no actual research or fact-digging, but for just relating anecdotes to your readers that you think prove why America sucks (a la Ta-Nehisi Coates) -- or maybe explaining why I should buy a totally sweet Paul Motian CD (natch Dwight Garner) -- please spare me your opinions on why the economy is no good. Think about how lucky you are that you get paid more then 90% of Americans for writing about whatever makes your heart bleed at the moment, and then reconsider whether you really have the knowledge to critique positions as complex and fact-based as economic policy.

Alright, I think I got all the Times-hate out of my system. My next post will be about how I gave an elephant money on its trunk the other day! Stay tuned.

Apparently "Panic" is "Radiating" From India

...at least according to the New York Times' Jim Yardley. Intercultural conflicts between Muslims and the Bodo tribes of northeast India have led to an "exodus" of Muslims from the region, an issue exacerbated by wild rumors circulating around social media regarding planned attacks on Muslims. The situation is especially dire in the state of Assam, where 78 people have been killed and 300,000 have fled.

The closest I have come to experiencing this crisis myself was last weekend, when an expat acquaintance who was crashing on our couch for the day (for no apparent reason) looked up from his iPhone and said, "Whoa, dude...I think there's, like, some terrorist stuff going on." "Yeah, probably," I replied. "Hey, howza bout you get off our couch and go back to your own apartment?"

He didn't leave -- not then, at least -- and proceeded to read me the lurid details. Turns out the "terrorist stuff" was a riot in Azad Maidan in South Mumbai, which left two dead. The Azad Maidan violence was a response to the violence in Assam -- and police say the chaos was pre-planned.

I've found Mumbai to be a very safe city for the average pedestrian at any time of day (except for the occasional "pariah dog" ruffin' at you). This sort of report reminds me there is still a ton of political and cultural contexts I have to fully understand before forming my ultimate opinions on this country.

On that note...I need to find a more consistent source of India news besides the New York Times and the occasional Business Insider slideshow. Any suggestions? Besides the actual Mumbai newspapers...

Christopher Hitchens: Destroying Indian Bloggers from Beyond the Grave

I always gag a bit whenever I read some fawning New York Times elegy on a  literary figure they deem to be "indispensable"...like their recent obituary on Gore Vidal. Unfortunate, because I'm sure I'd love Mr. Vidal's work as countless other have, but I always feel like with each successive death of a "last of a breed," as the Grey Lady termed Vidal, the grizzled Times' newsmen are really lamenting the death of their industry.

Despite my aversion to self-serious, self-destructive essayists, I still surprised myself by how long I held out on reading any Christopher Hitchens. Must've been a particularly lachrymose Times' obituary, that one. Regardless, I was happy to find a 1997 Vanity Fair essay of his, "There'll Always Be an India," which comments on pretty much everything, say, a blog on India could cover...only in essay form!

Among other epic declarations in the piece, Hitchens notes: "Land of Contrasts. I challenge you to show me the Indian guidebook or travel piece that does not resort to this dismal cliche."

Well...uhhh...there goes the subject of my next post...

Ooohhh you're just so erudite and witty, aren't you...

Hitchens also explains why Coca-Cola's relationship with India is even more complicated then I thought -- turns out the Indian government demanded the secret Coke formula in the late 1970s. Coca-Cola "denounced India as a basket case" and stopped doing business in the country until the 1990s.

I highly suggest reading this piece, for more then just the pithy asides -- he packs in a lot of info, and a lot of reporting. Not bad for a guy who was probably wasted when he wrote it. 

Blackout!!!!

India's country-wide power grid failure has got the doom-sayers coming out in droves. "It's like a day of reckoning coming nearer," said Rajiv Kumar, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. 

My apartment, along with much of Mumbai, remains blissfully unaffected by the power outages; I guess this is just luck, but I still feel like I'm in a destined little bubble of Western privilege, opining from on high about the poor, power-less (and powerless) masses across the nation. Screw it, I'm gonna opine anyway.

As has been said many times, this disaster was completely predictable. Anyone who's driven along an Indian road for more then two minutes can tell you the infrastructure doesn't exactly inspire faith in Indian engineering. Funny, given the nation's formidable Indian Institutes of Technology and emphasis on STEM studies. 

Yessir, my beloved home-of-the-moment has got a long way to go before I think it could fairly be called 100% "developed." But then again,the U.S. infrastructure is also crumbling, as a result of the summer's extreme weather. Soooo...it's the end of the world?

Can't think of anywhere I'd rather spend the apocalypse.

Olympics in India

Friday night's Olympics opening ceremony happened to coincide with a bout of food poisoning -- or whatever the hell makes you nauseous for 48 hours straight without actually throwing up. I haven't missed an opening ceremony since 1992 -- e.g. before I was conscious of the "Olympics" -- so I tried my best to stay awake, but at 12:30 a.m. nothing remotely opening ceremony-esque was showing up on the live feed, so I left my crowd of multicultural comrades in the living room and schlepped to bed. Around 5 a.m, my roommate opened the bedroom door, plopped down on his floor mattress and fell asleep. Apparently blinding hallway light and unmistakable party sounds from the living room don't bother sleeping East Africans, but I -- with my high-and-mighty bed frame and Western standards -- was immediately jarred awake.

This whole post might be a passive-aggressive jab at my roommate, were it not for the fact that his eccentric sleeping habits allowed me to hear the unmistakable sounds of the Olympic opening ceremony from the living room. Thanks, bro!

So, with a twinkle in my eye and the spirit of the Games in my heart, I skipped down the hallway and found a pack of roommates, friends and associates watching the London march of athletes on a moderately-sized computer screen. I squeezed in between one roommate from Peru and another associate from Egypt on the couch, and commenced the gossiping and screen-shouting.

Watching the opening ceremony certainly made me proud to be American, particularly when comparing team strengths and weaknesses with my internationally diverse array of  comrades. "Oh, how many athletes does Serbia have this year? 115? Ya, America has 529, soooo....y'knowwwww..."

Really though, I was pretty lucky to be able to watch an Olympics ceremony with an incredibly diverse crew. Hearing other country's takes on the Games was interesting to say the least. Among other conclusions, I've deduced that pretty much the only time anyone in the world watches swimming is during the Olympics.

Now if I can just get my roommates to watch some Team USA basketball with me, I can really get an ego boost...

Go forth, grand athletes! Make America proud!

Guar: The Little Bean That Could

Of all the national policy issues that campus activists continually rallied around during my four years of college, hydrofracking was probably the most incendiary. Perhaps it was because I went to school in central New York...home to layers upon layers of precious, precious shale oil. Oil best obtained by hydrofracking, of course, although there's a slew of water pollution and environmental degradation issues that come with the territory. You can see some of the strong reactions against fracking in the video below, which I helped produce:

I really liked the activists in the videos above. They were chill. But that doesn't mean I'm about to leap behind every "bleeding-heart smellfare" program -- or "save the environment" mumbo jumbo -- they support.

Thus, I'd be interested to see how some Wavy Gravy's react to this recent New York Times' article, which extols the financial benefits of guar bean production for poor northwest Indian farmers. Yeah, guar beans...which are a crucial ingredient in HYDROFRACKING!

Indeed, this lil' guy's price has skyrocketed in the past few months because of energy companies' increasing demand -- and the fact that the bean is in limited supply and only grows in particularly arid, desert-like climates.

And these farmers are making a killing on guar. Says one Sohan Singh, "Now...we have a house made of stone."

iT'S your choice, activists! Save the Indian farmers or save the environment! You can't have both!

But on the real....this is a tricky economic policy issue (not to mention environmental...and social...), and showcases how important it is to have export diversity in an economy. In the guar-producing parts of Rajasthan, the economy depends primarily on agriculture -- a relatively fickle business, especially when the farmers there are not exactly using high-technology, high-yield techniques. It's like relying on the Rain Gods to supply your salary every year.

That doesn't mean I'm not rooting for them; go 'head, Mr. Singh! Milk them energy companies for all their worth!

Coca-Cola: Fighting the Good Fight

As a follower of business, I'm a fan of Coca-Cola. Have been ever since freshman year of high school, when I wrote my World History final paper on why the invention of Coca-Cola was the most important development in human history.

So of course, I'm happy to hear that Coca-Cola is planning a fairly aggressive expansion of operations in my current homeland, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to the article, Coca-Cola accounts for 60% of soft drink revenues in India, compared to PepsiCo's 37%. However, in my little slice of Mumbai, I've noticed it is much easier to find Pepsi products -- in particular "Mirinda," a tart little orange soda, and Pepsi itself -- then Coke. I've almost started to miss that classic red logo. And the actual drink. 'Cuz Pepsi blows.

Here's to you, Coca-Cola! Ignore Mayor Bloomberg and his Big Brother-esque soda policies...it's just you and me.

India in the News...That's a First...

The New York Times ran an interesting -- if incomplete -- timeline of India's modern economic history as told through magazine covers from the past 10 years. More accurately framed, this is a history of the mainstream media's coverage of India's booming decade.

Basically, according to this timeline, BusinessWeek first beguiled the general public with tales of a sexy, brown-skinned "vanguard of one of the biggest mind meld's in history," right before Wired warned everyone that these brilliant young computer whizzes were going to take our jobs...then a few more random stories about how great and liberal India was becoming...then a 2007 BusinessWeek piece about how India's horrible infrastructure and overpopulation may stunt growth...and going right up to The Economist's 2010 cover of a swiftly running tiger, representing India's potential outpacing of Chinese economic growth. Mee-yow, Economist!

The piece came on the heels of the Time cover labeling Indian Prime Minister Monmohan Singh "The Underachiever." A far cry from the October 27, 1947 cover of Time where Vishnu made her U.S. debut...or something....

Of all the publications, I have to say that the 2007 BusinessWeek article tells the story the best. That elephant on the cover is a pretty apt metaphor for India's growing pains...that poor, poor elephant. Yes, there is an awesome amount of entrepreneurship, rising education and general brilliance in India, but before they eclipse Silicon Valley they're going to need to fix some potholes. Literally. I can't count how many times I bump my head in the autorickshaw on the way to work.

Content Innovation: If Disney Can Do It, DealBook Can Do It

I recently finished Neil Gabler's "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination." Disney pushed a lot of innovation in his day, but one area where he was incomparable was his innovation of "content" -- his perfectionism for his film's storylines, character development and overall themes was unparalleled. He never compromised, and he never rested on his laurels.

Flash forward sixty years, circa the B.Doyle era: reading New York Times' "Dealbook" section -- which previously held a scintillating aura of New Media excellence, not to mention some damn good writing -- it strikes me that the whole section has become fairly boring. Everything about it -- the content, the dearth of videos, even the bush league "single-column" listing of articles -- gives me the impression that Andrew Ross Sorkin stopped trying to really push the site's envelope, maybe, eight months ago. And in a digital media age where there's still a wide-open playing field to prove true "excellence" in content delivery and style, absolutely no website should be resting on its laurels.

Aww, but maybe I'm just salty because I miss the inimitable Kevin Roose on my DealBook homepage. He's since moved onto greener (except not...) pastures at New York Magazine. And I'm probably in no position to take Mr. Sorkin to task, considering he's only about ten years older then me and has already written a generation-defining expose and, well, founded "DealBook."

Regardless, I would like to point to Business Insider as the Internet's premium example of a true content innovator. They combine Huffington Post's penchant for addictive lists and slideshows with a fair bit of trenchant insight and solid numerical analyses. And damn if the site doesn't know what I want to read -- take their slideshow of "The World's Hottest Billionaire Offspring." Now that's some good juice!

To conclude: Dealbook's gotten weak, Business Insider rocks, and the Internet has yet to see its "Walt Disney." Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some BI slideshows to peruse.

Sorkin: Less squawking, more Dealbook-ing, please!