Davos 2016

The billionaire masters of Planet Earth and their pet politicians are in Davos this week for the 46th World Economic Forum. The US is sending a high-powered team led by Joe Biden, John Kerry, Kevin Spacey, will.i.am, and Leonardo DiCaprio. You can join them for a mere $31,473 a ticket, if you’ve paid your $50,000 WEF dues. Hotel, dining, and valet parking are extra. Gatecrashers and the improperly dressed will be politely turned away by police and 5,000 Swiss soldiers.

 

The Forum is going to be really inconvenient this year due to security concerns. You’ll have to land your private jet at Dübendorf military airbase and get to Davos by limo, helicopter, or horse-drawn carriage.

This year’s agenda will focus on Industry 4.0, aka “The Fourth Industrial Revolution … the fusion of technologies across the physical, digital and biological worlds which is creating entirely new capabilities”and replacing laborers with robot employees. Naturally, Forum members want to speed up that process. And WEF is concerned about women, too, and that’s why this year almost 20% of Davos attendees are women. Progress!

More:

“62 People Own Half the World’s Wealth, Oxfam Says Ahead of World Economic Forum,” Pan Pylas, NBC New York

“Get a grip on inequality, leaders urged in run-up to World Economic Forum,”  AP via Chicago Tribune

“The 2016 World Economic Forum Misfires With Its Fourth Industrial Revolution Theme,” Jeremy Rifkin, Huffington Post

“Davos Robot Eclipses Davos Man as Gloom Descends on World Elite,” Simon Kennedy, Matthew Campbell, The Guardian

“Industry 4.0 to be huge job killer,” Deutsche Welle

“Robots put five million jobs at risk,” SwissInfo.ch

“Report from Davos: ‘Men still run the world—and it’s not going that well,’” Jenny Anderson, Quartz

“The failure of Davos,” Felix Salmon, Fusion

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Davos 2015

Deep thoughts at Davos this week at the 2015 World Economic Forum. 80 billionaires and many more multi-millionaires are meeting in the exclusive Swiss resort to solve the global problem of economic inequality. They flew to the alps on 1700 private jets to end Global Warming. We anxiously await the auguries and edicts of our oligarch overlords.

Admitted Thespian Joe McCain Calls 9-1-1

Joseph Pinckney McCain II, kid brother of Republican presidential candidate John McCain and admitted thespian, was stuck in traffic at the Wilson Bridge on October 21st at 1AM (when is closing time in Old town, anyway?). Exhibiting his family’s typical sense of entitlement, he called 9-1-1 and told them to do something about the annoyance:

Operator: 911 state your emergency

Caller: It’s not an emergency, but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic’s coming the other way?

Operator: Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic? [pause]

Caller: ” [Expletive] you.” [caller hangs up]

John McCain — From Spoiled Brat to Grumpy Old Man

Senator John McCain is running for president on his biography. With a record as a champion of financial deregulation, trickle-down economics, and the Iraq War, the Republican contender has little choice.

Senator McCain would like you to accept his version of his biography (3 words: War Hero, Maverick) but read the full account by Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickenson, “Make-Believe Maverick.” In a hurry? Start with the video “Five Myths About John McCain.”

It is not surprising that Senator McCain considers millionaires middle-class and doesn’t think it is unusual that he can’t keep track of all his houses and cars.  According to NNDB, his mother, Roberta Wright McCain, once “went on an errand to buy a new dress, and came home with a new Mercedes instead.”

That’s Not Funny!

No doubt you were furious when you received your July 21st copy of the New Yorker with that scandalous drawing of the Obamas on the cover. Oh . . . (sniff) . . . you don’t?  Well . . . surely you’ve heard about it by now.

March on Potomac Gardens

Washington, DC’s Capital Hill East web discussion group has proposed an anti-crime march on the Potomac Gardens public housing community. This has set the blogosphere boiling but has yet to make it into DC newspapers and broadcast media. It will. The proposal, no matter how well-intentioned, is certainly un-neighborly; some may consider it divisive, racist, elitist, and downright ignorant.

Oral Roberts Is Not A Toothbrush

Effete, Bi-Coastal bloggers, ill-informed about the Heartland, assume the current headlines concerning Oral Roberts (ORU) have escaped from the “Health” section.

ORU is actually an accredited university in Tulsa with many unique educational facilities for its 5,000 students, including a 60-foot-tall pair of bronze praying hands, buildings too fanciful for Epcot Center, and a few taller, darker students who play basketball well.

Details of the current scandal merely involve a faculty member and self-professed Republican Operative charging the University President with cupidity, theft, misappropriation of university and church funds and mendacity. You can read about this alleged systematic violation of State and Federal Laws, University Bylaws and the Ten Commandments almost anywhere.

NotionsCapital simply wants to make this clear: Oral B is the tooth brush; Oral Roberts is an evangelistic dynasty and Oklahoma university.

You may resume drinking your cappuccino now.

Inspired image by Mike Licht.

Art in Oils. Lube and Transmission, Too.

Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik has been called “elitist” so often he probably prints it on his business cards, like a title.  Mr. Gopnik had the effrontery to write that decorating cookie-cutter fiberglass animals is an unworthy expense of public art funds and probably illegal, too. He criticized an enormous exhibition by amateurs as, well, enormous and amateur; his name was thereafter uttered like that of a Marvel Comics super-villain: Gopnik the Elitist.

In this Sunday’s Arts section, Mr. Gopnik writes about a painting in the collection of Gary Zhu. Mr. Zhu generously shares this 40-foot masterpiece with the public en plein air or alfresco at 14^th and R Streets, NW.  The title: AYT Auto Service; the artist, A Hispanic Guy Named Frank. Mr. Zhu maintains that the painting, on the outer wall of his auto repair shop, is an advertisement, but Mr. Gopnik writes convincingly that it is art – I mean, Art.

No matter what you have heard, Mr. Gopnik believes that good art is where you find it. Read and enjoy. Then take a drive and look for some art. And listen, too. Engine sounding rough? See Mr. Zhu.