Articles 2024
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The Statues Dreams Are Made Of
Oscar night is a snooze. So why do millions of us love it?
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", February 26, 2011
The Academy Awards show is ridiculous. Guests arrive in broad daylight wearing the most formal of evening gowns. Presenters, including some of the world's most accomplished performers, read their lines with the studied cadence of high-school commencement speakers.
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Would Bogie Wear Gore-Tex?
The next big thing often consists of lots of little things.
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", February 12, 2011
The hardest economic question is, What comes next? What, in other words, are the new sources of economic value? How can businesses grow and our standard of living rise?
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Small Crafts vs. Big Government
Can artisanal goods survive federal legislation?
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", January 29, 2011
This is a story about artisanal cheese and hand-polished wooden toys, organic spinach and exquisitely smocked baby dresses—the burgeoning small-scale economy so beloved by members of the "creative class." But it's also about another, much-discussed growth industry: the production of political cynicism among formerly idealistic Americans.
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Kidney Donation Goes Prime Time
Popular culture may finally be getting over its mockery of living kidney donors.
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", January 15, 2011
On Dec. 23, Ronald Herrick gave a kidney to his twin brother. On Dec. 27, he died—56 years later.
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Still Gripped by the Ideal of the Princess
The endless fascination with the tiara, real and toy
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", December 18, 2010
I admit it. When I was growing up, my father called me "Princess." Routinely. Even when I was in high school. This was strange, I now realize, and not just because I was more nerd than girly-girl. The United States has been a republic for more than two centuries. We aren't supposed to have princesses. Yet the archetype remains both persistent and profitable.
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Recovering China's Past on Kenya's Coast
China's archeological search for a "usable past"
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", December 04, 2010
A team of Chinese archeologists arrived in Kenya last week, headed for waters surrounding the Lamu archipelago on the country's northern coast. They hadn't made the trip to study local history. They came to recover a lost Chinese past.
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The Allure of Techno-Glamour
The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2010
When Robert J. Samuelson published a Newsweek column last month arguing that high-speed rail is "a perfect example of wasteful spending masquerading as a respectable social cause," he cited cost figures and potential ridership to demonstrate that even the rosiest scenarios wouldn't justify the investment. He made a good, rational case—only to have it completely undermined by the evocative photograph the magazine chose to accompany the article.
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The Geek as Everyman
The heroes of The Big Bang Theory offer a welcome alternative to the cultural politics of elitism and populism.
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", November 06, 2010
Sheldon Cooper is an elitist. Ever since he was 4 years old, his mother has been warning him to stop telling people that he's smarter than they are. But he just can't help himself. Asked by a friend to "make yourself scarce," he replies, "I am a theoretical physicist with two doctorates and an I.Q. that can't be accurately measured by normal tests. How much scarcer could I be?" And he says it in a condescending tone.
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In Praise of Irrational Exuberance
Does a flourishing economy depend on delusion?
Big Questions Online, October 27, 2010
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Saved by the Closet
We've got so much stuff that it's easing the slump.
The Wall Street Journal, "Commerce & Culture", October 23, 2010
Americans have a lot of stuff—so much, in fact, that getting it under control has become a major cultural fantasy. Witness the Container Store, whose aisles of closet systems and colorful boxes peddle dreams as seductive as any fashion shoot. Or consider shows like "Clean House," on the Style Network, where hosts cajole, browbeat and bribe homeowners into getting rid of half their things and organizing the rest.