Welcome to Davos… and you are?

The hoi-polloi are out in Switzerland this week with Bono launching a ‘Red’ credit card to benefit aids, Gates announcing he’s tripling his TB-fund and logistics firms declaring that they’re going to mightily piss of aid charities by pitching in ‘for free’ when a major disaster strikes (implying that Oxfam doesn’t know how to deliver its own aid but DHL does). Davos sucks. It seems like the kind of place where nobody with a real grasp of the outside world could penetrate. It seems so truely undemocratic in the way that it’s the rich and powerful only. Why not ‘the top world executives’ and ‘the world’s top academics’. What’s to stop a bit of critical input? Why is it that only those advisors on the payroll of the rich and famous are given the opportunity to speak to anyone who can make a difference?
At the same time, women don’t yet really have much of a position at the forum, more often than not being mistaken for somebody’s secretary or assistant. Women, it seems, just can’t get out of the shadow of those big strong men!

“When I put my card (down) saying I’m going to speak, before they saw my card they said, `Where’s your minister?’ I said, `I am the minister,’” Al Qasimi said. In social circles, even with her colleagues and employees, “there’s always this assumption that I’m somebody’s wife.”

Washington Post: The World Economic Forum is still an elite club

Popularity: 1% [?]

Listing news from the week:

The news that’s been too overlooked to post:
Contra Costa Times: Lawmakers call smoke a pollutant – In California today, state lawmakers have classfied second-hand smoke as a toxic air pollutant that’s a danger to human health that could lead to even stricter regulation on smoking pracitces despite California’s stringent current rules. Amongst the information brought before the panel by the Air Resources Board is informatino on the 31,000 episodes of asthma it causes in Californian children each year.

From Reuters.com:

The designation by California’s Air Resources Board starts a process that could lead to further smoking bans in a state that has often led the nation in health and ecological regulation. “I think there is no question that this puts California way ahead,” said John Froines, chairman of the Air Resources Board Scientific Review Panel.

“To actually have the major air pollution agency in the state of California to list ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) as a toxic air contaminant is going to have immense impact, we think, in terms of public education around other states,” he said. “It will clearly lead to regulatory changes within the state.”

Seattle Times: Punt, pass and plié: Ballet has its Seahawks fans, too – The Seattle Times looks at the worlds of Ballet and NFL Football ahead of Seattles groundbreaking Superbowl game. The Seahawks have never been in the superbowl before so this is a 30 year first for them. At the same time Seattle has an amazing ballet company, the PNB. The two cultures don’t seem to mix, but in a funny way, they sometimes do.

“I wish my art form created the emotional fervor that this thing does,” said [Ballet instructor] Wells, a Tacoma native. “We struggle with our ticket sales for the ballet, and my understanding is that they can’t sell Seahawks T-shirts fast enough.”

The Guardian: ‘I can win this time’ – Having just come out to the party and public through in interview with a UK tabloid paper, Liberal Democrat Party MP Simon Hughes is looking for support from his party to become leader. He gave an interview to the Guardian a couple of days ago saying that he wasn’t gay. Now he’s singing a new show-tune and the paper reviews his position.

The Guardian: Apple Print Ad Top of Tree – An advertisement for the supermarket chain Tesco has won the top prize from the Awards for National Newspaper Advertising. With the simple image of an apple and accompanying text the ad declared:

“What’s the difference between ours and our competitors?”

“Not much really. They’re the same quality as Waitrose. And the same price as Asda.”

The Guardian: ‘Sea power could provide 20% of UK electricity’ – A new report from the Carbon Trust, out prior to a report on the UK’s position with regard to Nuclear energy, says that 20% of the UK’s energy could be produced through the adoption of wave and sea power souces. With investment and greater production of equipment the costs of wave power could be brought down to current levels of carbon-emitting power sources. It’s a challenge the government could meet, but may not like to due to the likelihood of failure.

Popularity: 1% [?]

From writing to doing: Frank Bruni works as a Waiter

For a week, the NYTimes’ restaurant critic works at the Massachusetts restuarant ‘The East Coast Bar & Grill’, struggling doing the job he’s so often evaluating just as much as the food he’s tasting.
If this is the only thing you read all week, it’s worth reading because unlike Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed book/essays, this isn’t just focusing on the act of being low waged, but on how being a waiter is a real skill that most people just don’t understand, especially critics.

NYTimes: My Week as a Waiter

Popularity: 1% [?]

Go to China, become media darling

Legend has it that it was only when strangers greeted him in the street the next day that he realised it had gone out live – in fact 550 million people had been watching nationwide, and Rowswell had just become the first foreign host of a major event in Chinese television history.

The story of ‘Dansand’, a former foreign student from Canada and his new position as one of the most well-known foreign faces across China due to his luck position as the host of a talent contest while at Beijing University in the late 1980′s.

The Guardian: Western Stars Rising in the East

Popularity: unranked [?]