New Zealand builds up to the Olympics
Who really is this human Kiwi that can climb the world’s highest rock, run the world’s fastest mile, win the Victoria Cross twice, create the second top-grossing Academy Award-winning ?lm, and split the atom in an act that would forever transform our world? New Zealanders are a people that have proven themselves as warriors in […]
Why it still can be the American century
[Cross-posted] In the spirit of July 4, I thought it would be interesting to explore the idea of the United States retaining its in?uence in the 21st century. What many see is dire. Beyond the anti-war types’ opposition to the War on Terror, there are corrupt institutions, political and corporate, impeding progress on so […]
[Cross-posted] I was chatting to a company head serving a high-income, premium niche. And he’s felt no recession. He’s wondering if he should. For his company, sales are up and he’s even been able to focus on the higher-priced items at the expense of the lower ones. The general wisdom is: the rich […]
When institutionalization is troublesome
[Cross-posted] One theme that has been emerging—or I am reading way too much into it—is institutionalization. In the casual posts I put on to my personal blog over at Vox, the theme has come up a couple of times: once in a post about oil consumption dropping (really—see graph at left), and once in the […]
Leadership comes from the grass roots, not institutions
[Cross-posted] Sometimes I surprise myself on what comes up in blog comments. In a thread about the Iraq war and the short memories of nations over on Vox, I wrote the following. And as I wrote, I believed this to be a possible truth. To go forth in the future we need to discover our […]
Forbes lists world’s 16 top earning models and supermodels
Gisèle Bündchen, whose face promotes products from Disney to Nivea and Aquascutum, is the world’s top-earning model, according to Forbes. The magazine’s latest table of what it calls the top 15—there are actually 16 models—puts Bündchen’s earnings over the last 12 months at US$35 million, more than double that of Heidi Klum, in second place at […]
Easy targets from the anti-Rhonda Grant release
I ?nally came across the full text of the press release attacking Massey University over its story on its alum Rhonda Grant, Miss Universe New Zealand’s second runner-up. You can read the statement from the Association of University Staff’s president, Assoc Prof Maureen Montgomery, via Scoop. I think she was pretty persistent, sending it […]
Online today: a preview of the H&M summer 2008 range (left), which the company says is inspired by hot, exotic locations such as India and Africa. This is clearly in the Zeitgeist: the same week we receive Peter Alexander’s latest catalogue (below), which has an African-inspired collection. There’s something about Africa this summer, so […]
We’ve cooperated on a few pages with Adam & Eve. Raquel Olivo, who has a shoot that appears in Lucire no. 26, provided us with a stunning one shot in Malibu, Calif. For whatever reason we didn’t run this one—probably because it didn’t ?t with our themes—but with Raquel’s permission we found a way to […]
H&M acquires company behind Weekday, Monki and Cheap Monday
H&M has signed an agreement to acquire the privately owned Swedish fashion company Fabric Scandinavien AB that is running the store chains Weekday and Monki. The Group also designs and sells fashion through a number of own brands, such as Cheap Monday. The turnover for the ?nancial year 2007–8 is expected to reach approximately SKr 400 […]
