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When Children Shill

We love taking our kids to the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts, which were made famous by the late, great Leonard Bernstein.

The four programs this year were each devoted to a different “capital of music”: Mozart‘s Vienna, Ravel‘s Paris, Mussorgsky‘s St. Petersberg, and Bernstein’s New York. Read More »



That Special Joie de Vivre

The OECD has released its Society at a Glance survey, which reveals some interesting social trends in OECD member countries. Floyd Norris points out that countries with fast eaters, including all of North America, have higher economic growth rates than slow-eating countries like France. Read More »



Formula for Success: My Thoughts

In my last post, I challenged you to find at least five examples of inequity, ineffectiveness, or inefficiency in a formula that is governing the allocation of transportation stimulus funds to the states: 25 percent based on total lane miles of federal-aid highways, 40 percent based on vehicle miles traveled in lanes on federal-aid highways, Read More »



Russian Rich Kids, and Diamonds Too

Photographer Anna Skladmann‘s “Little Adults” portraits feature children of Russia’s Nouveau-Riche who have “been raised to become ‘Elite’ and behave like little adults.” But as Very Short List wonders, with a financial crisis underway, will Russia’s rich kids start behaving more like kids? (Related: Russia moves ahead of De Beers as the world’s largest diamond Read More »