Trib Kaput + SCOTUS No to Crazy + Art Bubble? + AAWW Awards

So it's happened, the Tribune Company has filed for bankruptcy. Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post has the goods on the CEO, Sam Zell, whose financial legerdemain has put the company's employees' stock option funds (ESOP) at severe risk--i.e., the shares are now worthless--while ensuring that his own stake ($315 million down out of the $8.2 billion private buyback, of which $225 million was a promissory note!) was relatively small, and his own empire remains untouched. Oh, and if you didn't get your severance in a lump sum, you probably aren't getting it at all. How did Hamlet put it in his famous prose passage about man(kind): "The paragon of animals" indeed, though don't think your beloved cat or dog or salamander would pull a number like this one! But you can't say the employees weren't warned; in fact, this is what Zell told two Tribune reporters when discussing the original deal to purchase the Tribune: "The deal...isn't going to change my lifestyle, no matter what happens....It's likely to change yours significantly." So at least you can't say he's a liar. It'll be interesting to see what happens now. I wonder if the papers will be spun off and operate as independent (broke) entities, while Zell holds onto the TV stations, which remain quite valuable. The Cubs franchise and the stadium weren't part of the bankruptcy filing because he's trying to sell both, but one of the likeliest buyers, Dallas Mavericks owner (and soon-to-be-neighbor to W) Mark Cuban is under investigation for insider trading. At a time when we need an active and engaged press, and in particular news organizations with the power and heft to conduct investigations and challenge the government and corporations, the Tribune Company's increasingly eviscerated newspapers, one of them, the LA Times once one of the top four in the country, list like scuttled but still seaworthy ships towards a bleak, unsettling future.

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I haven't commented on the auto industry bailout just yet, because I still haven't assimilated all the public details, but in general I do believe that if the government is going to bail out the banking and shadow banking system, which includes an entity like AIG, then the big three automakers, who sit at the center of a vast industrial web, ought to get help as well. It should be conditional, I think, based on a complete change of the top leadership of all three companies; a longterm plan for green technology, increasing fuel efficiency, and continuous modernization; a sustainable benefits package, negotiated with the autoworkers unions, for employees and retirees (which would include helping to push for universal, single-payer health care); and a restructuring, with the cooperation of states and the federal government, of the current regulation of brands, dealerships, and so on. Those would be starting points. Economists and people more familiar with the auto industry have deeper insights about all of this, but in general, I defer on the side of helping the companies, and the people they employ, than letting them crash. One thing I hadn't realized is that black workers would be disproportionately affected if the auto industry collapsed. Which is probably what has led to this phenomenon, though the article notes that the cardinal archbishop of Detroit is also soliticing prayers and organized an ecumenical outreach to Congress to press for support. Something about the current administration's response, however, strikes me as being not the right one....

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The Supreme Court said NO to the crazy today. Clarence Thomas unfortunately has a job (for life), so what is Alan Keyes going to do? Start preparing to run for the US Senate seat in Delaware?

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Is the contemporary art market like the tulip mania bubble of the 1630s? Is it on the verge of bursting? Will we soon be talking about some other values beyond "exchange value"? Ben Lewis and Jonathan Ford think and say so in their Prospect article. (So whither the likes and fortunes of Elizabeth Peyton (at right,
"Live to ride," 2003) Takashi Murakami, Neo Rauch, and others?)

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Web writers are now eligible for Pulitzer Prizes! With conditions, of course, and not in the creative categories. But things are certainly changing.... Now, will all the people who continue to spout off about blogs being written by pajama'ed 20-somethings lounging around in their parents' basements, or a claque of liars who'll "say anything" at all, and so forth, please, please, please find a clue?

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Possible interesting fact I learned after my reading tonight: you can buy 7 guns per day in Virginia, but only two Louis Vuitton special edition purses per day there, or anywhere is. Is this really true? It seems not: certain brands limit purchases to 3 luxury handbags every 30 days. Or they did--before the downturn.

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Tonight the Asian American Writers Workshop held its annual awards ceremony in New York. I'm in Chicago so I wasn't able to attend, but this year's winners included a Lifetime Achievement Award to playwright David Henry Hwang, the fiction award to Mohsin Hamid for The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Harcourt), the nonfiction award to Vijay Prashad for The Darker Nations (New Press), and the poetry award to Sun Yung Shin for Skirt Full of Black (Coffee House Press). As part of the event, Hwang reunited with actor B.D. Wong for a reading and celebration the landmark play, M. Butterfly, which they also discussed with Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!