HOME / the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Arianna Huffington and Harry Shearer

the breakfast table:
entries

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

New York and Bahrain

By Arianna Huffington
Posted Friday, June 5, 1998, at 10:58 AM ET

It's great to be back in New York, or, should I say, now that's Rudy's here, New New York. Now that Mr. Civility has tamed the cab drivers--or, as he calls these people that work 12 hours a day to make 60 dollars, "urban terrorists,"--he's taking on the rest of the rebel guerrillas that other, less civil, mayors call "tax paying citizens." I mean, where else can you stroll by Nike Town, stop in for a Starbucks' cappuccino, read a book at Barnes & Noble, grab a burger at the Hard Rock, and buy a bunch of worthless, marketing tie-in crap from Warner Brothers and Disney? Only in New York! Thanks Rudy--you really understand what's special about New York.

RSS

Well, I'm sure you're just as excited as I am about the official visit to Washington by the Emir of Bahrain, Sheik Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa--though as a result of Al Gore's new streamlined language initiative, the Sheik will henceforth be known simply as "Ed."

The thing that caught my eye about the story of Ed's visit was that he's being lampooned and patronized because he doesn't know how to, as the Times put it, "spin" his country, which, the story implies, is sort of the New Jersey of the Gulf. (Too bad they don't have the Persian versions, or, come to think of it, the actual versions, of Donald Trump and Steve Wynn.) Anyway, one American businessman was quoted as saying, "The problem with the Bahrainis is that they just don't have the P.R. gene. They don't understand how to project their image. Poor guys."

Indeed. Imagine going through life genetically incapable of exploiting every possible motivation, interaction, sexual urge and consumerist weakness for the highest possible corporate profit. You poor bastard, Ed. But buck up, the good folks at Pfizer, Merck, and Glaxo are working on a little pill that will help you and your freakish countrymen.

Arianna