bobsolow

From a New Yorker intro to stories about Trump's first 100 days including this story by David Remnick:

I thought Sex and the City was entertaining for a few episodes because it was somewhat novel at the time and it starred SJP and NYC which is quite a pairing. You could wring all the emotional impact out of all the scenes in SATC and not come close to the impact of the restaurant scene near the end of Blue. That was such an incredible, heart breaking scene (I have such a weak heart). There was definitely some of the ill mannered vegan lifestyle flaunting thing you mention, for example, when the gallery owner held forth at the spaghetti dinner party, but I thought that was done intentionally to make the point that Emma's world was not asshole free either. The painting of Adele with the cigarette dangling from her lips did not shout. But it did blow me away. Wow. James Dean reincarnated as a confused young French woman. "If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know?"

If I had known the protagonist was 15, I might not have watched this either. I thought the sex scenes were well done and about twice as long as needed to make this part of their relationship credible which is necessary to make the other parts credible. Adele and Emma are beautiful young women. I think it is a credit to the actresses and the director that their physical beauty is not their most attractive quality and that the sex scenes are not even close to being what makes this such a memorable movie.

These guys are on an interesting mission: The blurb says they've been thinking and writing about this stuff since 1981. No doubt many other companies have understood what it takes to create great workplaces and high performing businesses for a lot longer than they have. So, it's good to see Walmart figuring some of this out. But let's not call them the vanguard. And no, I'm not suggesting they will ever be a great place to work. Who knows where sucking less will take them? I met a guy in my neighborhood a few days ago who used to work for Giant Food in the old days when it was run by Izzy Cohen who also happened to be a DC area bridge player. He was someone who certainly understood what it took to create a great workplace including paying a decent wage to his employees. Apparently, he was still out there talking to his employees, including my neighbor who managed the receiving department at the store in McLean, and inspecting his stores 3 days before he died. If half of all CEOs had his business acumen and his sense of responsibility to his employees, inequality would not be a problem.