Henry Kissinger

Let's say you're a magazine editor and you need to illustrate a special issue about office life: What do you do for art? If you're the editor of Businessweek and you're compiling a special Business @ Work issue in collaboration with readers (a first, according to the magazine's Web site), you just do what New York did in April 2007 with its "Office Life" package and slap Rainn Wilson of NBC's The Office on the cover and in a spread inside. Oh, and you might as well get photographer Chris Buck to shoot him, like New York did.

To justify that cover placement, do a short interview with Mr.  read more »

The Return of History and the End of Dreams

 

By Robert Kagan

Alfred A. Knopf, 115 pages, $19.95

Consider the natural history of the Detroit muscle car: The Mustang began life in 1963 as a stripped-down roadster in the European tradition. As the culture and market matured, Ford responded each year with ad hoc modifications and additions, so that by 1972, the same basic car had become a 3,300-pound, 375-horsepower V-8 behemoth.  read more »

Henry Kissinger loves the bloggers. Or at least one blogger, Karol Sheinin. She's got the lowdown on last night's dinner in celebration of Commentary Magazine.

In addition to collecting some fun photos, Karol picked up on a bit of news: The New York Sun's Ira Stoll said he'll be writing again for The Sun's political blog at some point.

More on Karol's night out is here.

On the morning of May 14th, a certain Dr. Henry Kissinger was remembering the time the late, great Patricia Taylor Buckley received a phone call at her house at about 8 a.m.

The hour, close friends like Dr. Kissinger knew, was far too early to be calling Mrs. Buckley from any place but a hospital.

When a voice on the other line explained that it was the President calling for her husband, William F. Buckley Jr., she shot back: “The president of what?”

Dr. Kissinger was with more than a hundred other mourners that morning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur who’d gathered for a service in honor of Bukley, who died last month at the age of 80.

The setting was fitting for a woman whom so many worshipped.

“We mortals need to be reminded of the finite nature of our scale,” Dr. Kissinger said. “The term ‘larger than life’ can be overused. In Pat’s case, it was an understatement.”

Reinaldo Herrera, husband of high-society fashion designer Carolina, briefly illustrated “the extraordinary fantasy world that Pat created” for her friends and family. She was, according to Mr. Herrera, as at home in the drawing room of a palace as she was in the kitchen, conversing with the “three Dominican ladies,” who cared for her affectionately for so many years.

Then, a few short remarks by the jeweler Kenneth Lane drew upon Mrs. Buckley’s incredible sense of style, which, Mr. Lane offered, was about a lot more than spending a fortune.

Caitlin Buckley, her granddaughter and the daughter of her surviving son Christopher, told a crowd that included Tom Wolfe and George Will about the woman she called “Nan,” who chided her for buttering rolls in mid-air and taught her the fine art of air-kissing.

Following a song by the Wiffenpoofs, Yale’s famed a capella troupe, Frederick Melhado, an investment banker and close friend to the Buckleys, recalled that in the final days of Mrs. Buckley’s life, he’d told his dying friend that he wished he had a magic wand.

At this, he said, Mrs. Buckley responded: “I know, but we all run out of magic wands, eventually.”  read more »

NBC Nightly News last night offered three separate soundbites of Tom Brokaw, first in its opening coverage of the Ford funeral, then in an interview by Brian Williams, then in a special section of excerpts of eulogies. The royal placement, which gave even Henry Kissinger lower billing, continues the NBC pattern, of wheeling Brokaw in to hold forth (usually predictably) on major events, and would seem to reflect Brokaw's reluctance to let go and Brian Williams' filial feelings; his manner when Brokaw appears is somewhat servile. I wonder what the servility masks, but no matter, it's a misuse of precious airtime.

Henry Kissinger was just talking about soccer on the (rebroadcast of last night's) Charlie Rose. Why isn't American soccer good?

"There are not enough minorities." The players tend to be "middle class, suburban children." A similar point was made here. And this was before Ghana's Draman stole the ball from the entitled-looking Claudio Reyna to score Ghana's first goal.

David Hirshey, soccer fan, HarperCollins heavyweight and regular Jewish mensch, had taken the better  read more »

Henry Kissinger isn't typically thought of as a player in New York politics, but he's everwhere these days. Greg Sargent reported recently that he was hosting a Weld fundraiser.

And here's from KT's bio: "By the time she graduated at 21, she had moved up to become Kissinger's personal research assistant, and one of the few female professionals at the White House."

A reader writes:

"Between Weld and McFarland, he seems to be more of a power player in the GOP than Pataki! Who knew?"

As of this week, the New York Times is operating under a new stylebook rule: "Dr." is for doctors who are doctoring--not philosophizing, and certainly not running the Senate. Dr. should be used in all references for physicians or dentists whose practice is their primary current occupation, or who work in a closely related field, like medical writing, research or pharmaceutical manufacturing: Dr. Alex E. Baranek; Dr. Baranek; the doctor. (Those who practice only incidentally, or not at all, should be called Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.) Anyone else with an earned doctorate, like a Ph.D. degree, may request the title, but only if it is germane to the holder's primary current occupation (academic, for example, or laboratory research). For a Ph.D., the title should appear only in second and later references. The holder of a Ph.D. or equivalent degree may also choose not to use the title. Do not use the title for someone whose doctorate is honorary.

The rule, standards editor Allan M. Siegal wrote in a staff e-mail, is meant "to level the playing field when we write about politics and public life, removing any suggestion of special authority that might attach to people who use a title that isn't relevant to the field in which they are working or competing."

Such as? "There are many examples," Times spokesperson Toby Usnik writes, "including Senator Bill Frist and Howard Dean."

And Henry Kissinger, Ph.D.? Is his title germane to his work?

"The point is mostly (no pun intended) academic," Usnik writes, "since Henry Kissinger always preferred us to call him Mr., and we did. (Condoleezza Rice also prefers Ms.)

"If Kissinger were in government service today, and teaching was not his primary occupation," Usnik continues, "he would be Mr. under our current rule, and we would not ask for a preference."

In fact, a pass through the archives reveals that under the old system, Mr. Kissinger and Ms. Rice didn't always get treatment befitting their modesty. Usage went both ways; even sometimes--for Ms. Rice, under joint bylines--in the same piece.

Number of appearances of selected honorifics in the two years prior to the new rule:

"Mr. Frist" 34 "Dr. Frist" 205

"Mr. Dean" 65 "Dr. Dean" 830

"Mr. Kissinger" 47 "Dr. Kissinger" 3

"Ms. Rice" 400 "Dr. Rice" 20  read more »

"Mr. Erving" 0 "Dr. J" 4

We take a look this week at how unlikely Borough President candidate Brian Ellner gets a big chunk of his support from the fashion world, most of whom probably think that "campaign" refers to the new Valentino line of off-the-shoulder gowns.

Some of his backers include Diane von Furstenberg and Ingrid Sischy, who are throwing a fundraiser for him in late March at von Furstenberg's meatpacking district studio. Of course, this support from Madison Avenue may not actually help him at the polls, considering that a few of his fundraisers aren't even eligible to vote because they're either British, registered Republicans, or unfamiliar with the position he's running for -- "Borough President? What is that?" said Mr. Giannelli, who matched a chocolate-brown velvet Paul Smith blazer with Adriano Goldschmied jeans. "Do they go to fashion shows?"  read more »

At least Ellner will look sharp on the campaign trail:

"And just as Richard Nixon turned to Henry Kissinger on matters of foreign policy, Mr. Ellner has Jeffrey Kalinsky, the owner of Jeffrey New York, for equally crucial guidance. 'The political part is not my forte,' said Mr. Kalinsky, who has offered to help Mr. Ellner with wardrobe refinements. 'Brian looks every bit the part of a U.S. Senator in training.'"

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