Cyrus Farivar

A Very Happy New Year to All! I have the good fortune this year of being able to celebrate Noruz with my family tomorrow morning following a ridiculously early flight to LA (6 am) — and will be back 16 hours later. Norouz is the festival of (the first day of) spring and the beginning of the Iranian Year. It is celebrated by some communities on March 21st, and by others on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox, which…

Wednesday, March 22: Gifts of Love Benefit. 7:30 p.m. at Bishop O’Dowd High School, 9500 Stearns Ave., Oakland. The Bishop O’Dowd High School Symphonic Band and the Castro Valley Adult School Band will perform several musical selections separately and will also play two selections together. Conductors: Kathy Maier, Castro Valley Adult School Band and Leonard Rossi, BOD Symphonic Band. A donation will be accepted by all those in attendance. Proceeds go to the Gifts of Love program, sponsored by the…

My piece from The Economist was linked on Digg.com today!

Robert Siegel, a host of “All Things Considered,” with Nina Totenberg. Firstly, I love NPR. Secondly, I love this photograph. Thirdly, go read this NYT piece about NPR.

I’m a Trader Joe’s kid. When I was growing up in Santa Monica, our nearest TJ’s was the on National Blvd. in West LA. By my high school days, one had opened up in our fair city. Without exaggeration, 80% of the foodstuffs (and other random items, including laundry detergent and shampoo) came from TJ’s — the only things that we didn’t get there were things that couldn’t be had there. Back in the day, this included any fresh produce…

I’ll be playing clarinet (but not in this uniform — that was from my high school days) along with the rest of the Castro Valley Adult School Band, in concert next week with the Bishop O’Dowd Symphonic Winds: Wednesday, March 22 Gifts of Love Benefit. 7:30 p.m. at Bishop O’Dowd High School, 9500 Stearns Ave., Oakland. The Bishop O’Dowd High School Symphonic Band and the Castro Valley Adult School Band will perform several musical selections separately and will also play…

Ok all you oil pundits and economy experts out there, riddle me this: So the current price of oil is about $60 a barrel. That means that one liter of oil is $60 divided by 159 liters (= 1 barrel), which is $0.37 per liter. Amazon (yeah, it’s weird, I know) will sell you two liters of Coca-Cola for $1.19. That means that Coca-Cola is more expensive than oil. Huh? Let’s review: 2 liters of Coca-Cola: $1.19 2 liters of…

Small (Slate): When an ethics cop carries tweezers in his holster instead of a .44 Magnum, it’s a safe bet the crimes he’ll pursue will be cosmetic. New York Times Public Editor Byron Calame conformed to this profile yesterday (Feb. 26) by using his column to give the paper’s eyebrows a vigorous plucking in his exploration of the “thorny question” of whether its news staffers can accept companywide discounts for goods “without creating the appearance of partiality.” Calame produces no…

If there were a hundred good small cities in America fifty years ago—towns built to suit the people who settled them, according to their tastes, aspirations, and the sovereign peculiarities of landscape and weather—today there are no more than twenty-five. In ten years, as the inexorable lattice of sprawl replicates and proliferates, and the downtowns become malls, and the malls downtowns, and the rich syllabary of mercantile America is reduced to a simple alphabet composed of a Blockbuster, a Target,…

One of my favorite professors from my Columbia days, Sam Freedman, is about to come out with his latest book: Letters to a Young Journalist. The following passage is from the end of the Introduction: I’m not trying to scare you off. I hope you find the challenges inspiring. When I was your age, the cachet of journalism attracted plenty of poseurs. One thing you can say about the present unpopularity of journalism is that it drives out all the…