1. A year ago today, authority dithered and allowed Lehmann Brothers to collapse. Marking the anniversary, Pulitzer-winning journalist and Columbia U prof James Stewart has a 24-page insider account of the final days of Lehmann, due out in the New Yorker Monday US time. Watch for it; meanwhile, Politico has a sizable sampling from the story to whet your appetite. If you’ve read Heart of a Soldier, you know how Stewart writes; if you haven’t, here’s a taste: the New Yorker story that eventually grew into that book. And back to the crisis for a moment, Spiegel Online on how the meltdown has played out in New York.
2. Remember Stephen Farrell, the NYT reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban and blogged about it [the link is part of this post]? Tunku Varadarajan addresses a dilemma that lurks just beneath the surface of that episode.
3. Candy is just dandy but commonsense would be better, says David Wood in Afghanistan.
4. Amit Varma on Baba Ramdev and, um, Yogic Jogging. And on the third world war.
5. Moral of the story: Never discuss a favorite movie with a mathematician.
6. A death to commemorate: Raj Singh ‘Rajbhai’ Dungarpur — princeling, raconteur [especially brilliant after that first post-sundown whisky at the CCI], cricket administrator and friendly acquaintance. A round up of tributes on Cricinfo to the man so well liked that Lord’s flew its flag at half mast in his honor. I’d only add of him that his head and his heart were often, if not always, at the right place at the right time, together.
7. Writing a book can all but kill you — as William Manchester found out when he attempted to write the authorized book on the JFK assassination.
8. Introducing Tajik Jimmy.
9. Time to move on from Ram Temple and suchlike issues — to more important things like, um, beer.
10. Meet the Usain Bolt of the animal kingdom.
More, if and when I stumble on them.
Smoke Signals 