Highlights from Sunday's New York Times - 09/13

Sunday NYTimes Highlights – 09/13

I review Sunday edition of NYTimes every second week of the month. The newspaper’s like always rich in content, but here are my picks of this week.

News

Article: China Denounces New Tire Tariffs

The most important news of the week was the tariffs Obama imposed on all car and light truck tires entering the United States from China. It’s important for my job and I’ll see the turnout from our customers, the importers, tomorrow at work. The issue is also a good case study for the debate on protectionism vs free trade. The most interesting component however is much more practical. The incentive behind Obama’s controversial acceptance of %4 extra tariff on existing protection stems from his need for support on the healthcare legislation. By accepting union’s (United Steelworkers Union) demands for more protected trade, he will be able to “mobilize support in Congress and at the grass-roots level for his campaign to overhaul the health care system.”

Article: Japan’s Victors Warily Prepare for Power

It’s a critical time for Japanese political history. Its election to power on August 30th, 2009 has allowed the Democratic Party to assemble only the second government in Japan’s postwar history not to be led by the Liberal Democratic Party. As power is shifting to a new center, it’s distribution is a long and hard process full of conflicts. “‘The Democrats are like wet, unformed concrete, which still lacks a mold,’ said Atsuo Ito, an independent political analyst who wrote a book on the party. ‘Just holding power may be enough to keep the party together at first, but eventually the party will need shared beliefs to keep from flying apart.’”

Article: Giving Ramadan a Drumroll in Brooklyn at 4 A.M.

It’s Ramadan and practicing Muslims will be fasting for a month. I will have my first “iftar” (dinner after a day of fasting) tomorrow, since I do not fast for a whole month. As a child my biggest nightmare was the Ramadan drummers who would wake you up at around 3:00 am in the morning for the last meal before the dawn. At that time of the night, the beating of drums scared me so much that I thought Allah was punishing me. The article is on Mohammad Boota, a Pakistani immigrant, who is a Ramadan drummer in Brooklyn. Mr Boota, who took on this job in 2002, “has spent the past several years learning uncomfortable lessons about noise-complaint hot lines, American profanity and the particular crankiness of non-Muslims rousted from sleep at 3:30 a.m.”

Article: In Wisconsin, Hopeful Signs for Factories

There’s been some signs of economic recovery in manufacturing sector. However, “the signs of factory improvement largely reflect a replenishing of inventories after months of weak sales, rather than an increase in demand for goods. For manufacturing to return to strength and help power a broader economic recovery, consumers would have to start buying more products, experts say.”

Article: Turning to Windmills, but Resistance Lingers

Wendie Howland from Cape Cod, MA wants to install a 132 foot wind mill in her backyard. Although Obama administration encourages homeowners to install wind turbines, their neighbors do not think so. FYI: “The wind needs to blow at least 12 miles an hour for a turbine to generate electricity — a requirement that rules out many sites — and the initial cost is steep…the average cost of buying and installing a residential turbine is $30,000, and that it takes 6 years to 30 years to recover that cost through energy savings.”

Opinions

This weekend marks the anniversary of 2009 financial meltdown. Therefore most opinion articles take a look back at last year and reevaluate. (see: Where Politics Don’t Belong and Flaw in Free Markets: Humans) The interactives are also amazing. Especially the market capitalization chart that shows how market capitalization, a company’s net worth equal to stock price times number of stocks outstanding, shrank is a direct representation of the last two years’ economy: How the Giants of Finance Shrunk, Then Grew, Under the Financial Crisis

There is also the timeline, last event being Bernanke’s reappointment, the video where NYTimes Business columnists discuss what happened and how, audio accounts from insiders, and a follow up on the lives of those who were deeply affected by the collapse.

Sunday Styles

Article: A Varied Skyline Enlivens the View

It’s Fashion Week in New York so the Sunday styles is full of backstage photos and Spring 2010 trends. Times writer Cathy Horn deems the new trend to be “architectural designs.”

Arts and Leisure

Article: After a Frantic Pace for Building, a Nervous Pause

As my current lease comes to end, I’ve been looking for apartments to move into. Around Chelsea and West Village there’s been a construction boom for luxury homes. Due to the credit crisis most of these new places remain still glamorous but empty. Times’ architecture columnist Nicolai Ouroussoff discusses the possibility that “the downturn will be good for the cultural world — a more civic-minded vision of architecture as well as a grass-roots art movement. (Think of the John V. Lindsay administration, when pocket parks were touted as major civic accomplishments and subway graffiti was celebrated as an art form.)”

Travel

This is where I want to go next: New Life in Ancient Peru

The slideshow: A New Stop in Peru