I am restarting my reading of WSJ, and as I scan through the paper, these are some peripheral comments that I find myself mouthing:

China Looks Beyond U.S. Farmers to Satiate Its Growing Soybean Appetite Dongjin Park. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Aug 21, 2006. pg. A.2

As personal income increases, Chinese citizens want to eat more meat, especially fish and pork. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Chinese aquaculture industry produced 41 million tons of fish in 2004, up from 17 million tons in 1994.

Chinese farmers traditionally fed their pigs and chickens with leftover food and ground grains. The old method wasn't fit for mass production, which is why farmers are moving to soybean-based feed. Since the per-capita consumption of meat in China increased threefold in the past decade, livestock began eating all the soybeans China could produce domestically.

Propsperity = more meat = ecological disaster = isn't it high time for me to stop eating meat before I preach to the Chinese? ...

Consumers Curb Upscale Buying As Gasoline Prices, Housing Bite Justin Lahart and Amy Merrick. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Aug 21, 2006. pg. A.1

...evidence that households earning as much as $75,000 a year are changing their habits. Survey responses among this group were more similar to those of low-income households than those of wealthy families, she says. The types of spending most likely to be chopped: fashion accessories, clothing, home decor, electronics and entertainment...

...Three-fourths of U.S. economic growth last year stemmed from increased consumer spending...

To be sure, the nascent pullback isn't affecting all retailers equally. Handbag maker Coach Inc., which bills itself as offering "accessible luxury" and prices most of its products in the $200-to- $800 range, said earnings in its most-recent quarter jumped 33%...

American version of "growth" = python eating its own tail, i.e., Starbucks, Whole Foods, Coach Bags, XBox 360? ...

De Beers Begins 'Journey' for New Diamond Style Suzanne Vranica. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Aug 21, 2006. pg. B.3

Journey-themed necklaces, bracelets and earrings use four or more diamonds arranged in a graduated pattern from smallest to largest. Devised by Diamond Trading, working with the jewelry industry, the style is meant to symbolize how a person's love for another grows stronger over time. The ads make the connection obvious, showing pictures of Journey-designed jewelry above the tag line "With every step, love grows."...

The theme of the Journey campaign is familiar. Many of De Beers ads over the years have equated diamonds with romance -- a TV ad for a three-stone anniversary ring shows a man in London's Trafalgar Square asking his wife to marry him again -- and the latest effort is no exception. One TV spot, to air this month, shows a couple embracing after the man gives the woman a Journey necklace.

"We have to find narratives to give people reason to justify a high- priced item," Ms. Valentzas says. Diamond Trading says it is targeting a broad group of consumers with this ad effort: men and women from households that have incomes north of $75,000.

Woman who wants a diamond engagement ring = gets my axe, forever. Woman who survives this to go on the "journey" with me, and then asks for "Journey" baubles = sleeps with the fishes. ...

From the Ashes of Defeat; A Recent Court Ruling Forces Cigarette Makers to Revamp Marketing of Their Products Vanessa O'Connell. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Aug 21, 2006. pg. B.1

From Jan. 1, cigarette makers would be banned from using terms such as "light," "low tar," "mild" and "natural" and any other adjectives that might result in the public believing a particular type of smoke might be less hazardous than other brands. In her ruling, Judge Kessler lashed out at the tobacco companies, saying they "employed highly sophisticated and expensive promotional campaigns to portray light and low-tar cigarettes as less harmful than full-flavor cigarettes in order to keep smokers from quitting."

At stake is the future of the tobacco industry's single most important product. Cigarettes with tar ratings of 15 milligrams or less -- those generally marketed as "light" or "low-tar" -- constituted 84.9% of the 367.6 billion cigarettes sold in 2003, up from 60.5% in 1991, according to a Federal Trade Commission cigarette report for 2003, the most recent available. Cigarettes with tar ratings of 3 milligrams or less made up 1% of the total in 2003.

Holy moly, 360 billion death-sticks a year! No wonder big tobacco is BIG ...

Health --- Kelly Greene. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Aug 21, 2006. pg. R.1

It's a predicament that's marring retirement for older Americans in pockets dotting the country, particularly temperate, picturesque spots like Santa Cruz that are a magnet for retirees. Finding and keeping a doctor for some patients is becoming a trial, and health-care executives and patient advocates alike are concerned that the situation will only get worse as the number of retirees grows dramatically in coming years.

"Come 2011, when the baby boomers hit 'Golden Pond,' we're just not going to have enough doctors," says David Reuben, president of the American Geriatrics Society...

Robert Kane, a geriatrician and professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, organized an advocacy group called Professionals With Personal Experience in Chronic Care. The group comprises geriatricians, gerontologists and other health-care professionals who have struggled to help their own relatives get access to appropriate medical care.

"My epiphany came around 2000 when my mother had a stroke," Dr. Kane says. "I'm a geriatrician and I have written policy books, but basically I spent three frustrating years with my sister trying to organize care for my mother. If somebody who knows as much as I do and knows as many people as I do couldn't get the system to work, what chance does anyone have?"

His advice for advocating for yourself or an older family member: "First, recognize that it may take a while to find a doctor -- and it may take even longer to find a doctor who you want. Second, you need to be proactive to make the system work. Keep a very clear record of your medications. Ask a physician when he's ordering a drug if he's aware of the other drugs you're on." In other words, "you need to become your own advocate. If you can't do that, that's where your family comes in."

Several years ago, Robert Preston, an actuary in Sarasota, Fla., was frustrated with the lack of medical and custodial attention his father, the retired chief financial officer of a large pharmaceutical company, was receiving in Florida. Expenses totaled $10,000 a month for a room in a nursing home in Venice Beach, as well as personal attendants.

Mr. Preston started thinking about pursuing care for his father in another country. He settled on Costa Rica after a friend returned from a trip there, singing the praises of the country's medical services. Eventually, Mr. Preston's father settled in a private home in Costa Rica, with a house manager, chauffeur and three attendants -- all for about $3,000 a month. Instead of being confined to a nursing home, his father attended church every Sunday, took a large group to brunch afterward, went out to dinner several times a week -- and occasionally even went on a date. (Mr. Preston flew down to see his father once a month on a four-hour flight to San Jose, rather than a three-hour flight to Florida.)

There is something very disturbing about this story; something to do with "care" for the elderly as an "industrial" task that can be outsourced to a "medical" factory (cheaper in Costa Rica too - hey desis consider this "outsourcing" business?) vs. it being a family or community based task. However, much I knock "tribal" systems for squelching "freedom" there is something to said for the safety nets they provide.