"Carrefour would bring a tremendous fresh fashion sense to complement Martha Stewart, and acknowledge the world in terms of meat and seafood and produce," Mr. Flickinger said.
"One of the points I raised," Obama told me, "is if you just use you, Bob, and you, Bob, as caricatures, the truth is, both of you acknowledge the world is more complicated".
The exhibition needn't be topical, but it does seem odd that it does so little to acknowledge the world of high-tech terror, paranoia and security panic that we read about every day in the newspaper.
Nor is there any suggestion that we might want, or need, to rethink basic issues of power, equity and economics, or that our interest and passions should expand to acknowledge the world beyond the narrow confines of the kitchen, the nursery, the beauty salon and the office.
The best filmmakers of today acknowledge the world's diversity and make their claims to universality (as, say, for freedom and desire) carefully and precisely, or depict themselves and their circumstances with audacious, vulnerable intimacy.
"You've got to acknowledge the world around you," he said.
It also acknowledges the world's ever greater level of interdependency.
The fact is that, as the Smith report acknowledges, the world is not going vegan any time soon.
Acknowledging the world's injustice, Frank warns his son not to blame it all on "systems and governments" but on errant human nature.
Showing he had done some homework before coming over, Schneider acknowledged the World Cup and said that in the US "soccer was like botox; some people like it, but you don't know who".
McDermid doesn't play into that pathology simply because even as she acknowledges the world's potential for violence, she makes the world seem like a pretty good place to be.
