THOMAS NIEDERMUELLER/AFP

So, globalization is harder than we thought, after all. I write this entry from Seat 6B on United flight 936 to Zurich. Unfortunately, at the moment the plane is stranded on the tarmac at Frankfurt. Apparently, a higher power decided to join this year's Davos festivities, manifested today by snow storms that shut down Zurich airport just as the glitterati of business and government were to have arrived en masse. While some arrived yesterday, major groups of big shots from around the world were left, if my flight is any indication, pleading with flight attendants for crackers to sustain multi-hour delays at European airports. For us, on this flight from Washington, the glitch did not hold us back from schmoozing. We're having a mini-Davos in the aisles, featuring the likes of the The New York Times's Tom Friedman, FOREIGN POLICY's own Moisés Naím, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, Andean Development Corporation head Enrique García, U.S. Representative Barney Frank (sitting next to a slumbering former Nigerian Finance Minister), former FDA boss Mark McClellan, former U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and a wide variety of other pundits and business leaders. Much of the schmoozing focused on the group's logistical plight, but thanks to Blackberry updates, there was considerable discussion of the Bush State of the Union and disbelief (apparently widely held among the several passengers discussing it) that he could hold so tightly to his views on Iraq in the face of such opposition and evidence that his approach is failing.

In short, the Davos crowd is always the Davos crowd whether in Davos or not. My next report will be from the Alps ... with some luck and intervention from those higher powers who are undoubtedly toying with us all to remind us that it is hubris to think that Davos is somehow the most powerful gathering on earth. There are, after all, Carlyle Group board meetings, CAA Agent meetings in Hollywood, and those intimate dinners between Bill and Hillary.