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Michael C. Moynihan | October 11, 2007

A strange little article by New York Times Style columnist David Coleman on Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein's love of Bach Rescue Remedy, a homeopathic treatment for stress. In a world gone mad, Klein says, she needs an expensive placebo to stay relaxed:

And it was while she was reporting on the elusive economics of Iraq reconstruction in spring 2004 that she learned an important life lesson: remain calm. "That was when everything went crazy," she recalled. "The four Blackwater guards were killed, Paul Bremer had closed down Moqtada al-Sadr's newspaper, and both Falluja and Najaf were under siege." Then the Abu Ghraib photographs leaked out.

I sympathize. Who didn't pull a Margot Kidder when discovering that Moqtada's paper wouldn't be on the stoop the following morning?

But the contents of the bottle (a blend of flower essences, according to a spokesman for Nelsons, the British company that makes the Bach line) are not its real charm. "I have no real sense that it works," Ms. Klein said. "I think of it like a kind of talisman. I like the old-fashioned country-doctor packaging."

You heard it right: Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, was lured by Bach's clever branding.