With the help of some cute graphics, Jon Stewart explains how it is that Goldman Sachs can pay its average employee a $700,000 bonus during the American economic collapse.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Pyramid Economy | ||||
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Onion Network News is reporting that President Barack Obama is already in the process of sitting down with each and every American worker to review his or her job performance. Not that there aren't some glitches in the process. Here's the Onion's report:
Obama To Hold Job Performance Review With Every American Worker
When I was in seventh grade, I got a C in my typing class. I could not apply myself to the dull Mavis Beacon exercises intended to impart perfect QWERTY precision. I hen-pecked my way through the course (badly), always sneaking spare minutes of games like Brick-Out whenever the instructor walked out of view. I found the class utterly miserable, and I did not learn how to type. I now type proficiently and do not see the task as a chore. For the purpose of this writing, I pulled up a quick typing test and achieved a speed of 95 WPM- pretty decent. In the old Mavis Beacon days, I probably two-finger-typed a speed of 25 or 30 WPM. What magic instructive program brought me up to speed?
People from my town of St. Louis are going ape-shit thinking that the national spotlight will come to our city along with the All-Star Game. It's really sounding like mega-insecurity to me. If you're really proud of your city, then be proud. You shouldn't need some sports announcer to say a few nice things about one's tourist attractions between pitches in order to feel validated. And if that sports announcer's opinion is so important, let's make sure that he takes a tour of our decaying city schools before the baseball game so that he can give the national sports audience an informed opinion or two on that, between pitches. And, really, what's more important if you had to choose between having first rate tourist attractions and a first rate school system? But my ambivalence leads to an important question. What is St. Louis really like? I've lived here all my life, and there is much to like about our city (as well as many things that need much improvement). Rather than write my own lengthy description of St. Louis, I'm going to refer you to this well-written balanced account by Alan Soloman of the Philadelphia Inquirer. What should we be thinking about St. Louis as the All-Star Game approaches? Here's Soloman's ominous opening, although his article eventually veers to many of the positive aspects of my river city.
The Gateway Arch, symbol of the place, and the museum beneath it represent the nation at its swaggering best, symbols of a Western expansion that would define us in so many ways. That we're talking about St. Louis - a city that's seen its share of rough times and that, like the country, isn't exactly in swagger mode right now - in a way adds particular power and poignancy to this year's celebration.
For another angle on how St. Louis is doing, check out this article in The Riverfront Times, where the author asks whether the recent efforts to beautify St. Louis amount to "putting lipstick on a pig."The NYT has published an article featuring actors featured in pornography videos. They are complaining that the industry is not making films that allow them to display their acting talents. Too much sex. Was it ever different? Apparently, yes:
Vivid, one of the most prominent pornography studios, makes 60 films a year. Three years ago, almost all of them were feature-length films with story lines. Today, more than half are a series of sex scenes, loosely connected by some thread — “vignettes” in the industry vernacular — that can be presented separately online. Other major studios are making similar shifts.