Whenever I think of the
smiley-face icon, I think of Wal-Mart because of its once-ubiquitous ad
campaign. And when I think of Wal-Mart, I think of crappy wages and
insecure employees who probably live paycheck to paycheck. That
metaphor -- the happy face fronting a world of worry -- is the subject
of a new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America , by social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich.
Feminism made women miserable. This, anyway, seems to be the most popular takeaway from "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," a
recent study by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers which purports to show that women have become steadily unhappier since 1972.
Anthony Vasquez, a student at the
University of California, Berkeley, worked at FedEx Kinkos for about
two years. His store's slogan was: "Yes We Can."
"It meant that if a customer asked us to do a job for them, no matter what it was, we were to say ‘Yes We Can!' " he said.
When a British government commission
publishes a report calling for an end to economic growth, it suddenly
seems that our world is changing. Growth has been the central goal of
economists since the beginning of the industrial revolution. But Prof.
Tim Jackson, the Economics Commissioner of the UK's Sustainable Development
Commission has written a book that sums up the current state of our
knowledge about economic growth and shows convincingly that growth should
end.
For those of us in Wisconsin, it's been a long cold winter already.
The idea of only being halfway through seems daunting. I take solace in
knowing gardeners and farmers are already at work planting seeds.
Spring is inevitable even if the ice on the lake is a foot deep.
February 2 marks the halfway point between winter solstice and the vernal equinox. We're officially at midwinter.
Midwinter was traditionally a time to take stock of what's left in the larder. Is there enough to make it to spring?
