Read All About It!

Newspapers – for those of us who still read them -- are full of tidy as well as terrifying little tidbits of information about life, people, the world and our experience of all those things.  In this post, I thought I’d share a short list of topics in today’s global conversation – with a splash of editorializing because this is a blog, after all, not a newspaper. 

1.       Men are running out of sperm.  According to a new French study reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, the average sperm count of 35-year-old men decreased more than 30% from 1989 to 2005.   Now there are lots of reasons for this:  Maternal smoking (it can start in the womb), shampoos (the phthalates in plastic bottles are endocrine disrupters which lower the count), sedentary jobs, fatty foods, hot water (bathing! Mon dieu!) and marijuana consumption (can’t imagine that marijuana boosts one’s sex drive, so duh! to that),among others.  Editorializing alert!  This is not good news for humankind and may ultimately lead to the rise of the machines predicted in the Terminator movies.

2.       Yahoo’s Melissa Mayer celebrates her first year as CEO.  The stock price is up by 75%, and Mayer has given new meaning to the words “shopping spree” by snapping up 17 tech start-ups, including Tumblr, in her first year on the job, despite the fact that the company still lags its competitors and isn’t making major money.  Mayer also has taken some hits for her controversial decisions about “work from home” flexibility while building a nifty nursery off the corner office…but at least she’s improved parental leave policies while proving to be a decisive, strong leader.  Hell, as the 6^th CEO at the company over the last 5 years, the fact that she’s even still showing up for work probably bodes well for the business.  You go girl!

3.       Nearly one-quarter of Wall Street insiders surveyed for a study on ethics, values and integrity in the financial services industry admitted that they would “engage in insider trading to make $10 million if they could get away with it.”  And 23 percent of those surveyed had personal knowledge of workplace wrongdoing.  Is it any wonder why Main Street America doesn’t trust Wall Street? 

4.       People who delay retirement lessen their risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease.   These findings too are from a French study.  For the record, retirement age in France is 60 – and was recently cut from 62 by the Socialist government of Francoise Hollande. Hmmm.  Are we forgetting something here?

5.       Technology in the classroom is making students better collaborators than writers.  WTF – what do u thnk?

Until tomorrow.