- Times are tough and for new high school graduates, there aren’t many palatable options. Going to college is one possible route, but not everyone is cut out for higher education (I say just go, spend a few semesters hitting the keg, the bong and occasionally the classroom before flunking out just to have some fun, but I digress) and many graduates elect to enter the “real world” instead. They may find office jobs, labor jobs or just slum it for a while…..or they might just begin their career working at their local gentlemen's club. Graduates in the greater Jacksonville, Fla. area now have that option to consider thanks to Centerfold Lounge, a bikini bar in their area that has posted a billboard soliciting recent graduates for hire. The sign, put up by bar owner William Warner, is located just off Philips Highway south of Emerson Street and reads, "Now hiring the graduating class of 2010." Amazingly, some locals have objected to the sign and demanded that it be taken down immediately. "I think it's terrible. I mean really, young people could do a lot better than that," one local said. "It's a bit of shock and awe," another local resident remarked. "It's like, 'Wow, that's what our graduates have to look forward to? Go-go dancing and stripping?'" I’m sorry, what’s wrong with go-go dancing? Generations of father-hating, drug-addled young women have turned to that very profession and done quite well for themselves and their coke habits, er, their aspirations to attend law school. Warner is up front about admitting that the billboard is first and foremost a publicity stunt, although he obviously wouldn’t mind if it brought in some new prospects for the bar. "I mean, look at the economy. We have nothing to offer these grads," Warner said. "I do. I have what they can make money. Yes, we're looked at as scum of the Earth, but it's a paycheck -- money that will put food in their stomach and keep a roof over their head. Yeah, I hope some people will come and say, 'That's funny. Let's check this club out.” So now you have something to aspire to, Class of 2010 in the Jacksonville area. Taking your clothes off for money may not have been what those career aptitude tests suggested for you growing up, but it’s never too soon to be open to alternative paths in life……….
- The world is readying itself for the World Cup and when I say everyone is getting their game face on, I literally mean EVERYONE. Players, politicians, referees and fans are all bracing for one of the biggest events in sports, but another important group is getting ready for the big event and they are being overlooked for reasons I can’t fathom. That group, of course, is hookers. Wait, my bad. I mean, “sex workers.” Yes, that’s the term that members of the world’s oldest profession now want to be known by and according to the Deputy Chairman of South Africa's Central Drug Authority (CDA), the agency is bracing for as many as 40,000 women to soon arrive in the country to work as prostitutes while the World Cup is taking place in June and July. With the event just a few short weeks away and FIFA preparing for its ultimate showcase, I suppose that players and fans still need to get some action while they are in South Africa and to that end, 40,000 hookers should do the trick. Yes, this is soccer’s most prestigious tournament and the first time it has been held on the African continent, but when you stop and think about it, why should Africa be any different than any other host continent? You don’t want to feel left out, do you Africa? Hookers show up to the Olympics and other major international sporting events on other continents, so it’s only fair they come crashing across you borders along with the 450,000 people expected to travel to South Africa from around the world and the 32 different countries competing in the tournament. David Bayever, Deputy Chairman of the CDA, fretted about the glut of sex workers coming to the country while speaking at a public meeting recently. “As if we do not have enough people of our own, we have to import them to ensure our visitors are entertained,” Bayever snapped. “Our youth are going to be on holiday. They are going to be targeted to become prostitutes.” With those things in mind, the CDA is allegedly trying to put measures in place to keep shady individuals out of the country during the World Cup. And on the one hand, I can see their point. After all, South Africa is frequently reported as having the highest percentage of a population anywhere in the world suffering from HIV/AIDS. On the other hand, what’s not hilariously and ridiculously awesome about the mental image of some 40,000 - 40,000! - pros streaming across the border and flying from all over the world to lay down and take some from strangers for money? Great event you have going on, soccer, sounds like it’s going to be a blast in more ways than one……….
- Sometimes those most trodden down and overlooked by the world at those who show the sort of kindness and compassion that most of us never manage to conjure up in the course of our daily lives. Homeless men and women often can’t get the time of day from their fellow citizens and are often treated with such contempt that you wonder how they could have any of their own to share. That certainly isn’t true of J. Dudley Beavers, a homeless man from Memphis who became the unlikeliest of heroes for a dog dumped and left to die in an oil pit. Beavers came to the dog's rescue earlier this month in Memphis and helped save its life. Despite having been homeless for months (or perhaps because of it) and spending his days seeking shelter in an old car wash in East Memphis, Beavers knew just what to do when he saw the dog dumped just feet from him in a six-foot deep oil pit. "I was sitting there and I heard a dog squealing and I had an artificial limb and I didn't have it on. I heard a truck peel off and fly down the road," he explained. Altohugh he didn’t see who dumped the dog or even what had been dumped at first, he investigated and found the animal. He was able to extricate the dog from the pit and get her to safety. "I laid down and I put the rope under her arm and pulled her out," Beavers stated. Once he pulled the dog from the pit, he called a friend for help. Sheila Zachar put the oil-soaked dog in her car and rushed her to the Humane Society. "Her body temperature was low and I wasn't sure if she was going to make it. I wasn't sure how much oil she ingested," Zachar said. In the end, not only did the dog survive, but Humane Society workers took so much of a liking to the pooch they named Ellie May that the Humane Society is currently raising money to create an ambulance type service to pick up abused dogs like Ellie May and is considering making her he poster dog for their fundraising effort. It’s simply a great story of two individuals (Ellie May and Beavers) who have been ignored and cast aside by society and have managed to fight and survive in spite of that indifference……….
- Game over, Microsoft. Your reign as the dominant tech company on the block is over. Yes, you still have the crown as the manufacturer of the world’s worst operating system and no one is looking to take that from you, but Apple has seized the title of the industry’s true alpha dog. On Wednesday, Apple's market capitalization push carried it past its biggest rival. As recently as last month, Microsoft's market cap exceeded Apple's by about $25 billion, but Apple has now surged ahead by nearly $3 billion. With new items like the iPad and iPhone 4GS, Apple is lapping Microsoft of late at Bill Gates and Co. see their old cloak of tech invincibility ripped away. Today, Microsoft fell four to close at $25.01, while Apple lost 0.45 percent, closing at $244.11. Over the past two weeks, Microsoft stock has been hit hard by market fluctuation and dropped 15 percent, compared to just six percent for Apple. “What this means is that Wall Street has more confidence in Apple's growth prospects than it does in Microsoft's growth prospects," said Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft, an independent firm. In the face of these grim numbers of perhaps because of them, Microsoft announced Tuesday that plans to shake up its management structure. The company will have to replace executive Robbie Bach, who led the entertainment and devices group of the company that created products like Xbox and Zune. Bach will retire from Microsoft in the fall and hopefully he will be taking all of his Zunes with him. Some experts believe Microsoft has fallen into too much of a react/respond mode in trying to match every new product or idea from Apple, but I prefer to view it is karma coming back to bite Microsoft in the backside for years and years of foisting the worst operating system ever invented on the public. Apple has a great operating system and is in the process of releasing a new one, which has led to record profits and rising iPhone sales. By comparison, Microsoft has tried and failed with the Zune, which has been embraced by no one and has become the red-headed stepchild and perennial punchline of digital music player jokes since its release. Those sorts of failures seem to have gotten inside the head of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who pulled the plug on development for a tablet computer to potentially compete with the iPad. In short, Microsoft has lost its edge, is badly rattled and shows no signs of pulling out of this nosedive any time soon……….
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