Ya Want a Hankie With That, Fella?

Someone recently speculated that American males are becoming more feminized, proof being that the voices of male anchor persons are higher than in past generations.
Compare and contrast Charlie Gibson’s squeak with Walter Cronkite stentorian tones, for example.
I’d suggest that the tenor of today’s anchor voices is less indicative of diminishing manliness in public personae than their lack of judgment and character.
Can you imagine Chet Huntley or David Brinkley crying and babbling about a thrill going up their legs while listening to a political candidate?
Not to mention the piling on of Hillary Clinton and then Sarah Palin: it was unmanly and unseemly, and I would guess that it would have disgusted Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid and any other classy journalist whom the world is poorer without.
Must be the water.

Glad I Walked (First Marblehead)

No great secret, my hatred for financial services companies has been abundantly vindicated in recent months. I only fear that everyone else who needs to work for a living hasn’t caught on yet.

Years ago, I was “invited” to a recruitment activity at First Marblehead, a servicer of student loans to those who’d exhausted the less expensive, government-backed programs.

The career fair, or whatever deceptively positive descriptor they came up with for this exercise in sadism, took place in several rooms that were populated with terrified-looking applicants and steely-eyed, scowling First Marblehead employees.

I didn’t stay, of course, and read today that even the Wall Street Journal is so revolted by First Marblehead’s CEO, Daniel Meyers, that they tarred and feathered him in print:

Meyers earned nearly $100 million, almost all of it in the sale of company stock; together with other Marblehead insiders, $660 million was taken.

The Journal notes that Meyers used $10.3 million of his fortune to buy an ocean-front property in Rhode Island.

Leaves

James and I did some yardwork yesterday at 20 Dixon.
We (Peter, the kids and I) completed leaf cleanup at 11 Edgewater in 5 hours today – a record.
This was remarkable because the weather was simply frightful: rain alternating with freezing rain, so cold that we could see the vapor rising from the compost piles at the Transfer Station.
It felt like leaf cleanup was late this year: the last day of November. It’s not just us, there were a lot of other insane people dropping off leaves today, and at least 3 of my neighbors did their cleanup this weekend as well.

Continue reading Leaves

Gratitude

Having written earlier that I couldn’t find reasons to be thankful, I finally came up with a great one:
NO HOLIDAY OFFICE PARTY THIS YEAR!!!
Those of you wage slaves who must attend these dismal, thankless, unwelcome affairs have my deepest, hearfelt sympathy.
Heh.

Ups and Downs

These tales, from the WSJ’s follow-on to their past “Women to Watch” lists:
Lucky Erin Callan, who was ousted from Lehman Brothers, now leads Credit Suisse Group’s global hedge-fund business.
Vanessa Castagna, passed over as chief executive of J.C. Penney, was elected a director of Levi Strauss and is considering new positions with retail companies.
Carly Fiorina: nuff said.
Diane Greene was terminated as chief executive of VMware and is evaluating her options.
Sallie Krawcheck left Citigroup due to “tension” with Chief Executive Vikram Pandit and “doesn’t have another job lined up”.
Mary Minnick was passed over for the number 2 job at Coke and became a partner at Lion Capital.