Business Crocodile Tears on a Cash Register Patriotism            The news release spoke boldly. “In view of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,” the release stated, “this is the time for Corporate America and all government agencies to enhance the safety and security of the nation’s high profile buildings.“Not exactly a revelation. It didn’t take another sentence to underline the company’s intent. ” Windows and doors are normally the weakest static construction elements in a building,” continued the release, “and are therefore the first to fail during violent activities and brute forces of nature. . . .Your property needs protection.” [ more ] The Fiction Behind National Security            Between a diner and an empty store that once housed a shoe store, video store, and tanning salon, in a small strip mall in Bloomsburg, Pa., is Friends-in-Mind, an independent bookstore. [ more ] For Casinos, ’Six Hour Visitors’ Make a Full House             She’s a 77 year old slightly overweight white-haired widowed grandmother from northeastern Pennsylvania who has worked the past 15 years for the state at a minimum wage “Green Thumb” job. But five or six times a year, she and two of her closest friends pay $22 to a bus company that hauls passengers the four hours to Atlantic City. [ more ] Gifts for the Holidays             Spurred by President Bush and America’s corporations which tell us it’s patriotic to buy during this recession, and that we must return to our daily activities, 270 million Americans are dribbling into stores to buy whatever the advertising agencies say we need to express our Christmas cheer. If we buy enough and go into even more debt we will be happier people and will have defeated terrorism. [ more ] Pandering for Profits at the Pageant             The Miss America organization, claiming a “desire to create exciting television,” and pretending to match current TV trends, says its final evening competition, Sept. 22, “has been providing viewers with high stakes reality television since its broadcast debut in 1954.” The CEO, a man--there has never been a woman--says the contest is the end product of a year of competition that begins with 12,000 women and culminates with one previously unknown woman, who overnight, becomes an internationally renowned celebrity. That’s real reality TV.” [ more ] Productive Unemployment             Recent Department of Labor studies report that American workers are “the most productive” ever. That’s because not only are they are doing so much more to compensate for their fellow workers having been laid off, but because they live with the fear if they don’t work even harder they, too, may be laid off, or lose promotions, in an economy that is going as far South as our manufacturing plants. [ more ] Stupid Decisions: Self-Censorship in America             The author and the publisher could agree upon only one thing—neither of them wanted 50,000 copies of the author’s book to be in a 146,000 square foot warehouse in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. [ more ] The Boys from Lagos             Steve Chuks, who says he’s the auditor general of “one of the prime banks” in South Africa, wants to make me rich. Not just rich enough to be able to afford tickets, parking, and hotdogs at an Eagles game, but rich enough to actually be able to live in Philadelphia and pay its 4.54 percent wage tax. [ more ] The Right Thing to Do             Aaron Feuerstein is a 70-year-old Orthodox Jew, but to his 3,200 employees, most of them Christian, he might just as well have been Santa Claus. [ more ] Learn more about Dr. Brasch's books, click on the cover. Forthcoming