A day in the life of Julia

Parents are starting to exercise frugality in child-rearing. Even those living in affluent areas with secure jobs are cruising garage sales and scanning Craigslist. I hope this behavior is more ingrained than it is a trend.

United Airlines tries to squelch an ensuing crisis – thanks to a viral video – with public outreach. Too little, too late?

The Obama administration is FINALLY taking steps to reform the food saftey regulatory bodies, namely the FDA and the Agriculture Department. I think it is about time that the power is taken out of the hands of food producers and manufactures and given back to the consumers.

“Now P.R. gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley.”

Apparently, the New York Times is tired of reporting on real issues like the war in Iraq or the economic crisis. Americans don’t want to hear all that depressing stuff. With the new administration, hope has been restored. And what better way to illustrate the hope for this country than with a boring, uninformative fluff piece about Facebook. More specifically, this article devotes about 500 words to a stupid chain letter being passed around Facebook. To quote Billy Madison, “Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened…:

Robert B. Reich, secretary of labor under President Clinton and professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, argues that the true debates over the stimulus package are still to come. Conversations must take place to decide what spending will be continued once the economy begins to recover. As Reich sees it, there are cyclists and there are structuralists. Cyclists believe the stimulus to be a desperate measure for arresting the plunging business cycle. Structuralists, however, see the stimulus as the first step to addressing flaws in the economy’s structure. While spending cut-backs are a ways away, understanding the cause of the economy’s turmoil must be addressed and identified immediately.