The
High Society:
News of the Day
Paul M. Muchinsky
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro*
*Unamused, indifferent, or entertained readers can contact the author at
pmmuchin@uncg.edu.
1. Urban unrest has finally abated in Testosterone, Texas. Two rival street teams, The Bone Crushers and The Killers, had been openly engaged in team warfare for over one week. The civil unrest supposedly began when members of The Bone Crushers team posted a message on their Web site that stated, There is no I in our team. The Killers allegedly called a hasty team meeting to vote on changing the spelling of their name to The Kyllers. However, the idea for the proposed change in spelling died in a subcommittee vote. Meanwhile, Mayor Alicia Falcone praised the coordinated gangwork of members of EMT, fire, and SWAT gangs in restoring peace to the city. She said the lawlessness teams bring to the city must never rear its ugly head again.
2. A distinguished panel of scholars recently ended a weeklong conference held in Washington, DC. The purpose of the conference was to establish which revolution had the greatest impact on changing the course of history. Preconference favorites were the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the Bolshevik Revolution. To the surprise of only a few, the American Revolution was rated as the single most influential revolution in history. However, the stunner of the conference was the identity of the second most influential revolution, which was judged to be the Cognitive Revolution. Noted Harvard historian J. Quigley Farnsworth stood before the cameras in the media room immediately following the release of the panels findings. Appearing befuddled, Farnsworth said, I feel so stupid. I had never even heard of the Cognitive Revolution before. I must be living in a paper bag. However, not all panelists were in agreement with the findings. Karl Marx III expressed great dismay over the Cognitive Revolution not having been ranked first. He shouted into the microphone while pumping his clenched fist above his head, How many more of my comrades must die before the Cognitive Revolution is granted its rightful place in history? I will no longer participate in these rigged capitalist elections! Marx concluded by saying, From now on I will follow my own schemas. He then set off to find some BARS to drown his sorrows.
3. All legal eyes are focused on Downers Grove, Illinois this week. Mildred Brown, a former employee of Teleturbine, is suing her former employer for wrongful discharge. According to Ms. Browns attorney, the stated corporate policy of Teleturbine is to require each employee to be evaluated yearly using a 360 feedback instrument. Teleturbine conducted such an evaluation of Ms. Brown last year and subsequently terminated her for poor job performance. It is Ms. Browns contention that because she had no subordinates, she was in fact the recipient of 270 feedback, not 360 feedback. She further contends that if she had subordinates, they would have attested to her value as an employee. It is her position that 270 feedback presents a biased and discriminatory evaluation of her performance. Daniel J. Daniels, lead attorney for Teleturbine, said the case has no merit. It is the companys position that because the cosine of 270 is zero, Ms. Brown has absolutely nothing to complain about.
4. It is a case of David versus Goliath in Stamford, Connecticut. Effie OLeary, an 82-year old retired elementary school teacher, is picketing the corporate headquarters of WalkerThompsonInc. Frail and no longer in the best of health, Ms. OLeary is protesting the corporations name. WalkerThompsonInc was created through the merger of Walker Industries and Thompson Technology. It is Ms. OLearys position that the construction of the name WalkerThompsonInc violates the principles of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization that she taught over her 47-year career as a third-grade teacher. Ms. OLeary is demanding the new name be linguistically correct, and is suggesting the name be changed to Walker and Thompson, Inc. Corporate spokesperson Wendy Sullivan says the spelling of the name is designed to convey solidarity, cohesiveness, and unified power of the company following the merger. While the company is aware of the linguistic incorrectness of its name, Ms. Sullivan said, The illusion of implied substance always trumps improper style. When Ms. OLeary was asked what most troubled her about the hybrid name, she replied, ItJustSucks.
5. In a rare display of editorial unity, the three major publishing style manuals (American Psychological Association, Modern Language Association, and the
Chicago Manual of Style) issued a joint communiqu condemning the use of colons by authors in the titles of publications. The three style manuals allege the use of colons leads to excessive verbiage by authors in titles of their published works. They state use of colons transforms what should be an informative title into a veritable description of the work. The style manuals encourage reviewers to perform colonoscopies on submitted manuscripts, but colonectomies should be performed only by trained editors.
6. Noted psychometrician Harold Wallace recently attended a professional conference in Iron Fork, Montana. During a break in the conference proceedings, Wallace decided to attend a local high school baseball game. Unbeknownst to Wallace, the game featured a team that had lost an incredible 134 games in a row, the Allentown Knights. Their opponent for the game was the powerful Iron Fork Timber Rattlers. The outcome of the game was never in doubt, with the Timber Rattlers taking a commanding 41-3 victory over the hapless Knights. It was at this time when Wallace overheard the wife of the coach of the Knights, Bubba Morton, say, Oh dear. This looks like consecutive loss number 135 to me. Wallace was taken by the depth of the womans apparent emotional anguish. He quickly set about performing some statistical corrections to the final score of the ballgame. Wallace thought he could brighten Coach Mortons day by informing him of some good news. Wallace approached Morton and said, Coach, if you correct for the fact that the length of play of this game was restricted to only 9 innings, and you correct for the 17 errors your team made, plus another 23 mental errors, and you correct for the fact that the other team was bigger, faster, stronger, and better than yours, your Knights actually won the game by a score of 373-346. Coach Morton replied, Correct this, made an obscene hand gesture, and deposited a large quantity of expectorant on the ground. Wallace returned to the convention in a state of complete mental disarray, claiming, I never knew my ideas were useless outside of academia. However, he was soon on his way to enjoying the annual equation writing contest, a traditional highlight of the conference. He quickly forgot about his brush with reality.
7. The city of Philadelphia recently hosted a very special festival. It celebrated the 40th anniversary of the release of the song The Twist, originally recorded by native Philadelphian Chubby Checker. Vocalists performed the song and many of its successors, including Lets Twist Again and Twist and Shout. A local radio station invited various professional groups around Philadelphia to offer their services to enhance contemporary appeal of the song. A group of local chiropractors proposed a modification of the dance that reduced the likelihood of lumbar injury among an aging rocker population. Local barbers offered to bring back the hair style worn by Chubby Checker when he first recorded the songcut close on the sides but piled high on top. Several local I-O psychologists did their thing by suggesting new lyrics for the song. Long the trademark of our profession, several multi-syllabic words were proposed to make the title and lyrics sound more self-important. They retitled the song to become The Reciprocating Spiral Circumplex. While the original melody and beat of the song remained riveting, vocalists reported the new lyrics were particularly tricky to sing, especially on the downbeat. Internal rhyming and harmonizing became completely out of the question. When asked what he thought of the new title and lyrics for his signature song, Mr. Checker replied he didnt even know what a circumplex was, let alone a reciprocating spiral one. City officials affirmed their intention to hold a second festival in another decade to mark the golden anniversary of the song. Wheelchairs will be provided to the general public, while I-O psychologists will be provided with mobile self-propelled sedentary non-licensable transports.
8. Warren Dibble, an I-O psychologist in Buffalo, recently demonstrated the power of civic activism. All Dibble had to do was glance at the headlines of the local newspaper to be spirited into overdrive. Reading that utility workers in the city were threatening to go on strike in the midst of a bitterly cold winter, Dibble barged into the chambers of the Buffalo City Council while it was in session. Grabbing the microphone he pleaded the moral injustice of a labor strike by utility workers. Dibble proclaimed the lives of thousands of residents could be imperiled by such action. He demanded council members respond to his questions. Who will attend to SDy? Who will validate the 40% rule? How will we know if the utility function is linear? You cannot allow them to go on strike, Dibble exhorted. Dwayne Hickey, President of Union Local 17 of the Federated Utility Workers of America, who was in attendance at the meeting, was so moved by Dibbles impassioned plea that he vowed to reconsider his unions planned strike. Hickey said, The Doc asked some questions I hadnt considered before. I dont want anything bad to happen to Este Whye or anyone else. I guess wed better think this thing over. Council member Gwen Mangrum described Dibbles questions as unorthodox, but obviously effective in getting the union to re-assess its position on a labor strike. She concluded by saying, I thought I knew what utility workers did, but I guess I have a lot to learn.
9. The Doctoral Advisory Committee of Victoria Henderson eagerly awaits next Tuesday. Victoria is regarded as the best graduate student in the I-O program. Next week she will propose her dissertation idea to her advisory committee. Victoria has been working feverishly on her research idea. Rumor has it she will be proposing an elaborate model that purports to integrate motivation, leadership, job satisfaction, teamwork, and organizational justice. Her model supposedly is replete with postulates, tenets, and axioms, as well as a profusion of intervening variables. However, no one is certain what Victoria will be proposing because she is very furtive about her work. She never talks about her research ideas and always carries her notes with her to avoid prying eyes. Her committee is greatly anticipating next Tuesday because they will finally witness the arrival of Victorias secret super model.
10. Our Web site address, www.siop.org, in Morse code would be: dot dash dash dot dash dash dot dash dash dot dot dot dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dash dash dot dot dash dash dash dot dash dot dash dash dot. If you need a mnemonic device to help you learn the code, say the words to the melody of Jingle Bells. It actually helps. Really.
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