Dispatch from the Land of the Rising Blonde.

Maybe it's because I've been out of Manhattan for the last 48-hours. Maybe it's because for the last two days USA Today as been foisted upon me--a zombie-like brain-eater of a journal where everything from world hunger to environmental catastrophe is sublimated to last night's Idol winner. Maybe it's just the my bio-rhythms are out of trim. But I am feeling particularly gloomy about the state of mankind this morning.

Yesterday I wrote about companies working its employees to death--metaphorically. Today, I read about it literally. At the Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. which makes iPads, HP computers and Nokia cellphones, 10 workers have jumped to their death this year alone. Yes, the company employs 400,000 people, so maybe 10 deaths is the actuarial norm, nevertheless, in the words of my spiritual predecessor the great Borscht-belter Shecky Shecky "People are dying to work there." Ha ha.

Then, further gloomifying me, I read in The Wall Street Journal that Wrigley Field ushers are wearing shirts made out of 100% recycled materials including plastic cups. If they work for Wrigley, why not make the shirts out of recycled chewing gum?

I've never gotten along with upper management (even when I was upper management) because I always thought people should be treated like people. That whole "Golden Rule" thing. But I am a dreamer and a sap and poor. And treating people well is no way to run a business.