Community Clicks“The streets of 47th Street are literally paved with gold,” said one of New York City’s gold wranglers, as he, down on all fours and manipulating tweezers, picked specks of gold, silver and jewels that had fallen off of clothing and jewelry racks as they were rolled from trucks into stores.
The man told the New York Post in June that he had recently earned $819 in redemptions for six days’ prospecting.
<<< In June, scientists at China’s Agricultural University in Beijing announced that they had produced human breast milk from genetically modified dairy cows and expect supplies to be available in supermarkets within three years.
Employing technology once used to produce the sheep “Dolly,” researchers created a herd of 300 modified cows, which yielded milk that was reported as “sweeter” and “stronger” than typical cow milk.
<<< New, on the News of the Weird Food Cart: (1) grasshopper tacos (at San Francisco’s La Oaxaquena Bakery, but pulled in June by local health authorities, who were concerned that the bakery was importing Mexican insects rather than using American ones); (2) cicada ice cream (at Sparky’s Homemade in Columbia, Mo., but also yanked off sale by local health authorities in June); (3) maggot-melt sandwiches (which are just what you suspect — cheese and dead maggots — at the California State Fair in July).
Leading economic indicators
In June, officials of California’s Alvord Unified School District announced that their brand-new, $105 million high school, Hillcrest, would remain unused for the coming school year (and perhaps beyond) — because the budget-strapped state does not have $3 million to run the school for a year.
In any event, it costs $1 million per year just to maintain the building to prevent its deterioration.
<<< A Mumbai, India, company, Aegis Communications, announced in May that it will hire about 10,000 new employees to work in its call centers fielding customer service problems for U.S.-based companies.
However, those jobs are not in India.
Aegis will outsource those jobs to Americans, at $12 to $14 an hour, at nine call centers in the United States.
Gender equality extremes
In January, a baby was born to Canadians Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, but seven months later, they still have not revealed to family or friends whether little “Storm” is a boy or a girl.
The couple are intending to raise Storm free of gender-specific cultural stereotypes (such things as domesticity, aggressiveness, preferences for arts or mathematics) because society tends to overvalue “boy” norms.
On a larger scale, in Stockholm, according to a June Associated Press dispatch, the 33 Swedish preschoolers at the Egalia school socialize in daily environments scrubbed of all gender references.
For example, boys and girls alike play with kitchen toys and building materials, and when playing “family,” parental roles are interchangeable.
Critics say the children will be left unprepared for the “real” world.
Cliches come to life
In November (2005) in Murfreesboro, Tenn., U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employees Joseph Haymond and Natalie Coker were charged with taking kickbacks on the purchase of 100,000 rolls of red tape (that is, red security tape used on packages of VA medications).
<<< According to a November (2005) Washington Post profile of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency has, since 1790, granted about 30,000 patents to people who have submitted unique designs to improve upon, if not reinvent, wheels.
