Word: collars
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...barbecue in honor of the people who slaughtered the pigs, and made the hot dog, and trucked it to market and bagged it for you. The little guy and gal, that is, the working stiffs. They need all the honor they can get these days. At the rate blue-collar wages are falling, the U.S. is going to reinvent slavery in the next few decades, only without any of its nice, redeeming features, such as room and board...
...both the best humor is rooted in personality. Lynda Barry, whose weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek appears in 55 newspapers, shows that her truest metier may be the stage in THE GOOD TIMES ARE KILLING ME, a sometimes campy yet mostly poignant off-Broadway memoir of blue-collar life in the '60s. The plot crams in far too much -- infidelity and divorce, the random death of a child, teen sex, Volare, bygone rock dances, a misbegotten camping trip -- and the two dozen-plus characters are mostly stereotypes and sketches. But the core story is believably specific and disconcertingly...
...Information Age is here, but it hasn't exactly lived up to its advance billing. While more people are working with their heads rather than their hands, and more than a third of the nation's $5.5 trillion GNP is generated by ideas rather than manufactured goods, white-collar productivity is no higher now than it was 30 years ago. The paperless office remains a secretary's fantasy. Paper-killing technologies like electronic mail and voice % processors go largely unused -- too complicated -- while paper-generating devices like fax machines and copiers are used to the point of abuse...
...have computers made workers more productive? Stephen Roach, a senior economist at Morgan Stanley, says white-collar productivity has been stagnant since the 1960s. By contrast, blue-collar productivity has improved by a factor of four. "Companies thought that by simply buying boxes they would somehow make people work harder," says Roach. It didn't happen, Roach discovered, largely because the technology failed to reach the top: while back-office support jobs have been automated, less than 10% of senior executives even use personal computers...
...Conn., proudly marched into the local civic auditorium with 128 other green-and- white-robed members of the Bassick High School graduating class of 1991. He didn't sit on the podium with the class leaders, nor was he one of the nine students who wore a blue satin collar symbolizing membership in the National Honor Society. But for James, his family, his neighborhood and even for this country, the mere fact that he got a diploma was something to be proud...