Word: union
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...Letterman and Jay Leno to the twin terrors of Comedy Central, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert - have gone into reruns since the strike began on Nov. 5. But the ethical dilemma confronting the hosts is a keen one. As members of the Writers Guild themselves, do they support their union and refuse to do their shows until the strike is settled? Or go back on the air without their writers - and thus avoid having to lay off dozens of staff members who depend on them for a weekly paycheck and benefits...
...poor at symbolizing ourselves. Many of us would like to snip the Union Jack off our flag, but no one can agree on a new design. Our official Olympic mascots and emblems are kitsch, climaxing last month in the Great Medal Screwup. It turned out that all the Olympic medals, the bronze and the silver as well as the gold, had been designed to feature not the Parthenon in Athens, not even the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, but the Colosseum in Rome, less noted for Olympic-style friendship than for gladiatorial butchery. What the hell, the officials...
...linkage between nations. The Australia Act of 1986 formally defined Britain as a foreign country. Australia's economic links to Britain, though not insignificant, are small and dwindling in comparison with its trading ties to the Near North, once known as the Far East. Britain is in the European Union, and will act in accordance with its interests there, giving no priority to Australia. Australians who feel they are British because they speak English are fooling themselves but no one else. You can no longer "be" Australian and, without conflict, "feel" British. The two nations are too far apart...
...resignation of Franz Müntefering, Germany's cigarillo-smoking Vice Chancellor, came with characteristic abruptness. Even his colleagues in the Social Democratic Party, or SPD, were surprised by the single line announcement released by the former union leader's office. Müntefering, 67, stressed that he was stepping down from Germany's second most powerful position for personal reasons, notably a "new, dramatic situation" regarding the health of his wife, who has cancer. His departure engendered great sympathy, of course - but also plenty of questions, for it comes after months of speculation about whether he would stay...
...ntefering was a key figure of compromise in Germany's ruling partnership between Merkel's center right Christian Democratic Union and the SPD, the two "volksparteien" that have ruled Germany in coalition since 2005. He may be best known outside Germany for his disparaging remarks in 2005 comparing hedge funds to "locusts" that descend on a country and strip it bare (a comment of which he remained proud, keeping a statue of the insect on his desk). But Müntefering was in fact a more centrist figure than many of his party colleagues. Newspapers referred...