Does it make sense to take a course in “Persuasive Speaking” online? It does if you’re Kentucky State University! Ah yes, the finest that academia has to offer.
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I read a Newsweek article about the next big thing coming from Apple. They don’t know for sure when it will be announced and they have no idea what it is. Speculation is that it uses electricity in some form. They think. How do you write an article on that?
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GQ magazine had their 50 best/worst dressed men of the year. Grace Jones made the top 50 at 42 -- despite not being a man. GQ said "Name one man who can make the tuxedo look this cool." Hello? Any one of the top 41 should do it.
But they also said that #1 worst was British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Sure, he looks like he slept in his suit for a few days, but does he look worse than the grey-suit-and-terrible-coif Kim Jung Il? They also had horrid things to say about Nicholas Sarkozy, but I thought he was fairly dapper. French cuffs are so 2007, amiright?
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The Burj Dubai is now open. Tallest building in the world. It looks more impressive than Taipei 101 or the WTC because it rises up out of the desert with no other competing towers to lower its visibility. Of course, there is another tower in the works, Nakheel, that is supposed to be even taller. Just remember that the next time you fill your gas tank.
Tall, grandiose towers are harbingers of economic woe. Famously, the Empire State Building began construction just as the Great Depression started. The World Trade Center and the Sears Tower (it’s not the Sears Tower now, whatchu talkin’ bout, Willis?) both opened in the middle of recessions during the 70s. The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur opened just as Asian currencies went into free fall. On a more micro scale, the huge Enron tower in Houston opened just before Enron collapsed. The Burj Dubai is an ambitious spectacle, but just a month ago the Dubai government needed an emergency bailout from Abu Dhabi. The Nakheel Tower has been scaled down for financial reasons and may never be “tallest”, if it is completed at all.
I can see some rationale in Manhattan or Taipei for a tower, but in the desert, there is nothing but cheap land. These towers are just manifestations of ego in physical form.
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