BY CLAIRE COSTANTINO
One man's garbage is a struggling university's new endowment source. In light of the recent news about the impending loss of one billion dollars from Vanderbilt's endowment, university officials should consider taking a lesson from some international examples to recoup their shortfall. A Berlin bank recently found over 100,000 euros lying in a safe in a pile of equipment intended for the scrap lot. A sewage treatment facility outside Tokyo has been yielding higher returns of gold than Japan's top-producing mine because of all the manufacturing equipment that is thrown away in the vicinity. Perhaps this news will inspire our investment managers to leave the stock market and start rummaging through their trash.Snail mail is about to get even slower. The U.S. Postal Service recently announced that the poor economy might force them to cut mail delivery from six to five days per week. This news came as a major blow to...junk mail producers and your grandmother. I hate to be the one to bring this tragic news to you, but prepare yourself for the day when you have to wait just a little bit longer to get your five-dollar birthday check from Nana and the catalogue from "Ye Olde Shoppe of Commemorative Knick Knacks." Note to Postal Service public relations division and the media: it's 2009. This did not deserve to be the lead story during a news cycle that includes a new president, a Senate bailout bill, a tanking economy and, oh yeah, aren't we involved in some wars?
Sarah Palin is back! Love her or hate her (I belong in the latter category), you have to admire Sarah Palin's resilience. Everyone's favorite political punch line is venturing into the political forum once again with the launch of her political action committee, SarahPAC. Their policy objectives don't get more specific than "building a better, stronger and safer America," so it is sort of hard to tell if she has no real ideas or if the whole thing was just launched as a last-minute joke. Look forward to some folksy and adorable (but vague) political action from this group. Despite losing the election by 190 Electoral College votes, Palin apparently still hears a call to service from the nation. I hope Tina Fey soon hears a similar call to mock from SNL audiences.
Obama's cabinet sucks at math. First it was Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and now it's Tom Daschle. Taxes are tricky for these two, I guess. Geithner failed to pay some self-employment taxes and now there is a $128,000 dollar mistake on Daschle's tax returns. Perhaps Obama should start offering accounting tutoring to his cabinet members to prevent future "mistakes." This is a disappointment for everyone hoping the Obama White House would be less problem-ridden than it's predecessor, but it is an even bigger letdown for people hoping Democrats would quit having boring scandals. Tax problems? I expected more from the party that once gave oral sex a hilarious prominence in the national dialogue. If you must break the rules, at least do something interesting.
