A Message to the Children Regarding the Dwarf Planet
We know you've probably been wondering why planetariums this past week have been flying flags at half-mast, or perhaps you've noticed some awkward silences at Walt Disney World's dog-themed Planet Pluto Out-of-this-World Snack Shack while in line during your final days of your summer vacation. Well, we don't know how to tell you this, kids. So, um, we're just gonna say it: What we've been teaching you about planets in our solar system for, well, for quite some time…yeeeaaah, we take it back.

Last week's decision to strip Pluto of its planet status came just as the sun set on your summer break and as the school year officially begins anew. The timing, lousy as it is, has sent your teachers and their textbook makers scrambling. They're not yet sure how to break the news to you returning students. So we're doing it for you.

See, the problem is we've been calling it a planet for about 76 years…even though we, uh, didn't actually have a firm definition for "planet." Sure, we've known all along that the plucky little planetoid now called a dwarf planet "thing" in space wasn't like the other planets, due in part to considerations of size and orbit. But we just kinda, you know, stuck by our vague pseudo-definition so we wouldn't have to make drastic changes to long-held and -taught space-related "facts" and thus throw our entire planetary classification system into upheaval.

We eventually did that, anyhow...last week. Our bad.

And speaking of definitions…

Define: "Irony"
Earlier this week a Lowe's warehouse was blasted for shoddy construction. The new home-improvement store, according to MetroWest Daily News, suffers from cracked and chipped bricks, an unsmooth roof ramp entrance, and there's no bus shelter or pedestrian crosswalk signals. Further, elevator equipment on the building's roof, where Lowe's has built about 300 parking spaces, is visible from nearby Rte. 9 and a free-standing sign near the roof ramp, meaning there are two on the property instead of the maximum, one.

The store was originally slated to open between January and March of this year. All of the finishing touches must be done before a temporary occupancy permit will be given.

Wigs Provide $116,429 in Long-Forgotten Stock
A woman who invested in a wig-making company during the 1960s but believed it had gone out of business recently learned she was wrong. Not only that, she also found out her $800 investment had grown far larger, reports The Evening News & The Tribune.

Carol Lee Woods received a check last week for $116,429 from Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter, whose office's Unclaimed Property Division received the stock because Woods' shares had no activity for at least five years.

Woods bought 100 shares of Fashion Tress Inc., in the 1960s after reading about its wigs in Vogue magazine. Several years later, however, Woods lost track of the company and couldn't find it listed on a stock exchange. So she assumed it had gone out of business.

Instead, Fashion Tress — now known as Claire's Stores Inc. — had twice changed its name. Woods' shares had been splitting and accumulating dividends for 40 years.

The Scream, Madonna and M&Ms Dark Chocolate
Police have recovered two paintings they believe are the Edvard Munch masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna," two years after masked gunmen seized the priceless artworks from a museum in a bold, daylight raid, authorities announced yesterday.

Both paintings, stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in August 2004, were in better-than-expected condition, police said at a news conference. "All that remains is an expert examination to confirm with 100 percent certainty, that these are the original paintings," said Iver Stensrud, head of the police investigation. "We believe these are the originals."

No word yet on whether M&M's Dark Chocolate Candies' reward of 2 million M&Ms for the return of Munch's "The Scream" played a role in the recovery of the painting(s).

NASA Tickles Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin Corp. won a multibillion-dollar contract yesterday to build and design Orion, the human space transformation vehicle that will eventually replace the space shuttle, put a human on the moon for the first time since 1972 and be the precursor to a manned spaceship to Mars.

Reports The Washington Post:

The award marks NASA's most concrete step to fulfill President Bush's two-year-old, $230 billion promise that the space agency would return astronauts to the moon and restore excitement about space exploration. NASA has planned to replace the shuttles since the mid-1980s and has spent almost $5 billion to do so -- with little success so far.

"We're just tickled, honored to be chosen," said John Karas, Lockheed's vice president for space exploration. The contract, which will last through 2013, was estimated at $4 billion. The program could eventually be worth nearly $8 billion to the Bethesda-based company.

It was a somewhat unexpected win for Lockheed, the Pentagon's largest contractor. Northrop Grumman, the other competitor, was considered the front-runner because along with its subcontractor, Boeing Co., it has been involved with all of the country's manned space programs. While Lockheed also has had a long history with NASA, it's not been entirely positive.

In consideration of Labor Day next week, herewith are a few worker-related news pieces.

What Are You Doing with Your Extra 48 Seconds a Day?
The average daily commute for U.S. workers shrunk from 25.5 minutes in 2000 to 25.1 minutes last year, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau.

That's 0.4 minutes each way, for a total of 48 seconds a day! (Whoo-hoo! Book the cruise!)

Among the Census Bureau's additional AMAZING findings (Riiiiiiiight…):

• The share of people driving alone to work increased from 75.7 percent in 2000 to 77 percent last year.
• The share of people carpooling to work dropped from 12.2 percent in 2000 to 10.7 percent last year.
• The share of people using mass transit stayed the same at 4.7 percent.
• The share of people walking to work dropped from 2.9 percent in 2000 to 2.5 percent last year.
• The share of people working at home increased from 3.3 percent in 2000 to 3.6 percent last year.

Again with the Inappropriate Workplace Behavior!!
Remember when we addressed inappropriate, sexual behavior in the workplace in last week's "Light Friday" (Item 6)? Well, this is NOT appropriate behavior in the workplace: This week a Humpty's restaurant in an Alberta oil sands boomtown was found guilty of sexual harassment.

A male employee was accused of directing obscene remarks at a former female employee and others on many occasions. The harassment included references to female sexual attributes and also involved — according to the National Union of Public and General Employees — "a lewdly painted egg and an obscene gesture with a sausage." **

The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission ordered the family chain to pay the former employee more than $2,000 in back pay and $4,000 in damages for "pain and suffering," after Humpty's failed to justify misconduct in the workplace on grounds that "abnormal behavior" should be accepted in a tight labor market. (Yes, that was the defense…)

**Sexual harassment still is not funny.

While we're on the topic of employees at family restaurants…

$26 Tab = $10,000 Tip
A bartender at an Applebee's Bar and Grill in Hutchinson, Kansas, received a $10,000 tip last Sunday after a regular customer signed the bill for his $26 meal.

"He usually signs his ticket and flips it upside down," the bartender told The Hutchinson News. "But this time, he had it right side up and said 'I want you to know this is not a joke.'"

The bartender, who has worked at Applebee's for eight years, said the man comes in a couple of times each month and sits at the end of the bar to eat his meal. She talked with the customer, described as a man in his mid-40s, every time he came in. He usually orders two beers, cheese quesadillas for an appetizer and an entrée for dinner, and he always tips very well, generally leaving a $15 tip on a $30 ticket, the bartender said.

Two weeks ago, the same customer left her a $100 tip, but the size of Sunday's tip left her was a bit of a shock.

Still on the topic of employees… Now on the topic of "partners"…

Starbucks: Oh, So That's How the World Wide Web Works…
Starbucks has issued a statement regarding the free-drink coupons that have been widely distributed via e-mail. According to a press release this week:

An e-mail offering a free Starbucks iced coffee was distributed to a limited group of Starbucks partners (employees) in the Southeast United States on Wednesday, August 23, 2006, with instructions to forward to their group of friends and family. Unfortunately, it has been redistributed beyond the original intent and modified beyond Starbucks control. Effective immediately, this offer will no longer be valid at any Starbucks locations.

So people communicate with other people over this Internet thingy, huh?

OK, one more worker news piece…

A Sign of the Times: You've Got Mail…But No Job
RadioShack Corp. sent an e-mail to 403 employees on Tuesday to notify them they had been fired as part of a company downsizing.

The company had notified employees during the prior 10 days that they would learn of their fates through an e-mail, reports All Headline News. At 8:45 a.m. — the designated time — employees were glued to their computer screens at the company's headquarters in Fort Worth.

Those unlucky 403 saw a message that read:

The workforce reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.

They may as well have e-mailed "Screw you very much for your hard work and dedication here." Notification by e-mail, according to RadioShack spokeswoman Kay Jackson, "was quicker and offered more privacy than a person-to-person conversation." Some of the terminated employees included vice presidents and rank-and-file workers.

But hey, enjoy your Labor Day weekend, folks!! You've earned it!


Cheers.