Reverse Darwinism
Just as Neanderthals were starting to earn some respect, along comes a new management book trashing their behavior in the workplace.
Earlier this month, researchers at a scientific conference upgraded the Neanderthal’s place in history with evidence contradicting previous theories that the prehistoric cave dwellers are not part of the human family tree.
Now that comeback has hit a bump. A new book by Albert J. Bernstein and Sydney Craft Rozen called “Neanderthals at Work” defines Neanderthals as the kind of rigid-thinking people at work who “sometimes seem like a clan of cave-dwellers, with tiny brains and uncivilized approaches to the job.”
A Name They Can’t Bank On
Further evidence that our latest spat with Japan has gotten out hand comes from the State Banking Department.
One job of its regulators is to vigilantly chase after unlicensed banks operating in California. Late last month, regulators believed that they had nabbed one doing business in Los Angeles out of a Figueroa Street office suite.
The culprit’s name: Japan Development Bank.
According to the cease and desist warning regulators issued, Japan Development Bank and its chief representative, Hiroyuki Kokado, “are not authorized to transact business in the way or manner of a bank and are not authorized to transact business under a name which contains the word bank. “
What state regulators didn’t know is that Japan Development Bank isn’t a bank at all. It’s a well-known, 41-year-old Japanese government agency whose goal is to stimulate economic growth. Last November, local business leaders lauded the agency when it opened its Los Angeles office, whose stated mission is to help U.S. companies boost exports to Japan.
Embarrassed state regulators have since rescinded the warning. But they haven’t given up. Their latest bulletin says, “Whether the use of the word bank by this entity is in compliance with California law is still being investigated.”
Feeding Frenzy for Lawyers?
Dirty Harry isn’t the only San Franciscan asking people to make his day.
The inaugural letter to subscribers from new California Business Publisher Mansoor Zakaria, who relocated the magazine’s headquarters to the Bay Area from Los Angeles, twice states that the magazine plans to provide “actionable” information.
Dictionaries define actionable as something that provides grounds for an action or lawsuit, not exactly the kind of thing most publishers actively solicit.
Zakaria says he meant information a person can take action on.
“Money-making action, not legal action,” he adds.
Briefly. . .
Please Don’t RSVP: Former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr., who awaits sentencing in Los Angeles on 17 fraud counts, was mistakenly sent an invitation to a dinner next month for big-time campaign donors who join the elite, $1,000-a-year “Republican Senatorial Inner Circle.” . . . A Fullerton video duplicating service has designed bumper stickers to give away that read, “Buy American While There’s Still Time.” . . . A Canoga Park security firm has developed a car alarm that warns would-be vandals and thieves in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Thai and rap (in either English or Spanish). . . . Nintendo says it no longer is making its once-popular “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” video game, having ended production back in 1990.
