It’s not as if big coal companies ever have been benevolent societies – the song “Sixteen Tons” and its lyrics about owing your soul to the company store stemmed from a miner’s reality.
It’s not as …

Bayonets – he calls them “knife guns” – crack Big Guy up.
“Why are they using those?” he asked recently as we watched one of the “Pirates of the Caribbean. “Why don’t they just use their …

It’s early yet, but give Wal-Mart credit for the public relations coup of the year so far.
Last week, the retailer began charging 15 cents for regular bags and 50 cents for oversized ones in three …

If you listened closely last winter, you could hear the soft drum beats in the background as Washington moved to help homeowners facing foreclosure.
“Unless we reduce the principal on loans, people will just walk away,” …

Once upon a time, in a land long ago and far away, news was news and ads were ads and never the twain did meet.
Oh, sure, the advertisers would try and occasionally succeed. I can’t …

When it comes to shopping I’m not quite in the mainstream, but the other side doesn’t have a majority either.
According to a Rasmussen Report poll released over the weekend, 39 percent of Americans consider holiday …

What would it be worth to you to stop swine flu from spreading? Would $290 a week be too much of an investment?
That’s how much it would cost to let a minimum-wage worker stay home …

Why would someone who barely drives not jump at the chance to buy “pay per mile” auto insurance, which the Brookings Institute estimates will cut most people’s yearly insurance costs $270 per car?
Well, for one, …

We are raising a generation of children who have had access to on-demand movies from birth. Cartoons are not a half hour every afternoon and all morning on Saturdays – they’re 24-7.
These kids are not …

Want in on a little secret about how your credit card company is going to guarantee that you won’t be responsible for any fraudulent purchases?
They’re going to do it by stopping anyone – including you …

A newspaper video goes viral after FOX news links to it, but the video quickly becomes inaccessible when a contractor can’t handle the traffic. The contractor adjusts within an hour, but that’s 60 minutes that …

Usually, I buy the car and someone offers zero percent financing two weeks later. Or I order the computer only to have someone wave free printers and cameras at me the next day.
Oh, but not …

In about an hour each morning, I can browse five newspapers – two national, two state and one local – without killing a single tree.
When I’m finished with that, I survey a dozen or so …

Been sitting back on your haunches and dismissing this whole online thing as a preoccupation of the kids, the techies and the well-heeled?
You might want to stand up so you can get a clearer look …

Want to kick off a cat fight? Confine hundreds of people in a cramped, narrow tube 30,000 feet above the ground and put them in proximity to something they can’t stand.
In the case of Southwest …

Evan’s overweight and tried to buy two seats on an airplane so he wouldn’t inconvenience fellow travelers.
That’s a good thing, right? Courteous and considerate, not to mention expensive for Evan.
Delta said “no.” We have rules …

The salesman where I bought my Blackberry cost himself a bit of extra commission last week when he included a hot pink cover in the pile of accessories he was pushing on me.
Even Big Guy …

The obvious punch line to Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s bill that would make it easier for newspapers to become nonprofit organizations is that many companies have mastered the “nonprofit” part.
The reasons are partly economic, partly corporate.
The …

Sometimes, the easiest answer is “no.”
It takes little time to say it and requires no effort to implement. I’ll admit that too many times it’s my go-to response with the guys, when I’m too tired …

Go ahead, tell us we just don’t understand.
Patiently explain why the $165 million in bonuses American International Group is paying 400 people are necessary to keep “some of these brainiacs in their seats.” Tell us …

My God, this is like watching an old lover stricken with cirrhosis and emphysema hobble around with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Your heart aches for him. You want to …

Funny how a company can’t even offer something for free without critics landing on it with both feet.
Such was the case Sunday when Microsoft rolled out “Elevate America,” a three-year program that will offer technical …

Did auto makers fall for the conspiracy theories that President Bush would declare martial law just before the election and remain in office forever?
Not that they could be faulted for fantasizing about that. Up until …

There is one, and only one, pizza place we go to in town.
We don’t even go there often, because we’ve cut back drastically on eating out. Still, the guys deserve a treat once in a …

Note to self: Do a 180 on entire parenting philosophy or the guys will never be fired at Finish Line. Or Best Buy, Circuit City or Blockbuster.
I’m too set in my curmudgeonly ways, so it’s …

Dear Mervyns,
Oh, how I loved you in my single days.
I’ll admit: I was more of a blitzkrieg buyer that a bargain hunter back then, rolling through the store to restock on professional but stylish …

Someone in that room knew.
Maybe it was a junior executive with Taxi New York, the agency that won the $18 million Motrin account in August. Just returning from maternity leave and trying to reassert herself, …

Talk about dogmatic adherence to rules that backfired big time for a Washington State skating rink.
The rink has a policy that any food not purchased on site must be eaten in the lobby. That requirement …