Sure makes me hungry–how aboutyou? From a restaurant press release: “As patrons enter Tommy Gun’s Garage through the back door under the ‘El’ tracks, they encounter Frenchie, the mechanic and ask for an oil change. Frenchie knows the password, and the doors open on the Fabulous Roaring Twenties–when ladies hemlines were up, their necklines were down, and men always accessorized with a firearm. A 1928 Model A Ford sits near the entrance, silent movies are shown against the back of a stage, and there is a life-size replica of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Wall, complete with bullet holes.” Over Valentine’s weekend the massacre was “reenacted” five times.
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Our Barbies, ourselves. “A friend of a friend of ours–a staunch feminist of the heterosexual persuasion–has a seven- or eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, who had a birthday last fall,” writes Yvonne Zipter in Outlines (February). For her birthday, Sarah asked for two new Ken dolls. “She had six Barbies and four Kens and, she said, she wanted Ken dolls for the two remaining Barbies. ‘Oh, Sarah,’ said [her mother], in a tone somewhere between disappointment and wisdom-to-come, ‘I don’t think you’ve really thought this through….Did you ever stop to think that those two Barbies might be together–a couple, like Laura and Martha? “I guess not–gee, Mom, you’re right!’ And at that moment, Sarah became the proud owner of two lesbian Barbies.”
Q: What do you have when you have a money manager buried up to the neck in sand? A: Not enough sand. Active management of pension stock funds actually reduces their value, according to a study of 769 of them authored by University of Illinois finance professor Josef Lakonishok, U. of C.’s Robert Vishny, and Harvards Andrei Schleifer. According to a U. of I. synopsis, the managed funds underperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by “an average of 1.3 percent a year between 1983 and 1989. With roughly $1 trillion invested in stocks by pension plans, Lakonishok estimated that the low rates of return cost pension funds about $1.3 billion a year. Fees charged by money managers–about $500 million a year–shrunk pension returns even further….Pension funds whose managers actively bought and sold stock typically achieved lower rates of return than a portfolio that was frozen for one year.”
