NYT: Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales
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Interesting New York Times article on pharmaceutical reps:
"Exaggerated motions, exaggerated smiles, exaggerated enthusiasm - they learn those things, and they can get people to do what they want."
Approximately two dozen Kentucky cheerleaders, mostly women but a few men, have become drug reps in recent years.
While there are no statistics on how many drug representatives are former or current cheerleaders, demand for them led to the formation of an employment firm, Spirited Sales Leaders, in Memphis. It maintains a database of thousands of potential candidates."
This reminds me of the drug rep on the TV show Scrubs (played by Heather Locklear).
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100 Years Ago....
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100 Years Ago....:
" "Maybe this will boggle your mind. I know it did mine! The year is 1904
...one hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the US statistics for 1904:
The average life expectancy in the US was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the US had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US, and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
The average wage in the US was 22 cents an hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist
2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.
Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and
by the government as 'substandard.'
Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
The five leading causes of death in the US were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two of 10 US adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.'
Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
Where will we be in another 100 years? " "
[Via Aarmadillo]
Pentium 4 Causes Male Infertility!
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Yup. It's true. Working with a Pentium 4-based laptop computer can raise the temperature around the family jewels. Whether that has any effect on fertility is about four leaps of faith beyond that, however. Even if they can demonstrate an effect on fertility rates, it may just be because men that hold portable computers on their laps for 19 hours a day are hideous, fat, geeks with no social skills or appeal to the opposite sex! Hello?!
Clearly, these experiments need to be replicated with Apple Powerbooks because, well, women notice men with that glowing Apple logo on their machines...
