Martha Throebeck: Humorist with a fake name

Thanks to the pandemic, this year has brought a new kind of competition that is more social-distancing-friendly. In the "48 Hour Lecture Project", teams of aspiring educators are each given a random subject and have two days to research and produce a one-hour lecture on the topic. The end product is delivered by live video conference to an audience of jaded students...

The past six months have been a wild decade. We're living in a maddening timeline where the economy is both bullish (tech companies) and bearish (everything else) at the same time. Despite the massive disruption to small businesses wrought by the pandemic, some entrepreneurs have been able to take advantage of the new reality. Here are some ventures that may or may not be coming to a stock portfolio near you...

The pandemic brought a cruel reality to gamblers. They had money in their pocket from stimulus checks, but precious few opportunities to wager on anything. Casinos were closed. Racetracks were shuttered. Even online gambling websites were hit hard thanks to the lack of live sports -- they were reduced to taking wagers on Australian cricket and socially-distanced Scrabble matches...

So this is what lab rats must feel like. They run mazes hoping to find the exit and score a dopamine hit. We post things on social media hoping to get a "like" and score a dopamine hit. Safe at home while we wait out the pandemic, our every move online is tracked, compiled, tabulated, aggregated, correlated and analyzed, plus other verbs we don't understand. We're in the middle of the greatest sociology experiment in the history of sociology experiments...

Tech startup companies have one thing in common: an overabundance of acronyms. Communicating with POE (Plain Old English) is considered obsolete in the modern-day quest to boost ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). "The world is changing too rapidly for ordinary words to keep pace," said Lexi Kahn at the American Association Advocating Advanced Acronyms (AAAAA). She explained that the United States is now the world's number one exporter of WASTE -- Wordplay, Acronyms, Shortened Terms and Elisions...

Ambrose Bierce became an early 1900s influencer when he published "The Devil's Dictionary," a book of sarcastic definitions. He discovered dictionaries were a fantastic literary device for social commentary. He also probably realized inventing bogus definitions was an easy method to overcome writer's block and to efficiently generate content to meet deadlines...

A network of regional high schools has announced the creation of a foreign exchange program to let students study across the big pond: the Mississippi River. The program, dubbed IMAGINE (Illinois Missouri Association Guiding Interstate Noteworthy Exchanges), will allow high school students to live with a host family and experience life on the other side of the river...

I've heard grumbling lately about the new fluorescent "State Law: Yield to Pedestrians Within Crosswalk" signs that Cape Girardeau has installed smack dab in the middle of Broadway. Oh, how the worm has turned! I remember the city's "War on Signs" in 2006. The city fathers started aggressively enforcing the municipal sign ordinance, enraging business owners who faced the prospect of removing or redesigning their advertising signage. One business owner even went to jail over the matter...

For younger workers, the idea of "conspicuous consumption" is out. It's been replaced by "pretentious production:" going out of the way to showcase their work habits. Social standing isn't about bling anymore. It's about how much you've contributed to the gross domestic product...

The following stories may or may not appear in a future edition of B Magazine: With creditors circling overhead, Sears stuns the entire world by announcing the no-profit company will be converted into a not-for-profit organization. The CEO of Sears says, "We haven't turned a profit since 2010, so transforming into a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization will be a piece of cake. ...

Who would have thought that Cape Girardeau would become a hotbed for startup companies? This curmudgeon never saw it coming, that's for sure. Tech companies are now lining the Broadway corridor hoping to grab a little of that sweet, sweet startup funding...

At B Magazine, we're all about providing value-added, non-coastal, business-oriented content. Below you will find a selection of quality business ideas handpicked from the recesses of Martha's brain during recent stints in the shower. With the right financial backing, smart leadership and a little luck, any of these concepts could find success in Southeast Missouri...

Cape Girardeau has announced a new program to zealously enforce old and new city ordinances to increase revenue for future construction projects. Recently the city pursued charges against the carGO ride-sharing platform for delivering adult beverages without obtaining an alcohol license. Following a public outcry, the city council backed down. Since then, however, the city fathers have admitted they caved too readily...

I've noticed Southeast Missouri has a major problem. When you look at various websites devoted to quirky tourist attractions, we're totally missing from the maps. RoadsideAmerica.com and AtlasObscura.com, for example, show a giant void surrounding Cape Girardeau...

Social media has been buzzing lately about a study proclaiming that Cape Girardeau is the “most boring city in Missouri.” There’s no need for hand-wringing, though. The real news is that Cape is now large enough to qualify as a “city” under the methodology used by the study’s author, Business Insider. By including Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Alexander counties, the “Cape Girardeau, MO-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area” can boast a population of 97,514...

Back in my day, fake news was a perfectly cromulent art form. Dave Barry was our generation’s Shakespeare. The Onion, that bastion of journalistic truthiness, published such classics as “Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia” and “Urban Planner Stuck In Traffic Of Own Design.”...