from JPT Group | April 2024 | Vol. 17 No. 4
A Dying Breed; A Real Trooper
Doris Eaton Travis was born on March 14, 1904 in Norfolk, Virginia.
She was a Broadway and film performer who began her show business career in 1918 at age 14 when she joined the Ziegfeld Follies. She was the youngest member ever cast in the show which was famous for its chorus of beautiful women, known as the Ziegfeld Girls. The day she finished the eighth grade, Travis began rehearsals to become a Ziegfeld Girl. She continued to work as a dancer and singer throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
Travis introduced the song "Singin' in the Rain" on Broadway in The Hollywood Music Box Revue in 1929. The song was written by Nacio Herb Brown with lyrics by Arthur Freed. The iconic, successful and wildly popular film of the same name with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor wasn’t released until 23 years later in 1952.
After show business, Travis became a dance instructor working with the popular Arthur Murray Dance Studios for more than three decades. Ultimately, she owned and managed a chain of 18 Arthur Murray schools in Michigan.
In 1968 she and her husband moved to Oklahoma to establish a ranch for boarding horses which she ran until 2008. In 1992, at age 88, Travis graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oklahoma.
She was the last surviving Ziegfeld Girl, dying on May 11, 2010 at the age of 106. She gave her last formal dance performance in April, 2010 only two weeks before her death.
Source: Refdesk + Wikipedia
“In art, the subject upon which you concentrate is unimportant; it is only the quality of your concentration that counts.”
— John Steinbeck, an American writer
BUSINESS UPDATE
Cutting cost cutting.
Once a company gets to 80 – 85 percent of the bottom-line cost-cutting objective, companies and people tend to get distracted and do not really follow through, and that makes a huge difference on their ability to sustain the effort.
— Forbes
A Public Service in this Time of Tax
As a public service, the JPTearsheet offers this worthwhile (?) advice taken verbatim from IRS 2023 Publication 17 regarding what kinds of income you are required to report on your Form 1040. Just in case there was any doubt. It reads:
Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.
Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
Kickbacks. You must include kickbacks, side commissions, push money, or similar payments you receive in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.
For all you attorneys out there, here’s a question: How do they square this reporting requirement with your 5th Amendment protections against self-incrimination?
“Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.”
— Ambrose Bierce,
an American writer, journalist and poet
How many jobs?
Swedish company Klarna says its AI assistant is doing the job of 700 workers. Klarna partnered with OpenAI to improve customer service interactions. In just one month, Klarna says the ChatGPT-inspired bot is managing two-thirds of customer service chats, about 2.3 million conversations, in 23 markets and 35 languages.
— klarna.com
Don’t want to talk to a machine? Try: number for a live person
You can say that again. The proper name for talking in one's sleep is somniloquy.
— factretriever.com
Pretty good, eh? Canadians eat more macaroni and cheese per capita than any other nation on the planet.
— travel.com
Take two and call me in the morning. In use for more than 3,500 years and once the brand name of a pain reliever, aspirin is now a generic term for acetylsalicylic acid.
— Aspirin Foundation
Half way home. More than 50 percent of the highest paying jobs in the U.S. are performed by women.
— Employee Benefit News
In the dark. The alignment of the sun and moon which resulted in the recent solar eclipse is technically known as “syzygy.”
— uselessdaily.com
Eh. What’s up doc? Why are gems and gold measured by carats and karats?
— knowledgestew.com
Can you dig it? One kilogram of uranium can produce as much energy as 1,500 tons of coal.
— nei.org
That’s right. Left-handed people earn about 10–12 percent percent less than righties.
— Journal of Economic Perspectives
Another man’s trash. Often used generically today, originally Dumpster was the brand name of large waste container.
— Wikipedia
Technology meets meat. An Australian super market recently started putting GPS locators on expensive meats to reduce shoplifting.
— OddityCentral
The Month of April
Month of the Month
Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. April is Dog Poop Awareness Month as well as International Twit Award Month. Then there’s always the ever-popular Beaver Awareness Month. Have a problem with any of this? Don’t fret. It’s also Second Chance Month.
Isn’t it great when things just seem to work out? Today, April 15th is, of course, Income Tax Pay Day. Fittingly, it’s also That Sucks Day.
Question of the Month
What happened on Good Friday, April 18, 1930?
We can’t add anything to this monumental achievement.
Quote of the Month
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
— Thomas Szasz,
Hungarian-American academic
and psychiatrist
Get a Headstart
If you have ever thought about including a newsletter in your marketing communications toolkit, before you begin, download our free digital booklet – Getting Started with Your Newsletter – to get some basic questions answered as well as a little inspiration to nudge you forward. Be sure to check out “Something Special” at the end. Download your copy.
A Gridiron MBA?
Maybe that’s not possible, but there is much you can learn about business from football in the book, Hard Hitting Lessons. The subtitle says it all, “Some not-so-obvious business lessons learned from playing football.”
Get your copy here!
