She starred in fewer than 25 films and died at only 36 nearly a half century ago. But Marilyn Monroe made a lasting impression …

A 2006 survey by StarPulse.com listed her as the “All-Time Style Icon of the Last Century.” In April 2010, Americans polled for Gillette named her among the world’s “Top Ten Goddesses.” The same month, British survey respondents chose her one of the “Most Seductive Women of All Time.” In July 2010, a survey for QVC found her one of the “Most Beautiful Women of the Last Century.” And in 2008 when Smithsonian magazine polled cross-country samplings of high school students and adults 45 and over, she was listed among the ten most famous Americans in history, not including presidents or first ladies.

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In 1999, Nevada resident William Junge bought a personalized license plate after purchasing his SUV. So in 2006 when the 59-year-old tried to renew the plate, he couldn’t understand why the DMV denied his application. He’d had that plate seven years. What suddenly made hoe offensive? Well, a DMV employee suddenly found the word listed in an online slang dictionary as a variation of “ho” … not to be confused with tally-ho, Westward Ho, or Ho! Ho! Ho!

Okay … but what did that have to do with Junge?

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Traffic on the four-lane was bumper-to-bumper, but still moving at a swift 50 mph with no stop lights ahead. Always in a hurry, I was in the left lane, the faster of the two heading west. A bumper sticker on the car to my right caught my eye:

This Is a Really Stupid Bumper Sticker

But You’re Still Squinting to Re …

HOLY COW!! I glanced up to see traffic had come to an unexpected stop. Standing on the brake, I whipped the steering wheel to the left, just missing the back corner of the car ahead as I steered into the narrow median. Caught off-guard by my sudden maneuver, the next two cars behind me also ended up in the grass.

Thankfully, I was maintaining a safe distance from the car ahead and had looked up in the nick of time. Otherwise there would have been a multicar pileup at rush hour … because of a “really stupid bumper sticker.”

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In 1977, 16-year-old Cathleen Crowell decided to cover a possible pregnancy with her foster parents by inventing a rape story. Too bad for 20-year-old Gary Dotson that he slightly resembled her fictional assailant. In 1979, with Crowell’s help, Illinois courts sentenced Dotson to 20–50 years.

By 1985, Crowell had become a deeply religious woman, desperate to make amends. Confessing her deception, she helped Dotson get released on bond, pending a new hearing. Then the guilt-ridden accuser and the man whose life she’d shattered made the rounds of network morning programs, ending with The CBS Morning News and Phyllis George, a one-time Miss America recently hired from CBS Sports.

George’s interview style fell somewhere between perky and giggly, and the uncomfortable guests probably were relieved to reach the wrap-up—until George playfully suggested they shake hands like two kids making up after a playground spat. They awkwardly complied. Then with all the stereotypical vivaciousness of a former Miss Texas, George added, “How about a hug?”

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Appearances on the U.S. version of the TV hit Dancing With the Stars by former UFC champ and mixed martial artist Chuck Liddell and rodeo great Ty Murray have helped erase the stereotype that tough guys don’t dance. But for boys growing up in the 1940s, taking dance classes was a sure way to become the go-to target for neighborhood bullies. So Richard Beymer might have called it quits if fate hadn’t intervened with a paying job on a local L.A. television program. After that, when the bullies started their rants, he smugly told them they’d dance, too, if it meant earning $200 a week. Impressive chutzpah for a kid really making only $8 a week.

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While sipping our caffeinated beverages each morning, we’re also likely to be shaking our heads at news reports of public figures trying to recover from PR nightmares brought on by bad timing:

• With his re-election already in doubt, soon-to-be-ex British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is mortified to be caught open-mic’d ranting about being annoyed by Jane Q. Voter.

• The Virginia Department of Transportation announces 678 layoffs the same morning a huge snowstorm blankets the state’s roadways, overwhelming snow-plowing crews already short-staffed by previous layoffs.

• Reality star Kim Kardashian apologizes profusely for publicizing her new “pet” chimp—actually rented to punk her mom—just three days after another pet chimp makes worldwide headlines for viciously attacking a Connecticut woman.

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With emerging technologies ushering in new industries while phasing out others, many of us are tackling challenges we didn’t envision when starting our careers. Fortunately we don’t have an audience watching as we stumble through the awkward learning phase.

Yao Bin wasn’t so lucky.

He was born in the People’s Republic of China in 1957 during the last gasps of Chairman Mao’s “Social Revolution”—which wiped out the class system—and a heartbeat before his “Great Leap Forward” plan to radically reform the nation’s economy. Yao’s birthplace was Harbin in Heilongjiang Province, a place of brutally cold winters nicknamed the “Ice City.”

Geographically, Harbin is almost nestled in the arms of Siberia and has always felt the influence of its Russian neighbors. Following their defeat in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, Russia’s White Guard fled to Harbin, establishing the largest Russian community outside the mother country. Most were forced to leave during the post-WWII Soviet occupation, but during Yao’s boyhood, Harbin still bore the architectural and cultural influence of Russia … including, perhaps, that nation’s love for figure skating.

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Bet I know what you’ve been thinking about today.

Mmm hmm. And bet I know what you dreamed about last night.

Decadent fantasies … involving chocolate sauce … and whipped cream …

Huh? Oh, that’s all. Just decadent fantasies of chocolate sauce and whipped cream. People around the world may be talking sex with Sue Johanson, but they’re thinking about food. Constantly.

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No wonder our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents talk so longingly about how much more relaxed life seemed in their youth. A quick Internet search reveals the term burnout didn’t go mainstream until about 1980. That’s when headlines suddenly began warning that health professionals, office workers, parents, priests, ministers, teachers, perfectionists, coaches, air-traffic controllers, child stars, and holiday celebrants were in danger of incinerating. Burnout, the papers proclaimed, was pandemic. People were even burned out on talking about burnout.

Three decades later things have gotten worse. A recent survey of British human-resource execs by Capital Learning and Development finds that two-thirds are worried about their employees burning out from added responsibilities following recession-based layoffs. And the outsourcing provider found more than half those HR execs are concerned extra duties have kept employees from learning new technologies. Their skills are becoming obsolete, which could impede them from fully exploiting any economic recovery.

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In 1967, polygrapher Cleve Backster connected electrodes to a house plant to measure psychogalvanic reflex (PGR)—how quickly moisture increased in the plant after it was watered. During the experiment, he became curious about what else the equipment might measure. For instance, could it detect the plant’s stress levels?

He dunked a leaf in a cup of hot coffee. Nothing. He pondered what to try next. Aha! he thought. I’ll burn the leaf. The instant the thought leapt into his mind, the needle on the machine jumped—just as it would for a human experiencing sudden stress. The plant seemed to sense Backster’s diabolical plan … and it was afraid.

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