MARKET TALK:CBOT Soy Futures Down, Bearish Psychology

1245 EDT [Dow Jones] - CBOT soy futures are on the defensive, taking on a bearish psychology. Spillover weakness from falling crude oil, metals and Asian soybean and vegoils markets continue to feed bearish thoughts in the market, analysts say. Technical pressure has helped pinned prices in negative territory, as bearish momentum surfaced following the markets ability to penetrate near term chart support Monday, traders say. Meanwhile, uncertainties tied to 2008 acreage amid corn planting delays and concerns surrounding future export demand as Argentina works on their issues with farmers keep traders limiting their risk exposure, analysts add. July soybeans are 10 1/2 cents lower at $12.87, and Nov soybeans are 1/2 cent lower at $11.96. July soyoil is 73 points lower at 57.75 cents per pound, and July soymeal is $3.70 lower at $331.80 per short ton.



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I do not believe in marriage: Salman Rushdie

London, Apr 30: After marrying four times and perhaps heading for the fifth one, author Salman Rushdie has ironically attacked the institution of marriage, saying he does not believe in it and that women rush to tie the knot only because they want to wear the wedding dress.

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Sharing the spotlight in Edwards

EDWARDS, Colorado � Faced with an abundance of guy talent and a shortage of guy roles, musical directors at Vail Christian High School this spring arrived at a unique solution.

They cast two students to play the lead in �Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.�

Senior Blair Halverson will play Joseph tonight; fellow senior Galen Jacobs plays Joseph on Friday. The teens learned the same songs and perfected the same moves, bringing consistency to the part they share.

�Actually, we�re both kind of blending into one being,� Halverson joked.

While directors routinely cast understudies for leads, giving two actors equal stage time as the same character is rare. Teachers said they didn�t want to shortchange either actor by denying him the starring role.


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Job titles get quirky

Four Legacies Mortgage customers don't work with a loan officer. Instead, they are connected with the company's chief motivation officer or its wealth creation specialist.

"We wanted to be creative with our titles," said Brent Rauch, chief inspiration officer at Four Legacies in West Des Moines, Iowa. "And I help inspire financial freedom for customers."A growing number of companies are looking at clever job titles to create a buzz and set themselves apart from competitors. And it's not just the technology and advertising firms that are ditching traditional titles in favor of fun and funky ones.Companies sometimes use nontraditional titles to mix things up at a company, said Paula Morrow, marketing professor at Iowa State University. Or it signals a change in leadership in which executives are trying "to show they are different than what's been in the past," Morrow said.Computer repair chain the Geek Squad, a division of Best Buy Inc., hires special agents, field marshals and mission controllers to operate on the front lines, while back-office operations still are conducted by the chief executive and a bevy of presidents and vice presidents.Food service employees tend to have unique job titles.



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Building wealth: Truth or consequences

Above the strains of "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" and beneath the fragments of light spilling from an enormous crystal chandelier, 244 fortune hunters file into a Toronto hotel ballroom on a cold and dim February morning. They're here to brighten their financial futures through Donald Trump's "Way to Wealth" seminar, which, according to materials promoting this event, will reveal the secrets of real estate investing and business management.

Could it possibly be so simple? You bet, says "personal Trump instructor" Rick Brown, upon taking the stage and congratulating attendees on the "tremendous step forward" they've taken. It's not long before Brown is unleashing a flurry of tidy platitudes from the stage, such as "Money's a game; you know the rules, you win." He also confides that most people's biggest mistake in the business world is to fail to give themselves a "consequence," defined roughly as an investment of time or money in an objective, such that one's failure to work toward that objective will result in a material loss.


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Faith matters

Tony Blair gave an extraordinary lecture at Westminster Cathedral in London the other day. It was a speech that outed him, so to speak, as a man of deep spirituality.

Not that he had ever made a secret of his religiosity when he was Britain's Prime Minister, openly converting to Catholicism after he left office. But, as he explained to his Westminster audience, for various reasons connected with the culture in Britain and parts of Europe, politicians are not expected to "do God".

Freed from those constraints, however, Mr Blair spoke, with characteristic eloquence, in terms of faith "giving the use of reason a purpose and society a soul and human beings a sense of the divine".

This is a life purpose, he said, "that cannot be found in constitutions, speeches, stirring art or rhetoric.


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Gary Snyder wins $100,000 poetry prize

Gary Snyder, a poet known for his verse about nature and spirituality and a former member of the beat movement along with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, has won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, awarded annually by the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation. .


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