HUGE BOEING LAYOFFS: Why so soon and so massive? For the same reason the company’s top execs split town for Chicago—the Almighty Stock Price. (It’s the same reason the airlines moved so swiftly for their own massive layoffs.)

Boeing boss Phil Condit has now made his statement to the investment community that Boeing is no longer a “Seattle company” or even a manufacturing company, but an investment portfolio that moves swiftly to cut potential losses.

At one time, even during the previous massive layoffs of the early ’70s, Boeing was a company that Made Stuff. In bad times, it made sure to hold on to at least its key personnel and its design-engineering infrastructure. Now, who knows?

THE RADIO MEGA-CHAIN that’s rapidly becoming the Microsoft of music (that’s not a compliment) wants its umpteen-hundred stations to ban over 150 individual songs, plus anything by Rage Against the Machine.