The slow death of Genuine New York continues apace: Ubiquitous NYC drug store Duane Reade, with over 1 million locations in your neighborhood alone, is being bought by boring corporate drug store Walgreen. Man. Remember when purchasing gum was real?

Trash company Waste Management's executive was featured on CBS's advertainment pseudoshow Undercover Boss. Today: the company announces fourth quarter profit rose 45%. Plus: companies were "given assurance that the show wouldn't damage the brand." CBS: American capitalism's last friend!

So we assume you saw Undercover Boss last night, CBS' big new reality show that got the plum post-Super Bowl spot? Amazing, was it not? Televised entertainment has now completed its long, winding journey into becoming 100% corporate propaganda.

Of all of capitalism's high holidays, Valentine's Day is definitely the worst, with its corporate-sponsored emphasis on love, couples, snuggling, and other disgusting things. The only thing worse? The people who empower it with emphatic hatred.

The Way We Live Now: recalibrating our responsibilities. In tough times, we can't be expected to support certain causes as effusively as we once did. Such causes include, but are not limited to: Colleges, mortgage payments, and the poors.

In a new survey, male and female business professionals both agree that entry-level jobs are gender-neutral—but about twice as many men as women said executive-level jobs are equally open to both sexes. Among those men: your boss. [WSJ]

Remember that place called "Starbucks" back in the day? Hahaha, people used to go there and drink coffee and things and instantly stereotype themselves by walking into this "Starbucks," a magical portal to a narrowly defined world of laughable cultural stereotypes? No wonder it totally fell off the map of relevance last year and disappeared into the thoroughly unsexy world of hobo coffee.

Haha: Some ad design person put some top secret work he'd done for Ocean Spray on his own personal portfolio website, leading to this comically threatening phone call from an Ocean Spray corporate enforcer. Listen to it at Agency Spy.

Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend is meeting personally this month with shell-shocked staffers at the company's various magazines for what is described as "a rah-rah speech" with "lots of charts and graphs." Everybody, "Conde rules" on one! [NYO]

We like to "jest" with the advertising industry about how stupid and evil they are, but the truth is that marketing is not easy. Today in Fuzzy Public Outrage: Dolls are racist, and soap bubbles are rapists.

Stop everything, The Internet: AOL is now Aol. Whether superimposed on a fish or a hand or just some swirly crap, this logo makes the bold statement: We can no longer afford capital letters. [Ad Age]

This is the greatest moment in corporate branding since the Pepsi logo was revealed to be the entire universe. [PostSecret]

The Way We Live Now: In a new way. Which is not to imply it's a worse way. It's just new, and different. Corporate America hasn't been doing so well. They need...a "new deal," if you will.

Procter & Gamble is bravely helping women in Singapore overcome the cultural taboo associated with menstruation. Its marketing campaign empowers women to understand that periods are nothing to be ashamed of. That's why they named their product "Whisper." [WSJ]

When you're deciding which fast food franchise to buy into, one to avoid would be Dunkin Donuts, because the muckety-mucks at Dunkin Donuts headquarters will spy on you with video cameras, 24/7.

We know you luv Starbucks. But Starbucks has problems. McDonald's is stealing its customers. Iconic stores are shutting down. Teenagers are planting bombs, workers are slowing down, and management's flirting with Communism. Today, Starbuck's salvation arrives: instant coffee. Uh, lowbrow.

"Survivaball." Read all about it on the website. "Worried About Climate Change? Don't sweat it." Instead, you can wear a ridiculous rubber-ball body suit to protect you from the ravages of global warming. It's an example of the world's largest corporations using engineering to replace ethics, with humorous results, etc.

Did Starbucks just raise prices or lower prices? Both. From each according to his ability, and to each according to his need. Starbucks is fomenting socialism through macchiato pricing.

Today, GMAC Financial Services confirmed that it's no longer advertising on Glenn Beck's show. How many advertisers have deserted him now? Let's tally them up:

What if our corporate overlords could measure precisely how one single city block—yours—would respond to their advertisements for Pringles™ brand astronaut potatoes, to offer a delicious example? They would use this power for racism, obvs.