Read-Think-b4-u-Write

Reading visuals - even NASA does it. Archaeology, Anthropology and Interstellar Communication is a recent tile released by NASA, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch. Vakoch believes that when ET tries to communicate with us it will not be through sound but via images. All the stuff you had to learn about reading images is going to come in handy. "Vision and the use of images would appear to be at least plausible. Although spectral details cannot be considered universal, the physical arrangement of objects on a habitable planet’s surface will be shaped in part by gravity (the notion of a horizon might well be universal) and thus multispectral images might plausibly be considered worthwhile for messages." So what kind of images do we send out? One message contained the binary numbers one through ten, equations of basic chemistry, human bio chemistry, and DNA.  Another contained a drawing of what we look like, pulsar directives, and a schematic of our solar system. In othe...

Once the kids were safely dropped off at school, this one-time stay-at-home mom had lots of opportunity to coffee klatch.  These gab fests would eventually make their way to a sentence that began with "Bless her heart." Instantly, my antennae would go up because a juicy bit of gossip was about to be revealed. A cheating husband, less-than-stellar children, or the expanding width of a rear end were all fair game if it was preceded by "Bless her heart." What is the point of "bless her heart" and other "tee-ups"? After all, a blessing is a good thing, right? Wrong, not when it is instantly followed by some snarky comment. Like the author of "Why Verbal Tee-Ups Often Signal Insincerity" I cringe when someone says to me "Don't take this the wrong way . . . "  I mean you know what's coming.  Professor James Pennebaker asserts these "tee-ups" are preludes to criticism and worse. "Language experts have...

The Chronicle of Higher Ed 's article Employers and Public Favor Graduates Who Can Communicate displays ambivalent attitudes and a complete lack of real world experience--not by students or employees--but by managers, employers, and professors that peddle such nonsense to students and the community-at-large. What nonsense you ask?  Being "well-rounded with a range of abilities" will land you that fab job you've been dreaming about. Why the attitude?  Here's why.  If a company is hiring for a position that requires a Bachelor's Degree in marketing, finance, or business, it doesn't matter that upper management or your local professor believes "Being well-rounded with a range of abilities is more important than having industry expertise because job-specific skills can be learned at work." Upper management is never going to meet that well-rounded person because that well-rounded person will never pass the initial screening process.  This ...