The Writer's Poke

For Writers: Time magazine broke a story about seventeen high school students in Massachusetts who made a pact to become pregnant. Have you ever noticed that entering into pacts never causes anything but trouble? For you historians out there, just think about all the entangling alliances and pacts that brought multiple countries into war over the last two hundred years -- most notably, World War I. I was glad to hear that most of the girls decided to use their own boyfriends as the studs, but I wonder how many of them bothered to tell the guys that they planned to bring "new life" to their relationship. Probably not many, if any, but hey, I totally understand. Talk about a mood killer! Such a pity that the pleasure of sex has to be linked to the pain of the intended biological consequence, don't you agree? One girl in the pact apparently did not have a boyfriend, or perhaps she was the one girl that shared her plan with her sweetie, only to see him galloping off on his h...

For Writers: KISS recorded a song called "Read My Body," and you can find it on their 1989 album Hot in the Shade . In what are arguably the most inspired song lyrics of all time, the chorus goes: Read my body Are the letters big enough? Read my body Do you like the book of my love? Read my body Turn the page, get to the good stuff Okay, so while the Beatles have somehow managed to find inclusion in poetry anthologies, you will probably never find KISS in a Norton any time soon; but it's a fun song, and I think it asks playful questions. Reading someone's body doesn't have to be a sexual act as suggested above. Body language, otherwise known as nonverbal communication, actually accounts for 55% of the message we convey to others, whereas the actual words we use to communicate, if you can believe it, only convey 7%. The remaining 38% of message conveyed, by the way, occurs through voice tone and quality. So don't ignore the body. Read it. Start listening more w...

McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists Do you feel luck, punk? Well, do you?

New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less Would you wear one?

Good stuff. :)

For Writers: In grade school, I was, shall we say, "socially awkward." Of the 60 kids in the two 5th grade classes at Hawthorne, only 4 were ever considered to be "dating." Dating in grade school typically meant just hanging out, and maybe kissing on the swings after school. Shelley was one of the two girls that "dated," and in one of the periods that she was single, I tried to figure out ways to steal her from her on again, off again boyfriend. The one ace in the hole I had was my prized collection of stickers. Specifically, I had puffy Garfield stickers, and I knew that she liked both stickers and Garfield. It was perfect. Unfortunately, there was never a right moment to give her my stickers. And, I had a big speech all planned out, too. I was actually going to say something like, "Shelley, as a token of my esteem, please allow me to present you with these puffy Garfield stickers." Yes, I actually thought like that in 5th grade, and I more or l...

For Writers: In 1933, FDR uttered these famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Fear of fear, otherwise known as “phobophobia,” is a rather silly fear, don’t you think? And apparently Mr. Roosevelt never visited “The Phobia List” web site: http://www.phobialist.com/ . That web site lists just about every phobia under the sun, including “heliophobia,” or fear of the sun. I’m sure that Roosevelt meant well. Americans were dealing with the Great Depression and all that, and I'm sure he wanted to send out a positive message of hope; however, he should have distinguished, as Buddhists do, between healthy and unhealthy fears. Admittedly, saying “The only thing we have to fear is unhealthy fears” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Healthy fears, however, should be recognized as useful. In an evolutionary sense, fear is what has gotten us to where we are as a species today, and I mean that in a positive way. Today, consult “The Phobia List” web site. P...

If these are the lighthouses, then what must the "Gummi Ships" look like??

An idea whose time has come? I can just imagine these booths popping up everywhere. At the mall, downtown areas, assorted tourist attractions, Utah, etc. :)

For Writers: Elevators don't have a floor thirteen; opening an umbrella inside brings bad luck, as does walking under a ladder and breaking a mirror. In some Asian cultures, the number four is equated with death. Where exactly do superstitions come from, and why do we still acknowledge them? Take Friday the 13 th as an example. Apparently the U.S. Navy will not even launch a ship on Friday the 13 th , and the Stress Management and Phobia Institute report that fear of this date affects as many as 20 million people in the United States alone. Has anything bad ever happened to you on Friday the 13 th ? To me, the power of Friday trumps 13 anyway. Some superstitions are more cute than sinister. A lot of sports superstars have superstitions, such as Michael Jordan wearing his University of North Carolina shorts under his Chicago Bulls game shorts. Such a superstition is nostalgic, but by no means harmful, whereas some superstitions can be down right debilitating. Today, create a new su...

Have you ever wondered what it says about a religion whose basic first story condemns knowledge? I have. Click on the cartoon for a bigger view.

Trailer for probably the coolest movie to be released this summer. :)

Here's a pic of Jay and Slider -- the King of Heintz and the Mascot of Honkers together again, and maybe for the last time? We'll miss you, Jay.

For Writers: I love the Match Game show from the 1970s; the object of the game was for contestants to match the fill in the blank response to the answers the "all-star" celebrity panel provided. Most of the time, there was an obvious answer to select, but you just never knew if the panelists would pick the obvious, or if they'd go out on their own and try to be funny. Perhaps the real charm of the show was Gene Rayburn as host. Who will ever forget the time he complimented a contestant on how lovely her "nipples" were when he meant to say "dimples"? What makes the slip so funny is that it was a genuine slip. These days, a host might make such "slips" on purpose. Also charming is the fact that the panelists never used sexual innuendo as the least common denominator when selecting a response. Sure, some of the responses might have been sexual, but it was always done in a playful, and dare I say tactful, sort of way. It sounds odd to suggest tha...

For Writers: A very popular book right now is called The Secret . The title alone compels you to read it (I have not), but the packaging of the book is even more brilliant . This book looks like no ordinary book. The book designer has purposely aged the look of the pages, and even the "S" in the title on the cover is embossed with a faux -wax seal. Whereas there are things that everyone should know, there are also things that people keep you from knowing. Now, Ann Sexton's dead in "The Truth the Dead Know" might be thought to have secrets, but actually that's not the case. If you want to know the truth of the dead, all you need do is die. Then you too shall know, but the initiation fee for such knowledge may or may not be worth the cost of admission. Other truths or secrets are even harder to come by. What is the secret to happiness, to contentment, to success, to life itself? Does anyone really know? Is there a dragon out there somewhere hording all the sec...

For Writers: Ann Sexton's poem "The Truth the Dead Know" suggests that perhaps the dead know something us among the living do not. It's an intriguing concept, isn't it? That someone dead and buried can "know"? http://www.palace.net/~llama/poetry/truthdead Surely the living know a few things, too. Or should. Think of all the books and websites out there that tell us the things we should know. About history, about the Bible, about cars. Hell, about septic systems. Yes, apparently everyone should know at least a few things about everything. That certainly sounds like a lot of work to me. That's what I know. So, pick a topic of your choice. What do you know about that topic, and what should you know? Are there things that "everyone" should know -- either about that topic, or life in general? "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." -- Bertrand Russell

For Writers: As a college dean, one of the complaints I often hear from faculty and staff is: "No one recognized me for my efforts." But when I ask, "Did you let people know what you accomplished?" I am often surprised how many times the idea has never occurred to them. For some reason, and perhaps it's just human nature, people think that everyone knows what great things they are doing without needing to be told (or reminded). Of course, we do live in a culture where shining the spotlight on yourself is somewhat frowned upon. And yet, we all need praise, and we all need that spotlight from time-to-time. Therefore, I think it is artificial to go around avoiding the spotlight, only to wonder why no one is looking at you. If congratulations is what you seek, go ahead and take a bow. When others ask you what you're bowing for, let them know. You're sure to get more applause that way. And hey, people take too much pride in humility anyway, and pride is a s...

This is something I think I'll need to send out to all of my faculty. :) UNIVERSAL GRADE CHANGE FORM University: ______________________ To: Professor ____________________ From: ____________________________ I think my grade in your course,___________________, should be changed from ______ to _______ for the following reasons: __ 1. The persons who copied my paper made a higher grade than I did. __ 2. The person whose paper I copied made a higher grade than I did. __ 3. This course will lower my Grade Point Average and I won't get into: ______ Medical School ______ Graduate School ______ Dental School ______ My Fraternity/Sorority ______ The Mickey Mouse Club ______ Tri County Tech __ 4. I have to get an A in this course to balance the F in _____________. __ 5. I'll lose my scholarship. __ 6. I'm on a varsity sports team and my tutor couldn't find a copy of your exam. __ 7. I didn't come to class and the person whose notes I used did not cover the material asked f...

You may not have read some of these before. :) They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. ins...