Advanced Storytelling

Actually, after reading this catchism on Comedism , posted on Daily Kos , I realized that my family has been pretty evangelical Comedists my entire life: The basic beliefs of Comedism are not that different from other religions. Life is fleeting and a test for the hereafter. Like the Buddhists, we believe that on Earth you strive for a state of bodilessness . You can foresee this nirvana in the sort of full out belly laugh that you get from a really good joke. When you laugh so hard that your spirit is ultimately joyful, but your sides ache, you can't breathe, you roll around on the floor unable to stand, you realize that it is the humorous soul and not the things of the body that are important. We believe that the key to acting well is understanding the nature of the joke. Jokes have two parts, a set up in which a normal situation you think you understand is sketched...and then the punchline that forces you radically rethink how you understood the world of the set up...The hu...

I'm actually starting to respect Frank Luntz. Grover Nordquist ( kumquat! ) is still another matter. But Luntz actually has some good advice in his WaPo editorial today: Be bold, return to basics, stop telling, start asking, focus on results, abolish "earmarks" and embrace a permanent balanced budget. As a pollster, I rarely hear voters call for smaller government. They tell me that they want more efficient and more effective government. He's talking to Republicans, but any politician with a brain should be listening. I was particularly interested in what Florida Republicans had done: Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio challenged his colleagues to create an agenda for the future with "100 Innovative Ideas" from ordinary people around the state. Instead of fundraisers, they held "idea raisers." Republicans, Democrats and independents were all welcome -- any idea that advanced the principles of good government and political accountability was conside...

Enough bloggers have already commented on the Democratic attempt to build a time machine back to 2002. In both chambers, Democratic lawmakers are eager to take up binding legislation that would impose clear limits on U.S. involvement in Iraq after nearly four years of war. But Democrats remain divided over how to proceed. Some want to avoid the funding debate altogether, fearing it would invite Republican charges that the party is not supporting the troops. Others take a more aggressive view, believing the most effective way to confront President Bush's war policy is through a $100 billion war-spending bill that the president ultimately must sign to keep the war effort on track. My two cents? Doesn't this continue to make the Democrats in Congress look like exasperating children who just want it both ways? Then again, comparing Congress to children isn't exactly an original observation. God help me, I managed to spend one uninterrupted hour working on my thesis. Having a bl...

Okay, I'm really behind on schoolwork, but this cartoon made me chuckle, so I thought I'd share. Huh, I definitely am turning into the "ag girl" of the SOC. (Cartoon by David Horsey, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

This has nothing to do with strategic communication. I've gotten nothing done this weekend due to this blog . I may have grown up in a snobby suburban neighborhood, but it was Mayberry compared to this place.

Okay, time for the requisite SOC student "I'm avoiding writing my comps" blog entry for the weekend. Found this column by Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe about re-framing the global warming debate (yes, found in a link from Framing Science ), which is apt, since I was lying in bed last night arguing with the imaginary neocon in my head, "Fine! Even if you don't want to believe global warming isn't caused by humans, that it's part of a 'natural cycle', don't you still want to I dunno, do something to make sure this 'natural cycle' doesn't put Wall Street literally underwater?" As someone with anxiety issues, yes, framing it as imminent death versus something we can effect does have the effect of shutting people down. Cartoon by Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle, Daryl Cagle's Cartoonists Index .

I've changed my pull quote on the sidebar, as you may notice, from a Bible verse to a Mark Twain quote. I've got no problems with people expressing their religious beliefs as motivating factors for their work- in fact, I think it's a good thing as long as people aren't prostelyzing. But I just thought I should make it clear that my work isn't motivated by a Christian perspective, which the Bible quote may have suggested. I am motivated to reclaim religious language from the fundamentalist right, though. But anyway... what actually motivated me was a trip to the mall, specifically Forever 21. I was kind of disgusted as I walked in at how much their close infantilize women. Not that this--and the obvious sweatshop-quality workmanship--kept me from buying stuff (It was on sale! For $10!). The off-kilter feeling continued, however, when I got home and found "John 3:16" printed on the bottom of the Forever 21 bag. As evangelizing goes, pretty subtle, so I can...

Anyone who's had more than a passing conversation with me knows that two things I really don't care about are football and cars. So what sent me Googleing this afternoon for a Chevy Super Bowl ad website ? Apparently, Chevy ran a contest for college students to design their Super Bowl ad- four of the five final teams were advertising and marketing majors from design programs. The winner? A freshman English major from the University of Milwaukee, who happens to know my sister. The kicker? She has absolutely no desire to go into advertising, even though she's been offered an internship with the biggest ad company in New York. Seasoned professionals would kill to have an ad of theirs run during the Super Bowl, and she's transferring to UW-Stevens Point, which, for those of you not familiar with the upper midwest, is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Its where you go if you want to be an English teacher. Having read The Tipping Point , Blink , and Freakonmics in the l...