Advanced Storytelling

Shorter George Will : everyone who is uptight about the first should really be uptight about the second instead. Oh, and people didn't have sex outside of marriage in the fifties. I get paid to read this shit! Oh, and also, I know it's a few weeks late, but PETA can kiss my vegetable-loving ass for this . For those looking for non-sexist food porn, I suggest Nigella Lawson . This post may or may not signal a return to regular blogging.

My objective, with this site, with my career, is to help advocacy organizations use communications as a strategy to leverage change.

It will come as no surprise that my first post here in forever is about food. I ran across this at the Ethicurian . The Accidental Hedonist outlines her food beliefs , which match up pretty closely with my own: 1. Food is Life - This is pretty straightforward. You need to eat to live. 2. Food is Cultural - What you eat represents who you are as well as the environment in which you inhabit. 3. Food is Class - What you eat is defined by the allotment of resources available to you. 4. Food is Politics - The food choices you make within your resources give credibility to the producers and suppliers of said food. I'd probably add "Food is Medicine" based on my own personal experiences recently, but this list pretty much saves me from having to think of my own. That and Michael Pollan's " Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants " make up my elevator speech on the topic.

"Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless." -Salman Rushdie

Okay, kids, we're going to talk about breast feeding versus bottle feeding again in framing class today, so no giggling (you know who you are). I was looking over someone's shoulder on the Metro today and reading an article titled " HHS Toned Down Breast-Feeding Ads ", which reads like a continuation of the administration's meddling in public health : In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples. -snip- The ads ran instead with more friendly images of dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream scoops, to dramatize how breast-feeding could help avert respiratory problems and obesity. According to the article, the formula industry didn't block the ads ...

With Elyzabethe over at YellowIsTheColor writing all about The Political Brain so much lately, I thought it might be a good time to blog about the Rockridge Institute , which I've recently re-discovered. Anyone who talks to me for more than two minutes about communications or policy knows my affection for George Lakoff. Rockridge is a think thank founded on his work on cognitive linguistics and progressive policy. It's goal is the same as Drew Westen's: reframe the public debate. The Rockridge Fellows put out some great essays on all sorts of topics, but what really got me drooling was their interactive Rockridge Nation . Framing examples galore! What I especially liked, because it's an issue near and dear to my heart, is the ongoing dicussion about the fallacy of a left/right linear political spectrum, and why moving towards the "center" isn't a good political strategy: In reality, there are basic progressive and conservative worldviews, and many peopl...