Today’s Headlines:

• Cardinal Condemns Clinton Mocking Priest
  
• The Dems except the deal

But … on to today’s subject:

Have you ever wondered how much of what you say and do is designed to persuade someone to do something or to influence what he or she thinks or believes? Have you ever wondered how much of what others say and do is designed to persuade you to do something? Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, most communication—both verbal and nonverbal—is intended to persuade, either overtly or covertly.

Today’s Headlines:

• Car-pedestrian accident shuts down Ottawa County
  
• Michigan bloating deaths at all-time high

But … on to today’s subject:

As many of you already know, I am a veteran of the war in Vietnam. I was not an enthusiastic participant in the war, and my feeling at the time was that the U.S. was wrong to engage in what was essentially a civil war. I did not believe in what was called the “Domino Theory,” which basically said that if Vietnam “fell” to the Communists, the rest of Southeast Asia would fall as well. I did not believe that if we failed to fight “them” in Vietnam, we’d be fighting "them" in Hawaii.

Today’s Headlines:

• Sorry I called you, ”Sweetie.”
  
• Gas prices are driving scooters

But … on to today’s subject:

Stephen Hawking reportedly asked the question, if time began with The Big Bang, what was before The Big Bang? My principal concern here isn’t with the Big Bang so much as it is with “before.” One of the challenges of time is that we have no way to think about it other than using metaphors. For many in Western cultures, we think of the past as being behind us, while the future lies ahead (or in front of us).

Today’s Headlines:

• [Pentagon] to send up to 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan to make up for NATO pitfalls
  
• More School Choices for Stud

But … on to today’s subject:

The comments on one of my articles in the May TimeWarp Technologies™ Newsletter, “Mother, May I,” were split, probably indicating where the writers are in relation to the Conduct Metaprogram of NLP (Rule Followers/Breakers). This blog entry expands on the concept of rule-governed behavior.

Today’s Headlines:

• Governor Makes Jobs Swing In Middle East
  
• Suspected Armed Robbery Suspect Loose In Portage

But … on to today’s subject:

For the past several months I have been complaining about what I have called, “The Annoying Woman” TV ads. In SW Michigan, a furniture store led the way with a spokesperson who was able to hold her body at all sorts of weird angles while she smiled with her mouth but not her eyes and told the viewers that it was “a whole new store every day.” One of the nation’s largest cable providers followed, with a similar angular pitch. And then it was an auto dealership. The woman in the commercials for the auto dealership was shown at such a strange angle, I wondered whether it was actually possible for her to stand like that or whether the angle of delivery had been produced by “video magic.”

Today’s Headlines:

• Pope’s Visit Deamed a Success
  
• Suspected Drunk Driver Hit's Tree & Dies

But … on to today’s subject:

Blaise Pascale said that “The Heart has reasons that Reason does not know.” He was speaking about what is often called “Soul Purpose,” which can lead us to do things that seem less than logical at the time. Especially when young, for example, we fall in love for reasons that have very little to do with Reason. Hearts have led many to marry in haste, and then leave them only to repent at leisure.

Most of us are leery of what used to be called “subliminal advertising.” The classic story is about an experiment in a movie theater where “Buy popcorn and Coke” was flashed on the screen too briefly for the conscious mind to see it. As the story goes, the patrons bought a lot more popcorn and Coke. Whether that particular story is true isn’t really important, because we can be fairly sure that someone at some time has used that technique, if only to see whether it would work.

Humans, at least most of us, like to think of ourselves as being the supremely logical species on the planet. According to Ken Wilber, human consciousness evolves from being prerational, to rational, and—eventually—to transrational. The only real problem with this concept is that we actually know very little about the nature of consciousness. It turns out that most—perhaps as much as 98 percent—of what we think of as “conscious” is actually unconscious (subconscious, below or outside of conscious awareness).

Theoretically “we” have known for a long time that it costs businesses more to obtain a new customer than it does to retain a current one. Whether this has changed, or whether businesses have forgotten it is hard to say, but my experiences with a wide variety of businesses over the last several years indicates that customer retention does not seem to be especially important.

If you watch TV at all, you may have noticed the escalating use of “fear-mongering” ads. In what is the most recent political fear-based ad, a Hillary Clinton spokesperson wants you to ask yourself, “Who will answer the phone when it rings at 3A?” Since 9/11, the number of politicians who have been encouraging us to be afraid has increased at an alarming rate. Perhaps we should be really afraid of all those who want us to be afraid. You may have also seen the ads for a heart medication where the voice-over says that the actor is big and strong, but he could be brought down by something as small as a clot. Then we’re told, “you may feel good, but the risk never goes away.” The advertisers evidently forgot that, if the risk never goes away, the medication can’t help.