“Fouling one’s nest” is an old metaphor, originally in reference to birds that excreted in their nests, and applied by extension to humans who failed to keep their environments tidy. The thought that led me here was about helium balloons used to help promote events such as weddings and open houses, cut loose after the event to come down wherever. And they will come down, and, when they come down, they cause problems for birds and other wildlife. People think about the immediate benefit of using the balloons to highlight an event without considering the after-event consequences of disposing of . . . → Read More: Fouling Our Nest
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 Comments are closed  Blog  \, Al Gone, An Inconvenient Truth, ancestors, balloons, bird, black-lung, buffalo, cattle, coal, consequences, conservation, desires, Elton John, environment, exploiting resources, exploration, feast, fiction, fossil fuels, fouling, fouling our nest, grain, helium, history, humans, Jules Verne, lions, Los Angeles, movies, needs, nest, oil, planet a, planet Earth, planetary destruction, pollute, pollution, primitive people, religion, religious differences, Rocket Man, Santa Monica, science fiction, setting, wars I haven’t been consistent with posting to my blog, primarily because I have been depressed about the current state of politics in the States. This morning it occurred to me that our current political situation is a little like going down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. We are currently expected to accept “alternative facts” as reality (and some actually do). Nothing is what it appears to be. As one who came of age in the 1960s, I well remember Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit: The year was 1967. I was in the Army and, . . . → Read More: Farther Down the Rabbit Hole Comments are closed Blog 1967, Africa, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice, army, Army Chaplain, Asia, Battle of the Greasy Grass, British Empire, Cambodia, Catch 22, Charge of the Light Brigade, Dutch, follow the money, French, French Indochina, George Custer, Grace Slick, Halliburton, Jefferson Airplane, Korean War, Little Big Horn, military failures, movies, news, Pete Seeger, Plains Indians, politics, rabbit hole, SE Asia, video games, Vietnam, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, War Profits, war-like conflicts, White Rabbit In previous blog entries, I have written about the way different communication channels influence the message received. We have known for a long time that the medium is the message. (See also Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium Is the Massage). One of the principal concepts behind the message inherent in the titles of books (including McLuhan’s) is that communication channels are themselves “messages.” The original discussion about this concept focused on the differences being communicated by print media and television. the movie, Medium Cool, was based on McLuhan’s concept that video was a “cool” medium, one that forced viewers to think . . . → Read More: Video or Text-Based Web Pages? Comments are closed Blog audio, Charles Dickens, communication channels, communication device, cool, dictation, email, film, Fireside Chats, Franklin Roosevelt, French revolution, Internet, live stream, Marshall McLuhan, Media Star, medium, message, movies, news, news pages, news weeklies, newspapers, Nineteenth century, paper-based mail, post literacy, postliteracy, postliterate, preliteracy, preliterate, reading, Tale of Two Cities, text, text-based communication, TV channels, video, watching, websites Several news sources used the following headline to report the results of a recent medical study: Doctors predict impotence after prostate treatment. A number of other news sources used the following wording: Study: Potency after prostate cancer varies widely. And other headlines put it this way: Sex After Prostate Cancer: New Study Helps Predict Erectile Function Post-Treatment Which of the headlines is a hypnotic command promoting impotence for those facing prostate surgery? I suspect that most readers of this blog know that “Doctors predict impotence after prostate treatment” is a form of “doctor hypnosis.” One of my videos on . . . → Read More: Why Everyone Needs to Know Hypnosis Comments are closed Blog advanced language patterns, advertising, alcohol, alcohol advocacy, commercials, heart disease, hypnosis, hypnotic language, impotence, language, medical personnel, medication, metaphor, movie, movies, nurse, presuppositions, product placement, Richard Bandler, stories, story, TV, video, you tube |
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