I had no idea there was a "Boles University" (no, there really isn't one) until I received the Best Ever Direct Mail Campaign (yes, there really is one) yesterday.
Continue reading Boles University.
April 2006 Archives
In the early 1990's Gordon Dahlquist was one of my Columbia University coursemates in the MFA Playwriting program.
Continue reading Gordon Dahlquist as the Two Million Dollar Man.
When you think of Web 2.0 what comes to mind and where will it lead us in the next five years?
How will Web 2.0 modify your leisure time?
How will Web 2.0 change the way you work?
Please be specific and provide examples for discussion.
Thank you!
This article was written by Kathakali Chatterjee.
My life was like any other normal Indian professional before coming to the United States a mixture of a little bit of pride and wondering as I was working in one of the most famous retail outlets in India and earning quite a good amount of money. I was a little frustrated towards the socio-political and economic system of the country (that's every educated Indian's pastime), a subtle undercurrent of passion about chasing my dream future, a satisfaction of having an almost perfect life.
My life was like any other normal Indian professional before coming to the United States a mixture of a little bit of pride and wondering as I was working in one of the most famous retail outlets in India and earning quite a good amount of money. I was a little frustrated towards the socio-political and economic system of the country (that's every educated Indian's pastime), a subtle undercurrent of passion about chasing my dream future, a satisfaction of having an almost perfect life.
Continue reading Brand New End Again.
Are good manners extinct on the electronic frontier?
Do you always say "please" when you make a request of someone?
Do you always say "thank you" when someone does you a favor?
Do you always get the same courtesy by default in return?
I always say "please" and "thank you" but many of the people I deal with during the day -- both professionally and socially -- rarely say please and hardly ever say "thank you" and I'm curious when, why, and how that simple measure of courtesy died.
I recently read somewhere that in the text world:
The person with the "least" power must always make the last reply in a conversation be it in email or live text chat.
Continue reading Extinction of Electronic Manners.
I know this article may tick off 90% of the blogosphere but sometimes the truth stings and a barb or two can bump things back into an entertaining reality.
I skip reading blogs on Thursdays for two reasons: Half Naked Thursday and Thursday Thirteen.
Continue reading Why I Skip Thursdays.
I installed new Anti-Spam protocols here. If you have any trouble connecting to this Urban Semiotic blog or if you are unable to post a comment please find a way to let me know so I can investigate the problem. If you are a first-time commenter your first comment is moderated -- so if you don't see your first post published you're in moderation and not caught in a Spam trap.
If you are unable to get access here you should be provided with an error page that creates a key string. Send me that key so I can follow up.
Thanks!
In December the Michigan State board of Education approved a plan to require all high school students to take at least one online course before they graduate in order to prepare them for online courses they might take on the college level.
Continue reading Isolated But Equal: Michigan Requires Online Courses.
Bones are hardy and can testify throughout antiquity to the state of the person who earned those bones in their body. However, the dreams and wishes of others embedded in those bones are frail and fleeting because memory is convenient and, as humans, we run from pain instead of searching out suffering.
With the recent discovery of 74 more bone fragments mixed with gravel that had been shoveled to the sides of the roof of the former Deutsche Bank building in the ongoing open wound that is the World Trade Center disaster on 9/11, we are forced to reconcile the way we choose to memorialize people beyond bones and flesh. Deutsche Bank -- the building below shrouded in black netting and holding the American flag -- will be demolished floor-by-floor in June.
Continue reading The Frailty of Bones.
Is the universal human condition one of eternal suffering or one that dares to tempt joy?
Is it our despair that makes us human or is it our happiness?
You must pick one or the other to argue your point. Giving both suffering and joy equal weight as the fair marks of humanity is having it all and that is obvious and ordinary.
No life is lived in pure divisions of exactly 50%. There must be a shading one way or the other and it is within that hue where the answer is revered.
This week I read analysis suggesting how a canny Democrat contender for the presidency in 2008 would use "protectionism against China" as a platform for winning by forbidding all import/export with China until they agreed to make those exchanges equal on both sides.
That position, it was reasoned, would made America look strong and not left behind and tugging on China's coattails like a child left behind.
Continue reading Running Against China in 2008.
k.d. lang has the most beautiful Voice in the world. Her incredible Voice, nuanced in tone and bursting with emotion while always being held in perfect moderation and absolute control, provides high warning of her greatness.
Continue reading k.d. lang and That Voice.
Are you concerned about Gmail violating your privacy? Do you have a method for routinely backing up your Gmail account?
Do you trust Gmail?
Continue reading Do You Trust Gmail?.
Immigrants in America -- both legal and illegal -- are the new Whipping Boy masking a cascading facade of deeper fissures embedded in our nation.
Continue reading Immigrant as Whipping Boy.
BlogMad, a blog exchange service in beta testing, blew away their databases today and this blog, and my account, were one of the unlucky ones to have everything reset to zero.
BlogMad support tells me there is no way to restore the lost settings.
All that surfing gone.
All that "ranking" gone.
All those earned credits gone.
Continue reading BlogMad Blows It!.
In the past month I have had three Thank You "notes" emailed to me as a single-slide PowerPoint presentation.
Have you ever received a PowerPoint "Thank You" or have you created one?
Continue reading PowerPoint Pins Penned Paper.
Lately I have been getting at least three emails a day informing me the Registration process is failing here and people are unable to post comments on articles.
I have removed the requirement to be logged in to comment.
If you wish to write for Urban Semiotic, you are still required to register because that's the only way we can control the Author slug to give you credit.
Enjoy!
Growing up in Nebraska can be a lonely and hard thing. Earth and sky are elements made for crushing.
Each Nebraska horizon beyond the urban core presents only two images you learn early to avoid and they are both found on the visceral level where trembling and genetics meet blood creating the canvas of dreams and the kindling of hope: Bunches of blue sky crouch and stretch above just out of reach, teasing you over and around in what you imagine the ocean must look and feel like; maturity comes in dry pieces you kick and hold in your hand as dust while down beneath your boots rusty slivers of infertile earth scatter telling of dreams ending in sharp shards and hope dead and undone by a landscape that forgives nothing but rain.
Continue reading Monarch of the Plains.
As a good Son of Nebraska, I was horrified to learn of the new law passed last Thursday by the Nebraska Unicameral to racially divide -- or let's call it "State Sponsored Vivisection by Race" -- the Omaha Public Schools into three distinct Racial districts: White, Black and Hispanic.
The 45,000 student Omaha school system is 46% White, 31% Black, 20% Hispanic and 3% Asian or American Indian.
Continue reading Unicameral Vivisection of Omaha Public Schooling.
Whenever you feel frustrated or overwhelmed or if you get down on yourself and feel the world is against you, turn to the perfect antidote for getting back to the basics of living of a life.
Simply remember all the young soldiers who recently returned to their homeland with shaken brains and arms and legs blown off their bodies on a land that is not their own in a war they never thought would end that way for them.
While those soldiers are reborn from square one, we accept their measure of surly reality as we are jerked back from pitiful thoughts and only-me behavior and all our misplaced countless blessings are quickly found again in the residue of their blood.
Were you taught how to smile?
Or were you born with the ability to create a captivating, friendly, approachable face?
Continue reading Practice Smiling.
There's a new movement afoot in the Snake Oil business built on the tenuous and slippery stepping stones of childhood: The Indigo Child is on the rise and sitting on your front porch!
You join the Indigo Child movement by purchasing a book or a DVD or access to a website and then buying into the ridiculous and immoral frame that is set against those children to falsely make them special in their parents' eyes.
Continue reading Indigo Children as Snake Oil.
There are some ethicists who believe all organ donations must be mandatory and the option to opt out of the program should only be granted in limited conditions concerning religious beliefs or impaired mental state of the donor at the time of death.
The assumption upon death should be the organs of the deceased belong to the corpus of humanity and -- as a matter of believing in each other -- those organs must be recycled to keep the ill alive.
Continue reading Mandatory Organ Donation.
There is nothing quite like a Power Nap to heal the mind and refresh the body. However, in America, napping during the day is reserved only for infants and the retired.
If you're young or successful in your middle-age you are required -- by presupposition of your citizenry -- to remain awake during the daylight hours even though there is strong medical research suggesting a Power Nap during the day can make you an even more efficient worker.
Here’s the research as reported in a 2002 National Institutes of Health report entitled "Power Nap" Prevents Burnout; Morning Sleep Perfects a Skill:
"Burnout" -- irritation, frustration and poorer performance on a mental task -- sets in as a day of training wears on. Subjects performed a visual task, reporting the horizontal or vertical orientation of three diagonal bars against a background of horizontal bars in the lower left corner of a computer screen. Their scores on the task worsened over the course of four daily practice sessions. Allowing subjects a 30-minute nap after the second session prevented any further deterioration, while a 1-hour nap actually boosted performance in the third and fourth sessions back to morning levels.
Continue reading Art of Power Napping.
Jersey City is a hardcore town with a tough reputation. There are pockets of high wealth in Jersey City and they are located downtown along the waterfront where views out the window frame the
Hudson River and the magnificent New York City skyline. Many say the best place to view the majesty of Manhattan is from the shores of New Jersey.
Continue reading Golfing in Liberty Gloaming Under the Urban Midst.
This article was written by Kathakali Chatterjee.
I was talking to a friend of mine a few days back. In fact, he was talking, I was listening to him. He was speaking about his girlfriend (I suppose so), a girl who he was dating for last seven to eight months.
I was talking to a friend of mine a few days back. In fact, he was talking, I was listening to him. He was speaking about his girlfriend (I suppose so), a girl who he was dating for last seven to eight months.
Continue reading False Boundaries and Real Tigers.
I am a reality television hound but one new show I won't be watching when it debuts on A&E on April 16 is a new show called God or the Girl.
Here is the official blurp about God or the Girl from the A&E website:
This five-part documentary series follows four young men through the emotionally wrenching final weeks that lead up to the most important decision of their lives - whether to become Catholic priests or not. Traveling with his brother to the Catholic celebration of World Youth Day in Germany, Joe also looks forward to reconnecting with Anna, the love of his life. In Columbus, Dan leads his youth group of high schoolers in protest prayer outside an abortion clinic, sparking a conflict with pro-choice college students. Mike is thrilled to see soul mate and girlfriend Aly, but her visit exacerbates tensions with his mentor, Father Pauselli. And Steve makes a nerve-wracking journey home, finally telling his best friends about his aspirations toward the priesthood.
Continue reading God or the Girl.
In America, exercise shows on television are popular and have been since the days of Jack La Lanne in 1951 and continuing with people like Denise Austin today.
My question is this: Does anyone actually workout in real time with these television exercise programs?
Or, as in my experience with people I have asked, do folks just sit there and watch the person on television exercise?
Are these television aerobics shows created to train you or just entertain you?
If you aren't aware by now how Microsoft Word saves all revision and review information as a matter of its default behavior, then you need to know any interaction you have with a Word document of your creation -- or if you are reviewing someone else's Word document -- does not protect your identity unless you interactively remove your private information.
Continue reading Public Private Peer Review and Microsoft Word.
Behold the danger of living an ordinary life in an ordinary blog as illustrated with a rapier wit by a cartoonist in a metro New York newspaper and anonymously sent to me:
I confess to being guilty, at times, of blogging the banal -- but sometimes one cannot escape the raw temptation to cut and serve a cold, non-confrontational, public, revenge.
I confess to being guilty, at times, of blogging the banal -- but sometimes one cannot escape the raw temptation to cut and serve a cold, non-confrontational, public, revenge.
At 14-years-old I started in radio in Lincoln, Nebraska as the host of a weekly 10 minute interview show called Unique Youth. I would celebrate kids in the community who were making a positive difference in the lives of others.
Continue reading Raised On Radio.
Writing the right headline for articles is a task I take seriously as publisher of this blog because a headline is the first chew the eye takes when it visits your site. A good headline is one that entices that eye to swallow and keep gnashing for more. If your headline is without spice, the article is assumed to be tasteless as well.
Continue reading Writing the Right Headline.
This article was written by Kathakali Chatterjee.
I know the caste system exists in my home country of India and in my society, but it does not exist in my vicinity now that I live in America. In India, I belong to a privileged, progressive, middleclass family. At four, I was sent off to live in a residential school as part of the responsibilities of who my parents wished me to become. My family is far from the most upper class as far as the caste system is concerned.
I know the caste system exists in my home country of India and in my society, but it does not exist in my vicinity now that I live in America. In India, I belong to a privileged, progressive, middleclass family. At four, I was sent off to live in a residential school as part of the responsibilities of who my parents wished me to become. My family is far from the most upper class as far as the caste system is concerned.
Continue reading Indian Caste System Outcast.
Today is April Fool's Day in America and, like a precocious and mindless 10-year old child, I was trying to figure out what kind of April Fool's Day joke I could press on you. Here were the choices I came up with over the last couple of days:
Continue reading Schadenfraude and The April Fool.
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