Connective Visions

I’ve been pondering my Swedish friend Pelotard’s marvelous blog about his American grill – that is, ever since I finished laughing over it. I’ve also savored the vision of how we might change our commentary on government policies to the type former Prime Minister Carl Bildt received. Less talk, more lunch boxes would be greatly [...]

A downside to freelancing (“self-employment” in the happy words of government agencies) is that the celebrated U.S. tax refund is slightly rarer than a UFO sighting: the independent contractor almost always owes money. So I emerged yesterday after a week of mathematical gymnastics, tedious typing, and resigned check writing to put my imposed self-absorption behind [...]

The Easter weekend in Norway is a national holiday, running from Thursday through Monday, over which time even supermarkets close. It came to an end yesterday evening, so the traffic warnings had hit the news headlines Sunday night. Adult citizens who don’t work the holiday weekend (for 100% of their usual wage in additional overtime) [...]

When I taught communications, I regularly emphasized the model of “sender-channel-receiver” for passage of information. At any point along that line, the message (the information) can go astray. The sender has an intention that may not be conveyed clearly. The channel may abbreviate, damage, or delete the message. The receiver may misinterpret the message. If [...]

My father finished his midday news viewing today and announced, “They say it’s going to rain.” As it was pouring buckets outside, I couldn’t argue with them, and I said so. He frowned and said, “Yes, but I didn’t turn on the TV to find that out. I want to know when it’s going to [...]

Note: Having read about 50 articles on how to write blog headlines for search engine optimization (SEO) and return on investment (ROI), my considered decision was to go with this one, which is highly unlikely to satisfy anyone with an MBA. It is a consciously passive-aggressive move on my part as a writer, the point [...]

Today I sporadically followed the results of the curling semifinals on NBC’s Olympic Web site and on my beloved Facebook group, The Norwegian Olympic Curling Team’s Pants, as I didn’t have the station access (or time) to watch the whole match. The group’s updates were most reassuring as NBC had the Norway vs. Switzerland results [...]