The Idiot's Lexicon: Kinda, Sorta, Actually, You Know

When I hear these words I think the person using them lacks confidence to stand behind what they are stating. These words:

1. are trite.
2. soften and weaken the message when there is no reason to do so.
3. are used as filler due to the speaker's lack of properly descriptive words.

So, please, take note of when you use these and ask yourself why you do so. Example: "Actually, I kinda feel sad, you know, because you sorta yelled at me." The use of "actually" may imply you lie otherwise. Do you feel sad or don't you? "You know", well, why should I know what you are talking about when you haven't completed the sentence? Did you yell at me or not, there is no need for the descriptor "sorta."

Fully commit to the message you are communicating. Don't hedge and instead have the conviction to declare your idea.

And lastly, using these words as qualifiers or modifiers of adjectives and adverbs is simply incorrect English usage and projects incompetence.

Caller ID Etiquette

Why does someone who receives a phone call with caller ID answer the phone by responding with a "hello?" when in fact they know who it is? Why pretend when the majority of people look at their caller ID before answering the phone? Most people SCREEN their calls and these days there should be no reason to pretend who don't know who is calling you.

Discuss?

Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people.

Increasingly Impatient

Over the past few years, I have encountered an increasing number of people who seem to have no patience. The example that repeats itself almost every week is as follows.

I may be momentarily away from my telephone at work or on the line. Thus the caller will leave a voicemail. My day may be include an appointment or two or I may have other assignments that must be completed. Therefore, I may not be able to return the call for several hours.

But these people cannot wait for more than 2 hours. They will call again and leave another voicemail. Sometimes 3 messages in a day! What is wrong with them? I will tell you.

They operate from a point of self-centeredness. What they need and when they need it are their only perspective. They no longer contemplate that other people have busy lives also. They think their request should be everyone's priority. These same people are often tardy to appointments, which is a display of disrespect.

Cell Phone Disgraces: Part II

Ben Stein wrote an excellent New York Times article related to my previous posted subject. Some highlights from Mr. Stein's article:

• The cellphone and the PDA has basically replaced thought.
• ...loss and solitude and dignity.
• They are slaves to connectedness. Their work has become their indentured servitude.
• have we irrevocably become machines ourselves?

2 FUGLY's

Margaret Cho and Sandra Oh are fucking ugly.

Thoughtless breeding

Contempt. That is what I hold for those persons whom do not deliberate over the decision to procreate. Mindless humps of algae they might as well be - number one priority is to reproduce. What are the reasons to reproduce? I think there are several potential reasons.

1. Ego. Make a copy of myself.
2. Filling a void of loneliness.
3. Lack of physical control over one's actions: unexpected pregnancy.
4. Everyone else is doing it.
5. My parents are relentless in their inquiries: when will you produce a grandchild?

Call it Passive Breeding. The reproduction of the species without any contemplative thought. A herd of sheep.

GoGirl Energy Drink Ads Degrade Women

In my opinion, the advertising campaign for Go Girl energy drink degrades the intelligence of women. The ad asks "why do you drink go girl", and the woman replies "because I'm a single mom". Ridiculous! That is not a reason to drink it, rather only demographic branding on the part of the company. Nor-Cal Beverage Co., Inc., the manufacturer of the product, denigrates the woman's mind by assuming a woman cannot think of a logical, rational reason to drink it but rather she only has a herd mentality and will drink it because supposedly other women with a similar demographic profile drink it.

This company's marketing method is an affront to women's intelligence.

Cell Phone Disgraces

The ubiquitous nature of mobile phones has taken effect. The people around me in public places are engrossed in text messaging, their voicemails, or talking on their phones. Less and less common are the random conversations between strangers. Is this relatively new addiction to connectivity going to weaken the fabric of public interaction?

More and more I see people in my office building, restaurants, on the sidewalk, in the grocery store - all head down staring involuntarily at their PDA whether it be a Blackberry or iPhone or some inferior copy of these two PDAs. They stare down as robots, as slaves to their information addiction. Scary.

It makes me wonder if most people want to be plugged into the Matrix. Why not have smarter computer direct and live your life for you? Replace the infantile iPhone with the brain of the Matrix and then you really won't have to think on your own.

These people are more like lab rats. Hear the sound of incoming email, drop everything and ignore the people physically near you and jump to the information. It's so important. More important than real interaction.

Free Press as Government Watchdog - In Decline

Take into consideration the reduction in press corps especially in coverage of state and city governments. Then ask yourself how many people do you know that are younger than you read a daily printed newspaper. My answer is very few. Most people in their 20's and early 30's retrieve their news from a webpage and spend on average a fraction of the amount of time that print subscribers invest.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. -Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

I worry that politicians, more so on the local and state level, are operating these days with less scrutiny from the press corps. Blogs have taken up some of the slack, but not nearly enough and the average readership of a blog pales in comparison to a major metro newspaper. With less and less dedicated, professional journalists I really do worry that government power and corruption can more easily avoid rigorous scrutiny.

Government as parent

We are seeing a return to the idea first championed by social planners in the progressive era - that government can and should play th erole of parent. Hillary Clinton and the Dems want to direct our lives through central planning. But the sad truth is that we, the people, vote for this entitlement mentality in which we exchange small and large freedoms in exchange for big brother to care for certain needs.

Especially here in California, the populace demands certain services from the government while also demanding that taxes not be raised. More and more I see this mindset of people expecting someone besides themselves to take care of them for free (give me "free" health care and let the rich pay for it).

The essential problem here is America's continuing divorce from that most American idea of all: self-supporting independence. People save less or nothing for retirement because they expect the Social Security to coddle them when that program was conceived for the indigent.

So the liberals slowly win with their idea that people need to be saved from themselves. If only people could understand the founders perspective: be suspicious of government, especially a growing goverment.

scatter brain

I've noticed in the past 5 years that an increasingly large number of people's attention spans are dwindling. This trend is rooted in two factors. 1. We have the ability now to overload ourselves with a variety of inputs and information. 2. Priorities have shifted from altruism to self-satisfaction.

I will attempt to remain vigilant as to this contagion in my own dealings. In the 17th and 18th centuries entertaining oneself without the company of others was much more difficult with television, video games, the internet, radio, and automobiles. There was conversation and books for those few that could acquire them.

I wonder if American society will splinter with the eroding cohension formerly built when people personally interacted more.

Tattooed Lower Backs

Why do so many women like to place a tattoo on the lumbar region of their back? To give the guy porking them from behind something to look at? Who else is going to see it besides him unless they wear a bathing suit in public?