Venn Diagram of Congressional Bipartisan Consensus: 2010

Banking Your COM Degree

Today I am going to take a break from my regular spewing of sarcasm to provide some unsolicited advice to my program’s recent graduates and graduates-to-be. The job market is tough right now and is likely to stay tough longer than they are telling us. On it’s face, that news is depressing, but I think there are some reasons for optimism–especially for Communication Studies graduates (at least the ones who have been paying attention). Below, you will find some ideas for how to present yourselves, your education and your experience to those last few people who are looking for workers.

What Your Degree Has Provided for You:

Right at the beginning of COM 111, you learned a fundamental truth that separates you from the masses of other graduates: Talk isn’t like it seems. Interaction is not passing meaning back and forth between people. Talk is negotiating common ground, shared meanings, and most important shared rules for how to interact with one another. Almost every problem that will arise in an organizational setting will be rooted in that misunderstanding: people think that because they said what they meant, other people heard what they meant. They were wrong, and now they are fighting. You know what they don’t: It doesn’t matter what you said. All that matters is what the listener hears.

I hear a message different than the one you intended, because symbols don’t contain meanings; they just point us toward them. Interaction is influenced by contexts, by the histories of the people involved, by the personal priorities involved. Being an effective communicator is not saying what you mean clearly (although that helps). Effective communication is deciding what should happen as a result of communicating, analyzing the person or people with whom you are communicating, and figuring out–within the boundaries of ethical practice–what you need to say to that person and how you need to say it to achieve that outcome.

What Makes You Unique?

“I have a listener-based” goal-oriented perspective on communication, not just a say-what-I-think perspective.”

“I know how to respond to the whole communication environment, not just the other person.”

“I am a flexible asset, because while contexts change, the basic dynamics of symbolic interaction do not.”

Your Degree is in Mass Media. What does that have to do with person-to-person conversation?

“My Mass Media degree is rooted in a basic core of pure communication studies–interpersonal communication, intercultural communication and group communication.

“As I am sure you are aware, the line between the average American’s public and private selves is slowly disintegrating. We more and more rely on distancing technologies like cell phones, conference calls, social networking sites, etc. I have spent a lot of time learning how the use of various kinds of technologies filters peoples intentions influences their responses.”

“The time I have spent studying how people perceive the world as members of publics, and as pop culture audiences has given me greater insight not just into what motivates people, but into what motivates bind us together. We are all individuals, but at the end of the day our similarities are more profound than our differences.”

What Concrete Tools/Skills Do You Have?

“I can summarize my specific skills with the four words: Composition, Reduction, Comparison and Portrayal.

“Composition is how things fit together. To really understand something you have to know how its parts function as a whole. A lot of times the way things are arranged is as important if not more important than what things are.

“Reduction allows me to analyze and hopefully repair complicated situations by breaking them down into their component parts, describing the parts, and explaining how they relate to one another. That allows me to be good at explaining complicated things to people. It also allows me to evaluate things like committees, and working groups to see why some work and others don’t.

“Comparison is based in the reality that people learn almost every new thing by comparing it to some experience they already have. I can use analogies and metaphors to clarify the unfamiliar for someone just enough that he or she will be willing to dive in and get acquainted with it–to teach yourself is the best way to learn.

“Portrayal just means that for any discussion, project, or campaign to be successful, the communicator needs to embody the message, not just relate it. You have to BE THE MESSAGE to sell the message.”

Why Should I Hire You Instead of Someone Else?

In addition to everything above, there are three important reasons.

“No matter what you make or sell or trade, the vast majority of challenges you face in the course of a day are communication challenges. How many times have you said to yourself or others “Why can’t these college educated people write a clear sentence or express a simple idea?” “Why can’t these people communicate?” If you say that to yourself a lot, you have answered your won question.”

“The second reason is opportunity cost. Every person you hire is a whole lot of other people you can’t. When you think about me, you should not just think of what you will get if you hire me, but what you will lose if you don’t. No matter who you get, that person will have to be trained to your specific way of doing things. So you can train that, but do you have the time or resources to teach people the skills and insight to overcome communication problems? I will bet your experience tells you you don’t.”

“My most important asset is my flexibility. You have a specific set of expectations for me now, but will those expectations stay the same? If there is any sure thing in the business world right now, it is the certainty of change. Employers need some people who have specific skills and training, but they also need people who are adaptable to unforeseen circumstances. Change like everything else in a corporate culture is about seeing things from a new perspective. My communication training not only gives me that perspective, it gives me the tools to help you help others to adapt to change.”

When Can You Start?

“OH, you’re making me blush!”

Some Random Thoughts:

• Start acting like the person you will be in the job before you get it. Dress the dress. Talk the talk. Keep the schedule.
• They are watching you. Keep your anti-social tweets and Facebook status updates to a minimum. Everything you are online is fair game. If you don’t like what you have out there get rid of it or lock it down.
• Pass your job backward.Keep in touch with one another. If you are successful at changing jobs, let your supervisor know you have a friend who would be the perfect choice to replace you. That ex-classmate or next generation graduate needs your help as much as you need the help of others.
• Realize that it is a numbers game. Keep sending your stuff out! Ten percent unemployment is ninety percent employment.It could be worse. You could be fifty, with three kids and a mortgage and be unemployed. Your optimism is an asset.
• If you need us, call us!

Kanye as Spartacus

Shame on you, Gary Trudeau! In a recent Doonesbury strip, B.D. and Boopsie were commenting on the depravity of a Hollywood culture so tumescent at the thought of involving itself in the  Roman Polanski crusade that if the issue was a thirteen year-old girl it would have raped her (not raped her -raped her mind you, so relax). You clearly just don’t get it. Hollywood deserves its excesses, because Hollywood gives us ART, and in doing so gives us what we need the most–something to imitate.

Hollywood gets to carry a gun through airport security, go on racist screeds, drive without a license and drink till dawn even though it is under age (of course in this case Hollywood must also be cute-as-a-button) because it has the wisdom and talent to teach WalMart Greeter Nation (aka the rest of us) how to face life’s great issues.

“What?” you say? “Don’t be absurd! Show biz people live in a dream world. I’m nothing like them!”

To you I say “Wow! How’d you find my blog? Lonely in here, isn’t it?” Then I say “I give you Kanye as Spartacus.”

Who can forget the dark days? Who does not remember where they were on 9/13 when they heard the news: Kanye Disses Taylor Swift at the VMAs?  A nation paused as one…many had opined that at such a moment we would fall apart, revert to our animalistic core and tear ourselves asunder.  But we didn’t. As in all times of crisis– 9/11, WW II, getting here and finding all those pesky Indians on our land–Hollywood told us how to cope!

In the weeks after Taylor Swift, who had just days before been sitting at her bedroom window looking across the yard through Moon Man’s window and singing that he should be with her instead of that tramp Mariah, was robbed of her chance to rise from having just earlier that evening to sing in the subway to becoming a cross-over star (sorry C&W, you ain’t Woodie, you still just get to marry your niece) we cast Kanye West out of polite society. No one said it better than Zippy, who commented to Kanye on an Gossip board “You really aren’t free; you are still a slave!”

“Slave?” you say? “Outcast? With any luck has been. But slave?”

Leap ahead a month. October 9. Barrack Obama has won the Nobel Peace prize. America is shaken loose from its moorings.  He has only been President for nine months! He hasn’t even matured into the job! In the context of the four-year term of office he is at best 17 maybe 18 years old! How should we respond? To whom can we beg for guidance?

Hollywood, baby!

Almost by instinct, we turned to film fiction–in this case a plucky youngster who came from nothing to gain fame in the arena! Who then because he said what was in his heart (or at the bottom of his bottle of Hennessy) was banished into obscurity–an outcast with a price put on his head.

So when Obama rose to accept his undeserved reward, was it not Kanye West, the runaway slave, to whom we turned?

“Barrack, I’m a big fan, and I will let you have your moment, but Morgan Tsvangirai had one of the best peace efforts ever!”

“I am Spartacus! Neda, the plucky Iranian has a much better body of work!”

“I am Spartacus! Rush should have gotten it!” Really. Somebody said that.

And just like in the classic scene, one by one, we each and all rose in defense of our outcast hero to shout as one “I am Spartacus! Give it to Gandhi. They believe in reincarnation; he has to be over there somewhere!”

So  Mr. Big shot Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist! Roman Polanski must go free, because everyone in Hollywood from the oldest washed out idol to the youngest kleptomaniacal crack addict must be allowed to do what they do best–tell the rest of us who and how to be. As a nation, nay as a people, we depend on them!

And while I’m on the subject, I am Spartacus! Where the frak is Mallard Fillmore’s Pulitzer?

That’s Why the Lady Needs an App! (Song Parody)

I get so hungry in the mid-afternoon

I need patchouli, and I need it soon.

That’s why I’m downloading the new Urbanspoon

And why this lady needs an app!

I’m into fashion and elegant clothes.

Don’t want to look like no street-walkin’ Hoes.

That’s why I spent a buck at a site called JoJo’s

And why this lady needs an app!

I download free, fresh software all day

Try not to pay

Things get sticky, hit iWiki.

I jailbreak my phones, don’t take none of their crap!

That’s ‘cause the lady needs an app.

Most folks can sit back and simply relax.

By when it comes to that I get panic attacks.

So I pull poker up, but only open with Jacks.

And why this lady, that’s why this lady, that’s why this lady needs an app.

Fed!

“FED” was a prophetic choice of words to scrawl on the dead body—if we can even assume the butchers had the humanity to wait until he was dead.  Bill Sparkman, government agent!  These animals literally meant that Bill Sparkman, a substitute teacher who was supplementing his meager income by walking up to the doors of his neighbors and asking them if they would answer a few simple questions was “the Man!” Government agent Bill Sparkman had his foot on their throats. He took all of their money and gave it to them what didn’t deserve it. He held the gate while millions of Mexicans, some from as far away as Costa Rica, El Salvador and even Asia!! poured through to take our jobs, gobble up our precious medicines and mix our blood. Bill Sparkman! Death Panel Bill!  I-now-pronounce-you gay-married Bill!  Bill no-more-Christmas Sparkman!  Indoctrinate-our-children Bill!

Bill Sparkman.  I want to use that name a lot. Not Senator Sparkman (D) NY. Not even Bill the Plumber. Just Bill Sparkman.  Substitute teacher, Bill Sparkman.  Maybe some clever right wing pundit, maybe, Ann or Michelle–Glenn isn’t witty enough—will start calling him Health Care Bill or Omnibus Spending Bill.  But like it or not right wing, tcot, teaparty folks, you got your wish.  Bill Sparkman just became the new John Birch—the first casualty in an undeclared civil war against America.

Give the insurgency’s generals credit. They have softened the battlefield brilliantly. The landscape is already dotted with the casualties of our popular culture’s obsession with rolling the weak.  Nothing entertains us more or more profitably these days than watching the fat guy dance or find love, the washed up celebrity wallow in drug addicted pain, or two families torn apart for the price of one with the simple gimmick of flipping moms.  What does one have to do with the other? Merely the justification—they asked for it and were too weak to stop it.  “How can you watch her make them eat that?” “Hey, they asked for it.” She came all this way and tried her best. Why does Simon have to be such a dick?” “Hey, she’s seen the show before.”  It is a self-sustaining ecosystem. They spew garbage, and we get fed.

There’s that word again. Fed. I have spent my life studying words, because often they produce unintentional brilliance like the Swiftian irony of “Get a Brain! Morans!”  or “Thank You—Fox News—for Keeping Us Infromed!” or like the pomposity bursting “Make English America’s Offical Language!” The rich sinister double meaning of the scrawled word FED, though? There is no way the people who perpetrated this crime could have grasped its enormity. The machine will though. Right Glenn? Hey, Colbert. Who needs a Peabody, I have a Body count!

I’m not sure what the aftermath of this senseless killing will be. Will the right wing politicians who at once feed off of the hysteria and politely distance themselves from it realize that they are partially to blame? Will O’Reilly and Olbermann stop doing the They-are-Always-to-Blame circle jerk and actually use their forums to enlighten? Ten days from now—five if another celebrity dies—will anyone even remember this poor pathetic guy named Bill Sparkman who was just trying to put a buck in his pocket? I doubt it. What I am sure of, though, what you can get out your mattress and take the bank, is that before it is all over everybody who matters to the equation of American political power is gonna get fed.

The Radical Right Wing 7 Steps of Grief

1. We are not violent. People are portraying us as violent, because they want to smear us.
2. When you get this many people together, there are bound to be a few extremists. They don’t represent us, and we don’t condone their actions.
3. The mainstream media are blowing a few unrelated acts of violence out of proportion to tar a legitimate protest movement.
4. Hey! If a good, honest American patriot gets pushed enough, sooner or later he’s gonna push back.
5. Where were all of these complaints when the radical leftist bomb throwers were protesting out troops?
6. This isn’t a game; this is life or death. Sacrifices have to be made.
7. Clearly mistakes have been made, but we have to respond to the situation as it presently exists. We are willing to let history be the judge.

Fundamentalists React Violently to Computer Depiction of Middle-Aged Jesus

Computerized depiction of Jesus at 40

Note: This column is SATIRE generated in response to an assignment made in one of my college classes. It has no basis in fact. The people and events described are TOTALLY fabricated. The photos were acquired from public domain sites and are IN NO WAY associated with the events described.

Several apparently unrelated incidences of spontaneous violence followed the release on March 9, 2009 of a photo depicting what scholars at Land o’ Lincoln University believe Jesus might have looked like had he lived to celebrate his fortieth birthday.  Within hours protests erupted at multiple locations in at least four countries, including a demonstration by 400 Southern Baptists outside the Eden in Bedrock Religious History Museum in, Tupelo Mississippi.

Detonation of Incendiary Device

The most violent protest was in the ex-Soviet Satellite, Ahndekistan, where military officials removed an incendiary device from a local farmers’ market and exploded it at an abandoned airfield.  Protesters at the site disavowed responsibility for the bombing and claimed that they had only assembled in such large numbers because “Monday is green mung bean day.”

Fr. Biggmustachy

Reverend Ithzak Biggmustachy of the Institute of    Orthodox Revision says that while he does not condone violence, he can understand what the fuss is about. “There is nothing in the gospels that condemns such speculation. In fact, our position is that any attempt on an individual’s part to try to approach the humanity of the savior is a good thing. Our main concern was that while our scholars believe these people got the hairline correct, the weight is an issue.  The Lord depicted in the gospels would never have let himself go like that.”

Land o’ Lincoln Public Relations spokesperson Durhti Bahm defended the right of the people involved to engage in such matters of “academic speculation” but promised that the process according to which such data is released to the public would be reviewed. “When you are talking about something as sensitive as the Bible” Bahm said,  you don’t want to get involved in any brush fires.”

The Political Parties: They’re Just Not That Into You.

First I have to apologize to Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo, the authors of He’s Just Not That Into You for latching onto their gimmick. They are the real experts here. After six years of fanning the flames of cultish obsession who better to write a book of advice about how to get over your cultish obsession?

So I want to make it perfectly clear: This wisdom is theirs, these guidelines are theirs. I submit my application of them only out of heartfelt concern for all of you who went wild during the social Oborgasm of 2008 only to find yourselves adrift and alone in its aftermath . . . waiting by the punchbowl next to Lydell and Erleene as all of the popular kids once again got asked to dance.

“He called Hillary? After she phone-sniped him, in Pennsylvania? OMG!!”

“Gates is still in Defense? After he gave it up to Bush at the U.N.? Gag and waterboard me with a spoon!”

First of all, Gates didn’t “give it up.” It doesn’t count if its only oral.

Second, ‘fraid so. January as come and gone. The collector coins have disappeared like $5 corsages on the day before prom.  The fresh blood and news ideas you were sold for a year and half resulted in nothing more than a Chinese fire drill on the Billionaire Bus. Change always meant rotate the volleyball team; it never meant cut down the net. Oh, and before you even think it, how “Chinese fire drill” be racist since by now the Chinese own the bus, the fire and the drill?

Don’t believe me? Think I’m cynical? Keeping Hope alive? Observing  “wait-a-hundred days before you ask them out again rule?”  Fine. Thought you might. Let’s check with the folks who wrote the book.

Do They Call You?

Remember all through the summer and fall when the phone would ring, and it would be all about you?

“So, what do you do? What do you like? What books do you read? What would you say if you found out B. Hussein Obama had taken folk dancing lessons with Bill Ayers?”

When did the phone stop ringing? Some time in November? Right around the fifth? They’ve probably just been busy at work. You know how they get when they’re transitioning.

Do They Only Want to See You When They’re Drunk?

Was Senator Inhofe sober when he said that prisoners at Gitmo “were treated better, in terms of living conditions, than our own troops?”  Was it Senator DeMint who said “There are already people rioting because they’re losing their jobs while somebody else is being bailed out!” or was that Senator Creme DeMenthe?  If he’s straight, what must Barney Frank sound like when he’s high?

Are They Selfish Jerks, Bullies or Really Big Freaks?

Ex-Senator Tom Daschle won’t be picking you up this weekend after all. Turns out he had gotten so many goodies from one of those powerful entrenched interests he was going to let you watch him tame that just the taxes were near a hundred large. A car worth that kind of dough had better come with turbo-boost. I’d like to elaborate on bullies and freaks, but I can’t. I signed a binding non-disclosure agreement with the producers of Real Housewives of Wasilla.

Face it, hon. The Party’s over? Was that you in those 3-D glasses at the White House Super Bowl Party or Arlen Specter?  Are you delusional? Are you insane? Let’s put it this way. Bill O’Reilly recently said that Obama may not be “living in the real world” but I’ll bet you next month’s unemployment check that he gets a call before you.

Bah! Humbug! 2008

It’s the night before Christmas, and I’m on the shelf.
Should I suck the exhaust pipe or just hang myself?
I’d like to be jolly and say things are great,
but we’re in the recession of 2008.

I know what you’re saying: Stop whining, you jerk!
Your shop runs on magic, and elves do your work!
Yeah, it does. Yeah, they do. But see that’s not the trap.
I guess you forgot: I DON’T CHARGE FOR THIS CRAP!!
There’s no revenue stream. There’s no money to make.
I show up and the whole friggin’ world’s on the take!
Oh, and one other thing, though I don’t like to shout:
IT’S BEEN 800 YEARS SINCE MY PENSION RAN OUT!!
So what it comes down to, if you haven’t guessed,
Is we live on the interest from what we invest.
And if you think there’s cash in our portfolios
Then you’re laying your ass cheek upside of your nose!

It began with what Jim Cramer told me to do.
I bought Bear Sterns at sixty and dumped it at two.
When I’m done with that jerk, he’ll think coal lumps are great.
He’s getting uranium 238.
And it’s just gotten worse with each stock that I try.
Place my bet, they’re all wet; I get in they go dry.
Been so long since a margin call I could convert
That my broker put me on an amber alert.
Got a lemon in Chrysler, an Edsel in Ford.
My SAS stock crashed into a fjord.
My Merrill was lynched and my Merk made me sneeze.
My Cherokee stock is on two wounded knees.
My Northern went south, Perrier hit a drought.
Then my Bally hit snake eyes, and now I’m tapped out.
They foreclosed on my suit, it’s just as I feared.
A guy with a razor just repo-ed my beard.
Think it couldn’t get worse? No more bombs left to throw?
Mrs. Claus and Mark Cuban just took off for Stowe.

And I’m standing here at the end of the day
Facing eight tiny deer and a toy-laden sleigh.
Now I have to put all of my problems aside
And steel myself for my annual ride.
So I’ll pick up a draft, and I’ll soar through the skies
And make sure every kid gets a Christmas surprise.
As I travel, I’ll plan. I’ll come up with a few.
Hey, I’m Jolly Saint Nicholas; that’s what I do.
I’ll retrieve my resolve and I’ll think really hard.
Know this broker named Madoff—yeah! I’ve got his card!
What?
Indicted for Fraud? Billion bucks in the hole?
My bells just stopped jingling and started to toll.
I guess in the end I’ll just do what it takes:

Can I interest you folks in some fresh reindeer steaks!

Merry Christmas!

Don’t Ask; Don’t Sell!

The man with one foot in Africa is about to land the other one in a tiger trap. The Republicans (with the unwitting help of their witless enemies the Democrats) have dug the ditch, sharpened the spikes. All they have yet to do is cover the whole with foliage and whistle.
“I assume,” you say “that the man is Barack Obama. But what is this trap” you say “of which you speak?”
I’ll give you a hint. They had to dig the ditch extra long, because Barack is not going to walk into it willy-nilly. He is going to drive into it like a bat out of Hell in a brand shiny new Chevrolet!
Travel back with me fellow travelers to the year of our Lord, 1992. A time marked by the miracle of tube sock scanning technology, web 1.0 and “How Do You Talk to an Angel.” A time personified by the man from Hope, William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton had been swept into the Presidency by an impressive near majority of the popular vote. Defeating the Great Regurgitater, George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot, a man who learned too late in life that no matter how rich you are you can’t believe in aliens unless you look like Tom Cruise.
It was all Big Macs and Kiwi ice cream for Slick Willie in the autumn of 1992. How could he have seen the trap into which he would soon fall—the gambit that forever put the powdery white stain on the navy blue dress of his electoral honeymoon?  “What gambit” you ask?  Well, don’t ask! And don’t tell! The trap in question was the now famous non-issue, equipped in standard army issue: Gays in the Military.
You kids today wouldn’t recognize the landscape of the early 1990s. It was a time of serious economic recession. Jobs were scarce, interest rates were high, gas was expensive, and there was a guy named Bush in the White House who didn’t seem to have a clue.  Serious issues needed addressing, and the people voted in a young, generally untested Ivy League Lawyer because they wanted change.  President-elect Clinton took office and declared that he would “hit the ground running” with a bold agenda for dealing with important social problems.
Then on the 5th of February, he ordered America’s military recruiters to stop asking recruits what their sexual preferences were (which seems pretty tame compared to the present day, when recruiters are afraid to ask, “Do you have a criminal record?” “Are you going to commit a crime when you leave here?” “Where if anywhere did you hide the body?”).  He also directed Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to come up with a plan by July 15 to formally lift the ban on those gallant young men and women who put the spree in Esprit de Corps.
History tells us that Clinton’s popularity went down faster than [insert your own gay joke here]. His electoral honeymoon ended faster than his real honeymoon probably did when his new bride found him banging the wedding planner behind the champagne fountain. It took a dot.com bubble twice the size of the one that transported Glinda, the Good Witch to keep him from becoming Son of Carter.
Witch brings us to today. Sorry, which. Got distracted. In the 50s, Glinda was considered hot.  The Republicans are setting the stage for exactly the kind of trap they set for Clinton. Only this time instead of Victor, Victoria it’s Crown Victoria. Don’t cry for me, Ford Torino.  The issue that threatens to derail unnecessarily the first 100 days of the Obama Presidency is the argument over whether or not to bail out the big three. Once Clinton got snookered into letting the GOP goad him into shifting his agenda, he was sunk. He put himself in a lose-lose situation and ended up with everyone angry with him. Obama faces he same dilemma—come out strongly in favor of a plan that cannot succeed because it is under-funded or come out against the last vestige of serious union power and the rust belt populations that went against their better judgments to vote him in.
So Barack, my advice to you is to let the B-Team wrangle this one out. In fact, go farther down the bench and let Rangel wrangle this one out.  If you do, you can wait a few months for the issue to shake out and either heap praise on the team or jump in to save the day. If you don’t, if you get goaded into symbolic action that will blow up in your face faster than the plastic seals in a Dex-Cool treated Alero, then what happened in the Clinton era will happen to you. It will be harder than ever for a soldier to go on leave and get himself an affordable Hummer, and the honeymoon will be prematurely over.