. . . and says the obvious, I should add. Last week, it was retired General Sanchez, who blasted the Bush Administration, calling it "incompetent" in the way it has run the Iraq occupation. This week, it's Retired General John Abizaid, former CENTCOM Commander, who spoke about Iraq: During a…
In his new book, The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman cites some statling numbers regarding American attitudes toward miscegenation. The good news is that we are changing for the better, at least viewed in the long term: Beyond the blunt, crude fact that America is getting less white, there's…
I recently met a person who just can’t shut up. She chatters endlessly, which wears me out. I have discussed her tendency to dominate conversations with other people; they have noted the same way about her. She rarely allows other people a chance to take a turn speaking during conversations.
All of us dread this woman’s invitations to spend time with us. Perhaps she suspects that we don’t like something about her personality, which is not true: she is truly an intelligent and kind-hearted person. The problem is only the manner in which she presents herself through conversation. She has issues related to a sub-field of speech therapy called “pragmatics.”
Pragmatics refers to both non-verbal and verbal aspects of communication – volume, turn taking, eye contact, attention, asking and answering questions and understanding social boundaries during conversation.
I can’t imagine anyone else spending much time with this person. Perhaps, someday, she might (if she hasn’t already) seek out a therapist as a result of her social isolation. It also occurs to me, however, that she might benefit much more from seeing a speech therapist than a psychologist. I wonder whether psychologists are even trained to identify this serious problem in the artificial confines of a therapist’s office. It’s out in the real world where this woman seems to express every thought occurs to her, driving others away in the process.
While she is unintentionally driving others away with her chatter, this woman seems to put her energy into ever higher …
"Show me a man wearing an American flag pin in his lapel, and I'll show you an asshole," said Bill Maher during a recent "New Rules" segment. What does it show that one puts a little flag on one's lapel or that one sanctimoniously goes around saying "God bless America?" …
Rick Kaempfer, a Chicago media critic, a 20-year radio veteran, "thanks" the FCC and media conglomerates for their roles in promoting media consolidation (a development that cost Rick his job). [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8xD_BHzDqg[/youtube] What's the problem with a few huge corporations owning and operating most of our media outlets? Consider this information…