Controlling The Questions

Someone recently pointed out that “when you control the questions, you control the issue.” Nothing could be more true. A few days ago, I offered comment about the Gibbons-Mazzeo 'scandal' as some people call it in a post titled Going for Gibbons. Until proven otherwise, I remain unwavering in my decision to dismiss the so-called incident even as Mazzeo, after days of coaching, emerged to hold her own press conference. But for the purposes of communication study as it applies to the above quote, I propose flipping the issue by...

Correcting For Politics

I seldom write about the same subject two posts in a row, but the Wee Shu Min story (after her father, Wee Siew Kim, apologized for his apology) continues to develop as a topical case study about political correctness. Specially, he apologized for saying "I should not have said what I did about people's inability to take the brutal truth and strong language" and reinforced that he counseled his daughter Shu Min.In the United States, it's called political correctness (PC), though the concept is not exclusive to the English language....

Sanitizing Personal Opinion

There seems to be much ado about Wee Shu Min, a teenage blogger whose online journal was criticized as insensitive and elitist. The story has escalated to the point of absurdity with her father, MP Wee Siew Kim, and the principal of Raffles Junior College telling The Straits Times that Miss Wee had received counseling for using insensitive language. She has since shut down her blog and apologized for her comments, though not directly to Mr. Derek Wee, a Singaporean who works for a multinational corporation. He had written in...

Editing Your Work

On Nov. 18, I will be teaching a new one session class, Editing and Proofreading Your Work, for UNLV's Division of Educational Outreach. In addition to providing an emphasis on improving written communication for writers, office managers, and business professionals (whether you are the writer or editing someone else's work), it will give students taking my 10-session Writing for Public Relations class a leg up next Spring. (I deduct two points for every grammar, usage, and spelling mistake on written assignments in that class.)While...

Going For Gibbons

It seems almost too coincidental that just as Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) is being hit with rumors that he was somehow involved in the page scandal, gubernatorial candidate Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) is also being accused of assaulting a woman outside a restaurant (just days ago). The allegations against Gibbons are being made by Chrissy Mazzeo, a 32-year-old cocktail waitress at Wynn Las Vegas, who called 911 three...

Questioning Ethics

If you want to shake up people's definition of ethics, go no further than the Internet. Some of the same folks who easily chastise Rep. Mark Foley e-mails and private messages, laughed as they discovered Augusten Burroughs frequently amused himself by placing fake personal ads, and smirked when Jude Law's character pretends to be Julia Roberts and sucks in Clive Owen (Closer), are now defending married men and women seeking extramarital affairs on Craig's List personal ads. The controversial practice, which has been around for...