Views of a Modern World

Everything else Rick writes

Why you need to outline and edit your blog posts

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I often write in a prolific burst when starting a post, rushing to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the screen. But, in looking back over many old posts at ThoughtStorm  or rickcolosimo.com, I see that I have sometimes, or often, failed to edit them as well as I could have.

The bad expositor may, and often does, provide an impressive volume of published work. It may contain a valuable record of profound thinking. But yet it will fail to be very effective.

–Reginald O. Kapp, The Presentation of Technical Information 5 (1948; repr. 1957). 

So here’s to a new habit for a new year!

 

HT, once again, to Bryan Garner.

NYT sidesteps Godwin’s Law

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Today’s NYT has a story about a former Capitol Hill staffer who is a “dissenter” and “skeptic” on climate change issues. He might even be a “misinformer.” Congratulations to the NYT for breaking out the thesaurus and not calling the guy a “denier.” That term is loaded and hateful in its message.

I humbly submit Colosimo’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law:

Labeling someone a “denier” on any topic other than the Holocaust is a violation of Godwin’s Law.

Do you have links to stories that share this view of the degradation in the climate change debate? It’s not about climate change, it’s about collegial debate on things that clearly have huge impacts on society but are almost certainly not inherently or deliberately evil (unlike say, Rwandan genocide or atrocious conditions in hospitals for the mentally ill).

Fighting H-bombs with C-notes

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I read somewhere (here’s one reference and one that makes it both positive and negative, and another – any other favorites?) of someone referring to the not-so-casual, i.e., intentional, dropping of a reference that one went to Harvard as an “H-bomb.” (Not this H-bomb.)

Since my partner and I went to Cornell for business school and law school, respectively, we thought that an appropriate response was in order. Did you catch that? I just flashed you a C-note.

Emerson revisited – great quote

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I recently came across this quote and have been upset about not getting it posted sooner. It just oozes character.

An excess of parental attention may build self-esteem, which is useless, at the expense of self-reliance, which is gold.

Hugh O’Neill in “The Seven Dadly Sins” in Best Life magazine, April 2008, p. 81.

I think that trying to explain what is, at its heart, a clear and simple expression of Emerson’s philosophy would ruin it.

I will however note that the lesson holds true for employees as well as children. We have seen, but not critically evaluated, numerous articles that reference Gen Y as being very demanding for affirmation and opportunity, often without responsibility or performance. Maybe this explains it.