Finger weapon gestures: gun, rifle, tank, ICBM

Zach Weinersmith’s latest Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon compares four gestures which use the fingers as weapons: the awkward gun (above), the menacing rifle, the difficult-to-parse tank, and the also awkward ICBM. Please don’t point any of those things at me!

An overblown Republican National Convention Celebration to be held in Jacksonville, Florida has been canceled

On July 16, 2020 I blogged about Is the 2020 Republican National Convention still being held in Charlotte? Yes and no. They had moved part, a Celebration, to Jacksonville. In an earlier post on June 7, 2020 I quoted an angry June 2, 2020 tweet from President Trump on why he had decided to move the Celebration elsewhere (having been told he could not fill up the arena):  

“Had long planned to have the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place I love. Now NC Governor Roy Cooper and his representatives refuse to guarantee that we can have use of the Spectrum Arena – Spend millions of dollars, have everybody arrive, and then tell them they will not be able to gain entry. Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised. Would have showcased beautiful North Carolina to the World and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, and jobs for the State. Because of NC Governor we are now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.”

But in July there were concerns whether security could be provided, given a lack of detailed plans. An article by Alana Wise at NPR on July 20, 2020 said Florida sheriff warns that officers unable to provide security for RNC.

Then on July 23, 2020 the President announced that celebration was canceled, as shown above in a Fox News video. The official text  has a long-winded explanation that says:

“And I wanted to come out again today to share some additional news with you: This afternoon my political team came to me and laid out our plans for the convention in Jacksonville, Florida. It’s a place I love. I love that state. The drawings look absolutely beautiful. I never thought we could have something look so good, so fast with everything going on. And everything was going well – a tremendous list of speakers; thousands of people wanting to be there – and I mean, in some cases, desperately be there. They wanted to attend. People making travel arrangements all over the country; they wanted to be there. The pageantry, the signs, the excitement were really, really top of the line.

But I looked at my team, and I said, ‘The timing for this event is not right. It’s just not right with what’s happened recently – the flare up in Florida – to have a big convention. It’s not the right time.’

It’s really something that, for me – I have to protect the American people. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I always will do. That’s what I’m about.

They said, ‘Sir, we can make this work very easily. We have great enthusiasm. Incredible enthusiasm. Even the polls say about the most enthusiasm they’ve seen. We can do this safely, and we can do it responsibly.’

And I said, ‘There’s nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe, whether that’s from the China virus or the radical-left mob that you see in Portland’ – where I want to thank Homeland Security and others in law enforcement for doing a fantastic job over the last few days. They went in, and people were out of control for 51 days – a long time. And Homeland Security and other law enforcement with us went in, and they’ve done a great job protecting our property – the federal courthouse and other property – and, most importantly protecting our people. Or the senseless violence that you see in Chicago or New York or Detroit – a lot of other cities where so many people are shot, and so many people are killed. And people elected me to help and to protect.

So, I told my team. ‘It’s time to cancel the Jacksonville, Florida, component of the GOP convention.’ We’ll be starting in North Carolina for the Monday, as has always been planned. We were never taking that off. That’s remaining as it is. The delegates are going to get together. That’s where they’ll do their nomination. So, the delegates are going to North Carolina, and they’ll be doing the nomination. And we’re going to do some other things with tele-rallies and online – the week that we’re discussing, which will be really good. I think we’re going to do it well. And I’ll still do a convention speech in a different form, but we won’t do a big, crowded convention per se. It’s just not the right time for that.

I care deeply about the people of Florida and everywhere else, frankly, in this country – and even in the world – who would be coming into the state, and I don’t want to do anything to upset lt. They’ll be doing very well very shortly. We’re going to put up some maps up of the country behind me, and you’ll see that the area that we’re talking about is a hotspot. You will also see a lot of the country is – has no problem whatsoever- most of the country, actually. So, I’m always going to take care of you, so that’s the way we’re going to do it.

I’ve spoken to Governor DeSantis and informed other political leaders. I want to thank the Jacksonville community, and its great mayor. He’s a great - great guy. Really great guy. They wanted it so badly. And all of the other political representatives in Jacksonville and in Florida. And just very special people – a very special group. And they were there for us, 100 percent.”

So The China Virus (right next to Roy Cooper) now is the culprit for the very latest Wheel of Blame.To me the description looks like a fairy tale about a 'pipe dream' that  had never really come together. When I looked on the convention web site I found no tremendous list of speakers, or even details of precisely what would occur (or where) on August 24 to 27. The web page about the convention only had promised “a five-star convention celebration.”

An article by Jim Morrill in the The Charlotte Observer on July 24, 2020 is titled After Trump cancels Jacksonville events, RNC is back where it was – in Charlotte.

Now that it is scaled down and back in Charlotte, it hardly can still be described as a five-star event. As shown above with my reimagined newest logo, it is down to two stars (and no blue queen crown). Instead of trumpeting with his trunk raised the elephant now has his head down (and his tail between his legs).  

During another event described in Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing on COVID-19 July 27, 2020 (in Morrisville, North Carolina) the president got the following question (which simply could have been answered with either a yes or a no):

QUESTION  Zachary Eanes from the Raleigh News & Observer. Now that you’ve canceled the Jacksonville portion of the RNC, do you think Governor Cooper made the right choice in limiting attendance in Charlotte?

But instead we got this non-reply:

THE PRESIDENT Well, we’re actually coming to North Carolina, as you know. We’re having a very major – I guess that would be the nomination night, so that’s Monday. That’ll be Monday – they’re going to be here. And the rest we’ll do in a different form. We could’ve done it many different ways, but I think we did the right thing. And I’m really happy that we’re going to be having a piece of it at least - and a very important piece - in North Carolina.”

The pipe dream bubble image was adapted from a 1902 Puck magazine cover I found at the Library of Congress.

Phony phishing email was not from LinkedIn

I received a new type of fraudulent email shown above. It was meant to get me to click on two links (boxes highlighted by me in red) that did not really come from LinkedIn. Three things are wrong with it. The sender is not LinkedIn (perhaps KinkedIn?), it was sent to the email I use for this blog (not another I use for LinkedIn), and it has the singular You appeared in 4 search this week rather than in 4 searches this week. That spelling  and grammar error with singular instead of plural was the first thing I noticed. It stopped me from clicking. LinkedIn has a web help page about Phishing Emails.

What title is on your business card?

Business cards are an important part of personal marketing. As shown above, the Star Wars character Darth Vader’s is Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet. No contact information is supplied since he will call you.

At W. L. Gore and Associates there is a flat, lattice-like organizational structure where everyone’s official title just is Associate. But to impress outsiders they can put another title they like on their cards. Sara Clifton picked Supreme Commander, as was described in a Management Review article back in August 1985, What’s in a title?

In Shark Tank at Computerworld there was an article on July 20, 2020 titled Memory-Lane Monday: It’s in the cards. When a person began a position at a company owned and run by a wealthy but quirky financial trader, he initially was given the title Manager of Unix Operations. His boss had refused to pay for printing business cards. So the new person got some card stock, and printed his own at ten per page. But the first time he got introduced to a big client the boss instead referred to him as the Director of Software Development. He took some card stock, and printed cards with that title.

Not long after that, in a meeting with another client, the boss referred to him as the Vice President of Software Development. Then he took some more card stock, and printed cards with that latest title. As a gag he also printed some titled Master of All Computational Knowledge. Naturally one of those accidentally got handed to a vendor who had a good laugh, and would not give it back.

There was another article by John Rentoul in The Independent on July 12, 2020 titled Top 10... grand titles that in reality diminish the holder. He said Editor-in-Chief is less powerful than just The Editor. And Deputy Chief Sub-Editor is a roller coaster.

If you don’t understand the hierarchy in an organization, then you may not be properly impressed by a title. For example, as shown above, a Captain (O6) in the U.S. Navy is way more impressive than a Captain (O3) in the U.S. Army. (The five-star O11 ranks were last used way back in World War II).

My first job was in the Ann Arbor lab of the Climax Molybdenum Company as a Senior Research Associate. Their job titles started with Research Associate, followed by Senior Research Associate, Research Metallurgist (or Chemist), and Senior Research Metallurgist (or Chemist). Then I worked for a while at an Exxon lab in Houston as a Senior Research Engineer, where Research Associate instead was the title for a very much higher rank.   

At TV Tropes there is a web page titled Try to fit THAT on a Business Card, which gives a Game of Thrones example:

“You stand in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains.”

Wow! In the 1977 comedy film Oh, God! George Burns (God) instead handed John Denver (Jerry Landers) a card with only one word on it – God.

My version of Darth Vader’s card uses a Death Star balloon image by Adam B. Morgan from Wikimedia Commons.

Always try your best for success

Stephen Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine cartoon for today has the following dialogue:

Pig: What do you think is the key to success?

Goat: To always try your best.

Pig: Why is that the key?

Rat: Because that way when you fail, you’ll know you can’t do 
        any better and can then just sit around eating bonbons.

Pig: I do that now!

Rat: So you’ve already succeeded.

Goat: Let’s start over.

That cartoon reminded me I’ve seen an awful lot of quotations (and a lot of awful quotations) about success. Perhaps the simplest oft-quoted one is Woody Allen’s, which is something like that:

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

I decided to make up another of my own, as is shown above. The 1900 image of a city and key was retitled from one at the Library of Congress.

Getting rid of distracting unintentional movements

The Pathways educational program from Toastmasters International has a required project at Level 2 in the Presentation Mastery path on Effective Body Language:

“The purpose of this project is for the member to deliver a speech with awareness of intentional and unintentional body language, as well as to learn, practice, and refine how he or she uses nonverbal communication when delivering a speech.”

Four decades ago I had prescription safety glasses supplied by my employer with plastic frames, similar to those from the Navy shown above. Even after I added self-adhesive foam pads to their nosepieces they inevitably would slide down. About every five minutes I had to push them back up. That was my unintentional and distracting body language.

More recently I got titanium frames with very comfortable silicone rubber nosepieces that swivel. These glasses are comfortable and they stay put.

As shown above, a woman with hair that blows in her face on a windy ocean day will keep having to brush it out of her eyes. During a speech that unruly hair is another type of unintentional and distracting body language to avoid.

Back on August 1, 2015 I blogged about How to confuse your audience with inconsistent hand gestures. In the YouTube video by Brian Tracy on How to overcome your fear of public speaking, when he says the word small his gesture says large (and vice versa).

Still another way to distract people is by hiding your gestures. If you are short and stand behind a lectern, then your audience may not be able to even see your elbows - and your hand gestures might mostly be invisible. On the video shown above the camera repeatedly zooms from a frame three heads high (showing from the head to below the elbows) to one only two heads high. Using brackets around the times in seconds for zooming in, the frame changes a dozen times - at [22], 39, [52], 64, [77], 94, [113], 121, [138], 154, [163], 170. Of those 194 seconds 77 or ~40% are spent zoomed in too closely.

In an online Zoom meeting (typically via a laptop computer) you can hide your gestures by sitting too close to the web camera. If you move back, then you need to speak louder since you are further from the microphone. (Or you can get a wireless Bluetooth headset).     

Love is medicine for fear

At The Atlantic, Arthur C. Brooks writes a biweekly column on the topic of How to Build a Life. His latest one, from July 16, 2020 is titled Love is medicine for fear. He suggests the following approach:

1] Confess your fears to someone you trust

2] Make your love overt

3] Take a risk

4] Love your enemies

The image is from a Puck magazine cover titled Making hay while the rain falls which appeared on July 27, 1910, and can be found at the Library of Congress.

Is the 2020 Republican National Convention still being held in Charlotte? Yes and no.

Back on June 7, 2020 I blogged about how President Trump blames North Carolina governor Roy Cooper for not allowing a “full” Republican National Convention in Charlotte. The President had proudly tweeted that he was forced to move the convention elsewhere. Is that what actually has happened? Of course not! The official convention business still will be in Charlotte, but then there will be a celebration in Jacksonville. With Trump you have to first listen to the overblown tweet, and then later read the walk back by others. When they began the change Florida looked like a good alternative. Now that the pandemic is raging in that state things look questionable.  

The official Republican National Convention web page about the convention currently says:  

“The official business of the 2020 Republican National Convention, including the formal nomination of President Donald J. Trump, will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 21-24, 2020. This vital party business is, of course, the primary purpose of any national convention. Other important convention business will also take place in the ‘Queen City,’ including the Convention Committee on Credentials meeting and the publication of proceedings. As the North Carolina Governor’s Executive Order prohibited convention celebrations in Charlotte, the Republican National Committee modified the rules to align with the state’s current restrictions in place so that fewer delegates and staff are required to gather in Charlotte. Following the official business, there will be a five-star convention celebration – including the president’s acceptance, speeches by other individuals and candidates, and other convention-related activities – in Jacksonville, Florida on August 24-27, 2020. The convention celebration will be an encore like never before. Our world-class event will play an integral role in supporting small businesses and generating millions of dollars across the southeastern United States. It will leave a lasting impact across the nation as we celebrate American greatness. This will be one historic convention and one unconventional celebration in support of the Republican Party’s winning leader: President Donald J. Trump.”

It’s similar to a high school class holding their prom at one location, and an after-prom at a second location. But prom planners would know enough to hold both events in the same city, not the second one 330 miles away (by air) or 380 miles driving distance (six hours).

In Charlotte the convention will be in the Spectrum Center (capacity 19,000). In Jacksonville the celebration might be in the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena (capacity 15,000). Will the convention be filling that Jacksonville arena? Nope. At NPR on July 16, 2020 Brian Naylor has an article titled GOP scales back convention plans, relenting on virus restrictions. On July 15, 2020 at The Hill Morgan Chalfant has another article titled Pence says GOP considering moving convention outdoors.

As shown above, the old logo (with a crown for the “Queen City” of Charlotte) in a press release on August 1, 2019 was replaced by the new, more abstract one in another press release on June 25, 2020.

Why didn’t they put both city names in a new logo, as shown above? It would emphasize that holding it split in two is a bit silly. Also, they said it only was a “five-star convention celebration.” That scaled-down convention really is not a five-star event.

Savage Chickens cartoons with humorously bad advice on How To Be A Tough Guy

On July 9th Doug Savage started a series of his Savage Chickens cartoons showing bad advice about how to be a tough guy. As shown above, Lesson 2 is to Speak Louder Than Necessary. Lesson 1 is to Be Afraid To Express Your Emotions. Lesson 3 is to Spit On The Sidewalk. Lesson 4 is to Never Say “I Don’t Know.” Lesson 5 is to Never Show Any Signs Of Weakness.

Better advice by Brené Brown from the February 8, 2020 On Being radio show, titled Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart is that:

“Feeling vulnerable, imperfect, and afraid is human. It’s when we lose our capacity to hold space for these struggles that we become dangerous.”

How not to construct an infographic about speech anxiety

At VENNGAGE there is an infographic (shown above) from Rachael Keeney titled Speech Anxiety and subtitled What You Need to Know About Glossophobia. Both the ‘graphic’ and ‘info’ aspects are questionable. The orange color code for 74% fear on the pie chart and for the 73% and 75% does not match the red icons of men and women.

I revised the infographic as shown above (changed the 73% and 75% from orange to red) and removed the superfluous pie chart. The fourth point on that list of Tips To Overcome Speech Anxiety is to Know your topic. But those 73%, 74%, and 75% (from Statistic Brain) are just baseless rubbish, which I blogged about in a December 7, 2014 post titled Statistic Brain is just a statistical medicine show.

Did Albert Einstein once say that “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change”?

Almost certainly not. I found that quote in the fourth paragraph of an article by Timothy Sykes in Entrepreneur on December 2, 2019 titled Why you need to learn to adapt. More recently it turned up on July 9, 2020 in a LinkedIn post by Jessica R. at The Official Toastmasters International Members Group. She showed a cropped version of this one with a grainy portrait of Albert from bmabh.com.

I tried to find both when and where Einstein had said it, but my searches came up empty. It does not appear either in the comprehensive 609-page 2011 book edited by Alice Calaprice titled The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, or Fred R. Shapiro’s 2006 The Yale Book of Quotations. A search in the EBSCOhost databases from my friendly local public library only found a half dozen articles containing it, the oldest of which was a newspaper from 2012. A search in Google Books found only 21st century references to it. One book from 2014 by Anthony Trewavas is titled Plant Behaviour and Intellgence. In Chapter 19 he claimed it comes from 1934, but did not say where. A regular Google search found the earliest it shows up is on February 15, 1998 in a web page at Webscence – Citations, in both French and English.

Einstein died back in 1955. If he had said it, then you would expect to find it quoted sometime during his life rather than in 1998. I think far more likely it was said later by someone else, and as shown above, am attributing it to the mythically awful baseball player Joe Shlabotnik. On May 12, 2020 I had blogged about Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? That answer also was no.

A 1947 portrait of Einstein and a 1924 portrait of a baseball player both came from the Library of Congress.

Numbers of Joyful Public Speaking blog posts with various labels

I got curious regarding which topics have been covered most in the 1,924 posts on this blog. When you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see a long list of labels. A bar chart (shown above) lists the 21 most common ones. (I have removed the near duplicates for Social Phobia [103] and Comics [72]).  The ten most common labels are: Fear (405), Surveys (265), Research (228), YouTube (157), Speechwriting (156), Visual Aids (148), PowerPoint (145), Toastmasters (143), Storytelling (131) and Social Anxiety (105). There’s way more Fear Than Joy!   

How do I rate? What’s my score?

On July 6, 2020 Randall Munroe posted a very amusing xkcd web cartoon (shown above) titled Universal Rating Scale. It combines a lot of different scales used for rating various things.

One obvious scale instead could run upwards from zero to ten, as is shown above (with 11 added for comic effect, as seen in a clip from the movie Spinal Tap).

What else is on Randall’s universal scale? As shown above, there are EF ratings on the Enhanced Fujita Scale for Tornadoes, a bipolar Likert Scale, IUCN Rankings of Threatened Species, star ratings (like those by Amazon), and Starbucks Drink Sizes. There also are coin grades (G for Good, VG for Very Good and UNC for Uncirculated), credit ratings (A, AA, AAA), Emojis for Faces (happy, sad and neutral), and Film Ratings from the MPAA (G for General, PG for Parental Guidance, PG-13 for Parents strongly cautioned [about children under 13], and NC-17 [no one under 17]).

What is missing? As shown above, 7-Eleven has Drink Sizes (cold) that start off where Starbucks stops. There also is the Harvard spectral classification for stars (by color).

 

For this blog about public speaking there are two five-point scales from Toastmasters International, which I previously discussed on April 3, 2018 in a blog post titled Speech evaluation rubrics: how many levels should be on the scale, and which way should it point?