ETC.: A Review of General Semantics articles from June 2003

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics archives from June 2003

In this issue.
June 22, 2003... The recipient of your smile glares back. You've caused offense and don't know why. How do you avoid another gaffe? Different cultures have widely different assumptions about the minutiae of everyday behavior, observes Edward MacNeal, whose...

French-American misunderstandings.
June 22, 2003... I HAPPEN TO HAVE had an American father who lived essentially all his life in the United States and a French mother who came to the U.S. two months shy of turning twenty-one. They married a little over a year later and went on to have three...

An extensional approach to drug legalization.
June 22, 2003... MANY WHO HAW STUDIED American drug policy believe our nation's drug laws have been ineffective and that changes should be made. For example, we could shift the current stress on law enforcement to more prevention and treatment, allow judges...

Profile: Laurie Cox.
June 22, 2003... Laurie Cox, recipient of the 2003 Talbot Winchell Award for furthering general semantics, is a remarkable humanitarian who began using general semantics to help resolve his own "'psychological'" problems, and later became a dedicated general...

The stress of conflicting views.
June 22, 2003... OUR CONFLICTS AND DISPUTES inevitably involve stress or indignation. This may become visible in our facial expression, voice tone, or gestures. Behind these visible reactions lie our attitudes, beliefs, and convictions. Being firmly...

Textbook laundering--offend no one, teach nothing.
June 22, 2003... THE TEXTBOOKS our children use at school avoid bias, misrepresentation, and censorship--or so we might like to believe. Those who care about accurate description, and who assume textbook publishers care too, may read with alarm a new book...

Science.
June 22, 2003... A true scientist doesn't believe anything. He is the ultimate agnostic. He is all question and no answer. UNFORTUNATELY, a lot of people seem to think science is just another kind of magic. Or worse, they think that science is a kind of...

A very immodest proposal.
June 22, 2003... ALMOST THREE HUNDRED years ago, Swirl satirically suggested using poor Irish children as food--his A Modest Proposal aroused a public outcry of indignation and disgust. History has shown that many people take more offense at the words we use to...

Abstractions.(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. WINSTON CHURCHILL How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese? CHARLES DE GAULLE A cheese may disappoint, it may be dull, it may be naive, it may be...

Pardon me for breathing: seven types of apology.
June 22, 2003... "I'M SORRY. Excuse me. Please forgive me. I beg your pardon. I apologize. What do we mean when we say we're sorry? It would seem that we can mean anything from remedial expressions of regret to sarcastic intimations of blame. In our...

Letters to the editor.
June 22, 2003... Dear Editor: In light of the Spring issue's article on autism, I should let you know that I have an autism-related condition called Asperger's syndrome (as does my husband). We recently gave a joint presentation on Asperger's at a...

The Chinese Wall metaphor.(Metaphors In Action)
June 22, 2003... IN APRIL, 2003, ten of the nation's biggest investment firms agreed to pay regulators $1.4 billion in fines. They were being prosecuted because they had "lured millions of investors to buy billions of dollars worth of shares in companies they...

Snooping around the time-binding attic, Part 3.(From The Archives)
June 22, 2003... Bob Kenyon, O. R. Bontrager, Dick Brenneman, Gwenn Hermann, Stanley Rittenoure, and Bucky Fuller THIS STUDENT-PRODUCED 'diary' provides a record of the 1950 Summer Seminar-Workshop conducted by the Institute of General Semantics. Held at...

The structural differential diagram.(General Semantics Basics)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Part II of this article appeared in ETC, vol. 60, no. 1, Spring 2003. Part III APPLICATIONS THIS SECTION contains various applications of the structural differential, which illustrate how we think about events in everyday life....

In defense of Bessie: distortion or a serendipitous application?(Education)
June 22, 2003... CONSIDER wind, water, and fire. We can assign a multiplicity of uses to any one of these. We can use air for inflating rubber rafts, spraying paint, cooling and heating buildings, or for jackhammering tough concrete into small pieces. Humans...

AGS founder receives Talbot Winchell Award.(Australian Society for General Semantics)
June 22, 2003... Laurie Cox, founder of the Australian Society for General Semantics, has received the 2003 Talbot Winchell Award. This award is given annually by the Institute of General Semantics to persons who have significantly furthered the spread of...

Bruce I. Kodish. Dare to Inquire: Sanity and Survival for the 21st Century and Beyond.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Pasadena, CA: Extensional Publishing, 2003. In Dare to Inquire, Dr. Bruce Kodish employs the formulations of both general semantics and humanism to create a considered and reflective approach to problem-solving and decision-making. I find...

Honore de Balzac. Cousin Bette.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... New York: Modern Library, 2002. In September 2000, the Modern Library--one of the most distinguished names in classics publishing--launched Modern Library Paperback Classics. All titles are selected by the members of the Modern Library...

Lou Marinoff. The Big Questions: How Philosophy Can Change Your Life.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... New York: Bloomsbury, 2003. Lou Marinoff, author of the international bestseller Plato, Not Prozac! (which he spoke about at a recent Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture), continues to advocate the application of philosophical wisdom to...

Fifty years ago in ETC.(Retrospect)
June 22, 2003... In order to maintain entity, organisms of all kinds build walls or barriers around themselves to shut out too great impingement of externality. We are all familiar with the obvious physical barriers. The oyster has carried the business of...