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101 Inspirational Stories About Good People
At my friendly, local public library I found and have enjoyed reading a 2024 book by Gabriel Reilich and Lucia Knell titled Good People: Stories from the best of humanity. It has six...
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Is everyone really welcome here?
Recently in the Boise area there has been a continuing story regarding Sarah Inama, a 35-year-old world civilization teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian. She was told to take down...
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Almost all Tesla Cybertrucks were recalled because trim rails might fall off
An article by Matt Ott at AP News on March 20, 2025 is titled In latest blow to Tesla, regulators recall nearly all Cybertrucks. Another article by Bryon Hurd at TheDrive on March 20, 2025...
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Anthony Dolan, President Reagan’s chief speechwriter died this month
Anthony Rossi Dolan died this month (see an obituary). An article by Lee Habeeb in Newsweek on March 20, 2025 titled Remembering Tony Dolan: President Reagan’s Chief Speechwriter told...
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Ten Far Side comics about fear of public speaking
Gary Larson created a famous single-panel comic strip called The Far Side that ran in newspapers from 1979 to 1995. There is an article by Robert Wood at Screen Rant on March 25, 2025...
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There may be no warning before a disaster
Recently I was reading an excellent book from 2018 by Hans Rosling, with Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Roennlund titled Factfulness, It is subtitled Ten reasons we’re wrong about the...
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An excellent story about being careful to solve the right problem
Design thinking is a set of cognitive, strategic, and practical procedures that designers use. I have been skimming a 2025 book by Fred Estes titled Design Thinking: a guide to innovation....
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Square Units: an amusing comic strip at xkcd
At Randall Munroe’s xkcd webcomic on March 19, 2025 there is the comic about numbers shown above titled Square Units. In it, a message about the area of grass...
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Allokataplixis is a recent word for that feeling when travel makes everything...
In an article by Liam Henneghan at Aeon on September 18, 2017 titled We have a new word for that feeling when travel makes everything new he described the compound word allokataplixis,...
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According to a Pearls Before Swine cartoon there are four groups of people
On January 19, 2024 I blogged aboutThe joy of 2x2 tables, or charts, or matrixes. The Pearls Before Swinecartoon by Stephen Pastis for March 30, 2025 has a line drawing of the...
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Add a hundred or more gestures to your vocabulary with baby sign language
There is an article in the April 2023 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled Back to the BASICS that has a section on pages 16 and 17 titled 10 Strategies to Boost Your Gestures and Body...
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Remembering skeptical investigator Joe Nickell
I have long enjoyed reading articles and books by Joe Nickell, particularly his Investigative Files columns in Skeptical Inquirer magazine. There is an article by Blake Smith...
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Cory Booker delivered the longest speech in the history of the United States...
Cory Booker is a Democrat and the senior senator from the state of New Jersey. Starting at 7:00 PM on on March 31, 2025 he delivered the longest speech in the history of the Senate –...
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Preply survey on UK attitudes toward and fears about public speaking
There is a post at the Preply blog from the Preply Language Learning Team on April 3, 2025 titled Speak with confidence: Tackling the UK’s public speaking phobia. But it...
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Alton Brown’s new Food for Thought book
I have long been a huge fan of Alton Brown, who created the Good Eats television show. He has a new book titled Food for Thought: essays and ruminations. On pages 109 and 110 there is an...
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Making a huge mural from all your fears
Brian Rea is an illustrator who was interviewed by Emma Tucker at Creative Review on November 18, 2020 in an article titled How I Got Here: Brian Rea: “I had this crazy sense of a...
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Excellent ways to hook your speech audience in thirty seconds
There is an article by Ryan Lynch at American Express on September 20, 2024 titled 12 ways to hook an audience in 30 seconds. They are: Use a contrarian approach.Ask a series of...
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Factfulness is a wonderful book regarding how to think about the world
Hans Rosling (1948 to 2017) was a Swedish physician. He gave a TED talk in 2014 with his son Ola on How not to be ignorant about the world. There is another 2007 TED talk titled The...
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Are you a really good listener?
There is an excellent five-page article by Jeffrey Yip and Colin M. Fisher in the May-June 2025 issue of the Harvard Business Review on pages 139 to 143 titled Are you really a good...
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An interesting 2024 book by Mark Edwards about storytelling - Best Story Wins
Via interlibrary loan from the Twin Falls Public Library, I got and am enjoying reading the 2024 book by Mark Edwards titled Best Story Wins: Storytelling for business...
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A sticky story on the glue you lick to seal envelopes
There is an interesting article by Joe Schwarcz at the McGill Office for Science and Society on March 26, 2025 titled A Sticky Story. He states that: “The adhesives that are used on...
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Using funhouse mirrors to evaluate your speechwriting
The Ada Community library branch closest to me is a couple miles away on Lake Hazel Road. But another branch is a couple miles north of it on Victory Road. Recently I visited that branch...
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A controversy about Boise displaying a pride flag at City Hall
Flying a flag is a graphical form of speech. You would expect conservatives to want that speech to be free. But that’s not what the Idaho legislature did during this session....
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A flawed White House document regarding President Trump’s accomplishments in...
The first hundred days of a presidency often is used as a benchmark for what to expect. There is a White Housedocument titled President Trump’s 100 Days of Historic Accomplishments. It has a...
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Kendrick Frazier’s outstanding book - Shadows of Science: How to uphold...
Kendrick Crosby Frazier (March 19, 1942 – November 7, 2022) was a science journalist who edited Skeptical Inquirer magazine from 1978 until his death. In 2024 his outstanding book titled Shadows...
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