Author Archives: Robert Basil

Simplicity is Beautiful

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Robert Basil

I take the train from Vancouver to Olympia, and then back again, all the time. (The love of my life lives south of the border.) Olympia’s Centennial Station is staffed by (usually) elderly volunteers who love trains and who love helping … Continue reading →

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A related post …

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Robert Basil

Popular bar in Olympia, Washington:

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Bringing Children in

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Robert Basil

From an excellent article in Mediate.com called “Best Interests and Little Voices: Child Participation in the Family Mediation Dialogue” by Jennifer Winestone: Children were historically excluded from post-separation decision-making, because of the  assumption that children lacked the “legal and psychological … Continue reading →

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Audience Analysis

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Robert Basil

This mash-up of recent country music hits demonstrates aesthetic ossification. Via Language Log.

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Communicate for Free

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Robert Basil

I had always found eHarmony Inc.‘s advertisements vaguely disconcerting: too optimistic about romance, and too confident about its vaunted heuristic (the “Relationship Questionnaire”!). An advertisement currently in frequent rotation on television promises viewers that “You can start communicating for free today” – … Continue reading →

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Ginormous

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Robert Basil

Bryan Garner, lawyer and English language usage scholar, on one of my favourite words: A portmanteau is a type of luggage with two separate sections. A portmanteau word is formed by combining the sounds and meanings of two different words. Linguists … Continue reading →

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Independent Creativity: Making Yourself Successful

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Robert Basil

The wonderful Molly Crabapple explains what she has learned, in fifteen paragraphs. Here are a half dozen: Companies are not loyal to you. Please never believe a company has your back. They are amoral by design and will discard you at a … Continue reading →

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#MRKT3311

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Robert Basil

Students in my “Marketing in the Digital World” class at KPU are educating one another and myself via numerous social-media platforms. Here’s the class twitter feed for your edification, too. It’s very lively, intelligent, and in tune. Photo by Miles Basil

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“Bucks for Clicks” journalism

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Robert Basil

I like Virginia Postrel‘s take on the recent controversy over at Forbes.com. A popular author, Bill Frezza, published a controversial column on that website – advising university fraternities to beware of female students who show up at their parties drunk … Continue reading →

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Accent-removal class

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Robert Basil

Notes Mark Liberman at Language Log: “In a better world, the speakers of the ‘standard’ variety would take a prejudice elimination class instead.”

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