Spout

This site is full of ideas. Some of them might make you cringe. They may not align with your worldview, perspectives, or experiences. That’s a great thing.

Why text when you can talk?

A friend recently sat down by me and proceeded to carry on an argument with another friend – all through texting. He spent at least 20 minutes just moving his thumbs and texting complicated ideas and arguments. Naturally, I suggested using the tool for its intended purpose by making a phone call and talking this through. It would have taken a fraction of the time. Tone of voice would have helped convey intent and seriousness. There would be no time spent correcting autocorrects, misspellings, or poorly written articulations. The human element would have buffered any potential move toward unnecessary…

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My face tattoo prejudice

It was recently time for my quarterly haircut. I like to visit a local shop and sit with whomever has an open chair. Sometimes, when I walk in, I notice that one of the hair stylists is almost completely tattooed, including multiple and obvious facial tattoos. In general, I don’t understand why anyone would get a tattoo. It makes no sense to me. They’re reportedly painful. The area on your body where you get it is going to change. Your tastes are going to change. The color’s going to fade. Why there instead of there? Why that? If it…

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Ironic Republicans would behave like a union

One of the more surprising problems with the Republican Party is that they behave like a union. They promote according to seniority – not merit. They can’t get rid of the bad ones, they’ve got no incentive to work hard, and they’re able to get themselves really nice benefits. When the Republicans won back the Senate in 2014, I thought for sure that they’d challenge Mitch McConnell for Senate Majority Leader. To my knowledge, the idea never even came up. It was just assumed that McConnell would be it. This was just yet another example of the Republicans promoting…

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What do you get the person who has everything?

When I was young, I, like many other children, agonized and racked my brain about what to get my parents for their birthdays and Christmas. It seemed like my parents had everything they wanted, or could get anything they wanted (within reason). Or, maybe they just didn’t seem to want anything. So me, my brothers, and my sister, would try and come up with ideas before we finally came up with something that ended up not being as exciting as we had hoped. Now that I’m an adult, and on the other side of the equation, I can see…

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Remember Sarah Palin?

Sarah Palin has pretty much disappeared from the national scene, but her name came up in a conversation recently, and I was thinking of her importance to politics and my amazement at the missed opportunity. What always struck me about Sarah Palin is that the Democrat Party was so intent on destroying her reputation and credibility that in America’s rush to make a joke of her, they forgot to actually listen to what she was saying. In fact, she was one of the first politicians to warn against the ruling class of entrenched Democrats AND Republicans. Anyone who’s followed…

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Is it how you say it? Or what you say?

People give Donald Trump hell for the way he speaks. He exaggerates. Oversimplifies. Repeats things. He’s not always the most eloquent. Because he doesn’t speak like an ivy league learned individual, that means he is stupid and unqualified to be President. In contrast, one of the most frequent reasons I would hear to support Barrack Obama was that it was great to have an intelligent and articulate President. After all, Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, so he must be smart. Yet, as “stupid” as Bush is, he doesn’t need a teleprompter to answer questions at a press conference….

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The vernacular of birthday wishing

In those rare times when someone remembers your birthday (I say “rare” because it seems everyone leaves it to Facebook to remember these days), they usually hit you with a “happy birthday” early in the day to show you they remembered. Then, later in the day, maybe after dinner, you get a straggling birthday wish or two from someone you expected to hear from who probably should have known. Those birthday wishes always seems like someone called them and told them they’d better wish you a happy birthday. Is there a name for the point in the day when…

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An alternative to “I told you so.”

When someone comes back to you after you’ve told them something that decidedly and obviously came through, there’s a perceived desire to say, “I told you so.” But that’s not really what we want to say. “I told you so,” says “I was right.” But aren’t you really trying to establish credibility to be a trusted source, going forward? When I tell someone something, or give them advice, and it turns out exactly as predicted, I’m not interested in rubbing their nose in it or making sure I get the credit I deserve. My motivation is to establish the…

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Career risks worth taking

James May was the British presenter of a British show called “Toy Stories.” It was he who was behind the construction of a full size Lego house. (not a toy house, but a life-size, inhabitable house built entirely out of Legos… the entire series is definitely worth watching). It turns out that earlier in his career, he was fired from his writing position at Autocar magazine because of a design trick he pulled in the editing of a year-end review the magazine published. There were 41 spreads in all, and he decided to edit it so that if you read the…

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Next time you have to confront someone, start with a haka (or, if only everyone in Seattle had a haka…)

A former colleague of mine is from New Zealand. She has a very thick accent (if you’re talking to her in the U.S.), and she’s got a lot of pride in her home. One day at work, she was watching a video of the All Blacks rugby team do their haka before the game. I’d never seen this before and had no idea what it was. The Haka is a traditional dance form of the Maori tribe in New Zealand. It is apparently a long-standing tradition of the All Blacks (New Zealand) rugby team to do a Haka toward the opposing…

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