If you’re reading this newsletter, you’re in the relationship business. You might have an engineering, science or planning background and education but eventually, your expertise needs to translate to action or acceptance by people who will be affected by and will have to live with whatever you have planned. Your ...
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Good guys need to communicate as effectively as the not-so-good guys have proven to be able to do. People involved in public participation have often looked at the idea of “persuasion” as something kind of smarmy and inappropriate. The thinking has been that trying to convince somebody of believing anything ...
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In ending a phone conversation with a longtime buddy the other day, he suggested we meet in a couple of weeks for … “a beer and (to) swap some lies.” Swapping lies is a pretty common term that’s defined as a lighthearted, playful conversation of some fact, fiction, exaggeration and ...
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Of the many difficulties and challenges being brought on by the current administration, the dismantling of the public health community is one of the most disheartening and harmful. I think you’ll find the following worth reading. Katelyn Jetelina, Ph.D. is an adjunct professor at Yale, science advisor to the Centers ...
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New renewable energy projects are booming and will continue to do so as long as the business benefits, demand and economics pencil out. But, a lot of large, utility-scale solar projects are running into community roadblocks in spite of their presumed squeaky clean image. People living near these proposed projects ...
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When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.” This quote, often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, may sound harsh, but the new normal that we’re all experiencing under the current regime in Washington requires some thought about what it really means to be impartial. I don’t know how anyone can remain truly ...
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Journalism, the fourth estate, has been part of the fabric of free societies since Gutenberg printed those letters to the editor claiming Black Death was just a a hoax made up in the basement of a pizza parlor in Dusseldorf. Framers of the Constitution saw fit to address free ...
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When I was a kid, I assumed that MATH stood for Mental Abuse To Humans – it was not my best subject. But that got me interested in acronyms, which comes in really handy when you’re trying to communicate lengthy, complicated things in a briefer way. The problem is those ...
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Gloom, despair and agony is pretty easy to wallow in for a lot of peple these days, but if you pay attention, there is light at the end of the tunnel....
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The idea of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is not just under attack in the U.S., it’s in the process of annihilation. It’s been repackaged and branded, along with the term “woke”, as vile concepts that have no place in society. And, as of this writing, the concept of empathy ...
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