Would You Like Fries With That Wake?

Would You Like Fries With That Wake?

With all of the emails I receive about funeral insurance quotes, I shouldn’t have been surprised by this. But I was. Call me naïve. After all, if we’re too lazy to get out of our cars for coffee or fast food or banking — things we want, presumably, and...
Settled Science: Breakfast Edition

Settled Science: Breakfast Edition

To understand how absurd a notion is settled science, we needn’t tread the politically inflammatory territory of weather, climate change, and global warming. Nor do we need go so far as to read — let alone comprehend — the one tract that utterly debunks the...
Prophets and Loss

Prophets and Loss

What’s the most valuable attribute of successful people? We can find lots of answers to the question from lots of sources: Courage. Vision. Imagination. Persistence. Willingness to fail. Iconoclasm. Lunacy. Every one of those attributes is a factor in the...
Quote Me on That

Quote Me on That

Prevailing wisdom contends that the most important aspect of direct-email marketing is the subject line. I hadn’t given the notion all that much thought until I started receiving a blizzard of such emails, all with this attention-grabbing subject line: Burial...
Up in Smoke (Signals)

Up in Smoke (Signals)

Some people go to great lengths to make sure they’re not taken seriously. That’s sad because it’s really quite simple. If you want to ensure whatever you have to say is dismissed immediately and out of hand, all you have to say this: “We...
New Life for Old Media

New Life for Old Media

Hang on. It turns out rumors of print’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, this post, in the media research blog of the  International News Media Association (INMA), says the following, in part: While any advertising campaign should feature a healthy...