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Is the Confederate Flag a Racist Semiotic?
Last night’s Democrat debate in Orangeburg, South Carolina revealed another weak stab against the Racism that still bleeds in the Deep South — and in urban cores across America — when Senator Barack...
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Hey from Hi and Other Colloquial Quirks
When, exactly, did “Hey!” replace “Hi!” as a standard greeting? I think I’ve been using “Hey!” for “Hi!” for at least five years — but I’m not sure of the when or why. Was there some sea change in a...
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Memory or Meme or Me?
Which comes first: The Memory or the Meme or Me? The meme — the invisible sharing of knowledge — comes before the memory. The exchange of thoughts and ideas creates the expectation of moments and the...
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The Memeing of Black Bitches
Do you agree with Isiah Thomas that Black Men can call Black Women “bitches” while White Men cannot? If not, where — in the cultural meme that grew and molded Isiah Thomas — did he learn to believe...
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Buy My New American Sign Language Book
My newest book, written with Janna M. Sweenie is titled Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language, Level 1 and you can now buy it directly from Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble and from your...
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Hardcore ASL Classes Now Online!
I am pleased to announce — after 10 years in the making and 20 years in the thinking — Janna and I have completed our Hardcore ASL online learning program! You now have seven — YES, SEVEN! — levels of...
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Intent on the Internet: The Intellectual Divide Between Knowledge and...
Over 50 years ago, C.P. Snow set the educational and cultural and political worlds afire as he argued in his ovaric book — “The Two Cultures” — that there was a growing divide between the...
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Respect is Not Earned
With each breaking day, the culture of our world community is cracking into crassness and the memes of delivery for that debasing of human nature lives in the tubes of the internets. When you see the...
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Obama Waffles Culture Wars
The only way to beat Barack Obama in the presidential election is to get personal and dirty and raise the matter of his skin color as a voting issue. Obama Waffles meets that gutter mandate of personal...
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The Cultural Value of Teak
If we find value in beauty, then our culture must be sensitive to the preservation of all beauty in any form. A teak tree provides shade and longevity and wood from the tree will protect us if we...
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Wall-E is a Deaf ASL Meme Movie
Wall-E is now out on Blu-ray DVD and it is a spectacular movie experience. The story is timeless, universal, and humanistic in devotion and intention. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association rightly...
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A Misguided Deaf Video Dictionary
Boston University researchers grabbed a $900,000USD grant from the National Science Foundation to capture 3,000 American Sign Language gestures to create a “Deaf Dictionary” that will “interpret”...
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Colored in Black and The Blues
The history of the African-American experience in America is one of a human rage colored in Black and The Blues. You sing Gospel music to celebrate your creation. You sing The Blues to ask God why...
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August Wilson Plays the Blues
When you think of August Wilson, you quickly recall images from his amazing canon of plays that made him the best and most successful Playwright in the modern American theatre. August Wilson was born...
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Two Tails Wagging
Yesterday, I bumped into a friend of mine in the neighborhood named Joey. As part of our infrequent discussions, Joey always reminds me he was born in the Dominican Republic and one day plans to...
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Virtue Over Values
In our current, bloody, culture wars — values and morality are given passing play — but few people address the loss of virtue as a necessary component of a righteous humankind. We teach our kids to...
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How's Your Old Lady? – Ten Sentence Story #111
I was out for a walk alone yesterday when I bumped into my postman — we’ll call him “Benedetto” to protect his identity — and after exchanging the requisite “Heyas,” he asked me how my “Old Lady” was...
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The Goddamned American
How many times you have answered the following questionnaire while completing a regular survey in your lifetime without even thinking much about it? I recently came across the following comment while...
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Lost in Cultural Translation: Aesop’s Fables, Fairy Tales and Disney Movies
Every plan has a hole. Every ship has a leak. Every internet session is insecure. These are the new universal writs of living in the new ancient world. I learned that lesson in an especially...
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A Skewed Semiotic: When a Picture Speaks the Wrong Thousand Words
Nicholas Kristof wrote a fascinating couple of opinion articles for the NYTimes over the last two weeks, and the reason for some reader dissent and confusion in the first story appears to stem from a...
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