The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

In a back-and-forth e-mail exchange with White House economic adviser Gene Sperling, fiction-posing-as-nonfiction author Bob Woodward told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that Sperling had threatened him in the e-mail, saying, "It makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, you're going to regret doing something that you believe in." So, just what did Sperling say in this e-mail? Let me share that bit of information with you. Sperling said: "I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. I do understand your problems with a couple of our statements in the fall -- but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. but perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying that Potus (President of the United States) asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I t...

Over the past couple weeks or so, I've several people - the president included - whom have claimed that the Republican Party have attempted to create an imaginary Barack Obama. This theory really came to fruition when actor Clint Eastwood spoke at the Republican National Convention and pretended to have a conversation with Obama courtesy of an empty chair. To that which the empty chair could attest - the GOP has definitely created an imaginary Barack Obama. Let's take the chain e-mail fact-checking site, Snopes.com , to further illustrate this. President Obama hasn't even been in office for four years and there have been, at one point or another, 125 e-mails spread about him. Of these 125, only 17 are true (13.6%). As four have been undecided as far as how much validity they contain, that means 104 of the 125 e-mails are, on some level or another, false (83.2%). If the four undecided e-mails are false as well, that would mean that 86.4% of those 125 e-mails are false in s...

I witnessed a woman breaking up with her boyfriend via text last night. I imagine this is becoming more and more common. I have been on the receiving end of that via e-mail before (and telephone). While I think it's bad enough to break up with somebody over the telephone, I think it's ten times worse to do this over an e-mail or a text when the person's not allowed to hear the other's voice, respond right away, etc. I just think it's weak. It's the easy way out. It makes it so the aggressor in the break-up doesn't have to face the other, doesn't have to look him/her in the eyes, and actually tell them to their face that things are over. They don't even have to hear the other's voice. I just think it's weak, disrespectful and immature. I think if a person truly cared for another, at least at one point, they'd have the strength and respect to actually sit down and talk to them about it, as opposed to leaving a message and walking away as if...

No, I'm not Jeff Foxworthy. I'm not even a Jeff Foxworthy-wannabe. I'm not going to even list a bunch of funny lines like Foxworthy does about Rednecks. But a few recent e-mails (and past ones) that an old friend of mine sent have prompted me to write this. No, we're not friends anymore, which is why I'm more comfortable in writing this. For you adults and young adults out there, have you ever read or tried to the best of your abilities to read an e-mail by someone around your age that appeared to be typed by a 1st grader? It's painful, isn't it? I can hear the nails against the chalkboard right now just from thinking about it. First off, there's poor punctuation (if any at all). They may neglect to use periods and commas, so when you try to read the dang thing, you may have to re-read a sentence two or three times, because you find yourself reading quickly from one sentence to the next without much pause. This is when I mutter quietly to myself, ...

How does one go about meeting a person? Oh, let me count the ways. Work. School. Church. Vacation. Through friends. Through family. Through friends of family. Through friends of friends. Restaurants. Bookstores. Clubs. Bars. Concerts. Parties. Personal ads in the paper. Personal ads in magazines. Telephone services on commercials. What did I leave out? The Internet. Online dating seems to be more popular and accepted than ever. There are even online dating sites that are receiving their fair share of airplay on the radio and also on television. Numerous books have been written about online dating, mainly the how-tos (dummy's guide) or success stories. Unfortunately, all the stories I've heard and experienced in the online dating world have not been so positive. Initially, it seemed like a good way to start a relationship with a person. Since they're not right there with you, conversation has to be made. Two people can then find similarities, commonalities and get a good...

Sometimes it's difficult to interpret words we read on a screen. This can even happen when words are spoken, but is even more prevalent when read, I find. From experiences I've had and ones I've heard about, mood seems to dictate interpretation. While feelings may have been shared in an e-mail or an instant message, it can be like reading text from a character in a book. While the words may provoke emotion, where the feelings reside is within ourselves. There is no voice with the words that can be heard. If one is crying, we cannot hear and feel that. While one may type something like ::crying:: and that may be somewhat saddening to read, it does not carry with it the same empathetic impact as actually hearing or seeing a person cry. This is why I find the concept of cybersex to be so silly. How can someone actually get aroused through that? If someone messaged me with some dirty lingo, attempting to hit on me in cyberspace, I'm sure I'd bust out laughing. Dep...