Strange news from polling data has come up to smack us in the head. And I don't like it.

Gallup's latest oddly-named Lifestyle Poll statistically showed that Americans are less satisfied now with their lives than at any time since 1992! While historically we are less satisfied during tough...

When print newspapers finally die off, today will be among those remembered as reason why. Hundreds of thousands of NY Times readers opened the magazine to find stories about Megan Fox and the Octomom perfectly suited to Us magazine and even Star, and while they were painted as...

Thing thing thing thing. Things. Thingamabobber. Thingamajig. Thingery. Thingy thing.

Possessing sophisticated skills of communicating is elementary when you want people to notice you. Your spoken words have to convey a level of "wordmanship" that inspires confidence in your abilities. Real use of language means ridding yourself of all the...

"Personal Branding" is a term that gets bandied about at every cocktail party despite not having any real discernible meaning. We know the purpose of branding products: to sell them to their market. What exactly does it mean to have a personal brand, though? Further, is a personal brand actually...

"I feel my A.D.D. kicking in," an acquaintance muttered while I was meticulously explaining something. So that's it, huh: a greater kind of self-importance where we name an ailment as an excuse not to listen?

A large percentage of my colleagues have antsy pants and can't keep still in their...

As a so-called expert in this field, I'll get right to the point: PR is not the dark side any more.

Yeah, I was a reporter for a plethora of publications in the hard-to-remember '80s. I do recall titters from my colleagues when I defected to PR. I had to...

I've been hearing a lot of people tell me they won't do anything gutsy: Friends advising me against certain actions cause someone might react poorly (as if anyone's paying attention); colleagues warning they think...

Creativity is almost impossible to define. According to consumer-insight researchers at Lucid Incorporated, every person recognizes he or she has it, but its meaning varies widely. Anna Sandilands and Anna David, who quit Starbucks to found a company notably called Lucid, have appealing perspectives on creativity, both from their experience...

To get an idea of how strange today's gossip scene is we need to look at the history of gossiping. There is no beginning to speak of. We assume that buzzing about others is one of those immutable truisms of the human condition: people talk about other people for the...

Ted Kennedy was undoubtedly the lion of the Senate who lived a long and consistent life as a public servant. Not even political foes can argue that his service was not of the highest order; he served just as his brothers before him had and his legacy is one of...

Leonard Bernstein, the emblem of 1960s New York and icon of the time when classical music still mattered, would have been 91 this week.

Bernstein came onto the scene when art music was cool. Here was a 25-year-old with a wild haircut on stage with the New York Philharmonic. The...

Robert Novak was a man.

He served this country steadfastly during the Korean War; was one hell of a journalist; and, in very many ways, was a pioneer in cable news. His six-times-weekly Evans-Novak Political Report was -- from 1963 until this year -- one of...

It's August 18 in whatever hot (weather -- not status) town that you live. That means -- well, it doesn't mean much. It used to denote the last week of work until Labor Day. But heck you know that's not true anymore! I will stop tweeting for a time in...

The country is currently immersed in a wide-ranging (let's call it healthy) discussion about health care. This overhaul of the for-profit system we use is alarmingly overdue so the debate is on in every city and town.

Without going into detail for days, some Democrats, including our leader, are trying...

If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either.
- Dick Cavett

Remember the Seinfeld episode where the Long Island couple wanted Jerry and Elaine to "Come and see the ba-a-aby!"

That cry is being heard less and less because too few people are...

No matter what you think, today is not a wasteland of slow news. The Government is having its most thorough health care discussion ever witnessed, the climate is doing all sorts of strange things (summer has yet to arrive here in the city of New York), and Michael Vick is...

"Damn it," says Kenneth Cole in ads all over the fine city of New York. "Why are people not thinking straight about gay marriage?"

Lost in the shuffle of what I guess is the more important news was the fact that Irish writer Frank McCourt passed away at the age of 78. McCourt's opus, Angela's Ashes, was an unlikely success: an autobiographical tale of one hell of an impoverished family...

Supreme Court confirmation hearings are the ultimate made-for-TV event. The cable networks, so into news that does not exist, hype the hearings as monumental pegs. Senators, ever emblems of (cough) modesty and humility, masterfully play up their opportunity to be on live television.

...

On Tuesday morning, the Sci Fi channel became Sy Fy, which you can be assured will be back as Sci Fi not long after that. Just about everyone who has heard about this wondered "What branding company is...