True Underdogs

Acclaimed work-life balance expert Berkeley contributed today's post. He is the author of two national bestsellers, The 4-Minute Work Week and Who Moved My Bowl?

While journalists are riveted on news stories of micro-agression by yoga instructors, law professors and standup comics, little coverage has been given to a trend that—by any measure—is vastly more disturbing.

I refer to the ever-growing number of state laws that permit restaurants to open their dining areas to dogs.

While health laws expressly exclude felines from public dining areas (even in cat cafés!), these so-called "Dining with Dogs" laws allow canines to go anywhere they damn well please.

Nothing gets my back up like species-based discrimination.

The new laws, moreover, add insult to injury, when you consider cats receive no compensation for their appearances on YouTube.

Speaking for my kind, we understand victimization by cultural oppressors full well.

Every time big guy doesn't feed me on time, I know it's not merely neglect.

It's micro-agression.

Bye, Bye, Millennials

Marketers now target Millennials by hobbies, not age, according to Hotwire's Communications Trends Report 2016.

No longer youth-obsessed, brands strive to engage customers through "age-agnostic content" that emphasizes the "hobbies we do for fun and the causes that pique our emotional interest."

Marketers should "forget about age," the report says. 

"Let’s focus our marketing on what really motivates our audience—their passions and the life they choose to live."

The PR firm's report is based on data from 400 communicators in 22 countries.

Face Facts

In a controlled experiment, the UK's Behavioural Insights Team studied the effect stock shots of faces had on the responses of 1 million visitors to the website of a charitable organization.

The researchers found the use of stock photos of people's faces significantly reduced conversions.

They concluded that, because marketers over-expose web users to these kind of photos, users simply tune them out—and ignore any content that accompanies them.

"The use of a stock photo discouraged individuals, who saw it as a marketing gimmick," the researchers said.

Swallow Your Pride

Why do we ask someone to eat "humble pie" when he overreaches?

The expression is a corruption of "umble pie," a tasty 13th century dish filled with spiced bits of animals' hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs. "Umble" derives from nomble, French for "deer innards."

The words "umble" and "humble" are in fact unrelated (the latter derives from the Latin word for "lowly"). But by the 19th century, "umble" had been dropped from the language and, because many Brits omit the spoken "h" at the beginning of words, the expression "umble pie" was mistakenly spelled "humble pie."  People assumed the mysterious dish had something to do with humility.

Chew on that.

I Tweet Dead People

To paraphrase Faulkner, the past isn't dead; in fact, it isn't even offline.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, devoted decades of his life to spiritualism, the art of communing with the dead.

He wrote 20 books on the subject; lectured about spiritualism throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and North America; and was an active member of the Society for Psychical Research for 37 years.

My medium for communing with the dead is Twitter.

Presently, I receive regular Tweets from Sir Arthur, Thomas Jefferson, the Ancient Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius, and the Victorian lawyer and diarist George Templeton Strong.

Tweets from the dead entertain and uplift me while I traverse the underworld (on Metro, not a raft) during my commute.

Indeed, communing with the dead is one of the very best uses of Twitter, which is otherwise largely wasteland. 

I recommend it wholeheartedly, and enjoy the fact the dead can Tweet and pay nothing for their mobile phones.

Woody Allen once wrote, “If man were immortal, do you realize what his meat bills would be?”