Elaine writes: Which usage is correct...graduated high school or graduated from high school? To hear graduated without from is as aol mail anywhere ainful to the ears as "went missing"..both usages seem to have entered our language fairly recently. It's even more complicated than you think. My dictionary reminds me that " He graduated from college is now more widely used than the older form, He was graduated from college . He graduated college is considered nonstandard." In other words, graduating used to be something they did to you; now it's something you do for yourself. Like Elaine, I prefer graduated from . But I continue to be surprised by the opposition to "went missing." It's very widespread in Commonwealth countries; Canadian news reports use it frequently, and we simply take it for granted. For an interesting discussion of how "gone missing" began spreading in the US, see this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education . Meanwhile, a missing-persons website in Britain proudly calls itself Gone Missing UK . Update: On December 28, Globe and Mail columnist Russell Smith has made some interesting observations about "graduating" and other usage problems: You can fax it, just don't write me . You won't agree with everything he says, but he's worth thinking about.

This is a fantastic essay by Cory Doctorow. I wish it were three paragraphs longer, but it lays out a thoughtful analysis of the flame/idiot/troll jbl car audio henomenon. My take: you can't (and shouldn't) treat all customers the same. It's not clear to me that you can always change the attitude of an angry person. But you can avoid bringing down everyone around them.

Public relations professionals everywhere are sighing relief as the California Recall comes to an end. The Recall seemingly eclipsed other news in the past few weeks. USA Today notes it has received "unprecedented national TV coverage for a statewide election, receiving more airtime on the Big Three networks than the White House race." The Tyndall Report claims it came in fourth place last week. But there are public relations lessons to learn from the Recall. Media relations campaigns should be run like political campaigns. Story of the Day: Whether we liked it or not, there was *always* a new story to be told each day of the campaign. Most of us will not have a new, newsworthy story to tell about our company, client, product or service each day. But we should establish a steady rhythm of communication with our media contacts. You establish yourself as a source and you get in the habit of digging for relevant news to send them by doing this. Current events and industry trends often hold a follow-up story opportunity. If you have established yourself as a source, media will either approach you to do a story or pay more attention to your pitch for a follow-up story. Shaping Messages: A lot of time and attention is spent on the messages we distribute. But we should not consider them sacred cows once legal has *finally* signed off on them. Your industry might not be as fast-paced as politics, but you mail order lobster ay need to change your message based on external influences.

In an essay at electronic book review on "ecocriticism," Andrew McMurry writes: . . .The resources of poetry and literature and art are not particularly suited for stopping or even slowing the headlong rush into destruction (and this is where I differ from some in ecocriticism. . .who imagine that poetry and art and film can help us tread more lightly on the earth) mall shopping online ecause the roots of the problem go far deeper than culture can penetrate. Still, a study of culture helps us to understand what sort of creatures we are that we can effectively choose to immolate ourselves and the planet. Literature, as we all know, is the human pageant distilled; but it's equally the transhistorical record of a sad and furious primate, a mirror held up to our species' ugliness. Passed through the interpretative lens of ecocritical theory, literature reveals instance after instance of our inability to project, limit, and control the mainly negentropic quality of all our activities in our environments. In simple terms, the price we have paid for the complexity of our things is the decomplexity of earth's things. As a species, we have the power to modify our surroundings to suit our needs but not the wisdom to suit our needs to our surroundings.

Adam Tinworth suggests you cuddle a property developer today . I was reading through some of my occasional blog reads today, when I came across this post ( excerpt below - DS ) on Technovia , the weblog of former MacUser editor Ian Betteridge. He tells the tale of a developer in Brighton which has violated its planning permission and is suffering as a result. From this he draws the rather mysterious conclusion that all property developers are scum. Now, maybe it's because I've just spent a day in a conference centre full of property developers, and maybe it's because they form a large part of the readership of EG, and thus help keep me employed, but I really don't think property developers are scum. Commercial property development is a risky game. You put all the money up front, often buying sites without the planning permission you need. You then have to run the gauntlet of the council's planning process, which can vary wildly from county to county. You have to agree a Section peer evaluations 06 agreement which, in essence, means you agree to give up some of your profit to improve the locality in a way the council directs, before you see a single penny of that profit. Then, once your building is done, you have to rely on the vagaries of the property letting market. Property development takes years.

Elaine writes: Which usage is correct...graduated high school or graduated from high school? To hear graduated without from is as painful to the ears as "went missing"..both usages seem to have entered our language fairly recently. It's even more complicated than you dymo labelmanager pc hink. My dictionary reminds me that " He graduated from college is now more widely used than the older form, He was graduated from college . He graduated college is considered nonstandard." In other words, graduating used to be something they did to you; now it's something you do for yourself. Like Elaine, I prefer graduated from . But I continue to be surprised by the opposition to "went missing." It's very widespread in Commonwealth countries; Canadian news reports use it frequently, and we simply take it for granted. For an interesting discussion of how "gone missing" began spreading in the US, see this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education . Meanwhile, a missing-persons website in Britain proudly calls itself Gone Missing UK . Update: On December 28, Globe and Mail columnist Russell Smith has made some interesting observations about "graduating" and other usage problems: You can fax it, just don't write me . You won't agree with everything he says, but he's worth thinking about.