[Newsletter] 3.13.25 | “They’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection,”
March 7, 2025
Lots of examples to laugh at – and learn from. Additional comments from New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Ferrari’s CEO, and a truly horrifying protest from an alleged victim. Business jargon is back courtesy of the Dallas Maverick’s majority owner. Two examples of how to make statistics “verbally visual”. The annoying apologies of the month. Two examples of using props as a memory device, one good, one – needed practice. Finally, a sobering article.
“I AM NOT A CROOK”
“They’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection,” said Senator John Fetterman about people who voted against him. He made the comments in a wide-ranging interview. The question is whether a speaker can bury a denial of a negative. His full quote was: “I know and I love people that voted for Trump, and they’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And we have done that.”
Post Millennial, “Fetterman admits Dems are ‘toxic’ party that ‘scolds’ and ‘talks down to people’” February 8, 2025
THE RUNNERS-UP
“The government’s not going to be banning cats,” was the unusual statement from Scotland’s Prime Minister John Swinney. Background: an independent panel of wildlife experts announced that felines threatened native wildlife and suggested “containment” strategies. Outrage ensued. Moral: don’t mess with cat ladies (although we believe many owners of other pets joined in.) Example of our first lesson: begin by identifying your audience(s).
The Independent, “Exasperated Swinney forced to deny he plans to ban cat ownership in Scotland” February 5, 2025
“We are not forming a cult,” said Yasir Qadhi, a scholar at the East Plano Islamic Center. The controversy stems from the Center’s effort to acquire a 402-acre parcel of land and build what will be a Muslim City which already has a name, EPIC, and plans for 1000 homes, a large mosque, schools, plus shops, restaurants and all the other enterprises which comprise a city. The plans have generated significant opposition, some based on the characterization of the new venture as following Sharia Law prompting a response from Governor Greg Abbott, “Sharia law is not allowed in Texas, nor are Sharia cities.” Some residents in the tiny rural town which is facing explosive growth insist their concerns have nothing to do with religion but rather with the prospect of such rapid growth. This is going to be a textbook case. Stay tuned.
DMN, “They dream of building Muslim-centric neighborhoods near Dallas. Will it work?” February 24, 2025
“Judge, I have not committed a crime,” replied New York City Mayor Eric Adams when a federal judge asked him if he understood that the charges (for bribery and other charges) could be reinstated. Adams continued, “and I don’t see them coming back.” This is an example where a simple “yes” would have sufficed.
WSJ, “Judge Questions Justice Department Over Decision to Drop Eric Adams Case” February 19, 2025
“We are not – we are not – an automotive company,” insisted Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna in an article reporting on a new model, the F80. Only 799 were made, and none are for sale. Despite a list price of $3.7 million, they are already parceled out to collectors who have developed a “relationship” with the company. If it’s not a car company, what is it? “We are a luxury company that is doing cars,” said Vigna. I recall GM got itself into a position where it was a health care company that made cars. Didn’t turn out well.
WSJ, “The Wild Economics Behind Ferrari’s Domination of the Luxury Car Market” February 20, 2025
“I wasn’t groomed or raped or manipulated by her,” said a now 19-year-old young man who impregnated his teacher when he was about 13 in 2019. The teacher is now facing charges of sexual assault not only because the boy was a minor but because she was his teacher. The now-young man’s comment is so sad for many reasons.
The Blaze, “Ex-student who impregnated teacher at 13, now an adult, wants her sexual assault charges dropped: ‘I started everything’” February 18, 2025
JARGON
A “risk allocation decision” is what Patrick Dumont, chairman of the majority ownership group of the Dallas Mavericks used as an explanation of why they traded much loved superstar Luka Doncic. The wildly unpopular trade was decided and executed stealthily and at lightening speed. We haven’t had many examples of jargon recently. In addition to the business-speak phrases, Dumont went all in blaming – the fans! – that if they didn’t have “the singular focus of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant or Shaquille O’Neal’’ they “shouldn’t be part of the Dallas Mavericks” and in case you missed the point, he added “If you want to take a vacation, don’t do it with us”. Ouch! (See my colleague, Shaelyn Stone’s, take on how the Mavs handled this major decision.)
DMN, “After Mavs’ latest PR blunder, they should cut out the revisionist history on Luka Doncic” February 21, 2025
STATISTICS
“Six times the size of Manhattan” – that’s the size of the Hawaiian island, Lanai, that’s 98% owned by Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison who’s trying to reinvent farming. It seems he wants to develop “farms” which rise vertically instead of spreading out horizontally. The headline said it all. A bust.
MSN, “Larry Ellison’s Half-Billion-Dollar Quest to Change Farming Has Been a Bust” February 23, 3035
“A recent report showed Stanford has roughly one administrator for every student.” The Trump administration made news and generated howls by announcing that research grants would be limited to a 15% charge for administration and overhead. News reports revealed that Harvard was snatching 70% of grant funds for administration and other comparisons like the one with Stanford soon became public. A Harvard professor who wrote about the issue called it “an unflattering statistic” that “called into question higher ed’s priorities.”
WSJ, “A Compromise on University Funding” February 24, 2025
APOLOGIES
Tearfully apologizing to “everyone who may have felt offended by the way I express myself,” Karla Sofía Gascón, star of the Oscar nominated film Emilia Pérez, and the first openly trans person to get a best actress nomination and a very big deal for Netflix, was a Hollywood darling until old tweets surfaced calling Islam “a deep disgust of humanity,” and George Floyd a “drug addict swindler” and saying religions that “go directly against European values” should be banned. See my “Minute with Merrie” for my opinion of these inauthentic “apologies” which convey that the only thing the speaker is sorry for is being found out.
MSN, “What the Messiest Oscars Race In Recent History Says About Hollywood” February 7, 2025
PROPS
“Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang showed a processor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month” was the caption of a large picture illustrating a front-page story headlined,
“Everyone’s Rattled by the Rise of DeepSeek—Except Nvidia, Which Enabled It.”
Brilliant use of the memory driving technique.
WSJ, “Everyone’s Rattled by the Rise of DeepSeek—Except Nvidia, Which Enabled It” February 2, 2025
If using props, practice. This was a good idea, but the caption explained what happened. “In Tokyo Monday, Open AI CEO Sam Altman watched Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son pick up a crystal ball after dropping it”.
WSJ, “OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son Are AI’s New Power Couple” January 30, 2025
ARTICLES
We occasionally flag articles with a communication focus. We include this because of its importance – and something our younger colleagues are going to have to deal with – and because it’s an interesting communication challenge. Everybody knows about the problem and danger but because it’s not going to happen this week, we ignore it.
WSJ, “Debt Has Always Been the Ruin of Great Powers. Is the U.S. Next?” February 21, 2025
“You Don’t Say” is a reminder not to repeat and deny a negative word because of how the listener hears words. When you repeat and deny a negative word, the listener is likely to overlook the denial and hear the opposite of what the speaker is trying to say.