How to make things happen

If you've ever tried to get something accomplished in an organization, blogger Rabbi Without a Cause has some terrific advice for you here. You don't need to know anything about synagogue politics to understand the universal wisdom of RWAC's "Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Congregants." Anyone who's ever tried to sell an idea to their boss, project manager, seminar leader, Scout troop master, or any other overcommitted, overcommittee'd authority figure will know--or should know!--what the Rabbi's talking about. Check it out.

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Today's chat transcript

Is online here. An excerpt:

sneezer: in this weather i find myself sneezing a lot outside, while walking down busy city streets. I've never heard a bless you, and I know I'm around strangers while sneezing, but they hear my sneeze... is it appropriate for a "bless you" or is it really not a big deal?

Robin_Abrahams: In another part of the country one might say "bless you" to a stranger, but Bostonians generally value leaving each other alone with their thoughts. I don't think it is unfriendliness, it's a combination shyness and almost exaggerated respect for privacy. (At least that's this transplanted midwesterner's analysis.)

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Old business, new business

August is just such a torpid and pointless month, isn't it? I feel like my brain is encased in honey. Very few insights, very few. So instead of breaking new ground, let's finish up some old business.

People still seem confused by this "I feel bad/I feel badly" thing, and why the first is correct and the second not. I'm still getting e-mails about it, the gist of which usually is: "But isn't 'badly' an adverb?" Yes, it is. And it's because "badly" is an adverb that you don't use it this way, because an adverb would modify "feel." When you're downcast and blue, it's not your ability to feel that is diminished, made less optimal, or "bad"--it's you. If you were "feeling badly," you wouldn't be aware of many emotions at all.

Or, to put it another way: if you're chilly, you don't say "I feel coldly," do you? So there.

Book recommendations! Got a few more to share with you:

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
Wild Swans by Jung Chang (now this sounds interesting! the writer notes, "this is a biography of 3 generations of Chinese women. Although nonfiction, it reads like a novel. Ms. Chang is telling you the story of her grandmother and mother. Fascinating and insightful.")
Storm Front by Jim Butcher (according to the writer, "it's scary and dramatic, too, but the guy has a great, quirky sense of humor. And it's a good vacation-length book.")

Thanks to the readers who sent these in!

New business--I'll be chatting tomorrow from noon to 1 on boston.com. Please join! There's only been a few chats since this blog has started, but already I think there's more people coming, which means more and better questions, comments, and controversies. Let's see just how good we can get these chats to be. I think we're inventing a whole new form of entertainment, here.

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