What Do You Mean and How Do You Know?

June 21, 2009, 3:55 p.m.
In a blog entry on June 16 I announced the publication of Virtualosity: Eight Students in Search of Cyberlaw (click for preview).

Today (June 21) the second (and last) of this summer's book publishing efforts has been uploaded to the publisher: What Do You Mean and How Do You Know? An Antidote for the Language That Does Our Thinking for Us (click for preview). (Credit for the cover goes, once again, to Gregory Johnson, http://resourcesforlife.com.)

Although initially prepared for this fall's undergraduate "First Year Seminar" on general semantics at the University of Iowa, it should appeal to a general audience as well.

"We are the only species able to talk ourselves into difficulties that would not otherwise exist, from divorce to war. Here's a book full of practical suggestions on how to use our language to improve our lives."

Like Virtualosity, hopefully it will be available through Prairie Lights in Iowa City ["Prairie Lights Bookstore;" "Prairie Lights Books"] by mid-July, and Amazon a month later.

With the sickness industry's "insurance premium profiteering bill of 2009" debate now underway in Congress you might also be interested in taking a look at the blog entry from two days ago on that subject: "Universal Single-Payer a Necessity Now," June 19, 2009.

"Summertime Blogging," May 23, 2009, provides a list of 12 still current categories of recent blogs and the link to a chronological listing of the 650 blog entries from the last three years.

There's also the subsequent "Air Cars and Constituent Anger," May 30, 2009, "Cluster Schools: Potential for IC District?" June 3, 2009, an Iowa City Press-Citizen op ed column, "District Needs Cluster Schools," also available from the paper's online site -- along with the follow-up in the form of a letter to the editor ("Many Past Board Members Tried," June 15, 2009), also available there. Both the column and the letter have produced very active discussions at the Press-Citizen's online site.


And here's the information about Virtualosity now available from Lulu Press -- with credits to 8 creative Cyberspace Law Seminar students this past spring semester, and graphics designer Gregory Johnson.

Virtualosity: Eight Students in Search of Cyberlaw (click for preview).

"Nicholas Johnson and eight law students in the University of Iowa Cyberspace Law Seminar, Spring 2009, investigate everything from property rights in virtual worlds to domestic cyber attacks to K-12 students' rights with their online, off-campus speech."

It will hopefully be available through Prairie Lights in Iowa City ["Prairie Lights Bookstore;" "Prairie Lights Books"] by mid-July, and Amazon a month later.

Now that the books are on their way, and we've had the car carefully checked over, once I get at least one good night's sleep, we'll probably be heading off for our usual summer vacation trip to Coralville. And after resting up from that afternoon of high living there may actually be some time for blogging again.

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