Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Touro Communication Club Notes - #124–October 20, 2010 Tourocommunicationclub.blogspot.com
Contents:
1. Five Quotes about “Jazz”
2. UPCOMING CLUB PROGRAM: “Music Inn: Making Jazz History”
A documentary film with comments by its creator, Ben Barenholtz
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 @ 2 pm in Room 223
3. Logical Fallacy of the Week # 14 –”Fallacy of Composition”
4. Professor Geo’s “Communication Thought of the Week”
5. Note to Communicators: “The Magnetism of Music”
6. .NEXT WEEK’S TOPIC “Civility”
7. Upcoming Conversations - please add your topic to the list
8. COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES – Fall, 2010
9. What happened last week: ““Current Events”
1. Five Quotes about Jazz
”Jazz is a mental attitude rather than a style. It uses a certain process of the mind expressed spontaneously through some musical instrument. I'm concerned with retaining that process.”
Bill Evans (1929 – 1980), influential American Jazz pianist
“Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat.”
Carmen McRae (1920 –1994). One of the most influential Jazz vocalists of the 20th century,
composer, pianist and actress.
:”Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple,
awesomely simple, that's creativity.”
Charles Mingus (1922 –1979), American Jazz musician composer, bass player,
bandleader and civil rights activities, known as “The Angry Man of Jazz”.
“Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school.”
Clark Terry (b. 1020), American swing, bop and Jazz trumpeter, NEA Jazz Masters inductee.
”It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.”
Dizzy Gillespie (1917- 1993), American Jazz trumpeter, bandleader, singer and composer,
a major figure in the development of bebop and modern Jazz
2. The Touro Communication Club
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 - 2 pm – Room 223 - Midtown
“Music Inn: Making Jazz History”
This elegiac documentary film charts the legacy of a special moment in the 1950’s history of American Jazz with in-person comments by its creator, Ben Barenholtz. Through the special efforts of Vladimir Spitzberg of Touro’s DMX program, we are privileged to show this unique documentary film about an extraordinary place in Lenox in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts. Be-Boppers, folk singers, African drummers, blues singers, jazz legends, poets and musicologists gathered to share their converging traditions and go looking for roots to Jazz that most people didn’t think even exist. Jazz icon Louis Armstrong said, “They’re doing wonderful things up there. They’re really helping make music history.” Mr. Barenholtz will share his comments about the making of his film.
3. Logical Fallacy of the Week #14:
“The Fallacy of Composition”
This fallacy is insidious. We identify a piece of the whole and then make a fallacious leap to say that the entire whole is also true. In the current political climate, many advertisements take advantage of this mental trick to diminish the candidate. An obvious one is the 10-year-old statements of Christine O’Donnell, Republican candidate for the Senate from Delaware. In an old video clip shown on the Bill Maher show, O’Donnell was said she had “explored witchcraft.” From this statement, Maher and others argued that O’Donnell was a witch, a label she has denied. Part of an old statement is used to characterize the entire current behavior of O’Donnell.
Humor often uses logical fallacies to make its joke. We laugh, but we inadvertently accept the premise of the laugh. In vaudeville, the bulbous nose, the funny face or “black face” (Al Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer) has become an unacceptable way to get a laugh. Some claim that “political correctness” has taken much hilarity about humor.
To extend the definition of the Fallacy of Composition, we might argue that Racial Profiling and Stereotyping are siblings of this Fallacy. One physical trait or one behavior pattern of one or several people is used to characterize an entire group of people. This week on the TV program, “The View,”
TV host Bill O’Reilly claimed that “Muslims caused 9/11.” The inflammatory statement provoked Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to walk off stage. Later, they returned to apologize. I don’t think that O’Reilly apologized for his statement, however.
Another cousin of the Fallacy of Composition is the visual placement and/or sequence of names, images or plot incidents. Most formulaic police procedurals (“Law and Order,” “NCIS,” “CSI’) always begin with an “inciting incident” (the melodramatic device that initiates the plot action) of someone getting killed followed by the solution of the murder. What would happen if the “inciting incident” occurred later in the plot sequence. Some film directors (“The Usual Suspects”) open with the last scene in the plot line and jump back and forth, often at their peril of audience comprehension.
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4. Professor Geo’s “Communication Thought of the Week #2”
When you communicate, focus on your audience: It’s not what you say, it is what people hear.
5. .A Note to Communicators:
The Magnetism of Music
Music is what we need when language fails us, but we cannot remain silent.”
Cornel West is an American public intellectual, civil rights activist and professor of religion at Princeton University where he teacher in the Center for African American Studies.
Professor West captures the essence of why music is often called the universal language. Words are a very limited vehicle for expressing ideas. The arts, and particularly music and dance (the non-verbal performing arts) are able to penetrate the psyche in ways that prose cannot.
If the arts are tools for communication, they can be used in a variety of ways, from the background Muzak elevator and movie music and propaganda support to orchestral pieces which are front and center in our listening.
Jazz, a major American contribution to the arts, is able to capture our attention and make us listen. Jazz is particularly democratic with its interplay among and between musicians and their instruments who “talk’ to each other.
Improvisation is the soul of Jazz. From the outsider, you make it up as you go along. You “think” on your feet. Beneath this surface “faking it” is a life time of experience in getting the basics right in order to transcend them in performance.
For me, Jazz works best in a small smoke-filled club on a Saturday night where the audience is absorbed in this evocative atmosphere. The musicians and audience become one, each drawing energy from one another. Their joint acoustical experience transcends our pedestrian daily prose experience to another world. That ephemeral world vanishes in a moment and all we are left with is its imprint on our psyche.
6. Next week’s Conversation:
Civility”
Wednesday, October 27, 2020 – 2 pm – Room 223 – Midtown
Since the 2008 Presidential election, civility has been in the news. People shouting at one another at town meetings. Certain cable news attacking each other, using ad hominum language. The President being called a "liar” during his Congressional presentation. Attacks on Islam with the almost burning of the4 Qu’ran. Hate crimes such as the video that caused the suicide death of Rutgers’ student Tyler Climenti who jumped off the George Washington Bridge recently.
7. UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:
What about one of these topics?
“Meaning”
“Money”
“Repetition”
“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”
“Heroism”
“Concentration”
“Coping with Adversity”
Student Poetry showcase
“Empathy”
“Connecting the Dots”
Role play of Cynical people
“Cold Calling in Sales
“He’s Just Not That into You”
Critical Listening Institute II – Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero”
Critical Listening Institute III: “Abbott & Costello’s ‘Who’s On First?’”
“Criticism – Giving and Receiving”
“Logical Fallacies”
“Freedom II”
Faculty Colloquy I: T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”
presented by Professor Carlisle Yearwood
“Gender Communication II”
“SPAR Debate”
“Distraction II”
“Negotiation II”
“Imagination II”
“Rodney King: ‘Can’t We Just Get Along?’ II”
“Political Savvy”
“Emotions: Anger II”
And dozens of others!
8. Fall Activities of the Communication Department
1. Job Seminar I - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 - 2-3:30 pm - Room 223 -Midtown campus
· Resumes and Cover letters - led by Professors George Backinoff and Gena Bardwell
· Students are encouraged to bring their current resumes and cover letters to the seminar for comments
· The Job Seminar II in the Spring will focus on Interviewing Techniques.
This seminar augments the work covered in the GCA 100 class.
· Co-sponsored by the Advisement Office, Ms. Sophia Volfson, Director
2. "Stage Fright" Seminar - Thursday, November 4, 2010 - 2-3:30 pm - Room 223 - Midtown campus
· Led by Professor Gena Bardwell, this seminar addresses this major perpetual obstacle of Communication courses in order to demystify the #1 phobia that many people experience. The seminar will include a number of interactive exercises.
· Co-sponsored by the Advisement Office, Ms. Sophia Volfson, Director
3. NYSCAS Faculty Development Day - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - 9 am - 2 pm
  • “Using PowerPoint Effectively”
Workshop is led by Professors George Backinoff and Richard Green
  • “The Mind's Ear - Applying Energetic and Effective Listening in the Classroom”
Workshop is led by Professor Jason Carvell
  • “The Teacher as Role Model: Teacher Modeling and Student Engagement”
Workshop is led by Professor Gena Bardwell
4. The 10th Speech Contest – Tuesday, December 7, 2010
  • Students present their Information Speeches before judges who are faculty, staff and administration. The Contest Finalists have been chosen by their classmates in three Communication classes.
  • Cash prizes are awarded.
  • Finalists from the lst, 2nd and 8th contests can be viewed on the TouroCommunicationClub.blogspot.com
5. The Touro Communication Club – Wednesdays at 2 pm – Room 223 –Midtown
Now in its 4th year with over 120 meetings, The Communication Club is open to anyone – students especially – who is interested in participating in an open discussion about a variety of general topics including: “Current Events,” “Emotions,” “Gender Talk,” “Handling Conflict,” “Student Poetry,” etc. With the underlying purpose of promoting “thinking on your feet,” everyone’s opinion in this setting is welcome. Professor Hal Wicke is the moderator. A record of every meeting is available at
TouroCommunicationClub.blogspot.com and is emailed to all participants.
Compare the notice of the session with what really happened!
9. What happened on Wednesday, October 13, 2010?
Current Events – Summer and Fall 2010
The summer was over almost before it began. As school has just started, the swirl of news that will affect us sooner or later has an impact on every one of us. We need to take off our iPods and suspend our Tweets to find out what’s happening outside our bubble.
Among the many events on the horizon are the midterm Congressional elections which typically have a small voter turnout. That means clever politicians can slip by sleepy voters who just don’t care who is in government.
All these items should trigger some awareness: BP, NYC mosque, the almost Qu’ran burning, the hottest summer on record, a lousy job picture, a slow economic return, the end of the Iraq war which American soldiers are still getting killed, A Rod hits 500 homeruns, the Tea Party, Tiger Woods isn’t winning any more, , incivility continues with Tyler Climenti’s suicide, the new Nixmary Brown.
Forgive me – I can’t tell you what’s happening in the pop world or WWF or whether Lindsay Lohan is still in jail. You can be our entertainment reporter.
Three newcomers joined the lively discussion. They included Yi Cai, Carneil May and Lillian McCray. Familiar faces included Nina Davila, Richard Green, Markus Vayandorf, Carlisle Yearwood, Charles Mason and Hal Wicke.
Hal put an extensive chart of current events topics on the board under categories: international, national, local, people and general topics.
The inevitable midterm politics dominated the discussion, particularly the Tea Party. Cai was interested in the impact of languages on politics. He is from Mexico and is bi-lingual in Chinese and Spanish. Richard and Cai had a productive interchange in Spanish.
Charles brought up “female circumcism” as a possible topic for discussion. Hal suggested that we should have a separate discussion on the topic and not have it get lost in a general discussion. We might frame it in terms of “Women’s Rights” or “Human Rights.” Lillian reinforced the need to discuss the topic since so few people knew about it. As a member of the National Organization of Women (NOW), she wanted to advocate for women’s issues.
Back to the Tea Party. Since there was no one to play secretary, Hal became so involved with the discussion that he wasn’t able to write and chew gum.
Suffice it to say, the discussion covered the impact of the Tea Party on the election and the various Tea Party candidate, many of whom are running under a Republican flag. Tea Party/Republican Senate candidates include Sharron Angle (Nevada). Christine O’Donnell (Delaware), Joe Miller (Alaska) among others. And, of course, the Republican gubernatorial candidate for New York, Carl Palladino.
Several people were concerned about the kind of issues the Tea Party was promoting and the way they were campaigning. In fact, the consensus was that the language and advertising strategies employed in the campaigning for both parties was very disappointing.
The question raised most often was ‘In view of who is running, who do you vote for?”
That $64,000 question was left unanswered as we adjourned at 4:10 pm still discussing a number of topics.
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We always have a great time exploring these issues. So often our daily life never focuses on these Communication issues. If you have something you want us to discuss please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.

Next time bring a friend. The Communication Club is always an open discussion, limited only by time. Everyone gets a chance to speak. All opinions are welcome. Here is an opportunity for students to challenge professors’ views outside the class without any homework or assignments. You just have to show up and listen and talk if you want.