Persuasion

In Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall , young Richard Cromwell says to his uncle, the rising Thomas Cromwell, "You are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on. " That's what I aim for at this blog, being persuasive.  

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: BLANDISHMENT All of us are susceptible to persuasion, but some methods are more effective than others. We can be persuaded to write that memo or file that form by nagging or outright threats, but most of us would probably prefer blandishments. Blandishment (pronounced BLAND-ish-ment)

DEAR JOYCE: I've just received a managerial position in a company too small to send me to executive continuing education at Harvard or to another prestigious program like the Center for Creative Leadership. Still, I recognize that I need to improve my ability to persuade and negotiate with others to back my proposals. What can you suggest? -- H.S.G.Loretta D. Foxman, a leading career counselor, has looked into this issue in detail. Writing in Personnel Journal, the president of the Chicago-based Cambridge Human Resource Group Inc. says you can read your way to persuasion expertise, hire a personal coach or attend classes and seminars.

In Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall , young Richard Cromwell says to his uncle, the rising Thomas Cromwell, "You are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir, to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in the street and stamped on. " That's what I aim for at this blog, being persuasive.  

The woman in the supermarket in a white coat tenders a free sample of lite cheese. A car salesman suggests prices won't stay low for long. Even a penny will help, pleads the door-to-door solicitor.Sale ends Sunday!Will work for food.The average American exists amid a perpetual torrent of propaganda. Everyone, it sometimes seems, is trying to make up someone else's mind. If it isn't an athletic shoe company, it's a politician, a panhandler, a pitchman, a boss, a billboard company, a spouse.

Tuesday is a double anniversary of note. Sixty years ago on April 12, Franklin D. Roosevelt, thought by many historians to be the greatest American president, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. And 50 years ago on April 12, one of Roosevelt's greatest accomplishments was announced. The crusade that he inspired and helped finance to conquer polio had achieved success with development of a vaccine to defend against that devastating disease. Some critics criticize the game of ranking presidents, saying it oversimplifies complex historical questions.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: BLANDISHMENT All of us are susceptible to persuasion, but some methods are more effective than others. We can be persuaded to write that memo or file that form by nagging or outright threats, but most of us would probably prefer blandishments. Blandishment (pronounced BLAND-ish-ment)

On Television Comanche Moon airs at 9 tonight on WJZ (Channel 13). Persuasion airs at 9 tonight on MPT (Channels 22, 67). Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs at 8 tonight on WBFF (Channel 45).

When Mother Earth devours her human children, she does not discriminate as they do on ethnicity, race, religion or political persuasion. Oh, how very inconsiderate.Cheer up. The candidates for mayor are better than their records.Thanks to the drought, more sharks are swimming up the bay. And you thought all our sharks were land animals.Save water. Bake, don't boil.

I first met Robert Maxwell in 1990 in London, where I was working as executive editor of the Sunday Correspondent, a smart startup national weekly paper that was gunned down in the crossfire of an advertising recession and ferocious competition. There was talk of his investing in it, but his well-established notoriety as a sleazy financial operator and an arrogant tyrant blocked that. I next met him in New York, when at the end of a brutal, violent strike, the Daily News -- of which I was editorial page editor -- collapsed financially and was sold, for essentially nothing, to Maxwell.

So now it's Ron Paul's turn. The diminutive Texas libertarian is poised in the latest polls to win the Iowa caucuses. Obviously, this would be rough news for Newt Gingrich - who's in third place and falling - and very good news for Mitt Romney, who has used Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Mr. Paul as blockers to fend off challenges from the various "not-Mitt" candidates of the moment. (Mr. Perry must feel particularly disoriented because he's been both blocker and blockee.)

The two sides in the controversy over the plan to redevelop the State Center complex of government offices in midtown Baltimore were in court this week, but the arguments there over the methods used to select the project's development team are a mere sideshow. Whether the state followed the appropriate procurement law is certainly important, but it is not the real reason why a group of downtown property and business owners — most notably, attorney Peter G. Angelos — have filed their lawsuit.

A lot of cities claim Edgar Allan Poe. And no wonder: He was born in Boston, adopted and raised in Richmond, Va. He went mad in Philadelphia, had his heart broken in Providence, R.I., composed his most famous poem, "The Raven," in New York. But Baltimore has what is surely the greatest honor, for it is here where Poe met his end — and where his mortal remains still lie, entombed in an oft-visited grave at Westminster Hall. The manner and circumstances of Poe's Baltimore death are suitably macabre: On the cusp of wedding his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Shelton — by then a widow of some means living in Richmond — Poe had taken a boat to Baltimore in late September of 1849.

Max Higgins Lauten, a highly regarded trial lawyer who was known for his understated but persuasive manner in the courtroom, died Friday of stomach cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 58. Mr. Lauten, whose father was a dentist and mother a college professor, was born and raised in Greensboro, N.C. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1973 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his law degree in 1976 from Emory University School of Law in Atlanta. In both college and law school, Mr. Lauten played rugby and was a founding member of the Emory University Rugby Club.

Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso ordered the city's high schools yesterday to try to individually track down the 925 students who have dropped out since January and get them back in class. While students are legally permitted to drop out of school once they turn 16, Alonso says it's unacceptable that they're allowed to go without a fight. American schools spend millions of dollars each year on dropout prevention, but they typically do little to help students once they're gone. "I don't want to be the head of a school system where 900 kids decide not to be in school and that's considered ordinary," Alonso said in an interview.

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia - President Bush's weeklong tour through Berlin, Rome, Paris and London appears every bit the glamorous old-style farewell tour with a leisurely schedule, jaunts to country castles and lavish dinners. But it's actually a high-stakes diplomatic mission, spurred by Bush's fear that Iran is an increasingly urgent threat and that Europe may not take it seriously enough. Bush has never been popular in Western Europe after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "A lot of people like America.

When parents and a school district disagree on how best to educate a disabled student, who should have the burden of persuasion if the issue goes to court? Basically, whoever initiates the court challenge, the U.S. Supreme Court said this week. That is most likely to be parents, such as the parents of a learning-disabled child in Montgomery County who brought this case to court. While the ruling seems to favor Goliath over David, school districts should not feel that their obligation to disabled students is diminished in any way. Federal law guarantees an individualized education program for each of the nation's more than 6 million special-education students.

THE DEFEAT of David Duke in the Louisiana gubernatorial race has saddened people all over the country, mostly members of the Ku Klux Klan. It was the Klan's greatest opportunity, and the feeling among the political Kleagles is that somehow Duke blew it.The KKK wizards met after the results were in to analyze what went wrong, and to make sure that the next KKK candidate did not make the same mistakes.The Grand Wizard said, "We had Louisiana in our shrouds. How did we fail?"A Grand Klaptrap responded, "We didn't burn enough crosses.

More than 80 percent of Baltimore-area residents say they're willing to do "a lot more" to prevent water pollution, but they don't want to pay more taxes to solve the problem, according to a newly released opinion survey. This suggests an ad campaign to educate people about steps they can take in their personal lives - picking up pet waste, using less lawn fertilizer and stopping littering - could help clean up Baltimore Harbor and the Chesapeake Bay, according to a pair of local environmental groups that commissioned the research.

On Television Comanche Moon airs at 9 tonight on WJZ (Channel 13). Persuasion airs at 9 tonight on MPT (Channels 22, 67). Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs at 8 tonight on WBFF (Channel 45).