Wow, What great corn
on the cob!

Humor is good. I missed the group of friends who regularly sent me jokes, full of funny stories and pictures by email. One died, one is ill and the other one is just too busy. I do not like jokes that demean persons or stigmatized them, no matter how good the intentions are. A friend sent me an email today poking fun at me, without a story or picture, but by characterizing me. The friend meant it as humorous but I had mixed feelings about it. I responded seriously and with a bit of my own humor. Seriousness and humor, however, do not mix in emails and my email could have been taken the wrong way.

That is the problem with emails; the typed words are frozen in time in an email. Without a voice, seeing, hearing, feeling or touching, the five senses, words can easily be misunderstood, misjudged or misused. Some great writers like Dorothy Day or Mahatma Gandhi had a tough time publicly speaking. Other great speakers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were not so good at writing.

Presently on my quotes page I have quotes from great writers, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi and the greatest of them all Thomas Merton. I have been thinking for some time about adding a quote web page for Martin Luther King. Now with King’s s birthday approaching and looking for a great speaker I admire, I will do it.

Most of King’s quotes are from speeches he gave. In fact, his autobiography that was compiled after he died uses many of his speeches to tell his story as well as some of his writings.

There are a lot of email writers but I do not think any of them will be great just by their emails. For writing and speaking have something in common that just emails do not have. Great writing, book, web, articles etc., and great speeches have in common the use of the five senses of the imagination, touch, taste, and hearing, seeing and smelling. Good writing and good speaking unite the reader or listener to what is being talked about by the senses of the imagination. Without a picture or story it is hard in an email to tell a good joke.

Emails, and even more so tweets, are just brief expressions to communicate. Emotion and senses do not play much of a role in emails. Humor is good but needs imagination which can be created best by writing and speaking.

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