AGS founder receives Talbot Winchell Award.

Laurie Cox, founder of the Australian Society for General Semantics, has received the 2003 Talbot Winchell Award. This award is given annually by the Institute of General Semantics to persons who have significantly furthered the spread of general semantics.

Cox was awarded this honor for his founding of the AGS in the early 1990s, and for his writing on general semantics, including his book, Self-Management in Difficult Situations. The award will be presented at The Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics in Las Vegas, Nevada, in October-November, 2003. Cox plans to travel from Australia to the USA to attend the conference and to accept the award.

Past recipients of the Talbot Winchell Award include Sanford I. Berman, Isabel Caro, Milton Dawes, Jeremy Klein, Bruce Kodish, Susan Presby Kodish, Harry Maynard, Charlotte Read, and Robert Wanderer.

David Hewson of the AGS told ETC, "Laurie would like to thank the people who initially helped him set up AGS: Andrew Lohrey (co-founder), Robert James, Phillip Anthony, Brett MacDonald, Frank Rew, Sandra Swain, Jim Walker, Susie Foran, Megan Jones, Glenn Mitchelson, Heather Roger, Pauline Davis, and Gavan Callaghan. And a special thank you to Laurie's wife Betty, whose support made all this possible.

"Laurie would also like to thank current AGS members for their continuing support of AGS: Fred and Agnus Kren, Eva Lucas, Dr. Anna Vass, Daisy and Marcel Stein, Gary Erickson, Ian Wilson, Andrew Davis, and Barbara Briggs."

For a Profile and an excerpt from Cox's book, see pp.138-142 in this ETC. For Gregory Sawin's review of Self Management in Difficult Situations, see ETC vol. 58 no. 1, Spring 2001. For information on the book, contact the Australian Society for General Semantics (contact information below).

News from AGS

The Australian Society for General Semantics meets regularly at locations in the Sydney area. On August 10, Robert James will discuss Personality, "Nature or Nurture, Jung or Freud, Aristotle or Korzybski, dichotomy or continuum--How can we possibly comprehend the human condition?"

On September 13, Laurie Cox will speak on Application of correct symbolism to fact, which includes, "Using language to maximize predictability, communication and problem solving."

On October 12, David Hewson will present Critical thinking from a GS perspective. "Learn how the formulations of the critical thinking movement, along with GS formulations, can help you improve your thinking ability."

On November 8, Laurie Cox will offer Semanti-therapy, which "deals predominantly with our 'thoughts,' evaluations, and 'emotions,' as it emphasizes the cognitive aspect of a therapeutic approach."

For more information on AGS activities, contact Laurie Cox, 15/12 Walton Crescent, Abbotsford, NSW 2046, Australia. Telephone: [phone]. [e-mail], www.pcug.org.au/~ajames/agshome.htm.

Fall Seminar-Workshop

The Institute of General Semantics (IGS) will offer its five-day Seminar-Workshop in General Semantics beginning October 26th at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. This seminar-workshop serves as the Institute's primary training program, continuing the educational efforts that began in 1938. Participants will learn both theory and applications pertaining to the general semantics system for personal awareness, evaluation and development. Seminar staff will include Jeff Mordkowitz (Director of IGS), Dr. Bruce I. Kodish and Dr. Susan Presby Kodish (co-authors of Drive Yourself Sane), Milton Dawes (ISGS Director and ETC contributor) and Steve Stockdale (ISGS Director and IGS Director for Programs). Visit the IGS website (www.general-semantics.org) for details, call 817-886-3746, or e-mall [e-mail] for more information.

International Conference

The Twelfth International Conference on General Semantics will be held at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas October 31st-November 2nd, 2003. Sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics, the International Society for General Semantics and the New York Society for General Semantics, the Conference will feature the presentation of fifteen juried papers, five workshops and plenty of time for stimulating discussion regarding the theme of how we can cope and cooperate in an environment of conflicting world views and belief systems. Dr. Sanford I. Berman will deliver the annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture on Saturday, November 1st, to highlight the weekend's activities. For more information, see the back cover of this ETC, visit the Institute's website at www.general-semantics.org, contact the Conference Coordinator, Steve Stockdale, [e-mail], or call 817-886-3746.

General Semantics at NCTE Convention

Four ISGS members will lead a panel session on general semantics at the annual convention for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) on November 21, 2003, in San Francisco. ETC Editorial Board advisors Gregg Hoffmann, Andrea Johnson, Steve Stockdale, and educational consultant Katherine Liepe-Levinson will present General Semantics and Critical Literacy: Interdisciplinary Approaches that Enable Students to Become Better Problem-Solvers and Critical Thinkers.

Individual presentations include: Steve Stockdale: Language Matters: A Practical Grammar for Critical Literacy; Katherine Liepe-Levinson: Enhancing Student Thinking-and-Feeling Vocabularies Using General Semantics and the Techniques of the Professional Actor; Andrea Johnson: Critical Thinking and Communication: Writing as an Organization of 'Reality'; and Gregg Hoffimann: Mapping the Media: Using General Semantics to Become More Media Literate.

"In addition to our presentation, the Institute of General Semantics will sponsor an exhibit booth during the convention from November 21st-23rd," reports Steve Stockdale. If you plan to attend the NCTE convention, look for the general semantics exhibit at Booth #837, located in the Moscone Center West, Level One. The theme of the exhibit will be, "General Semantics ... it's not what you think."

New York Society for General Semantics

At the March 13 meeting of the NYSGS, Leonard Shlain, M.D., presented The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, co-sponsored with Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Frank Scardilli, Chief Circuit Mediator, U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, and Adjunct Professor of Law, spoke on How to Get What You Want by Improving Your Negotiating and Conflict Resolution Skills on April 24. Jeff Mordkowitz, Director of the Institute of General Semantics, gave a full-day stress reduction seminar, The SevenSimpleSteps[TM] Way to a Stress Free Day, on May 17.

Most NYSGS meetings are held at the Albert Ellis Institute, 45 East 65th St., New York City, free to members of NYSGS and IGS. Non-members pay $20. For details, including the NYSGS 2003 lecture schedule or for a copy of the Society's newsletter, Verbal Level, contact NYSGS President Allen Flagg at [phone], or [e-mail], or visit www.nysgs.org.

Teaching GS

Professor Andrea Johnson, a member of the ETC Editorial Board, teaches general semantics at Alverno College in Milwaukee. As she has in years past, this summer she offers an Advanced General Semantics course, PCM-449, but in a slightly different format than the typical summer school session. Students in this advanced class will earn three hours of course credit in an intensive one-week, seminar-type class. Professor Johnson has invited ISGS Directors Milton Dawes and Steve Stockdale to assist her in teaching the class, which will provide her students with a rare opportunity to learn general semantics from three distinctively different perspectives. If you are an educator interested in offering a similar type of learning experience for your students, contact Andrea Johnson, who will be pleased to share her course development experiences with you. Her e-mail is: [e-mail].

Leo Globus, 1918-2003

Leo Globus, co-author of the entertaining and instructive general-semantics-based Living & Learning children's songs, died on May 28 in Montreal, Canada, after a long illness.

"Few who read ETC today would have known people like S. I. Hayakawa, Wendell Johnson, and Irving Lee as my father did," his son Paul told ETC. "But his contribution to the ideas espoused in ETC runs deeper than his acquaintance with these men. Through the Living & Learning series of children's songs he created with my late mother, Helen Koty, in the early 1950s, he touched many, helping not so much to popularize the concepts we continue to discuss and grapple with, as to make them more understandable--even to young children. In later life, he continued to ponder that which so captivated him as a younger man, concluding that education should move toward teaching people how to think as opposed to what to think. One can only hope that his vision for a world less paralyzed by dogma and foolishly straitjacketed thinking will one day come to pass."

An interview with Leo Globus by his son Paul appeared in the Winter 2000-2001 ETC. Cassette tapes of the Living & Learning songs by Leo and Helen Globus are available from ISGS.

Gardner Gateley

ETC author Gardner Gateley, Professor Emeritus at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, died on May 26, aged 73. Professor Gateley's refereed paper "Johnson's Diagnosogenic Theory of Stuttering: An Update," appeared in the Spring 2003 ETC.

Other articles by Professor Gateley were published in ETC vols. 56-3, 56-4, 57-1, 57-3.