Hmm...

... this is a neat one; American troops operating in Iraq are now being taught folk gestures and body language of the people they're working with, i.e. the Iraqi population. As a trainer for intercultural communications, this finds my approval, of course. Few people outside the little "ICC scene" might be aware of how important something as small as a thumbs-up or the rubbing of thumb and index/middle finger can be. Or rather, how diverse the meanings of such small things can be. You may have heard stories of US President Clinton allegedly embarrassing himself royally when he gave a crowd of Massai warriors a double thumbs-up. (Here's an alternative version suggesting Greece as the offended nation). Whether or not these stories hold true as incidents, there's definitely loads of differences in the way we use gestures. Now, if I could find some other way of getting breaks in my text besides jamming jpegs in between the lines, I'd put up a little gestures quiz for your amusement. Anybody wanna drop me a hint? The old html "span" thing doesn't seem to work - or rather, it works for my drafts and the preview option, but the blog itself won't do it. Okay, so here's the deal; if anyone can tell me an effective way of getting line breaks visible on the blog, I'll share some of my accumulated catalogue of folk gestures with you. In fact, what we'll do is, we'll have a competition; I will give away a grand prize(tba) to whoever gets the most meanings of folk gestures right. All contingent, of course, on SOMEBODY showing or telling me 'ow to get stupid line breaks. Arrgghh!