I have a "YouTube" show that I put on for visitors.

The show evolves—the George W. Bush impression that seemed hilarious in 2006 is past the point now; and even shut-ins have by now seen that thing with the guy juggling to the Beatles—and I show different people different stuff.

For instance, I show parents the Mom song.

Old married couples get John Prine and Iris DeMent singing "In Spite of Ourselves."

Chicagoans, journalists and boozers get the video of Mike Royko talking about softball at the Billy Goat Tavern.

Golfers and Scotsmen get the Robin Williams routine about the invention of golf.

But there’s one video I show all my guests, because, more than even the Martin Luther King "I Have A Dream" speech—people have to be pretty drunk to let me put them through that—these seven minutes demonstrate everything I think I know about communication: Why it works, how it works, when it works.

It’s Fred Rogers, in the year I was born, taking on a crusty, showboating senator to secure funding despite proposed cuts by President Nixon. Have a look—and then paste in the link to your favorite YouTube delight, communication or otherwise.

The former president of Chicago State University left this summer under a cloud when it was discovered she lived like Falstaff on the taxpayer’s dime. A "leadership conference" aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean, with her whole family along, for $15,000. Etcetera.

From a story in today’s Chicago Tribune, we learn that among Elnora Daniel’s last extravagances was the commissioning, for $18,000, of a glossy coffee table book honoring … herself. "A Retrospective: Ten Years of Vision and Leadership."

Of course the Trib didn’t have a hard time finding observers to question the strategic wisdom of putting out a book glorifying a departing chief executive.

More delightfully, a fellow turned up who defended the book, Chicago State’s Honors College Dean Richard Milo:

"It is an elaborate memento, but I am not saying inappropriate. There are people at the university who thought and continue to think highly of Dr. Daniel and would much rather she be remembered for the positive things than the few missteps that garnered the university some unwelcome publicity."

It’s leadership like this that makes "strategic communication" the joke that it so often is, no?

I was sitting between two pre-teens, one eight, one maybe 10, on Sunday evening, Aug. 3, the day I realized that airline travel in the U.S. was over.

Their grandmother, on the window, explained to me apologetically:

* She booked this trip in May.

* The stupid airline split the kids up for some reason, putting Ten in the center seat next to her, Eight across the row.

* Grandma had called and asked the airline to switch the seats, but the airline refused (even though she herself is a flight attendant [for another airline] {which proudly she showed off by inappropriately using lots of highfalutin references to "the aircraft" and "air pockets" and the flight attendants’ "final walk through"}).

* And no, unfortunately, Eight didn’t want to switch with me so the girls could sit together, because Eight wanted to hold the baby of the woman in the center seat, next to her.

I am "Sir" when Gramdma is apologizing to me directly for having to pass back and forth food, pillows, tea packets, drinks, a stuffed monkey, a Hollywood gossip magazine. I am "the Gentleman"–and sometimes "the poor Gentleman"–when grandma is noisily scolding one or both of the girls for bumping me, poking me, jostling me or pressing me into service gratuitously as a messenger.

I read The New York Times Sunday magazine with a comical fierceness, and maintain a stoic politeness. As if being placed at the center of this new family is no big deal, even for a man who is going to be quizzed upon landing on the contents of a magazine. I smile occasionally but I do not say that I have a daughter myself.

Early in the flight, Grandma has apparently tallied up my behaviors, run them against her flight attendant’s Remembered Customer Database and held the whole information collection up against my short haircut. She asks me, "Sir, are you in the military? Well, you just seem like military personnel."

The girls are … well, when the flight attendant informs me that I cannot get even a glass of water without paying, Ten whispers in my ear, "Things are getting so expensive these days!" I pretend not to hear. She taps me on the arm and repeats: "You know, things are getting so expensive these days!"

"Yes," I agree. "They are."

At the flight’s halfway point, the girls switch seats, Ten pushing past to see the baby, Eight hopping over my lap to sit beside Grandma.

"He’s so patient," Grandma says by way of apologizing for the hassle.

The girls are patient, too–with their Grandma’s constant nudging not to bite their nails, asking whether they’re finished with their soda and ready to put it away, wondering if they’d like a vanilla wafer.

Eight is complaining about her new seating assignment, and craning her neck over my book–I’ve proofread the magazine by now–to jealously count the joys that Ten is having with the baby. Probably to interrupt Ten’s conversation with the baby’s mother, Eight asks once again for the gossip magazine, which has now crossed over the aisle at least four times.

"Come on, girls, sit still!" Grandma says. She bellows it, because she’s got her headphones on to watch the in-flight movie, Tales of Narnia. "This guy’s going to throw you out the window!"

"Come on, girls, behave! This gentleman’s doing his best not to knock your head off!"

"Don’t hit him or I will spank you!"

"Sit still! The Gentleman’s right next to you. You guys have been up and down, up and down. I’m getting a little aggravated."

And then on the ground, more recrimination. "You were making this poor man jump up and down like a yo-yo!"

I’m on my way down the aisle, fairly pushing people out of the way to escape back into the world outside Modern Airline Travel, where I still, occasionally, manage to be something other than a "poor Gentelman," but the Eight and Ten don’t get away so easy. The last thing I hear as I sprint up the jetway is, "Hurry up, girls, these people want to deplane!"