Effective presidents and charismatic leaders get things done when they work as a team. Dr. Martin Luther King changed the course of American history and President Lyndon B. Johnson put those changes into law. Dr. King was a visionary. President Johnson knew how to get legislation enacted. As a team, these two men shared a belief in human equality. They changed human rights in the United States forever.
What else is there to say?
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Hillary Rodham Clinton for President
Hillary Rodham Clinton won in New Hampshire, and I hope she wins the Democratic nomination for president. She has the brains and the guts to be a great president. She understands domestic issues and international politics. She can stand up to the bullies of the world. She has had a lot of practice standing up to the bullies in the United States. Even the American public can now see through the smears that unscrupulous people have plastered on her.
Senator Clinton attracts hatred the way any high profile and powerful American woman would. Woman-hating in this country and world-wide is astronomical. It is so common that we fail to notice it and take it for granted. At last, many people in the United States are declaring that what Hillary has endured is unfair. Those who smear her have no decency.
Hillary is taking the heat for all women. She is a symbol and reality that women are competent and can hold their own with men. Many men and women want to keep men on the pedestal of power, privilege, and prestige. Hillary is saying, Whoa. I am a woman. I am a leader. I want to lead the United States back to its roots of freedom and justice for all. No more cover-ups of selfish destructive motives through talking about flags, patriotism, and terrorism.
She signals the challenge to the politics of fear and deceit that has damaged this country and many parts of the world.
John Edwards and Barack Obama would also make good presidents, but the time in now for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Senator Clinton attracts hatred the way any high profile and powerful American woman would. Woman-hating in this country and world-wide is astronomical. It is so common that we fail to notice it and take it for granted. At last, many people in the United States are declaring that what Hillary has endured is unfair. Those who smear her have no decency.
Hillary is taking the heat for all women. She is a symbol and reality that women are competent and can hold their own with men. Many men and women want to keep men on the pedestal of power, privilege, and prestige. Hillary is saying, Whoa. I am a woman. I am a leader. I want to lead the United States back to its roots of freedom and justice for all. No more cover-ups of selfish destructive motives through talking about flags, patriotism, and terrorism.
She signals the challenge to the politics of fear and deceit that has damaged this country and many parts of the world.
John Edwards and Barack Obama would also make good presidents, but the time in now for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Monday, November 19, 2007
People Read More when Writers Produce Attention-Grabbing Stuff
Reading is important, no doubt about it. People who read well earn more money than those who do not, are more active in civic affairs, and are able to take many factors into account before they act. Yet, many people in the U.S. are reading less, according to a new report put out by the National Endowment for the Arts, an agency of the federal government.
What to do? Make all forms of written material as interesting as YouTube or television advertisements. People are reading. They are reading e-mail, MySpace, websites, graphic novels, and all kinds of other interesting stuff.
By their behaviors, today’s readers are telling those who write that they have to do better. Be interesting. Be short. Be funny. Use graphics. Use sounds. Make reading fun. Match reading to the incredible imaginations that so many people have.
The decline in reading is a challenge to writers. Write better stuff. It really is that simple.
A case in point: Children nine and younger have great reading scores. Why? Because author who write for children write TO children. They write what children want to read. The stories are short and fun. They appeal to children’s imaginations. They have great graphics. Many appeal to multiple senses—sound, smell, taste. Many have DVDS that go along with children’s books.
If children’s writers can do it, we all can. It’s win-win.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
What to do? Make all forms of written material as interesting as YouTube or television advertisements. People are reading. They are reading e-mail, MySpace, websites, graphic novels, and all kinds of other interesting stuff.
By their behaviors, today’s readers are telling those who write that they have to do better. Be interesting. Be short. Be funny. Use graphics. Use sounds. Make reading fun. Match reading to the incredible imaginations that so many people have.
The decline in reading is a challenge to writers. Write better stuff. It really is that simple.
A case in point: Children nine and younger have great reading scores. Why? Because author who write for children write TO children. They write what children want to read. The stories are short and fun. They appeal to children’s imaginations. They have great graphics. Many appeal to multiple senses—sound, smell, taste. Many have DVDS that go along with children’s books.
If children’s writers can do it, we all can. It’s win-win.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Elected Officials Defy Law, but Don't Pee Outside
I’m worried. The Bush administration defies the law. The California governor defies the law. If elected officials do not obey the law, what’s next? Lawlessness? I have visions of armed men taking over governorships, tanks rolling down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., and the next elected president with a gun against her temple being escorted out of the Oval Office because she did something someone else did not like.
I am afraid the United States will descend into chaos, where anyone, including those elected to powerful public office, will do whatever they please regardless of the law. Citizens who break the law are subject to arrest. What about elected officials?
How is it that the president of the United States can order the abduction and torture of citizens of other countries and get away with it? How can the governor of California enforce a law whose implementation the California Supreme Court has ordered to be stayed?
How is it that a man who was arrested for urinating under a bridge 22 years ago is a registered sex offender and is arrested under order of the governor of California? Yes, that is what happened. This man is a registered sex offender because he peed outside 22 years ago and was arrested this week for not letting police know where he lives.
There’s something rotten in the United States.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
I am afraid the United States will descend into chaos, where anyone, including those elected to powerful public office, will do whatever they please regardless of the law. Citizens who break the law are subject to arrest. What about elected officials?
How is it that the president of the United States can order the abduction and torture of citizens of other countries and get away with it? How can the governor of California enforce a law whose implementation the California Supreme Court has ordered to be stayed?
How is it that a man who was arrested for urinating under a bridge 22 years ago is a registered sex offender and is arrested under order of the governor of California? Yes, that is what happened. This man is a registered sex offender because he peed outside 22 years ago and was arrested this week for not letting police know where he lives.
There’s something rotten in the United States.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Sexual Play and Child Sexual Abuse
Sexual play between age peers is not sexual abuse. Curiosity about sexual body parts is developmentally appropriate, especially in young and school-age children. Sexual acts are play when spontaneous and brief, not pre-planned, and the children are about the same size and similar in physical strength and have similar understandings of the meanings of their behaviors and the consequences if adults find them in states of undress and engaged in activities that involve sexual body parts.
Activities that involve sexual body parts may not be sexual at all for children. They may experience a simple curiosity that arouse no other feelings but surprise and the satisfaction of curiosity or mild tingles that are pleasurable but do not move beyond that. Some children are at first shocked and a bit disgusted when they see the body parts of other children or learn about sexual intercourse. They may think that there own genitals are not that attractive either.
Children’s sexual development begins in the uterus and continues as the mature into teenagers and adults. Boy fetuses have erections and girl fetuses have genital swelling. Infants enjoy touching their genitals. Children begin asking questions about body parts and where babies come from at early ages. Little boys may be fascinated when they get erections.
Children learn which behaviors are appropriate and inappropriate from the adults in their lives. When children masturbate in public, for example, parents teach children to masturbate in private and tell them that such behaviors are private. If children grab other children’s sexual body parts, parents teach them not to do this under any circumstances. If such behaviors persist after parents and/or other adults give children guidelines about these behaviors, consultation with knowledgeable professionals is called for.
Sexuality is a natural part of being alive. Children’s understanding of sexuality depends upon children’s developmental levels and on how other people communicate about sex. When guided by adults who provide age-appropriate information and direction and who behave in sexually appropriate ways themselves, children develop sexually healthy and responsible behaviors and attitudes.
Healthy sexual development includes age-appropriate information about the various aspects of human sexuality, such as the names of sexual body parts starting when children are infants, appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, the various feelings and emotions connected with sexuality, and the many reasons people eventually want to engage in sexual touching and sexual intimacy.
Children whose parents have fostered healthy sexual development may be better prepared to deal with attempts others may make to sexually abuse them. For certain, if someone does abuse them, they are much more likely to tell someone right away than children who do not understand the difference between health and unhealthy sexual behaviors.
This is an excerpt from Everything You Were Afraid to Ask About Child Sexual Abuse by Jane Gilgun & AlanKaar Sharma available soon as a e-book or a book-on-demand.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Activities that involve sexual body parts may not be sexual at all for children. They may experience a simple curiosity that arouse no other feelings but surprise and the satisfaction of curiosity or mild tingles that are pleasurable but do not move beyond that. Some children are at first shocked and a bit disgusted when they see the body parts of other children or learn about sexual intercourse. They may think that there own genitals are not that attractive either.
Children’s sexual development begins in the uterus and continues as the mature into teenagers and adults. Boy fetuses have erections and girl fetuses have genital swelling. Infants enjoy touching their genitals. Children begin asking questions about body parts and where babies come from at early ages. Little boys may be fascinated when they get erections.
Children learn which behaviors are appropriate and inappropriate from the adults in their lives. When children masturbate in public, for example, parents teach children to masturbate in private and tell them that such behaviors are private. If children grab other children’s sexual body parts, parents teach them not to do this under any circumstances. If such behaviors persist after parents and/or other adults give children guidelines about these behaviors, consultation with knowledgeable professionals is called for.
Sexuality is a natural part of being alive. Children’s understanding of sexuality depends upon children’s developmental levels and on how other people communicate about sex. When guided by adults who provide age-appropriate information and direction and who behave in sexually appropriate ways themselves, children develop sexually healthy and responsible behaviors and attitudes.
Healthy sexual development includes age-appropriate information about the various aspects of human sexuality, such as the names of sexual body parts starting when children are infants, appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, the various feelings and emotions connected with sexuality, and the many reasons people eventually want to engage in sexual touching and sexual intimacy.
Children whose parents have fostered healthy sexual development may be better prepared to deal with attempts others may make to sexually abuse them. For certain, if someone does abuse them, they are much more likely to tell someone right away than children who do not understand the difference between health and unhealthy sexual behaviors.
This is an excerpt from Everything You Were Afraid to Ask About Child Sexual Abuse by Jane Gilgun & AlanKaar Sharma available soon as a e-book or a book-on-demand.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Karl Rove Scores Big in the Game of Being a Shit
Karl Rove has done it again—scored big in the game of being a shit. In three TV appearances on Sunday morning, Rove covered up his unkind deeds like the master he is. Cover-ups are of several different types. Rove used most of them.
Why are you picking on me?
Rove is the pick-on-other-people in-chief. Now he's complaining that the press is after him like Ahab after Moby Dick.
That’s not me while implying that it really is him
Rove declared in disgust that the press has made a myth out of him. This genius of the spoken word cloaks himself in one of the great myths and archetypes of all time when he says he is Moby Dick and the press is Ahab.
Someone else is responsible
Asked about his awful hip-hop performance at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner in March, Rove said, “They dragged me up there….I’ve got no choice…I can play along and show them that I’m a good sport.”
Yes, Karl. You have no will of your own. Who, by the way, is “they” and “them?”
Rove said he had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Wilson, the CIA agent, when the world knows he was at the center of it.
Everyone shares the blame
When asked if he has any responsibility in the weakening of the Republican Party, he answered that every Republican ought to feel responsible.
Talk about pointing the finger of blame as a way to shift the rightful blame from him to others. He is a master blame-shifter.
The Constitution ties his hands
Rove hid behind the Constitution as an explanation as to why he did not comply with a Congressional subpoena in hearings on the firings of several non-partisan U.S. Attorneys.
Name calling
Rove called reporters “agents of Congress” when they asked him about his role in the firings. This makes Congress appear to be a gang of outlaws.
This is genius-level rhetoric, masterful use of innuendo to shift attention and blame from him to others. Does he have to think about these responses or do they arise spontaneously in his mind?
Obeying orders
When asked why he subjected himself to so many question and answer shows in one day, he said, “Somebody else made the decision for me. I’m just doing what I was instructed to do.”
Rove is a master, a genius. Sit at his feet and you too may attain the Mount Olympus of being a shit.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Why are you picking on me?
Rove is the pick-on-other-people in-chief. Now he's complaining that the press is after him like Ahab after Moby Dick.
That’s not me while implying that it really is him
Rove declared in disgust that the press has made a myth out of him. This genius of the spoken word cloaks himself in one of the great myths and archetypes of all time when he says he is Moby Dick and the press is Ahab.
Someone else is responsible
Asked about his awful hip-hop performance at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner in March, Rove said, “They dragged me up there….I’ve got no choice…I can play along and show them that I’m a good sport.”
Yes, Karl. You have no will of your own. Who, by the way, is “they” and “them?”
Rove said he had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Wilson, the CIA agent, when the world knows he was at the center of it.
Everyone shares the blame
When asked if he has any responsibility in the weakening of the Republican Party, he answered that every Republican ought to feel responsible.
Talk about pointing the finger of blame as a way to shift the rightful blame from him to others. He is a master blame-shifter.
The Constitution ties his hands
Rove hid behind the Constitution as an explanation as to why he did not comply with a Congressional subpoena in hearings on the firings of several non-partisan U.S. Attorneys.
Name calling
Rove called reporters “agents of Congress” when they asked him about his role in the firings. This makes Congress appear to be a gang of outlaws.
This is genius-level rhetoric, masterful use of innuendo to shift attention and blame from him to others. Does he have to think about these responses or do they arise spontaneously in his mind?
Obeying orders
When asked why he subjected himself to so many question and answer shows in one day, he said, “Somebody else made the decision for me. I’m just doing what I was instructed to do.”
Rove is a master, a genius. Sit at his feet and you too may attain the Mount Olympus of being a shit.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis
How in the name that all is that good can a bridge collapse in the enlightened city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA? I live there. I know the values that most Minnesotans live by. This is a tragedy and a disgrace of national proportions.
I place the blame directly on George Bush who refuses to give the states money for upkeep of bridges and roads. I blame Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, who does not believe in allocating enough money to keep Minnesota bridges and roads safe. He and Bush are playing to an imaginary audience of greedy honchos who care about nobody but themselves.
Tunnel vision reigns. People like them do not see the bigger picture. Safe bridges, roads, families, and communities is what it is all about. It is not about making greedy people richer.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
I place the blame directly on George Bush who refuses to give the states money for upkeep of bridges and roads. I blame Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, who does not believe in allocating enough money to keep Minnesota bridges and roads safe. He and Bush are playing to an imaginary audience of greedy honchos who care about nobody but themselves.
Tunnel vision reigns. People like them do not see the bigger picture. Safe bridges, roads, families, and communities is what it is all about. It is not about making greedy people richer.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun who likes to laugh and talk. This blog is a way for me to connect with witty people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
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