Random Posts

• Recommended viewing – The Story of Stuff
• Write a letter
• Kiva.org and my first Wordpress Plugin!

“how come” lends itself to some interesting suggestion on Google. A couple are dirty, while others are sad. But one stands out with “how come a cupcake is not a mineral”. To my surprise, many of the the answer sites out there offer answers to this question that must be nearly as old as time.

Random Posts

• Friday Round Up
• Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution
• A little GM math

@LouiseShaffer’s tweets really made my day!

Over on my other blog, Road 2 Nowhere, I tend to gush about music I love. I absolutely adore music. I’m no good at making it, no one would ever accuse me of being a musician! What I am is one hell of a music appreciator. What I love about Road is that I have a place to share all the awesome music I love so much with anyone who will listen.

While loving something is great, and telling people about things you love is grand, it’s really not reviewing. Thoughtful criticism is the most useful offering you can give to a creator, be she an author, musician or artist. I don’t know that I’m the person to offer such insights. My motivation to write about another’s work always comes from that same place, the desire to share something I enjoy. I do not have the drive to write about things I don’t enjoy, and usually I don’t get through entertainment that I don’t enjoy. Reading crappy books is not for me. I may start a bad book, but once my interest is lost, I’m not going to be picking that book back up. My apologies to all the crappy books out there. Listening to sub-standard music is not for me either.

So, I’ve made a decision, to admit to what it is that I do, and what I enjoy doing: giving recommendations. I’ll leave the reviews for the critics.

Random Posts

• Write a letter
• Book Review: Serendipity: A Novel by Louise Shaffer
• Important Kiva Widget Upgrade

The top suggestion is the standout one for me: “why can’t I own a canadian”? with the runner up being “why are canadians afraid of the dark”. What the…? Who is it that wants to own me and my people, and why do they thing we are afraid of the dark?!?!?

Random Posts

• My Personal Brand Identity Crisis
• New release of the Kiva Widget
• Why you should follow @DrWayneWDyer #FollowFriday

http://www.richardsonpictures.co.uk

I’m watching Dan Hill on The Hour right now. He was just discussing one of his father’s parenting techniques that is absolutely brilliant. Every time Dan asked his father for something, his dad made him write a letter. By encouraging Dan to clearly articulate his justifications for needing a raise in his allowance, or that shiny new bike, Mr. Hill instilled invaluable skills in his son. I’m going to have to remember this one! Not only will my kids gain lessons in communication and persuasion, but I’ll be able to get some down time when they are off writing these letters. Brilliant!

Random Posts

• How to be alone
• A little GM math
• Could whole grains be the problem?

Wisdom like the four cardinal virtues of of Lao-tzu is just as taste of the good, source-fuelled tweets you will get when you follow @DrWayneWDyer.

While you are at it, how about you follow me too (@marilynburges)!

Random Posts

• The Surprising Science of Motivation by Dan Pink
• Could whole grains be the problem?
• Friday Round Up #2 – The can you believe it’s September edition

Eve Ensler states that within each of us, men and women alike, is an inner girl. This inner girl essence is where our compassion, empathy, vulnerability, openness, and  intuition reside. She reminds us that:

Compassion informs wisdom and that
Vulnerability is our greatest strength and that
Emotions have inherent logic that lead to radical appropriate saving action.

But, our patriarchal society has systematically annihilated this inner girl, perhaps more harshly in men than in women, denying each of us the willingness to embrace our compassion and empathy. While we’ve been busy embracing our inner men, our competitive, empire building natures, we have allowed great cruelties to happen. Horrific atrocities against girls, against people, in the form of wars, genocides, rapes, beatings and female mutilations continue to happen each and day, despite the fact that there is a little voice in each of us, trying to yell at the top of her lungs, that this pain must stop. If we embrace our inner girls, and listen to their empathetic cries, would these atrocities continue?

I’ll be honest here, I have long been an anti-feminist. It is not that I don’t believe in equality for women. I most certainly do believe in equality. I believe that each person has inherent value that should never be denied, irrespective of sex, race or any other defining characteristic. I have a distaste for the way the feminist movement was executed, and the results that came out of it. Mainly the doubling of the work force, that essentially cut the value of labour in half, and made it so I will most likely not be able to afford to stay home to raise my children.

Ensler’s sort of feminism is quite different from the variety that I find myself resenting. Watching this moving talk made me realize that I have been throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water. I have been a very lucky person, my parents supported me, and encouraged my endeavours as ferociously as they would if I had been their son. I never felt the effects of sexism growing up. For this I am grateful. Ensler reminded me that not all girls are as lucky as me. Girls across the globe still need to be stood up for, as do our inner girls! Our compassion and empathy must be valued in order to put a stop to violence against against girls, against people.

Comment Zen*

I would love to hear about your views of feminism, both of feminism of the 1960s whose consequences we live with today, and of modern feminism. How does today’s women, and men, best embrace our inner girls to allow the inner girls of tomorrow to thrive?

* The term “Comment Zen” is lovingly stolen from Havi Brooks.

You might also like...

• Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution
• The Surprising Science of Motivation by Dan Pink

Fast forward a few months and you have me juggling 3-4 separate brands, and not being able to devote myself to any. Today my focus has next to deserted my Urpi’s Dream blog, and it’s brand. When I look at the old Urpi’s Dream blog, I don’t even get that guilty feeling that I’m neglecting something important to me. The content I intend to write on my personal blog is very dear to me. It is the personal brand, or identity that I no longer feel close to.

In the name of simplicity, I am embracing my name and my home as my personal brand. Marilyn Burgess from Vancouver, BC.

Random Posts

• Write a letter
• On embracing my inner girl
• Important Kiva Widget Upgrade

All that aside, I can’t get over the numbers: $39.5 BILLION! $30B from the American government and $9.5B from the Canadian government is going to GM. That is a ridiculous amount of money! In a very anti-capitalist move, these governments are taking over a crippled business that is $172 Billion in debt. Why? Why is it so important that GM be saved? They made poor business decisions that led them to this mess, why should the government be bailing them out?

The employees? GM employs 243,000 people. That is a lot of people! GM employees more people than all of the people who lost their jobs in Ontario since October 2008 (234,000). If all of these people lost their jobs on the same day, tough times would certainly fall for many, concentrated in particular regions of the Canada and the US. Times are already hard, GM going under would definitely make times much harder.

But, imagine this: $39.5 Billion divided by 243,000 is $162,551 per GM employee. What if all of that money was not to go to saving a dying relic from another time, but it went to programs, grants and loans for education, re-training and small businesses. What if it went to the individual employees that stand to lose their jobs, in ways that encourage these individuals to get creative, better themselves, and find something productive to do. What potentials could these individuals realize if they were given such opportunities?

It saddens me to realize, we will likely never know.

You might also like...

• Passing on Innovation Led to Bankruptcy for an American Icon?

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

Thank you very much JL!!

Kiva is moving their images around, and the widget wasn’t handling it. I have incorporated JL’s suggestion and released the update of the Wordpress Plugin. In addition, I added a cache check to fix up all of the missing images that may be out there right now.

Get the Kiva Wordpress Widget Version 2.1 here.

You might also like...

• Important Kiva Widget Upgrade
• Kiva.org and my first Wordpress Plugin!
• Kiva Loans Wordpress Widget