(www.thegoldenpencil.com)
I don’t know why I haven’t blogged every anniversary about 911 – it may be that the resulting attacks on our Constitution and our Bill of Rights have discouraged me from it. I did, however, post in 2006
As it happens today I’m actually writing a bit about Martin Seligman who developed the theory of Learned Helplessness. He found that how we are in the world as individuals has much more to do with the way we explain things to ourselves, particularly negative things, than you might expect. We are also influenced by how others explain those same things to …read more

Today, mother’s day has become a commercial venture, replete with over priced and unsustainable cut flowers, mountains of cards printed on non-recycled paper and questionable gifts. But it wasn’t started that way.
Mother’s Day creator Julia Ward Howe, who also wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” wrote the following proclamation, in part as a response to the bloody Civil War in the United States:
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether
our baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant
agencies. Our husbands shall not come to …read more

On April 18th I posted the possibility of a silent vigil sparked by OneDayBlogSilence.com. After some agonizing I’ve decided not to be totally silent – it seemed to me that if I were going to be silent here I also needed to be silent in the rest of my life for the day, which simply isn’t possible.
So I acknowledge here we need to do something about violence. Here are two links that are truly helpful in thinking about what non violence actually means:

The Center For Nonviolent Communication teaches how to eliminate violence from your communication. They also help you …read more

We’re all struggling with the events shootings at Virginia Tech Monday. One approach has been a call for a silent vigil in the blogosphere Monday, April 30. Lorelle VanFossen announced the move and followed up with a moving account of her experience in Israel.
Among freelance writers there is some sense and a lot of confusion about Cho Seung-Hui’s writing. How is violent writing to be interpreted?
In the larger sense, many of us find ourselves also reacting to violence in general, in Iraq, in the drive-by-shootings in ghettos in the U.S. and everywhere around the world.
My personal response has been …read more

Martin Luther King Jr, best known for his I Have A Dream speech, also spoke out in favor of peace and descent in general. Although his words come from the Viet Nam era, I think his writings have major importance today.
Consider:

King on War and Peace

King on the call to conscience

Ah, if I could write like that….
Write well and often,

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