please tread lightly

Trying to tread lightly through the day, work and life

Category Archives: -tnt-

There is a first time for everything: my first online recorded discussion

Taking advantage of technology can be a bit intimidating. On the one hand we talk about all of the wonderful possibilities that technology offers, and on the other we don’t really use it. I have become a true Google+ aficionado (or addict) and yet, I seldom use one of the biggest advantages Google offer, the possibility for video chats with up to 10 people called Hangouts. However, in the last month or so I have also been following some Hangouts on Air (Hangouts that get recorded and are available on youtube) of some very smart and thoughtful people. So, yesterday I joined  David Amerland: (http://helpmyseo.com/)  Mark Traphagen, Director of Digital Marketing at Virante: https://plus.google.com/+MarkTraphagen/post and John Rakestraw.

They were a great group, and I thank them for making me welcome and providing great input about the cloud.

(It also didn’t hurt that they accepted me as the Cloud Goddess)

What I learned from a colporteur this morning

It’s monday,  it is once again, grey in grey,  and I have to go to work, where someone really irritated me last week.

I woke up unexpectedly at 5:05 am – the alarm does not go until 6:00am,  so I started a post full of outrage about the brutality of police towards Occupy Wall Street protesters  etc. - got caught up in the topic, did not have time to finish it and now have to race to work.

A colporteur (but not the one of this story)

There is a traffic jam.

….. you get the drift of how relaxed and happy I am at this point.   I sit in my car at a red light – telling myself that I need to let go of all of this, that it doesn’t get any better by dwelling on it, getting down on myself, so that now, not only is the office, the traffic,  weather, and life in general not my friend, I am beating up on myself as well. (R.D.Laing would have loved this)

And in the middle of my grumble-fest, I notice a movement outside the car – and there is a colporteur, he waves and mouths ‘good morning’ and goes back to his post.


Now, you need to know that here in Vienna, we have colporteurs – these are people (almost always foreign men), who stand at specific assigned locations and sell newspapers to passersby, often risking life and limb dancing through the traffic.

The location I am at now  is one that I drive by daily – been driving past here for at least 16  years. In all that time, this one specific man has been at this post. He was there when I drove my daughter to 1st grade and then school for 6 years (she is now working on her Master’s Degree). He has been there every morning when I drive to work. I have had at least 4 different cars in that time.

Never once did I buy a paper from him (don’t read his brand).  And this morning he makes a point of greeting me.

It is 28° F outside, he has on a fairly light jacket, no gloves and I notice that he has a number of teeth missing.

And I smile, and I am grateful to him, because now I can let go.  

 

PS: and I started many sentences with ‘and’  here, please rest assured that it was done on purpose and gave me great pleasure.

Wordle shows what you write about

Wow, I just discovered Wordle. This is an exciting online service that will take text and generate a word cloud of the text for you.

You can either paste some text into the box – from documents, ppts, or websites  for example, or you can enter the name of a website – for instance a blog, and have that analyzed.

Here is a sample from text that I copied from a number of articles on the Anecdote site:

So, apart from just being cool, what is the use of something like this?  I think it shows very cleverly what the repeating issues of texts are, and thus can help to see what kind of tone or even emotions it will call forth. Apart from the sentence meaning, what is the general impression fostered by the text?

Want to see if your wonderful treatise about the joy of life really does reflect a spirit of joy? Try plugging the text in here, if the biggest word you see is “problem” and “joy” is rather small, well, draw your own conclusions!

 

Marilyn Monroe quote causes lively Google+ discussions

 

Today  Morgan Abbou caused a bit of a stir on Google+ by posting a quote from Marilyn Monroe:

If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best

along with this picture:

I was struck by the tone of the comments and responses. Interestingly enough, there were noticable trends along the gender lines.

Most (not all) women found the quote good and saw it as relevant, a plea for tolerance and acceptance as a whole person, not just a symbol.

Most (if not all) men fell into one of 2 categories:

Group 1 was all for “throwing the bitch out”, “who does she think she is”, “I don’t take that”, …….etc.

Group 2 felt that she may not have been a bitch just for the fun of it, but still, drug addicts and weak people are at fault, she was obviously a bit of a loser, etc.

What I noticed:

  • generally, I would have expected men to be more tolerant and accepting of such an obvious sex symbol than women
  • where is the often cited “bitch-factor” of women speaking to/about other women?
  • the general interpretation of the word “handle” – many seem to have taken it to mean just take all kinds of crap without complaint
  • the “yes, she was a victim……..but it was her own fault, too” meme
  • the general condescension towards people with alcohol or drug problems
  • the general lack of curiosity about her, her life, etc.  just take it for granted: she was rich, famous, had alcohol problems, screwed up, her own fault, case closed
  • the general lack of compassion

It plays into one of my pet topics lately, how we tend to see and not look. More on that some other time.


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