tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-217559362011-12-14T18:56:50.908-08:00HomeSwanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674116971715705251noreply@blogger.comBlogger31100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21755936.post-1158677339684425342006-09-19T07:44:00.000-07:002006-09-19T07:49:00.060-07:00I stumbled upon these Reiki principles, thought they were inspiring:<br /><br />Just for today…<br />Don’t get angry<br />Don’t worry<br />Be grateful<br />Work hard<br />Be kind to others<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21755936-115867733968442534?l=noodleuse.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674116971715705251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21755936.post-1146590385688125672006-05-02T10:03:00.000-07:002006-05-02T10:21:40.753-07:00<em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><em><span style="font-size:85%;">"We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction."</span></em><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong><em>Calvin Coolidge</em></strong></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21755936-114659038568812567?l=noodleuse.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674116971715705251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21755936.post-1138720874329850422006-01-31T07:20:00.000-08:002006-03-09T07:35:18.193-08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7507/2148/1600/munion.0.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7507/2148/320/munion.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />The past couple of months I have been exploring the blogging community. I’ve added several of them to my google home page so that I can see when there is a new posting. Even though I have not posted or commented on these sites, I feel a connection to the blogging community because I have learned, shared interests, and have gotten to know many blogs. <br /><br />It’s amazing that even though blogging is primarily a written experience, each person’s personality shows through in how they express themselves. That is something that is sorely lacking from the conventional sources of information. I’m sure this is done to appeal to the largest demographic possible, and some will say to be objective (back to that later). Unfortunately, I feel that often results in making information so sterile that to the everyday person it seems irrelevant to our daily lives. <br /><br />Being in my 30’s I grew up without the internet. The main source of news at that time had this same kind of dryness because again it was attempting to appeal to the masses. But at the same time the newspaper and/or television was our communal. Whether this made people feel more akin is debatable, but it gave us a connection to our neighbor, even though we might not see eye to eye with his or her views.<br /><br />Today we see more and more news sources revealing there biases in their reporting. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing, I think in many ways it is more honest. What is a reporter doing when they work on a story? They are trying to find something newsworthy. Questions are designed to create the story they are looking for, and only those answers that fit the story’s objective are reported. They are giving the consumer the information in the format they want it – black and white, no gray to blur the point. Fast and flashy, like reality tv; this is not my style, but it’s there for the taking if we so choose. Many press releases written today provide this spin for the reporters taking. Knowing there is always bias, wouldn’t it be more honest to see different takes on the same story side by side? Now most of us don’t have time to research and find all the different views out there, but some magazines out there like The Week do try and do this, albeit in brief. <br /><br />Another great development in choosing our own path is the digital video recorder. I can watch a program when and if I want to, and I do not have to watch the advertisements! But there again, there is no programming that everyone watches, thus again no communal source.<br /><br />Sharing information across the globe has really been transformed the last 10 years, and that’s a good thing. But it also poses new questions, how do we maintain local connections/community? How do we find information in a vast array of sound bite media?<br /><br />I think blogging is a good start. For example, I have noticed that some California communities that have a lot of very active food blogs. This would suggest that this is something their community (and I) value. Being near the Capitol of Wisconsin I notice in my community there are a number of political blogs, while this is not something I care to write about, it shows that it influences our community. And the Carnivals that people host also brings similar interests together. <br /><br />More and more blogging is becoming a source of community both for people across the globe and in our own backyard. The network that is created between blogs really shows how far reaching a community can be. To me it’s even more interesting to watch how that same blog sphere can create local “communities”, while still contributing to the global blog world.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21755936-113872087432985042?l=noodleuse.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674116971715705251noreply@blogger.com0