It’s Not What You Say That Counts; It’s What You Don’t Say

The Media Training Blog

Today’s entry is an excerpt from my updated position paper, “How Important Are Nonverbal Signals?” Stay tuned in weeks to come for more insights into how your body language affects your organization’s goals and your own career prospects.

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Your audience is keeping an eagle eye on you as you speak. Yes, they are listening to your words. But they are also soaking up every gesture and vocal change you display. How important are these nonverbal cues?

To better answer that question, let’s examine the story from a different angle. Imagine yourself not as the speaker, but as an audience member.

Picture in your mind the times you have attended presentations and couldn’t wait to escape the room. The speaker may have been a world renowned expert in his topic with top notch content. But he stood still in the dark while using slides as a crutch. Or spoke in…

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A World Made of Sentences

We can talk and talk, and for that we use sentences. We order words and do hope the one opposite us, listening to us can understand us.

We try to bring our knowledge into the open, and try to convey others of thoughts. All of our knowledge about anything we try to construct in any language known to us and can only be found in sentences.

Without language there is no knowledge (at least of the common type) about anything. {A World Made of Sentences, Part I: Sentences and the Perception or Reality}

We have our feelings when we see things. Those feelings we like to express and therefore we use our body language and the spoken language. It is just not for nothing, but has often a serious meaning for us to be able to express ourselves.

We should realize

Language does not act like a mirror, reflecting to us a perfect depiction of reality, it acts like a filter, it makes us see reality in particular ways. The way language is constructed and the popular usage of language at any given time in history and in any given culture on earth will create a different perception of what is real. {A World Made of Sentences, Part I: Sentences and the Perception or Reality}

Jeff Carreira does not see reality as it is. He writes

I see reality as an American male at the beginning of the 21^st century sees it. Some of what I am seeing may be objectively accurate, much of it may not be. And I think it is very, very important to know the difference. That is why the contemplation of the relationship between our perception of reality and language is so important. If knowing what is real is important to us then we have to deconstructed how our current perception is being shaped by the sentences in our heads. {A World Made of Sentences, Part I: Sentences and the Perception or Reality}

We are often confronted with the problem that we are not good enough in expressing ourselves with words, placing one letter after the other in a certain order.

many of us who have tried to share our mystical revelations with others have found the language we commonly use woefully inadequate for the job. Many, many people have ventured out into the further reaches of human experience only to find fewer and fewer people that they can share that experience with. The language we have is just not adequate to allow us to share the mystery that has grabbed a hold of our hearts. {The Language of We-Mysticism}

How often do we not find that the language we are used to is too specific, too rigid and to literal and when we try to express ourselves with it the listener sometimes may understand it differently than we wanted it to come over. We have grown up with one or an other language and got it rooted in our current level of thinking. Constantly it is being fed and continually words come and go, some even changing of meaning (by time).

So many of us would love that our feelings are expressed so clearly that nobody can misunderstand them.

Our goal is not to speak about our experience, but to give our experience a voice. We are not looking at our experience and describing it. We are allowing that experience to take us over and speak through us so that even we are amazed at what comes out of our mouths. When this direct communication happens in more than one person simultaneously a spontaneous process of divine discourse unfolds. The higher mind … now has control of the conversation. It is thinking out loud though the voices of the individuals. It is spiritual improvisation of the highest order.   {The Language of We-Mysticism}

Please do come to find out how Jeff Carreira looks at language and thinks

Our language conditions our perception. It shapes the way we see things.

… Language chops reality into distinct pieces and creates distinctions. The distinctions that exist in any given language are those that are important for the people using that language. Our languages have evolved to organize and optimize human perception and human behavior. If circumstances change, or if you change your circumstances, the language you had before may no longer be optimal. In fact, your old language may have become a detriment. {A World Made of Sentences, Part I: Sentences and the Perception or Reality}

When we begin to suspect how much language might be influencing our perception of reality our fundamental conception of what is real and true starts to unravel. Have we been wrong to assume that language is an accurate reflection of reality? Is there even a ‘reality’ out there to be reflected back to us in the first place? In our journey toward deeper truth even these assumptions must be dragged into the illuminating light of inquiry.{A World of Sentences, Part 2: Language and the Reality of Reality}

Continue reading:

• The Language of We-Mysticism
• A World Made of Sentences, Part I: Sentences and the Perception or Reality
• A World of Sentences, Part 2: Language and the Reality of Reality

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Further reading

1. Let’s talk about language (and this bird)
2. Language, Learning and Logic
3. Language Matters: Communication at The Heart of Successful Collaboration
4. An emic exploration to language barriers
5. Economy of language, Eros, meaning, the public, and its problems
6. Pay attention to actions…
7. What’s your voice vibes?
8. Turn to the Webster’s
9. Some skepticism
10. #36alive 194: 5 Reasons To Learn A New Language Today!
11. Words
12. What is disrationalia?
13. Descriptivists vs. Prescriptivists
14. English Grammar in Ruins
15. British schools: kids, commas, and tests
16. Queers, language and the nature of reality
17. Japanese Notes – how to express a position in Japanese?
18. Paying attention…are you?
19. A Baptist Shouts “Learn the Language”
20. Body language
21. It’s Not What You Say That Counts; It’s What You Don’t Say
22. Seven Tricks For Reading Body Language Like A Pro
23. Body Language of Modi and Trump
24. The Handshake Analyzed ‘Round The World
25. Body language expert analyzes G-20 world leaders
26. Putin Exposed the Plot to Destroy America and Pedophilia & What Body Language Reveals [videos] ~ July 9, 2017
27. World Leaders May Lie, but Their Body Language Tells All

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Do you still look out for your morning or evening paper

The Morning Paper (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many years ago, for our archive several international newspapers came on our table to be read and to be cut, having all the newspaper clips to be glued and put in maps, classified, and registered on recording cards.

Also several magazines got read and articles with target words registered on the recording cards. Thousands of magazines and newspaper-cuttings making the floors to heavy, making it necessary to have the archive moved to special constructed buildings.

Ourselves having become a certain age, leaving most work to the newer generation now may look at previous history. But what about reading all those newspapers and magazines?

Paris Kiosk – Newsstand in Paris

From his base in Los Angeles, an American blogger Brad Nixon who considers the endless adventure of living in the American West: life, culture, history, architecture and travel in California, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, even Alaska and likes to write about travel elsewhere in North America, Italy, Great Britain, France, China and anywhere else he goes. He considers himself a lifelong newspaper fan, like we are. He also still relish picking up the local newspaper in airports, bookstores, gas stations and restaurants.

There’s nothing more appealing than a well-stocked news stand.

he writes in his article “Morning Paper: Where Worlds Collide“.

A newsstand in New York City

Though when we look at the newspaper stands of today, we see that the meters provided for the papers has reduced with more than two thirds if it is not more. The choice is reduced a lot and there are no different editions any more for morning, noon, afternoon and/or evening papers. In Belgium you still may have “Le Soir” but it is not any more a real evening paper. Great-Britain can be proud to have still some very good evening papers, and excellent morning papers as well as Sunday papers. At the continent the Sunday papers are long gone.

Sample frontpage from the newspaper (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When Brad Nixon is lucky enough to travel abroad, he makes a stab at reading the foreign languages in which Le Monde, Corriere della Sera and the Times of London are written.

He writes

I grew up reading syndicated columnists who appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer, although they wrote for newspapers in Chicago (Mike Royko), Washington (Art Buchwald) or Los Angeles (Jim Murray), not to mention Cincinnati’s own Bob Brumfield.

I no longer subscribe to a printed newspaper of any description: world, local or neighborhood coverage. The days of sitting at breakfast and leafing through one, checking the sports scores, reading the comics or doing the crossword are things of the past here at Rancho Retro.

Nothing more clearly demonstrates the impact of technology on the flow of information than the topic of print versus online news.

Still an avid news reader, I rarely fail to spend a measurable amount of time on the websites of the LA Times, New York Times, BBC and a few others, including the newspaper that covers my portion of Los Angeles, The Daily Breeze.

I’m not entirely satisfied with that situation. There are aspects of turning the pages of a well laid-out newspaper that can’t be replicated by even the best websites. Granted, there are no hyperlinks to related material, no streaming video and just as many advertisements in print as online, but there’s nothing like a newspaper for those serendipitous discoveries, those full-page spreads of news or features from every part of the world. Also missing from newspapers are the irritating full page pop-up ads that block the screen (I’m looking at YOU, latimes.com). {Morning Paper: Where Worlds Collide}

The nice thing about a newspaper is the space some writers may get to go deeper into things and to give an analysation of facts which can be looked at and enjoyed so many hears later.  Those articles of human interest and critical viewing proof the value of a newspaper and their writers.

New York, New York. Newsroom of the New York Times newspaper. Reporters and rewrite men writing stories, and waiting to be sent out. Rewrite man in background gets the story on the phone from reporter outside. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Though today one can wonder how they are able to survive. For sure they too have to go the digital way. And to be honest we have fallen also for such electronic reading and digital classification. But to be honest to have a newspaper on your lap or on the table often gives an other feeling and ‘band’ or ‘bound’, allowing to have your mind going through an other world than the one we are sitting at that moment. It feels like it gives an other connection than the computer, laptop, i-pad or tablet. Those latter ones reducing the paper to some text fragments ‘expanded’ (Stripped of their writer’s wedding). Is it a nostalgic feeling touching our heart?

Brad Nixon also notices

I feel divided, because I know that, ultimately, only a fraction of the existing printed newspapers (already a paltry set of survivors from a few decades ago) will endure as more readers (including me), cancel their print subscriptions and read online. Rather, I suppose, many papers will persist, but only online, and there’ll be no more morning coffee with that page of box scores from yesterday’s baseball games open in front of me (or I could turn the page, study the entries for the day’s racing at Santa Anita Racetrack, and mark my choices with a pencil).

I particularly mourn the loss of those local newspapers — many of them weeklies — that have disappeared or certainly will, including the paper that served my Midwestern hometown for more than 150 years before it closed up shop. Journalism and journalists continue, but their old order is rapidly fading. {Morning Paper: Where Worlds Collide}

Since the 1950s the newspaper market has been in decline in Belgium. At that time 50 Belgian National papers and hundreds of local (village) papers could attract the eyes of their interested readers. for the National papers in 1965 30  could be found over the counter. going up for a few years up to 33 in 1980, 32 in 1995 to reduce up to 23 newspapers in 2000 of which many were very similar, only having a different name, but form the same editor or owner with only 10 owners on the market. With the big media groups Corelio, Concentra, De Persgroep, Roularta Media Group for the Flemish papers and Rossel for the Walloon papers, and Mediafin for the economical Walloon paper L’Echo, Grenz-Echo Verlag for the German Grenz-Echo and The Brussels Times for the English The Brussels Times (daily digital newspaper and print magazine). There is also Politico Europe, better known for its website but it also has a weekly paper edition, and further Europolitics and New Europe, newspaper focusing on EU affairs.

In the Netherlands in 2009 the number of Dutch newspapers was only 35. There and in Belgium the Telegraaf Media Groep has difficulties whilst the De Persgroep (Nederland) keeps the Dutch critics giving some paper to reach the public. NRC Media after a merger of the Amsterdam newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad since 2015 is ran strongly by the Belgian company Mediahuis. While considered one of the Dutch national quality newspapers next to de Volkskrant and the very conservative orthodox Protestant Trouw (De Persgroep), NRC Handelsblad sees itself as the most internationally oriented of those three, and has been labeled leftliberal. The largest group amongst readers switching to the Nederlands Dagblad comprises non-Christians looking for an alternative view from that of the mainstream Dutch press. Headquartered in Apeldoorn and associated with the Reformed Political Party the Reformatorisch Dagblad is one of only a handful daily national papers remaining in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam’s Parool may count street sales circulating approximately 20,000 and substantially more on weekends.

In Flanders De Standaard (Mediahuis, formerly Corelio and VUM) as Christian-Democratic and Flemish Party in opposition to the the Socialist Flemish daily De Morgen, are the best Belgian newspapers left over.

Lots of people in Holland and Belgium use their mobile phone to look at the headlines for the day. Also the social media is pilfering lots of ‘printed paper’ readers.

Wikipedia remarks:

Newspapers: a global industry in transition as an old paper-based technology confronts the age of the Internet and smart phones

The decline of newspapers has been widely debated, as the industry has faced dropping newsprint prices, slumping ad sales, the loss of much classified advertising and precipitous drops in circulation. In recent years the number of newspapers slated for closure, bankruptcy or severe cutbacks has risen, especially in the United States, where the industry has shed a fifth of its journalists since 2001.^[1] Revenue has plunged while competition from Internet media has squeezed older print publishers. {decline of newspapers}

Nixon asks further

What’s your preference: print or online? Or both? What’s better about one or the other? Please add a comment. {Morning Paper: Where Worlds Collide}

Brad Nixon fascinated, even in a country where he can’t actually read any of the newspapers.

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Artists role in Time of great danger

Artists are the voice of or for society. They are the ones who look at things, analyse the situations and try to warn the people around them.

At 1:00pm on Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at Radio City Music Hall  the New York City’s School of Visual Arts had activist and icon Gloria Steinem spokeeaking urgently on the state of the union at the College’s 41st annual commencement exercises.

On Tuesday, beginning around noon, a sea of buoyant figures in swirling red gowns descended on Rockefeller Center in New York City. Slowly disappearing into Radio City Music Hall, the some 1,170 students were gathering for commencement and graduation from the School of Visual Arts. In the auditorium, their robes billowed out over the velvet-red seats; the resulting camouflage effect seemed symbolically appropriate as a nod to their shared experience at SVA, in a last, unifying moment before they dispersed to start the next chapter of their lives.

Kicking off the program was a speech by Allison R. Schaller, soon to be an alumna with a BFA in Photography and Video.

“As artists, we can think up anything. But it’s the creating, the doing that’s important,”

Schaller said.

“We know many of the world’s problems, and largely the actions we need to take, it’s acting on that knowledge that’s challenging. But luckily for us, we now have a leg up, as we are armed with an education. Find a cause you believe in, find something you are great at, find a passion and make it yours. And please do so with empathy for others.”

SVA President David Rhodes spoke about how citizens in a democracy have an obligation to parse out the truths in the deluge of information circulating in public discourse.

Writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer Gloria Steinem when stepping up to the podium remembered that she grew up in Toledo,

” hoping, praying to be a Rockette.”

“I want to say to my 10-year-old self, I’m on the stage of Radio City Music Hall, and this is better!”

she declared to a cheering audience.

Addressing the students, Steinem implored them to realize their power as visual artists — namely, in their ability to appeal to sensations, even instincts, shared by all humans.

“To be universally understandable is to have the potential of bringing diverse people together, undivided by different languages or degree of education,”

she said.

The work that writers do, in contrast, takes shape internally, subject to the whims of consciousness, which are as fleeting as they are inscrutable, she implied.

“My joy in writing comes from having an idea and then from finally achieving it,”

she explained.

“But not so much from the tactical, visual and sensory processes in between.”

It was not lost on the room that Steinem’s calls for unity had uncommon urgency.

Women’s March in Washington – worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women’s rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers’ rights.

“We are in a time of maximum change. On the one hand there is great danger, and I am not for a moment diminishing how great that danger is, and on the other hand, we are woke! I have never in my life seen so much organic, sustained, enthusiastic, inventive, created, and fan-f..cking-tastic activism as I did doing the March on Washington.”

I think we have come to a time where artists of all breed have to come out stronger again. It is perhaps not bad we can see a movement again like we had when we went on the barricades in 1968. Our egocentric capitalist society needs again some voices to bring awareness about climate change and our way to live.

Steinem looked back at the more recent march and said

Steinem raises a fist after being presented with a Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Glaser (left). Photo Copyright © 2017Joseph Sinnott.

“What we remember are the symbols, the hats! It’s a rebellion of the visual arts, the arts of the heart, the arts that are not limited by language, not limited by technology.  There’s so much to be learned if you go beyond your boundaries and now is the time we need to blast those boundaries.”

Steinem called the graduates

“the arts of the heart,”

and cautioned them that from her experience, revolutionaries have to proceed in a way that will renew a world they want to be a part of.

“If you want to have fun and laughter and sex and poetry and music at the end of the revolution,”

she said, beaming at the cheering graduates and their families,

“You have to have fun and laughter and sex and poetry and music on the way.”

Reacting against the bad way our society is moving should not limit us to have fun at the same time that we react against the wrong going. By our creative work we can give criticism and can show a reflection of how our world is evolving, treating its past and showing where it wants to go. We need more artists who hold the mirror in front of us, like Rabirius does, for example.

Reflection to awaken the people around us. By all the social media and advertisements they have been taken asleep. So many are not any more interested in the welfare of animals and plants and think

“It will not be so bad”

Many like the present president of the U.S.A. are not interested in bringing the truth and are more concerned about their own positioning and ‘shining’ in the world. Many are even prepared to walk over corpses if necessary to create a better position for themselves. Others are just happy when they have their gadgets and daily fun.

Today we also can see lots of people are looking for the communal fun, to feel the vibration of togetherness, having the idea they may be between like minded people. Lots of festivals are “in”. It reminds me of the time we had also the many festivals, Woodstock being our ‘greatest one’. Now the Belgian organisers of ‘Tomorrow Land‘ manage to create a magic world and incredible worldwide feeling of unity again. They claim

We believe in enjoying life to the fullest without having to compromise everything. We are responsible for the generation of tomorrow and respect each other and Mother Nature. Respect, Health, Nature, Responsibility and Innovation are the five circles of Love Tomorrow. The Heart is the inner circle, representing passion, love and respect.

We can only hope that those who go and visit such Fantasy World festival shall come to think further their than the entrance gates of their magic world and shall rally spread that love and respect.

Let us hope they may meet others from all over the world to keep contact with and to exchange ideas, but also to get a preparedness to react to our present world and how politicians are screwing the people where they are standing next to them.

In any case it has become high time for the artists to let their political and world views be shown in their work again to bring a ‘voice to think’ again.

1000 articles placed on From Guestwriters

Català: Símbol per als 1000 articles fonamentals (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today we noticed we past the mark of 1 000 postings on this platform. This is the 1001st posting in which we like to express our thanks to the authors who where willing to share their thoughts and wanted to bring some other writings in the light, offering a readers digest and an overview of interesting articles.

In the few years we exist we did not gather so many views and not so many followers, but we try not to lose patience and enthusiasm.

On the 12th of June 2017 we gathered 253 followers and got in our first year (2014) 3124 views, followed by 4333 views for 2015 and 7782 views for 2016, adding 3078 views for 2017 until today, totalling 18 317 views from a total of 11 641 visitors.

From now on, we must admit we shall present less related articles. Because of the regular complaints when referring to other articles of websites with an other opinion, and them asking to remove the link to their site, we stop doing all the research work. It always took a lot of time to search for the articles, to read them and seeing if we did not have to add a reply to them. All that extra work to bring our readers away from our site and to give the other website an opportunity to get higher in the Google ranking, and then they not being pleased by our mentioning them and they wanting us to delete the link to their site, which brought again some extra work, makes us to stop with that service. Though we do hope you as a reader shall find enough reasons to come back to our site and the sites we shall still mention by the related literature.

We shall still refer to the like-minded sites and to specific articles in the discussions or when presenting a certain person his or her writings, or if we do find a website of interest we want to expose to the public.

In any case we do hope to continue our work, wishing you to offer some interesting material about all matters concerning life and way of life as well about our relationship with the Divine Creator.

Thank you very much for being with us and for reading our articles  &  Special thanks also for those who encourage us by clicking on the “Like” button.

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Principles of PageRank (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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If you’re going to be a hater, make sure you’ve done your homework.

One great problem by hate against others is the non-knowledge of those others. The not knowing enough of history is the second part which makes that hate crimes and socio-political situations can re-occur.

An attempt at a discrimination graphic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A video published this weekend by a politician from Gent showed clearly how people from different communities took over words they heard adults shouting at each other. As such we do hear young Moroccans (5-10 years old) calling to have all “the Makakken (sobriquet for Moroccans) out”, dark skinned girls shouting to get all niggers or Negroes where they belong, etc.. It is quite confronting to see how those young, so called innocent toddlers and teens, call their own group of people names, not really understanding the content of such calling and the hate they would or could create with it.

The pictures clearly show how an attitude of hate or love is created by the ones responsible for the education (parents, teachers, surrounding society) of the youngsters and the next generation.

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Symbol of anti-zionizm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A 16 year old aspiring journalist in what looks like her first posting, can imagine that, for a teacher, a GCSE religious studies lesson on racism may be one of the most challenging classes to teach, especially in a school like hers; overrun with teenage girls desperate to voice their opinions in an attempt to seem more intelligent than their classmates.

She tells about her experience, which could happen in any school, she sitting in class, learning about prejudice, already pissed off having had to discuss why ‘reverse racism’ is simply just ‘racism.’

She looks at the

very link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism which racists everywhere deny they are doing. It is perfectly possible to be against the Israeli government and their brutal domestic policy, and simultaneously not be an anti-Semite.

In which she is totally right. Much too many people consider those who are against what is going on in Israel, to be anti-semitic, but they can be themselves real Jews as well as real lovers of Jews.

One of the great problems of the disturbance in relationships with Jews is that

as soon as you relate the Holocaust to the Arab-Israeli conflict in the way that has been done here, you are both insensitive and ignorant.

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Preceding articles

What to do in the Face of Global Anti-semitism

The Rise of Anti-Seminism

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Further reading

1. USA Today: Rise in hate crimes spurs launch of database and hotline
2. Daily Prompt: Instinct or Wisdom?
3. Do White Nationalist Think Brown Babies Are Destroying Our Country? Ask Dr. Karen!
4. Prejudice
5. Prejudice and the ink in my skin…
6. I am white, and I refuse to be ashamed of i
7. This Post Is For White People
8. Acting Black…
9. The Irony of Prejudice
10. What I Now Know About My Own Prejudices
11. My Multi-Cultural Childhood Could be the Answer to Racism & Xenophobia
12. Reverse Racism Doesn’t Exist
13. Does reverse racism exist?
14. The Truth About Reverse Racism
15. What is reverse-discrimination?
16. Liberalism has lost all perspective #reverseracism
17. You can be a dickhead no matter your race, religion or sexuality
18. public education, passing, #womensday2017, all for Prompt Night on A Dash of Sunny
19. Complexity
20. Is being racist against racists racism?
21. Students Report Being Triggered by the Word “Trigger”
22. High School Evacuated Due to Presence of “Toxic Masculinity”
23. “Travel is Fatal To Prejudice” – Mark Twain
24. Masters of Misunderstanding
25. I see you
26. Anticipation, Mrs. Beasley and Starlings
27. Frankie’s America: Too strong to be brought down
28. In the News: Hijab, Hijab, Hijab. Why Are We Obsessed With a Head Scarf?
29. Muslims portrayed as “they” in the media
30. Don’t Tokenize Us 
31. “Use my Pronouns or I Won’t Eat,” Says Non-Binary Student
32. Inadequate Evidence: The Major Problem with Microagressions
33. We’re Not Friends
34. The Thankful Foreigner: An Award-Winning Essay from a Millennial
35. Dealing with the Stares: My Muslim Experiance
36. When the PC culture goes too far…
37. You have no Bucket
38. The Illusion of Christianity in America
39. Jewgle racism pt. infinity
40. Reed’s quote of the day from Charles Caleb Colton on Truth
41. Lectionary Sermon for Lent 3 A : 19 March 2017 on John 4:5-42
42. Racial Tension in Trump’s America. What Are You Going To Do About It?
43. Black Activists Reject Trader Joe’s: Might Attract ‘Non-Blacks’ – Minutemen New
44. ‘Gingerism’ – is it a real thing?
45. Flipping the Script: The Tragedy of Mary Rowlandson
46. Comic: Antisocial media
47. Coversations with Becky
48. 10 Of Megyn Kelly’s Most Racist Moments
49. I can’t believe I’m writing this in 2017
50. A response to Racism
51. How Not To Be A Privileged Ass …

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Battery Thinkers

I can imagine that, for a teacher, a GCSE religious studies lesson on racism may be one of the most challenging classes to teach, especially in a school like mine; overrun with teenage girls desperate to voice their opinions in an attempt to seem more intelligent than their classmates.

The other week, I was sitting in class, learning about prejudice, already pissed off having had to discuss why ‘reverse racism’ is simply just ‘racism.’ Doodling Radiohead lyrics over my folder and pondering why on earth I had chosen to study RS, I couldn’t help but tune into a conversation between two of my classmates. One girl, for the sake of privacy let’s call her Jennifer, was explaining to a friend why Israel obviously belongs to the Arabs, not the Jews. Fair enough, if she has evidence to support this. But what Jennifer said next surely would’ve angered anybody, let alone…

View original post 613 more words

Reflections on Existence and Teaching

Maria Gianna Iannucci at her blog Reflections on Existence as an educator at Mercy High School in Middletown, CT.  has written courses in Astronomy and Cosmology, Neuroscience, and Medical Botany for the High School level, wonders why she came to teach.

Betonwerksteinskulptur “Lehrer-Student” von Reinhard Schmidt in Rostock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lots of educators do feel they have a calling. You might even call it a drive which brings them to put themselves at the site at the service for others. Many may have different reasons why they choose to become a teacher. But for sure one can not be a good teacher when one does not love the matter or subject one chooses to bring over to others. In a certain way the one who wants to teach properly must be

in love with God’s new creation. {Why I Teach…}

Every year again the teacher gets to see youngsters which have many questions and lots of aspirations, but also many who do not see the reasons of existence any more and do not know where to go to. It is up to the teacher then to show them some light and many reasons to go forward.

With each generation that moves forward on the earth, hope is born.

when one teaches in class or comes to write a blog, sometimes an other way of teaching and preaching,

It takes contemplation, inspiration, creativity, consistency, and commitment…all those things add up to one thing…love. {A Note To All My Followers}

Without commitment and love for the other one can not bring such life in teaching that can inspire others to continue to do further research and to grow in the knowledge of science, arts, and so on. Without the commitment to the good of others, wanting to give oneself to the other  and to give as much usable information as possible. This free giving, with the knowledge that one can not know everything, that each of us is limited, but by sharing information we all can grow.

As teachers we do also have a mission which should make us to do our utmost best to fulfil the mandate given to us. Our direction should inspire those in front of us and should make us to want to go further than our generation.

Sometimes at the expense of your own wishes. I am committed to holding space for peace and real love in a world that often does not understand what that means. Our behest should also be to bring knowledge and peace, living for the moments “when our students wake up and look at us with new eyes”

as the universe expands beyond their capacity to comprehend. {Why I Teach…}

Maria Gianna Iannucci stands with the young at the threshold of possibilities, when they begin to realize their true purpose.

They catch a brief glimpse of a Love so expansive it leaves them breathless and in awe. I teach for the moments when they see in each other a reflection of the cosmos and the Love that animates it. {Why I Teach…}

I teach to awaken those who slumber, to comfort the grieving, to rejoice with those who dance, to bring hope to those who believe they live in a meaningless world. {Why I Teach…}

for many it may seem a meaningless world, and today with not many prospects. But by opening their eyes to the past and showing them it is a continuous act of reflecting back to mankind and to each of us, individually and in group, that we may come to see much more clear and see that there can be a line of continued hope.

A special education teacher assists one of her students. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The female writer might, like I have done throughout the years I was teaching them, trying to show her pupils the beauty of our world, always referring back to the master Hand behind it,

so that they see with clarity, the beauty of the gifts they were given by the Eternal One. {Why I Teach…}

I can only hope students remember something from what their wanted to teach them plus from what he or she wanted to show them how we as human beings had to move on in this world. I sincerely hope that

Maybe my students will remember the unconditional love and respect, the feeling of being safe and cared for, being known and cherished for who they really are …and carry that out into the world. {Why I Teach…}

Whatever our purpose here on earth, we having been placed here, have to be fostered, guided by others, who want to guide us thorough our growing up process. even when many do not want to know that

We are brought into existence together for the purpose of growing into the very Love that created our hearts and the stars {Why I Teach…}

each educator has to show that way, with lots of patience and hope for the future.

Maria Gianna Iannucci one of her aims of her classes is to show young people the value of the plants for food and medicine to help keep these spaces free. When we look how far people have grown away from nature this is essential. We should have more teachers showing kids how man should be united with nature.

It is sad that nature is not appreciated in its own right, that we have to extract something from it.

Educators should continue with their unending efforts of trying to bring the parts of the chain of knowledge to youngsters and showing them the tools to handle everything what comes in front of them.

I always hoped that by personal endurance or forbearance I could bring some sparkle to lighten the brains of those in front of me and to get them too look for new ways of building up their own life and a new future. Sometimes our way of looking at things, or way of speaking, perfidies that we are a teacher.  (Even on holiday so many asked me if I was a teacher.)

“Once a teacher, always a teacher”

is how Steve Schwartzman see and I it.

The blogster ends her article

To teachers past and present who have dedicated their lives to the restoration of earth and the cultivation of the human. Why I Teach…

with a quote from the French philosopher and paleontologist known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward a final spiritual unity, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“As soon as humans have woken to explicit consciousness of the evolution that carries them along, and begin as one to fix their eyes on the same thing ahead of them, are they not, by that very fact, beginning to love one another?”

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Additional reading

1. The first question: Why do we live
2. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #7 Education
3. Too many pupils for not enough teachers
4. Passion and burn out of a teacher
5. A learning process for each of us
6. For those who make other choices
7. Fools despise wisdom and instruction

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Further reading

1. Live List of Education Books
2. The Simplest Question Needs the Simplest Answer
3. Science: A Great Source of Metaphor…
4. Teaching ruminations
5. What My Student Teacher Taught Me
6. Oh, The Power You Have…And Yet May Not Even Use.
7. Banning teachers from work
8. 5 Educational Concepts We Need To Eliminate In 2017
9. In memoriam George Aditjondro
10. Thoughts About How I’ve Just Finished School Forever
11. Reflects the core values of Career Toppers
12. An Open Letter to My Firsts
13. What Is a Traditional Teacher?
14. Lesson Plan: Teaching Emotions
15. Critiques of Groupwork in ESL Classrooms
16. Native Speaker Privilege and Unprofessionalism within the ESL Industry by Kevin Hodgson 
17. Conversation with my favorite teacher 
18. Worried
19. There is Only One First
20. Elitism is the enemy of merit
21. Shakespeare and High School English Teachers
22. Tempest-uous Spring Planning
23. The Girl on the Piccadilly Line
24. Dear Students
25. A Day of Giving
26. About Me (miss Natalia)
27. About Me (miss Lindsey)
28. Teaching the Pre-Modern Post-Election
29. Organisational Challenges are Usually Technology Related
30. From business administration to midwifery education: Sara’s midwifery journey
31. The little school in Huilongguan
32. Feedback – perfect this and everything else falls into place!
33. grading
34. Internet Roundup: Education Part 7
35. Teacher “number 4”
36. Shock! My blog has been neglected again.
37. Clashes with Colleagues.
38. I have applied for a new job.
39. Let’s Sum Up – My First Term.
40. First Semester Down #madeit
41. Maybe Sunday School Would Be Better If It Were Actually School
42. Grateful the Time is Near
43. I’m sure what you meant to say in that email critiquing my repertoire choices was thank you…
44. New Day, New Start, TEFL wobbles stabilised
45. Why are languages being taught like math?
46. First Semester Review
47. One Year
48. Empathy and Global Awareness
49. Life lessons from the land of cheese and wine!
50. Time to recharge
51. A Tale of Two Educators
52. Teaching Others about Jesus

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Related articles

• Answering Jacobs’ Questions On False Teaching and Teachers
• Education Update with Dr. Duke Pesta, Freedom Project Academy
• We Don’t Just Teach Curriculum
• Please Behave Like a Human Being
• Being Thankful In Everything
• Top 10 Characteristics of a Great Instructor
• Character of the week: Teilhard de Chardin
• ‘A teacher is an actor, writer, doctor, lawyer, politician, painter and director – who wouldn’t want that?’: Teachers around the world share their stories
• The discursive positioning of graduating teachers in accreditation of teacher education programs (2016)
• Happy National Teacher Day! Five Tax Tips to Educate You on Tax Savings

Save

Au Secours! (Paul Cariage)

Related articles

• Marie Antoinette to Madonna: On the garment trade and the misuse of its muses
• Thursday Poem
• pressing press

Arbrealettres

AU SECOURS !

Chaque matin
Me vaut torture
D’une écriture
Au noir destin.

Cceur en déroute,
Vide d’émaux,
Vide de mots,
Je vais ma route.

Où trouver l’or
D’un clair poème ?
En vain, je sème,
Ma verve dort,

Mon esprit fume
Et suis à cours…
Muse, au secours !
Chasse la brume

Qui m’entoure !

(Paul Cariage)

Illustration: Denis Jeanteur

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2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

By the English daily newspapers we may find The Guardian which has an eye for the way human beings fit in the universe and how we can look at what is around us. They have in the week several themes looking at a certain aspect around building up the human being and about man’s relation with his environment.

For them it is necessary that man does something seriously to avoid climate change bringing us down. Without a balanced, comparative assessment of strategies to align energy use and industry with inescapable climate action, we won’t be able to choose the best possible future. Man also has to come to see how nature is an essential part making it possible for us to live nicely.

Stretching to a Full Harvest by Dan Frugalberg, talking about God Who tests us beyond our expectation but never beyond our strength.

Materialism in all its ghastly guises is pulling man down. To get them to better senses we need to show man the beauty of what is already there provided by the Divine Creator. We are pleased that there are also several bloggers on the net who appreciate what is around them and who do not want to keep it just for themselves but want to share it on their blogs which are available in a lot of countries. We can recommend a.o. Cindy Knoke, Dan Frugalberg, Pete Hillman, Mike Bizeau and Purple Rays (Jonathan Udo Ndah) who present regularly an insight on what nature has to offer to mankind. On the net several dreamers with some creativity in writing, who love nature and who are feeling very close to it, can be found. One such person who enjoys life and want to share his arts with each other brings the blog Magic nature poem. He recognises that we are are surrounded by energetic creatures and writes

Humans, animals, plants, earth, universe within planets, suns, stars, moons, everything.
We are all parts of something  very big.
Everyone is a part of a very big energy.
We all seem to be seperate
But that is not true.
We are all connected by our energies.
A network consisting of our individual energies.
We fulfill the universe. {Energy #4}

Flower ball by Magic nature poem

While the world goes around and around we have to find our position in it, making sure that we are not pulled down by the ravishing electronic speed and pushing commercial consumer society, where people live in a world, which lives faster and faster. In that world we have to stand strong on our feet, with our mind focussing on the right things. In that hectic life we do have to find moments to enjoy nature, to watch colours changing, flowers growing, animals jumping or flying around.

It is for people who want to reach their dreams, their plans that such writers and photographers may bring something enlightening. On this site we can not bring many photographs because our funds our very limited (not to say non-existent) but we would love to recommend to enjoy watching the above mentioned sites and the links we regularly offer you (our readers).

Each year the media looks at the magnitude of photo’s made and newspapers and press agencies present their photographer of the year.

Friday opened the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 52 exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London before touring internationally.

American photographer Tim Laman was named winner of the prestigious annual competition for his image Entwined Lives, showing a critically endangered Bornean orangutan in the Indonesian rainforest. The award is given for a story told in just six images, which are judged on their story-telling power as a whole as well as their individual quality.

Here you can view the winning images selected by the international jury. Wildlife Photographer of the Year champions ethical photography. Images are chosen for their artistic composition, technical innovation and truthful interpretation of the natural world > Gallery 2016

Adult and young awards

Browse the award-winning images from across the competition

Adult awards

Tim Laman, USA
Website: www.timlaman.com

Tim is a field biologist and wildlife photojournalist with a reputation for returning from the wild with shots of nearly impossible subjects. His pioneering research in the rainforest canopy led to a PhD from Harvard University and the first of many articles for National Geographic magazine. His work has garnered numerous awards, including many in Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

 

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>Young awards

Gideon Knight, UK

Gideon’s interest in nature began in his garden and soon spread to his local park and further afield. From the first moment he paid attention to nature, the natural world has never failed to amaze him. He hopes to have a future in conservation as a wildlife photographer to help raise awareness through photography.

• Website: www.gideonknightphotography.com

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Find also to read:

1. Nature photography – Landscape photographers
2. Underwater photographers –Underwater photography
3. 2016 wildlife photographer of the year – winners in pictures
4. Conventional thinking will not solve the climate crisis
5. Satellite Eye on Earth: September 2016 – in pictures
6. Environment section of The Guardian

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Further related

1. How to Be a Professional Outdoor & Nature Photographer
2. Conservation Photography
3. Wildlife Photographer
4. Wildlife Photographer – extraordinary things that happen behind the lens
5. Rakesh Sahai – Well known Indian wildlife photographer passes away
6. Photographing Wild Alaska and Japan’s Winter Wildlife, with Robert O’Toole
7. Nature Photographer of the Day – John Shaw
8. New on 500px : Wildlife Photographer by Philippe-De-Bruyne by Philippe-De-Bruyne
9. Longtime National Geographic photographer Steve Winter explains the umbrella effect of predator preservation
10. Joe Riis
11. It is My Enthusiasm for Wildlife that Drew Me to Photography: Anuroop Krishnan
12. She Married Her Stalker – Wildlife and Photography
13. Picture Parade One Hundred and Thirty-two
14. Picture Parade One Hundred and Thirty-Three
15. dil aj kal camera…
16. First Day in the Water – Wildlife Photography
17. Infographic: How to photograph Lions
18. Art Of Wildlife Photography with Tom Mangelsen
19. Nature Photography Color Workflow Revealed with Christopher Dodds
20. Night Photography – Tips for Perfecting Your Night Shots
21. Advanced Photography: Landscapes | Landscape 101
22. What are you looking at?
23. Living in harmony
24. Misleading names
25. Tsavo Man-Eaters strike again
26. The decline of the Red Colobus Monkey
27. Yellowstone & Grand Tetons: A Different Perspective
28. Vervet monkeys deserve a chance
29. How big is the illegal wildlife trade?
30. Charges: mock or real?
31. Giants of the plains
32. Highly revered, highly endangered
33. Majestic Soarer
34. Giddy up, Saddle Bill
35. Pocket-sized Antelope
36. Rock Jumper
37. Tea and Gaur
38. Wild Radish
39. Meet the Slugs – Stinging Rose Caterpillar
40. Amidst The Autumn Oak Leaves
41. Red Bellied Marmot
42. Common Scorpionfly
43. Trust your future
44. Cream Autumn Berries
45. Moose on the Loose: Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada
46. Yosemite National Park: Phenomenal Splendor
47. Mangiare … a Venezia!

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Related articles

• Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition for 2016
• Rising ape
• This Week In Adorable News…
• WATCH: First ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ trailer released
• Are these the world’s most incredible wildlife photographs?
• Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016
• New Amphibious, ‘Horrific’ Centipede Discovered
• Cute Insect-Murdering Mammal Had Roots in Dinosaur Age
• What did the fox say?
• Asteroid that slammed into Earth 1.2 billion years ago may have been bigger than the one that killed off the dinosaurs

Choose Green: Reading and talking about your ideas leads to success.

“Selkirk reading his Bible” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From the beginning of times man has received the free will to choose. The Maker of everything also provided a solution against the rebellion of man, who thought their Maker withhold something from them. After their act of adversary their Divine Maker provide for a solution against the curse of death and was willing to guide man with His Word. That Bible Word of God, inspired and infallible, is now available in more than 2500 languages.

Mankind should give green light to that Book of books, the Bestseller of all times, which gives us an insight in the Plan of God and offers a map or guide to the entrance gate of the Kingdom of God where those who want to be children of God can find non-ending life.

Reading in that Book of books, which entrails all wisdom we do need to have, shall give us more than any other book of ordinary man.

*

To remember:

• success > Read > Study = improve your mind, increase your knowledge or calm your spirit
• reading the Bible = stories of love, stories of war + specific battles, stories of family feuds, rape, adultery, stories of heart broken people, stories about egotistical kings, jealous kings and kings gone mad = lot of stuff in the Bible.
• Read something positive every day.
• Know what’s going on in the world = read international news or get it from TV, internet
• or whatever source you choose. Successful people are aware of what is going on around them.
• Read material that will help you be a better …
• reading opens window to the world = opens your mind + allows new thoughts to enter, new ideas born

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Preceding articles

Hang On!

God’s wisdom for the believer brings peace

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Additional reading

1. A voice and a Word given for wisdom
2. Bible a guide – Bijbel als gids
3. Colour-blindness and road code
4. the Bible – God’s guide for life #1 Introduction
5. the Bible – God’s guide for life #2 Needs in life
6. To create a great journey
7. Solution against curse of death
8. God Our Refuge
9. Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
10. Counterfeit Gospels
11. Necessary to be known all over the earth
12. Is God behind all suffering here on earth
13. Best intimate relation to look for
14. Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life
15. In the night His song shall be with me

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Further related

1. So Many Voices ~ So Many Lies
2. God Loving Us
3. Your Word for This Day: “Jehovah Guides Me”
4. The Battle Is the Lord
5. Find out for yourself
6. My Daily Bread –
7. Not Believing
8. Whose Fool Are You?
9. Straight Outta Context Series
10. Go on trusting in God’s future grace.
11. Lord, could I have a moment of your time, please?
12. When Christians Get it Wrong
13. More Ways Than Jesus? Of course, but…
14. Philippians 4:13
15. Bible Fun Fact
16. Master Plan #1 // Choosing Your Study
17. It is time to let churches die.

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Related articles

• Kingdom of God
• The Righteous
• The Contemplative Companion for Friday, September 16, 2016
• 3 reasons why taking a stand for Christ is hard – but still absolutely necessary
• Innocence and the armor of Love
• Christianity 101
• Inspiring Reading: Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
• What does the Bible have to say peace?
• John Wesley White: Longtime BGEA Evangelist, Who Mentored Franklin Graham and Brought Many Souls to Christ, Goes Home to Be With the Lord
• 9 Great Ways to Do Online Research

Healing Secrets

You want to be a success? Read. Better yet, STUDY. Study anything that will improve your mind, increase your knowledge or calm your spirit. The visual in the header here is an inspirational read that may calm your spirit or encourage your soul.

I highly recommend reading the Bible; anywhere in the Old Testament is a good start. There are stories of love, stories of war and specific battles, stories of family feuds, rape, adultery, the stories of heart broken people, stories about egotistical kings, jealous kings and kings gone mad. There is a lot of stuff in the Bible.

Read something positive every day.

Know what’s going on in the world, either read international news or get it from the TV, the internet or whatever source you choose. Successful people are aware of what is going on around them.

I enjoy reading the autobiographies of successful people. I find…

View original post 353 more words