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#26Acts – Are You In?

December 23, 2012 Karen 19 comments

There is no amount of human kindness that could come from this, that I could possibly use to make sense of this senselessness. ~ Kavst

That’s what I said in last week’s post, A Stranger’s Grief.

Part of my despair was in having such an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. What could I possibly do to help anyone, in this situation? It is human nature to want to aid in the face of crisis and while I still can’t imagine anything coming from the senselessness that occurred last Friday in Newtown, Conn. that could possibly help to make sense of what happened, I must admit to being pretty blown-away by the now world-wide, multitude of random acts of human kindness that have spawned from Ann Curry’s tweet earlier this week.

Her remarks challenge people everywhere to DO something to honor the victims of last week’s massacre.

I have no consoling words that might help anyone and I don’t believe that in hindsight we will glean any kind of lesson or understanding from this event. ~ Kavst

BUT……

I can be kind.

We should never really need a reason to be kind but sometimes we need inspiration and I am inspired to Act– kindly.

As borrowed from my friend Andy who posted on the same subject earlier this week over at OUR LIFE IN 3D:

The idea is simple (courtesy of NPR):

‘Do “26 acts of kindness” — one for each of the 20 children and 6 adults killed last Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.’

This, I can do. Thousands of people all over the world have heard this call and are doing it, too. And while they are not meant to console, these Acts are meant to honor.

Whether it’s Making a Snowflake, saying a prayer, sending a long over-due note to a friend, paying for a stranger’s meal or groceries, giving an umbrella to someone waiting for the bus on a rainy day or buying boots for a homeless man; whether it is to someone you know or a complete stranger; whether it is public or anonymously, it’s been said, that no act of kindness is too small and that the impact of an act of kindness should never be underestimated.

I can be kind and commit to an act of kindness. I can commit to 20, 26 even 28 random acts of kindness.

This, I can do. This, I will do.

So, YES Ann Curry- I’m in.

Are you?

Wishing Everyone a Happy Holiday Season Filled With

Peace, Joy and Random Acts of Kindness!

Photo Credit #1 DO – Google Images

Photo Credit #2 Inspire To Act/NBC News

Categories: Attitude, Grief, Kindness Tags: Ann Curry, Kindness, Newtown, Random act of kindness, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Twitter

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself. And the Internet of Course.

October 21, 2012 Karen 6 comments

The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.

The famous quote was made by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural speech in March, 1933 just after taking the presidential oath. Most people heard Roosevelt’s speech on the radio. Television was barely getting its footing. Personal communication was conducted by a group of operators working a local switchboard and there was nothing personal about it. Most telephone systems had party-lines with two to four households on the same circuit.

Callers were urged to be brief and courteous — no eavesdropping.

There was no such thing as a cell phone. Texting was nonexistent. Clearly, Roosevelt had never surfed the net. In fact, it would be nearly 50 years before the internet would be introduced and another 40 after that before it would literally explode, offering access to everyone, to information, places and spaces one could only dream of in 1933.

Email. Skype. Twitter. Facebook. Pinterest. OoVoo. Blogging. YouTube. Flickr. Wiki. MySpace.

People need people. Social media forums on the internet are emerging as we speak, providing a wide variety of venues for us to communicate thoughts and ideas, to share with one another.

Like the Black Hole the internet expands well into the vastness of the unknown, certainly my unknown. Its realm is daunting. It can and to a certain degree should be, considered a scary place, especially to those of us who grew up painstakingly practicing our cursive writing and memorizing the proper finger placement on a typewriter’s keyboard.

Every innovation has its resistors and no matter what is said or done, some of us will never be able to wrap our heads around the possibilities but for parents and educators alike, it would be negligent to ignore it. Children are curious sponges. They learn and adapt as they grow. For the most part, they are unaware of the dangers that lurk in the minds and hearts of unkind people who also have access to these many social forums.

We have a choice. We can try to hide ourselves and them from the evils of the internet or we can, if not embrace it, at least try to understand the workings of these new forums so that we can help our youth explore them and use them safely with meaningful purpose and a sense of responsibility.

Scientia potentia est ~

Knowledge is power.

The internet is not going away. It is ever-growing and changing how and where we communicate, forever. Our children will learn from it, work and play on it. No doubt their footprints will be embedded in code for who knows how many future generations to see.

Who would push a child into the on-coming traffic of a busy highway leaving them to fend for themselves?

We don’t have to agree or like it but we would be remiss not to educate ourselves the best we can with these new technologies. With knowledge we can prepare our children; arm them, take them by the hand and guide them safely across this super-highway that will inevitably encourage them to leave their digital mark on society.

Photo Creidt #1: Switchboard Operators/GoogleImages

Photo Credits #2: Social Media/GoogleImages

Categories: Education, Parenting, Social Media Tags: Facebook, Franklin D. Roosevelt, OoVoo, Skype, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube

That Sneaky, Slithering Snake!

April 3, 2011 Karen 12 comments

I prefer easing into technology. My cell phone doesn’t get the Internet or email. There are no Facebook or Skyping “apps”. I can talk and text. That’s it. It’s not that I’m technologically challenged, on the contrary, I love all forms of communication and am fascinated by the whole new social media arena. I recently took a blogging class and managed to set up this blog site myself. A few months ago I set up a Twitter account. (Follow me @midmomlife!) I’ve been tweeting a teaser or two of my upcoming blog each week and have, to my great astonishment and satisfaction, figured out how to connect my blog to my Twitter so that my blog automatically appears as a tweet on Twitter. Phew! As a part-time working, soccer and tennis practice shuttling mom, my free time is late at night, time. And while I’m totally on board with 45 being the new 35, this 46 year-old mama, gets tired by midnight! It’s a lot of work reading, creating, tweaking, uploading and embedding; teaching myself the ins and outs of all these new formats, trying to find my niche and knack!

Needless to say, I had a moment of pure discouragement earlier this week when I heard about the Bronx Zoo’s missing, Egyptian cobra and all of her instantaneous social media success.

Ironically, if there is one animal that really gets under my skin, it’s the snake. A snake nearly ruined a barbecue celebration I was having in my backyard once by blatantly slithering right up to the party.

When I saw it, I jumped onto the nearest chair and screamed bloody murder! My then, 60-year old aunt, God bless her, started screaming also, in German, but not because of the snake. She was screaming at the snake! She had sprung into rambo style action, grabbing a loose brick from an outdoor grill and proceeded to bash it, mercilessly, to bits, in a matter of seconds, in front of family and friends. The woman is truly, FEARLESS. For many years she owned a bakery and has often been likened to Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, only she’s a woman, blond and instead of soup, it’s chocolate torts and apple strudels that people lined up for while she made the snap determination as to whether or not they were worthy. A few weeks after the barbecue incident, my aunt’s son, was sitting in my backyard when he spotted yet another snake, this time, it was swimming in my pool! Like a repeating nightmare with a new twist, he followed the snake along the perimeter of the pool until the moment was just right, reached in bare-handed, pulled it out and smashed it on a rock! Ohh-kaay. Dare I say, something truly unique runs through the blood-veins of that side of the family.

I am scarred and I digress. Back to my moment of discouragement.

Have you heard? The missing snake from the Bronx Zoo not only setup her own Twitter account hours after her escape but gained thousands of followers, literally overnight!

According to Mediabistro’s FishBowlNY….

In its first tweet, @BronxZoosCobra wrote: “I want to thank those animals from the movie ‘Madagascar.’ They were a real inspiration.” (“Madagascar” is the 2005 film where animals escape the Central Park zoo). The cobra now has over 43,000 followers, and under location it writes: “Not at the Bronx Zoo.”

That was Tuesday. According to oObly, as of Friday, @BronxzoosCobra had over 200,000 followers. How does this happen? Here I am plugging away, hour after hour, night after night, week and month after month, tweaking and tweeting since November and I have a whopping 5, that’s right, count-em, 5, followers on Twitter! One of my faithful 5 (and you can follow me on twitter @midmomlife to verify this) doesn’t even speak English! I have no idea what language she speaks or why she follows me!

This sneaky, snake slithers onto the scene and three days later, BOOM over 200,000 followers!

I totally get being trounced on Twitter by that actor whose drug usage recently took him to new heights of insanity but a snake? Seriously? Alas, as of yesterday, that sneaky, slithering, snake is back in its cage! And according to Jim Breheny, the Director of the Bronx Zoo, “…the snake has been found well and alive.”