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George Carlin said (supposedly) that words are frozen ideas. To change the idea change the word.

We do this all the time. Words from the sixties drug culture are now standard in ads for everyday main stream products.

Sexual slang from the seventies is now a movie title popular with 10 year olds. The change is evolutionary and healthy as the basic function of words is still there.

Words are intended to bridge the gulf between people.

The more skilfully crafted the words the more intense and lasting the emotional and intellectual impact of the communication as President Obama demonstrates daily. I enjoy it all from his skill to the image laden hit of the latest slang that often first shows us where we are as a culture.  As the title illustrates sometimes the wrong word can offer a more layered truth than the proper term. My sister, at age 5, thought  the fragrant black and white animals most commonly found in strange positions on our highways were called Stunks.

Seemed a loss for humanity to correct her.

Instructions and packaging from our global trading partners are always inspiring. One computer purchase came in a very expensive bronze foil box. The label confidently stated that the shrewed software was garanted so nothing would go wron. The words were incorrect but told me clearly all I needed to know about the product.

What worries me are words that have been hollowed out; their meaning eroded leaving a mere husk. For example the word natural.

What comes to mind when you hear the word natural? Pastures? Family farms? Quality and sound nutrition? A better choice? No chemicals? Easier on the planet? Careful regulation? Healthy children?

All of those meanings were spun and factory farmed out of the word years ago but the public still has a positive knee jerk reaction to the word.

As the owner of Trust Pet Cuisine the Personal Chef meal service for cats and dogs I want to promote our meals with words that are accurate and meaningful.  But if I do not use the spin weasel words will clients know what we are trying to communicate?  Do we risk the failure of food that will greatly benefit pets if we avoid the popular hollow words like, healthy,balanced, wholesome, gourmet, premium and natural?

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Image by JohnLeGear via Flickr

Earth Day Extremist

Today is Earth Day.

Last year as always I cleaned up litter in the park across from my house. I always wonder why people cannot walk the 30 feet from the picnic table to the litter bin with their personal debris after enjoying the park.

Today the wondering lead to laughing, irony and a small sigh of resignation. The empty container I picked up was for a drink that promised to give the consumer Extreme Energy. He /she still could not make the 30 feet to the litter bin.
As Earth Day comes at the end of the television season it is appropriate that the first section of the post is a repeat.

Earth Day 2009- Park Update

The park is located at the end of a small valley.  At the head of the valley is a large grocery store.

Most of the debris covering the park hillside like permanent snow is plastic bags from the store.

This year the store switched to cloth “bring your own” bags and began charging  for a plastic bag.

A small gesture in a time of Global Warming but the change in the park has been spectacular!
I went out last weekend to plan my annual cleanup and

stared in amazement at a nearly pristine hillside!

I could end with the cliched moral “one person can change the world” but in 2009 that brings thoughts of Bernie Madoff.

So I will leave you to inspire yourself and your neighborhood.

Happy Earth Day!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Whole Foods to Stop Use of Plastic Bags by April Earth Day (seattlepi.com)
• Plastic industry aims for “greener” bags (seattlepi.com)
• Global warming satellite has troubled launch (ctv.ca)

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As budgets shrink we all search for any possible savings.

It is tempting to let insurance expire and use the funds to put out a small financial fire.

Think carefully!

During  the last recession many in Ontario Canada cancelled their business or property insurance.

In July, at the end of 3 days of incredible heat and humidity, we had a storm that went beyond anything

I had witnessed or heard about.

Media coverage said that in 1 hour there were 20,000 lightening strikes and numerous tornadoes.

The next morning a local marina was gone, completely.

Because business had been poor early in the tourist season the owners had just cancelled their insurance.

Now they had no way to recover. Their home and business were both gone.

I thought about this on the weekend as I read my new insurance policy.

As always some of the conditions seemed farfetched and had always made me laugh–

like insurance will not cover you if a plane crashes into your house.

The recent crash near Buffalo moved the farfetched into the “could happen” column in my mind.

Insurance is certainly not a guarantee but ————.

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I have been a healthy person all my adult life.

This changed without warning the morning President Obama signed The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Here is the connection-my company Women Like Me has promoted women’s success for 30 years. Women’s work issues are my passion.

I am an entrepreneur; a self reliant capitalist.

I volunteer with two charities I co-founded that create projects to assist people adjusting  to sudden shifts in the quality of community life.
I have helped to run the campaigns of several women political candidates.  I explain all this to let you know that I am a productive citizen;

not a dreaded “socialist”  only capable of standing on someone elses two feet.

A few minutes before CNN showed the signing ceremony I had to sit down as I felt very uncomfortable.  When the President was announced I made it to the TV to watch but had to sit on the floor.  As I tried to leave the room after the ceremony I knew I was in real trouble and asked my partner to call an ambulance.

I spent a long day and night in the hospital.  I had never stayed in a hospital before.  You think of many things as the heavy hours pass. Entrepreneurs can’t stop planning and studying how things work.  Why is  one curtain hung backwards?  What happens to the contents of the medical waste bin?  Is having a heart problem during Canadian Heart Month being a bit too trendy?

At first there are only fear thoughts as you do not know if you are ever going home.  As the doctors faces seem a bit less serious you fear living but with all the activities you enjoy now forbidden.   At one point during the long night I realized that there was one terror I did not have to face.  My first illness would not threaten my financial stability.

As a Canadian I did not have to fear huge medical bills.

The realization  that during the worst part of that day and night  the cost of it all never crossed my mind kept my thoughts busy for a few more hours.  I remembered the presidential campaign and the negative comments of many Americans about universal healthcare.  Reacting with knee-jerk phrases and tough sounding mythology is easy for  busy humans as it requires little thought but

may I suggest listening to President Obama with
a “now” mind,  a ” near-future “mind.

I have recovered and moved on. I am busy reviving projects that assisted entrepreneurs during the last recession.  As an entrepreneur I have always had my own disability insurance to provide for myself but what would the “price” of this illness have been if  I was American?

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When I was a new flight attendant for Air Canada terrorists were a semi joke. Most demanded to go to Cuba. The island was off limits at the time and those highjacked usually got a day in the sun before returning unharmed.

As time passed I heard other stories of flight attendant’s acts of innovative courage in terrible circumstances. On a flight there is no help beyond what you find in your group of colleagues.

9/11 haunts me as I can feel you thinking frantically, calmly planning and possibly hoping that as flight attendants you might be underestimated, giving you an opening, a chance.

I remember you each 9/11.

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Yesterday was Earth Day. I cleaned up litter in the park across from my house. I always wonder why people cannot walk the 30 feet from the picnic table to the litter bin with their personal debris after enjoying the park.

Today the wondering lead to laughing, irony and a small sigh of resignation. The empty container I picked up was for a drink that promised to give the consumer Extreme Energy. He /she still could not make the 30 feet to the litter bin.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

As a speaker my specialty area is finding new opportunity in workplace change. I am well aware that most people view any change as a negative.

Instead of thinking this could offer me a new opportunity most back away and worry about a possible loss to their world.

They stick out their lower lip and say I won’t do it!

Unfortunately change does not care about our reaction to it. It will just run over your lip and keep moving.

I have been very aware of this change reaction over the past month as my new web radio station womanradio.org was being created.

The why would you do that crowd were there to not cheer us on. They had their pat answers at the ready- I would not have time for that. Where’s the money for it? I have never heard of that. You have a web radio show now, that’s enough. If that was needed someone would have done it already.

Off they went satisfied that a new idea had been killed before it could spread!

I am getting to my point-

Others said fantastic! How can I help? Raynu Khaneja of Urbanopolis, Gail Courneyea of Angels of Flight and Tabitha Chapman of Enjoy Not Cooking paid to sponsor something that did not exist!

Yohanna Vanderkley of Webbils and Songs volunteered to be the music director. Women publicists at Sumach Press, Key Porter Books and Second Story Press added the arranging of author interviews to their already crowded spring schedule.

Women who add new meaning to the term multitasking found the time to be interviewed.

The Point- The negative people tended to be the least successful. The Lets Do It group were the most successful.

You could argue that if you are more successful you can afford to be open and enthusiastic but what if it is their positive attitude that made them successful? Worth thinking about as we are increasingly buffeted by rapid work and lifestyle change.

Womanradio.org is presenting a special 3 1/2 hour program

Pet Food Recall: One Year Later on March 16 at 2 p.m. EDT.

It will be repeated until the late evening.

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When we are stressed we get rigid, less open to new information, inclined to be stuck in mental ruts; in other words, small minded.

Contemporary TV commercials can be as short as 10 seconds. When an advertising person told me this was starting to be commonplace I was surprised-

Please tell me it is budget and not because our attention span is now only 10 seconds.

She confirmed my worst fears.

That was a few years back. What I am hearing lately is people pulling 1 innocuous word that has a negative connotation for them out of a conversation, reacting to it and then freezing out the entire content of the conversation. How small can a person’s world get and they can still get their shoes on?

If some are tone deaf is over-busy stress making us Life Deaf?

In case it took you more than 10 seconds to read this I will end the blog.

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My Body of Knowledge

I have been asked to publicize Dove’s latest project for their Real Beauty Campaign. Women from their 40’s to the early 80’s are asked to write a letter to their body with their thoughts on beauty, aging and life. The submission deadline is June 1, 2007. To participate contact: natalie@jigsawcasting.com.

Here is my submission.

Good morning body,

I know you slept well. Those dreams, are they your responsibility or mine? We do sleep well together, among other things.

Now that we are 60, I realize what a wonderful job you are doing for us.

You are tall. This has greatly influenced our life. Modeling School was a great confidence builder at 15 when I was tall, had unacceptable acne, (no aspersions, it could not be helped), glasses, massive curly hair and a unibrow. We did well! Modeling was an excellent first career. When other women university graduates were only allowed use their brains to teach or type for a small salary we sold our body for lots of money and had great adventures.

When becoming a flight attendant appealed to us the modeling made up for our lack of languages. Remember the interview for Air Canada? The airline required larger women. We wore a thick sweater and a plaid suit with a full pleated skirt to the interview and drank as much milk as I could force you to accept. We made it!

Remember the friend we met at university when she had fallen into the ice cream freezer? She said I did not know what it meant to be 4′11″. We had trouble seeing the salads on the bottom cafeteria shelf and she fell into the freezer trying to reach her favorite flavor. We made a deal. At each meal we reached for ice cream: she selected the salads. Height is your world view. All our tall life short people have ordered us to get things. Almost daily in the supermarket elderly short people order the human ladder to get items off top shelves.

You are also slim. The media ideal some might think enviously. Does it occur to them that people can be vicious to women who are tall and slim? We have had many hurtful shocks. As a devoted foodie I do appreciate your rapid metabolism, I can eat without owning a big and a small wardrobe.

Like many entrepreneurial women we are left handed. We have lived with a slightly different point of view in a right handed world. It made us empathetic; essential in our company, Women Like Me, that promotes women’s success and style.

You are very energetic. This is fortunate as my mind wants so much. I have one concern. You have always been very healthy and I could always count on you. Have I been too demanding? Is our growing arthritic pain proof of my carelessness or was it just inherited? Sorry I mentioned inherited. Now you will bring up that old story about how you were insulted by our father as soon as we were born. I know he put Karen Louse in the newspaper birth announcement instead of Karen Louise but it is time to let it go.

You have taken good care of my life now it is time for me to love and care for you more.

We are partners.

My only regret is that we cannot sing.

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