Serving will fulfill your life and those of others
By niels on Oct 5, 2007 in personal, Blog | 0 Comments
Dear reader. I have moved my wordpress blog to my main web address. If you are subscribing using feedburner, you will not notice a thing, since I have moved my feed. You will automatically receive the posts from the new site. Please take a look at the new site. I am quite pleased with it. Please contact me to let me know what you think.
I will see you over at Niels Teunis website.
By niels on Sep 28, 2007 in Sexuality | 0 Comments
This video by Slate editor Emily Bazelon is a little guide for parents who are wondering how to talk to your kids about sex. I wish they could have found someone a little more comfortable with the topic. Bazelon buys into the distinction between being sexual and being innocent. Hogwash, is all I can say. There is nothing innocent about not knowing about sex. And their is nothing guilty about knowing about sex.
Watch for the moment she talks about the Canadian approach. That delightfully fresh and unproblematic approach is too much for her. Too bad. They are very far ahead of the US in sexuality education. But then again, most Western countries are.
Technorati Tags: sexuality, education, youtube, parents, canada, video
By niels on Sep 26, 2007 in Politics, Service, Genuine Culture | 0 Comments
Katya Andresen writes that marketing needs to spur someone into action. Creating a message that doesn’t ask receivers to act in a particular way is rather pointless. This is huge, and one of the most important lessons one can take from her Nonprofit Marketing Blog (and she has many lessons to teach).
Don’t ever settle for getting someone’s attention. Channel attention into action if you want to change the world.
Of course, the immediate question is: How do we do that? That is what the people at Spitfire Strategies try to show. They recently published a study called “The Activation Point.” The report is freely available on their website. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference describes the moment when action is leading to dramatic results. The Activation Point describes the moment when people start to take action.
So, action, go to their website, download and read the report. And then put their ideas into practice. Let me know what you think.
Technorati Tags: action, marketing, activation, tipping point
By niels on Sep 26, 2007 in Blog, Service, Genuine Culture | 1 Comment
I am deeply grateful to Brad Shorr for his review of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Like Brad, I acknowledge the importance of the Cluetrain message. Indeed, they have forgotten more about the internet than I will ever know. Yet, if the internet is about conversation, than in the conversation we can choose to make a contribution. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a rant and disparages those who haven’t seen the light (yet). I am not arguing with them, but I can’t read them either because I find their tone off putting. I mean, why feature a picture of a dead something on a high way on your homepage when your message is about conversation. I don’t feel invited.
Blogs I read have similar issues, and the commentaries are often the worst enemy of a blog. I cannot read the commentaries on Think Progress for instance, a blog I follow every day. But I never ever read the commentaries. I am afraid of those who write them. The vitriol chokes me.
And smugness kills the left. That is why I objected to Amanda Marcotte’s description of the anti-choice movement. She maintains that their beliefs don’t make a lick of sense. Sure, to Amanda Marcotte they don’t. But they make perfect sense to them. That is the point of a different frame of reference. When you live outside it, the world looks very different.
I have loved reading Steve Farber’s books, The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership
I try not to be smug, but I seem to be ranting nevertheless. I have much work to do myself.
Technorati Tags: cluetrain, think-progress, conversation, farber, leadership, contribution
By niels on Sep 25, 2007 in HIV/AIDS, Sexuality, Politics | 0 Comments
More than 100 organizations called for a National AIDS Strategy. After all these years in the epidemic we still don’t have one and the number of people that are being infected every year is not going down. Having given up on Bush, and who hasn’t, they call
AIDS is a national crisis. The next President of the U.S. should develop a results-oriented AIDS strategy.
You can be part of this effort and sign the petition for a National AIDS Strategy.
Senator Edwards is the first of the presidential candidates to support this effort.
That is very good to see. Who can forget his vice-presidential debate with Dick Cheney. Gwen Ifill asked both men to talk about African American women’s increased exposure to HIV. Don’t talk about African women, she said, African American women, you know, who live in this country. Neither men could do it and it was a shameful moment (one of many to follow for Cheney to be sure). Edwards has learned and that gives me hope. I imagine that he actually did feel ashamed then and now is part of the action. What little hope we hold on to sometimes, when it comes to our national leaders.
By niels on Sep 21, 2007 in Blog | 3 Comments
I participated in a Tips & Tricks blog writing project. There were 122 entries. Here they are. If you can live by these tricks, I am sure that your life will be fulfilled 
. However, I suggest picking one at a time. If you want to turn the tip into a new habit that is. It really does take a whole lot more time to develop a habit than to write tips and tricks. Nevertheless, here they are and the writers share generously from their experience.
Technorati Tags: tips, tricks, blog, writing, health, life, travel, business, career, entertainment, food, SEO
By niels on Sep 20, 2007 in Sexuality, Politics | 0 Comments
The Southern Strategy pushed the Republicans in power during the Reagan era by playing on racist fears in the south while simultaneously disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of African Americans voters. A New Southern Strategy now silences the majority of Americans. It was created by Karl Rove and propelled Bush to victory in 2004. Craig had to be silenced by his party because his sexual misconduct threatened to disrupt the New Southern Strategy.
The New Southern Strategy aims to capture the electorate not by silencing a minority, as happened a generation ago, but the majority. The republicans have created the threat of severe stigmatization of anyone who speaks reasonably and publicly about sexuality. Three completely different issues and polling show how this works.
Polls consistently show that the majority wants to protect a woman’s right to have an abortion. Yet, in most states an abortion cannot be obtained, due to terror created by anti-abortion activists. More than that, it has become politically detrimental to speak up for a woman’s right to choose—respecting the fact that women are autonomous sexual beings. The abortion ban in South Dakota was defeated because it did not allow for exceptions in the case of incest and rape. That women are sexually active in this country and that unintended pregnancy sometimes results from sexual activity is no longer a public position that politicians can express. To suggest that an abortion can be a woman’s best friend is altogether anathema to political success. Consequently even democrats are weary to defend woman’s sexual autonomy, and prefer to call every abortion a tragedy. Senator Craig opposed all pro-choice legislation.
Former Surgeon General David Satcher’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior (July, 2001) highlights that education is crucial to bringing down the number of unintended pregnancies. Furthermore, the majority of American parents want their children to receive comprehensive sexuality education. Yet, the law of this land states that we teach abstinence only sexuality education, despite overwhelming evidence that shows that ignorance of sexuality does nothing to reduce risk for Sexually Transmitted Infections, HIV or unintended pregnancies. But anyone who wants to promote comprehensive sexuality education in public settings will be greeted by highly vocal accusations of bad parenting and of the promotion of sexual promiscuity, teaching their children to have sex. The stigma attached to that accusation is hard to shake and that is how the majority has been cowed into silence. Senator Craig favored abstinence only sexuality education.
Even though a (shrinking) majority of Americans is opposed to marriage equality, the vast majority believes that no one should be discriminated against, or violently treated, simply because of their sexual orientation. Craig opposed hate crimes legislation —even though a majority of people supports them. To oppose equal rights and protection for LGBT citizens, the republican party—and Craig was a leader in this—have time and again suggested a link between homosexuality and pedophilia, bestiality and adultery, in much the same way that Bush suggests a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. It is now hard for politicians to be outspoken in support of LGBT equality in this country because they fear being stigmatized by this spurious association.
Craig absolutely had to go because there is no room for error or tolerance in this New Southern Strategy. Craig’s arrest for a moment gave rise to thinking that it is the oppression of sexuality that creates sexual perversion, not the freedom to be a responsible sexual person. As a US Congressman, Larry Craig gave voice to perverse hatred in particular against LGBT people in this country and abroad. Yet, why did he protest too much against marriage equality and hate crimes legislation, abortion rights and comprehensive sexuality education? Whatever the answer, it is clear that silencing Craig was intentional. Silencing is the goal. That a minority can silence the vast majority of this country is exactly what has occurred. The republicans have succeeded using sexual shame and fear to stigmatize all who speak sensibly about sexuality in public. The cruelty that is needed to accomplish this is the same cruelty the republicans bestowed upon Senator Craig.
Technorati Tags: craig, rove, bush, republican, sexuality, gay, abortion, education
By niels on Sep 17, 2007 in personal | 0 Comments
Problegger Darren Rowse asked some days ago, if English is your second language, in what language do you blog? Well, as you can see, I write in English. I have lived in the US for fourteen years, so that is a matter of course. But you know, there will always certain things, feelings that I can never convey in english.
For instance, why is this Dutch version of the achingly beautiful Leonard Cohen song, so much more beautiful to me. Listen please. You may not understand the words, but can you hear something else there? I don’t know. It remains the language of my parents in which I learned poetry. I will never have the same deep feeling for language in another language, even though many english writers move me to tears.
There is a certain loneliness to being an expatriate.
Technorati Tags: leonard cohen, suzanne, dutch, language, poetry
By niels on Sep 16, 2007 in Spirituality, Sexuality, Genuine Culture | 0 Comments
I was reading yet another article in the New York Times about the Episcopal/Anglican Church and their trouble with accepting Bishop Gene Robinson as one of their own. It fills me with tears to read how the world Anglicans and many Episcopalians in the US have responded to his service as Bishop of New Hampshire. I think of the suffering he must feel to break this new ground in the church that he must love. I pray for him and pray that one day all will look around and think: “What on God’s good earth were we thinking? What was the issue again?”
Isn’t this a time of war? Poverty is affecting more and more people in the US. We still have an AIDS crisis, food shortages, unemployment is on the rise, overcrowded prisons, people are being broken left and right. But there is not a moment in which I sense that the Episcopal Church actually seems interested in restoring people. The church has lost its way, not because it appointed Bishop Robinson, but because it forgot why it is here in the first place. Restoring people must be the first precept of any church. The church is missing the mark on this one.
The only one at this point who can actually be seen restoring people is Bishop Robinson. His example is uplifting for oppressed Lesbians, Gay men and other sexual minorities.
I pray for him that the love of God may sustain him. I can’t see that the Episcopal Church is doing it.
Technorati Tags: homosexuality, episcopal, church, sexuality, Robinson
By niels on Sep 13, 2007 in Blog | 0 Comments
I am sorry for the post this morning. I was getting so fed up. But it appears that all is back to normal. My service provider was trying to protect me or themselves from a possible DDOS attack. Kind of them. Anyway. I lost some subscribers through all this drama. I hope you will come back.
By niels on Sep 13, 2007 in Blog | 0 Comments
Feedburner was no longer serving me. I see many blogs on the web working well with the service, but I had to say goodbye to them. My feeds weren’t updating any longer, the couldn’t access my feed, which validates quite well. So, no more feedburner for me. I apologize to all those who subscribed to my feed. I am afraid you will have to resubscribe.
I have contacted feedburner, no results. They send me to my host. No luck there either. But since my feed works just fine, and feedburner doesn’t respond to my queries, well, I just ran out of patience. As you can see, I reinstalled the entire website, and that didn’t help. So I had to conclude that Feedburner was the problem and that they weren’t able or willing to fix it. Who needs that. It already took many hours of my time and I ran out of patience. I will look for another way to give email subscriptions soon.
Technorati Tags: feedburner, email, blog, rss
By niels on Sep 13, 2007 in Politics | 0 Comments
One of the arguments to stay in Iraq is to ensure political stability. The current Iraqi government is clearly not creating political stability. Typically we assume incompetence or overwhelming circumstances for the lack of political progress. But another reason should be considered.
As soon as a modicum of political progress has been achieved, window dressed as it may be, the US will have to pull out. Given public opinion in the US, politicians will have to start calling for a troop withdrawal with the slightest signs of improvement. However, prime minister Maliki will likely not survive that situation for more than five minutes.
So here is the question: Why would Maliki actually try to achieve anything that we might call political progress? Isn’t he better off maintaining chaos, weakening his enemies with the help of the Americans and see if another time will give more possibilities for him to achieve power without US intervention?
I think we see political chaos, because both the Iraqi government and the Bush administration don’t want political progress at this point. They calculate that the specter of chaos will deter real action from Congress. Let chaos reign.
