Thursday, January 1, 2015

My Top 10 Discoveries on Social Media Engagement


Here are my top 10 discoveries on social media

1. Person to Person conversations are so Yesterday 

Instead of conversations,  I can script a post to say my thoughts, themes, ideas, philosophies, discussion, and disregard the arguments in nano seconds of typing.

2. Technology is more entertaining than it is boring

For a gregarious introvert,  the oxymoron of personalities, I am more fluid in my virtual communications.

Open communication shared with others is a daily exercise of new and informational exposure.

It is very engaging to see the personality types exposed by the candor of their reflections. People display their political persuasions,  their religious enthusiasm, or their atheism. There are the stereotypes, the misinterpreted, the bigots and the zealots.

3. Maintain neutrality or don't feel the mandate to pontificate

The public exercise of virtual freedom is not a space for open warfare.  In the fractured schematic of the virtual world,  there are;  the dictator and spectator, the communicator and relator, the orator and berator.  In the expose and the narrated, the truth and the fiction, the traveled and the traversed, the philosophical and the unsophisticated personality types are sharing in the popular culture of virtual reality.

4. Viral is relative

Stars and media thrive on viral excess.  To have star power and become a brand like the Kardashians,  any and everything that can arouse twitter and  reaction are viral worthy.

Kim Kardashian poses with her butt implants for a cover shoot.  It is newsworthy.

Nicki Minaj and the Anaconda salacious video antics are viral material.

The less clothes worn by Rihanna and Miley Cyrus for public events, that's viral value.   This is news,  viral and epidemic

Viral is momentary.  The stars get their fame and until their next spectacle event is publicly posted,  their viral fortune continues to expand.

5. The economy of virtual spending

 Online grocery shopping is more expedient and ever better bargains can be easily found by performing specific searches.   Either store pick up or home delivery, these choices are better than the picking, parking, loading frustrations of instore purchases.

 One of the best online purchases for 2014 was the Overstock.com Barbie Doll Dream house.
The labor of love for my granddaughter Raylynn by her Dad to put this together Christmas day was beyond priceless.  But the joy for Raylynn and her look of complete bliss, are beyond words or money.


6. Isolation and Introspection are not because of loneliness.

The choice to experience a rich virtual education does not diminish the absence of human encounter.

When social media  posts share the nostalgia of homelands far away, there is connection. In the misery of all that seems trivial, when  you are uplifted with a kind affirmation,  the essence of harmony of lives becomes more evident.

7. Sharing is Caring

Sharing pictures,  and posting about common interests introduce people to one another.

For some they are entertained, others may need to politicize.  To some, praying and seeking faithful are shared interests.

8. Virtual Optimization is Visibility with personalized hashtags

Online exploration of vacation destinations has excited my travel curiosity.   The pictures to world destinations with sun, sand and beach are my most favored posts.  My hashtag #LifeisaBeach is  my virtual tour posts of destinations to visit.

#Ihopeyoudance is a favorite post that I regularly share.  With many dancing styles, the line dancing with the over 55+  to the newest hip hop movements with ages ranging from 5 to 95 are my zest potions to share with all.

#Familying with immediate members of family, with friends and those who are no longer strangers are the bonding connections that are continued in my posts of shared and common interests,

9. Virtual is the new Actual

Being socially engaged  is not just a virtual experience in social media, it is my highway to the world or people,  places things to do and things to see.

Virtual is the new Actual

10. Be authentic and Just be You


People who are engaged are individual and unique and esoteric and normal in their day to day lives and activities.

For those who are uncomfortable with radical issues, doctrines, ideologies or dispositions,  social media will be a dubious challenge.

For those who are enthusiastic about being the person they are and can value all that is diverse and all encompassing,  the authenticity of self is all that is really needed.

Engagement in virtual reality and the experience of social media and social networking  are filled with exploration and discovery





Sunday, December 28, 2014

Nostalgia, when Tradition and Reality collide...the yearning of Christmas of yesteryears

fondest family Love and Blessings
As the Season of Christmas neared, the fond farewell to the olde, the yesteryears of family gatherings and the thrill of  Christmas anticipation were remarkably replete in forgotten memories.

The baking, from the sweet bread, the white bread, the sponge cake, and the fruit cake were the virtual cravings to my empty palette..

 Many family friends and colleagues posted pictures and told stories of the magic of smells coming from the family homes and kitchens.  There was bounty and abundance and varieties of holiday feasts.  The pictures were tastes of homesickness that were agonizing.

The cuisine,  the breakfasts, the lunches, and the dinner spreads were all too many.  Everyone shared the sumptuous feasts that families overextend themselves to bestow consumptive indulgences on all tastes and palettes.

And in perspective, the sentiment of tradition pierced deeply in the solace of invisibility.

The meaning of tradition is all too real when the tradition of meaning will more than likely become extinct as years go by and memories are no longer treasured.

Why does the song O Holy Night bring tears to congregations when sung at a midnight mass service?  In the nostalgia of the ethereal hope that the Savior message of the Christ born occurs,  this song evokes imagery and pageantry of the celestial.    The melody of the words, "O night Divine,  when Christ was born" it renders a bewitching spell of angelic harmony of birthing and renewal.

So it happens for many Catholics and other Christian denominations and even to strangers who become families.

The tradition of ritual and Church is perpetuated in the repetition of the liturgy, the doctrine, and the romance of the sacred.  All of the splendor and majesty that comes with the Christmas theme,  with  Hannukah, Kwanzaa festivities, and other festive holiday practices are steeped in holistic reverence.

Even the ritual of the materialistic excesses, the shopping, the buying, the gifting, the expenses, and the displays are typical and requisite holiday occurrences.  They are the traditional norms today.   These are the themes of most commercial spectacles of tradition.

For the tradition of holiday gestures to be replaced by the insularity of modern isolation, it becomes a reckoning of the axiom:   Out with the old,  In with the new.

To reminisce on what made a home for the holidays is to recall the stature of the "homemaker".  

In my personal idea of tradition, the homemaker was Mammy and Daddy.  The essence of the holidays was the work, the preparations, the baking, and the family sharing.  These were the most precious gifts I have ever known.

The homemaker is for me the presence of the intangible.  Is this not the Christmas story?  Is this still the message of Christmas?  This humble birth in a manger story,  a symbolic theme of Peace and Goodwill is the defining message of the Season.

In the perception of the mercenary traditions of now, busyness is the norm.  The things that we have are mere tokens of opulence.  There is a perfected farse that we no longer need to belong.  It becomes natural to be apart because we have become so proprietary.  All the busyness of our sophistication, the talents we have, the things we own, and the insularity that makes us distinct from others, enable our separation.

The nostalgia of tradition wanes.

As I reflect on the paradox of the manger story,  the lowliness of the birth in a manger,  the woman Mary.. who despite all fears and doubts and criticisms accepted her chosen calling,  the Joseph, partner, who companioned and provided intimate stewardship to family and legacy, and the life source of birthing, the child, the innocence, the meek, the gift of the Presence, the lure of sentiment is aroused in promise.

Sentiment is not love.

While there is the challenge to constrain sentiment, practicing love distills even the murkiest distancing in life's path of obstacles and challenges.

The cherished memories of the warmth of home,  the traditions of the family shared, and the making of a home, without much of all the things that today represent value and worth,  are the anchors of history that justify tradition and legacy.

Now, it makes sense.  The feeling of nostalgia, when tradition and reality collide.  and the reason for the Season becomes singular endeavors of private exclusivity.  

In discovery, to become home and to welcome others to share the gift of home are deeper and very lonely sentiments.





Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Social Justice is not Black and White. Looking at fear, divide and conquer, and the psyche of the cult of media

In the aftermath of the death of Freddy Gray, Baltimore explodes.  But this picture of a little black boy offering a bottle of water to a police officer, who may perceive him as a potential threat, given the current state of repeated incidents /killings epitomizes a palpable moment of reconciliation.

Were this only, the hope for all  to see each other as needing each other...
I reshare this blog #SocialJustice after dealing with my own emotions after #MichaelBrown.  Now those same emotions are as raw as it was just 6 months ago



Social InJustice
As a mother, the ache in my being for any other parent who suffers a loss of a child is daunting. To lose a son, by murder by an officer of the law is unconscionable. To lose a son because he is marginalized, because of the color of his skin is irreparable. To lose a son, because the scales of justice are now tainted in his blood, and even the mere act of reparation in a court of law is compromised in a jury's verdict is inconsolable
.
I stand with the Mother of Michael Brown and the people of Ferguson in a grief that is unsustainable.

We are psychologically drowning in hurt and pain and we all are emotionally scarred in the extremes of social justice.

We are demanding that we only see this through the microscope of Black and White.
We are incising the vitriol of Hate and fueling the war mongering of prejudice.
We are perpetuating the psyche of divide and conquer.
Media is drowning us in the furor of our worst fears. If for the last 24 hours, we have been incensed by the atrocities of the verdict in Ferguson, we have now succumbed to the very power of the medium of our own worst fears.

Just perhaps, the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and so many who have been the victims of heinous societal injustices, are the calls for all to reclaim and demand the rights of human justice.
Human justice is not practiced in a courtroom as we can now attest.
Human justice begins in the birthing of a human, in the conduct we share with our fellow beings, in the respect we instill in our families. We are the forces of human justice by instilling virtue and value in our children and loved ones.

When we are all aware of the very potent opportunity we come into this world to share, we will not have to find the excuses to distinguish each other by race, or color or by what the world deems as value.
When we choose to revere our humanity, the lives of the victims of societies ills, will in fact, be honored in their memories.

To achieve social justice, let us not become slaves to the idea of Black and White, but let each of us awaken to our conscious experience of our highest being.

As Robert Nestor Marley sang and many other life prophets have proclaimed:
"Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war"

Friday, October 31, 2014

Carmen De Lavallade "As I Remember It" at the Kennedy Center, Wash DC Oct3014

‪#‎CarmendeLavallade‬ beauty finessed with ethereal charm.
 In her performance "As I Remember It" on October 30th 2014 to a capacity audience at the Kennedy Center, Terrace Theater Washington DC, her autobiography was told in memories voiced and displayed in film montages.


 No she did not need to wrench her now 83 year old vintage muscles, nor strain that elongated neck, nor master any extraordinary pirouttes or toe points. her story mesmerized the audience in captions of fleeting moments of video, photography and film.

 in a most intoxicating dramatization, she recreated Creation. God creating man/being in His own image and likeness in a very sculpted dance choreography, echoed by singing that resonated the fervor of the piece. In the next sketch she wailed at the penance of aging, talking to her fragmented body and its diminishing dimensions.

 All this done with one costume. A draping fushia sweater over a deep maroon full body dance leotard. 

The artistry of the tempered movements of the now aged Carmen, and the mirrored reflection of the young nubile exotic Carmen de Lavallade was the Dance of Immortality. With a stool and a tall back chair as her props, and a curtain of cascading rows of vertical miniture bulbs, the scenes were shadows of life moments with the many greats of performers, Pearl Bailey, Alvin Ailey, Josephine Baker and many more famed dancers, choreographers, producers of her era. 


She introduced us to the marriage of like spirits in her meeting her husband Geoffrey Holder. So potent was his magnetism that she married him four months after their first meeting. As the show ended, as she summarily concedes to the mortality of her humanness in poetry and dance, the curtains in the back reflect her dancing with her lifelong partner Geoffrey, with rambunctious exhilaration and feisty artistry. i was holding back a gush of tears... because all the memories still live on....

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Tessanne Chin Live at The Hamilton Wash DC Oct 28 14



Tessanne Chin, Winner of The Voice 2013 performed in Washington DC at The Hamilton Hotel. To a sold out audience of nationals representing Jamaica, and all ends of the Caribbean and new fans, Tessanne performed with gusto, with earthiness and with commanding intimacy.
This is my video, which was allowed by the announcer, with no flash. I was privileged to be Standing Room Only up front and personal to capture the radiance, the beauty, and the inviting persona of a truly endearing and richly talented artist




Sunday, May 25, 2014

Memorial Day Remember Your BLessings

#MemorialDay #RememberYourBLessings Blessed thoughts and Live in the richness of each moment in fellowship and love.. gcw written Dec 2011
Thought is the most powerful potion of life sustenance. Imagine the SteveJobs mind, ithink so iAm.
 Zuckerman thinks about a net world, and so it is.

 Gates thinks a program and Microsoft runs on every computer

These are just the cosmic forces exampling manifestation,,, and each of us has this limitless potentiality. 

When thought becomes so potent, that it manifests into an actuality, the impossible is possible, the unbelievable is believable, the unreachable is reachable, and the infinite is attainable.

To live each moment, each day, each year, knowing that my thoughts can breathe new life, a new existence, is to acknowledge the gift of creation. In its most complex definition, that our existence came to be is the wonder and awe of a genius Creator.

 As we step toward our destiny, may each of us know that we are greater than our fears.

We have opportunities beyond our imagination, we have the miracle of thought. 

I embrace the past with gratitude and humility.  I look forward to a future of hope and dreams.  
 I Live today so that my thoughts express the beauty of the Creator, who gives me life

Blessed thoughts and Live in the richness of each moment in fellowship and love

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Compelling Video on Race with Mellody Hobson: Color blind or color brave?



  Watch this compelling video http://youtu.be/oKtALHe3Y9Q should be on every academic curriculum, on every public podium, on world forums to engage people everywhere in reaching beyond their skewed ideals of color, race, gender, and truly fashioning a world that is color brave... this 14 minute video is invigorating, insightful and will infus a deeply aroused passion for our World vision. If you, like me, do not know who @MelodyHobson is..let me steal from her TED talk to state, that she is Magnetic, Charismatic, and Eloquently accomplished. and too, being the wife of George Lucas, a man who has explored the diverse frontiers of film and theatre with celebrated aplomb, makes their union, a collaboration of genius appeal.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

From Calypso Aerobics to Zumba Gold, the Energy is Carnival

While the weather was still cold and wintery on the outside, the large indoor basketball court on the inside was steamy hot, and sweaty. Seniors were dancing and exercising to the rhythms of hip hop, salsa, and the latest radio hits. Within the hour, there were beads of happy sweat dripping from their foreheads, and through their clothing. And their expressions were brimming with joy.
Tony Bryan Vicky & Caroline
Tony Bryan, the Zumba dance instructor, holds court and provides cautiously monitored dance exercises to the lively audience of young 60+-year-olds. The Zumba Gold sessions are the most well-attended events at the recreation facility. For Montgomery County Senior residents, it is a daytime party with the benefits of exercise. There are energetic dance movements with enthusiastic warmth and excitement. Just like Carnival, but without the costumes, everyone revels in the energy of the music and the dancing is both spontaneous and choreographed. 
Every Thursday, from 10:30 - 11:30 am seniors and everyone young at heart gather at the newly builtMid County Recreation Center, for a lively, energetic and exhilarating Zumba workout. Tony Bryan, a Trinidad and Tobago native, brings sunshine from the islands and some Carnival fever to participants with his personal style and artistic presence.
Tony migrated first to Canada in the early nineties to complete his Masters in Business Management. After a coup attempt in Trinidad, and the prospect of civil unrest at home, Tony decided to come to the United States to explore further advancement opportunities. 
Luckily Tony landed in the Washington DC Metropolitan area, where there was a robustly active community of Caribbean nationals. He first met Brian Walker and Fred Davis, leading champions of dance exercise at a Calypso aerobics event. Before Zumba became the highly popular form of dancercise raging through the world exercise circuits, there was a bustling dance exercise therapy of calypso, steelband, reggae, jazz, soul, with Brazilian, African, Latin, Caribbean influences known as calypso aerobics.
The Washington DC Caribbean communities were first to launch the calypso aerobic dancersize. Brian Walker the innovator and creator of calypso aerobics and soquatics - soca in de water, was a masterful and theatrical Trinidad and Tobago born dance, art, and culture enthusiast. He took Tony under his wings and nurtured him in the field of dance theatre. Brian taught Tony the new style of aerobics workouts themed in Carnival dance, and fondly name Calypso aerobics.
Soon thereafter, Tony and Brian and Fred partnered in spreading the joy of dance to many. Where Brian was the energy, the spirit force that exploded with infectious and combustible joy with his audiences, Tony structured, studied, refined and enhanced his teaching, dance, and exercise instructor skills. In affiliation with other professional dance/exercise enthusiasts, Tony perfected and honed his crafts to become one of the most prolific health and body fitness gurus in the Washington DC Metropolitan area.
The Mid County Recreation Center at Silver Spring Maryland gained a highly accomplished and versatile fitness instructor for their Zumba Gold classes.
With popular music on the cd player, seniors were treated with cautious courtesy and concerned directives for their hour long Zumba session. More so, Tony repeatedly sent out shout outs of encouragement: "Great Job! You Got it! You Got it!" to his group of elders. He forbade them to undertake any exercises that would be too stressful, and he made everyone feel as if he were their personal dance partner.
For the Zumba Gold hour, there was glee, there was laughter, and there was revelry among all. Caroline, a 66yr old, was more than happy to be there, she was happy to be alive. In July 2013, Caroline underwent major brain surgery. With a look of beautiful gratitude, silver grey hair cropped short, and a palpable smile, she comes to Zumba Gold as part of her exercise therapy. Vicky, 77 yr old, has had knee replacement surgery on both knees and was overwhelmed with emotion. It was something to do and it was delightful to be with others of her age.
Tony Bryan & Grace
What a recipe for life! There is great music, dance/exercise, and good fellowship. There is more so, the joy of having a great time. Seniors at the Mid County Recreation center in Maryland experience Zumba Gold, with a taste of Carnival revelry, and gain an hour of sheer excitement with their dance instructor, Tony Bryan.
In an extraordinary legacy of friendship, from Calypso Aerobics to Zumba Gold, the Carnival dance plays on.
Watch the video: From Calypso Aerobics to Zumba Gold dedicated to Brian Walker and Fred Davis


Saturday, January 4, 2014

Should marijuana be legalized?


The law in Colorado has given license for marijuana to be sold legally.  As someone who has tried to smoke marijuana for recreation, I unquestionably know I am not the same human normal when under the influence.  As I look at it from a much uniformed perspective, I think it is a hysterical travesty of the government to entertain the potential for unexpected casualties.   

We were around 13 and I was fitting in with my peers at High School.  The scholarship to transfer to a more prestigious school was not an enticement.  Luckily, my family, would have been too distressed financially to afford all the vestiges of the Convent life.  So the friendship bonds were more influential and engaging.    We agreed to tell our parents that we were going to a social occasion in a socially comfortable area.  But, what we really did, was go to the adult friend’s home, where weed was the cocktails, the entre and dessert.

After the first couple hits, as a novice, it’s the first time, and I have not acquired the necessary finesse to inhale with small breadths, so my pulls were with great relish and intensity, I was delirious.  There was a Curtis Mayfield song playing, I'm Your Pusherman  and whatever organic property there was,  it was extremely potent. I was only hearing the Bassline beat for the whole song.  And the thumping grew louder, and I was not feeling anything else.

Thanks for the friendships of caring, I was the first person that had to be taken home.  I must have been so badly out of shape that my more accustomed user friends, were pissed that they would have to explain this to my family, or that I ruined their party time.  They got me to my home.  I think I was shoved out of the car hastily and reprimanded to walk straight up the steps and go to bed.

My younger brother saw my distress state and since he was one of them *wink, wink* with a smirk of insider intelligence, he escorted me to my room.  I knew then and there, I did not have a tolerance for further out of body getting high experiences.

When my son hit his adolescence “alien invasion” getting high moments, it was chaotic, sometimes neurotic, psychotic and an emotional rollercoaster of long term issues into manhood.  I have actually taken pictures of the “high” moments.  One is of him slumped at the bedside, the cap covering his face, mouth open and drooling and looking totally dotish.   The other is a picture of him sitting on the roof of the house smoking to avoid being seen.

The next phase of my marijuana intake is as an adult with more adult sense and responsibility.  It’s a party and folks get high.  They happen to be the functional partiers.  I quickly knew that unlike my girl days, none of these people would be looking out for me if I go into a dope induced stupor.  So I was coherent enough to know my choice of substance, was still a mild rum and coke drink.  I later graduated to apple martinis.

Perhaps, I am one of the lucky ones.  I over analyze even if and while under the influence.  I had a couple martinis too many at a party and I got my dance on with such dexterity, that I was working the chairs to Alicia Keys…If I ain’t got you.    I got such rave reviews from my pole dancing, I was asked by a partier, to dance for her father’s 70th birthday.  I knew then that my professional calling was in question. 

With marijuana, I experienced euphoric pleasure.  My appetite for ravenous and insatiable pleasure became toxic.  To be in the zone,   I had to feed the high.  

Should Marijuana be legalized?  This is the trending topic on media.  In a Huffington Post article, This is Why Marijuana should be legalized, it states that over 58% of Americans are now in favor of legalized marijuana use.  The article presents all of the strongest arguments why this is a drug that is not harmful.  The words drug and not harmful are themselves in contradiction. 

I am in no position to defend or provide legal, social or moral judgment.  I have not been a cancer patient and need the soothing relief to quell my pains.  I have not been a schizophrenic that need to still the voices.  I have not been the case or circumstance, that requires some of the medicinal properties marijuana is said to possess.

From my non expert position, the effect that marijuana has on me is not the same as a cigarette or an aspirin.

Maybe the political side of legalizing marijuana is to encourage more levies of taxes.   Instead of the drug being sold on the streets, it is a legal product with revenue generating streams for the patrolling bodies.   Just like pharmaceutical companies have become the cornerstone for the chemicals that are traded around the world with billions of dollars in profit, maybe the marijuana industry has the potential of creating a global pharmaceutical market for the 1%. 

It is ironic that with the new laws in Colorado the demand has spiked the price for cannabis.  The user populations that have flocked to the area to purchase legal weed are paying premium dollar for their sought after drug commodity.   In the article High Demand: Price Of Legal Marijuana Soars In Colorado
Rachel Gillette, executive director of the Colorado chapter of NORML, a national nonprofit seeking to make marijuana use legal nationwide said she found retailers selling top-shelf marijuana to recreational users at prices close to $400 per ounce, not including taxes.

But again, my mind analyzes.  With marijuana becoming a legal substance, I envision the normalcy of being high as another health psychosis of the next millennium.

“Would you pass me that Blunt, it’s my marijuana” and now I am legally about to get high.







  

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