eXpress
Yourself newZletter Vol 2004 No. 1
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE: FOOT CIRCLES
THE SEARCH FOR STONE
WOMAN
THROUGH THE EYES OF
A FRENCH CHILD
LANGUAGE AS A POWERFUL
POLITICAL TOOL
HOW MEN AND WOMEN HANDLE
OIL CHANGES
ONE FINAL WORD CHALLENGE
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Spring is coming …. hard as that might be to believe for our northern XYZ friends who have endured a very long, very cold, and very snowy winter. To herald in this most welcomed season of new beginnings, this edition of your eXpress Yourself newZletter takes both a light and sobering look at words. We are losing the ability to communicate effectively with words, relying more than ever upon visual images to express our thoughts and feelings. While visual images created by computers, cameras, video tapes, DVDs, and movie film are dramatic, particularly in branding lasting impressions in our minds, words are needed to accurately communicate ideas …. and ideas are what move society. For better or worse, the words we select to communicate what we wish to express can inspire people to great achievements … or plunge them into the abyss of hopelessness. Those who can tap into the awesome power of words hold the world in their hands … for better or worse, as history has proved over and over again. But before we begin to take a closer look at words, let’s get your hands and feet coordinated!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FOOT CIRCLES Okay, figure this out, all you Einsteins! While sitting in a chair, lift your right foot slightly off the
Now, while doing your foot circles, draw the number "6" in the air
You can't help it so don't try to fight it!! Now that you’ve discovered you can’t have your hand and foot doing two things simultaneously …. you will never again be caught trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE SEARCH FOR STONE WOMAN The wind one brilliant day
This haunting poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado opens a deeply moving PowerPoint presentation entitled, The Search for Stone Woman. It was created to announce the 2004 dates for the Circle of Stones: A Gathering of Women. But since so many people have asked to see and share this presentation, we reproduced it in HTML so it can be viewed on the Circle of Stones web site. We invite you to go there now and see The Search for Stone Woman for yourself: http://www.kohlquest.com/stonewomanppt.html. Just be sure to come back for the rest of your XYZ newsletter! If you want to receive the presentation in the PowerPoint format so you can pass it along to every woman on your mail list, which we hope you will do, just send us an email at: support@kohlquest.com .... and put Stone Woman PowerPoint Please in the subject window. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THROUGH THE EYES OF A FRENCH CHILD If we will not learn how to think for ourselves …
Remember what we have shared in earlier XYZ editions … the greatest obstacle to genuine communication is to see the world as we see ourselves. Citizens of the United States would do well to pause and consider how their country is viewed through the eyes of others around the world. It is sobering to realize we are rarely seen as we would like to be … or seen as we thought we would be. The following article, written by Ted Rall and distributed by the Universal
Press Syndicate, illustrates my point in spades.
CARQUEFOU, FRANCE -- Why do they hate us? And where do they get their hatred from? These questions haunted me and three other American visitors as we studied a huge display of cartoons drawn by local schoolchildren assigned to convey their impressions of the United States. Panel after grisly panel depicted the United States, George Bush and those ubiquitous symbols of American commercial culture--McDonald's and Coke--as murderous, predatory and gleefully vicious. Obese Uncle Sams chopping up Iraqi children with a knife, their blood gushing across construction paper. A leering Statue of Liberty holding a hamburger in one hand while firing missiles at dying Afghan civilians across the ocean. The American flag, its bars transformed into prisons for the child inmates of Guantánamo. A baseball bat painted red, white and blue poised to smash a ball--which is a globe. The juxtaposition between the artwork's ferociously angry imagery and the childish drawing styles of the third graders would disturb the most jaded reader. I didn't see a single positive portrayal of the United States. Organizers of Carquefou's annual cartoon art festival had invited four American artists -- Steve Benson of The Arizona Republic, David Horsey of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Kal of The Baltimore Sun and yours truly -- to this industrial town in conservative western France to discuss the deteriorated state of Franco-American relations. We've all used our cartoons to convey our dim opinion of the Bush Administration's domestic and foreign policy agenda. We oppose the war in Iraq (news - web sites). We despise the French bashing ("freedom fries," wine boycotts, high schools that have stopped teaching French) that has arisen since the Chirac government threatened to veto Bush's Iraq war resolution in the U.N. I even have dual French-American citizenship. We're a pretty liberal group; that's probably why they chose us. We don't take issue with most of the cartoons' messages. They see Americans as arrogant brutes who don't give a passing thought to the innocent people who die at the hands of their government and rapacious corporations as hegemonic steamrollers that crush cultural distinctiveness and independence in their ceaseless quest for the almighty dollar. They can't believe that we feel more entitled to use military force than Luxembourg or Monaco. What must Palestinian kids think of us? It would be nice to see these opinions expressed with more subtlety and nuance. But their opinions are more right than wrong. Americans believe they're exceptional. A Republican is someone who believes that we were right to invade Iraq. A Democrat is one who thinks we should have gone into Rwanda. Still, walking past those drawings these past few days felt like getting slugged in the stomach. Part of it was the sheer scale --- there were more than 700 pieces on display. But the level of rage and vitriol against America and everything related to it (one kid even trashed Tropicana orange juice) surpassed prewar propaganda in Saddam's Iraqi press. And these are kids. We repeatedly explained that there's more to the United States than its politics. We argued that Americans are kind, big-hearted people. French attendees listened politely, and we were treated with the utmost kindness and hospitality, but their kids' cartoons screamed: we hate you. That hurt. Children get their politics from their parents and teachers, who form their impressions from the media. The European media has covered a different war than the one you've seen on CNN and Fox News. A 14-year-old Iraqi boy, shot by U.S. troops in Baghdad, was interviewed for five minutes on the evening news. "They did it on purpose," he said. "They were laughing." Most foreigners know more about us than we know about them. Hell, they know more about what we're doing in Iraq than we do ourselves. Of course, many of us don't give a damn whether French schoolchildren, or anyone else, think the United States is a land of butchers and thugs. Whether or not we care, however, it matters. Ted Rall is the editor of the new anthology of alternative cartoons "Attitude 2: The New Subversive Social Commentary Cartoonists," containing interviews with and cartoons by 21 of America's best cartoonists. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LANGUAGE AS A POWERFUL POLITICAL TOOL As the United States enters into a year of political posturing leading to the election, or reelection, of the its next president, the world watches and listens to each candidate, looking for clues that will reveal the true measure of the man. In the following article, reprinted from The Nation, June 30, 2003, pp. 20-22, Dr. Renana Brooks, a clinical psychologist practicing in Washington, DC, and head of the Sommet Institute for the Study of Power and Persuasion, gives us a politically unbiased analysis of how George W. Bush uses well-known linguistic techniques to make citizens feel dependent. I hold no political preference regarding President Bush or any of his challengers. And we all know any politician worth his/her salt is acutely aware of the power of words to subliminally influence audiences. More important than the campaign speeches these politicians are delivering is the true intent behind their choice of words. This article focuses on George W. Bush’s intent. But he is not the only one who has mastered the art of using negatively charged emotional language. All people in real or imagined positions of power are acutely aware of how carefully selected words can subliminally influence the thoughts and feelings of their audiences. May Dr. Renana Brooks’ observations raise your awareness of how such
language is used by anyone whose hidden agenda is to make us feel powerless,
fearful, and completely passive.
George W Bush is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language. What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language -- especially negatively charged emotional language -- as a political tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances, and his political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of language to dominate others. President Bush, like many dominant personality types, uses dependency-creating language. He employs language of contempt and intimidation to shame others into submission and desperate admiration. While we tend to think of the dominator as using physical force, in fact most dominators use verbal abuse to control others. Abusive language has been a major theme of psychological researchers on marital problems, such as John Gottman, and of philosophers and theologians, such as Josef Pieper. But little has been said about the key role it has come to play in political discourse, and in such "hot media" as talk radio and television. Bush uses several dominating linguistic techniques to induce surrender to his will. The first is empty language. This term refers to broad statements that are so abstract and mean so little that they are virtually impossible to oppose. Empty language is the emotional equivalent of empty calories. Just as we seldom question the content of potato chips while enjoying their pleasurable taste, recipients of empty language are usually distracted from examining the content of what they are hearing. Dominators use empty language to conceal faulty generalizations; to ridicule viable alternatives; to attribute negative motivations to others, thus making them appear contemptible; and to rename and "reframe" opposing viewpoints. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech contained thirty-nine examples of empty language. He used it to reduce complex problems to images that left the listener relieved that George W Bush was in charge. For example:
Another of Bush's dominant-language techniques is personalization. By personalization I mean localizing the attention of the listener on the speaker's personality. Bush projects himself as the only person capable of producing results. In his post 9/11 speech to Congress he said, "I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people." He substitutes his determination for that of the nation's. In the 2003 State of the Union speech he vowed, "I will defend the freedom and security of the American people." Contrast Bush's "I will not yield" etc. with John F: Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." The word "you" rarely appears in Bush's speeches. Instead, there are numerous statements referring to himself or his personal characteristics -- folksiness, confidence, righteous anger or determination -- as the answer to the problems of the country. Even when Bush uses "we," as he did many times in the State of the Union speech, he does it in a way that focuses attention on himself. Poll after poll demonstrates that Bush's political agenda is out of step with most Americans' core beliefs. Yet the public, their electoral resistance broken down by empty language and persuaded by personalization, is susceptible to Bush's most frequently used linguistic technique: negative framework. A negative framework is a pessimistic image of the world. Bush creates and maintains negative frameworks in his listeners' minds with a number of linguistic techniques borrowed from advertising and hypnosis to instill the image of a dark and evil world around us. Catastrophic words and phrases are repeatedly drilled into the listener's head until the opposition feels such a high level of anxiety that it appears pointless to do anything other than cower. Psychologist Martin Seligman, in his extensive studies of "learned helplessness," showed that people's motivation to respond to outside threats and problems is undermined by a belief that they have no control over their environment. Learned helplessness is exacerbated by beliefs that problems caused by negative events are permanent; and when the underlying causes are perceived to apply to many other events, the condition becomes pervasive and paralyzing. Bush is a master at inducing learned helplessness in the electorate. He uses pessimistic language that creates fear and disables people from feeling they can solve their problems. In his September 20, 2001 speech to Congress on the 9/11 attacks, he chose to increase people's sense of vulnerability: "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.... I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight.... Be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat." (Subsequent terror alerts by the FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security have maintained and expanded this fear of unknown, sinister enemies.) Contrast this rhetoric with Franklin Roosevelt's speech delivered the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He said: "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.... There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces -- with the unbounding determination of our people -- we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God." Roosevelt focuses on an optimistic future rather than an ongoing threat to Americans' personal survival. All political leaders must define the present threats and problems faced by the country before describing their approach to a solution, but the ratio of negative to optimistic statements in Bush's speeches and policy declarations is much higher, more pervasive and more long-lasting than that of any other President. Let's compare "crisis" speeches by Bush and Ronald Reagan, the President with whom he most identifies himself. In Reagan's October 27, 1983, televised address to the nation on the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, he used nineteen images of crisis and twenty-one images of optimism, evenly balancing optimistic and negative depictions. He limited his evaluation of the problems to the past and present tense, saying only that "with patience and firmness we can bring peace to that strife-torn region, and make our own lives more secure." George W. Bush's October 7, 2002, major policy speech on Iraq, on the other hand, began with forty-four consecutive statements referring to the crisis and citing a multitude of possible catastrophic repercussions. The vast majority of these statements … * "Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The
danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time"
… imply that the crisis will last into the indeterminate future. There is also no specific plan of action. The absence of plans is typical of a negative framework, and leaves the listener without hope that the crisis will ever end. Bush's political opponents are caught in a fantasy that they can win against him simply by proving the superiority of their ideas. However, people do not support Bush for the power of his ideas, but out of the despair and desperation in their hearts. Whenever people are in the grip of a desperate dependency, they won't respond to rational criticisms of the people they are dependent on. They will respond to plausible and forceful statements and alternatives that put the American electorate back in touch with their core optimism. Bush's opponents must combat his dark imagery with hope and restore American vigor and optimism in the coming years. They should heed the example of Reagan, who used optimism against Carter’s "national malaise"; Franklin Roosevelt who spoke of hope against Hoover’s pessimism induced by the Depression; and Clinton who used positive language against the senior Bush's lack of vision. This is the linguistic prescription for those Americans of every walk of life who wish to reclaim a lost sense of national optimism and strength. We would do well to remember these words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "If we do not act, we will surely be dragged down
Renana Brooks, Ph.D., is completing a book on the virtue myth and the conservative culture of domination. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HOW MEN AND WOMEN HANDLE OIL CHANGES Now, for something a little lighter!
For Women:
Money spent:
For Men:
Money spent:
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ONE CHALLENGE AS A FINAL WORD Here’s a challenging word exercise from a book entitled, Classic Brain Teasers. The object is to find back-to-back words with the same number of letters. Both words are spelled alike except for one vowel. The number of letters in the missing words you are to find is identified in the parentheses following each statement. Examples:
Have fun! (answers follow) 1. The pok(er player wanted to _____ _____ he was out of money.
(3)
Answers:
This concludes this first 2004 edition of the eXpress Yourself newZletter. Before I close, let me remind you about our web site addresses and invite you to visit them often: Circle of Stones: A Gathering of Women
KohlQuest ArtSpeak:
Hole in the Garden Wall book:
XYZ Newsletter subscriptions:
XYZ Newsletter Archives:
Thanks for sharing these moments with me. Make this day a great one, full of the blessings you desire and deserve. Prudence Kohl KohlQuest Associates
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