The Tucson community is once again abuzz with news of Gabby Giffords. This time it is good news. While you may not agree with Blue Dog support of everything military as Gabby has tended to do in her political career, she does provide inspiration and shows what determination can do if you have medical and family support to complete a supportive components of a healing triangle.
Today she and her husband Mark served Thanksgiving Dinner on base at Davis Monthan AFB here in Tucson today. Local news coverage of the surprise visit is available at KOLD‘s website. It is worth the watch.
A most important element of her recovery had not occurred to me until I read about what she and her husband Mark’s visit could mean to wounded service persons who are also healing as much as they can from the concussive brain injuries that are routine in this last wave of wars they’ve been fighting. I’m still hoping Gabby will become an active representative in the gun safety movement, but whether she does or not, she will be serving and inspiring one of her most vulnerable constituent populations and doing so from the informed perspective of a fellow brain injury survivor.
How she survived is beyond my level of understanding. That she survived is beyond my understanding. How she manages to do the painstaking rehabilitation work she does, let alone be able to find the strength to make constituent visits like this one to DMAFB is totally beyond my poor understanding.
Blogging for Blogging's Sake
I am participating in National Blog Posting Month, a.k.a. Nablopomo, by posting an entry on this site every day of this month, November 2011. I’ve signed up other blogs of mine for Nablopomo challenges in the past however I have not yet posted every single day of a month, but this month I will do it. Why? Well, I have always been a writer, and have self-identified as a writer at least since I was in Junior High School, many, many, many moons ago.
And, well, the best answer to “Why?” is, ” Writers write.” And the more I write about anything, the more I write about everything. It primes the pump so to speak. Now that I have several of my blogs feeding into this one, it will be far easier to stockpile posts a few days ahead and schedule posts, which is the trick to consistent , smooth as clockwork publishing as far as I can tell. I learned this by reading The Burrow. If on a certain day I am not just overflowing with creativity about business and the marketing of meaning, I can now post something on one of the other topical blogs I maintain that is appropriate for cross-posting posting here. While I blog tech and semiotic marketing here, the posts that feed here from my boomer blog, my political blog, my local economy blog, and my personal blog are just categories within my portfolio showcasing my topical research and written content. Much clicked into place for me when I heard Morgan reference her blog as a portfolio of her work at Pathfinder Day pre-Blogher 11 Conference. That is what I am attempting to do with this iteration of this blog.
I write because I love to write. I write because I have to write. I love the feel of a pen, preferably one with an archival quality ink and ultra fine point, or pencil, mechanical with .7 lead on paper, or the magical tap, tap, tap of my finger tips flowing over a keyboard that sends these analog neural impulses into digital signals, that all appear on a page, electronic, or otherwise.
Writing helps me focus and quiet this unquiet mind of mine. In rather dramatic fashion a poem I once wrote contained the line, “the page will listen when my throat runs dry of scream.” As a woman who has lived with depression at least since the age of 12, the page has been an ever-patient, always there companion who allows me to voice my problems and sadness. The page listens, without judgment, as I lament ignorance and mis-steps that sent me onto some very dark and frightening paths. The page listens when I am giddy with joy. The page is always there.
Writing also helps me celebrate the sharing of information. I have helped others find just the bit of information they needed by working at reference desks and information stations in libraries. I have helped preserve anthropological and archaeological information by working in a museum with collections of the prehistory of the Southwestern United States. I take up causes and help to package and share information about subjects that I love and for which I have a passion in ways that I strive to have be novel and needed by writing about later born baby boomers and the distinct cohorts within the larger generation with an imposed and unflattering name, about creating sustainable peace and community, about under reported and misdiagnosed forms of child abuse, and about forested swampy lands that originally made up the lower Great Lakes Basin, and about the arid lands that once plentifully flowed with life giving waters now dammed and diverted by greedy systems that see the earth’s biosphere as distinct commodities that can be controlled for profit.
I write because writing is one of the processes that creates and defines me; I write because writing is me; but the very best thing about writing is finding out that some thought to which I have given voice has touched the inner essence of another human being.
If you write, why do you write?
BlogHer11
The conference is just starting – a.m. of the first day, though I was at the business path section of pathfinder day yesterday. BlogHer has changed so much in the last few years.
Corporations have arrived. BIGTIME. I will be talking about semiotics and corporations in many different ways from the differing perspectives throughout the next month on my topical blogs. Yes, there will be opinions, evaluations and tips. Pay attention chill ones, there is much to learn.
Brands are listening. Brands are doing things right. Brands are doing things wrong. The best ones are listening. The not best ones are hoping for free content
Quickly–just to review my current pitches for BlogHer for readers who are checking me out through a connection made at the conference.
N.F.Hill is my business.
Casita Gaia (TM) is a branded component of N.F.Hill dedicated to the interplay of local community driven economy and informed trajectories specifically directed by networks of women. Tucson-based.
My blogs are topical. Please don’t tell me I have too many interests. Think of my blogs as categories.
Mother Hurt is a blog about Munchausen by Proxy medical child abuse.
Late Boomers is a term I coined and worked five years on developing and pitching, successfully I might add, the distinct cohorts to baby boomers an the demographers and marketers who categorize them and serve to them.
Build Peace is my political blog that has been around for a long time. I’m biased, progressive, and female — live with it. Most of my accounts of pink adventures reside on this blog.
Done Nesting is for empty nesters who do not feel empty. It is an “evolved” Mommy Blog. All mommy bloggers will become the demographic I’m talking to and about with any luck.
Casita Gaia is having a blog carnival on August 20 to celebrate Tucson’s Birthday. Neighborhoods in Tucson celebrate the birthday of The Old Pueblo in August every year. Think of it this way – I am hosting a cyber-neighborhood event.
Explore. Drop me a note. Comments on posts will be opened.
BlogHer Business Enterprise Technology Conference
WOW. The 1st BlogHer|bet conference was a whirl wind affair consisting of a Thursday night gathering at Cisco Tele-presence Suites in Santa Clara and Friday at Microsoft in Mountain View for speakers and panel sessions.
A tech conference in Silicon Valley, how novel… well actually it was. Women supporting each other as entrepreneurs, sharing scoops and best practices is not the norm. Absolutely freaking amazing and wonderful! The conference challenged me to think in new ways, to think positively, to think strategically, and to continue to believe in the power of cooperative networks.
While I personally am not a big fan of large corporations, I was pleased to have the opportunity to see what both Cisco and Microsoft had to offer us individually through products and collectively by physically hosting us. It was conference sponsorship that went beyond swag.
The ability to coordinate soundly focused information rich and fun conferences is one of the most important aspects of BlogHer networking for me. As an uprooted academic, intellectual type person, I appreciate the learning environment that has obviously been nurtured and interwoven into the conference experience by the very savvy women who founded and run the successful business of BlogHer: Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins.
The conference was small enough to create a real sense of group cohesiveness. 100 conference attendees and 50 mentors is almost intimate in the vast impersonal business world. And there was a shared purpose that united participants as well; women need to help each other succeed so we can make the world a better place, and we can make money while doing it.
I cannot list all the great people I met right now as I have to finish up an application for grant funding that I found out about at the conference, but I do want to give a special thanks to my mentor, Marnie Webb, co-CEO of Tech Soup Global, the person who patiently listened to my less than polished pitch and gave me useful, concrete and direct feedback while managing to motivate rather than devastate my sensitive ego.
Updating & Reviewing Again
As many of you know, I’m operating from my base in Tucson, Arizona. These past few weeks have greatly impacted all of us. The posts I had in the pipeline to carry me through Groundhog Day (the anniversary of my moving to Tucson 22 years ago) just didn’t fit with all that has been going on here.
This isn’t a political site. I have several other of those if you are interested in non-megacorporation networks and media . So I won’t wax eloquent here other than to say, business and every other part of Tucson Life has changed, as life always does, as of the events of January 8th. We will use the change that is presented to us to build a better more vibrant community that is most in keeping with the apparent meaning of the word “Stjukshon,” pronounced CHUK-son, used by the Tohono O’odham people, the original human inhabitants of Tucson.
The O’odham word roughly translates as the spring at the foot of black mountains. The people of Tucson are the wellspring at the heart of life in this valley. We are a diverse, wonderful people and we are a real community as we have been for at least 3000 years. We mourn our losses and celebrate and strengthen all that is our community.
I will continue to post reviews and such here, but I also will be expanding my business in a new direction with the intention of celebrating and strengthening our community. Stay tuned for an announcement within the next few weeks. For the moment you can still find a list of my business services here.