Jen McClure's Ruminations

Our Story: An Important Reminder

My cousin Leslie just sent me this via email and I thought I'd share. Let's never forget how valuable and important it is to speak our mind and have our say.

This is the story ......

of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.

 Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

 The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

 And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

 

(Lucy Burns)

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

 (Dora Lewis)
 They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

 

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

 (Alice Paul)
 When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh MY memory. Some women won't vote this year because - Why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
  
 
  

 Mrs Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day sentence.

"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

Wishing You a Peaceful New Year and Happy iPeace Day

Today is iPeace Day, and according to the folks at the iPeace social network (which I just accepted an invitation to join last week), you can make a difference in the world by just:

• Being peaceful
• Dedicate yourself to sharing your peace with those around you 
• Write a poem for peace
• Make a video. Post a video
• Organize a concert
• Play music in the streets for peace
• Plant a tree
• Organize a gathering
• Pray
• Light a candle
• Teach peace
• Meditate
• Run or walk for peace
• Organize a game or a match for peace
• Have dinner with friends
• Anything that will express peace – for you.
• Blog or write an article
• Live without fear

Not bad suggestions for today or any day, really. Check out and/or join iPeace at www.ipeace.me

Wishing you a peaceful new year.

The American Dream ... Revisited

Pollster John Zogby has released some interesting stats lately. He recently wrote, "Even in these uncertain economic times, my polling shows the American Dream is still alive and well, but is undergoing an historic transformation."

In his book, The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream, Zogby splits American Dreamers into two distinct groups: "Traditional Materialists" and "Secular Spiritualists."

Zogby defines Secular Spiritualists as Americans who are more satisfied with fewer material assets and less wealth.

"Secular Spiritualists are clearly the ascendant group, and in a June 2008 Zogby Interactive poll, they surpassed the Traditional Materialists," reports Zogby. (See more details on the poll here.)

But with this new-found "spirituality," we're not necessarily more optimistic.

In a separate Zogby poll, dubbed the New Year's Eve poll:

• 75% think the current year was worse for the world than the previous year, compared to only 39% who said that a year ago.
• Last year 59% said the current year was better for them personally than the previous year; this year only 32% said it was better.
• Only 43 % of respondents think next year will be better for them personally, compared to 59% who said that a year ago.
• Young people are more optimistic, with 57.9% expecting 2009 to be better
• Lower income respondents ($25K or less) are the least optimistic about the New Year
• Only 40% of respondents expect those born in 2009 to have a better quality of life than the generations before them

New Year, New Gig: New Media Company

When I finally finished my master's thesis and graduated from Stanford this past June, I vowed I would start blogging again. Well, here it is more than six months later, and this is my first blog post. Ugh - talk about writer's block!

But I now feel inspired write here again as I begin to embark on some new personal and professional projects. Professionally, I am branching out. Nearly five years after co-founding New Communications Forum, and later the Society for New Communications Research, our organization has grown and matured to the point where we will be bringing on an association management professional to help manage the day-to-day operations of SNCR. This is a very important and exciting development, as it will allow me to focus on supporting our Fellows' research, education, and publications initiatives. Look for some exciting new announcements and great new programs from SNCR in the coming weeks -- not to mention the 5th Annual NewComm Forum! Date and venue to be announced soon!

Now that I will have some extra help with SNCR and don't have to focus on writing my thesis anymore (yippee!), I've started to consult again just a bit -- and am very excited about my first project.

A few weeks ago, I helped an old friend and colleague, Ron Muns and his son, Andrew Muns to launch a new media company. Redwood Collaborative Media is a new B2B media company that creates highly interactive, integrated, and dynamic platforms for sharing knowledge, insights, and resources, and is dedicated to building deep relationships for professional communities. The company’s mission is to empower these communities through high quality information, education and training, and targeted online and face-to-face networking opportunities. The first such professional community is the Software Test & Performance Collaborative -- the result of an acquisition from BZ Media.

It will be fun and interesting to help develop this new company, and I'll share my learnings as we continue to grow and evolve the Redwood Collaborative Media concept. I also plan to use this blog to muse on other thoughts, questions, and ideas about new developments in media and communications, business, culture and other topics, so stay tuned. I hope you find it of interest and get involved in the conversation.

I wish everyone a very happy new year. To be sure, the current economic climate will be challenging for us all. But this challenge also presents us with exciting opportunities to tap into our creativity and spirit of innovation -- to be more flexible, more giving, more caring, more cooperative, and to take a new look at our old way of doing things and re-evaluate our priorities. So, here's to shaking things up in 2009! Best wishes to all!

Giovanni Rodriguez Tagged Me

My friend, colleague and SNCR Fellow Giovanni Rodriguez tagged me ... so here goes... five things you may not know about me:

1. I once spent 8 weeks on a tour bus traveling across America with "10 of America's favorite story book characters" as part of a cause-related PR campaign for Visa.

2. I used to sing in a band in NY, write music, play guitar and recorded some of my work.

3. I'm adopted. My (also adopted) brother likes to introduce me to his friends with that disclaimer ("This is my sister - we're adopted") ....hmmmm....

4. I moved to the Bay Area about a dozen years ago from NY - no plans to return! :-)

5. I was once the deputy town clerk / tax collector of Woodstock, NY.

OK - the tagging continues - :-) Elizabeth Albrycht, Lisa Fletcher, Steve Crescenzo, Mike Manuel, John Cass - it's your turn.

Week 3 - Finishing Up Work & Winding Down Our Visit

I kicked it into high gear during last week in Oxford, trying to see all the things we wanted to before leaving England, finishing my classes, presentations and papers and getting packed up and ready to leave. I am definitely going to need a vacation after this! :-)

July 17th was Dave's and my wedding anniversary, and we celebrated by attending a wonderful performance of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Ernest" by the Oxford Shakespeare Company at Wadham College. Evan behaved very well, and even seemed to enjoy it and relish in some of the baudy jokes. One line in particular seemed to tickle his funny bone: "I know exactly how to treat women," stated the character of Algernon Moncrieff. "If they're pretty you sleep with them, and if they're not, you don't." To which my five-year-old son slapped his knee, laughed loudly and announced "Thats the really funny part." Needless to say he was the real show stopper.

We also visited Christ Church College, where several scenes for the Harry Potter movies were filmed. An incredibly beautiful college campus! Our final family event in Oxford was a perfect conclusion to our stay. We attended an excellent performance of "Robin Hood" by the Creation Theatre Company in Headington Park. The stage was built around a large old tree and the action took place in and around the stage in the wooded area of the park, so that we really felt like we were in Sherwood Forest or watching a performance in much the same way that the play was originally performed. Robin Hood is such rich play from a historical, cultural and artistic perspective covering the Norman/Saxon aspect of British history and excompassing the economic, political and religious issues of the time. Evan was "afraid of the ghostes" at the end of the play, but all in all, we very much enjoyed this last evening in Oxford.

The final week's lectures included: Dr. Martin Conway with a fascinating look at "Fascism and the Modern State," Dr. Philip Davies who asked "What Have the Blair Governments Achieved?" Dr. Sarah Whitmore who provided a perspective on "The Orange Revolution in the Ukraine" and addressed the question of whether this could indeed be considered a full and effective revolution, given the current state of political affairs in the Ukraine. Dr. Ashley Jackson gave a sobering lecture entitled "Into Africa: Security Challenges for the Modern World" and Dr. Mark Radford concluded the lecture series with "The Irish Peace Process: Ending The Long War."

On Friday evening, I attended the final ceremony at Exeter, which started with a lovely champagne reception in the Fellow's Garden, followed by a formal dinner in the Great Hall and presentation of our certificates. Then it was back home to pack and set our alarm for 3:45am to make our early morning flight back to Chicago! The experience of a lifetime!

Week 2 in Oxford - Settling In

Another busy week as we began to settle into life in Oxford -- getting to know our way around and discovering our favorite shops, restaurants and pubs.

In class we discussed the Euro and the inner-workings of lobbying the EU, and in my sociology class we explored the topics of class, ethnic minorities and employment trends in contemporary British society. Lectures continued to be stellar - with a wide range of impressive speakers, including my Sociology professor Dr. Amanda Palmer, who explored the changing role of men in British society; Dr. Richard Caplan, who discussed the International Governance of War-Torn Territories; Dr. Rana Mitter who focused on China's role in the modern world; Professor Anthony Glees who spoke about intelligence and "the war on terror" and Professor Lord Morgan FBA, a member of the House of Lords who reviewed past and present Labour governments in Britain

From a sightseeing perspective, we visited Stonehenge over the weekend. Fabulous! A first visit for all of us. One of the theories on why Stonehenge was built in the exact location it was is the idea that there are energy currents in that area. Supposedly one can detect these using a couple of divining rods. Several people of our tour tried this, and it worked brilliantly. Dave tried it and it didn't work at all - so either the theory is incorrect, or my husband is just a freak of nature.

After our visit to Stonehenge, we explored the lovely town of Salisbury, home to one of the original copies of the Magna Carta - which we viewed - as well as the beautiful Salisbury Cathedral. The cathedral has an interesting history. It was one of the few that was not bombed during WWII, because it has one of the tallest steeples in England - more than 400 feet. Instead of destroying it, German pilots used it as a landmark and to guage the location of other targets.

Our First Week in Oxford

Our first week here was very busy. I struggled to overcome jetlag, settle into our new temporary home, orient myself to being a student here and still spend some time as a tourist discovering this wonderful old city.

At college, the week was filled with several wonderful lectures on the EU by Dr. Stewart Kewly (my professor in my international business seminar) and WWII by Professor Jeremy Black, as well as two other fascinating lectures titled "Government by Consent: Ideology and Mythology" by Dr. Christopher Nock and "The Middle East at a Crossroads" by Dr. Farhang Jahanpour. Dr. Nock posited that the great myth of Western liberal democracy is that government exists at the consent of the people. Rather, it's not consent, but rather the lack of illiberal dissent that keeps liberal democracthe Arab-Isries working. In an equally fascinating lecture, Dr. Jahanpour analyzed the different forces that will shape the future of the Middle East, including Islamic fundamentalism, non-democratic governments, Arab-Israeli conflict, Western policies and the importance of oil in East-West rivalry. I also began my first week of seminar courses. In my politics/economic class, we studied the evolution of the EU and the single European market, and in my sociology class we examined family and education in the UK.

As tourists, we spent out first week in high gear. We introduced ourselves to the rich and interesting history of Oxford University with a bus tour. Did you know that Oxford University was founded in about 1100 and is now comprised of 39 colleges with a student population of nearly 18,000 from 130 nationalities - clearly making this a very rich and multi-cutlural envioronment. We climbed the Tower at St. Mary's and got another great view of the city (check out Dave's photos). We also visited Blenheim Palace - birthplace of Winston Churchill. The gardens are fabulous and feature the second largest hedge maze in Europe and a butterfly house. We ended the day with a lovely dnner in the town of Woodstock in a 14th century hotel that beautifully blended the past and present. (They played Jack Johnson, featured modern art and had a disco in the back - not to mention marvelous food.) We also toured Oxford Castle, which was an active prison from 1070 until 1996.

On the 4th of July we celebrated Evan's 5th birthday with a small quiet dinner at our house. I bought a very cute cake, but once we cut into it, realized I had bought a fruit cake with marzipan frosting. Ugh. Oh well. Evan was still delighted because got the gift he had been asking for all week - a toy double decker bus and British cab and a small British Airways jet. We had prepared Evan for the fact that there is not a great deal of celebration on the 4th of July here. (Have you ever tried to teach early American history to a 5 year old?) However, we were al delighted to discover that there are many American students living in our neighborhood, and so not only were we treated to a small fireworks display, but one young student even played the National Anthem on her trumpet and they were nice enough to give Evan a sparkler.

Over the the weekend, we raced off for an impressively whirlwind trip of London, packing several days of sight-seeing into one. We managed to see the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace (even got to see the guards march around a bit), "Big Ben" (which is actually not the name of the clock tower, but just one of the bells) and Westminster Abbey, took a little cruise on the Thames and a spectacular ride in the London Eye (again, you've got to check out the photos to get the idea). So cool! We ended our day with a traditional English dinner of meat pies, potatoes and ale in an old pub before hobbling back to the train station to return to Oxford.

Needless to say, Sunday was a quiet one, with me focusing on some school work and Dave and Evan playing quietly as we prepared for week 2.

Discovering Oxford

For the next few weeks, I'll be posting little trip reports from Oxford, England.

I'm here at Exeter College taking two classes this summer to finish my degree requirements for my masters, and enjoying this lovely old city with my family. My husband Dave, our son Evan and I arrived this past week and have been exploring the city.

Our little house is lovely; in a quiet neighborhood about two miles outside of Oxford City, with a big meadow and playground right across the road - wonderful for Evan! On our first excursion around Oxford City, we visited the Covered Market, which has been a mainstay in Oxford for more than 1,000 years. (You can take a virtual tour here.)

We also climbed the Saxon Tower at St. Michael at the North Gate and rang the church bells. Evan was very proud to receive a Certificate of Achievment for climbing all the way to the top, and Dave took some great pictures that you can check out here in my photo album.

The Saxon Tower is Oxford's oldest building, having been built in about 1040. St. Michael at the North Gate church was constructed in the 13th century, and is now the City Church of Oxford.

A bit more interesting history about this old building: The Tower was later connected on its west side to the Bocardo Prison, which held Bishops Latimer, Ridley and Crammer who were burned at the stake by Queen Mary for refusing to convert to Catholicism. We saw their cell door at the Tower.

The first lecture of my program was presented by Oxford Fellow Tom Buchanan. He spoke about the current state of politics in the UK, and posed the question, "Will the forthcoming change in leadership (i.e. the departure of Tony Blair) be enough to re-energize Britain's Labour Party?" What do you think?

Technology or the US State Department Will Be the Death of Me

So... my family and I are preparing to leave for England for a month. I will be studying at Oxford - finishng my last two electives for my masters before returning to begin to write my thesis this Fall. Here's how things are going so far as we prepare for our journey:

Over the weekend my laptop just decided to stop working - yep, just stopped, no particular reason. Just got tired I guess. And, of course I was informed by the company that I am out of warranty and so any repair will be on my dime, but the good news is that the company's repair facility is local, so, I drove around Fremont today trying to find the facility in order to expedite the repair. Who knew Fremont Blvd. was so long? Arrgh!!! Yeah, I've got NOTHING else to do right now but this!

And, of course we have not yet received my son's passport. So, here's the little letter I emailed via the travel.state.gov website today after trying to reach someone via phone today more than 20 times. In fact, I'm on hold again right now - even as I write this. Who knows if it weill get any better response than I have been able to get via phone.

"I have been trying to reach your offices all day today. The first two times I called, I was told your systems were down and to call back later. The third time I called I was put on hold for 40 minutes, and when someone finally took my call, apparently the woman who answered could not hear me and she hung up. The other 20+ times I have called over the last 9 hours, I have been notified that your call volume is too high and I should try back later.

I tried to check the status online, but the application has not even been entered into your system yet - even though we should have already received the passport. I was informed by the gentleman I spoke with this morning (the first one who told me your systems are down) that you are "a little behind" in updating the online system.

Needless to say, this is incredibly frustrating and absolutely unacceptable.

My family and I are leaving for England in only 11 days from now. We applied for our son's passport more than six weeks ago via our local post office in Newark California. We were assured that we would receive the passport in plenty of time, but of course we still have not received the document.

I am aware that I need at least two weeks to expedite a request for an application, and now I have lost another day to follow up on the status of this application.

Can you PLEASE help me? Thank you."

Please someone tell me this will all be worth it. Right now, I am tempted to just chuck it all and instead spend my summer running through the sprinkler in our backyard and drinking lemonade and vodkas.