Brummet's Conscious Blog

-- Quote of the Day -- " Words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. " ~ Lord George Gordon Byron -- Conscious Discussions Radio -- With millions of individuals caring for an increasingly aging population, we have made an effort at Conscious Discussions talk radio to cover chronic illness and end of life issues in an effort to encourage our listeners at a time when they may be feeling vulnerable, overwhelmed and grief-ridden. Frances Shani Parker is our featured guest of the day - she is a writer, former school principal and a hospice volunteer for 10 years. She has written a captivating book titled – Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes . Today’s listeners will discover interesting and helpful information regarding nursing homes, care-giving and common aging issues from pain management to dementia. We will also learn how to handle death, rituals and berea...

-- Quote(s) of the Day -- "692.3 million books reported by Nielson BookScan as being sold in 2007" "80% of business is from 20% of the client base" March is Small Press Month - in addition March 1st (yesterday) was World Book Day - and in honor of this I thought it would be appropriate to share these quotes with you today. I noted them while listening to radio interviews but neglected to make a note of the source, so I do apologize for that. However the information is vital to surviving and underlines the importance of finding a way to stand out in a crowd like a purle snowflake :) People will notice that there are traditionally a lot of writer events - festivals, fairs, book signings, lectures - around this time of year. Keep an eye on your local publications to find out what is going on in your area in March. -- Authors Read Radio -- Today's guest is children's author Jef Benedetti, who will be sharing an excerpt from Rosemary's Taken Over the Potato...

-- Quote of the Day -- “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche -- What is a "Chat Room"? -- - I am glad you asked. When hosting a live broadcast of one of our two radio shows, I open a " chat room ". This is where listeners can post comments, questions and suggestions. If you go into the chat room and find that you are unable to interact using your keyboard, you are likely appearing as a " guest ". In order to communicate in the chat room, rather than watching what others are saying, you'll need to register as a listener. I know - that sounds complicated, but it is really very easy and very, very fast. All you have to do is go to the Blogtalk radio home page and click on the link for registering as a listener... you don't have to give your rea...

-- Quote of the Day -- -- “There was a village it was on the Nissitissit River…in the early 1800’s it was a thriving little mill town …and had a lot of small industries… I think the lunacy and insanity that enveloped the valley was more environmental poisoning from the stuff that they were working on and the stuff in the river and the 40,000-acre drainage basin above it and the 5 villages above it. …In the early 1800’s nobody wanted to admit that there was lunacy in their family… they referred to as people it dying in an unusual way out there. To make felt they had to use mercurial oxide… They were exposed to mercury through their footwear. …I found they also had a velvet shop and you can’t iron velvet, you have to steam it so when I researched the colors back then… they were filled with arsenic and vermillion. …Even wallpaper was poison back then. …The term “mad as a hatter” was from hat makers who used felt in their hats and went stark-raving mad…” ~ Rosemary Chaulk 10/30/08 This fas...

-- Conscious Discussions -- We are closing Literacy Week here on Conscious Discussions with Darius Graham, blog manager and author of: Being the Difference - True Stories of Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary things to change the World . ...Rather than attempting to describe this work I’m going to read a quote here instead: “ Time after time we hear about causes that celebrities support and the billionaires who give away large sums of money to worthy causes. What we don't hear about often are those individuals who never make headlines, yet toil in obscurity hoping that their work will make the world a better place. That's what this book and blog are about: chronicling and celebrating ordinary people doing extraordinary things to make the world a better place. No celebrities or billionaires here, just real people making real change. ” Tune in to the Conscious Discussions talk radio show hear more about Darius's passions, Books All Around (a literacy organization), McCul...

-- Best Green Blogs -- Dave and I are very pleased to announce that this blog - Brummet's Conscious Discussions - that I have been managing has been included in the "BEST GREEN BLOGS" listing! We are honored, and excited by this rating. If you are interested, please check it out - and if you like, leave a comment about this blog- on the Best Green Blog site. According to their site: " Best Green Blogs is the web’s largest directory of green and sustainable themed weblogs. Writers from all over the world are publishing articles and stories dealing with a wide variety of topics dealing with environmental issues and green living; and Best Green Blogs is an attempt to capture some of that independent publishing spirit. Whether you are blogging about green parenting in Chicago or organic gardening in China, we want to hear about it! Our selection of categories is diverse, but what they all have in common is the desire to educate people about making smarter, more sustai...

-- Conscious Discussions honors Literacy Week -- Today, we are featuring the Literacy Bridge Organization... Cliff Schmidt is the executive director for Literacy Bridge, a nonprofit organization empowering children and adults with affordable tools for knowledge sharing and literacy learning. Prior to founding Literacy Bridge, Cliff ran a successful open source consulting business, specializing in intellectual property issues, nonprofit governance and community development. He has served many nonprofit organizations, such as the Eclipse Foundation and The Apache Software Foundation, where he was elected as a board director and appointed vice president of legal affairs. Cliff received his undergraduate degree from MIT and his M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington. Literacy Bridge is a nonprofit organization tackling illiteracy head-on through the development and deployment of innovative new technology. Their Talking Book Device, a low-cost digital aud...