Dear Friends:
While I regret that I cannot be with you this afternoon, I am with you in spirit, however, and wish the greatest success for the new “Speak Your Peace” initiative.
Each election year provides us Americans with another opportunity to fulfill our role in shaping our public agenda. Unfortunately, election years also tend to confront us with some of the worst excesses in our public debate. From the race for the White House to our own state and local races, we tend to talk at each other instead of to each other, and the politics of personal attack often threaten to overwhelm any rational discussion of the issues. But public discourse is not a game of winners and losers—it is our only means to develop consensus about the problems that face us and the solutions we will pursue. If, because of the poisoning of our public discourse, we lose our ability to develop that consensus, our democracy will simply cease to function.
By promoting the Nine Tools of Civility, your initiative will help us all understand that public discourse is a conversation, and that all of us need to work together to understand our differences, reach common ground, and pursue our common goal of a better future for our community. Best of luck in your efforts, and please let me know how I can help.
Sincerely, State Senator Julie Lassa
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Start each day with pledge to be civil
This afternoon, a group of volunteers and young people will gather at the McMillan Memorial Library in Wisconsin Rapids to talk about something of critical importance to all of us: being nice to one another.
Not being nice in the traditional sense -- holding a door for someone, or saying "please" and "thank you" the way your mother taught you. No, these folks are interested in getting people to disagree without being disagreeable. They want to encourage people with different views to share ideas without attacking one another.
The project, sponsored by the Community Foundation of South Wood County, is called Speak Your Peace -- The Civility Project. It is modeled after similar efforts elsewhere, and its motto is "It's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it."
That's surely the truth. And we see growing evidence of it every day.
A few years ago, the phrase "road rage" didn't exist. Today, we all not only can identify road rage, we've all probably been a victim or perpetrator. That thin veneer of glass between one motorist and another seems to encourage rude gestures, shouted epithets and, in extreme cases, physical violence.
But that's just one example. Look around you and you can find dozens more. While the digital age has shrunk the world by allowing instant communication and interaction with people thousands of miles away, it also has coarsened our communication and allowed us to react emotionally and impetuously.
Who hasn't fired off an e-mail, baring teeth and blustering about someone or something? Before the Internet, you would have had to sit down with pen and paper to write a letter about whatever set you off, and by the time you were finished, you might have cooled down.
Not anymore. Today you rant at the keyboard, hit the send button and move on, leaving wreckage in your wake.
Just look at the Daily Herald's own forum, where vicious personal attacks are par for the course. The anonymity granted by such online chats and blogs seems to offer fertile ground to trolls and flame-throwers.
And don't even get us started on talk radio, on which precious little talking is done. It's high volume, high dudgeon -- and high time we all hit the off switch.
There's some real-world fallout to all this bellicosity: Good ideas that could solve some of the problems we all confront every day are being lost because people of differing views won't talk -- or more accurately, won't listen -- to one another.
For its part, Speak Your Peace offers nine "tools of civility" that address these failures of communication. The project encourages people to: • Pay attention • Listen • Be inclusive • Don't gossip • Show respect • Seek common ground • Repair damaged relationships • Use constructive language • Take responsibility
Few among us would oppose any of these measures, or even the overriding concept that we all should find ways to speak to one another more constructively and collegially.
The trick is to act. And during an election year, with sharp differences in world view bubbling to the surface all around us, it's even more of a challenge.
But it starts with the last item on Speak Your Peace's list: take responsibility. If you're tired of the bickering, resolve to change your own approach. Put principles before personalities. Refrain from unconstructive criticism.
Remember, it's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it.
~~~Reprinted from the Wausau Daily Herald - Editorial - 3/11/2008
Not being nice in the traditional sense -- holding a door for someone, or saying "please" and "thank you" the way your mother taught you. No, these folks are interested in getting people to disagree without being disagreeable. They want to encourage people with different views to share ideas without attacking one another.
The project, sponsored by the Community Foundation of South Wood County, is called Speak Your Peace -- The Civility Project. It is modeled after similar efforts elsewhere, and its motto is "It's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it."
That's surely the truth. And we see growing evidence of it every day.
A few years ago, the phrase "road rage" didn't exist. Today, we all not only can identify road rage, we've all probably been a victim or perpetrator. That thin veneer of glass between one motorist and another seems to encourage rude gestures, shouted epithets and, in extreme cases, physical violence.
But that's just one example. Look around you and you can find dozens more. While the digital age has shrunk the world by allowing instant communication and interaction with people thousands of miles away, it also has coarsened our communication and allowed us to react emotionally and impetuously.
Who hasn't fired off an e-mail, baring teeth and blustering about someone or something? Before the Internet, you would have had to sit down with pen and paper to write a letter about whatever set you off, and by the time you were finished, you might have cooled down.
Not anymore. Today you rant at the keyboard, hit the send button and move on, leaving wreckage in your wake.
Just look at the Daily Herald's own forum, where vicious personal attacks are par for the course. The anonymity granted by such online chats and blogs seems to offer fertile ground to trolls and flame-throwers.
And don't even get us started on talk radio, on which precious little talking is done. It's high volume, high dudgeon -- and high time we all hit the off switch.
There's some real-world fallout to all this bellicosity: Good ideas that could solve some of the problems we all confront every day are being lost because people of differing views won't talk -- or more accurately, won't listen -- to one another.
For its part, Speak Your Peace offers nine "tools of civility" that address these failures of communication. The project encourages people to: • Pay attention • Listen • Be inclusive • Don't gossip • Show respect • Seek common ground • Repair damaged relationships • Use constructive language • Take responsibility
Few among us would oppose any of these measures, or even the overriding concept that we all should find ways to speak to one another more constructively and collegially.
The trick is to act. And during an election year, with sharp differences in world view bubbling to the surface all around us, it's even more of a challenge.
But it starts with the last item on Speak Your Peace's list: take responsibility. If you're tired of the bickering, resolve to change your own approach. Put principles before personalities. Refrain from unconstructive criticism.
Remember, it's not WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it.
~~~Reprinted from the Wausau Daily Herald - Editorial - 3/11/2008
Our view: Civility project worth supporting
There's no question the south Wood County area faces challenges. That's not exactly a unique situation in this country. People want jobs; they want expenses held in check, and they want their quality of life preserved. To make progress in any of those areas is going to take ideas -- and a lot of them.
Communication will be key to driving innovation. People with the ideas have to be matched up with those who have the resources to advance them beyond the concept stage.
Let's face it, some of these strategies will need tweaking; others simply won't work. But if people hesitate to share their thoughts and opinions for fear of being attacked, ridiculed or publicly embarrassed that serves no one.
At 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, at the McMillan Memorial Library, a group of volunteers will unveil Speak Your Peace -- The Civility Project, an effort to elevate issue-based discussion beyond personal attacks and personality-focused clashes.
Speak Your Peace, a community leadership project supported by Community Foundation of Greater South Wood County, seeks to introduce residents to nine tools of civility and will ask people to voluntarily commit to adhering to them as best they can.
It isn't a matter of discouraging disagreements; it's about encouraging people to communicate in an effective and productive way. This is really about giving and receiving respect. There are likely few people who would say they oppose that goal, but how many accomplish it on a daily basis?
For more details, attend Tuesday's kick-off or see future editions of the Daily Tribune for continuing coverage. The community has a lot to gain from this local project.
~~~ Reprinted from the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune - Our View - 3/8/2008
Communication will be key to driving innovation. People with the ideas have to be matched up with those who have the resources to advance them beyond the concept stage.
Let's face it, some of these strategies will need tweaking; others simply won't work. But if people hesitate to share their thoughts and opinions for fear of being attacked, ridiculed or publicly embarrassed that serves no one.
At 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, at the McMillan Memorial Library, a group of volunteers will unveil Speak Your Peace -- The Civility Project, an effort to elevate issue-based discussion beyond personal attacks and personality-focused clashes.
Speak Your Peace, a community leadership project supported by Community Foundation of Greater South Wood County, seeks to introduce residents to nine tools of civility and will ask people to voluntarily commit to adhering to them as best they can.
It isn't a matter of discouraging disagreements; it's about encouraging people to communicate in an effective and productive way. This is really about giving and receiving respect. There are likely few people who would say they oppose that goal, but how many accomplish it on a daily basis?
For more details, attend Tuesday's kick-off or see future editions of the Daily Tribune for continuing coverage. The community has a lot to gain from this local project.
~~~ Reprinted from the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune - Our View - 3/8/2008
Speak Your Peace SWC
Plan to attend the kick-off of Speak Your Peace - the Civility Project:
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
4:00 p.m. at McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI
Free and open to the public. Free tool kit to take home.
Visit http://www.speakyourpeaceswc.org/ for information and free stuff!
~~~Community Foundation of Greater South Wood County
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
4:00 p.m. at McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI
Free and open to the public. Free tool kit to take home.
Visit http://www.speakyourpeaceswc.org/ for information and free stuff!
~~~Community Foundation of Greater South Wood County
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