February 3, 2010

Some Ideas to Share

I've posted a presentation from TED before. It's a wonderful website that posts free lectures about any variety of topics. A wonderful product of the Information Age. Today at work I was trying to type in a URL and was too fast for my computer so all I got when I hit the enter key was "ted.com" and it brought me to TED's homepage. It was really creepy because I'd been thinking about checking the site out again. It was as if the Internet gods wanted me to go there. And immediately I was drawn to three lectures that I knew I would want to share with you.

I was skeptical about Eve Ensler's lecture about girl cells because though I love learning about modern feminism the word "girl" sort of makes me uneasy. I think because I find it to be sort of demeaning. It's rarely used in a positive context when femininity is the crux of the conversation and men use it when they want to be derogatory about women. So despite the fact that Eve Ensler, writer of "The Vagina Monologues," would be the last person to use that word in a negative way, I feel that her use of the word will turn men off from her message. Especially when she begins her lecture saying that everyone has girl cells. I gave it a shot and was pleasantly surprised.

Basically she means femininity whenever she says girl cells and once I got over her use of that term I was taken with everything she said. I loved watching this. She sums up one of the reasons I can't wait to raise children- that by embracing their true selves, my children can make the world a better place.

The following two videos are about health care. Not Health Care. One is about social networking for patients- a way for them to communicate their well being with others. And the second is about a new, inexpensive way to provide cheap diagnostics. Just some cool stuff.