Blog rules

Thank you to everyone who's been respectful to myself and others over my past 7 months in the blogosphere. I appreciate it! :-)

However, it's high time for some basic rules on this here blog. Why? Because I don't like to be attacked and disrespected (first, for what I said, and now for what I haven't said). I would never go to someone else's blog and disrespect them and I expect the same kind of courtesy extended to me. If you want to share my reality, you must acknowledge and abide by my rules.

That said, if you cannot post respectfully, your posts will be deleted. If you have to question whether or not your post is respectful, it most likely is not. Take a moment, think about how you'd like to be treated, reword it and try again. If you are typing something that you wouldn't say to someone's face, then it's not appropriate for my blog either.

(Update: I was going to change my settings to no longer allow unregistered users to post, but after giving it some more thought, I've decided not to. Unregistered users may still post, but I do reserve the right to delete posts that aren't respectful.)

And now for some basic (and fun) rules from "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten." I've always loved this list and think it's appropriate here on my blog today. :-)

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

(a guide for Global Leadership)

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:

* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don't hit people.
* Put things back where you found them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don't take things that aren't yours.
* Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
* Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
* Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
* And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum. See his website at http://www.robertfulghum.com/]