or "NVC"...

The very popular book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Create Your Life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values has been highly praised by friends and co-workers.  I looked up this book tonight and found the following review that made me laugh out loud ~ yet has such a ring of truth...

6 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

My Parents Were Non Violent, I want to kill them, December 19, 2006

Reviewer:

CoolerHeads (CA USA) - See all my reviews

Having been raised by NVC and PET parents, the best I can say about it is: it's the process of replacing violent communication with extremely annoying communication. But the darker side is this: worse than exercising authority, my parents always insisted on my consent. And, as a parent, you may think you are really hearing the needs of your child, but let's be honest, you're going to get the results you want through the undeniable disparity in resources and conscious and unconscious coercive capacities. But NVC heaps the added expectation of compliance, of expecting the child to deny exactly that undeniable power imbalance. Oh how I wished I could just rebel against my parents' arbitrary power, instead of processing every bleeping feeling until everybody was okay with it. And even darker, my parents really felt they could transform the world with this stuff, that if only every kid were raised their way, then the Jew's and the Palestinians would work it out, and swords into plowshares. Nice enough. Let me tell you, it's no breeze being the child of messiahs, of people who feel their every utterance holds World Peace in its womb. And even worse, IT MADE ME THEIR PROJECT, me the exemplar of their philosophy, me the transcendent pure minded new person whose life should exemplify the coming NVC utopia. So is it any wonder they completely screwed me up? Oh, wait, let me be clear: When you raise me in an overly precious way, not just parenting, but proselytizing, I feel like a PROJECT not a person. When you take the very real human aspects of rage, pettiness, competitiveness and, yes, judgmentalism and wring them out of a child through WORD GAMES, SCRIPTS and all the artful coercion a parent can muster, I feel like busting some heads, popping some pills, running wild in savage amnesia to wake with iron on my tongue and sinews in my teeth...

~ from the Amazon.com reviews of "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Create Your Life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values"

"Preach to the choir.  They'll sing loud enough to get everyone to go into the church, or synagogue, or mosque."

(David Gershon, promoting a "low carbon" diet to environmentalists.)

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA  34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16.  After careful consideration, I
regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me
an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually
large number of rejection letters.  With such a varied and promising field
of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Whitson's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in
rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at
this time.  Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor
in your department this August.  I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,
Chris L. Jensen

(From http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/humor/reject.html )

"It's possible to own too much.  A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure."

(Lee Segall, as quoted in the book Ready For Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work & Life, p 15)

When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore. --Shunryu Suzuki