Sitting on the patio of The Cup Cafe this morning in a post-student-teaching reward-yourself moment, I overheard a few suits talking about a local version of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity to be held Saturday at Tucson’s Historic Hotel Congress. (The schedule for the national event, held in D.C., was reported today by the Christian Science Monitor if you’re wanting to grab a ticket still.)

My “former journalist” ears perked up and tilted themselves in the general direction of the aforementioned gentlemen while I tried to focus on the data set I was producing from the surveys from my student teaching. This is old news for those of you who have not been buried the requirements (aka “hazing”) of student teaching, but it was thrilling news to me! Tucson Progressive or Blog for Arizona both announced the local Rally to Restore Sanity a couple of weeks ago, as I discovered in looking for good links for this post, but in case you DON’T read those blogs, here are the basics for this Saturday’s local rally:

Oct. 30, 9 to noon, 311 E Congress St., big-screen TV with a live feed of the D.C. rally, food, drinks and a costume contest. (It is a famous allegedly haunted hotel and the day before Halloween – of COURSE there will be costumes.) Additionally, according to the flyer at the Hotel’s welcome desk, there will be “surprise guests.” The manager wouldn’t say exactly who the surprise guests would be, although he mentioned Rodney Glassman, “other local politicians,” and hinted a national figure or two might swing by.

I’m so excited about this because there’s no way I can get to D.C.  Let’s give kudos to Club Congress for being Tucson’s local host for polite discourse about the upcoming elections. I’m going to ride my bike down there (exercise is my key to restoring sanity) so I’ll look like I’m in a costume without having to think up one. It should be a lot of fun and I hope Tucsonans of all political stripes show up to demonstrate that we can have civil conversation once more. Lord knows we need it this political season.

If you’re reading this and have no idea what the Rally to Restore Sanity (or the simultaneous March to Keep Fear Alive) is about, here’s a snippet from the Rally’s official website:

Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence… we couldn’t. That’s sort of the point.

Exactly.

Earlier this week, I wrote about how too much technology could be bad for your brain. I made the comment that there was no real reason any child under 16 needed a cell phone – if the argument for cell phones is safety. I’ve been handily challenged via comments and other methods to reconsider that blanket statement. After consideration, I concede that maybe children at the age of middle school might need a cell phone for safety. Under that age, it seriously seems that hands-on parenting is what should be providing the safety for that child.

However, even if parents do believe their young ones need a cell phone, thought must be given to the negatives (cognitive development, bullying via texting, the inability to “disconnect”, decreased ability to connect with anyone not tethered to a texting machine, the cost, the ability of creepers to track where your kid is by the fact they have a phone, the unknown effect of holding a battery to your head or in your front pocket all day, the decidedly unsafe practice of texting/talking by teens while driving) versus the positives (reaching your kid, tracking your kid with those creepy tracking devices, talking via text to a teen who won’t talk in person, safety).

If you think your child needs a cell phone, give him one. But as the grownup, perhaps you should consider setting limits on usage of that phone. If it truly is for safety, he doesn’t need it once he gets home – turn the thing off and turn on face-to-face interactions. Then again, many parents are just as addicted to their devices as their children are. Awhile ago, I saw a family of four at a restaurant. Mom and Dad were both reading/using their smart phones, the baby was propped in front of a tiny video device watching a kid-vid, and the young boy, who looked to be about 8, was saying, “And then, when my teacher told me ….” while his parents stared at their phones and said, “Uh-huh, hmm” and other grunts of feined interest. The sad thing is, this isn’t a rare sight and personally, I’m not sure this is all that great for family development.

I know the risks of being over-wired. When I first discovered instant messaging about 15 years ago (after succumbing to begging from my family to get the Internet in our house), I was instantly addicted. It was like a drug – all this real-time connection with people all over the place. Now, I have to fight wasting 30 minutes here and 40 minutes there reading Twitter feeds or Facebook updates – and don’t even get me started on what happens to my morning if I start searching blogs for a particular teacher topic! I really want a smart phone, but I’m fairly certain if I get it I’ll not be able to control my insatiable need-to-know what is happening right this minute in Japan, New York, the Middle East. Right now, if I leave my computer, I’m off the connection web. If I were to have a smart phone, Lord only knows what might happen.

Do you think someone who is 10 years old knows the risks of over-connection? Does a 16 year old understand what she’s missing in real relationships as she feeds her virtual ones online? We’ve all seen the interviews with tweens who say they can’t sleep if they aren’t holding their phones. Should we just accept this as normal or should we use are critical thinking skills and question it? Should we poo-poo what the the research in the story Monday was showing or maybe give it a little thought? Or should we wonder that wiring up our kids at birth may be one of the reasons college students today are showing 40 percent less empathy than students did just a decade ago?

I’m not saying we should all go back to the unwired dark ages. There is so much potential for good out there in the wired world. I’m saying we should not all march like lemmings to bow at the altar of technology without thinking about it longer than five minutes, especially when young children, young brains and young relationships are involved.

Sterling Swanson wants you to join her on a 30-day journey to positivity. The midday personality at the popular contemporary Christian Radio station K-LOVE, launched a 30-day no-whining campaign yesterday on air and on the station’s Face Book page.

As of Monday afternoon, about 450 people had committed on Face Book to joining the 30-day effort to go “without

I think babies are exempted from the 30-day challenge

grumbling, mumbling or speaking ANYTHING negative.” Nearly 1,200 had “liked” the status update/challenge, perhaps illustrating that while plenty of us think the idea laudable, far fewer of us think we can actually do it. Which, when you think on that, brings you to the conclusion that we’re all too used to focusing on the negative. (Examples: You have a house, but you think it is too small/big. The sun is shining, but you think it is too bright. You’re thirsty, and you’re lucky enough to have water, but whine because it isn’t filtered. You get the point.)

Most of the folks committing via Face Book, and all of the people committing via email to Swanson are women, although a handful of men say they want to do the May 24-June 22 challenge. There’s probably a researcher out there who could explain that gender disparity, but my non-scientific in-house research leads me to this: women crave change and self-improvement and men tend to like the status quo. Ergo, more women are willing to say, “No whining for 30 days? Bring it on, sister!”

Swanson, 29, got the idea for her no-whining campaign from a conference this past weekend at her Roseville, CA. church. Keynote speaker Darlene Williams addressed the power of our thoughts to create – or destroy – the happiness in our lives. She related how women experience a negative event – boss being a jerk, family being unappreciative, coffee being lukewarm – at only one point in time, but then “play it over and over in our heads and go talk about it a lot” instead of letting it go and moving to a more positive space.

“It’s not even what happens to us, but the way we see ourselves, or complaining about our lives or just saying negative things,” Swanson said explaining the tendency for women to lean toward complaint.

This pattern sets up a cycle of negativity, and recognizing that cycle was a light-bulb moment for Swanson, who went home to a husband who had had a bad day at work and told him he was now living in a No Complaints Zone.

“I told him he could still vent about his bad day, but I wasn’t going to vent with him,” she explained. Shawn Swanson was intrigued (although maybe a little confused, as husbands are wont to be when their wives come home with The Next Great Idea), and listened as Sterling explained her project. He decided to join up; Swanson says the couple will keep each other accountable in their effort.

“I thought it would be great to have 30 days of watching the words we speak,” she explained. “I’m thinking it’s going to change people’s lives.”

Swanson will be posting a focus for each day of the challenge on K-LOVE’s Face Book page to help give participants some direction for their efforts. If you’re interested in participating, go here for updates, support and ideas. God Blogging readers can note in the comment section if you’re planning on joining up. And remember, when someone asks how you’re doing, don’t complain about the fact that you can’t complain.  Instead, smile and remember what mothers have been telling their children for years: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.