Emotional Intelligence | Stevehein.com
Nov 2 additions to the free hugs campaign news item list
These are not necessarily new items as of Nov 2. But they showed up on my google alerts today or I just found them today.
Article (in English) in a Persian journal - http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_18492.shtml
Article from emedia. http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/10/emw451739.htm
Note - The article below is confusing the Juan Mann/Sick Puppies YouTube Campaign with the company in Atlanta when it says this..
The campaign for Free Hugs has become popular on several user-generated sites to become the most watched videos currently on the web.
http://thedailyreel.com/news-opinion/blogs/the-daily-feed/archive/2006/10/02/free-hugs-campaign
How free hugs won stardom for pair who needed a break
Free hugs priceless in a culture of violence By Karen Brooks Oct 4 (back up copy)
http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=4049 Oct 19
October 07 2006 at 04:04PM
The Free Hugs campaign that has caught on in recent years in
several Western countries has arrived in Taiwan.
Yu Tzu-wei, a 22-year-old student from the National Taiwan
University of Science and Technology, walked around downtown
Taipei on Saturday offering free hugs to strangers.
Holding a placard with the words "Free Hugs," Yin
approached passengers by and asked them if he could hug them.
While most people ignored him or ran off, some accepted his hug
and walked away smiling.
Yu said he wants to hug everyone in Taiwan to spread the message
of peace and to build a harmonious society. On Saturday, Yu had
hugged around only 200 people. At that rate, it will take him 315
years to hug Taiwan's 23 million people. - Sapa-dpa
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=qw1160228521270B235
Back up copy of How free hugs won stardom for pair who needed a break
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Free
hugs priceless in a culture of violence By Karen Brooks
October 04, 2006 10:00am
Article from: Font size: + -
DID you know that in New South Wales, Monday (a public holiday
there) was declared a day of hugging?
This wasn't an official pronouncement; rather, it was made by an
advocate of the Free Hug movement.
Last week, the creator of this movement, a young man going by the
pseudonym Juan Mann, was elevated to the dizzying heights of
global celebrity.
Video footage of Mann pacing Sydney's Pitt Street Mall about a
year ago, holding aloft a sign stating "Free Hugs" and
set to the poignant All the Same by the Australian Los
Angeles-based band, Sick Puppies, was uploaded on to the
video-share website YouTube.
In cyberspace, every second counts. It took only nanoseconds for
news of the video of Mann's campaign to spread. Appealing to the
inner child in us, the video was shown on Good Morning America
last week. Now, the site is registering close to 1.5 million hits
and many thousands of positive comments.
So, what was at the heart of this young man's campaign to
brighten the day of city slickers those so preoccupied
with work and the fast, heady pace of contemporary life, they
forget to stop and smell the roses?
According to Mann, after returning from a trip overseas, he
noticed how sad everyone looked and basically wanted to brighten
their day. To him, a hug was the natural antidote to the stress
and alienation that burdens urban workers.
Although people were reluctant at first to approach this tall,
lanky man with a promise, it wasn't long before his invitation
caught on. Casting suspicion to the wind, young and old threw
themselves into his arms, keen for what we so often forget we
need in this hi-tech day and age human touch. Either we
forget or, for fear of being thought our actions will be
misconstrued, we avoid.
But Mann didn't think about how his intentions might be
interpreted, he embraced his fellow humans. And they thanked him
for it.
Then, Sydney City Council decided that this generous young man
could cause irreparable damage. Insisting that he buy $25 million
in public liability insurance, the council demanded he stop.
Undeterred, Mann collected 10,000 signatures on a petition and
now his hugging movement is free to continue to bring smiles to
those drawn, harried faces of the city.
There's something uplifting about this story. Along with the
video, you get the "warm and fuzzies" and find yourself
cheering this guy who reminds us of the simpler pleasures; of the
sweetness that life and letting others fill it can bring.
The past few weeks have been defined by memorials, tragedies and
death. Steve Irwin's life so swiftly taken; Peter Brock, gone.
The beloved Colin Thiele, passed away. September 11 and those
agonising images replayed again and again.
Senseless violence fills our news. Matt Stanley, only 15 when the
life is kicked out of him; a 16-year-old is charged with his
murder.
We live in a world where violence and violent acts are becoming
normalised. The producers of the new James Bond film see fit to
cut the superspy smoking a cigar but not images of him killing
people with a smoking gun. We are shocked and appalled at sexual
imagery and intimacy (Margaret Whitlam's comments about Janette
and John Howard holding hands, for example), but take death, pain
and the destruction of human life in our stride.
What sort of society are we devolving into?
We've become so desensitised to aggression we no longer think
twice about letting young children play computer games that
encourage them to shoot, maim and kill. I watched a
seven-year-old boy I know approach his mother with a gruesome
game under his arm, rated MA.
He asked her permission to play it. She gave it willingly,
disinterestedly even.
When I pointed out its rating, his mother said: "Oh, it's
all right. He's only killing aliens."
"I thought it was the killing that mattered," I
responded.
Apparently not.
I'm reminded of the movie True Lies, when Arnie Schwarzenegger's
character, who's been hiding his identity as a spy from his wife
of many years, admits he has killed in his line of work, then
hastily adds, "Yeah, but they were all bad."
When they don't look, talk, act or worship like us, then, it
seems, they're deemed to be bad (different) and their life is not
so important.
For a culture that doesn't cope well with death, we seem to hold
life so cheaply.
But just as you begin to despair, along comes a young man with a
big heart and YouTube, technology that spreads goodwill like a
virus and gives us what we need in these dark times a hug
and a smile.
All it took was Juan Mann.
Which just proves, hugs aren't for free, they're priceless.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20522769-5007146,00.html