Different types of conflict responses from Dan Oestreich. He charts the dysfunctional behaviours of Withdrawl, Passive Resistance, Passive Aggression and Open Combat and counters these with the better Third Party Tactics and Human Contact. Go for Human Contact whenever you can. The relational approaches are the strongest peacemaking you can do.
I’m on my way to Ontario for ten days or so. Jumping on a redeye, because I had a job to do today. Tomorrow morning early I will land in Toronto and my brother and neice will pick me up and we will travel to the Beaver Valley where we will interr my father’s ashes and finally lay him to rest. And then we will celebrate Thanksgiving together and watch the Leafs game (and probably some Blue Jays games) and marvel at the beauty of the Beaver Valley in all of its autumn glory.
And then, later in the week I’ll head out to eastern Ontario and find my way to my friends Troy Maracle and Cedric Jamet and Jennifer Williams and we’ll set up our meeting spaces at the Queens University Biological Station on Lake Opinicon, where the skies are dark enough to see comets and the lake is like glass and your breath hangs on the still morning air as winter drops hints of frost all around.
Our Canadian National Men’s Team played a friendly today against Australia. I caught bits and pieces of it as I was getting myself to the airport. Seems it was a performance that feel short in many ways and despite having enough chances to win 5-1, Canada couldn’t solve the Australian block and we lost 0-1. I figure that many teams might play like this at the upcoming World Cup. With 48 teams in the mix, we will have to get used to playing teams that will try to keep their 0-0 draw intact. Australia had 1 shot on target, a goal. We had 8. Another friendly awaits on Tuesday against Colombia.
One highlight tonight was the 18th appearance of former TSS Rover Joel Waterman who played 8 games for our plucky little team in 2017, our first season in existence. Joel apparently had his best game yet in a Canada shirt, according to smarter people than me who were able to actually watch it. He won his duels, got a tackle in and helped keep a clean sheet for 71 minutes. Since he was trade to Chicago where he scored the goal that got them into the playoffs, it seems like he’s been much happier. Montreal was a dumpster fire.
I have a lot I love for my local library here on Bowen Island. Today I’m deeply appreciating the rotating display of works from our local fabric arts guild. The Annex, my office away from home, is adorned with a selection of quilts that change every couple of months or so. Currently there is work from Karen Van Schie on the walls. The details and quality of these pieces is extraordinary.
For such an important measurement, not a single person I have ever met can explain how the GDP is calculated, and more importantly, why.
I don’t know Anne Enright, but I am mighty glad to have met her writing this morning via a link in Metafilter that pointed to this essay on, ostensibly, travelling in Venice.
The place I go to many mornings is a little cove with a rocky beach looking up the fjord in which I live. The tide rises and falls and some days there is a large rock exposed and other days it’s nearly submerged. The view across to the west wall of the inlet changes with the light and cloud. Sometimes I meditate there, sometimes I count birds. I often greet dogs who come to visit the beach with their humans. Pádraig Ó Tuama wants to know: What is your place?
If we want anything from our governments – roads, drinkable water, an education system, health care, a pipeline, postal service, safe working conditions, air traffic control, security – we have to pay for it. Governments fund these things through taxation, charging royalties on publicly-owned resources, borrowing, or, in the case of the federal government, creating money. This first of those three things seem to be things most political parties campaign against, meaning that they often add “tax cuts, royalty exemptions, and deficit reduction” to the list. .
What about the fourth?
Read Dougald Lamont and let’s talk about this. Because the problems we are having aren’t due to underfunding.