An astonishing photograph from the Very Large Telescope this week of a planet being born. From the link:
At the center of this frame lies a young Sun-like star, hidden behind a coronagraph that blocks its bright glare. Surrounding the star is a bright, dusty protoplanetary disk— the raw material of planets. Gaps and concentric ringsmark where a newborn world is gathering gas and dust under its gravity, clearing the way as it orbits the star. Although astronomers have imaged disk-embedded planets before, this is the first-ever observation of an exoplanet actively carving a gap within a disk — the earliest direct glimpse of planetary sculpting in action.
Downhill mountain biking is huge here on the south coast of British Columbia. As a young rider for years my son built trails and maintained a few here on Bowen Island. His mentor and inspiration was our neighbour Dangerous Dan Cowan, an absolute legend of North Shore style trail building who built unreal structures here. The history of mountain bike trail development is a folk tradition here. Mountain Life lifts the cover on some that hidden history.
In this ongoing story about Alberta schools banning books, the Alberta premier today had this response to the list prepared by the Edmonton School Board:
“Edmonton Public is clearly doing a little vicious compliance over what the direction is,” Smith said during an unrelated news conference. If they need us to hold their hand through the process to identify what kind of materials are appropriate … we will more than happily work with them to work through their list, one by one, so we can be super clear about what it is we’re trying to do,” Smith said.
The term is “malicious compliance” and it is an excellent tactic. It will be good to see exactly how the premier wants her party’s bigotry expressed in public schools. Here’s the ministerial order, which makes pretty steamy reading on its own.
A wake up call for Tottenham this morning. After a season start with two clean sheets, we met a determined Bournemouth side who brought their high pressing game to North London. After they scored an early goal they kept on going and put Spurs into a slow, defensive, and reactionary torpor. It wasn’t until 77’ that Spurs found some life. Still, some slow decisions and poor passing compromised our ability to take advantage of Bournemouth’s fatigue. We only managed one shot on target, five overall. The Cherries saw out the match with grit and determination and raw belief ,holding on for the win. They played out of this world.
Now that Pierre Poilievre is back in the public eye, it’s worth pointing out why his particular brand of populist politics will never make him a good prime minister.
There was recently a case in Canada in which a man has been charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon for defending himself from a home intruder. Predictably, this stirred Poilievre into a broad-based attack on the justice system as a whole and he is now vowing to introduce a private member’s bill that would broaden the conditions for using self-defense, including killing someone if someone enters your home without permission.
This is a populist tactic. You take an extreme case that is an outlier to the general application of the law, and you call the system broken and promise to “fix” it with a bill that would outlaw that very specific case without any consideration to the other consequences of the law, or to whether the law actually works at all.
In Canada self-defence is permitted by law, but under specific conditions. If the police think you have broken those conditions, you will be charged. It is then up to a judge to hear the case. But it is already legal to kill someone in self-defence. People have been acquitted in the past for even killing police officers who were either undercover, or who were acting illegally. So what Poilievre is advocating for is actually legal now, although I doubt that he is intending that this bill should result in more police deaths. That is certainly not the country I want to live in.
But that is the problem with pandering. You miss (or in this case just ignore) the nuances of cases and you can end up creating the conditions that make the world less safe and less secure, including for the people who support you and for whom you are claiming to champion, all to appear “stronger.”
When you are in opposition, you can do and say whatever you want, because you don’t have the power to make actual changes. A populist will always jump on the outrage train because stoking fear and providing simplistic solutions to problems, even before a court has ruled on the legality of a situation, gets you “points.” in some cases, it might even end up getting you elected, and then you have to govern. And you cannot govern that way. Populists make terrible governments, as we are seeing all around North America at the moment.
A more reasonable opposition leader might say “this case has the potential to erode the rights of Canadians to defend themselves. Let’s see how the trial goes and if we don’t like the result we will propose amendments to the Criminal Code that allow for more latitude in self-defence, but that provide reasonable safeguards for people like delivery drivers, police, paramedics, firefighters, canvassers, and social workers, who by the nature of their jobs, find themselves more likely to be in these situations where they are on the receiving end of self-defence.” That might be a position I would disagree with, because I’m not sure the law needs more latitude, but it is one I would be able to discuss. But how are citizens supposed to reason with a reactionary position based on a single unique case which may well be complicated by a number of mitigating factors? We cannot make laws like that, and Poilievre’s gamesmanship is not designed for deliberation. It is what I call “a drive by shouting” which is when a politician makes bold and brash statements with no regard for consequences simply to trigger emotional responses based in anger, fear, and perceived grievance. It forces a categorical response. And that erodes democratic process.
Poilievre is not a reasonable opposition leader, and his return to politics through his recent by-election has just reminded me why so many people refused to elect his party to govern the country back in the spring. Since returning to Parliament, many in his own party have advised him to change his tone. Many others, including me, are skeptical that he will be capable of that. Many are watching. We need a good opposition leader in Canada right now, even if that leader is the leader of the Conservative Party. Poilievre isn’t it.
The older I get the more I realize that as people get older they witness changes and pine for the good old days. It’s cliche for a reason, because it seems nearly universal. I get it. Things aren’t what they used to be. Younger generations than me (and they are plural at this point) have a language and experience that I cannot be a part of. I occasionally break through with folks where we are enjoined in common cause, like in our supporter-owned football club, or in some of the workshops and courses I deliver. But mostly, I can my peers living in increasingly agitated nostalgia. Things are not as good as they were before.
Is this the default setting? Nostalgia is practically a genre in art, culture, and fashion. But what is it called when a person of middle or advanced age writes or paints or composes about how THIS moment is amazing. How things that he or she wanted in the past have finally come to fruition and the new people in the world and teethings they are making and the places they are building or protecting are awesome? I remember when I got my first iPhone. It was like a childhood dream come true. Finally, the device of my dreams was here in my lifetime! I made the above image the lock screen. If you know, you know.
It’s not a pollyanna-ish sentiment I’m after. It’s not a carpe diem, or affirmation-based gratitude practice. There isn’t a word for it in English, which is why I’m reaching. Is there art to be made that features characters who grow old feeling like their experiences are the ones they have been hoping to have, that the demographics and the culture and the things that are happening are what they wanted all along?
There is a lack of this, eh? We all pine for a future we can’t have yet, an alternative we will never have, or a past that is gone. It’s hard to listen for the good things in the present in the monotonous moan of complaint in all that.
(Yes there is suffering. There always was. The “good old days” my generation pine for featured apartheid in South Africa, death squads in Central America, a hole burning in the ozone layer, residential schools in Canada, acid rain, and famine. I’m not naive.)
Me in my Grimsby Town shirt in 2016, wearing it in support of the team in advance of their successful playoff promotion back to the Football League that year.
Back in 2015 I started an accidental and unlikely friendship with the supporters of Grimsby Town FC. Grimsby is a small fishing town on the north east coast of Lincolnshire, on the estuary of the Humber River. Their football team was founded in 1878 and is one of the oldest in the world. They have had a full history of ups and downs, have played at every one of the top five levels of football in England, and have a modest trophy haul, including divisional championships and playoff promotions and two Football League Cup wins, the second most important cup in English football.
Of all of those matches played over a century and a half few were as big as last night’s. Grimsby Town were drawn at home against Manchester United in the League Cup. It was a classic David v Goliath set up. Town is settled mid table in the fourth division (League 2) and Manchester United, despite horrific form in the last couple of years, are who they are, one of the most valuable global sports businesses, with a legendary history and a near permanent (but not absolute!) lock on Premier League and European football.
Last night was a match for the ages. The struggling visitors went down 2-0 on a couple of well worked, if a little lucky, goals from a hugely motivated home side, who were playing in front of some of the most diehard supporters in lower league English football. The only question in the second half was whether Town had the legs to sustain what was certainly going to be an onslaught from the billionaires from Manchester. Withstood it they did, but it cost them two goals, and when the referee blew for full time after 98 torrid minutes, much of which was played in a monsoon, the two sides remained drawn.
That meant penalties. The first five penalties for both sides were near perfect, but Town missed their third, requiring their keeper Christy Pym to come up with a spot of magic or risk going out. Pym saved United’s fifth penalty and the context continued. Every kick was scored from then out, including both keepers scoring on each other and it wasn’t until they started into the second round off penalties that united’s Bryan Mbeuno hit the cross bar and sent the supporters into giant-killing heaven.
Having been on the winning end of a historic giant killing myself, I LOVE watching these things happen, something which is unique to football in general in which clubs from different levels of the pyramid play each other in Cup matches. For supporters it is an indescribable moment. The tension builds and builds, especially if you are defending a lead. Going to penalties makes it worse. But the relief and joy and pride that is released after the victory, and the subsequent sinking in of the magnitude of the occasion makes it a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
This is why we follow our teams, especially the ones we have a real stake in. It is for the drama and community and the emotional roller coaster ride that passion takes you upon. I’m so happy for my Grimsby Town friends. I know what they are feeling today – the glow of something truly special still lingering in their hearts, stunned smiles pasted across their faces. A lifetime of suffering through cold nights and desperate relegations and crappy ownership and a glory era that ended 90 years ago – all of that gone by the wayside this morning, traded for a feeling that you will never know except by experiencing it.
A propos of yesterday’s post on strategic planning, Cameron Norman has a nice post today on working with organizations as a consultant engaging in strategic design and helping contracted work land and be integrated within client organizations.
My buddy Tenneson is inviting a little weekly practice with his Wander Wednesday series. Today he asks What is a gift of slowing down for you? I’m about to join him on a call with a client in the next hour, so this little space here, a chance to read inspiring bits from my blogroll and take a moment to reflect on them without just scrolling by, that is the gift. In face since I’ve been blogging nearly daily again since June, I find that this practice has slowed down how I consume the great ideas that surround me and invited me to reflect on them. I’m not really writing for anyone other than me (but I hope if you drop in here you also find stuff that resonates with you). The gift of slowing down is the chance to try things on. Like I’m looking at some really nice shirts on the rack at the store, but unless I can see how they look on me I may never remember that I saw them. And the way my brain works, it’s not a slam dunk that anything I post here or reflect upon will stick, but by writing about things – by ACTUALLY engaging – I get to try them on.
Do things because they are just worth doing. Not everything nets you a return. Blogging is to social media what hiking is to commuting I think.