Cabinet by James Krenov

Krenov on Grain: The Story of a Cabinet

James Krenov is a cabinet maker from California. He has written a lot about the craft of cabinet making and is considered a giant in the field. Hi thoughts on working with grain remind me of many other crafts, including writing and facilitation, both of which I do. Here he writes about making the cabinet pictured above.

“When I saw that the side of the cabinet created a forward curve, I decided to change the stand to one with front legs that swept forward. Making this change is an example of observing what’s happening with the wood as you work. But while you sometimes let the wood guide you, you shouldn’t let it dictate. You have to refer to the wood without abandoning your intentions. There has to be a cooperation, a partnership between the two. The idea is to follow, but be careful.

It’s a matter of getting acquainted with all of the properties of each wood you choose to work — a wood’s colors; its hardness or lack of hardness; whether its grain is ornery or not. It’s a very personal thing, and not everyone pays such close attention. But if you do, you are more in harmony with the wood and the work. And the results seem to flow from this harmony, even though it is connected with periods of stress and doubt. In the long run, knowing about these things will help a person.”

Do we have to blog this war anymore?

Yesterday I saw a photograph in the Globe and Mail of feet. There were three or four pairs of bloodied feet stacked on top of each other from a morgue in Iraq somewhere. Some of these feet were no bigger than my two year old son’s feet.

I know this war is sick. I know that no one is of one mind about it. Many Canadians and Americans think it’s great, many do not. Many Iraqis are grateful, many are angry. Many people have died horrible deaths in this war, and many more will continue to die. And many will NOT die becasue this war has happened. We can horse trade woulds and shoulds until the cows come home.

But death is happening and it’s obviously a price people are willing to pay. Warmongers are willing to see babies killed if it means the ultimate goal is acheived. Peaceniks are not at all comfortable with this assertion, and despite the fact that we were the only ones wailing against the hundreds of thousands that died under UN sanctions. The moral high ground seems to be the trophy that everyone feels they can lay claim to. And everyone seems to be fighting for a piece of it.

So I’m going to let them.

I’ve said my piece to my leaders and I’ll keep you informed about the time I’m wasting expecting Stephen Harper to give me a list of the dictators he invited to his party. But frankly, I give up. I’m going back to blogging about things that are beautiful.

I’ll let others post pictures of the collapsed skulls of children and trade higher hit counts for this pornography. (Props to Euan for changing his mind). I’ll let other bloggers build their reputation on how fast they can produce the “real story.” The bottomline is that I am just too overwhelmed with people who feel like the thing to do is blog the war. So many people have followed that trend that there is hardly a blog left anymore that points me to beauty and peace. I tip my hat to whiskey river and Gassho and riley dog among others. These folks are providing little islands of peace, not by ignoring the war, but by carrying on with their very purposeful explorations of beauty. And that’s where I’m going too, to that field that Rumi promises us.

You know, before this war began, there was lots of suffering and bloodshed going on around the world. Most of us ignored it and we continue to ignore it. Very little blogging happened about Zimbabwe or Cote D’Ivoire or Colombia. Most bloggers don’t understand or even care about war and suffering, even as they link to the theatre surrounding them. Blogging as a movement hasn’t matured enough that we can get really good insight from a variety of sources about the whole world around us. Instead, the blogging world seems to me to me like a pack of five year olds playing soccer. Everyone is following the ball. Dumb mobs.

That’s partially why I assembled my list of human rights abuses in the coalition of the willing. There is no NEED to blog the war, I don’t think. We choose to do it. And I’m incresingly finding that choice, for me, to be disingenuous.

I’m no expert on Iraq, or warfare, or death. What I have to say is irrelvant next to outfits like the BBC bloggers who are actually there, or the StratFor folks who aren’t but who can provide pretty interesting opinion. I have struggled with my own moral feeling around this war, but who are you, dear reader, to care about that? I’m not out to win hearts and minds.

I think a lot of the johnny-come-lately bloggers who have become Instapundits are too caught up in playing “gotcha” games to really matter. I wish the warbloggers would stop screaming at people and sign up and fight. Go put your money where your bluster is. I wish the peaceniks would get off their duffs and STOP this thing. If the peace movemnt, full of reductionist positions as it is, was really effective, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.

Me, I’m finding better ways to use my time. I’m going back to concentrating on the work we have to do around here. The good stuff that’s happening in and around Vancouver I’m involved in, like Storyscapes and the Ashoka Institute for Community Practice and the Vancouver Aboriginal Council.

Sorry about this rant, but I’m cranky and haunted by the bloodied feet of a child much like my own. I can’t shake the image, and when I look at my son, I can’t help but think of him lying in that pile. It makes me sick. That’s when I know it’s gone too far. I’m in tears for the kind of world where this is okay. And I’m turning my attention back to the beauty that surrounds us, the poems and culture humans make and the wonder that the universe instills in us.

When you’re sick of the war, come here for a rest. I’ll put the tea on.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

–Rumi

Blue Tinged Auroras, photographed from the International Space Station

I’m tired of reading, watching and blogging about war. More on this later, but right now, enjoy this sight.

Courtesy of NASA

Harper situation, chapter three.

Deputy Prime Minister John Manley chimes in:

On behalf of the Honourable John Manley, we acknowledge receipt of your electronic correspondence. Please be assured that Mr. Manley appreciates receiving your views.

>>> "Manley, John - M.P." 04/08/03 11:14AM >>>

Hooo weee.

I let Manley off the hook on this one, as he was only copied on the email. Same goes with Libby Davies. Reynolds, as a big wig in the Alliance Party and my MP, should have done better. And we still haven’t heard back from Harper yet.

Update on the Stephen Harper situation:

So I emailed Stephen Harper and I copied my own member of Parliament, John Reynolds who runs with the same herd. I also copied my letter to Libby Davies from the New Democratic Party and John Manley from the Liberal Party. Here is the letter I sent:

Now that’s all well and good, and I really am interested in the people who were at that party. It will be curious to know who the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition counts among his friends.

At any rate, I wasn’t intending on raising this issue on my weblog, and further irritating the 50 people a day who come here looking for more interesting stuff except that I got this reply from John Reynolds, my own member of parliament:

O T T A W A

Dear Sir or Madam:

Thank you for taking the time to write to me by e-mail on such an important issue. This response explains the position of our Leader and the Canadian Alliance. The question of military involvement in any action is one of the most serious that citizens and their elected representatives can ever consider. In the final analysis, disarming Iraq is necessary for the long-term security of the world, to the collective interests of our historic allies and therefore, manifestly, it is in the national interest of this country. Existing United Nations Security Council resolutions have long provided for the use of force to disarm Iraq and restore international peace and security to the area. Security Council resolution 678, adopted in 1990, authorized the use of all necessary means, not only to implement resolution 660 demanding Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, but also to implement all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security to the area.

Resolution 687, which provided the ceasefire terms for Iraq in 1991 - a ceasefire, not an armistice - affirmed resolution 678. Resolution 1441 itself confirmed that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations, a point on which there is unanimous international agreement.

Iraq's past and continuing breaches of the ceasefire obligations now negate the basis for the formal ceasefire. Iraq has, by its conduct, demonstrated that it did not and does not accept the terms of the ceasefire. Consequently, authorization for the use of force in Security Council resolution 678 has been reactivated.

I would point out that this view of international law is not new. In fact, our own Canadian deployment of troops to the Persian Gulf in 1998 in Operation Desert Fox, strongly supported at the time by the current Prime Minister, was undertaken on the same legal basis. The Clinton administration understood and argued, as the Bush administration does now, that existing Security Council resolutions clearly allow for the use of military force.

As you may be aware, more and more Canadians are agreeing that Canada should be supporting our historic allies in enforcing U.N. Resolution 1441 to disarm Saddam Hussein. However, the Canadian Alliance position has always been based on principles, not polls and I appreciate that you also feel strongly about this matter based on your principles.

Thank you again for making me aware of your opinion. You have helped me to have a better understanding of how many Canadians including many of my constituents' feel about this serious situation.

Sincerely,

John Reynolds, Member of Parliament
West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast
>

Now I have no idea what “>” means unless he is trying to send me a virus or something. And all this hot air about the UN Security Council resolutions is interesting, but since the war started no one has raised that issue anymore. It’s all about regime change and liberating people, and I haven’t heard the number 1441 for a while now.

And then he goes on to say that the Canadian Alliance bases it’s positions on principles and not polls which partly explains why it isn’t government, and also causes to me to wonder who the “silent majority” are that Mr. Harper speaks of. How does he know there is a silent majority if he didn’t do a poll. And anyway, all the polls done in Canada state that Canadians are, in the majority — silent or otherwise I suppose — against this war. When you take Quebec out of the equation the numbers drop to only 54% against the war, but the Alliance keeps saying “my Canada includes Quebec” and so far I have never heard them use the rider “except when they skew poll results.” So if we accept that Quebeckers are Canadians, and Canadians in the majority are against the war, it leaves Stephen Harper and his party all alone with just their principles. And that’s fine. Except when he invites the representatives of dictators to his mansion and thanks them on my behalf…and trust me, by all accounts I’m firmly in the majority position on this war.

At any rate, I didn’t nit pick with Mr. Reynolds response. It’s hard doing battle with a form letter. So instead, I sent him a short note about public relations etiquette. This is what it says:

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Reynolds, as the case may be.

OK, I'm kidding, but you get the point.

Form letters are offensive. I didn't send you one, so maybe you can have someone respond to me with a little more courtesy.

Instead of thanking me for asking you a question, it would be a lot more polite to simply send me an email saying "Mr. Reynolds gets a lot of email. Your letter is important to us and we will respond to it personally as soon as we can. Thank you for writing, and look for our response to you soon."

That would have assured me that you were actually trying to come up with an answer to my question.

So please answer my question. And please don't send me anymore form letters.

Chris Corrigan

Now I feel like this game has descended into a mad charade and so I’m posting the correspondence is here at my weblog. I will keep you, dear reader, informed of any progress. Don’t hold your breath.