Robert Paterson is musing about The Power of One. Seems his website will record 1,000,000 hits this summer. When he started blogging he had no idea that within five years, a million people would have hit the site. So I posted a question in his comments, and I extend it to you. If you knew that in five years 1 million people would read what you have written, what would you do with that opportunity? It might come as a surprise to some, but greatness is not predetermined. Great ideas do not emerge fully hatched, marketable and readily consumed by …
The situation in Zimbabwe being what it is, it’s often hard to see beyond the headlines and the punditry that tells how how we should feel. But of course, in this connected world, we live in a field of relationships that descends deep into every story on our planet. I have friends in Zimbabwe, and from that network of hosts and courageous leaders comes this email: Standing in Silence under a New Moon Sunday 6th April 2008 7 days ago we voted for change in our country. Against the legal imperative to call an election foul within 48 hours of …
The Westin Hotel in Atlanta, which lost windows in last week’s tornado. A strange week indeed. I left home yesterday morning bound for Toronto and then on to Atlanta where I am doing some work with Public Radio Capital and Native Public Media, looking at how Native community radio stations make an impact. Yesterday I made it as far as Toronto, but a flight delay meant I was cutting my connection close, and I still had to apply for a work visa at US Customs and Border Protection. I arrived in secondary screening at 10 to eight, with an 830 …
Last week, Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons passed away. When I was a kid, in the early eighties, you either played D&D and or you didn’t, and I did. I went through a few years of playing a little, not as intensely as some, but a fair amount nonetheless. In D&D I found an outlet for my imagination, and in an era when computer games got no more interesting than Pac-Man, it was a blessing to be engaged in play like that. My seven year old son is a gamer. I taught …
I was listening to The Current on CBC Radio this morning and I caught an interview with Marlene Brant-Castellano on the newly announced Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools (hear the interview here). Back in the mid 1980s when I was at Trent University, Marlene was a professor in the Native Studies Department. She was a beautiful teacher – quiet and inviting and embodying tremendous dignity and powerful conviction all at the same time. I connected with her quite deeply as I began to explore questions of culture and community. It was in her classes …