I’ve just finished reading 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez;s brilliant book about time and history set in a village and a family in Colombia. The central thesis of the book is that time is a circle.
Today I watch the war in the Gulf with the history of a person who was 25 when the US attacked Iraq in 1993. At that time Moxy Fruvous wrote a song, and it spoke to me then, and, as time is a circle, here it is again.
Gulf War Song
We got a call to write a song about the war in the Gulf,
But we shouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
So we tried, and gave up, cuz there was no such song,
But the trying was very revealing:
What makes a person so poisonous righteous,
That they’d think less of anyone, who just disagrees?
She’s just a pacifist, he’s just a patriot.
If I said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?
Fighters for liberty,
Fighters for power,
Fighters for longer turns in the shower.
Don’t tell me I can’t fight ’cause I’ll punch out your lights
And history seems to agree
That I would fight you for me.
So we read, and we watched
All the specially selected news,
And we learned so much more about the good guys.
“Won’t you stand by the flag?”
Was the question unasked,
“Won’t you join in and fight with the allies?”
What could we say? We’re only 25 years old,
With 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold.
This kind of life makes that violence unthinkable.
We’d like to play hockey, have kids and grow old.
Fighters for Texaco,
Fighters for power,
Fighters for longer turns in the shower.
Don’t tell me I can’t fight ’cause I’ll punch out your lights,
And history seems to agree
That I would fight you for me,
That us would fight them for we.
He’s just a peacenik,
And she’s just a war-hawk.
That’s where the beach was,
That’s where the sea.
What could we say? We’re only 25 years old,
And history seems to agree that I would fight you for me,
That us would fight them for we.
Is that how it always will be?
Cynefin is just one of seven frameworks used by the Cynefin Co. to understand and work with complexity. Here is the complete list at present, left here for posterity:
- The Cynefin Framework
- Estuarine Framework and Estuarine Mapping
- Flexuous Curves Framework (originally Apex Predator)
- The Uncertainty Matrices – emphasise various forms and levels of knowability
- 3 As, Agency, Affordance and Assemblage – critical tools for change
- ASHEN – designed for KM, adopted for leadership and understanding organisations
- AIMS – what you can manage in a complex system: Actants, Interactions, Monitors, and Scaffolding
- The WRAS(SE) framework – it adds a critical human lens to the Cynefin ecosystem, helping organisations understand how people react under stress and ambiguity, and how those reactions shape outcomes, often more than formal plans or structures.
The links take you to the entries on Dave Snowden’s blog or to the Cynefin wiki, where methods and frameworks are developed and documented by practitioners.
This is from a page advertising a two day masterclass in these frameworks being held in London in March .
The story of six Tongan boys who were stranded on a desert island and thrived for more than a year. No, it wasn’t a real life version of Lord of the Flies. The complete opposite, in fact. This is hopeful.
Here in Canada, populist provincial governments are using the notwithstanding clause in our Constitution on a regular basis to suspend the rights of their citizens. Recently it has been used to de y the rights of children and youth freedom of expression and to deny workers their right to practice their freedom of association. These are the same governments that champion individual rights when it suits them. As a result, for the better part of the next five years some citizens in these provinces will have fewer rights than others. Don’t take your eyes off of it and be sure to understand what the use of this clause means. Yes it’s a (shitty) legal mechanism. And yes it suspends Charter protected rights.
Don Schafer provides some context for the vote in BC Legislature denying the introduction of a bill to repeal the BC Human Rights Code Act.
And if shit like this makes you angry, Peter Rukavina is willing to provide you with a creative container – The Books of Anger – in which you can explore the emotions of resentment, irritation, exasperation, frustration, and fury.
Good labour policy supports a vibrant business sector. Today rabble.ca reports on a bunch of good ideas that could easily be implemented to support the massive sector of the economy that are self-employed entrepreneurs. Government tends to define “entrepreneur” as a person who creates employment, but 80 percent of women in business are self-employed. It’s time we recognized this sector of the labour market and provided equitable supports and security for these workers.
I don’t quite know what it will take to unhook politics from polling and money. In this week’s New Yorker, the editorialist dissects the Democratic Party’s election strategy and it all sounds like how to do things that will shift numbers. The cynics will tell me that’s how you win elections and there is nothing more important than winning. But my brain and heart tells me that current electoral politics is more about who has the saviest consulting firm than whether the electeds can a) actually understand what needs to happen in our societies and b) have the capability to govern with the courage and smarts to do it. We’re failing. Badly. This is not hopeful.
Also from the current New Yorker issue from a profile of composer Stephen Spencer:
You’re in the sandbox playing,” he said. “Let’s postpone the judgment or appraisal and feel free to make music joyfully and in an unfiltered way. My students make fun of me, because they’ll say something like ‘How do I practice this?’ And I’ll be, like, ‘You have to love yourself.’
The man is not wrong.
Not the most pressing issue in the world, but the teams I love and follow and have a bit invested in are all having bad fortnights. The Canadian men’s and women’s Olympic teams both lost their gold medal games to the USA in overtime. Tottenham Hotspur has dropped both games of new manager Igor Tudor’s tenure, including a humiliating 4-1 loss to Arsenal at home and no face a very real possibility of relegation. The Toronto Maple Leafs are sitting well outside the playoffs and not playing like they mean to change anything over the next 24 games. And last night, in the presence of quite a few supporters, our TSS Rovers Women were unable to secure a point against Coquitlam Metro Ford Galaxy in their quest to become champions of the Metro Women’s Soccer League. We have one game left to do it.
It’s funny how things converge like that. At the least the Canadian Women’s national soccer team beat Colombia 4-1 in their first game of the She Believes Cup, a four game tournament that alos features the USA and Argentina. The real test comes Wednesday when we play the USA although a 4-1 rout over the 2023 Quarter Finalists is nothing to sneeze at.
My friend Pauline Le Bel published the first in a series of articles in our local paper on our project to install a Squamish welcome figure here on Bowen Island. This article talks about the history of the project.
And here is the back story from our ever evolving prospectus.
An Invitation to all to Co-Create a Symbol of Reconciliation and Friendship
We are at the beginning of a community project to raise funds and support for the carving and installation of a Squamish Welcome Figure on Bowen Island/Nex?wlélex?wm. This project is a step toward deeper recognition of the Squamish People as the original stewards of this land, and an act of reconciliation and allyship that invites us all into a shared future grounded in respect and friendship.
Why a Welcome Figure?
Welcome Figures are carved by Squamish carvers to offer greeting, connection, and hospitality to all who arrive on Squamish territory. This proposed figure will:
- Recognize Squamish ownership and stewardship of Nex?wlélex?wm.
- Extend a visible, meaningful welcome to all who come to the island.
- Build upon past gestures such as the installation of the “Nex?wlélex?wm” place name at the ferry landing in 2020.
- Deepen cultural understanding and relationships between the Squamish Nation and Bowen Island residents.
- Be created in collaboration with a Squamish carver.
This project builds on the work of reconciliation and relationship building between residents of Bowen Island/Nex?wlélex?wm and our hosts, the S?wx?wú7mesh Úxwimixw (the Squamish Nation). Since before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, citizens on Bowen Island/Nex?wlélex?wm have worked with the Nation on initiatives to build knowledge, awareness and collaboration. In 2017, Pauline Le Bel, with the support of the Bowen Island Public Library and the Bowen Island Arts Council, initiated a reconciliation initiative called Knowing Our Place, to learn our true history with Indigenous People. The initiative brought Squamish Nation Elders and teachers to Bowen Island, and engaged many Islanders in learning about the Indigenous history of our place. In 2020, as part of Knowing Our Place, Elders from the Squamish Ocean Going Canoe Family came in ceremony to bless the sign at the ferry dock that welcomes people to Nex?wlélex?wm. At that ceremony the idea was born to create and install a Welcome Figure on Bowen Island, as a tangible mark of the relationship between the S?wx?wú7mesh Uxwimixw and the Nex?wlélex?wm Uxwimixw (the villagers of Bowen Island).
This project also builds on several of the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Report and extends the spirit of those calls with a tangible, community-initiated project to recognize and affirm the Squamish Nation and its territory and to acknowledge our place within it.
There are several Squamish Nation welcome figures within S?wx?wú7mesh-ulh Temíxw (Squamish territory). You can read about some of them here:
The preferred location: the entrance to our new Community Centre
While the beach at Snug Cove was the original location — as suggested by Squamish Elder and Councillor, Alroy ‘Bucky’ Baker — the difficulty in acquiring a suitable large cedar log has made another location more viable. A smaller log has been acquired for a welcome figure as a house post welcoming islanders and visitors to the Centre and to our community.
If you want to help you can donate at our charitable Impact page and you’ll receive a tax receipt if you are Canadian.