Following up on my rant/question of yesterday. Today I met two doctors who I like alot, one of whom I count as a friend and one who is new to me and I was reminded again that what matters is creating conversations where parts of a system talk to one another. We can’t simply write off the whole system because there is wisdom within it that we need to draw us forward. There is also wisdom outside of it too, wisdom that really maters. In the bigger system, convening conversations, like what we did in Chicago matters a lot. In the body-as-system creating conversations with respect to one’s health means looking at everything holistically and inviting the healthy parts to talk to one another, be those cells, organs or caregivers.
Furthermore, Harry’s comments on yesterday’s post has me thinking about that edge I was trying to get at yesterday.
…I think she and her colleagues are members of a revolutionary, intellectual vanguard. The amount of influence they have for decency is miniscule in proportion to the ideological support they give, however inadvertently, to high powered snake oil salesmen and police state visionaries.
That’s a pretty direct statement. It’s why I am not a libertarian, willing to give over all of these areas to the kinds of forces that fill a vacuum with power and money. Instead, I want to enable communities and individuals to be able to care foir themselves and each other in a way that supports the capacity required to do that. I’m trying to be both optimistic, supportive and on guard against the kinds of people that Harry describes as “snake oil salesmen and police state visionaries.”
I feel like I’m rambling on here…something is niggling away in my brain, and I’m looking for words, ideas and metaphors to describe it.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Through Euan, I found out that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the author of On Death and Dying, herself died on Wednesday.
Her work on the grief cycle especially has been very influential in my own life in dealing with people, organizations and communities undergoing deep change. But her legacy, as David Weinberger points out, may be that she gave North American culture a language for talk about death and being with dying people.
Canada’s new twenty dollar bill from the Bank of Canada
Lately we have had a lot of nice art on our money. With the recent new designs for our bills, we now have a gorgeous five dollar bill featuring kids tobaganning and playing hockey with a quote from Roch Carrier’s “The Hockey Sweater,” as iconic a book about Canadian winters as there is.
But today comes an exciting development. At the end of next month the Bank of Canada will release the new series of twenty dollar bills and this time they feature a selection of work from Haida artist the late Bill Reid. Despite being no stranger to controversy, Reid played a significant role in establish a contemporary movement of Haida art. Along with Robert Davidson, Reg Davidson and many others, Reid was part of a surge in the later half of the 20th century that put Haida art on the global map as more than an anthropological curiosity.
It’s great to see him honoured.
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By the way, I heard a great joke on the CBC about our colourful money, which Americans often describe as “Monopoly money.”
Q. Why does Canadian money have colours?
A. Because our beer has alcohol.
The 2004 Guide to Aboriginal organizations and services in British Columbia is now available for download from the provincial government.
In addition to being a great resource, every year I get more and more amazed with the amount of activity that is happening around the province. Self-government happens right here at the coal face, as people and communities organize to make things better. If you want amazing stories of people working for change, phone any one of these organizations and start asking!
Dave Andreychuk hoists the Stanley Cup
from the Hockey Hall of Fame
Here it is…this must surely be the final nail in the coffin for our national airline. Air Canada lost the Stanley Cup and the Cup’s handler blew a gasket:
“He told them specifically it was the Stanley Cup,” Goertzen said. “He is just so distraught.”
Fitness gym owner Brent Lock, who had planned to view the Cup Sunday, said he doesn’t understand how Air Canada could have left it behind.
“It’s not like it’s a brown paper bag; it’s the holy grail,” he said.
Here in Canada there is no sport that captures our national imagination quite like hockey. And the pinnacle achievement in hockey is the Stanley Cup. Any self-respecting Canadian knows what the Cup looks like, and knows how important it is. When your national airline loses the Stanley Cup, they pretty much forfeit the title of “national airline.”
It’s a good thing they found it, because Air Canada’s lost and found system is labyrinthine. Coming back from Toronto we left a bag of assorted gear (travel mug, hats and a small camera) on the plane. When we got home two days later and realized we had in fact left it on the plane(“I thought YOU had the bag…No YOU had the bag…”), I checked the Air Canada website for a phone number and, after 25 minutes (I kid you not) finally found a lost and found number. I dialed it and got a series of messages which interacted with my keypad pushing finger until 10 minutes later I got abandoned in voice mail jail. The line went dead.
Bemused, I called back, hoping to speak to someone about the loss of both the bag AND the Air Canada lost and found department. The same thing happened. After an hour of trying to make one phone call, I gave up.
The next day my partner called and got the same treatment. So she called the reservations line and asked to be forwarded to lost and found. That worked (it should be on their FAQ) and she finally spoke to someone who reported that nothing had been turned in. How could that be, you ask? After every flight the cabins are cleared and anything left on board is sent to the gate. God knows where it ends up after that but the lost and found department seems not be in the loop. Either that or our little bag was stolen. For all intents and purposes that’s what happened. The moral of the story is NEVER lose anything on Air Canada.
I have written before about how out of date Air Canada’s ticketing and credit policies are, especially when their main competition, WestJet, lets you transfer tickets in any amount to anyone else with just a phone call. It’s clear from my own recent travel that the spirit is all gone from that airline. I met lots of surly staff and lots of little things are broken on the planes (audio systems, video screens, tray tables) and there appears to be no cash to fix them.
I guess when you’re trading at pennies a share, that’s life. If airlines are about people and customer service is litmus test of that commitment, then it sure doesn’t feel like Air Canada has the willingness to get up off the mat.