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Tribal Journeys photos

September 13, 2004 By Uncategorized

The Tyee ran a short photo essay from the Tribal Journeys 2004 event this year. This is an annual celebration of the canoe culture of west coast First Nations.   Photographer Elaine Briere captured some of the spirit of the gathering:

They come from places with names like Snoqualmie, Songees, Muckelshoot, Squaxim, Suquamish, Clayquot, Kyouquot, Hesquiaht, Ohiaht, Nit Nat, and Tsawout. Some of the big canoes have crossed the dangerous waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to get here. They circle the bay before lining up on the shore for the greeting ceremonies. As drumming and chants fill the air, older women sing the greeting song with their hands uplifted, palms forward, in the graceful welcoming gesture of the coastal tribes. I feel tears welling up in my eyes. The beauty of the ceremony strikes a chord of strong emotion in my white heart. I gather my wits and continue photographing.

Check the photo gallery on that page.

Powerful little words

September 13, 2004 By Uncategorized

At a meeting the other day someone was heard to utter the phrase “lead, follow or get out of the way.”

Quietly, the reply came:

“You mean lead, follow AND get out of the way.”

That changed EVERYTHING!

Me and Euan and Robin

September 12, 2004 By Uncategorized

Euan Semple was the first blogger I ever read. The night I discovered Blogger back in 2001, he had just been picked as a “Blog of Note” and so I cruised over to his page and loved what I saw. There was a link to this interview with Brian Arthur which has turned out to be a pertty influential piece to me.

When I declared this blog’s parentage, I represented myself as the grateful child of a same sex union of The Obvious and Wood s Lot.

And now I know the reason why I groove on Euan’s stuff. It turns out that Euan and I are almost related in real life. My wife’s counsin, Robin McMorran was visiting today. This is the first time he’s ever been to Canada. I asked him where he worked and when he said “the BBC” and mentioned that he did some web stuff, I asked if he knew Euan. He does, used to work with him and still contributes to some of the in house forums there. Like Euan, I was gobsmacked but not entirely surprised. There is something about blogging that makes these kinds of connections seems almost expected. They fall nicely into place.

When you really groove on a connection with someone’s work, dig a little deeper and you’ll probably find a lot fewer than six degress of seperation there.

And Euan…when Robin gets back in a couple of weeks, ask him to show you the pictures of Bowen Island. I think you’ll be here sooner than later.

John Dumbrille on protecting ourselves

September 9, 2004 By Uncategorized

He doesn’t blog often, but he often blogs well. From John Dumbrille:

In education and employment insurance and job training, we have to move away from systems of compliance, social conformity, rote learning and regular brain calaesthenics. We need something else. Something bringing real connection to things and to ourselves, something about real value, something about being entrepreneurrial, non co-dependent. If we can assimilate these qualities and pass these on to our children and co-workers we will create wealth, by any defintion. Becoming a farm of cheap labour is not inevetiable for us. But we can avoid it only by learning to build up experiential capital, and then protect it in an appropriate way. We dont need to pull a Disney and assume all value within a copyright, but innovation needs to be rewarded to a limited extent. It can be done. Social democrats need to first discard archiac and unfair notions of our entitled “right” to a better deal than ppeople in other countries . We need to learn how to provide new value. Job welfare and the education system needs to be overhauled in this light, if we want to reform, not destroy, what could be a social welfare system that actually works.

Early in the post he gives props to the importance of doing this especially on a local level. I’ll be interested to see how John extends these thoughts.

Crazy Horse, 1845? – 6 September 1877

September 7, 2004 By Uncategorized


Crazy Horse
1845 – 6 September 1877

Just missed the anniversary of the death of Crazy Horse, which was the same day as the birth of Parking Lot. THat’s an appropriate coincidence. To honour it, here are the lyrics from a Robbie Robertson song I love.

Crow has brought the message
to the children of the sun
for the return of the buffalo
and for a better day to come

You can kill my body
You can damn my soul
for not believing in your god
and some world down below

You don’t stand a chance
against my prayers
You don’t stand a chance
against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,
we shall live again

My sister above
She has red paint
She died at Wounded Knee
like a later day saint

You got the big drum in the distance
blackbird in the sky
That’s the sound that you hear
when the buffalo cry

You don’t stand a chance
against my prayers
You don’t stand a chance
against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,
we shall live again

Crazy Horse was a mystic
He knew the secret of the trance
And Sitting Bull the great apostle
of the Ghost Dance

Come on Comanche
Come on Blackfoot
Come on Shoshone
Come on Cheyenne

We shall live again

Come on Arapaho
Come on Cherokee
Come on Paiute
Come on Sioux

We shall live again

— Robbie Robertson, Ghost Dance, from Music for The Native Americans

More on Crazy Horse: