• Jordon Cooper on losing his religion and re-discovering community.
• Geoff Brown finds a great video showing how improv exercises improve communication

• Andrew Rixon teams up with cartoonist Simon Kneebone to map living systems.
• Tanya Davis instructs us on how to be alone.
• Dan Oestreich on four kinds of power that leaders claim.
• Ellen Clegg and Bonnie DeVarco’s Shape of Thought

If you’re in London UK, you might want to think about this free evening offering on September 6 with Johnnie and friends: We can’t go on meeting like this.

This emerges from my experience of all sorts of events of late. I think there may be a gap in the market for something that allows us to meet in ways that are more satisfying. The focus is on connecting with others in engaging ways – without resorting to formats of expert speakers or simply pouring drinks, putting on music and hoping for the best.

I’d go.  Heck, maybe I’ll offer a local one.

• Peter Rukavina exposes the vapidity of TV
• Peter also tackles the problem of creating a cafe that plays your music to you.
• Johnnie Moore posts on the philosophical underpinnings of conversation.
• Viv McWaters playing at graphical representation of facilitation tips.
• The Tyee has brought on Andrew Nikiforuk to write about the tar sands.

I was at the Vancouver Whitecaps game the other night and witnessed this pitch invasion at the ‘Caps end. This is some good footage of Vancouver keeper Jay Nolly taking on the invader and physically removing her from the pitch.

Heart stopping stuff.

• An Indian MP calls for a 21st century residential school policy.  Appalling.
• Johnnie Moore finds research that vindicates my approach of having questions rather than goals.
• Metafilter post on desire lines.

Think about that.

There are dozens and dozens of stories like this coming out of the G20.  Only a public inquiry will get to the bottom of that, and it needs to result in some clear guidelines for how police enforce laws within the context of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, even when there are special circumstances.  Since 9/11 politicians and police have used “security” as a pretext for suspending civil rights with dubious pieces of legislation and unlawful policing behaviour.  This has to stop.  If indeed we live in a world with heightened security threats, we have to find ways to deal with them precisely and without arbitrary measures.  If the state gets sloppy with law enforcement, it crosses the line.  In a democracy you cannot round up dozens of people on the pretext that there might be someone hiding among them.  Those who call for that have no idea what they are asking for.  We will become a police state no different from other states in which civil rights are suspend for arbitrary reasons.

The cop is right.  This ain’t Canada right now.  That needs to change.

None of these videos are the whole story, but they leave me futilely hoping for an explanation from the powers that be.  The police are the people’s force, and they are there to enforce the laws of society.  When they are challenged to cite the law under which they seize a man’s property, they refuse.  If you have to use force against your own citizens, you better be able to explain why, who gave the orders and what laws you were enforcing.  What I saw in these videos was a shocking and one-sided use of intimidation and arbitrary arrest against peaceful, non-threatening citizens who were asking for explanations and receiving no help at all.  I’d love to hear someone in power explain what was going on.

When I was younger I used to join tens of thousands of people every year marching down University Avenue from Queen’s Park protesting against nuclear weapons.  We had a massive peaceful march, without needing “free speech zones” and without thousands of police officers dressed in riot gear.  There was always a little vandalism and garbage strewn around.  One year in fact, I was working at a building on University Avenue and my job was to clean spray paint off our building.  No big deal.  Took four hours and a can or two of paint remover.

Back then, most of us looked like the young people in these videos: impassioned, aware, concerned about their world and PEACEFUL.  The videos from Queen’s Park surprise and disturb me.  I can’t help but think that dozens of those officers clad head to toe in riot gear telling peaceful young people to “GET BACK!” must have been thinking that the whole thing was a stupid charade.  They were never in any danger.  The protesters were milling around in the designated free speech zone and they were moved, intimidated, cajoled and randomly wrestled to the ground by heavily armed riot police.

What the hell is happening?  What about the group singing Oh Canada in front of Steve’s Music on Queen Street?  They sing and then are charged by the police.  That is a frightening image.  There isn’t a single one of them wearing the uniform of the so-called “Black Bloc.”

After watching videos of these young people for hours, I turned my attention to a few videos of the windows being smashed and the police cars being torched.  I was immediately struck by how different the so-called Black Bloc anarchists were.  They looked strong, powerful and well trained in martial arts.  They were delivering accurate and well executed kicks to windows and cars, the same kicks that are used by police to knock in doors.  Police all over the world have used agents provocateurs at all the major summits of world leaders to stir up chaos and violence.  The Quebec police admitted to it at the Montebello Summit and there are many Toronto videos that show clean cut, muscular men posing as Black Bloc activists who are having nothing to do with the crowd.  Back in the day on our anti-nuclear protests, it was all about joining the crowd, and even today, anarchists don’t look to be the best fed group of people.

So what is happening here?  How is it that a massive police force can intimidate and push around unarmed and generally disorganized young people at Queen’s Park and yet not stop the torching of police cars left inexplicably alone and unguarded in the city centre by men who look very much like police or soldiers.

And who actually knows anything about “the Black Bloc?”  Did they release a statement claiming responsibility for the havoc?  Where is their website?  I have no doubt that there are  a few militant activists who undertake these kinds of tactics, and I condemn them.  They distract from the real work of social change and they are easy to exploit. All it takes is a few bait cars, a couple of cops dressed up as a friendly faction and away they go.  If they DO exist, they are naive and destructive and easily made tools of the very state and corporate agenda they claim to hate.  If they don’t exist, then who are they?

What the hell is happening?   Why this show of arbitrary force?  Why was the limited but wanton destruction allowed to occur, but the free speech zone overrun by riot cops?  What has become of this country?

I’m home but in a new way.  All is good!