“My grandmother was the one that inspired me,” said my friend Liz over lunch at the Valley Inn in Bella Coola. “She said that the world was once all together, and then it came apart and one day it will be all together again. So I just try to bring things together.” Liz is a pretty remarkable woman. She worked for years in family reunification in Vancouver, bringing together First Nations kids with their birth families, reconnecting them to their culture and communities. She is at home now in Bella Coola on council, working for the Ministry as a social …
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Fascinating read about the fall of East Germany and how the leaders in West, especially Thatcher, loved freedom, but loved order even more. For her, reunification was too chaotic. For Moscow, used to imposed control, they had no idea what people were thinking. The people finally just acted out of a basic self-organizing impulse, and Gorbachev, confused but bemused, let them go: Moscow probably thought it could have it both ways: earn the gratitude of the East by liberalising the system and the gratitude of the West for promoting democracy and human rights. In fact, it reaped only mistrust and …
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Eco-Equity with Van Jones: I’ve seen Van Jones speak, I’ve worked with people who have worked with him, and I take a lot of inspiration from him. Last year, when Obama was elected I thought immediately of him as a member of administration, the kind of person that crosses boundaries, that proposes new ways of addressing the old problems of social inequity, economic disparity, oppotunity inequality, global environmental crises and local public health and justice issues. He’s a smart guy, a funny guy and a guy who gets things done. That he was torn apart by the right, that the …
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Beware a rant. I was in a conversation today with a friend of mine who is a true visionary. He is an artist who works with metal, rocks and even entire landscapes. He is a project manager and has overseen some of the biggest developments on our island, and some of the biggest ones in the Lower Mainland. He cares deeply about our shared home and sees all kinds of potential for Bowen Island to become a true innovative leader in the world. he knows the municipal tools inside an out, and looks at our official community plan and sees …
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My friend Kenoli Oleari on the possibility that the conversation can be changed: We are finding that there are lots of opportunities for public meetings, town halls, task forces, etc. as well as a lot of dissatisfaction with the way things are done. People fear new approaches, but we are finding if we don’t buy into those fears, rather working with them to stay focused on outcomes and the best way to achieve what they want, that there is some degree of receptivity. In many cases people do care about good outcomes and let this desire assuage their fears. There …