why i like reading

Because people are sometimes quite good at writing.

I used to believe that if I wanted to blog, I also needed to bust my… behind with tons of research, then compose long and complicated posts with lots of supporting evidence in links to source material,  then test it first with someone before finally hitting that “Publish” button.

Instead of all that, I now take great pleasure in reading other people who clearly spend a lot of their time and energy so I can sit back and enjoy.

Ahhhhh….

apihtawikosisan

Who do I mean, well take a gander at Chelsea Vowel. She first came to my attention – to a lot of our attentions – late last year when the Attawapiskat story exploded with a lot of rather misguided, superficial, and sometimes downright racist crap. Not all of the media reports were like that but enough to do a lot of damage because a few examples were clearly deliberate. (No, I won’t provide a link.)

Now I can sit back and appreciate her clear analysis, excellent writing, and no-nonsense attitude even at the HuffPost.

Not exactly as pictured

Then there’s Wayne Spear. He slaves away on longish posts, deconstructing, analyzing, contemplating, and then kicking down doors or appreciating the wonder of a shooting star. Good writing is a real kick to read. He wanders around topics like politics or a treasured pen as though taking a stroll through a market while doing some keen window shopping.

Here’s where he kicked a door down late last year. Same story (Attawapiskat).

Check out the all-too-usual knuckle-dragging at the bottom of the page. It’s this kind of mindless, brain-numbing stuff that provoked one radio columnist (Torquil Campbell on CBC Radio’s Q) to strongly suggest that journalistic web sites reconsider – i.e., take down! – their end-of-article “Comments” sections because they’ve driven out reasoned debate, and debaters, and become little more than vomitoriums.

Not his words – mine.  I couldn’t agree more.

 

wherefor art thou

I don’t need to begin that sentence. You know exactly who I’m talking about.

Romeo Saganash, NDP MP

I had the pleasure to interview the man before xmas. His assistant squeezed me into a hectic schedule. The push was on in the House of Commons to get things done before the holiday break. There were meetings galore with this group inked or that person oenciled into the agenda. Then there was that leadership thing. I was lucky to ask for and get 15 minutes especially with the way he’d been feeling.

I went through the airport-style scanner at the front desk; standard for government and parliamentarian offices these days. Down a long hallway on the ground floor. Lucky, I thought, even if this is a dump it’s at least a hop and s skip from the parking lots and the street. I’d hate to think what the elevator ride might be like. Then it’s into his office where I’m immediately ushered into his preserve.

He’s dressed in a dark blue, pin-striped business suit. More stylish than conservative. Longish hair. Easy smile. The impression is of a nice man who removes his own stuff to make you a place to sit. Over the next 25 minutes, that impression is reinforced by someone who doesn’t skirt or avoid but answers questions even if it isn’t exactly what one wants to hear. No excuses either.

What chance does he have as just about every pundit has written him off? Of course, he’s not going to say “you’re absolutely right. I quit right here and now.” Instead, he says there’s always room for growth.

Historically, Indigenous people don’t vote and haven’t joined mainstream political parties. Are you counting on their votes? In recent history, he answers back, Indigenous people have been coming out more and more. They are now participating more in elections than ever before.

So it goes. One could be a real snark and write that he doesn’t stand a snowball’s hope in a steel factory of winning. There are plenty of people saying just that. In fact, I interview more than a few people who say it over and over. But this is historic. He’s the first to run a campaign to become the leader of a national political party in Canada. He was just elected 8 months before.

Chutzpah, says I. He may not be an Obama. But there’s something about the guy that I like. Is his run a wise choice politically? His party is sinking in the polls in Quebec. He should be shoring up his own riding say some. But there’s something in me that likes grand statements even if one is going to go down in flames. At least, people will see that smoke trail and maybe point and say: Gotta keep an eye on that one.

merry, happy, and whatever

Be well. Travel safe. Don’t eat too much. See you on the flip side and 2012. May the new year bring fresh eyes, open ears and curious minds with touch of the weird and wonderful.

a cheery little xmas story

ugly xmas tree

Years ago, more than I care to count, I confess that I was a federal civil servant. That’s not the worst part. I got that job at the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. But wait. That’s still not the worst.  The worst is yet to come.

Maybe I should begin with the good part of this tale. I actually felt lucky when I got the job because of where it was. A nice woman named Barbara Shaw took a shine to me, hired me into her Audio-Visual shop. There, I honed my photographic skills, learned more about audio recording and mixing, and was introduced to multi-media (slide shows and video production). I also was lucky enough to work with a few nice people.

Michel was second-in-line and loved the remote film projects he got to work on. Next came Bucky holding court in the studio, half blind and a jazz drummer. Finally, “Raw Bear” (aka Robert) in charge of the photography, slide and visual arts side of things. Down the hall was Howard and the Indian News. I took over the not-so-glam job of news monitoring, a duty the rest of the guys willingly, too willingly it seemed, let go.

I set timers on video and tape recorders every night, and the next morning reviewed local and national newscasts for anything to do with the Department’s mandate. The minister, every minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, didn’t want to be caught with his pants down at Question Period. Also as part of the job, I got to read the daily print clippings. My political spidey sense became more acute. My critical analysis of the Canadian news media took shape.

At first, the sum total of recorded news items each morning might be one fluffs-and-feathers piece. These usually, often, almost always began with the sound of drums and chanting. Always those damn drums and chanting. I read way too many newspaper and magazine clippings with headlines or stories that contained phrases like “dancing up a storm” or “whooping it up” somewhere for something. If it weren’t for that strange thing call a Mohawk sense of humour, I might have become suicidal thereby completing the tragic stereotypical process.

But I survived.  And I digress. This is supposed to a cheery little Christmas story.

So one day in December, during what turned out to be my last few months at Indian Affairs, Raw Bear and I decided to accept the Assistant Deputy Minister’s invitation to partake of some holiday cheer in his offices up on the 21st. floor. This was THE 21st. Floor, usually out of bounds to lesser beings such as we.

There was only other time I’d taken the elevator up to that floor. I dropped off some news summaries because some faecal matter had struck an electric aeration device and the Minister’s Office (caps required) demanded immediate attention. Usually, one of the other guys  responded to such directives. That one time, given my suspicious racial background and therefore dubious security status, the gods on 21 decided to take a chance and give mew the job of delivery boy. I felt so freaking honoured I wanted to puke. But, again, I digress.

So there we are, Raw Bear and I. We’re chuckling and stifling laughs as we prowled the food table. “White food,” I said, looking down at the usual bits of cheese and crackers. “Where’s the Injun food,” I add?

“Maybe they couldn’t afford baloney,” Raw Bear replied.
“You mean Indian steak?”

So we scoured the tables looking for something, anything more edible. We slipped over to the drinks area where someone was dispensing wine and beer, all the while looking about completely amazed at the cavorting of normally dour and dull civil servantry. This was not just another day in the belly of the beast.

I’d never seen so many comely but poorly paid secretaries… uh, I mean clerical staff, groping or hanging off each other as well as senior managers of a more lecherous bent. Suddenly, Raw Bear and I felt the joyous mood in the room become decidely cooler. We could feel pairs of eyes boring into the backs of our necks. We were definitely in someone’s scope.Then a tap on the shoulder and a whispered command to both of us: “Follow me.”

Raw Bear and I had quietened somewhat. Well, okay, I’d gone a whole lot quieter. Raw Bear had seniority while I was still on the endless cycle of six-month appointments that was the fate of most Indigenous folk at the Department. I knew one poor schmuck who had been on similar appointments for nearly 18 years. I repeat: nearly 18 years!

“Shhhh,” I whispered. “This looks serious.” This just made the slightly inebriated Raw Bear giggle even more.

We were escorted into an adjoining room and told to stay. We stood there looking at each other, wondering what the hell was going on, scanning the walls for about a minute but feeling it much longer, when the owner of the office came in. There he was. Rob Brown, the ADM himself.

Mr. ADM entered and shut the door behind. He didn’t even both with a “Merry Christmas.” He went straight to the point, which is why he got paid the big bucks: “I want you both to face the wall, and put your hands up against it.”

I wish I’d had an out-of-body experience at that moment. I wanted so much to see the exclamation points and questions marks popping like bubbles above our heads. We turned to look at each other. Then we both turned around the other way to face the wall. Dutifully, me and Raw Bear  assumed the position. Y’know: That position.

By this point, being slightly pickled, we were both giggling at the whole ludicrous, ridiculous, surreal situation. We were giggling like a pair of school girls while this highly priced ADM is running his hands up and down our arms, armpits, waists, and down our legs to the ankles. And just like that, it was over.

“Okay,” he said. We were clean. Not quite innocent but not proven guilty either. Mr. ADM then turned to the door and went through it.  Stunned, Raw Bear and I stayed in “the position” for a second or two before finally breaking into full blown guffaws.

Stunned, we rejoined the party.  But the implications were starting to gnaw at our party spirit. Yes, our libidos went limp. We had another drink but soon decided the thrill was definitely gone.

I saw a friend, Monik, deep in shmooze mode on the other side of the room. We didn’t want to interrupt so we waved goodbye to her, headed out the door and down the hall to the elevators, shaking our heads all the way down to our floor at the pat down.

The next day, I ran into Monik. I asked if she knew what happened to us at the party? She seemed more shocked than surprised. As the tale unfolded, Monik’s expression slowly turned fron concern into a smile. What was so goddam funny, I asked? For me, the funny left town on last night’s bus to Toronto.

My civil rights, my labour rights, my human rights as an individual in Canadian society – all had been violated by my boss, the ADM of Indian Affairs. I know that shouldn’t have surprised me – me of all people! So why was Monik on the verge of busting a gut?

That’s when she confessed.

There was a little toy Christmas tree with tiny decorations on a table near the food and drinks areas. ADM Brown noticed that some of these decorations had grown feet. There we stood, me and Raw Bear, hanging around that area, just a-giggling away. Ergo, ipso fatso, we must be the guilty parties. That’s why the dragnet came out, the die was cast, and so on and so forth.

There is a moral to this story. Maybe two.
Never, ever trust any senior official at Indian Affairs.
And beware Abenakis bearing gifts.

Happy Kwaanzaa!

four thumbs up

âpihtawikosisân

I totally recommend people visit this site – âpihtawikosisân – for a most excellent breakdown and analysis of the Attawapiskat scandal. It’s a humanitarian crisis, a story of crisis in Federal policy and mismanagement by THAT department (you know which one), a moral crisis at the highest levels in the halls of the Parliament of Canada.

It’s also  another chance for the mainstream media to re-educate itself once more (yet again) and play catch up on issues that are and have been a black eye for Canadian human rights for decade after decade. That alone should be reason enough for a long-term commitment by the mainstream media. Yet the mainstream media in general keep dropping the ball, preferring to do limited, blinkered “body count” journalism instead when it comes to Indigenous issues in Canada.

People deserve better.  The recommended site above shows how easy it can be – once you take the blinkers off.

who are you?

I am gobsmacked to see that even after a year of no new posts, people still gravitate to this site. Whatever are you looking for and at? That’s a rhetorical question but feel free to comment.

what?? a whole year??

Underwood No. 5 - a classic

I’m back.

The recent “status” on my Facebook page said it all:
“I tried to not get into arguments over nothing. Then I realized that was a double negative and that I had to get into arguments over something after all. So there.”

I took a break. I wanted to concentrate on something else but mostly I wanted to get away from the negative side of blogging. There was enormous self-imposed pressure to reply to especially argumentative comments. It sapped my energies and ground away at the personal joy of blogging. Worse, I came to dislike certain individuals who were determined to draw me into what they called “debate.” I began to call them jackals.

These jackals didn’t really want debate. Their intent was to beat me over the head with stale counter-opinions until either my skull or I caved in. they weren’t that interested in introducing me to new, intriguing ideas. At some point, it just didn’t make sense to allow these jackals so much control over my own sense of happiness and well-being.

So I left. Without notice. I just stopped posting. I cannot believe its been a whole year.  Ho-leh!

I’d already ended one blog at another host and moved to this one specifically to lose the jackals. I did it so I might concentrate on writing; the joy, loneliness and constant struggle to put words together in a way that make them glow like a rainbow.

Even if my writing was political commentary, mostly but not completely on Indigneous issues, I wanted my posts to be insightful, thoughtful, and an expression of passionate personal opinion based on a life of learning, travel, contemplation and experience. Occasionally, I ventured into humour or satire. Despite the best laid plans, though, I didn’t realize the power of the word “Shmohawk.”

Aside from one description of the word “shmohawk” as a male appendage, according to a Yiddish dictionary, another and perhaps the main meaning is shit-disturber; an argumentive sort, part contrarian and indiscriminate puller of beards. In some ways, this fits with what I consider the role of a journalist in society – chosen profession for most of my life. Which, of course, leads me to another favourite topic.

But I’ll leave that for now until I take the time to write about it. Soon.

couldn’t help it

As a general rule, I try to stay within the bounds of Indigenous news and comment. I also try to avoid jumping on the next big story that comes along to attract cheap eyeballs at this site. But… I couldn’t resist this little cartoon at Harper’s Magazine’s website. Click on the link below to see what I mean.

wanted.jpg

 

let’s call the whole thing off

Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan has come up with a terrible idea. He thinks it’s a good one. But it isn’t. In fact, it’s such a dumb idea that I think Duncan wants to share some of the stink.

What’s this grand idea? He wants to convene the national Aboriginal organizations (Assembly of First Nations,  Métis National Council, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Native Women’s Association of Canada) to… (wait for it ) help him come up with “fresh ideas” to re-design “status” in the Indian Act.

It’s the latest from Duncan’s Department of Indian Affairs. Read about it here. It comes as Bill C-3, the Federal Government’s reaction to Sharon MacIvor’s 25-year legal fight in British Columbia against discrimination in the Indian Act, is in the Canadian Senate for some sober second thought.

In 1985, Bill C-31 ended the practice of granting status to white women who married Indian men but stripped status from Indian women who married white men. All of their children lost status as well. Bill C-31 made it possible for them to apply to regain their status as registered Indians under the Indian Act. Thousands of people did just that.

That same Bill C-31 left a time-bomb ticking in the form of a “grandmother” clause. Any male or female with status married after 1985 were designated as “6.1″ or “6.2″ depending on the status of their parents. The children of a mixed marriage (status & non-status) were “6.1″. If they married a non-status, they became a “6.2″ and so did their children. If these children married out, well that meant they could kiss their status – their rights as defined by the Indian Act – goodbye. They could also lose their right to live on or be a member of a reserve, things very different from status accorded by Indian Affairs.

The national Aboriginal organizations knew about this delayed discrimination, a denial of their rights as Indigenous peoples. Most of them plugged their noses, though, and let the Federal Government define their rights for them.

The Federal Government promised that bands would be compensated for additional costs associated with Bill C-31 and provide for people regaining status, for more more homes, more health care and education costs, etc. There was some increase in funding but never the full compensation promised. Most bands struggled to find ways to cover the costs from taking in “C-31s”.

MacIvor’s win at the B.C. Court of Appeals means the Federal Government expects another 45,000 people to regain their status – at a time when Ottawa wants to head in the other direction. It wants to cut spending on all Aboriginal peoples, but also get rid of Indian “status”, and dump more and more responsibility for “Indians and lands reserved for Indians” onto the provinces.

According to Duncan, things are different this time with Bill C-3:

“We’ve committed to the First Nations community that we’ll do this exploratory process because every time we’ve wanted to engage on the response to McIvor, they wanted to talk about citizenship and registration (and) membership,” Duncan said after a Senate committee meeting earlier this week.

But Jean Crowder, the NDPs Aboriginal Affairs critic, says the Federal Government has a credibility problem. It already has the positions and information from the five national Aboriginal organizations from previous consultations. She says the Federal Government wants to find another way to get what it wants despite Aboriginal objections.

Sharon MacIvor doesn’t think much of Bill C-3 or anything that will will merely postpone – again and to another generation – the denial of Indigenous rights to define their own citizenship and membership for themselves. MacIvor’s taken her complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The government is “not clear with people what they are going to do with this exploratory process. They’re not clear with how they’re going to include people, they’re not clear if legislation is going to be developed, how First Nations are going to be included,” said Crowder.

“This is another way of making the problem go away for a period of time – which they also don’t clarify – and then we’ll deal with it sometime in the future.”

Why is this such a bad idea? Because there’s a smell in the air. It stinks like collaboration. If Duncan and Indian Affairs could find some way to get the national Aboriginal organizations to discriminate on Ottawa’s behalf by devising their own discriminatory rules to deny Indigenous people of their rights, well wouldn’t that be just ducky.

It would be like the former apartheid government of South Africa asking coloureds, Blacks, and every other classification in between to help the government re-define those very classifications that made them second- and third-class people.

Help us, Duncan seems to be saying, to find new and interesting ways to oppress you, to label you as second-class, to categorize your children and their children and so on in ever-increasingly bizarre ways that lead to only one outcome: No status for all.

changing lenses

I try not to have a lot of regrets. Things happen. Move on, if possible. Leave it behind. A former love suggested that only I could be responsible for my  happiness. She’s a former love so she must have taken her own advice.

But there are things that continue to gnaw even these many years later. This is one of them. It started out as most ideas like this – half-baked. It bounced around the back of my skull for months, maybe years. By the time I pried that slippery thing out and inflicted it upon others, I was in a position to take it from germ to proposal. Whether my immediate audience was able – or even willing – to understand is another matter. I should probably have considered that beforehand.

So what was this big idea? Simple, I thought in saner moments; bloody genius, after a few beers or tokes. Why do we accept the way that the world is structured? Why do we operate as though this is the only way that things should work? If the information is there, and we have the ability to interpret and use that information as we see fit, or as we should see fit… Then why don’t we? Why do we accept a status quo or a model or a system that really has not worked too well for us? Don’t we have a duty to try to either fix the damn thing? Or scrap it? Start over?

Now, in most things, such as engineering, airplane construction, putting a new roof on the house, I’d agree wholeheartedly to just leave things as they are. Don’t screw around. I don’t want that plane or roof falling with me or on me. But some things don’t work, fail continuously, inflict damage and/or pain, and it just doesn’t make sense that it keeps going on and on and on.

My big idea had to do with culture. News. Journalism. Writing. (Bet you thought it’d be the Indian Act or Indian Affairs, eh?) For years, I’d worked in mainstream journalism and became an advocate – if not acolyte and born-again missionary – for western journalism methods and standards. I believed in public broadcasting and public service journalism; that the bottom line should be informing people and protecting democratic rights not entertaining people for cheap eyeballs to keep stockholders happy. My problem? Even public broadcasting didn’t seem to work or to satisfy me.

My qualms took shape in South Africa in the late 90s. I’d gone to help some friends try to transform the SA Broadcasting Corp from an apartheid apologist and mouthpiece, maybe even spy, into something responsible to all of the people, and dedicated to changing the world for the better of everyone. Hah! Silly me. It’d be easier to get an intelligent policy out of Indian Affairs! (Oops, I really, really tried to leave Indian Affairs out of this post. Me bad.)

The problem with the SABC, as I learned to see it (with the help of former SA exiles who returned to fight the good fight in the corridors of the news department) was its culture. We could train people – producers, editors, reporters, camera people, etc. We could help them revise policies and procedures. We could mentor and nudge, encourage and suggest. We could even develop new shows for them. But that old culture of obedience and subservience to power and authority was engrained in the wood and paint, polluted the water and air in that monstrosity called Auckland Park.

So, after a few years, I became convinced that we were not freeing minds as much as showing experts at camouflage how to become better chameleons. It wouldn’t matter after awhile whether our trainees served the Broederbund or the ANC since they had been trained for so long to blend into the background and survive.

Now that’s a huge over-simplification and tarring with a massive brush. I came to admire and regard with awe a number of SABC journalists. Brave, sharp as hell, curious, modest, caring, worried about their country and their fellow South Africans – all at the same time. They had all of the qualities that the best journalists  embrace and personify. They somehow survived the old masters and I worried how they’d deal with the newer ones.

Survival, after all, is not for the faint-hearted or the polite in places like South Africa or many other places on earth. It’s easy for foreign devils like myself to helicopter in with fancy ideas about how the world should be. But then we’d go home and those people we grew to love and respect would have to find the gumption to speak truth in the face of power.

A typical day and another workshop, this time in Durban with a group of newspaper journalists. Some write for richer, established, formerly White dailies and others for poorer, newer Black papers hoping to capture the huge readership in the townships. They did essentially the same kinds of stories and used the most of the same news sources. The only real differences were in pay scales, the names of their papers, and sometimes the owners.

Asked to identify their target audiences, the reporters gave strangely similar replies. It turned out that they were all going after the same top 10% of the population – the same target readership during apartheid. Things have changed, I asked, and shouldn’t their target audiences change as well? Certainly the Black newspapers should be explaining the world from a township perspective if they wanted to become relevant to that readership? Silly me, they replied, didn’t I know that Blacks didn’t have money? That money powered the engines? That most township Blacks couldn’t or didn’t read?

So one of the lessons I learned, and they taught me many, was that the owners of most of their newspapers weren’t that interested in serving the majority of poor, poorly educated Blacks. They talked change but didn’t walk it. Informing the Black populations about this thing called democracy, informing them of and protecting their rights, advocating on their behalf, explaining their world in terms that they could relate to and understand, got in the way of profit. That’s when it struck me that things weren’t much different with Indigenous reporting back home in Canada.

But… and here’s the regret… they taught me so much that I wanted to bring home to Canada. Their lives, their hopes, their dreams, and the way that they saw through all of the bullshit excuses, euphemisms, and justifications inspired me. Now, to put it all to good use, I thought to myself. So I came back to Canada, and got THAT job – the one  I’d probably been preparing myself for during all those years kicking around places like the CBC.

So there I was; top news guy at my not-yet and still-to-be-built national TV news operation. I’d be the one picking the journalists. I’d be the one providing a vision for a world of Indigenous journalism that had yet to be articulated let alone made real with sound and pictures. Holy shit! Now what was that big idea that kept rustling around back there? I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was no matter how hard I tried.

I’m scrambling to get material ready for our first-ever news department group hug, bitch-slap, sucker punch, condolence, forgiveness, argument, blame and name, correcting, and agenda-setting meeting. What is it I really want to do? There are lots of things that must be done. A pile of things that can be put on hold or bumped up in priority. But if I could only remember what it was that I really…. Then it hit. Got it! The memory flooded back in full 16-bit colour.

What if we changed the cultural lenses by which we – native, Indian, Métis, Inuk, Indigenous – journalists did things? Why, I asked myself, do we seem to arrange our newsroom beats or areas of responsibilities to mirror government departments or business sectors without an apparent thought? We just do it.

We create beats for reporters to cover Health (Health Canada, provincial depts of health), politics (Indian Affairs, prov depts of native affairs, Aboriginal political organizations, etc), housing (CMHC, Indian Affairs, etc), education (Indian Affairs – again!, prov depts of ed, school boards), etc, etc, ad nauseum. Just like in that Harry Potter movie, I looked into the thing I feared (or hated) the most, waved my wand, and uttered the incantation: Ridikulus!

I walked into that meeting with those journalists, editors, and producers at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and said: Why don’t we chuck the usual beat system and try something new? Why don’t we define how we – as Indigenous peoples coming from Indigenous cultures and communities across Canada – are going to cover stories so they make sense to our peoples, our nations, our communities? (sound of crickets… shuffling of chairs… a pen falls off the conference room table way down there…)

What are going to do instead, someone asked. Good question, I answered right back! What, I asked the wall of blank faces in front of me, if we redefine and reclassify stories along the lines of things that our folks, our main audiences, think is important to their lives?

First step is to ask ourselves this question: How do we define the most important things in our lives? (more sound of crickets… more shuffling of chairs… I swear a pen is thrown across the conference room way down there…)

Eventually, with a lot of hard work, I’ve dragged out a flip chart full of things that don’t look anything like the standard, mainstream news media’s beat system. We identify a whole bunch of things that are common and central to the lives of our Indigenous audiences. Take the following:

1. Family and extended family, Mothers and children, Elders, Young adults, Men. (In other words, people.)
2. Community, Society, Culture, Language, Work, Justice, Resources, Learning, Governance. (Things that serve or are there for to provide to people.)
3. Foreign governments (like that damn Indian Affairs department), Outside cultures, Foreign laws, Foreign rulers. (Things that oppress people)

The list wasn’t all my invention – it came from the group as well. I thought it was brilliant. Revolutionary. Remarkably intelligent and sensible. Why don’t we – as the Indigenous news organization – tell stories from our perspectives, using our own values, and shaped to suit our audiences needs.  Wow! Double holy shit!

Some of the folks looked at that list in horror, and at me with not a little fear that I’d completely lost my freaking marbles. The faces of some, okay maybe one or two, beamed as though struck by a celestial light. I wish I could have pointed to something that already existed to help everyone understand that what we were talking about was a cultural lens. We were talking about replacing the foreign lens that dominated mainstream news about Indigenous peoples, with a much more appropriate Indigenous lens.

At least, we might end up with stories that would be a lot more relevant to the peoples and nations that we had identified as our core audiences.

Now the beauty of such sessions is that they eventually end. Bitch-slaps are forgotten if not forgiven. Friends go their separate ways to never speak to each other again. Red hot overnight romances fizzle out in the  old light of a new dawn. Then people settle back into familiar places and routines, like that one producer who  went back to writing poetry or playing solitaire when she could’ve been producing some kick-ass stuff about Pickton.

The experiment went ahead more in fits than in starts. They tried. They really did. But they didn’t have it in them to continue down this road for long. Eventually, they just slipped back into the old and familiar same old.

What did I learn about the whole damn thing?

Revolutions suck.

But what other choice do we have?