I had been wondering for a while why the phrase 'civil society' as mis-used and abused by Sullivan and his cronies (and council staff and journalists who sucked up to this phrase) had such a nasty ring to it.

Then I saw this piece in the New York Times and was reminded of Ralf Dahrendorf and his wonderfully stimulating re-working of Marxist theory - it's not so much money as power that is unfairly and unjustly distributed.

This lead to much innovative re-examining of what constitutes true consultation, participatory planning, and even the title of a recent DTES paper - I believe called 'Not about us without us.'

Truly empowering people breaks the power attached to money and indeed removes the power implicitly assocaited woth money.

Time to re-read "Class and Class Conflict in Civil Society" (1957)

This abstract and summary is quite good

http://fathom.lse.ac.uk/features/122552/

AS you'll seee these ideas are exactly what Fearless, W2 and other groups are achieving in the DTES and why the stale hierachical organizations - Portland Hotel Society as seen two weeks ago - find loose progress and achievment so threatening.

(From the link above:)

Organisations: These would be voluntary associations, and non-governmental or non-profit organisations, social movements, networks and informal groups. These organisations make up the infrastructure of civil society; they are the vehicles and forums for social participation, "voice" processes, the expression of values and preferences, and service provision.

Individuals: Citizens and participants in civil society generally. This would include people's activities in civil society such as membership, volunteering, organising events, or supporting specific causes; people's values, attitudes, preferences and expectations; and people's skills and in terms governance, management and leadership.As an analytic, conceptual term, civil society is very abstract, even somewhat vague, and certainly highly complex, seemingly resistant to any precise measurement. Yet as an operational definition, it refers to the activities, values and other key characteristics of institutions, organisations and individuals located among the market, the state and the family. (end quote)

From the New York Times:

Ralf Dahrendorf, Sociologist, Dies at 80

By WILLIAM GRIMES

Ralf Dahrendorf, a German sociologist whose experiences in Nazi Germany led him to develop a theory of liberalism and human freedom that often went against the grain of German politics in the postwar period, died Wednesday in Cologne. He was 80.

His death was confirmed in a statement from Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said, "Europe has lost one of its most important thinkers and intellectuals." The cause was cancer, said his wife, Dr. Christiane Dahrendorf.

Democracy and its problems preoccupied Mr. Dahrendorf for his entire career as a scholar and as a politician in West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. As a high school student he had been imprisoned by the Nazis for spreading leaflets opposing the regime, and early in his life he developed a deep suspicion of what he called "closed, encompassing systems."

Mr. Dahrendorf championed liberal pluralism, which he defined as a social system that recognizes divergent interests and aspirations and puts institutions in place that allow them to be expressed.

Democracy is "about organizing conflict and living with conflict," he told an audience at the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989.

"The world isn't simple, nor should it be simple," he continued. "It's rich because it's complicated. Let's learn to live with this."

He explored these ideas in "Class and Class Conflict in Civil Society" (1957), which famously proposed the counter-Marxist idea that power, rather than property, defined social class. Later books like "Society and Democracy in Germany" and "Modern Social Conflict" pursued similar themes.

"As a scholar he was always addressing human value problems in democracy, especially freedom, but he was also deeply involved in the civic life of Germany," said Neil J. Smeltser, an emeritus professor of sociology at Berkeley. "He bridged the gap between social theory and social practice as well as anyone I can think of."

Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf was born in Hamburg, where his father, a Social Democratic politician, was arrested and removed from his job by the Nazis in 1933. The family moved to Berlin soon after. Mr. Dahrendorf's father was arrested again in 1944, and a few months later, Ralf was arrested by the Gestapo for anti-Nazi activities and sent to a concentration camp in Poland. He was released as Soviet forces advanced in 1945.

At the University of Hamburg, Mr. Dahrendorf studied philosophy and classics, earning a doctorate in philosophy in 1952. He went on to earn a second doctorate, in sociology, at the London School of Economics, where he studied under Karl Popper. It was Mr. Popper's "Open Society" that provided the answers, he once said, to the great questions of modern industrial society posed by Marx.

After teaching at the universities of Saarbrücken, Tübingen and Konstanz in West Germany, and at Stanford in California, he ran for a seat in the regional Parliament of Baden-Württemberg. In 1969 he was elected to the federal Parliament as a Free Democrat. He was a junior foreign minister in Willy Brandt's first government and in 1970 became a European commissioner.

At a time when liberal democracy was under attack, Mr. Dahrendorf, as both a university professor and a politician, held fast to the principles of pluralism and personal freedom. His convictions were Social Democratic with a libertarian spin.

He favored laws and policies that encouraged personal freedom, a sense of citizenship and a broadening of social, economic and political opportunities. Germany's problems, he argued, stemmed from a belief in absolute answers and in the yearning for an all-powerful leader to put them into effect.

In 1974 he was invited to become director of the London School of Economics, a post he held for the next decade. He later wrote a history of the school.

He returned to Germany to become chairman of the social sciences department at Konstanz University, but in 1987 he accepted the position of warden of St. Antony's College, Oxford. He became a British citizen in 1988 and was made a life peer under the name Lord Dahrendorf of Clare Market in the City of Westminster in 1993.

In addition to Dr. Dahrendorf, his third wife, he is survived by three daughters, Nicola, Alexandra and Daphne, and one grandchild.

Respectful resume writing - reverse the process

We give resumes far too much power in the employment counselling business.

They are essential, but not important.

As well as giving them too much power we usually fail to take advantage of their creation or renovation to truly connect with their owner.

Here's the summary of the conventional approach to creating or renovating a resume:

Start at the top, name, address, form filling personal information

Begin changing formatting at the same time as modifying content - like painting walls that are still being built

First creative writing task is 'Highlights'

Highlights come from activities involved in past work, but we haven't got there yet, so we throw in the generic crap about 'multi-tasking team player with great communication skills'

Or we add generic job description language from the NOC or somewhere, so a baker 'uses machinery and equipment to mix flour, yeast and water' - wow, shocker

We then run through past jobs from most recent backwards, our lives are lived forwards but we run through them backwards,  encouraging even more of a focus on the past

The most recent job often has the most baggage, pain or sensitivity associated with it, so we sensitively start with that

When we get close to the foot of the page we stop adding information on previous work purely for reasons of space

We then say something weak such as 'put a couple of hobbies in here' showing little interest in these as the ghastly task is almost done

Then we add 'References available on request'

Often we'll have a final mess with the format to show we are skilled with computers


Here's how this event can be handled, and it is an event, not an activity or a process, as events happen and then are done.

Start at the end, the foot, with 'Hobbies and Interests' and be interested in them, and what they say about the person.

Then help make a decision about the 'oldest' job to start with toward the foot of the page - conventional 'wisdom' says don't go back further than 10 years but this can often mean leaving out relevant and satisfying past work

Then move forwards, job by job, asking what was entailed what was enjoyable, what was learnt and discovered during that work. What talents were revealed, what skills employed, what self-knowledge was gained? It's fine to note what someone didn't like about their past work too - we don't need to be afraid of identifying the best parts and the worst parts in each previous job

Then the most recent job is reached, and we need to be gentle. Since it was the most previous work, its loss, for whatever reason, led to the unemployed state of the person in front of us. This was the cause of the present state, and as such is a powerful pivotal point in the journey.

'I thought is was a good fit but...' 'It seemed secure and then 80 of us were laid off', 'The new boss just didn't like me...' 'It was time to move on and I thought I'd get something right away...'

These phrases offer an opportunity to open a dialogue about the loss.

Then the list of previous work is complete and the focus turns to the future, which is where the 'Highlights'

'What parts of you and your talents and your personality would you like to use in your next job.' This question

If the resume's owner likes to work by themselves, prefers to be quietly left alone to do their work, and is a solid introvert, for goodness sake don't add 'multi-tasking team player with great communication skills' because guess what, they will be hired with the assumption that they are a 'multi-tasking team player with great communication skills' but they are not.

It is extremely disrespectful, and morally dubious, to throw in talents, aptitudes and preferences purely to satisfy an imagined employers imagined 'wishlist'. As we identified earlier, at worst in can result in being hired for attributes you don't have, don't like or don't want to make use of.

As always it's a little like dating; we may say we like reading, long nature walks meditating and yoga to seem attractive, but if the truth is bars, beer and barbiturates, it's really not going to work is it?

Break the buzzword tyranny, select fresh adjectives; you are telling someone what you want them to know about you, not what you guess they might wish to hear.

Still stuck at that awful bulleted list of highlights? Pick a favourite musician or actor - what would you like them to know about you? Keep it sort of clean...!

Stephen

Arcane rules prevent would-be performance venues from becoming viable, councillor says
 
By Randy Shore, Vancouver SunMay 1, 2009
 
 
Save On Meats at 34 West Hastings in Vancouver was to be developed into a gallery but the plan has proven too expensive.
 
Save On Meats at 34 West Hastings in Vancouver was to be developed into a gallery but the plan has proven too expensive.
Photograph by: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Sun

The city will take a first step next week toward lowering the barriers faced by artists and small venue operators with an eye toward creating more performance spaces in the city.

Under the city's bylaws, changing the use of a building to open a gallery, an eatery or a boite triggers a whole mess of required upgrades to meet fire and seismic codes.

Add to that a punishing property tax regime and layers of licensing rules, and creating a profitable performance venue is almost insurmountably difficult

"I have one space in Vancouver with a rent of $700 a month and a property tax bill of $1,500 a month," said Vancouver entrepreneur David Duprey, who operates several buildings with gallery and artist space.

The average income for a working artist in Canada is less than $25,000.

A seismic upgrade that Duprey had been considered to revitalize the former home of Save-On-Meats would have run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The math is more than challenging and it's one of the reasons that so many buildings in the Downtown Eastside have been boarded up for years, he said.

Duprey operates several buildings and a restaurant, mainly in ground-level storefronts with artist studios occupying the remaining space in the building.

Parties and performances help draw customers, but arcane rules often prevent owners and operators from staging events.

On Tuesday, Coun. Heather Deal will bring a motion to council, proposing the creation of a working group to advise council on various ways to lower the bureaucratic and taxation barriers and to change the liquor bylaws and special occasion licences, which can often be the difference between setting up a profitable new venueor putting some more plywood on the windows.

Obviously there are base levels of safety that have to be maintained, Deal said.

"But we have rules now that don't allow more than two people to perform at cafe-galleries or restaurants and we have to break down those barriers and stop treating these spaces like they are all such different things," said Deal.

The city is in year one of a 10-year plan to develop a more vibrant culture industry in Vancouver and job one is making sure artists and performers have studio and performance space.

A two-day workshop that was held in March was the first step toward arming the culture community with the tools needed to navigate the complexities of project development and the bureaucracy.

"It's incredibly difficult to go through the process with the city and most artists just won't go through it," Duprey said.

"If you have a 30- or 40-year-old retail space that people are working in right now and you want to change the usage to say a gallery, it suddenly means you have to bring everything up to 2009 standards."

"Heather is really on to something here," he said.

"If we can lower those barriers, it will really make a difference in neighbourhoods like the Downtown Eastside, where we have a lot of boarded-up buildings."

rshore@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
 
 
 
Save On Meats at 34 West Hastings in Vancouver was to be developed into a gallery but the plan has proven too expensive.
Photograph by: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

Songs once destined for extinction will be heard on mobile telephones and will bridge the divide between ancient traditions and youth culture

By Jeff Lee, Vancouver SunApril 13, 2009























Tewanee Joseph sees unique ring tones bridging traditions.
Photograph by: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun files, Vancouver Sun

For more than 100 years, Christian priests in the north banned Inuit women from practising the ancient art of throat-singing.

Like many aspects of aboriginal or Inuit culture and customs, the guttural, rhythmic duets by the women of the north were in danger of being forgotten.

But now, with the help of the Four Host First Nations, throat-singing and a lot of other native songs are literally about to ring out all over the world.

Later this month, the FHFN will upload onto its website several electronic files of Inuit throat-singers that people can download as ring tones for their mobile phones.

It's not just Inuit songs that will be available.

The Grand March for Housing drew support from a wide range of groups and individuals across British Columbia, all of whom have had enough of the pain and distress caused by homelessness they see everyday, and are calling for all three levels of government to stop talking and act.

This shot shows the marchers gathered at the Art Gallery in front of the ironic excesses of the Georgia development.


While this shot is of a white board where people were encouraged to write their comments - the 'shovel' sums it up.

 

The march was passionate but peaceful, as several streams of marchers united before gathering at the Vancouver Art Gallery to hear speeches and entertainment. More about the coalition and future events can be found here: http://www.citywidehousingcoalition.org/

Original from CNET with more pictures of the original idea of 'http://www'  here

Career Development Conference 2009 - Working Local ~ Shaping Global, March 3rd and 4th, 2009

Greetings if you have arrived here fresh from the CDC conference presentation this morning.

Thanks for all the input, encouragement and support.

Comments, links and ideas can be posted below using the (duh!) "Comments" section

Should this post be removed from the front page on future visits, use the search function to click on 'Employment Counselling' and you'll find it.

We could use this post a resource for ideas on changing the language of our business - several people asked afterwards how they could help with this - I think its one word and one form, brochure, manual at a time

And also use this post to assemble artists resources.

I provide images and notes with this proviso. Seeing and reading is not the same as attending and experiencing. A little like reading the menu, not eating the meal. So with a requisite pinch of salt.........

For an PDF file of the presentation 'That Shiny Red Bicycle - longing, desire and reward in work' click Shiny and Red.pdf

For an rtf file of notes to accompany the images click shinyrednotes.rtf

The url for the 'I like boxes' awfulness on You Tube is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVMi-8KKSpI

Julie Fowlis and her Gaelic version of Blackbird and much more is available here:

http://www.myspace.com/juliefowlis

There might also be an htm version of the presentation coming to open in any browser with notes but bl**dy Microsoft is failing to let you save it in anything but a version so called optimized for so called Internet so called Explorer.....

Check back at the weekend for a document with brief notes on each topic, should the htm version not materialize..........

Thanks again

Stephen

PS Excellent new social activism site is http://www.idealist.org/

scjh

It's often said that if we ignore our history we are doomed to repeat
it. By recognizing and recording the stories of 20 sites in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, mobile videographers connect past to present, creating an opening for informed reflection on the future. This crossmedia exhibition and web project remixes Labour, Work, and Working People: A Working Class and Labour History Walking Tour using Web 2.0 strategies to expand the number of voices heard and stories told.

Gerry Bellett

Vancouver sun