Category: People

The book! Chapter Twenty

Learning from Dogs

Chapter Twenty

Philip was about to pick up his case and return to the cool of the airport concourse when out of the corner of his eye, right at the last minute, he saw a tall, elegant, blond-haired woman heading for the airport doors in a manner that suggested she hadn’t seen him.  Before he even had time to draw breath and sing out a caution, she careened into his right shoulder almost knocking him into the pillar besides which he had been standing.

She stopped, turned towards him, and reached out to hold his right forearm in her right hand.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Bond.  It is Mr. Bond, isn’t it? Mr. James Bond?”

In Philip’s most wildest of dreams he would never have anticipated that his first new minutes on Mexican soil would turn out like this.

He guessed who this attractive woman was.  The smooth English accent was a bit of a give-away, the laughter in her voice confirming it was planned.

“Oh, you must be Molly? Lisa had mentioned a few times that she had an English friend here in Mexico.”

Then from out behind another tiled pillar popped Lisa.

“Hi Philip, welcome to Mexico.”

Lisa came over and gave him a long hug.

He picked up his case and followed the two of them the short distance to the car-park.  He noticed the gaiety between them. Within moments they were alongside Lisa’s car, a Ford Explorer according to the badge on the rear of the vehicle.  Of course, a make unfamiliar to him.  He would have described it as an American version of a compact Estate car; apparently known as an SUV in this part of the world.

However the make and type of the vehicle wasn’t so much the focus of his  attention.  It was rather how on earth he was going to get in.  Because, as Lisa opened the tailgate, there was revealed more large plastic sack-bags of dried dog food than he had ever seen in his life.

“Hopefully there’s just enough space at the top for you to slide your suitcase in.  Will it fit?”, Lisa enquired.

He pushed a couple of the topmost bags to either side and just managed to squeeze his case in over the top.

He backed out and straightened Up. Molly had now opened the right-hand door to the rear bench seat.

“Sorry if it’s a bit cramped.  We’ve had a bit of restocking of dog food.”

Molly wasn’t kidding, Philip thought, as he shuffled onto the nearest remaining piece of the bench seat that wasn’t covered from seat to roof-lining with clear-plastic wrapped cardboard trays of canned dog food.

Molly sat down on the front passenger seat, Lisa started the engine, doors were slammed close and they eased out of the designated parking area. Within moments they were clear of the airport zone and heading more-or-less South.  Well that was Philip’s estimate looking at the setting sun low down off to his right; its golden rays accentuating the dry, desert landscape that seemed to run all the way to the horizon.

His eyes were drawn back to all the dog food. “Gracious, someone’s got a few pet dogs at home.”

He noticed a look pass between Lisa and Molly.  It was Molly who replied.

“Lisa has five dogs and I have fourteen.”

“Did you say fourteen! My goodness, that sounds like a story.”

As they sped along what appeared to be signed as Highway 15, Lisa chatted away to Philip explaining the story about the dogs.  How for many years she and Molly had been working together in rescuing dozens of feral dogs, so many of whom roamed the streets of San Carlos.  Then them finding homes for the dogs most often with Americans coming down visiting San Carlos.

He looked across to Molly sitting in the front. “So how long have you been living in Mexico, Molly?”

“Oh, for almost twenty-five years.  I came down here with my husband when he and I wanted a change from the USA.

As he listened, he started to focus on her accent.  English it was, without any doubt.  But better than that, for if asked, he would have guessed a London accent, even perhaps an East London or Essex accent.

“Molly, hope you don’t mind me asking but I’m hearing a London accent. Is that correct?  Where were you born?”

“In Essex,” she replied.

“Ah, thought as much.  I know Essex pretty well from my years as a salesman in that part of the world. So in which part of Essex were you born?”

There was a pause before Molly answered, a lovely tease in her voice, “The worst part of Essex.”

He stopped and thought about his memories of Essex.  There were quite a few places in Essex that might qualify as the worst part.  But listening to Molly’s accent was giving him a clue. He took a stab at the place.

“I think you were born in Dagenham. You know, where the huge Ford factory is.”

Molly’s answered with a giggle, “Yes, that’s right.  How very clever. What made you guess Dagenham?”

“Well, when I was selling for IBM, I got to know that part of Essex especially well. Called on many of the Ford suppliers that had businesses in and around the Dagenham area. Places such as Romford, Rainham, Barking.  I heard something in your voice that suggested Dagenham or close by. Because, as you go further out, to places like Basildon, Brentford, even Chelmsford, the local Essex accent starts to take on more of an East Anglian twang.”

“You mean posher than Dagenham.” Molly put on a thick Cockney overlay that, nonetheless, only accentuated the underlying playfulness in her voice.

“So, your turn. Where were you born, Philip?  Have to say you sound too posh for East London or Essex.”

He was tempted to play games in return but didn’t have time to think of a cheeky retort. “I was born in North Acton in North London but almost from my first year lived and grew up in Preston Road, about a mile from Wembley Stadium.  In fact I could see the stadium buildings from my bedroom window.”

Molly’s gift for accents was obvious as she came back in a pseudo upper-class tone of voice, “Oh, Wembley.  Oh, I do say, how delightfully charming.”

They chit-chatted back and forth for some time as the miles sped by before Philip sensed, not quite sure how, that Lisa was feeling a little left out.

“Lisa, so back to the dogs.  Is it normal for you and Molly to have so many dogs at home?”

Lisa replied, “Not really. A short time ago the local animal shelter in San Carlos, where both Molly and I used to help out, closed down.  Many of the dogs were at risk of being put down.  So the ones that could be placed elsewhere we took them in ourselves.”

The conversation in the car fell silent for a while. The flight down from Los Angeles on top of some residual jet-lag from his flight across from London, the smooth motion of the car and the approaching dusk all conspired to make him just want to close his eyes for a few minutes.

He was suddenly awake with the turning off of the engine.

“Whoops, sorry about that. Obviously dozed off.”

Molly turned and looked at him. “Don’t worry, you were snoring so very prettily.”

Philip felt himself blush as he got out of the car with the two of them.

“Sorry, Philip,” Lisa said. “We’re not quite home.  This is Molly’s house and we are just going to put her bags of dog food in the back of her car for now.”

Philip went around to the back of the Ford and removed his suitcase.  Molly opened a large pair of brown-painted metal doors to reveal a rather grubby white van-type car parked in her driveway. She opened the tailgate and he watched as Molly and Lisa carried the bags and trays of cans from one  vehicle to the other.

He looked around him.  It was now early night. A warm, sub-tropical night that, quite suddenly, reminded him of nights in Darwin, Northern Australia.  There were a couple of street lamps shining their sodium light along an unsurfaced dirt street with properties to both sides.  He walked a few paces so he could look down the side of Molly’s house and saw the black surface of a sea possible only twenty yards beyond the far edge of the property.  The architecture of the house itself looked very non-European.  Philip reflected that in more ways than one this was a very long way from Devon.

He jumped into the front seat where Molly had been sitting as Lisa started up the car.

“Looks like quite a location where Molly and Ben have their house,” he mused aloud.

“Just Molly now, Philip.  Ben died back in 2005.  He was a great guy.  He and Molly had the house designed and built for them by local Mexicans when they first came down to San Carlo more than twenty-five years ago.”

He noticed just a hint of something slip across his mind, something not even as clear as a thought. Some tiny patter of emotional excitement that Molly was a single woman.

A few minutes later, as Lisa drove up the hill to her house, a combination of Philip’s exhaustion and the darkness of the night made it difficult for him to really get a clear idea of what the house looked like.  For sure, it gave the impression of being a grand place but, then again, the feeling of it still being very much a working construction project.

Half-an-hour later, that was confirmed by Don as all three of them sat around a table alongside a grand motorhome.

Lisa explained that they still hadn’t moved in to the house but that they had made him up a bedroom in the bodega.  Frankly, he hadn’t a clue as to what a bodega was but presumed that was the large awning with sides that he had been shown to when they arrived. So after a light snack, all that his stomach could take, he excused himself and promptly got settled into his nominated bed and barely before he could register the comfort of the bed and the wonderful night sounds around him, he was gone.

He slowly awoke, looked at his watch that was still on his left wrist and saw that it was coming up to 7 a.m. It had felt like a week’s deep, dreamless sleep; the sleep of all sleeps.

There was a hint of the coming dawn in the sky as he went outside and took in a few lungfuls of clean, fresh air.  This pre-dawn light to the sky was on the horizon to his left as he stared out over a bay with the calmest of sea surfaces one could imagine.  There wasn’t a breath of wind. Total calmness.  He pondered about the strange interface between a calm, benign sea that had not even a single fishing boat upon it, together with the steep, barren slopes of mountains pressing up almost to the edge of the town and then elsewhere the views housing lots, construction projects, more smart homes and a golf course.

The air was noticeably cool so he went inside the bodega to find a sweatshirt. He went back outside and quietly sat on a garden chair and just allowed the peace of the surroundings to wash over him.  It had all been quite a year.  Here he was sitting in the most different of settings he could imagine, a little over a week before Christmas Day but, much more significantly, only four days from it being exactly a year since Maggie dropped her bomb into his life.

Lisa’s ‘what are you doing for Christmas’ question some seven months ago had certainly set some wheels in motion.

“Hi Philip!” It was Don coming across from the motorhome to say good morning.  He stood next to Philip and said how he never got tired of the view across the bay.

Don turned to him, “Hey, Lisa says that we should take breakfast over at Rosa’s Cantina.  As you can see, we really are not yet set up for cooking arrangements.”

“That’s fine, Don. Very happy to let you run my life.”

Lisa stepped down from the motorhome, telephone in left hand, “I was going to give Molly a call to see if she wants to join us at Rosa’s.”

She pressed a button and raised the phone to her ear, exchanged a few words and called out, “All arranged, she will see us there at 8 a.m.”

Lisa then came across to Philip, asked him how he had slept and showed him the bathroom and showering facilities.

They had just seated themselves at a table at Rosa’s Cantina when Molly breezed in.  She was wearing a white cotton blouse over white jeans and a straw Stetson hat over her blond hair, the hat sitting a little way back on her head.  Despite Philip not being the best observer in the world of what a woman was wearing or her make-up, he couldn’t help noticing Molly’s rich red lipstick on her lips. There was something about Molly that signalled she was one-hundred-percent woman.

She parked her sunglasses across the front rim of her hat as she came into the shade of the Cantina.

“Hi everyone.  Did you sleep well, Philip?”

“Thanks Molly. Yes the sleep of a lifetime, I’m glad to say.  Heavens, what with your white jeans and your Stetson hat there’s a bit of an equine look about you today.”

Molly laughed, “Are you saying that I look like a horse! Not much of a greeting to a woman, if you don’t mind me saying.”

They caught each other’s eyes as Molly sat down at the table. The laughter in her eyes was unmissable.

Breakfast was ordered and an hour passed by in an easy and gentle manner.  At one point, Lisa asked Molly whether she had had a result from the auction. Molly replied that she hadn’t but that she expected to hear today and had her fingers crossed it would be a winning bid.

Molly turned to Philip who was looking quizzically at her .

“I’ve put in a bid at a silent auction for the most incredible carved dining table and chairs that you can imagine.  Genuine Mexican hand-carved and just stunning.  If I win it, I’ll invite you all round for dinner.”

After breakfast and back at the house, Philip was introduced to Lisa’s dogs.  They were all lovely animals that were both curious and affectionate towards him.  One of them, a creamy coloured, short-haired, bright-eyed dog, perhaps eighteen inches to her shoulders, looked as though she wanted to jump on his lap.  Lisa said that her name was Shilo and that she was a dear. He was sitting down and patted his lap; Shilo jumped up without hesitation.

As he cuddled Shilo, Lisa explained how she had been found on a local street one evening, going through a pile of rubbish.  She had been very thin and very wary of humans. However, Lisa put some food down for her and very slowly was able to coax her into her arms. As Philip stroked Shilo and felt her settle into his lap he suddenly felt very guilty that until this moment Pharaoh hadn’t even entered his mind.  He realised how much he was missing him.

Later, towards the middle of the afternoon, Lisa came across to where he was sunbathing, on the sixteenth day in December as he could hardly believe, and announced that Molly had, indeed, won the silent auction, that the huge table was being delivered tomorrow and on Tuesday evening they were all invited to dinner.

“Let me tell you, Philip, Molly can cook up a storm of a meal. It’s going to be quite an evening.”

“Can I go and buy some wine for the occasion?”

“No, but you can do me a favour.  That same day, the 18th, I need to take the Ford into the repair shop over at Guaymas; about fifteen minutes away.  There’s a potential issue with the steering.  The local Mexicans are brilliant with cars, all types, and most likely will fix the problem in half the time and half the cost of doing the same thing in the States.”

She paused. “But whereas Don can follow me in the morning in his Jeep and bring me back, later in the day that’s going to be a challenge. Because I will have dogs to feed and getting myself ready for Lisa’s dinner.  So wondered if you can you go into Guaymas with Don to pick up my Ford?”

“Sure, I can. No problem.”

“If you follow Don back into San Carlos and go straight to Lisa’s house, just a single turn off the main road, then Don can come and collect me and we both will then come over.”

So it came to pass. Philip drove Lisa’s Ford back from Guaymas and arrived at Molly’s house a little after 5 p.m., the setting sun still allowing him time to be shown around the house.  It was a magnificent property without being ostentatious, with glorious views out over the bay.  The main living room had a wonderful domed ceiling and the new carved table that Molly had acquired at the auction set the whole room off in the grandest of styles.  He could hear the dogs elsewhere chattering happily.  Molly said that the next time he came across during the daytime she would introduce them all to him.

She offered him a glass of wine and, together, they sat on the verandah and made small talk.  Philip was aware how easy it was to be with her.  Not only was she a good listener, she was, as he would say from his sales days, an active listener.  He found that very flattering.

As Lisa had accurately predicted, the meal was outstanding; beautifully cooked and beautifully presented.  Later they all sat outside on the verandah savouring their glasses of wine before Molly went and prepared fresh coffees for all.  Much to Philip’s surprise, a little before 8 p.m., Lisa turned to Don and apologised saying that she was feeling too tired to stay much longer and could Don take them home.

Lisa turned to Philip.

“Listen, there’s no need for you to come back now if you don’t want to.  You got my Ford and you know the way across to the house.”

Just to check, Philip talked the short route to the house over with Don, who nodded, and a few moments later, with Lisa and Don gone, Molly came back out to the verandah.

“Do you want to come into the living room?  Don’t know about you but it’s starting to feel a little too cool for me.”

He took the few steps into the living room and sat back in a comfortable wide easy chair.  Molly refreshed his glass. Two of her dogs came up to his legs and looked up at him with longing eyes.

“That’s Dhalia to your left, and the other is Ruby.  They are both Mexican street dogs that were rescued which I was unable to find homes for.”

He looked at Dhalia and Ruby.  They were both similar in height and fur colouring; shortish, light-brown, straight hair with bright-eyed attentive faces on bodies of about eighteen to twenty inches paw to shoulder.  Ruby, the slightly heavier of the two, jumped up on to the free part of the seat cushion next to where he was sitting. Dhalia stood up on her hind legs, tail wagging fit to burst, and placed both front paws on his knees.  He idly stroked each eager head with each hand.  Ruby, without meeting the slightest resistance from Philip, softly shuffled her body so that her front legs were across his thighs and laid her head down on her front legs.

“They’re beautiful animals, with such gentle natures,” he said to Molly. “I would have expected feral dogs to be, oh I don’t know, more wild, more feral.”

He went on to add, “And there’s something else I’ve noticed about your dogs, Molly, and that is how you have many more female dogs.”

He sensed he may have touched on a sensitive issue.

“Philip, some of the locals around here are very poor.  They will sort through bins looking for anything to sell, trade or eat; not even immune to stealing stuff to sell on, and so on. While in some ways I can understand what the poorer Mexicans have to do, there is one practice that still hurts me even to think about it. I’m referring to their habit of impregnating mother dogs so that when the mother has puppies, they may be sold for a few pesos. But because they can’t afford to keep that mother dog, frequently I find them thrown out on the street not long after she has had her puppies, often with milk still in her teats.”

She paused before saying, “That’s why the majority of the dogs I have taken in are females. That’s why they are such beautiful creatures.  Dogs understand.”

There was a long silence. He was surprised to find himself empathising so strongly with the pain of these mother dogs. As though his experiences of having Pharaoh in his life and the intimate ways that Dhalia and Ruby were connecting with him just now were opening something inside of him; something older than time itself.

Molly cleared her throat. “So, it sounds like it’s been a bit of a year for you.  Lisa filled me in on the details. Must have been a tough period for you.”

“Well, from what Lisa mentioned I’ve not been the only one hurting.  She told me that it wasn’t too long ago that your husband died.  Damn sight worse  losing a long-term loving and devoted husband than what I went through, me thinks.”

Molly replied in a quiet, reflective voice. She talked about her late husband who she had known and loved for years, how he had died of dementia brought on by burst blood vessels in his head, how she had looked after him, non-stop his last few weeks.“Ben and I were married for over twenty-five years and he was so good to me all that time.  But in the end, the dementia turned him into a man I didn’t know and, I hope you’ll forgive me saying this, I was grateful when he eventually died.” He heard the conflict in her voice.

“How old was Ben when he died, Molly?”

“He was much older than me, some thirty-two years my senior, so he was eighty-eight when he died.  I know what you are probably thinking, that I was some young, blond bimbo who grabbed hold of an older man for his money and all that.  But it wasn’t like that at all.  We were genuinely good to each other over all those years and he loved me and I truly loved him, right up to the last.”

“Molly, did you say Ben was thirty-two years older than you. Because,  Maggie was eighteen years younger than me. Interesting pair of age gaps.” He paused, “But I’m sure, indeed certain, that Maggie and I had nothing like the relationship that it sounds as though you and Ben had.”

There was something about this evening, something about Molly’s openness, her seemingly sincere interest in his past, that led Philip to open up his heart and his soul.  He talked, talked and talked, his flow of recollections of past times broken only by questions from Molly. Questions that always seemed the most exquisitely pertinent ones to ask of him.  Questions from this woman who two days previously had met him for the first time.

There were several moments in his recounting of his past years when the emotion caught in his throat; when the corners of his eyes became moist.  Unerringly, each time this happened, Ruby looked at him directly with her soft, brown eyes and licked the fingers of his nearest hand.  And each time that Ruby licked him Dhalia uncurled herself from the carpet just in front of his feet, stood up and put her paws on his knees.

Molly spoke of how all her rescue dogs offered her so much love and affection. How they seemed to know that this particular human had saved their lives.  At a deep, inner level he sensed a common thread. A thread of unconditional love from Molly to these dogs, Ruby to Dhalia, who, in turn, were offering him a feeling of being accepted as worthy of their unconditional love.  He started to understand the potential bliss of living with so many dogs in one’s life.

It was an unbelievable evening in which he lost complete track of time but not only that lost the need to even know the time.  Thus hours later, when he did look at his watch, he could not believe that it was fast approaching eleven-thirty at night.

“Oh, Molly, I’m so sorry.  Seems as though I have just dumped my life story and more on you. How embarrassing. Just look at the time; I’d best be going.” Ruby completely of her own accord slipped off Philip’s lap.

Moments later he stood up and was immediately struck by how far away from everything once familiar to him it all felt now.

They stood just inside the front door.

“Molly, thank you so much for this evening, for letting me practically talk non-stop like that.” There was a pause before he said, “May I ask a favour?”

“Of course, what is it?”

“I would love a hug.”

She silently opened her arms and he just melted into her body.  He knew that it had been a long time since he had needed such a hug and a lifetime since a woman had hugged him like this; being hugged by a woman who seemed to be accepting every part of this torn-up man.  There was a deep compassion and acceptance flowing from her. Ruby and Dhalia watched them; each vigourously wagging a tail.

4,434 words. Copyright © 2013 Paul Handover

The power of self.

Confidence in what you and I can achieve is our salvation.

Yesterday, I wrote about just a few of the things going on in our world that have the power to destroy us.  Destroy us in the sense of making us feel powerless, irrelevant and insignificant.  Trust me, there were plenty more examples that I could have mentioned.

But so what!

The vast majority of the humans on this planet have control over what they think.  Untold numbers of those self-same people have control over what they do with their lives.

Take Dr Peter Pratje.  I suspect that you, as with me, hadn’t heard of Dr Pratje before.  But he is a Project leader with the Frankfurt Zoological Society and he holds an MSc in Biology and a PhD in Conservation biology.  This may be learned not from the website of that Frankfurt Society but from the website of the Orangutan project.  Bet you hadn’t heard of that project either.  The Orangutan Project (TOP) is described:

The Orangutan Project (TOP) is the world’s foremost not-for-profit organisation, supporting orangutan conservation, rainforest protection, local community partnerships and the rehabilitation and reintroduction of displaced orangutans back to the wild, in order to save the two orangutan species from extinction.

Back to the good Doctor. This is what he says, “What we do for orangutans, we do for ourselves.”

Now settle down for a tad less than twelve minutes and see the power of self, see what we can do for ourselves.

Published on Dec 4, 2013

Peter Pratje, of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, introduces us to our orangutan family and reveals how we, as individuals, can help prevent their imminent extinction.

The eleven minutes long video accompanies Peter Pratje and his team working with young orangutans at the jungle school. The apes have been confiscated after illegally being held as pets. In daily training sessions they now learn the survival skills they need for a life of freedom – how to climb trees, build nests, find food and generally behave like wild orangutans. The project aim is to re-introduce the great apes into the Bukit Tigapuluh national park in central Sumatra.

Taking matters into their own hands, the young orangutans were most supportive – snatching the small and robust cameras and filming themselves climbing up and down trees.

Music Courtesy of ExtremeMusic, http://extrememusic.com

Special Thanks: Frankfurt Zoological Society (http://www.zgf.de)

The loss of self?

Trying to find a balance in these strange times.

I wrote down the title of today’s post a few days back.  Jean and I had just watched the BBC Panorama Special regarding Amazon UK.  It had been screened on the 25th November and was described:

It’s the online retailer that has transformed the way we shop, but how does Amazon treat the workers who retrieve our orders? Working conditions in the company’s giant warehouses have been condemned by unions as among the worst in Britain. Panorama goes undercover to find out what happens after we fill our online shopping basket.

Or more fully reported in a BBC News item, as this extract reveals:

A BBC investigation into a UK-based Amazon warehouse has found conditions that a stress expert said could cause “mental and physical illness”.

Prof Michael Marmot was shown secret filming of night shifts involving up to 11 miles of walking – where an undercover worker was expected to collect orders every 33 seconds.

It comes as the company employs 15,000 extra staff to cater for Christmas.

Amazon said in a statement worker safety was its “number one priority”.

Undercover reporter Adam Littler, 23, got an agency job at Amazon’s Swansea warehouse. He took a hidden camera inside for BBC Panorama to record what happened on his shifts.

He was employed as a “picker”, collecting orders from 800,000 sq ft of storage.

A handset told him what to collect and put on his trolley. It allotted him a set number of seconds to find each product and counted down. If he made a mistake the scanner beeped.

Adam Little undercover Amazon warehouse
Adam Littler went undercover as a “picker” at Amazon’s Swansea warehouse

“We are machines, we are robots, we plug our scanner in, we’re holding it, but we might as well be plugging it into ourselves”, he said.

The 30-minute Panorama programme is on YouTube and is included in this post just below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7hTfI69xc

OK, back to my theme for today.

As I started to explain, the reaction to watching the Panorama programme was to feel sickened by the way these workers were being treated.

Not helped when yesterday, the UK Daily Mail newspaper added their own story of another undercover reporting operation at Amazon.   Here’s an extract from the last third of the piece, reported by Carole Cadwalladr:

It is taxes, of course, that pay for the roads on which Amazon’s delivery trucks drive, and the schools in which its employees are educated.

Taxes that all its workers pay, and that, it emerged in 2012, Amazon tends not to pay.

On UK sales of £4.2 billion in 2012, it paid £3.2 million in corporation tax. In 2006, it transferred its UK business to Luxembourg and reclassified its UK operation as simply an ‘order fulfilment’ business.

The Luxembourg office employs 380 people. The UK operation employs 21,000. You do the sums.

Brad Stone tells me that tax avoidance is built into the company’s DNA. From the very beginning it has been ‘constitutionally oriented to securing every possible advantage for its customers, setting the lowest possible prices, taking advantage of every known tax loophole or creating new ones’.

In Swansea I chat to someone called Martin for a while. It’s Saturday, the sun is shining and the warehouse has gone quiet. The orders have been turned off like a tap.

‘It’s the weather,’ he says. ‘When it rains, it can suddenly go mental.’ We clear away boxes and the tax issue comes up.

‘There was a lot of anger here,’ he says. ‘People were very bitter about it. But I’d always say to them: “If someone told you that you could pay less tax, do you honestly think you would volunteer to pay more?”’

He’s right. And the people who were angry were also right. It’s an unignorable fact of modern life that, as Stuart Roper of Manchester Business School tells me, ‘some of these big brands are more powerful than governments. They’re wealthier. If they were countries, they would be pretty large economies.

‘They’re multinational and the global financial situation allows them to ship money all over the world. And the Government is so desperate for jobs that it has given away large elements of control.’

MPs like to attack Amazon and Starbucks and Google for not paying their taxes, but they’ve yet to actually create legislation compelling them to do so.

Then if that wasn’t sufficient to make me want to live on a desert island, along comes George Monbiot pointing out that even the BBC, to me the most respected and trusted news organisation on the planet, has been economical with the truth.

The BBC’s disgraceful failure to reveal who its contributors are speaking for.

By George Monbiot, published on the Guardian’s website 29th November 2013

Do the BBC’s editorial guidelines count for anything? I ask because it disregards them every day, by failing to reveal the commercial interests of its contributors.

Let me give you an example. Yesterday the Today programme covered the plain packaging of cigarettes. It interviewed Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, an organisation which calls itself a thinktank.

Mishal Husain introduced Mark Littlewood as “the director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and a smoker himself”.

Fine. But should we not also have been informed that the Institute of Economic Affairs receives funding from tobacco companies?

It’s bad enough when the BBC interviews people about issues of great importance to corporations when it has no idea whether or not they are funded by those companies, and makes no effort to find out.

It’s even worse when those interests have already been exposed, yet the BBC still fails to mention them.

Both the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute have for years been funded by tobacco firms. The IEA has been funded by British American Tobacco since 1963, and is also paid by Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International. It has never come clean about this funding, and still refuses to say which other corporations sponsor it.

The power of self.

Then along came three items that pulled my back from the brink of despair and disgust.

The first came from the blog of the UK’s Transition Network, Transition Times. Rob Hopkins wrote an article on December 5th called The day I closed my Amazon account.  Please read it if you feel unsettled by the Amazon situation.  The last two paragraphs are:

Me, I resolve to buy less, but better.  Less, but longer-lasting.  Less, but local.  The thought of where we will end up in 5 years time, 10 years time, 20 years time, if companies like Amazon continue as they are, really frightens me. It’s not good, it’s not right.  It’s not about our needs, it’s about the needs of huge investors.  I want a different world for my boys.

I can’t, on my own, do that much about it.  I can’t insist that the UK government legislate so that, as in Holland, the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) is the legal minimum at which any book can be sold, although I think that is grounds for a really timely campaign.  Because of that, Amazon don’t really operate in Holland.  Bring back the RRP for books here, and let’s have a level playing field.  As I say, I can’t do much, but I can withdraw my support. I just have withdrawn my support.  It feels surprisingly unsettling, as one does after ending a relationship, but it was the right thing to do.  It may be a drop in the ocean, but if enough people do it….

The second was coming across something called The Restart Project in London.  I had never heard of them before.  But it gets better because these London folk are part of a global movement.  Which in the words of The Restart Project can be explained thus:

A spontaneous, global, grassroots repair movement

Sitting in London, we at The Restart Project have been inspired by Holland, the US, Australia, and now we realize that there are many more community repair and fixit groups than we ever knew of before… Milan, Barcelona, Finland, the list just grows.

Some groups have regular events in their own spaces and some are pop-up groups.

The most remarkable thing is that we are not just all doing similar things, we are doing them in the same way and with similar motivations

1) learning, skillsharing and community are a premium. No judgment. Openness and inclusivity, all are made to feel welcome.

2) the idea is NOT a freebie fix. The idea is that people get involved in the repair, taking responsibility for their stuff and taking back control. It’s about behaviour change, not just about waste prevention

and

3) importantly – fun!

Please help us map repair groups, to connect people to their local repair gurus and fixit friends – and who knows, inspire the creation of more.

“Just repair, don’t despair!”

Just repair, don’t despair!  That shouted out at me.  The more that the world we live in is consumed by the power-brokers and greed-mongers.  The more that our traditional view of politics is seen to be out-dated and incorrect, then the more we have do within our own lives, within our own communities and with our friends, loved ones and families to show we can repair our world a darn site quicker than the ‘dark forces’ can break it.

My third example of hope is tomorrow in a post called The power of self.

The book! Chapter Nineteen.

Apologies for the single post today.

But on Saturday night the temperature dropped to 10 deg F (-12 deg C) and the pipework above our well froze. Despite all day Sunday with the help of neighbour Bill to thaw out some of the pipes the job wasn’t completed by nightfall last night. Thaw coming on Thursday!

Learning from Dogs

Chapter Nineteen

It was difficult at first for Philip to embrace truly what had been opened within him.  Yes, there was one change that was clear and obvious.  Him now knowing that Maggie’s unfaithfulness was a blessing in disguise.  For the simple reason that the marriage would end without Philip having a whole pile of guilt sitting on his shoulders. Apart from that clarity, the other changes within him were much more subtle.  No better described than that there was a feeling of, how would he put it, a feeling of inner peace. Almost impossible to articulate any more clearly than that.  He had no doubt that there would come a time, possible a couple of years hence, when he would look back and fully realise the importance and significance of his time with Jonathan.  What an amazing stroke of luck to have met Jonathan and to have had his trust that they could manage their reversal in their relationship in the way that it turned out.  Golly, and how!

The weeks flowed by in a manner that could be described as tranquil.  It wasn’t until well into August that Philip started to kick around in his mind Lisa’s suggestion of spending his Christmas with her and Don out in Mexico.  Despite so much travelling around the world back in the days of him running his business, he had never been to Mexico, didn’t even have a clue about the place apart from the fact that the national language was Spanish, a language he couldn’t speak.  He rang and spoke with William and Elizabeth who, as he expected, were completely relaxed about the idea of their Dad being out of the country at Christmas time.  Then he called Lisa and Don to get a better idea of what to expect.  He had looked up the details of the San Carlos online but not found anything that really helped him.  Lisa explained to him that San Carlos was a very popular second-home destination for Americans and that not speaking Spanish wouldn’t be an issue at all.  She continued describing San Carlos as a great place to get away from the English Winter weather and, in answer to Philip’s obvious next question, said that it was mostly sunny with daytime temperatures around seventy-five degrees and not falling much below sixty degrees at night.  As they were chatting, Philip idly converted in his head the Fahrenheit temperatures to Centigrade: mid-twenties in the day and not below twelve degrees at night. Gracious, he thought, that’s not a lot different to Summer temperatures in the Western Mediterranean. In particular, thinking of Nice in Southern France, a place that he had been to several times. This might be a lovely, relaxing way to prepare for 2008.

Finally, he asked Lisa about the best way of travelling out there and she told him to take a flight to Los Angeles and then take the short flight from there to Hermosillo in Mexico, going on to explain that Hermosillo was just an hour’s run from their house in San Carlos and that she and Don could pick him up from the airport.

“So, Philip, are you coming out?”

“Yes, I’m strongly minded to do it.  But Lisa, if I was going to come out it would seem to make sense to come for three weeks or so.  Are you sure that’s OK with you guys?”

“Philip, absolutely.  It would be such fun.”

“OK Lisa, leave it with me and as soon as there’s a clear decision I’ll call you with the flight details.”

“Can’t wait, my friend.”

His next call was a quick one to Danny who immediately said that he would be pleased to collect him when he arrived at Los Angeles, have him stay with him and Georgie, and drop him back to the airport when he was ready to fly down to Mexico.

Danny went on to point out that for his return trip he could probably fly in to Los Angeles airport the same day of the evening flight out to London.  Just a simple change of terminals.  Philip made a note of that as it clearly made good sense to do it that way.

He then wandered out from the flat with Pharaoh to find Liz.  She was over in the milking area, raking up the cow pats and shovelling them into a trailer just the other side of the fence.

“Hi Liz, you not shovelling shit again!”

Liz laughed, “Always, got any of yours you want me to shovel up?”

Philip belly-laughed and even Pharaoh joined in by furiously wagging his tail and scampering around the yard.  Pharaoh had quickly settled in to the surroundings and even stopped trying to be boss dog around Liz’s pair of friendly sheep dogs.  He wondered if Tracy and Jack, Liz’s dogs, were teaching Pharaoh how to round up sheep.  For he had caught the three dogs out together in the large field where Liz kept fifteen or twenty sheep, the dogs  appearing to be instructing Pharaoh in the art of rounding up the woolly creatures.

“Liz, I came over to explain about going to Mexico over the Christmas holidays.”

“Ah, yes, you had mentioned the possibility when you first moved in.”

He explained what he was thinking of doing.  Liz responded by telling him to go for it; that it’s not every day that one gets the chance to swap Devon’s Winter weather for Mexico.

“You’ll put Pharaoh with Sandra?”

“Yes, Liz.  I mentioned the possibility of going to Mexico to Sandra when I collected Pharaoh last time back in from California and she said not a problem in the slightest.  Went on to say, in fact, that she was usually so quiet with dogs over Christmas that she could give Pharaoh extra special attention.”

“Oh that’s good, must reassure you hugely.”

“I wouldn’t leave Pharaoh for a minute if I wasn’t sure that he was being looked after fully.”

Later that afternoon and into the evening, Philip trawled online airline websites looking at flight prices, schedules and trying to put together an itinerary that felt sensible to him.  There was one schedule that would have him flying into Hermosillo airport at a little before five in the afternoon.  He called Lisa again,

“Lisa, I’m looking at a direct flight from LAX that comes in to Hermosillo a little before five in the afternoon.  Would that be OK?  Didn’t want it to be too late in the day for you.”

“No, that’s perfect.  There’s a Costco in Hermosillo and I can catch up on some shopping and then come across to collect you.”

He didn’t know what a Costco was but presumed it was some type of American discount store. “Great.  Will get the flights booked and drop you an email with the flight details.”

An hour later it was all done.  He would be flying out to Los Angeles on December, 12th and catching the AeroMexico flight to Hermosillo on Saturday, December 15th.

The weeks turned into months. November slid by and allowed in an unusually wet and warm December to blow over Devon.  While Devon had more than its fair share of rain, Philip had long been fascinated by living down here in the South-West of England because, so often, the arrival of a low-pressure weather system in from the Atlantic perfectly conformed to the classic meteorologist’s textbook description of a Low. In fact, he watched such a classic cold-front chasing him up the A303 as he drove from Devon up to London on the Sunday before his flight out to LA on the following Tuesday morning.  It was an opportunity to stay with his daughter, Elizabeth, for a couple of nights; these days he rarely came up to London without Pharaoh.

The long flight to LA was as uneventful as they always were.  Philip chose to re-read the David Hawkins book Power vs Force rather than watching whatever films were on offer.  When Jonathan had lent the book to him back in June he had longed to write notes over many pages. That had quickly persuaded him to buy his own copy and for a multitude of reasons he had never got around to that second reading.  Today’s long flight was the perfect opportunity to do just that.

He walked out of the terminal to find Danny almost parked in the exact same spot as that day back on the 8th May when he last come over; gracious, he thought, now over seven months ago.  They chit-chatted about what they had both been doing these last few months as Danny drove back to Costa Mesa, the multiple lanes of traffic just as disturbing to Philip as they always were.

Later that evening, as the three of them sat together at home after Georgie had served a delicious dinner, suitably gentle on Philip’s stomach as, once again, his body didn’t know if it was tea-time or breakfast-time, they wanted to know more about his sessions with Jonathan.  Danny had studied psychology at University and easily understood Philip’s earlier family experiences and the resulting long-term implications.  Georgie was just as interested, perhaps even more so. Later in bed, as Philip felt himself slipping into a much-welcomed sleep, he wondered if Georgie’s curiosity in his own emotional discovery was touching some deeper places within her.

The fifteenth, just three days later, came round so quickly. Danny dropped Philip outside Terminal Two back at Los Angeles’ airport.  It was a little after 1 p.m.  He couldn’t recall using Terminal Two before but quickly realised, looking up at the flights board, that many international airlines were coming into this terminal rather than Bradley International.  

Ten minutes later he was sitting in the pre-boarding lounge presuming that the Embraer aircraft that was coming to rest alongside the walkway was his flight to Hermosillo.  Yes, he looked at the tail fin and saw the AeroMexico symbol.  Good, he loved flying in high-winged aircraft because it provided such a great view of the land below, especially as today it would be all new country for him to look.

The flight promptly push-backed from the gate at 2 p.m. and less than ten minutes later was heading out over the blue Pacific before turning to what he guessed was a South-Easterly direction.  He was initially surprised that the aircraft, after gaining height, didn’t continue around to the left to cross the high, rolling mountains he could see in the distance; he presumed the southern end of the Sierra Nevada range.  But, no. They continued following the coast, perhaps only twenty-five miles off to the left, for a good forty-five minutes.  He thought he saw San Diego pass by and then the land started to look much more barren and desolate. He assumed that they were now flying seawards off the Mexican coast.

It all became clear when he was able to match the route map in the airline magazine to what he could see out of his window.  For the land off to their left had obviously become the Baja California peninsula, to the extent that he could see the waters of the Gulf of California beyond the narrow peninsula.  Not long after, the aircraft turned to the left crossing over the peninsula. Perhaps half-way over the waters of the Gulf, a slight reduction in engine speed signalled the start of the descent into Hermosillo.

Philip was now aware of two things.  Outside, a vista that looked very deserted, seemingly a barren, hot, landscape.  Inside, a rising feeling of excitement at his untypical, adventurous idea of coming to Mexico for Christmas.

Moments later, that delicious squeal of tyres on tarmac and the taxi up to the parking spot alongside a two-storey, glass-fronted terminal building.  The few steps from the aircraft to the terminal doors felt more like a hot summer’s day than the late afternoon in mid-December that it was.

Hermosillo was one of those lovely small regional airports that was a joy to pass through.  Even for Philip, suitcase in hand, immediately aware that this was a new country for him with an unfamiliar culture, found he was approaching the glass doors to the outside area in front of the airport terminal in less than twenty minutes from the moment the aircraft had come to a stop. He looked at his watch; it was a little after five in the afternoon. He was looking forward to seeing Lisa the moment he stepped through those doors.

The doors slid open and the heat struck him again.

He put his case down and looked around for Lisa.  Strange, no sight of her.  Even stranger when he considered that there weren’t that many people around. Her distinctive, waist-length plait of white hair would be easy to spot. Maybe she was running a little late. Perhaps caught up in the shops, but even as that thought came into his mind he instinctively rejected the idea.  What could have gone wrong?  Here he was outside a strange airport in a strange part of a strange country unable to speak a word of the local language.

2,212 words. Copyright © 2013 Paul Handover

The book! Chapter Eighteen.

Learning from Dogs

Chapter Eighteen.

The day before Philip’s appointment with Jonathan, he suddenly realised that if they had set a time he hadn’t made a note of it.  He called Jonathan.

“Jonathan, it’s Philip.”

“Hallo Philip, is there a problem for tomorrow?”

“No, not at all. It’s just that if we made a time, I screwed up and didn’t note it down.”

He could hear Jonathan’s laugh over the phone. “Ah, and there I was thinking I hadn’t made a note of the time.  Luckily, I was going to be in all day so was pretty relaxed about when you came across.”

Philip replied, “Ah, that’s a welcoming attitude.  But how about me coming over early to mid-morning? How does that suit you?”

“Ten-thirty, Philip?”

“Done, I’ll see you at ten-thirty.” He was just about to ring off when he added, “Jonathan, I could leave Pharaoh here at the flat but as it’s not become home to him yet, would it be alright if I bring him with me?”

“Not a problem. Would be lovely to see him again.”

“Thanks Jonathan, see you in the morning.”

 

The room at Jonathan and Helen’s house was ideal.  Ideal, that is, for a large dog. However, just in case Pharaoh couldn’t settle, before leaving the flat Philip had stuck a couple of dog biscuits in his bag.  But there had been no need to worry because as soon he and Jonathan sat down and started to talk Pharaoh curled up behind Philip’s chair.

Jonathan opened the conversation by asking Philip, “Why don’t you tell me a little about your life, pick out the things that more often than not come to you when you think back over the years?”

Philip settled back in his chair and allowed his memory of the last fifty or so years to bubble up into his consciousness.  The key moments were easy to speak about.  His father’s death, his subsequent failure to get any decent exam results at school, then managing to enrol as a graduate electrical engineer at the Faraday House of Electrical Engineering so long as he passed two ‘A-levels’ within the first year; which he failed to do. So he had to leave Faraday House but, miracle of miracles, somehow managed to gain a commercial apprenticeship at the British Aircraft Corporation’s manufacturing plant in Stevenage.

A quiet snoring from Pharaoh showed that he was now solidly asleep. Philip guessed he had heard all this before!

He continued with this snapshot of his past years. Going on to recall how he loved so much his first year at BAC because all apprentices had to spend their first year learning a whole range of engineering skills: cutting, shaping, welding, riveting, and much more. He mused how those skills had given him confidence later on in life to tackle most construction projects; well small ones anyway.  Then on to the second year at BAC and the deadly boredom of the commercial office undertaking such gripping tasks as pasting typed amendments over the top of the pages of current Government contracts for hours upon hours.  Only made bearable by the kindness of Malcolm Hunt, who was his oversight manager.  Leading to Philip offering to cut Malcolm’s grass at his home in the Summer evenings because Malcolm had to constantly wear a neck brace due to severe problems with his upper spine. Then him meeting Malcolm’s lovely Scottish wife, Sadie, and often being invited to have an evening meal with them.

On to that fateful day when he was sitting at his desk, his desk next to Malcolm’s, when Malcolm said, “Philip, Sadie wondered if you could give her a call at work.” He passed Philip a slip of paper on which he had written down Sadie’s office number, a local Stevenage number. He had gone over to the main canteen where there was a public phone box in the lobby.

“Hallo, British Visqueen, how may I help you?”

“Yes, my name is Philip Stevens and I have been asked to call Mrs Sadie Hunt.”

It was but a moment before Philip heard Sadie’s lovely Scottish accent. “Philip, how nice of you to call.  Listen we have a vacancy in our sales office, the team that manage the sales of our polythene film products to UK companies, and I wondered if you would like to be interviewed for the vacancy?”

“Oh Sadie, thank you so much for thinking of me.  I would love to have a try at the position.”

“Well, that’s grand, Philip.  Both Malcolm and I were thinking that your present job was leaving you unfulfilled and something closer to selling would match your skills and personality.  I’ll arrange for the usual letter inviting persons to interview to be sent to you in tonight’s post.”

He became conscious that he had drifted away and looked up at Jonathan with some embarrassment.

“Whoops, got a bit carried away there, didn’t I.”

Jonathan replied gently, “You obviously got the job at British Visqueen.”

“Yes, I did and in a funny way that job set me up for life.  Of course, that’s only clear to me now looking backwards. But all my life I’ve loved the interaction that selling inevitably requires, and, without wanting to blow my own trumpet, I have been good at it.”

The hour with Jonathan flew by.  They agreed the next appointment for a week’s time and he and Pharaoh went out to the car and made their way back to the flat.

Despite that hour with Jonathan almost entirely taken up with him speaking of past times, it had still left its mark on him.  He was aware for much of the rest of that Friday that there was something about the atmosphere in Jonathan’s room that made him feel totally safe even though he had no idea as to how that had been achieved. That was fascinating, he pondered.  It was not as if he was a stranger to being one-on-one with another person nor disliked meeting and talking with others, far from it. But still it felt so different.  He looked forward to next Friday morning.

 

The morning was soon upon him and, again, much of that next session continued with him talking about the key events in his life, not just in his working life but, for example, the circumstances of his first marriage and how that failed.  By the end of the second session he was up to present times.

 

The third session, a further week on, started very differently because Jonathan started to talk about consciousness.  In particular about David R. Hawkins who, apparently, is an internationally renowned psychiatrist and researcher into human consciousness.  This all felt a little strange to Philip but as Jonathan showed him a chart, for want of a better term, of the different states of consciousness, a map of consciousness as the title described it, then it did start to fall somewhat into place.

Apparently, David Hawkins had found a way of measuring the human body’s reaction, using kinesiology, to a range of life’s circumstances. Leading to Dr. Hawkins proposing that those reactions were really a window into a person’s consciousness. Hawkins then went on to create a numerical value for those measurements and proposed a mid-way value.  Mid-way, as it were, between positive and negative human reactions. Philip found this fascinating from an intellectual perspective.  He still struggled to embrace the meaning and relevance of it as part of his counselling.  However, from what he had come to observe about Jonathan’s approach to psychotherapy he expected the emotional significance of this to appear pretty soon.

He tuned back into Jonathan explaining how those measurements of the body that scored above the mid-way level of 200 described a range of positive, strong levels of human consciousness and below a corresponding range of negative, weak levels. It was all a little baffling; he had to admit.

Jonathan could see that Philip was struggling a little with the whole idea of human consciousness having levels, let alone that those levels could be measured.

“Philip, think of it as two very broad categories.  From a mid-way level of 200 all the upper states of consciousness are described in the general terms of truth, integrity and supportive of life.  Whereas, from 200 and down those states of consciousness are described as false, lacking integrity and unsupportive of life.”

Jonathan paused and went on to add, “And did you know that the consciousness of dogs has been mapped?”

That brought Philip immediately to the edge of his seat, the suddenness of his reaction causing Pharaoh to open his eyes and lift up his head.

“Yes, the consciousness of dogs has been mapped as between 205 and 210.  They are creatures of integrity.”

Philip knew in that instant that something very profound had just occurred.  He slipped forward out of his chair, got down on his hands and knees, crawled behind his chair, and gave Pharaoh the most loving hug of his life.  Dogs are creatures of integrity.  Of course! So utterly and profoundly obvious. Wow, what a revelation.

He sat back up in his chair, now truly engaged in the subject. Jonathan continued to outline more of David Hawkins’ findings, closing their session by offering to lend Philip the Hawkins’ book Power vs Force.

“See you same time next Friday, Philip?”

“No question.  And thank you for a fascinating session.”

 

On the drive back to Diptford, Philip couldn’t take his mind off the idea that dogs were creatures of integrity and truthfulness.  What was that third quality that Jonathan had mentioned?  Ah, yes. Integrity, truthfulness and supportive of life. He had no doubt that all Nature’s animals could be seen in the same light but what made it so powerful in terms of dogs was the scale of the unique relationship between dogs and man.  A relationship that had been running for thousands upon thousands of years.

As he made himself his usual light lunch of a couple of peanut butter sandwiches and some fruit and then sat enjoying a mug of hot tea, he just couldn’t take his mind off what Jonathan had revealed.  Dogs are examples of integrity and truth.  No, examples is a pathetic word.  Dogs are beacons of integrity and truth.  Yes, that’s it.  Wow.

Then from a place that he knew not from where, it came to him.  Some day he would write about this. About these qualities of man’s best friend. How we should be comparing the integrity of dogs to this modern, dysfunctional world, a world that seems to be descending deeper and deeper into corruption, lies, greed, selfishness and depravity.  My goodness, how much there is for man to learn from dogs.

As that last thought passed across his mind, he was hit by a force, a force that was beyond question.  He would write not some time in the future but now.  Write about how we must, for the future sake of mankind, learn from dogs.

He shuffled his chair across to his computer, toggled it back to life and started looking at available internet domain names.  Bingo, it hadn’t been taken! Thus a few minutes later he was the registered owner of the domain name learningfromdogs.

 

Friday the 22nd came round as regular as clockwork and Philip, once again, was settled into his chair in Jonathan’s room. Pharaoh likewise settled in to the corner of the room behind his chair.  He had been looking forward to this next hour with Jonathan because so much had flowed from the revelations of last week’s session.

“Philip, when we had our first session and I asked you to relate the key life events that came to you, the first event you spoke of was the death of your father.  Tell me more about that time in your life.”

“To be honest, I don’t have clear memories of my father much before he died that year. He was a lot older than my mother, some eighteen years, and I had been the result of an affair between them; my father being married at the time.  They met when they were both members of an amateur orchestra in London during the height of the Second World War.  Apparently, my father had had two daughters with his wife and longed for a son.  I came along just six months before the end of the war.  At first, my father couldn’t decide to leave his wife leading to my mother eventually giving him an ultimatum that if he wished to continue to see his son then he would have to marry her.  So despite me being born in November 1944 it wasn’t until 1946 that my parents became married.”

He paused for a few moments, as if having to dip back to that December in 1956 was going to stir up pain.

“I had turned twelve-years-old in early November 1956.  Just finished my first term at Grammar School.  To be honest, I can’t recall when my father became ill and how long he had been bed-ridden. But on the evening of December 19th, after I had kissed my father goodnight and jumped into my bed in the room next door, my mother came in, closed my bedroom door, sat on the edge of my bed and told me that my father was very ill and may not live for much longer.

It clearly didn’t register with me at any significant emotional level because I went off easily to sleep. But when I awoke in the morning, I was told that my father had died during the night, the family doctor had attended and my father’s body had been removed from the house. I had slept through it all.”

Jonathan quietly looked at him.  Nothing was said; not for a long time. Philip was aware of a strange, yet peaceful, presence in the room.  Pharaoh softly stood up, came over and laid his head across Philip’s leg. All remained still and quiet in the room.  He lost any notion of the passing of time, no idea of how long it was when there was a gentle movement from Jonathan.

“What are you experiencing at this moment?”

“Jonathan, it’s strange but there’s almost a complete absence of feelings.  I’ve often tried to reflect on what I truly felt at the time or, indeed, what I feel all these years later whenever I am drawn back to that time.  But the best I have ever been able to come up with is that I was never able to say goodbye.  You need to know, Jonathan, that it was decided that because it would be too upsetting for me, I wasn’t even at the funeral and cremation thus reinforcing my sense of not saying goodbye to my father.”

Minutes passed afresh before Jonathan asked his next question. “Philip, you have a son and daughter.  What are their ages?”

“My son, William, is now thirty-five and my daughter, Elizabeth, thirty-four.”

Jonathan put his hands together fingers-to-fingers and lent his chin against them. “So your son would have been twelve in 1984.  That was when you were very busy running your own business, if I recall.”

Philip nodded in reply.

“So Philip let’s say that during that year of 1984 you had been diagnosed with some terminal illness, say cancer, as with your father.  You were given a life expectancy of six months or less. What thoughts come to mind?”

“You mean in the sense of what it would have meant for William and Elizabeth?”

Jonathan nodded.

“Wow, what a truly terrible thing to reflect upon.”

He idly stroked Pharaoh’s head as he tried to put himself in the position of knowing he was dying back when his children were eleven and twelve.

He looked up. “What comes to mind without any doubt is that I would have walked away from my business immediately. After all, very soon it wasn’t going to be my business.  My kids were still living at home, of course. I would have wanted to share every minute of my life with them. Try to let them understand as much about me, who I was, what I believed in, what made Philip Stevens the person he was.”

Jonathan almost breathed the next question into the air of the room, “Translate the circumstances of the death of your father across to your son experiencing the same circumstances from your death. What’s your reaction to that situation? Admittedly one we know didn’t take place, thank goodness.”

Philip felt the passion rise from within. He almost cried out,  “To know that I was terminally ill and to have that kept from my son and daughter; that’s terrible, it’s beyond comprehension. Then to compound it by having everything associated with my death and the disposal of my body kept secret from William and Elizabeth.”

He left the sentence unfinished before adding, the pain so clear in his voice, “It’s cruel beyond description.  My poor children wouldn’t have had a clue as to why they had been excluded. No, not excluded; denied. Denied from telling their father how much they loved him and, in turn, denied not hearing from their father how much he loved them. Denied for ever more.”

Jonathan allowed Philip’s anger to reverberate around the room.

“Is there one word that says it all to you? If so, what’s the one word that comes to you?” Jonathan asked.

Philip hardly hesitated. “Rejection.  Yes, that’s the word.”

He went silent as he turned that word over in his mind. “No, can’t better the word.  William and Elizabeth losing their father that way shouts out that their feelings weren’t even considered.  No-one in the lives had stopped to think about how these two very young people were dealing with the severe illness, let alone the imminent death, of their father. Their feelings were not cared for. And not caring means not loving.  Yes, that’s it.  They would see it as a total rejection of them by their father. Not unreasonably, I might add.”

 

There was a further silence in the room that lasted for, perhaps, five minutes or more.  Then Jonathan said, “Philip, we are not quite up to the hour but I’m going to suggest you just sit here quietly with Pharaoh.”

Jonathan looked at Pharaoh who still had his head across Philip’s leg and said, “I was going to say just let yourself out when you are confident of being OK to drive home.  But, of course, Pharaoh will be the one to make it clear when you may go home.  Bet you anything on that one.  Either way, I’ll be next door; very close by.”

He added, “Just let today settle itself in your consciousness just however it wants to.  Don’t force your thoughts either way, either dwelling on today or preventing thoughts naturally coming to the surface of your mind.  As we have discussed before, pay attention to your dreams.  Maybe have a notebook by your bedside so you can jot down what you have been dreaming about.  I’ll see you next Friday same time, if that’s alright with you.”

Jonathan left the room whereupon Philip quietly laid his face down on Pharaoh’s warm head and wept.  He knew beyond doubt that he had been released from a long, dark, emotional prison.

A few minutes later, he lifted his head, wiped his eyes, just as Pharaoh lifted his own head and indicated clearly that it was time to go. They left the house a few moments later.

 

When a crossroads is neither a roadway, nor a choice of pathways in the woods or fields, when that crossroads is in our minds, we seldom know it’s there or the choice we made to take one path and not the other until it’s long past.  Sometimes, the best one can do is to look for the tiniest clues as to where one is really heading.

 

Philip had read that in a book a few weeks back although, typically, could no longer remember the name of the book.  It had spoken to him in a way that he couldn’t fathom out at the time, yet carried sufficient strength and clarity for him to feel the need to jot it down on a sheet of paper.  He had been sorting papers out on his desk on the Sunday following that last session with Jonathan when he came across the sheet of paper.  Much more than the first time he read the words, when he reread them now they were laden brim-full of meaning.

Because, to his very great surprise, his sleep on both Friday and Saturday nights had not only been dream free but had taken him to a place of such sweet contentment that it was almost as though he had been reborn.  Alright, perhaps reborn was a little over the top, but there was no question that he was in an emotional place quite unlike anything he could ever recall.  Almost as if for the first time in his life he truly liked who he was.

Earlier on that Saturday morning when he had taken Pharaoh over to James’ woods, he called in on his sister and shared a cup-of-tea with her.  As he was leaving, Diana asked him if he was alright.  In  querying why she had asked, she said, “Oh, I don’t know. There’s something different about you that I can’t put my finger on.  A happiness about you that I haven’t seen in ages, possibly never seen in you.”

He wrapped his arms around Diana and gave his sister a long and deep hug. He softly said, “I miss our father at times, don’t you?”

She answered, “Oh, I miss him too, miss him so much at times.  He was such a wonderful, gentle man who lived for his children.  He loved all three of us more than anything else. To die at such a young age.”

 

As the week passed by, Philip became aware of a truth that had been hidden from him for practically the whole of his life. He couldn’t wait to share it with Jonathan.  Thus, as he drove across to Torquay on what was the last Friday of June, he was full of what he wanted to say.

Jonathan could tell that Philip was fit to burst. They had hardly sat down when Philip said, “Jonathan, it’s been an amazing week.  I’ve at last understood some fundamental aspects of my life.”

“That sounds very interesting, tell me more.”

“Well, when I realised that the consequence of the way my father’s death had been handled was to bury in my subconscious the idea, the false idea, of having been rejected, something struck me smack in the face. Namely, that it explained two ways in which I have behaved since being a teenager.”

Jonathan remained silent.

“The first thing that came to me was the reason why I have been so unfortunate in my relationships with women.  This is how I figured it out.  Whenever a woman took a shine to me, I would do everything to come over as a potentially attractive spouse. Rather than rationally wondering if this woman had the potential to be a woman I would fall in love with and love as a wife, I have been driven by such a fear of rejection, that I oversold myself and, inevitably, made poor long-term relationships; Maggie being the classic example.”

Philip’s excitement had him out of breath.  He took a lung-full of air and continued, “But the positive aspect of my fear of rejection is that throughout the whole of my business and professional life, I have been successful. Because I have always put the feelings of the other person above my own. I can’t tell you what a release this has been for me.”

“Philip, that’s a fabulous example of how when we really get to know the person we are it gives us a psychological freedom, a freedom to be the person we are, to feel happy with ourselves.”

Jonathan continued, “One thing I should mention is this.  It’s likely that what happened to you back in December 1956 is not necessarily hard-wired but certainly is a very deep-rooted emotional aspect of who you are.  This new-found awareness will be of huge value to you but that sensitivity to rejection is not going to disappear.  The difference is that you are now aware of it. Quite quickly you will spot the situations, as they are happening, that stir those ancient feelings around.  Then you will be able to notice those feelings without having them pulling behavioural strings. You will be fine; of that I have no doubt.”

4,139 words. Copyright © 2013 Paul Handover

Magic!

The old and the new.

Like thousands of others, Jean and I are regular viewers of the TED Talks.

So first the old. Here’s a reminder of the inspiring nature of mathematics; in this case Fibonacci numbers.

Published on Nov 8, 2013

Math is logical, functional and just … awesome. Mathemagician Arthur Benjamin explores hidden properties of that weird and wonderful set of numbers, the Fibonacci series. (And reminds you that mathematics can be inspiring, too!)

Now to the new. Innovation at its very best.

Published on Jul 11, 2013

The development of new medicine is problematic because laboratories cannot replicate the human body’s environment, making it difficult to determine how patients will respond to treatment. At TEDxBoston, Geraldine Hamilton demonstrates how scientists can implant living human cells into microchips that mimic the body’s conditions. These “organs-on-a-chip” can be used to study drug toxicity, identify potential new therapies, and could lead to safer clinical trials.

The book! Chapter Seventeen

Learning from Dogs

Chapter Seventeen

Adjusting back to Devon life upon his return from California could have been so much worse if Philip didn’t have that first meeting with Jonathan to look forward to.

The flight back to London had been uneventful and as soon as he had taken a taxi from Totnes Station across to Diana and John’s place, to pick up his car, he was off to Sandra’s to collect his beloved Pharaoh.

While that night flight home from Los Angeles was always a bit rough on the body, the morning arrival did allow most of a full day back in England.  The thought of waiting another day to see Pharaoh was unbearable.

As he pulled into Sandra’s parking area and opened the car door, the sound of the many dogs staying at Sandra’s kennels greeted his ears. He hadn’t even had time to close his door when Pharaoh came bounding across to him, tail wagging furiously. If ever a dog could put a smile on its face, and Philip had no doubt that dogs could smile, Pharaoh was wearing the biggest dog smile ever.

Philip sat on the ground and received a rapid succession of face licks. As soon as he stood up and opened both the car’s tail-gate and the door to the travel cage, Pharaoh gave one giant leap into the open cage, turned around and was indicating in very clear dog speak, ‘Dad, take me home, now!’.

He told Pharaoh to wait while he went across to settle up with Sandra.

“Did you have a good time in California?”

“Thanks Sandra, yes a great time.  Feel almost ready for what’s facing me these next few months.”

He paused before asking, “Tell me, Sandra, how’s Pharaoh been?”

“He was fine.  Same as he always is.  It’s almost as though he knows that he isn’t here for ever and that you will come back for him.  In fact, it must have been over half-an-hour ago that Pharaoh was telling me, in the way some dogs do, that you were on your way to collect him.”

“Wow! Sounds as though that was around the time I picked up the car from my sister’s place and starting heading your way.”

He continued. “Sandra, the reason I asked about how Pharaoh is with you is that I have been invited to spend next Christmas with good friends at their house in Northern Mexico.”

Sandra’s face showed that she was uncertain where Northern Mexico was.

“It’s a place called San Carlos, about a couple of hundred miles south of the border with Arizona but there’s a good airport quite close by.  What I have been thinking, Sandra, is that being away from Devon over the holiday period might stop me getting all caught up in the memories of last Christmas. But if I was to go, it would be for the thick end of a month and there’s no question of me going if Pharaoh wasn’t going to be happy and settled here with you.”

Sandra’s reply was immediate. “Philip, I’m usually very quiet over the Christmas period with most dog owners wanting their dogs with them at home, for obvious reasons.  So not only would I be able to give Pharaoh extra attention but during the day I could take him for a walk around our local woods and have him in the house as well.” Sandra hesitated before continuing, “Of course, I wouldn’t have him sleep in the house overnight, might start to confuse him as to whether or not this place was becoming his new home.  So, what I’m saying is that it wouldn’t be a problem for me or Pharaoh in the slightest.”

“Thanks Sandra, you are good to him, and to me.  Thank you so much.”

Philip was soon over at Upper Holsome Farm and as he parked up, about to let Pharaoh out and take his travel bags over to the flat, Liz came up to him.

“Thought it was you.  How was it? Did you have a good time?”

“Thanks, Liz.  Yes, it was a great time. Gave me a real break from the stuff of the last few weeks and months.

“So pleased to hear that.  I took the liberty of putting some fresh milk and bread in your refrigerator.  Thought you wouldn’t want the hassle of newly moving in and not having any food in the place.”

“Oh Liz, that was kind of you.  Yes, apart from going to collect his nibs”, Philip lifted the tail-gate of the car and opened Pharaoh’s cage. “I had no other thought than to get back here and rest up after what feels like two days of solid travelling.”

Pharaoh had a quick sniff of Liz’s outstretched hand and went off to check out all the new smells and scents around the place.

“Liz, while it’s in my mind, I’ve been invited to go and spend Christmas with good friends in Northern Mexico.  I’ve checked with Sandra over at the kennels and she is confident that Pharaoh will be happy with her.  Because, I’m thinking of being away about a month.” He immediately added, “Of course, I’m not asking for any rent relief for the month and I’m happy to have you use the flat if you are expecting guests over the Christmas period.”

“Philip, come on now! I’m not putting anyone else in the flat while you are paying me rent and having your things there.  When you have firm dates for your Christmas trip let me know; I’m sure you would have done so in any case.”

“Thanks Liz.”

With that, he took his belongings across to the flat, still familiar to him back from the time when he was living here before he and Maggie moved in to the Harberton barn.  For Pharaoh, however, it was another new place to check out.  He left him sniffing around the flat and went out to lock the car.  When he returned to the flat, less than two minutes later, and went into the bedroom, there was Pharaoh curled up in the bottom half of his open suitcase. As if to say that the next time Philip left Devon he’d better take his dog with him.  What a dog. What a relationship.

Later that evening, as the two of them were resting after both a human dinner and a dog supper, his mind came back to the relationship that he had with Pharaoh.  Of course, it was well known that dogs loved unconditionally.  But the phrase love unconditionally was too trite, too obvious.  What was the deeper meaning behind those words?  He went on to ponder that it must be so much more than that.  The closeness of the companionship, the easy way that Pharaoh signalled his feelings to Philip, the purity of those feelings. What was the word Jonathan had used about feelings?  Transparency. Of course! Yes, the transparency of Pharaoh’s feelings; that was it. He continued reflecting on the incredibly ancient relationship that had existed between dogs and man.  At least thirty-thousand years and, quite probably, as far back to Neanderthal times fifty-thousand years ago.

If only us humans could live so simply and straightforwardly as dogs.  For example, take how dogs live in the present for the vast majority of their lives.  Think what that would mean for humans if we stopped deliberating about the future in the way that most us do. Not so much deliberating about the future, more like worrying about the future. The fear that this must engender because the future is so often an uncertain one.

Philip was sure that if humans could live as fully engaged in the present, making the the best of each moment, as dogs so clearly do, then we would live a much more uncluttered life. Uncluttered in the sense of being unburdened by the many complex fears and feelings that we humans so often seem to have.  Let’s face it most of the time our fears never actually turn into reality.  Millions of people loving millions of dogs in the world, untold numbers of close relationships between people and dogs, and we are all missing the most profound lesson of all to be learnt from these wonderful animals.  That if we stopped obsessing about the future, turned down the noise of the outside world, we would have a chance of some silence and mental space. For it is only from that silence within us that we can become aware of ourselves. How that self-awareness allows us to better cope with the uncertainty around us, and more to the point, offers us greater happiness. Now that would have profound implications for society.

1,453 words. Copyright © 2013 Paul Handover

Oregon

A dip into this remarkable State.

Just fancied a change from two days of Democratic Deficit. So today’s post is a brief overview of the US State that Jean and I live in, together with our animals, the State of Oregon.

Now it’s easy to look up a Wikipedia reference to Oregon but what really caught my eye was as a result of a recent visit to the local Grants Pass office of the Bureau of Land Management.  We had gone there to purchase a $5 permit that allows us to go on to BLM land and harvest our own Christmas Tree!

In the Grants Pass office were a number of brochures of scenic attractions in Oregon and we picked up one describing the Rogue-Umpqua National Scenic Byway.  Just a quick browse reminded us of Oregon’s stunning and dramatic scenery. Just wanted to share some images.

Mount Thielsen

Mt. Thielsen
Mt. Thielsen

The Mount Thielsen trail is described here.

Crater Lake

At a depth of 1,932 feet Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States.  It was formed more than 7,500 years ago when the Mount Mazama volcano erupted and then collapsed back in on itself.

Crater Lake showing Wizard Island.
Crater Lake showing Wizard Island.

As Wikipedia describes the lake,

The lake partly fills a nearly 2,148-foot (655 m)-deep caldera[1] that was formed around 7,700 (± 150) years ago[2] by the collapse of the volcano Mount Mazama. Human interaction is traceable back to the indigenous Native Americans witnessing the eruption of Mount Mazama. There are no rivers flowing into or out of the lake; the evaporation is compensated for by rain and snowfall at a rate such that the total amount of water is replaced every 250 years. At 1,943 feet (592 m), the lake is the deepest in the United States, and the seventh[3] or ninth deepest in the world, depending on whether average or maximum depth is measured.[4]

Watson Falls

The base of Watson Falls.
The base of Watson Falls.

The website EveryTrail describes Watson Falls:

Watson Falls is the third highest waterfall in Oregon at 272 feet. It is the most beautiful waterfall along the North Umpqua River Valley. You will cross a wooden bridge below the falls that will put you right into the lower rapids with an amazing view of the falls as they roar over the basalt lava cliffs ahead.

Someone who goes under the handle of HikingTheWest posted this video on YouTube about 6 weeks ago.

Oregon Caves

These caves are an Oregon National Monument with full details on the US National Park Service’s website.  That website explains:

Nestled deep inside the Siskiyou Mountains, the caves formed as rainwater from the ancient forest above dissolved the surrounding marble and created one of the world’s few marble caves. The highly complex geology found on the Monument contributes to the unusual and rare plants and animals found nowhere else but here.

A view of the inside of the caves.
A view of the inside of the caves.

There are many good videos of the Oregon Caves on YouTube so do have a browse if you want to.  This one caught my eye, especially as it was filmed in January, 2013..

Rogue River

The Rogue River
The Rogue River

Final sight for today, the Rogue River runs close by Grants Pass, our nearest town to where we live.  Again there is a Wikipedia entry from which one learns that, “Although the Rogue Valley near Medford is partly urban, the average population density of the Rogue watershed is only about five people per square mile (12 per km2).”

Just reflecting on that last paragraph, a simple calculation reveals that the State of Oregon has a population of around 3.9 million people with an land area of 98,300 square miles.  Thus the population density of Oregon is 39.6 persons per square mile.  To put that into perspective, our neighbouring Californians to the South enjoy a population density of 238 persons per square mile!

Jean and I are very lucky to be living in such a beautiful part of Southern Oregon.

More on that democratic deficit.

Improving democracy through deliberation.

Yesterday, I introduced the essay by George Monbiot, Why Politics Fails.  He opened his essay with the sub-heading: Nothing will change until we confront the real sources of power.

His last paragraph read:

So I don’t blame people for giving up on politics. I haven’t given up yet, but I find it ever harder to explain why. When a state-corporate nexus of power has bypassed democracy and made a mockery of the voting process, when an unreformed political funding system ensures that parties can be bought and sold, when politicians of the three main parties stand and watch as public services are divvied up by a grubby cabal of privateers, what is left of this system that inspires us to participate?

And who would disagree with those closing sentiments!

Then just four days ago there was an item on Permaculture News that continued where Mr. Monbiot left off.  It was an interview by Marcia Gerwin of Professor Lyn Carson that sets out a positive approach to correcting the widely-acknowledged issue so well articulated by George Monbiot.

Professor Lyn Carson, is a Professor at the University of Sydney.  As Professor Carson’s website Active Democracy explains:

Hi, I’m Lyn Carson, welcome to my website. I hope to provide easy access to information which individuals, groups or organisations can use to enhance citizens’ involvement in the activities of local, state or federal government.

I’m currently a professor with the Business Programs Unit at the University of Sydney, Australia. I’m researching in the fascinating area of community engagement and deliberative democracy. I’m teaching ‘critical thinking’ which will have resonance for those familiar with public deliberation.

Democracy, for me, is active, interactive, deliberative and genuinely representative of the wider population. It’s as valid to speak of a democratic personality (Gould, 1988) as it is to speak of a democratic workplace or a democratic society. We can enact in microcosm what we imagine for the level of nation state. We need not restrict our thinking to systems of government—we can do democracy at any time, any place.

Like C. Douglas Lummis, I see democracy as the antithesis of centralised power:

…democracy is one of those beautiful, absolute clear principles… that poses a maddening, tantalizing puzzle to humankind and launches us on the historic project of seeking to realize it in our collective life (Lummis, 1982).

I note the words of Frances Moore Lappé (2006): “To save the democracy we thought we had, we must take it to where it’s never been.” One way of saving democracy—or causing a democratic breakout (Blaug, 1999)—is to involve citizens in political decision making.

I’ve written numerous articles on public participation in decision making—from setting up citizens’ juries to improving community consultation in your local council. Go to Publications if you’d like to download some of my written works. Your feedback is warmly encouraged after you have roamed around this site.

Here is that article that was published on Permaculture News.

Marcin Gerwin: There are many people who are disappointed in the way the democratic system works. They see politicians arguing and making decision in the interest of their political parties rather than the common good. What is wrong with modern democracy?

Lyn Carson: The difficulties that relate to modern democracy probably start with the use of that term. We have begun to believe that the system of

Professor Lyn Carson
Professor Lyn Carson

representative government that is pervasive in both the West and increasingly in other locations is actually a democracy. I think we do well to reflect on the origins of democracy, and how democracy was first conceived. We know it was a very different system. We also know that representative government was designed during periods of the French, the American and the English revolutions to perpetuate elites. It was certainly designed to ensure that those who had money, who had property — usually men in the early days — would have their power maintained. I think what we have are the remnants of that.

Democracy is a beautiful ideal in its true sense of people power or the ability for people to make decisions about their own destinies, about things that affect them. In locations where we’ve been able to replicate at least of some of the qualities of ancient Athens, which was the cradle of democracy, then I think we can say that democracy can take root and can actually deliver its promise. It may serve us better not to use the word, I would suggest, to describe what it is that we have, which is far from the notion of genuine democracy. If we call it representative government or even an oligarchy we might start to realise what it is that we have.

MG: I think politicians will not be happy to hear that. They like to present themselves as democrats and some of them don’t acknowledge that there is a problem with a political system.

LC: Scholars are increasingly using the term “democratic deficit” to describe what is happening in the world. There is a widening gap between the governed and those who are doing the governing. There is a crisis of trust, and a growing mistrust because of what is called short-termism — political parties, because of the system, have an eye on the next election and not on the long-term needs of either humans or the even bigger picture, the environment and planetary survival. What we try to create in deliberative democracy are circumstances where all of the voices are in the room, where we can create what we call a “miniature population” or “mini-public” that resembles the entire population so it can achieve what we call a descriptive representation.

At the moment we have representation in parliaments, but it’s not descriptive of the wider population. In Australian parliament there is an inordinate number of lawyers, policy advisers, unionists — usually male — and they don’t resemble the entire population. As deliberative democrats what we are trying to do is to tune into the wider population. We can’t ask the entire population constantly. We can certainly ask what their opinions are but we actually want their judgment, which can only be arrived through a process of very deep deliberation, through a lot of education, through a lot of sharing of information, experience and stories. We want to achieve a very different democratic space than anything that we see in parliaments.

MG: Do you think that mini-publics could be used for actual decision-making instead of public consultations only?

LC: In deliberative democracy we talk about three ideals. That’s the notion of inclusion, or representativeness — that’s the principle of the miniature population. The second ideal is deliberation — you need people to be able to really wrestle with the complexity of an issue, to be fully informed, to argue it out, to use reason, to use storytelling, including emotion. The third ideal is the notion of influence. It is incredibly important that it is attached to decision-making. The NewDemocracy Foundation, that I’m a director of, deals only with projects that have influence. We have continually proved that we can achieve representativeness and deliberation, but the most difficult to achieve is influence. And that’s because elected representatives don’t want to give up power. They believe that they have a mandate to govern and they are disinclined to do so.

But there have been some fantastic examples where elected representatives have done just that. We’ve had a premier of a state in Western Australia who promised to act on the decisions of mini-publics. As Minister for Planning and Infrastructure she stood by citizens’ recommendations. We’ve had a participatory budget in New South Wales with Canada Bay Council. The local government agreed to abide by its decisions. It was the only reason we agreed to be involved. So it is happening. It’s not happening enough, but it’s certainly possible. I would suggest that none of us should proceed with mini-publics anymore unless it has the imprimatur of the decision-maker. It’s a little wearisome to keep proving that we can do these robust processes and then have the decision-makers ignoring the recommendations.

MG: What does the participatory budgeting work like in Australia?

LC: In the case of Canada Bay people were randomly selected, we had a group of 40 who came together face to face over five weekends. They deliberated on the entire budget of the council, they listened to expert speakers, they spent many hours having discussions. They split into small working parties to consider different aspects of the budget and they worked hard to deliver their recommendations to council and it was considered in a council meeting.

MG: Five weekends is a lot of time. Did the citizens receive a compensation for being involved in participatory budgeting?

LC: They received compensation, but it was a very small amount, something like 50 dollars a day or a weekend. It’s not huge and people don’t actually need a lot of money. They don’t want the equivalent of their salary. It’s an honorarium, a way to say “we value your participation”.

MG: If it was possible to change the law, would you like to have the decisions made by mini-public binding just like those made in referendums?

LC: That’s certainly my dream and there’s no reason why it can’t be so. A couple of examples exist. In Denmark there was a Danish Board of Technology which routinely convened mini-publics and fed those recommendations into the parliament. The parliament had to say why it wasn’t going to abide by those recommendations. That’s in a way the closest we’ve come to it. There’s a law in Tuscany in Italy, it’s called the Tuscan Law 69 which had a trigger mechanism which said that if there was a controversial issue it had to go to a deliberative process and again the regional government had to say why it would not act on those recommendations.

If I had a dream it would be to say that we would routinely convene policy juries to consider issues like education, health, transport and so on. You wouldn’t want to do it for everything. The whole point is to use these processes when and where appropriate, otherwise you would be bogging down the decision-making process which is often working quite well just through the current mechanisms that we have. It’s only when controversy emerges or long-term decisions have to be made, or when politicians are reluctant to act.

MG: What about the referenda? Are they a good way of making decisions?

LC: I’m not a fan of referenda. The reason is that they lack the deliberative element. We’ve had many referenda in Australia. I think we’ve had 44 and 36 of them was unsuccessful. That’s because the issue tends to become very polarized unless it has bi-partisan support, from the two major parties. They are inevitably rejected by the population because it’s so easy to run a negative campaign. Australian governments provide a lot of information when there is a referendum. But this can be quite confusing and citizens need an opportunity to deliberate on them, as they do in Oregon with the Citizens Initiative Review, or to have serious discussions with other people. A referendum for me without that deliberative component is nothing more than an opinion poll. It’s absolutely destined to failure unless you have all the major parties supporting it.

The citizen-initiated referendum sounds good on the surface because there is a groundswell of support, but what I would like to see is the groundswell of support demanding a deliberative process and then letting that deliberative process make a decision instead of putting it to a referendum.

MG: For some people it may be hard to accept that only those who are chosen by lot are going to make a decision instead of everybody as in referenda.

LC: That’s going to vary from country to country. In Australia we have a great deal of faith in random selection because it’s fair. Everyone has an equal opportunity to be selected. We also have an independent Australian Electoral Commission that has earned public confidence and it could have oversight of such lotteries. As long as you have faith in the process there shouldn’t be a problem. The difficulty is that it is not a routine to do that, although in Australia it is quite a routine to do that through criminal juries — people are randomly selected to sit on those juries. So actually we understand that process and we have faith in it to make very binding decisions about whether or not someone is guilty or not guilty, whether they should go to jail for life. We actually give that power to citizens at the moment. If that process doesn’t exist in a country, then yes, it needs to become a routine in order for trust to develop.

OOOO

Wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that many, if not all, that read that interview had heads nodding in agreement.

Back on Lyn Carson’s website you can find an interesting selection of her publications.  I, for one, will be browsing through them.

The book! Chapter Sixteen.

Learning from Dogs

Chapter Sixteen

The glass doors swished apart and Philip walked out of the terminal building.  Dear old Bradley International here at LAX airport, almost an old friend, such a familiar transition from the tail-end of that long flight from England to arriving outside these terminal doors.  Never failed to amaze him how from the moment that the Captain announced that they would be commencing their descent into Los Angeles within the next five minutes, it all seemed to run so much more like a London tube train on tracks than this free-flying aeroplane so far up in the sky.  The start of the descent, the pinching of nose and air puffs to keep the ear-drums clear, the views of the Pacific Ocean and the horizon-to-horizon sprawl of greater Los Angeles, the thump as the landing-gear was lowered, the squeal of rubber on runway, the deceleration and the final taxi to the terminal gate. It all seemed so perfectly in order. This time was no exception.

Even the disembarking and passport control, collecting one’s luggage from the carousel and heading for the exit doors seemed so perfectly choreographed.

Then in stark contrast, the instant chaos of so many persons making so many decisions for the last lap of so many individual  journeys. As different as night from day when compared to the all their behaviours on board the airplane.

“Hey Stevens, hey over here!” came a familiar shout.  Danny was waving his arm in the air standing close to his car parked by the kerbside.

Gracious he hadn’t aged despite it being almost seven years since Philip had last seen him.  That was back in the Summer of 2000 when he had brought Maggie out to California just a few months after they had married.

Maybe Danny’s grey hair was perhaps just a little thinner than last time.  But in all honesty Philip wondered if he had aged as well these last years as Danny appeared to have done.  When he felt braver he would ask Danny the question!

The ride from LAX back to Danny’s home in Costa Mesa was the same as it always seemed, something so homely about the way that Danny manoeuvred in and out through the traffic.  Philip could remember the very first time he came out to Los Angeles to check out whether or not Danny’s company was an appropriate US West Coast distributor for him.  Way back in 1979.  Even practically thirty years ago how the volume of traffic and the number of traffic lanes on the freeway had been beyond anything he might have imagined.

Dear Danny, such a confident, well-assured person, so upright in stance and so upright in character.  Sure, Philip didn’t necessarily agree with him on a number of issues but his laid-back, Californian approach to life was always fun to be around.

On the drive home, Danny quizzed Philip about the whole business of Maggie being unfaithful; didn’t he have any idea as to what she was up to, the almost incredulous notion that Maggie had come with Philip on this romantic vacation to Turkey, had really loved up to Philip to reassure him how much she loved him, and all the time she was carrying the child of another man.

There was a pause in the flow of conversation.

“Philip, my friend, you know I always say that shit happens.  Take my word for it, you’re better off without her. Trust me.”

The plan was for Philip to spend a week with Danny and Georgie and then make his way North to spend a further week with Danny’s sister Lisa and her husband Don, before returning to LA in readiness for the flight back to the UK.

It turned out to be a week of great healing.  Very quickly Philip was made aware of how much he had needed the easy-going, worry-free days that Danny and Georgie were giving him.  It was just as a doctor might have ordered. Walks with Danny and his dog, Wendy, in the beautiful air of an early Californian morning, maybe a breakfast of toast and coffee down at Newport Beach, swimming and sun-bathing at Huntington Beach or along at the cosy little beach at Laguna, pre-dinner glasses of wine at one of the innumerable number of cosmopolitan bars, then dinner and then a night-time aperitif before bed.  All bound up in a wrapper of great conversation and wonderful camaraderie.

Before Philip was hardly aware of it, the morning dawned when he, borrowing one of Danny’s cars, would make the drive from Costa Mesa up to Los Osos to stay with Lisa and Don.

He had made this journey a few times before and always chose the slightly slower Highway 101 simply because the drive of around four hours brought back alive to him the history of California.  Like so many Brits, he had overlooked the fact that this part of North America was prominently Spanish not so far back in time. He could never remember historic dates even for his own country, let alone the Western coastal states of the USA, but he had this notion in his mind that it was only about one-hundred-and-fifty years ago when California became American.  In terms of British history that felt like yesterday; Queen Victoria was on the throne well before 1850.

Thus as Philip worked his way North, he passed so many place signs that either reinforced the earlier era of the Spanish missions, because the old Spanish names still existed, or reminded him that California’s brand image was a worldwide phenomenon, thanks to the studios of Hollywood.

Thus Long Beach, San Pedro, Calabasas, Malibu, Santa Barbara, Los Alamos, Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo and on up to Los Osos.

He mused about how it was so difficult to reconcile the vibrant, modern country that California now is, with the desperate treatment of the Native American population back in those days of the Spanish missions.  How a diverse, sophisticated and self-reliant people had been reduced by those missions to desperate peonage. How in the fifty years leading up to 1821, when Spanish rule finally ended, that Native American population fell by one third, to fewer than two-hundred-thousand persons.  What a strange lot we humans are; how very much we need to learn the values and integrity of our best friend: the dog.

Danny’s sister, Lisa was so much like Danny and yet, in so many ways so different. Lisa had always been generous with her care and attention for Philip and, as with Danny, he and Lisa went back far too many years to contemplate; he had met Lisa not long after meeting Danny back in 1979; the thick end of thirty years.

By the time he had arrived after his drive up from Costa Mesa it was well into the afternoon.  Don was pottering about the place and came over to welcome him. Shortly followed by Lisa coming out from the house, giving him a big hug and showing him to his guest room. Ten minutes later he had freshened up and went to find Lisa. She asked him what he wanted to do.

As he hadn’t met with Lisa and Don for equally as long as it had been with Danny, there was a significant amount of catching up to do on their respective lives over the last seven years.

But that could wait until dinner-time or later.

“Lisa, I tell you what I would love, and that’s a good walk.  How about you and I taking off for an hour’s walk?”

“Philip, that works for me.  Let me tell Don we’re going out for a walk.”

Lisa went across to a long, garage, entered by the side door, and was out moments later.

“Come on, jump in my truck and we’ll go across to the shores of Morro Bay.  In fact there’s a neat forest trail along the shoreline. We’ll take a couple of the dogs.”

Philip had forgotten that Lisa was a quite a dog person.

Ten minutes later, together with two very excited dogs, he and Lisa were making their way down from the parking lot to the edge of Morro Bay.

“What are the names of your two dogs, Lisa?”

“Pancho and Shilo.”

“How long have you had them?”

“Oh, quite a few years now.  They’re both rescue dogs.”

It was a lovely walk and Philip, seeing how much the dogs were enjoying the walk, once again missed his Pharaoh.  When they had been walking for some thirty minutes and it was about time to return to the car, they found old tree trunk on its side and decided to rest a while.  Within moments both the dogs were up against their legs, welcoming the head rubs that Philip and Lisa were giving them.

“So how you are feeling now that a few months have gone by?” Lisa asked, with obvious greater concern in her voice than the question belied.

“Oh, I don’t know, Lisa. To be honest, I’ve tried to put the whole last six months behind me, every bloody day of them, and just enjoy this magical trip out to California. But I know that there’s a pile of crap waiting for me when I get back home; just in a little under two weeks from now.”

A long sigh came from Philip as he paused, as if uncertain of whether or not he wanted to refresh the memory of that fateful day last December; that most terrible Christmas.

“Yep, I’ll have a divorce to plough through, get settled in my rental place, try and pick up a new social life and all the rest of it.  Just one consolation, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Well I shall be seeing a counsellor a few days after getting back to England.  Actually, he’s a lot more than a counsellor.”

Philip went on to explain how he had met Jonathan Atkins and the role reversal that Jonathan had agreed to.

“Thing is, Lisa, that I have this feeling, something I can’t bring to the surface, that Maggie’s unfaithfulness has hurt me way beyond the obvious ways I have been hurt.  I must try and get to the bottom of that because, again, I have this notion that if I don’t I won’t be able to move on, whatever moving on ends up meaning.  Here I am sixty-three at my next birthday and utterly lost in so many ways.”

They stood up and started heading back towards Lisa’s pick-up.  Philip’s feeling of disconnectedness hung over him for quite a while.  She seemed to sense that and left him to his own thoughts.

Just as the days staying with Danny had flown by so quickly, so did his time with Lisa and Don. On the last evening of his time with them, the evening of the 20th, he took them both out for a thank-you dinner at a local restaurant.  They were back in the house a little after 9pm.

“Philip, can I get you a drink?” Don asked.

“Don, I’m not sure.  I had more than enough over the meal and I was just thinking of the long drive South in the morning, me still not familiar with American roads, and whether I should call it a day, alcohol-wise.”

Lisa had come in to the room at that point and picked up on Philip’s words. “Say, I have some beautiful almond milk.  Would you like to try a glass of that? It’s very soothing on the mind.”

“Sounds like an idea, yes please.”

She returned with a glass of what looked like ordinary cow’s milk.  He took the glass and sniffed the liquid.  There was almost a complete absence of smell.  He took a small sip and was staggered.  It had the most beautiful smooth, soft texture and while there wasn’t a strong taste, it was by no means unpleasant.

“Hey, this is rather nice.”

The three of them sat in the living room, the daylight rapidly fading away through the doors that looked out over a well-manicured lawn.

“Philip,” Lisa said. “Did you know that Don and I have a house down in San Carlos, Mexico?”

“No, I had no idea.”

“Oh, I had thought Danny might have mentioned that.  It’s just that Don and I find the Winters up here in Northern California a bit too cold for our ancient bones and we tend to go down to Mexico around October or November time.”

“Whereabouts in Mexico is this place; did you say San Carlos?”

“It’s about a five-hour drive South from the Arizona border town of Nogales.  San Carlos is on the shores of the Bay of California looking West, just a few miles from the town of Guaymas and a little more than an hour’s drive South from Hermosillo where there’s a good international airport.”

She continued, “Philip, what are you doing for Christmas?”

“Oh gracious, Lisa, give me a break!” There was laughter in his voice.  “Haven’t even really got my mind around last Christmas.”

Lisa looked across at Don, “It’s just that Don and I were wondering that if Christmas in England was going to be a bit tough on you, what with memories of last Christmas and all that, then why don’t you come and spend Christmas with us down in Mexico.”

Don added, “Yes, Philip, we would really enjoy having you with us.  You could come and stay as short or as long a time as you wanted to.”

Philip went quiet.

He stood up and went across to shake Don’s hand then across to where Lisa was sitting and gave her a hug.

He sat back down again in the easy-chair.

“Do you know, I might just do that!”

2,314 words. Copyright © 2013 Paul Handover