Kimberley Proposes Another Step Toward Sustainability*

all the views we care to share

Beliefs Have Consequences

The polygamy trial of Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) leaders in Cranbrook is a reminder that women still face many social, cultural and legal challenges to achieving full equality.

Aside from its apparent illegality, there is another major problem associated with FLDS dogma. If a man has seven wives, six men have none. If that is the case, 85% of men are surplus. Over time in the small, isolated communities which are the norm for the FLDS, inbreeding becomes a problem, a serious problem.             

Eight years ago, we talked with Carolyn Jessop, the first woman to successfully leave the FLDS with her children. We learned much about the FLDS, religion and power from Carolyn. You might too.

The program is available in video and in audio only.

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Some Minutes with the Mayor

*—The time has come to upgrade Kimberley's waste water treatment system. The proposed upgrade is a big step forward:

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Democracy is a fragile creation. The madness afoot in America and Great Britain are bad for morale and much else besides. The tone of political discourse has coarsened over much of the world. Much of the media attends more closely to money than to quality journalism. Social media is, at best, suspect. Righteous iies seem to be the order of the day.

In our latest conversation with Mayor McCormick we strayed onto the functioning of democracy in a relatively small community. The discussion about grassroots democracy seemed sufficiently relevant that we shared it with our HuffPost readers.

This is the excerpt we posted:

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This is full version of our most recent conversation with Mayor McCormick:

Mayor Don McCormick — 19 July,'17

Amidst a provincial election, unsurprisingly, governing, governance and how they affect our daily lives was central to this episode of our conversations with Mayor McCormick.

If you prefer, you can listen to this program here.

Earlier editions of our conversations with Mayor McCormick are here.

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Some years ago, (Sir) Harry Evans quoted for us Lord Northcliffe's incisive comment:

 

“News is something someone wants to suppress.

Everything else is advertising.”

 

Evans repeated that quote at a reception in his honor at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, celebrating the publication of his memoir My Paper Chase in 2009. Harry Evan is simply one of the best reporter/editors we have ever met. If, as do we, you think that authentic, quality journalism is important, read his book. You might also enjoy watching Sir Harry's performance at the reception. It is very informative.

 

There's probably someone out there who would like to suppress something we've presented here, but probably they lack the power or will or sufficient interest to meet Lord Northcliffe's definition. To us, what we publish here does not seem to be advertising, so we will argue for a place between the heaven of journalism and the hell of advertising ... call it neighborly conversation

Archive

Audio Bits: 

American author and playwrite E.L. Doctorow died in July. We talked with him in 2005 about his novel The March and about the relationship between writers and readers. These are excerpts from that conversation.

Why we do this

During Kimberley's 2011 election campaign, we made an offer to all the mayoral candidates to produce a regular discussion with the Mayor as part of the communication process everyone was talking about. We renewed that offer in 2014. On April 1, 2015, we recorded the first program. Here 'tis (on the right of this page).

 

This project is based on the notion of democratic dialogue, first introduced to us by Cornel West. Respectful discussions between and among the citizens of a community are the central core of a polity's ability to govern itself. That's why we're including some of our neighbors.

 

*—"Attention must be paid" is a line from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. In a conversation with Gay Talese in 2006, he pointed out to us the importance of attending to everyday events and the people who inhabit them.