Yesterday was a beautiful day again and when Elisabeth called for a coffee meet, we decided to go for it, meeting at the 11th street Good Earth for eleven am. She had been away on several trips, including a Vipassana (Pali) meditation near Seattle, USA and had many stories to tell and brought me a neat pocket tin of mints. We walked back together to my neighbourhood enjoying Fall’s gifts in its temps and colours.

At Mount Royal Village, Elisabeth introduced me to ‘tuti fruti’ where you can taste thimbles of ice fudge for free; some thing for your granddaughter she urged me to raise my interest. I made use of my proximity to the ‘Mona Lisa’ store for an inquiry about earth tone colours for my mandala. The manager was not that knowledgeable about colours, but we found a Castel set of nature colours. I’ll try the Kensington Art Supply first, but in either case I’ll have to bring my mandala to do the colour selection.

The laundry is going, with the first cycle due at nine am. Tonight Herman’s five week Fall seminar starts again; this time the theme is passion, but Herman like to add what he wants to talk about, often relating personal experiences. I attend mostly for the company and the discussions, not to mention some moral support for my friend.

Yesterday I posted two daily entries , but had trouble with the link to the Globe and Mail article mentioned in 21st-s entry. It turned out that I was using differing “ at the start and finish of the link reference. That probably occurs when quote marked strings are copied between this MS-Works word processor, the note file of pasted links and the notepad++ editor that I use to mark up my entries for the web.

I’ll make up a little test: “The quick brown fox, jumps over the lazy dog.”, to use a classic from the TTY days. I learned about it in my three years in Ottawa with Space Optic cum Leigh Instruments. This string uses most of the letters occurring in the modern Greek alphabet with little duplication and was used to test the proper operation of the Teletypes that we made in Waterloo, ON at that time (1970-73). Here is an other one: 'The quick brown fox, jumps over the lazy dog.'

On the way to visit Sharen, I stopped by at our former and favourite family home at 3610 10th street SW, to take a few pictures. [Time for the laundry cycle; next one due at ten to ten am.] This I did because it has been sold and looks empty, so I suspect for it a fate similar to Jack and Vangie’s abode and that is replacement by an ego palace. We will have to see, but I took some nice shots, especially of the now tall weeping silver birch, but my much liked mountain ash at the bedroom window was replaced I noticed.

For Sharen I’d brought the last five of my 'Vienna chocolates' that Annie had brought me. On leaving I realised that Sharen thought I’d brought a full box, as I had not been able to explain the story behind the chocolates. No harm done, she really liked the little treats.

I am reading again in "The Barbarous Years" by Bernard Bailyn and learning about Nieuw Amsterdam and its govenour Peter van Stuyvesant at the time of ca 1650. It is clear from this book that peace was precious, not only in the Dutch settlements, but all along the Eastern seaboard of then Indian North America.

I am exploring diversity in human society as we encounter this globally today, but from this historical account by Bailyn I am learning about the tremendous diversity at that particular time. To maintain almost any kind of cohesion in those early days bordered on wishful thinking, but it was not for the lack of trying. The challenges were just that difficult, because of the lack of common factors, interests, purpose and intent.

That situation from 1600 to 1675, as described in the mentioned source, tempts me to draw some parallels between it and the ethnically motivated acrimony that informs the present Washington DC USA governing institutions. It is based on unwillingness by some, to share that country’s common resources with others, who are perceived to be less 'US-American'. This attitude of self elevation is present in many societies, but rests on a misunderstanding of the way society is naturally structured.

[10:36am and laundry calls again; and after lunch 11:32am]. I’ll continue here while the last dryer load tumbles away, wondering whether the washer can tumble its load, while the dryer churns its? I’ll have to ask the Maytag man, he’s got lots of time.

I return to my theme of adversarial diversity and its outcomes, which has occupied me for some time and in this context I want to mention an idea that struck me while thinking about this last night. "Trust", that is what surfaced. The lack of trust and the need to develop it, struck me as a valuable and efficient principle to focus on, in attempting to resolve the frictions that diversity can bring with it.

For example, in the ongoing Syrian conflict there is a lack of trust among the rebel groups, as well as between them and Assad’s government, not to mention the parties on the sidelines. An other example is the trust and mistrust between the different political factions, as that played in the formation of the present Conservative party of Canada about a decade ago. Often the lack of trust is cited as a reason not to cooperate with others, even when common interests are at stake.

How to develop trust? Here, I suggest that we turn to the religious traditions of human kind. Common festival days, a shared calendar, common meals, ceremonies and social activities, all are part and parcel of every religious and/or cultural human tradition. This is emphasised by the fact that exclusion from such activities constitutes a punishment, with banishment as the ultimate out casting.
[11:50am last load to pick up.]

It is within these traditions that we are taught to trust by means of the activities just enumerated. Knowing this and combining it with modern findings in sociology and psychology, we need to concentrate on the development of a mutual trust and tolerance strategy.

We over spend on research and development for defence or maybe even war and aggression, we can do at least the same for working towards a global human society in which we learn and teach to live in tolerated, appreciated and celebrated diversity.
<00:11pm, that is eleven minutes passed noon! Or even better 13:11~ And 13:48 after editing.~