Scarborough, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario; Vancouver, British Columbia; Oakland, California; Albany, California; San Francisco, California
Toronto Zoo: Midway through the #TerraLumina night walk is the Circle of Life field with points of light. At each of five stations, two pairs of beaters rested on top of the drums. Rhythmic music encouraged young boys to pick up the sticks and pound away. (Toronto Zoo, Meadowvale Road, Toronto, Ontario) 20211204
Dai Kuang Wah Herb Market: Visit to a neighbourhood Chinese herbalist, as symptoms of jet lag haven’t abated after a few weeks. Diagnosis via classical TCM examination with three-finger pulses, then western standard cuff on upper arm to find my blood pressure high. Prescribed mixing of herbs seemed to include a wider variety of ingredients than I remember from other practitioners, still packaged up as 3 paper bags for decoctions to be steeped at home. (Dai Kuang Wah Herb Market, Gerrard Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20211208Centre for Social Innovation Annex: Holiday gathering for @csiTO in cooperation with venue outdoors @randolphcollegeto , bringing community together with hot chocolate, cookies, mixed beverages and dumplings. Met some people who were just email addresses before, plus some old friends not in person since the pandemic. Vaccination identities checked at entry, warm fire pit at the centre. (Centre for Social Innovation, Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20211209Tora: Rare occasion for a team lunch, with remote members from Ajax, Markham,. Mississauga and downtown Toronto convening in person. Unable to accommodate members from Argentina, Philippines, Russia, UAE and Pakistan, who we see daily on video conference. Sushi ordered on anchored touchscreen interface, arriving via conveyor belt. (Tora, Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Toronto, Ontario) 20211210St. Lawrence Market: Christmas decorations on building and street median with warmer temperature, as snow has melted to leave the street bare. First bike ride for a few weeks in mid-afternoon, before the early December sunset. Vendors on the north side selling evergreen trees outside, while Monday is officially a rest day for shopkeepers. (St. Lawrence Market, Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20211213Leslie Barns: Noise barriers in grey and TTC red hide the streetcar storage tracks and maintenance garage from passing bicyclists and motorists on the south side of the divided boulevard. Scraping of steel wheels on rails were anticipated to meet the standards of the Ministry of the Environment, alhtough residential housing would seem far away. The towers of the city centre further west seems further away these days, as Portland construction is rerouting traffic. (Leslie Barns, Lakehosre Drive East, Toronto, Ontario) 20211214House of Gourmet: Succeeding on the challenge of serving slippery rice noodles with chopsticks, dim sum item for dinner. Came to the big city from Waterloo for dinner. appreciating the higher quality of food in Spadina Chinatown. Walked the neighbourhood in the dark, and into Kensington Market, where there were only a few signs of sociability under more cautionary pandemic warnings from governments. (House of Gourmet, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20211217YYZ Pearson Terminal 1: Early flight to Vancouver, only 8 hours on ground so that DY can visit with mother. YYZ check-in only 90 minutes within Canada, would be 3 hours if we were flying direct to SFO. Lounge had avocado toast for breakfast. (YYZ Pearson Terminal 1, Toronto, Ontario) 20211224Simon K.Y. Lee Seniors Care Home: Short visit with DY’s mother, bringing a few treats from the Chinese supermarket, and walking a circular route inside the building. Arrived at lunchtime, residents are now served privately in the room. Skytrain via Canada Line to Waterfront Station, walked past Gastown into Chinatown, now familiar territory. (Simon K.Y. Lee Seniors Care Home, Carrall Street, Vancouver, BC) 20211224Old Oakland: Homemade vegan pho for lunch, broth based on daikon, toppings of fried tofu and mushrooms, with air-fried chicken on the side. Got to know new daughter-in-law around the kitchen counter, discussing Vietnamese techniques in preparing the meal. Added new softseat stools, arrived just yesterday. (Old Oakland, California) 20211225Old Oakland: Added some ornaments to the real Christmas tree, the first holiday season together in this apartment. Rainy weather in the Bay Area discouraging outdoor activities, we stayed inside to watch movies and play on the Oculus VR. Extended family had online video chat, our sons back home were in a theatre watching Spiderman when short notice went out. (Old Oakland, California) 20211225Old Oakland: Visit with the newlyweds by aunts and cousin from DY’s maternal Wong lineage. Some mutual confusion with the elders as our generation is out of practice with the village dialects, and the young now learn standard Mandarin. Adjourned to dim sum in large Chinatown restaurants, with iPad ordering rather than circulating carts. (Old Oakland, California) 20211226ChinaVille: Selected teapot and teacup set for serving family and friends in the new apartment. Then added a gongfu tea tray for easier transport, not for formal ceremonial rituals where ultra-premium tea is poured into smaller cups. Subsequently located luobuma leaves as a remedy for high blood pressure at an herbalist down a few doors, it’s freely available in the USA, while not imported into Canada. (ChinaVille, 8th Street, Oakland, CA) 20211227Albany Bulb: Installation of Richmond Pressed Brick by #LouanaGarraud and #JuliaPark, part of UC Berkeley #MonumentToExtraction environmental history walking tour. Bricks on this former lanfill were repurposed from the rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake, as well as later housing developments in the East Bay where black residents were displaced. Slow stroll with views of both bridges and the San Francisco waterfront across the bay, following a recorded audioguide. (Albany Bulb, Albany, CA) 20211227Frank H. Ogawa Plaza: Five hours, two trips to register and complete PCR Covid-19 test, with other local facilities booked up long past the scheduled date for our return to Toronto. We attempted to register online via smartphone browser at USA-wide covidclinic.org website that would time out, not load credit card fields and/or validate dates as correct. Back at the apartment on a laptop, replicated issues with Chrome browser, then finally succeeded using Mozilla Firefox. (City of Oakland offices, Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, California) 20211229La Boutique Salon: Spa day in the city, #LaBoutique Salon for lash extensions. DY is now glad to have a daughter in the family with friends into aesthetics, after decades with four sons. Rainy day led to visit to Japan Center Mall, and then a drive-by of Alta Plaza Park where the newlyweds first met and committed vows. (La Boutique Salon, Polk Street, San Francisco California) 20211229Lake Merritt: Towards southeast edge of an hour-plus walk at water’s edge, paused by The Gold Coast (Lakeside) neighbourhood where ducks were diving for food. In the background are the Kaiser Center and The Cathedral of Christ the Light. After 5 days of cold temperatures and rain, more seasonal Bay Area weather returned, just in time for our next-day return home. (Lake Merritt, Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California) 20211230SFO Museum: International Terminal @SFOMuseum exhibition #TheVictorianPaperedWall Exoticism period 1837-1901. Turkish folding chair circa 1880s caught my eye, beside Piano Lamp circa 1875 designed by Edward C. Moore for Tiffany & Co, in front of Persian Wall Fill and Fringe 2021 by Bradley & Bradley . Arrived at airport early for 7am flight to return to Eastern Time, terminal is mostly deserted and United Club lounge isn’t yet open. (SFO International Terminal G, San Francisco, California) 20211231
Union Pearson Express: Southbound departure from airport, train tracks are at a level above flyovers into terminal. Flight eastbound from SFO is easy, watch 2 movies and then land. Arrival was early, but immigration lines were exceptionally long, probably with flights from Europe. (Union Pearson Express, Toronto, Ontario) 20211231
Digging into philosophies underlying the systems sciences, pragmatism seems to have been a strong historical foundation for some research streams. In ongoing discussions, Gary Metcalf and I have been approaching pragmatism from two directions. Gary has been tracking from mid-1800s forward, listening to the audiobook The Metaphysical Club, with a history of figures living through […]
The ties between systems thinking and pragmatism are apparently strong, but the breadth in the philosophy of pragmatism can be confusing. Within the tradition, one of the threads is called nonrelativistic pragmatism, proposed by systems luminaries C. West Churchman with Russell L. Ackoff, descending from the work of philosopher Edgar A. Singer, Jr. A concise […]
A luminary in the systems movement, C. West Churchman, showed some respect for Chinese philosophy, with the I Ching (Yi Jing) in particular. Deborah Hammond was encouraged by West Churchman into joining and becoming a historian of the systems movement. In her 2003 book, Hammond wrote of her conversations with Churchman, back into his days […]
The 1969 publication of Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, edited by Fred E. Emery as a Penguin Modern Management paperback, can be regarded as a milestone. The articles date from the 1940s to the 1960s, when the first wave of systems thinking was on the rise. For the June session of Systems Thinking Ontario, we stepped […]
Within the Systems Thinking Ontario community, we were fortunate to have Nenad Rava step up to explain how the Sustainable Development Goals came to be, and relate them to systems change. This May session of Systems Thinking Ontario was a quick follow-on for the March edition on Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the SDGs. […]
The book Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2002 by Routledge, was released as open access in 2023 by Taylor-Francis for readers who don’t have access to a university library. For the March edition of Systems Thinking Ontario, we were honoured to celebrate the release with editor-coauthors Kaitlin Kish […]
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
