summer time and the living is easy... that's how it's supposed to go, right?
It seems like this summer had something else in mind though, and not just for me, but for an alarming number of people around the world. I can't flick on the tv or pick up a paper these days without a chill running down my spine as I think about the recent violence in Lebanon. In the back of my mind are all of the sections from Clinton's "My Life," which I finished a few weeks back, where he writes about all of the efforts he was involved in to build peace in that region. What is perhaps the most haunting is knowing how close they've come sometimes - that's what makes me the saddest, to think about how far we are now from where we've been. But I still can't see the struggle for peace as futile.

Here in Vancouver, the city feels a bit like a pot near its boiling point. Between debates over allowing Walmart to open in our city, new transit plans, development and the environment (think Eagle Ridge), and the covert beginnings of downtown gentrification and dislocation in preparation for the Olympics, we seem to be involved in a fundamentally lager ideological discussion over visions for the post-modern city and the role of family, community, and government. Yet we aren't engaging this debate on that higher level; instead, we dwell on the details and try to dismantle the real issues at stake detail by detail in a way that fundamentally looks like no decisions and muddied outcomes. So the tensions rise.

These are only two examples. Looking at the "Western government" that currently sits uncomfortably in Ottawa provides an easy third. All of these tensions seem to rise from our reluctance to genuinely engage in a full-fledged discussion about our visions for the world and for our communities. Personally, I feel like my life right now is dominated by differing vision of post-secondary education - between public and class-oriented notions of access. I don't know what flag of optimism I can wave - these debates are as serious as the issues they cover and represent. They are hard issues to face, and even harder to resolve. It's easy to see why we avoid them. Can we all reconcile our visions for tomorrow?

I have no idea.