Year End New Moon Edition 2024
Well, that was quite a year, right? Yet another one, in fact. How many times in your life have you reached year’s end and not had that very thought? Is life becoming stranger or are we just paying closer attention?
I’ve never been certain whether this one was better or worse than that one. They all seem to be made of different stuff, their challenges and circumstances a variation on the year before, or if substantially the same, if it’s just deja vu all over again, at least they’re dressed in new costumes and singing a slightly different tune.
It’s something to be thankful for that they aren’t exactly the same. All things being unequal, and they are, we gotta believe a little change is good. So auld lang syne, a cup ‘o Kindness, and Happy New Year one and all. Here’s to 2025 and what’s next!
Reclaiming a river is no small task. Ask the tribes along the Klamath River in Southern Oregon and Northern California. What was literally the life blood of those peoples’ culture was taken from them years ago so dams could be built, power generated, and water allotted to non-Native farmers. After many decades and numerous law suits, the dams finally have been removed and a wild productive river is being reborn. It’s a story worth reading (HERE) and hearing about (HERE). “We took it back!”
It’s an example of tribes reestablishing their cultural heritage in the face of steep headwinds from established financial interests. There is a movement, slight but growing, toward returning land management to the people who originally cared for it. Witness a recent decision made by a land conservancy about who might best manage lands taken from the Yurok Tribe by gold miners more than a century ago (HERE).
It reminds us that certain partnerships have been established under Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior (HERE) to utilize the stewardship sensibilities of Indigenous tribes in public lands management. We have suggested previously, and will repeat it here, that serious consideration should be given to contracting with Native Nations for management of all our public lands.
Many depart this mortal coil each year and one of the most distinguished people to bid goodbye in 2024 was Charles Handy, a staggeringly prescient thinker about corporate business management who years ago predicted remote work, outsourcing, the gig economy, and so many other facets of modern employment.
What was most remarkable about him, in an age when the one and only responsibility of the chief executive officer is returning value to the share-holder, was Handy’s admonition that “corporations were too focused on profit at the expense of the individual and the human aspect of work.” (HERE)
He further advised “businesses should behave like communities or villages, treating employees like citizens who have rights and privileges and a share in the profits.” For all his prognostications, he likely was disheartened to see the day arrive when “soul-sucking jobs” became this generation’s description of their work. RIP, Mr. Handy.