Apricot!  Oh My!  Where we are we do not have them, and imported is never right.

I grew up on those fruits that are both tart and sweet.  Shelves full of bottles of apricot jam, dried apricots (outside air), dried apricots in a chicken stew, apricot tarts, crumbles, tartlets and cookies, apricot chutney, and handfuls of fresh picked.   Dried apricot seeds – a little bitter, but usually good.  It was fun to hammer with a hammer and collect the seed!  Perfect job for a few kids.

OK, we lived on farms, and this is what we did .. a fat slice of fresh homemade bread, a big spoon of clotted cream on the bread, another spoon of apricot jam in the middle .. eat with knife and fork.

A bit of a story around Spief.

In one of the business programs, the idea was opened up that they followed a very different methodology for the big sessions.  From way back in the psychology days I got interested, and to my greatest surprise, I recognized it straight away.  I have no idea what they said, but I got the technology.

So this methodology is called Open Space Technology and it is really a lot of fun and there are no dry presentations that one has to sit through.  Everyone participates – it is the biggest cafe clatch ever, with real measurable outcomes.

Back in the late 80’s early 90’s I had a decision to make.  Computers for a future, or industrial psychology for a future.  Industrial psychology was out, because I was expected to do things against my moral senses.  Computers won but, if they did not, I would have become a deft hand at this Open Space Technology and I once even used it for a big computer class.  It is hard work for facilitators because the audience or participants create their own agenda. It is a methodology that is designed to be highly participatory, inclusive, and collaborative.

So, you have this big room of people and they have a burning agenda.  And you ask them to do a list of sub-items on this agenda and self-select around those sub-items and go and make new groups and storm solutions that look viable.  So, you are discussing say seven sub-items with people that feel drawn to one of those, and feel they can bring value.  It’s noisy, it’s a mess but at the end of the day, each group very briefly presents their solutions.  Hard to manage and facilitate but you can handle big groups and people remain enthusiastic because they can work on exactly what their thing is and what they are bullish on.

That specific methodology made the larger and open Spief sessions big successes.  Man, I wish I was there!

There are some values underpinning this and they are …

– Whoever comes are the right people: Since people can choose what sessions to attend there has to be trust, that the people that come are the right people. Even if a session only has two participants these two people might be exactly the right people to meet at that time to do something great together.
– ‍Whatever happens is the only thing that could have: Open Space Technology events have an emerging character. No one can possibly predict, how things might unfold.
– ‍Whenever it starts is the right time: Creativity moves on its own timeline independent of the meeting or event schedule.
– When it is over, it is over: Getting the work done is more important than sticking to the schedule. When a group is in the perfect flow, then they can decide to continue their discussions. Or, if they finish their topic earlier, the can also close the session and do something else instead.

I have seen such groups jell so completely, that they take their topic and start working it post-conference.  I’m sure we will see this flow out of Spief.  People were absolutely enthusiastic.

Just fine on my side AHH.

Smoothie wrote about the Japanese internment camps during the 2nd WW based on some utterings from a Czech. https://www.politico.eu/article/petr-pavel-russia-czech-republic-surveillance/ 

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/06/to-give-some-insight.html 

There were German ones as well.

I got interested in this years ago and studied a bit.  These internment camps were in Canada too and I visited the site of one that had been changed into a very beautiful remembrance garden.  But somehow, visiting the place, I was convinced I could feel the despair.  For the Japanese, even if they had US citizenship, they were still corralled into the internment camps.  There were apologies made by some US Presidents for this.

Smoothie might sense some pressure here and if that is so, I would think it is something to pay attention to, given the level of sheer hatred and his specific competence, being weapons.

The Chinese educated classes from US universities are returning to China, even though they lived their whole lives in the US.  The last number I saw, was around 1,000 this year alone.

War is probably the most horrible thing that the human population can take part in.  The costs are everywhere!

Somebody, please hide this man away!

Trump: When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil. pic.twitter.com/5q3Jr1j1Ho

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 10, 2023

Yes, to the last few comments.  We seem to be at a ‘noisy pregnant pause’.

I picked up somewhere that Leopard shares are tumbling.

So, what do we have?

– Continuation of demilitarization, denazification and de-nato-ization in its current form?   Yes, this will continue, but I think something more will change here.

– Ukraine stops fighting on account of being made lame?  And the west loses and poor ol’ BidenCo loses with everything around that like paying for the mess?  Is this not the usual pattern?  ‘We’re done fighting now, we declare victory and we leave!’   It is clear that there is a bus and a Zelensky encounter in the hopper.  He is not the head of the snake, but he is the modern depiction of the snake – the proverbial flag, the Main Pennant.  But, no G20 for him, no NATO for him, no EU for him .. and what is the continual existence of those organizations.

– NATO enters, sneakily or otherwise, bigger than the current?  Certain European countries better evacuate damn quickly.  For European countries, governments will fall and upside-down hangings will take place.

China enters if NATO enters?   Oh boy … I’m going to stop this line of thinking now!

Another thought on another track:

I don’t like Trump.  But the sequence with him now, is just the same as the sequence with Imran Kahn .. same playbook, same hands at the tiller of this boat.

What a time!  Heaving a new world into its orbit.

Thanks for the changeover AHH.

For AHH

Alexander Pushkin’s 5 favorite dishes

Alexander Pushkin is a famous 19th-century Russian poet and writer. Today, June 6, is his birthday, and we recall his favorite foods.

1. Valdai baranki
2. Pozharsky cutlets (recipe (https://www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/333003-pozharsky-cutlets-recipe-russian-cuisine))
3. Strasbourg pie
4. Blancmange (recipe (https://www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/330519-blancmange-la-rus-pudding-almond-milk-dessert))
5. Apple pie

Have you ever tasted any of his favorite dishes?

👉 READ MORE (https://www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/328342-alexander-pushkins-5-favorite-dishes)

📷 Orest Kiprensky. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin (1827), Legion Media, Imagebroker/Global Look Press