Here’s a program note:
Tonight at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern Time), CBC-TV airs the documentary, Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids. As the title suggests, it’s about one of the current styles of parenting: the film looks at the cultural pressures on parents to raise exceptional children and the impacts on their children.
Here’s a preview:
And here’s what the television critic of The Globe and Mail has to say about this phenomenon and the documentary: read more…
The American Bar Association (ABA) has announced that mediate.com is the recipient of its 2010 Lawyer as Problem Solver Award.
In granting this prestigious award, the ABA stated:
Mediate.com has been at the forefront of making the power of the Internet accessible to lawyers, mediators and dispute resolution practitioners. Mediate.com has been developing digital products and resources that have advanced the presence and depth of the field of dispute resolution in immeasurable ways and fundamentally altered the practice of mediation by making online strategies practical and available.
Mediate.com offers the field one of the most used information resources, replete with blogs, cutting edge articles, news of mediation and negotiation practice, as well as a place for interactive dialogue. The website is a practical tool for practitioners and helps them become more effective problem solvers.
“Mediate.com applies the technology of the internet directly to lawyers and dispute resolution practitioners. The founders of Mediate.com had the foresight to see the importance and applications of the Internet and bring them to bear on a developing field of practice. This groundbreaking website has given tools and resources to the public and to ADR professionals to do their own problem solving in virtually every field of law.
Hear, hear!
Last February, I published a post entitled, Where is the mind situated?, that suggested that such a question already presupposes the type of answer that will be given, viz. that the mind is a thing, a substance, with a physical location in space. Instead of this materialist or physicalist conception of the mind, an alternative is proposed by the law professors quoted in the post that views the mind in terms of an array of abilities or processes. I remarked that this type of theorizing resonates with ancient Buddhist psychology.
I recently came across another post on the website, Talking Philosophy, that, at least at its outset, refers to a philosophical argument that adopts much the same view:
In his paper Epiphenomenal Qualia Frank Jackson invites us to consider the imaginary case of Mary, kept in a monochromatic room from birth and who, presumably out of boredom, spends her time becoming acquainted with all that neuroscience can tell us regarding the mechanisms that underlie our experience of colour vision. Mary herself has never seen a red object, but when it comes to the physical facts that attend such an experience, she knows them all. What, Jackson asks, would happen were she to be released from her room and to see a red object for the first time? Would she learn something new? Surely she would: she would learn what the experience of seeing a red object is like. But in that case would it not follow that, since she already knew all the physical facts about “seeing red”, what she learns must be a “non-physical fact” (a fact not present in the developed neuroscience of colour vision)? And if there are such “non-physical” facts does it not follow that physicalism is false?
The significance of this counter-argument for me as a mediator is the power of questions and preconceptions to structure what is seen or concluded. We find what we look for, or so goes the old saying. To put it in grammatical terms, mind may not be a noun but rather a verb, not a name for a thing but a doing or acting in the world. The question then becomes who exactly is carrying out this doing or acting, a question that resembles a Zen koan.
Again, quite apart from the philosophical and neuroscientific interest in this issue, it raises the problem of the extent to which a mediator’s questions may direct the parties in the process. Such a directive influence may undermine the parties’ self-determination and autonomy to have the conversation they want to have, in the way they want to have it.
Adam Kahane’s new book, Power and Lover A Theory and Practice of Social Change sets out a new approach to resolving conflict, according to publishers, Berrett-Koehler.
Adam Kahane
The two main ways that people try to solve their toughest group, community and societal problems are fundamentally flawed. They either push for what they want at all costs—in it’s most extreme form this means war—or try to completely avoid conflict, sweeping problems under the rug in the name of a superficial ”peace.” But there is a better way: combining these two seemingly contradictory approaches.
Adam Kahane argues that each is a reflection of two distinct, fundamental drives: power, the single-minded desire to achieve one’s solitary purpose; and love, the drive towards unity. They are inextricable parts of human nature, so to achieve lasting change you have to able to work fluidly with both. In fact, each needs the other. As Martin Luther King put it, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.”
Kahane presents some common scenarios in which one of these drives is used to the exclusion of the other: read more…
The new Blawg Review #245 was published last Saturday by the irrepressible, multi-talented and witty British lawyer-blogger Charon QC. You could do far worse with your time than heading over there for a look-see.
(DIALOGIC Mediation Services receives a mention in Charon’s review.)
is one of the maxims of the transformative mediation model. Without endorsing the ‘courage campaign’, I wanted to share with you this video of two well-known celebrities. Not only is it funny but it also points to how certain conversations can be difficult but at the same time necessary to have:
Kindness is contagious. Pass it on …
Provincial Attorney General Chris Bentley today announced improved access to the family justice system.
The reforms are intended to:
- Provide more information to families up front about the steps they need to take and the impact on children when relationships break down;
- Enhance opportunities to identify issues, ensure early disclosure and provide community referrals to better support families in reaching resolutions;
- Improve access to legal advice as well as less adversarial means of resolving issues such as mediation and collaborative family law; and,
- Streamline and simplify the steps involved for those cases that must go to court
As of 1st March 2010, the reforms provide that:
- Every person applying for custody of or access to a child will complete a sworn statement, setting out the facts and circumstances that relate to the child’s best interests.
- Financial information relating to child support payments will be required to be disclosed on an annual basis.
- A parent whose name was left off their child’s birth certificate will be able to apply to a court to have their surname added to the child’s surname when the court grants a declaration of parentage.
Since 1995, same-sex couples have had full marriage rights in Canada. Since these rights are not available in many U.S. states, American couples have travelled to Canada to get married. So far so good.
What happens, though, in the event that marriages of non-Canadian same-sex couples break down? Divorce may not be an option. If their home jurisdiction does not recognize same-sex marriage, it will not grant a divorce for such a union. Returning to Canada for a divorce is impractical because the Divorce Act states that one of the couple must have been “ordinarily resident in the province for at least one year immediately preceding the commencement of the proceeding.” This makes for what B.C. lawyer Barbara Findlay calls “divorce catch-22″:
“That means having more than just a mailing address,” explains [F]indlay. “It means having a personal presence according to case law, and that turns out to mean that for people who contracted a marriage here that don’t live in Canada, they are effectively denied a divorce.”
To make matters more complicated, even if one spouse is willing to reside in Canada for the requisite period of time, they are subject to visa requirements. An American citizen can usually enter Canada and stay for six months without a visa, but after six month must apply for an extension. In most circumstances, visitors to Canada are also not allowed to work.
The Ontario Family Law Blog has an excellent round-up with links on this aspect of gay marriage and divorce. Read it here.
(H/T: Brian Galbraith)
