Representing

Back in 1997 I was lucky enough to do an exchange program to Ecuador. A by-product of that was having to learn about some South American history while there and in my Spanish classes. Interestingly, I continued to take Spanish upon returning for one final term at the University of Oregon, not wanting to lose my grasp of the language. The last language professor I ever had was Chilean. More importantly, she was a Chilean refuge, having fled the country with her family in the early 1970's when Augusto Pinochet ousted the democratically elected Salvador Allende in a military coup that was backed by the CIA.
Until then, I'd never quite understood why the CIA was viewed with so much suspicion by many Americans, despite being a part of our government and presumably advancing our causes and beliefs. I've read that the CIA supported (though how much support isn't clear) Pinochet out of a fear that under Allende Chile would become another Cuba. Ironic then that Pinochet would become a notorious dictator under whose regime thousands of dissidents and political opponents would be murdered, tortured, and disappear. Not ironic or unexpected is that people would come to be so critical of the CIA after being involved in something so ugly, and according to my old professor, devastating.
I've thought about this a lot over the last few days. Democratic governments are supposed to represent the will of the people, and when you start dealing with cases like the CIA-Chilean Coup of 1973, one has to wonder if we are being accurately represented. I'm sure somebody might know more about this than me and could present a compelling argument to justify what happened. But right now I've not sure anybody could convince me.
One of the main reasons I've reflected on this is because while having lunch recently with a Tribal member and spouse the conversation of this year's Oregon Governor's race came up. I told them we would be meeting with several candidates over the next few weeks who are seeking the Tribe's support, both Democrats and Republicans, and they asked me if they could be allowed to sit in. I wasn't sure because nobody has ever expressed an interest. But then again, how many really know?
Several months ago one of my posts about supporting the Chinook recognition drew some comments. In the past we've received a few comments about our decision to pour money into the 2006 Governor's race. The issue that seems to be a real lightning rod is our strategy to oppose the Cascade Locks casino, which of course puts us at odds with the Warm Springs Tribe, and has even drawn criticism from several of our early Council members who feel we are hurting a tribe who helped us get restored. The problem of course in all of it is that while we have heard from Tribal members expressing discontent, the numbers have been small. But I still can't help but wonder if we need to re-evaluate how we make these decisions, or if we need to keep making them at all.
One thing I've learned is that there are costs to getting involved. Monetarily we've spent millions on our off-reservation strategy. Some would make arguments we've thwarted competition that would have cost us even more. Others have pointed out the collateral damage that is hard to fix a cost to, like souring relationships with other tribes and elected officials.
Economically, times are tough enough to where I think our ability to have influence is not what it was several years ago, and realistically money plays a huge role in creating that influence. Also, the issues are getting cloudier. A candidate, be it Senatorial or Gubernatorial, might line up with the Tribe on one issue but be an opponent on the next. One might oppose off-reservation gaming on moral grounds, which is fine for us, but oppose environmental stances, which isn't fine with us.
This much is true: I'd be darn curious to know where many of our members stand on some of these issues. Thankfully, we don't have anything resembling the CIA. But that doesn't mean we won't make a decision which years later could come back to haunt us.

Coffee Chats

Today and yesterday I participated in series of employee events at Spirit Mountain Casino called "Coffee Chats". These are essentially informal meetings held in conference rooms between management and staff where employees have the freedom to ask whatever they want, to express concerns, and clear up rumors and misunderstandings. There were two yesterday, one in the early morning and the other mid-afternoon. The two today were mid-afternoon and evening. There is coffee, too.
I guess these meetings have been held several times over the past year. Some have told me they can be confrontational at times, and mellow at others. Employees can attend while on the clock, and all attending are given raffle tickets for drawings of prizes that usually go to regular patrons. In this case, those prizes were "rocket grills", which from what I could tell is supposed to be a takeoff and competitor of the George Foreman Grill. Haven't used one, but I can see how they might be handy.
Bottom line is employees are allowed an opportunity to air things out with management, and if they choose can be paid to do so. This has to be a good thing. Personally, I do not ever recall having these coffee chats while being an employee myself, though that was admittedly long ago (2003) and my own work experiences have been mostly pleasant at the casino. Still, I am trying to figure out why there is such a gap between my own experiences and those of people who are drawn by some powerful urge to broadcast their casino workplace struggles at Council meetings or through emails and phone calls to us, like we are the Human Resource equivalent of Don Corleone.
Can't say the two coffee chats I attended provided many answers. For one, most of the workers said nothing. Two, if between these four meetings maybe 100 employees chose to show up, it's hard to take comments and questions as fairly representing any general sentiment of the roughly 1600 workers at Spirit Mountain. Three, most of the questions were innocuous and readily answered. I would be curious to know how the employee surveys play out.
Regardless, they were interesting to sit through, even if some of the faces, and complaints, were familiar.

Team Building

We had a meeting today with our Human Resource Director who came to feel us out for whether a team-building session would be appropriate. Those who were present, all six of us, agreed to give it the old college try, though clearly there was some skepticism. So over the next two weeks we are to complete a questionaire that will attempt to profile us in hopes getting a starting point on how to proceed.
This kind of stuff has been made fun off often in popular culture, including a commercial with the gecko from Geico. I can see why. I am not sure how old these kinds of exercises and workshops are, but my guess is probably a few decades, just young enough to be part of the generation gap(s). Nonetheless, I find it fascinating.
Years ago I took a personality test with the help of a behavioral sciences book. I came from a personality profile called "The Champion", but my score was on the cusp. I could have easily been "The Healer". Titles aside, the profile as read was uncannily accurate. My personality loves championing causes, prefering to see the big picture but overlooking necessary details and having a harder time with follow-through but always eager to brainstorm. There were other qualities too, but those are what I remember from almost a decade ago.
I think having our personalities objectified and classified so brazenly bothers people, because in this age we aren't supposed to stereotype and everybody is unique, like snowflakes. That might account for some of the skepticism exhibited today. But that doesn't change that there are patterns of human behavior that are prevalent across time, cultures, religions, and races. There are differences, for sure. But above all, there are enduring similarities.
Some of my co-workers' concerns were that as a group we are too political to be helped by what will probably be a half-day workshop. People aren't going to change their politics. By "politics" what I gathered was meant was sabotaging, backstabbing, undermining, rumor-spreading--all the unsavory things we hate but accept about modern day political science. There might be some truth to that. Personal agendas and vendettas certainly exist, but good luck getting people to admit it. And if we're not going to be completely honest in an exercise like this, how effective could it be?
We won't really know unless we do it, is my take. Plus I think individually we will all take something away from it. Some will just take more than others. But I think if Obama and Republican leaders are willing to sit and talk about differences, can't we? After all, we fancy ourselves as being different from mainstream politicians. Now is our chance to at least try and prove it.

Picture Perfect

Over the past month, I've carried a camera with me everywhere. The first of these photos going up is from the Newseum in Washington, D.C. where a memorial of 9/11 has been built from wreckage salvaged from the twin towers. The "wallpaper" in the back was a collage of the front pages of dozens of international publications. The second was perfect timing in Pacific City, during a rare February sunny day at sunset. The last two are from the Eagle Creek hiking trail near Cascade Locks, also during that stretch of weather. I found it surprising that at there were no rails of the other side of the trail, considering the drop would have been several hundred feet. At one point the trail was so narrow if somebody else was coming the other way, one had to step aside. Proud to be an Oregonian.