Sharing GOOD work

Throughout my education, I was always told how important it was to use descriptive words. Things couldn't just be good. They had to be superlatively so -- excellent, exceptional, favourable, great, marvelous, respectable, wonderful, etc., or I was falling down on the job as a writer. There are a couple hundred entries in the thesaurus that are better than good, I was told, and English teachers in particular sent me to Roget's often. 

Over the last while, however, I have come to a deep appreciation of the word good thanks to my Indigenous friends. They use the word good with deep respect -- walking the good road, appreciating good medicine, being a good person, sharing good things, offering good help. Good isn't just good for them, it is superlative in its own right, and why shouldn't it be? Is fantastic any better? Or just a fancier word for what's already good? My Indigenous friends have me thinking a lot about simplicity of speech and the simple goodness of good. 

My son-in-law, Landon, is a good person who does good work. He/they is a local social worker, smarter than I'll ever be, and uber-talented to boot (there I go with the superlatives again! But I'll stick with the masculine singular pronouns from here on). 

Recently, Landon completed his U of A Master's Thesis, which is titled "Who Cares About Us?": Insights and implications from survivors who reported hate crimes and incidents to organizations in Edmonton. It's good work that carries sixteen recommendations for organizations, three recommendations for police services, and seven recommendations for local, provincial and federal governments on how to help survivors when they report hate crimes and incidents. I'll use the word important for all those recommendations, which should be implemented everywhere. 

If a document of that size is a bit overwhelming, you can check out the executive summary and recommendations on pages 5-9 of the linked report. You can also click here to complete a short, free online training on the topic that Landon helped put together. 

After Landon defended the thesis successfully, another organization asked if he'd consider making his work into a documentary, which he did, simply because he wants to make the world a better place for everyone (and not everyone can wade through a thesis). Not only did he do all the documentary's filming and interviewing, but he spent many hours editing and writing music for it. 

Recently, To Be Heard was shown in a local movie theatre with two other documentaries, followed by a panel discussion around hate reduction in general. The event raised over $1000 to support the important work of StopHateAB. It was a very good evening, and we were glad we attended. 

Landon is a very thoughtful, articulate, and solidly good human being. You'll see him in the 20-minute documentary below, which is in the public domain on YouTube for everyone to learn from and share. Landon is the kind of guy who makes me want to use superlatives, but bottom line is, he's GOOD.