Insight -- that wakes me with a to do list

Seeking informing content for the WPAA-TV 2011 celebration of Free Speech Week Oct 17-23rd has been my latest distraction. The outcomes have been inspiring, at least to me.

Outcomes: Permission to schedule starting in Sept the film Severe Visibility, a dramatization of a theory on 911 events for 911 10th anniversary programming; and from 10.15.11 and 12.3.11 the documentary (Tradesman: Making an Art of Work). This program compliments the celebration of contributions by local tradesmen who volunteered to renovate the 1924 Barn into a Community Access TV studio/Black Box Theater in the face of public naysayers.

In process: An idea. Illustrate the power of alternative media. How: Do a local video capture of opinions and the power of informing those opinion holders with alternate media with an in-house event at 28 So. Orchard St. Open House Event: House Party at the Home of Free Speech serving Hot Coffee with the potential participation in Talk Back of one of my favorite commentator's on media.

1. Purchased 2 DVDs based on the permissions and prepared Guarantor Paperwork
2. Locate contact info and used it to reconnect with Prof. Paul Janensch
3. Started inquiry permissions process for the movie Hot Coffee on Civil Justice which is now showing on HBO. (I highly recommend viewing this work. It informs well. It may inspire you to take action. Stella is a hero. Director Susan Saladoff has a great sense of story. Bravo! This work should be on '50 Documentaries To See Before You Die' which is now showing on Current TV.

October will be busy as the play Cracked Upon a Time will be performed by PIECE Theater at Living Theater Oct 13 - 22. studioW volunteers will be doing video capture of this WPAA-TV partner event. This play was staged at studioW at WPAA in Dec 2010 as the 1st performance event in the new facility to an awed crowd. Another must see.

I do not get out much-building community

It was even more evident when I spent Sunday ill from the smells of autumn and the proximity of people. Within the week I was truly miserable. I knew this would be the likely outcome if I spent Saturday Nov 7th at the Conference and ACM-NE 12th Annual Videofestival.

Reflecting on what else I experienced and why I attended given the health risks follows: It was an historic day. An ACM event had not been hosted in CT since around 1995 when State Cable Law was initially overhauled prior to 2007 with Public Act 07-253 I was optimistic that folks interested in Community Access in CT would be represented at this event in numbers. I had my council authorize a subsidy for 49 participants valued at $980 and only $140 will be expended. The response to the resource and networking opportunity was sadly abysmal but unfortunately not surprising. We have been divided in CT by 2007 law and finding consensus in the community is a major challenge.

As I always do when attending ACM event - I make note of what I call participant tiers. Those who have some income related tie to community access and those who have been tirelessly involved as volunteers for years often decades – once my category; now changed not because I make a related income but because I no longer feel I can remain tireless.

I saw exhaustion in the faces and voices of committed individuals I am coming to know with baby steps. While the exhaustion must have felt like a marathon to the event coordinators and their families I know that in this area of service it was merely a sprint.

I have been a volunteer involved with community access for 25 years of which I have had very few hours set aside to enjoy making a video products. I promised myself that I would re-energize every few years with artsy project in the scarcity of hours that are not dedicated to the administrative challenges of service. This year I had the pleasure of producing a 90 minute video during an intense 3 days. I was actually craving for it to be a success because I was needing a win somewhere in life. I was confident in the product for several reasons: advanced use of the technology available to create a unique product, localism in the inspiration and members of the creative team and phenomenal content that inspired me who watched and listened several times in production and never tired of it.

I submitted to ACM-NE in the Arts -Theater category. The content was developed 100% by local talent:– the play, music, acting and video graphic support. The project was the very essence of narrative storytelling. I think I failed to represent the local-ism well enough in the submission paperwork.

I also failed to represent a nominee for an ACM leadership award well enough. If I knew it was an insider award I would not have attempted to get a marathon running volunteer recognized. I submitted the nomination on behalf of a grateful community that found the nominees accomplishments and commitment to be extremely significant; always going above and beyond the call in service to the mission and goals of preservation and growth of community media. Absent a local ACM presence in CT this individual ensured that her community was an ACM organization member. I do not think those outside CT understand just how challenging it has been to keep the idea of community access alive here.

I knew that the award was targeted for ACM leadership but in the absence of proven CT leadership I was hoping that if a CT person was to be recognized this award could could have been used to rejuvenate communities that have been struggling. Taking nothing away from the actual 2009 honoree - whom would have gotten my nomination in 2010 if the efforts of this year continue to materialize a foundation for a solid ACM presence in CT - I foolishly hoped for a broader context of leadership. I hoped that someone whose day job is not at a PEG facility nor a paid advocacy position could be recognized. I hoped that someone whose leadership was not of a political nature - but was reliable and successful would be able to speak to the drought since 1995 and the lessons still to be learned from 2007... and it just seems awkward that the award nomination is made by the person for whom the award is made.

I learned that the resources of the West Hartford Community are bountiful and I thought often throughout the day how nice that would have been to know – a few years back when I invested several days researching possible conference accommodations in CT. That year, my employer changed its facility use policy and no longer allowed outside agencies to use its facilities for weekend events. This gave me one less asset to leverage and made planning to host ACM an unattainable goal give everything-else happening or not happening in my community.

I marveled at the luxury of a real Board of Directors and local community support for West Hartford Community TV. I really marveled. I am trying to nurture a community station whose town leadership wants to put the public face of access out-of-business and underwrites government TV production with more than 2 x the budget of the non-profit public channel in recent days this has become even more challenging. Maybe another blog entry.

In summary some said sometimes efforts are not even grassroots they are just sowing seeds. Seeds need much to take root.... I wonder if there is a building community that will nurture the seeds. I am not even certain of my own resolve.

If I might be disrespectful….

Today I was out-of-order and publicly chastised for thanking two individuals for a courageous vote. It was partly the room and the dynamics. It is not like I was really trying to be rude or intending to be rude. In fact it was totally unintended this rude thing. It was probably more rude to consider my gesture rude. The intention was to respect the efforts of the community of volunteers that worked hard to serve their community but failed to get serious consideration because of agendas. So my actions were declared rude because they disrupted control and a façade of decorum.

If I could have slipped the thank-you note down the aisle I would have considered it…but that was not an option. A smile or wink could not be seen. And the gesture was a public one intentionally.

A few weeks prior teachers and parents actually were disrespectful, but they were not chastised. They were a mob and some behaved as such and most were not informed at all about the process for which they were gathered. How many votes needed or how the agenda works.

But what was rude was 8 years of service and one phone call demanding a public admission of an error I did not make. No this was actually malevolent.

What is worse than rude is lying. And my accuser is certainly confirmed as that.

What is even more significant is that personal attacks from a true fraud were part of the larger dynamic. In the last election I changed my vote for two people who are now serving as Town Councilors. Even with candidates of my choice failing to win I have never felt I voted wrongly. But two people on my local Town Council have shown me what two faces mean and at least next time around I know clearly who will not be getting my vote. And I just may be motivated to share this opinion widely.

Would I have done anything differently tonight - Nope.

ps. I have this thing about pictures being informing. A picture of me at a microphone is pretty uninforming. So I prefer action shots. And I was trying to create action.

Siloing by Design

A silo is a place where fodder is preserved and stored to provide nutritious feedstuff for livestock. A silo is also where guided missiles are stored. As such siloing appears to be an apt description of how some communities restrict valuable resources. For example having funding and functionality for Public Education and Government Access TV distinctly restricted versus treated as Community Access resources is siloing. Since some believe the content of community access is ‘food for thought’ and others consider it an ‘ever present danger’ it seemed to me to be a fit usage of the term.

the error of our ways, my daily bread

Today this email tag-line quote caught my attention because it spoke truth to me "From error to error one discovers the entire truth" — Sigmund Freud. The quote is in the world on several lists of notable quotes.

I am reminded that as a child I hoped to be quoted in Reader's Digest when I grew up. I have not scratched this notion off my life list. Such an honor represented wisdom and fame, today it represents a list that I value because of its accessibility.

These days I wish that my typos were less predictable and that the communist plot to make us all alike idea, inspired by the standardization of communication represented by the typewriter, never entered my 10 year old mind. I never learned to type and it is required of me daily. So I fumble and err along this path of life touching a keypad that is almost as foreign to me today as it was in mandatory typing class circa 1970. Hands and eyes do not coordinate and the mind is always full speed ahead so as never to be caught up.

My day job is full of root cause analysis of errors; and errors have been steadily informing my work because errors force me to see alternate views in data, process, behavior. So the error to error concept about the discovery of truth feels real. I valued its appearance in my day. Some days I just wish there were less errors to contend with. Other days I appreciate the skill sets of doctors, pilots, engineers, all the more because soft jobs can more safely survive if not error-free.

Some days I believe strongly that poems can not have errors? Those days are fewer and I claim less the error free moments in art. In art error reveals differently, right. Or is that a spin on errors begetting truth? Can a body politic learn lessons from errors in history or is error a perspective and therefore a version of truth? I believe that errors have nine lives much the same way my cat has 99 lives. Now that is an error the cat can live with until 100. I think poems attract me because no one can say with certainty if there is an error in a poem. Sometimes poems become quotable. So back to the quote, is its value conferred by the number of lists it has succeeded to reside within or the kindled at the root of its original inspiration and again each time it is read. Quotes definitely out spawn poems. Do error out spawn truth?

Well I have errors to recover from so blogging off now is my truth.