Socially Relevant Doc Research

So I'm working on this new doc idea, on community engagement/local government.

I was thinking of covering it from the angle of the community board, which means i need to start going to the boards (both meetings and members) and identifying compelling characters or issues to focus on.

I also think it is essential that I get permission to film them during their daily lives, not just in meetings, since the point is that they volunteer and make time in their (presumably) busy lives for this crucial, rapidly disappearing, civic duty.

Choose one or two boards (complete list at http://www.nypl.org/branch/local/govt/commbd.html ). Basic info on boards (their function, ect. is at http://www.nyc.gov/html/cau/html/cb/place_in_gov.shtml

Considering bk board #1, which is williamsburg. http://www.billburg.com/community/
http://www.cb1brooklyn.org/cb1_cal.htm

There is also the city council http://www.nyccouncil.info/html/calendar/calendar_new.cfm , which gets paid and is something of a diffferent matter, yet local.

and the hate parade marches on...

I've been following the ENDA debate for a while now, and getting the thoughts of all sides has been an interesting experience. However, I am constantly dissapointed and shocked by the large number of self-proclaimed christian organizations which have been so aggressively and openly against the bill. The reasoning they give, that this would somehow give trans or gay people "special priviledges" -- as if the right to work, to make a living despite people's predetermined hatred for something you are, was some sort of privilege that the rest of us don't already have and experience as an inalienable right. As if they don't claim that privilege every day of their lives. As if they don't seek to claim it again, doubly for themselves and none for the LGBT community as it were, when they oppose ENDA as somehow burdening their "religious freedom" in employment practices. I've yet to hear how an employer's discomfort with the sexual orientation or gender expression of an employee might burden the employer's free exercise of religion, and maybe someone can explain that to my satisfaction but somehow I doubt it.

The sad fact is, this isn't at all an issue of freedom of religion. Its about freedom to discriminate, and to pretend otherwise is nonsense. The part that really turns my stomach though, is the way Christianity, supposedly a religion of love, is used to justify and validate this unconscionable hate-mongering. I am not personally a Christian, but there are elements of Christianity that I genuinely respect. I don't think intolerance was something Jesus preached, but hey, what do I know?

its midnight and ive been drinking...

hey, remember online quizzes?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

John McCain is a tool

Remember the good old days, about a year ago, when John McCain was totally commendable? A maverick free thinker who supported sensible policy even if if meant directly going against his own party. "Now thats backbone," I said to myself, and I'm sure many others. "That kind of principled action is what we need from the democrats."

Cut to 2007, when McCain decides to run for president, and promptly sells out everything he's ever stood for (coincidentally the things which made him popular and respected enough to run in the first place). When I saw today that he has called for Roe V. Wade to be overturned, and not even on the basis of some sort of intelligent legal argument but just spewing the standard Republican reactionary buzzwords (ie activist judges) I had a physical urge to vomit.

Oh Senator McCain, how low you have fallen and how disappointing for all of us who hoped you stood for a better, more reasonable brand of politics. Ambition blinds all men, i suppose, but yours is a special kind of betrayal. If your campaign advisers convinced you that you could pander to the far right like this and still win back the moderates and undecided liberals, I assure you that they were mistaken. You sold out too openly, too completely. No amount of spin or snappy ads will make us forget. You traded your moral high ground to become the pet and puppet of the Republican party, and I'm afraid you only get to switch sides once per election cycle.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wretch.

ugh.

The thing that most boggles my mind about this most recent incarnation of the ongoing Iraq debate is the way that it is still being described in the media as some sort of partisan squabble. Its all "Bush says this," "Democrats do this in response". Meanwhile, the substantive issues (which one hopes are driving the political squabble, altough its hard to say these days) are being ignored as if they do not matter in the least, when in fact they have never been higher.

What has yet to be said publicly, at least to my knowledge, is that this debate over the Presidents "troop surge strategy" is not just another dems v repubs power play. It reflects important questions being raised over our Iraq strategy.

What can the U.S. hope to accomplish in Iraq? At this point, is there any way to avoid a civil war (which, like it or not, we bear some responsibility for starting no matter what the politicians like to say)? How do we know when are troops are still risking their lives for a concrete purpose and at what point are they in harms way only to defend one man's rep as the "liberator of Iraq"?

But most importantly, the question that NEEDS to be voiced right now (by someone in an actual position of authority), is how a surge of only 20,000 is supposed to do anything other than provide more cannon fodder for a war that we were never going to win. Had the president not already decimated our military, had he listened to his commanders and called for a surge of 300,000 or so back when we actually had that many troops to deploy, I think there would be much less democratic opposition. With 300,000, there is a strong possibility of accomplishing something.

I care about the men and women in the armed forces. I also care about the people in Iraq, who are probably about to be caught in a bloody civil war. If there was anything we could do to help them, I would be behind our president 110%. However, 20,000 troops (as far as I can tell, I am no military expert. just a follower of common sense and logic) will probably not help either. And so I see no point in endangering further troops, or the regions where they will probably have to be taken from (I have heard Afghanistan, ect.)

Why can't the democrats articulate this properly? And what ever happened to "news analysis"? Spin isn't everything guys. Sometimes people want to know what is really going on.