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« October 2007 | Main | December 2007 »
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 09:29:21
Why even bother having a Cable Administrator?
I have been unnecessarily unkind towards Susan Thomas, author of the Mountain Street Memo, in a couple of my blog postings of late. I’m still annoyed by the memo, but for most folks it just looks like another political street fight - for which we are rightly famous in Fayetteville.
There are several things that we will be discussing (debating?) Thursday night at the Issue Forum sponsored by Fayetteville’s Telecomm Board. One of the key items is the role of Cable Administrator, and their role in the grand scheme of things.
I still remember the huge political battle in Fayetteville over the decision to install the position in the early 1990s. Fayetteville Open Channel (of which I was a board member) felt that having a cable Administrator was a huge offense to not only us, but to the people of Fayetteville.
We were public access, we cried - why should we be accountable to anyone? Well, not in those exact words, but pretty close. Oversight over a city contractor?
Heresy!
The dark hand of government would soon be interfering with public access programming, telling us what to have on, and what not to have on. Some on the FOC Board thought that was a bunch of hooey, and we were fighting amongst ourselves as furiously as we were with the city.
To say that we looked unprofessional would be the understatement the century. Finally, in November 1991, eight board members of FOC resigned during a board meeting - on live television. They later founded Access 4 Fayetteville, which competed for (and won) the access contract.
4F later morphed into C.A.T.
In 1992 Shea Crain became the first Cable Administrator, followed by Marvin Hilton. While both became a little too fond of paperwork for the liking of some, there can be no doubt of either’s fierce determination to protect both the Government Channel and public access, often under unsympathetic city administrations.
Many cities across the United States have Cable Administrators. I think often in Fayetteville we don’t actually look at other cities and see what works before blundering into ill-advised plans. Maybe before we think of tinkering - or demolishing - a system that works pretty well, we should examine why it works so well across the country.
C.A.T. is doing pretty well, and probably doesn’t need much oversight - right now.
But it doesn’t matter that today C.A.T. is doing an exemplary job, or that we have a city administration that at least goes through the motions of being progressive. We plan for the future. We always have. We always do. Someday C.A.T. may have an incompetent board of directors or an incompetent manager (the same danger that all non-profits face), or we may have a city adminstration opposed to free expression of ideas, or discussion of issues on the Government Channel.
That’s why we have this system in place, in preparation for the day that may happen.
The C.A. is part of the public’s safety net. If you remove that, and you end up dealing with what amounts to a glorified clerk (with no authority), who benefits from that?
Monday, November 26, 2007 - 10:11:33
Thursday night issue forum - and the race is on!
I like to beat up a lot on the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, but today they’ve got a humdinger of an editorial:
Here we go again
The usual suspect: Cable TV
The editorial gives a pretty good overview of what the debate is about in Fayetteville this week concerning the debate over the Mountain Street Memo, and the proposed changes to the Government Channel.
Thank you, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
I’ll be Johnny One-Note this week, as most of what I write will be about our upcoming issue forum dealing with this on Thursday night. I’ll try to make each entry fairly interesting, though.
******
On the Air with Dick Bennett
Running an older show I did with Dick Bennet, founder of OMNI, this week. It’s about how people’s perceptions are manipulated through the media.
It may be a few years old, but the information that Bennett imparts still holds true.
Days and times:
Monday - 7pm
Tuesday - noon
Saturday - 6pm
*****
I hate my scanner
Off to Kinkos to scan photos for my article and book/DVD reviews. Why, Kinkos, you ask? Are you too cheap to spring for a scanner?
No, after seven years and about twelve million images scanned, my scanner decided that enough was enough and decided to die - at the most inopportune moment.
I guess my warranty has probably run out by now, huh?
Friday, November 23, 2007 - 00:20:45
Getting frostbite for my new TV
Ah - Thanksgiving Day news - could it honestly be that nothing really happens but feeding the hungry and people lining up for Black Friday sales? If people want heartwarming stories they can watch Lifetime - give me some news, damn it!
One bizarre news report was about an entire family camping out in front of a popular electronics store. Actually, the whole piece was sort of a glorified ad for the store in question.
What amused (and frightened me, a little - be honest, Drake) was the matriarch of the family saying that they passed the time away during the night by reading the store sales catalog.
Thank God it had lots of pictures.
It might be nice sometime when a television station runs these pieces showcasing people who wait in line for ages in the cold darkness, if they would interview a mental health professional.
But then, I guess that would offend the retailers who buy ad time on the station.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 10:24:15
Death and the Sisters
Well, Brother Dan Coody has decided not to run in 2008, thus ending much - but not all - speculation as to his future. I’ll write my own thoughts on this later. But today, I’d like to write about something that is very important to me - domestic abuse.
I have had many friends who have been victims of abusers, and have known many abusers. Many of them seem to go from home to home, leaving a path of fear and destruction in their wake. For some time now I have wondered this:
Why - when people get a marriage license - can’t they be informed if their potential spouse has ever been convicted of domestic abuse? What would it take to get somebody in the Arkansas state legislature interested in this?
I wrote this story in 1993, for the short-lived Fayetteville Begin.
Death and the Sisters
Written by Richard S. Drake
"I made a quiet move over night. The guy I was living with turned out to be somewhat of a nut case." Twenty-eight year old Stella Marie Vidler wrote those words to her one of her sisters in early 1993. Before the month was over, she would be dead, victim of a man who "loved" her. In fear, she was obliged to move from one residence to another after leaving the home she had shared with 47 year old Donald Erwin, a respected Dallas fire fighter, and Vietnam Veteran.
That spring, Stella found herself looking at her lover with new eyes, after her pulled a gun on her after an argument. Before this, he had displayed evidence of severe instability, going so far as to forbid her to speak to other men. He had also instructed her on how she should dress. Earlier in the year, he had been jealous when she had hugged male relatives at her
grandmother's funeral.
She sought temporary shelter, first with her ex-husband, then a sister, and finally a friend. Stella was eventually able to find an apartment where she hoped that she would be safe from Erwin.
She was wrong.
Stella told her sister in Texas that Erwin had told her new landlady that she was his run away daughter. She said the landlady obliged the grateful "father" by affirming that she was on the premises.
Erwin began calling Stella in an attempt to win her back. He continued to by her presents, which she accepted, though they were no longer a couple. One of the last presents he gave her was an ankle bracelet.
Why did she accept the gifts? Perhaps you just don't turn down presents from a man who might pull a gun on you.
On June 29th, as she was leaving her job at Texas Instruments, Donald Erwin accosted Stella in the employee parking lot. Evidently, he was trying to force her into a van which he had rented. She fought with him furiously, screaming for help. At some point in the struggle, he fired a bullet into her head, causing instant brain death.
Leaving behind the fallen Stella and the rented van, he sped away in her new car. He was not located until the day after her funeral, when the Dallas Police found the car parked four blocks away outside a hotel, where he had been renting a room for almost two weeks before the killing. Insidethey found Erwin's body, a "victim"of suicide.
Though her brain was dead, Stella's body clung to life long enough for her mother to arrive from Arkansas and see her child a bare two hours before death. She was no longer recognizable as a human being, but instead was sunken in on herself. "Her body looked like a blow up doll," her mother said later.
End of story.
Well, not quite. Besides the sister living in Texas, Stella had another sister, Vina Mae Thompson, who lived through a similar experience some years ago.
Vina, a victim of childhood sexual abuse, spent much of her adult life getting involved with men who sought victims, and saw natural prey in the slightly built young woman. Several years ago Vina was living with a man whose mood swings were unpredictable, and who had put her into the hospital on several occasions. He had also sexually assaulted her with a Coke bottle.
Though they broke up several times, they always reconciled.
On September 18th, 1989, Vina went to a local pawn shop and bought a 22 pistol for the sum of $55.65. It was money which her boyfriend had given her, wanting her to have "protection." That afternoon, according to Vina, he attacked again, knocking her to the floor, promising that she was finally going to get what was coming to her. She later claimed that he had a knife.
Vina shot and killed him, pumping several bullets into him. Because the Battered Women's Defense was not used at her trial, the past violence could not be mentioned in court.
Vina Mae Thompson lives today in an Arkansas prison, if you can call that sort of existence living.
The difference between the two sisters would have been like visiting two different countries. Stella was a popular employee who had just been promoted, while Vina, diagnosed as having a lower than average IQ, was never able to get her life in order. She drifted from one undesirable man to another, from dead end job to dead end job.
Though Stella never discussed Vina very much with the rest of her family, one can easily imagine that she must have thought about her in her last few months, while Donald Erwin made her life a hellish nightmare. Indeed, it was to Vina that Stella wrote the lines about having to leave overnight.
She told other employees that he had threatened to kill both her and her daughters. Surely she was aware of how Vina's attempts to save her own life had only guaranteed her another prison.
So Stella fought Erwin using the law, filing an assault charge against him after he pulled the gun on her in the spring. The police were unable to protect her, since aside from the firearm incident, he did nothing illegal up to the day he shot her down in the parking lot.
Vina Mae, who took the law into her own hands and killed a man, will be out of prison
someday, perhaps reshaping here life into something meaningful, finally able to put her pain
behind her. Stella Marie has only a cold grave.
End of story.
Fayetteville Begin, August, 1993
Monday, November 19, 2007 - 12:04:29
Mountain Steet Memo - a worker's nightmare?
Now that the dust seems to have settled over the unfortunate “rednecks on the square” remark, cooler heads are comparing Mayor Coody’s convenient photo op with city workers on Friday with the actual treatment of workers in the Cable Administration, and asking the following question:
Which is more indicative of this city administration’s attitude towards its own employees?
Photo ops - which no doubt can be used on campaign literature? Or stripping long-time employees of their self-respect as they are kicked out the door?
How long before Dan Coody and Susan Thomas begin cowering behind the old, “Well, this is a Right to Work State, you know,” mantra?
******
Public Information Coordinator - Looks like a job for Buffy the Vampire Slayer
But even more than a hypocritical attitude towards its own workforce - and people are sitting up and taking notice of that - is the question of government accountability.
The newly proposed Public Information Coordinator, who seems to have three jobs in one, still has a role that is ill-defined in the scheme of things. This glorified clerk would seem to be:
1) taking on some of the duties of the receptionist at the PEG Center,
2) Most of the duties of the Cable Administrator,
3) the public information responsibilities of the neighborhood coordinator - another axed employee,
4) plus - quoting directly from the memo: “carry the added the responsibility of working with the Public Information and Policy Advisor to develop a communications plan that will better utilize available resources such as the Government Channel, the City Website, and city newsletters/updates to provide accurate, timely information about City programs, projects, and services."
This is a bad joke, right? What’s next? Seal off the Hellmouth?
I thought about finishing off with a riff about good bosses versus bad bosses, but I think my work here is done.
Sunday, November 18, 2007 - 11:02:42
The infamous "memo" - when is a plan not a plan?
Excellent overview of the whole Government Channel situation in Greg Harton’s editorial in the Northwest Arkansas Times today. It’s a very complicated subject, made even more so by the infamous memo which was delivered to us all this week, which seemed almost deliberately vague as to what the future would hold.
It’s not even a plan . It’s more like a plan to have a plan - after you get rid the employees that you don’t want, and the types of programming you don’t to see on the Government Channel.
There is just so much that is short-sighted about the plan. I know that some at C.A.T. have had problems with Marvin Hilton, the current cable Administrator, and may be celebrating the fact that the plan calls for his removal. But this is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. The celebration is, in fact, so short-sighted that it takes one’s breath away.
You simply have to take Marvin Hilton out of the equation, and think in more realistic terms.
Having the Cable Administrator in place is part of the safety rung the public has in place, in the PEG system. Plans in the memo call for a sort of Public Information Coordinator - someone whose duties have not actually been determined as of yet - who may not actually have much contact with the public.
From the description in the memo, the Coordinator may well be just a glorified clerk, more accountable to masters in City Hall than to the public.
Who benefits from that? Well, not the public, that’s for damned sure.
And even if Hilton is forced out by the folks in City Hall, the removal of a man who has worked so diligently on behalf of the public in Fayetteville for over ten years is incredibly disrespectful. If it is time for Marvin Hilton to leave, his exit should be negotiated so that he can leave with more self-respect and dignity than his bosses are affording him.
Their current attitude borders on outright contempt.
******
Candy Clark - Chapter Two?
From the Northwest Arkansas Times
Because of Zimmer's statement, Coody intends to suggest a change in city code that would require all members of city committees, commissions and boards to refrain from rude, derogatory or abusive comments.
Thursday night a Telecomm Board member made a remark that was inappropriate - to put it mildly. To be honest, it went right over my head until after the meeting. But as Chair, I am responsible for the behavior as Telecomm Board members, so I will write letters to newspapers and the City Council apologizing for his behavior.
But this proposed change in city codes that would require bar everyone to refrain from behavior that is rude or abusive? Who determines what is rude or abusive? The Civility Police?
This may well give the mayor the ability to go around Candy Clarking (remember her?) anyone who is overly sarcastic, sharply critical, or refuses to abandon a line of questioning that City Hall doesn’t like.
*****
Photo Ops from Heaven
Dan Coody is a red bandana?
Ye gods.
****
At last - some good TV news this week
Kudos to the folks from “Abbey of the Lemur,” who were profiled in the Northwest Arkansas Times today.
***
Quote of the Day
I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. Censors only read a book with great difficulty, moving their lips as they puzzle out each syllable, when somebody tells them that the book is unfit to read. - Robertson Davies
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 10:12:39
C.A.T. critics finally getting what they want?
While people can’t really say that they can be surprised if C.A.T. and the Government Channel take some sort of hit in the current financial crisis hitting the city of Fayetteville, the proposed $70,000 cut is an amount that some see as a potentially crippling blow to one of the most successful programs the city of Fayetteville has ever supported.
From the Northwest Arkansas Times:
http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/59247/
The proposal also includes $ 70, 000 in cuts labeled “ departmental reorganization” for the Cable Administration and Long Range Planning. Becker, after the meeting, would not explain those cuts and deferred to Gary Dumas, director of operations.
When asked whether reorganization meant that people will be fired, Dumas only repeated” a memo will be released Friday. “
Both Community Access Television and the Government Channel have helped to make Fayetteville’s electorate one of the most informed in the state - as well as giving them an ability to speak out on local issues.
Both channels have made the mayor’s office less than happy over the years. Many of those critical of Dan Coody have used C.A.T. to discuss his policies.
Odd that the “memo” that will be released Friday will come the day after the November Telecomm Board meeting, when such a “departmental reorganization” should be discussed publicly. So much for respect - not only for process, but for the people of Fayetteville.
Long-time C.A.T. critic Joey Dutton was busy this past week communicating with City Hall with his own PEG Center “restructuring” plan. Dutton, who lives in Houston, likes to refer to C.A.T. as a “cult.”
It would be interesting if the Public and Government part of the PEG system found themselves threatened, but the Educational part sailed through without financial scratch.
Would it really be a PEG system after all that?
I guess we’ll have to wait till Friday, and the much anticipated memo.
******
Product placement and ABC News
Watching ABC World News last night during a piece on how the rising cost of gas was affecting American consumers, the on-air correspondent did a run down, saying that for the extra amount Americans were paying for gas, they could purchase several items for their families - including two Dell laptop computers for their kids.
Wow - not just any computers, but Dell computers. Since when did they become the only computer company in the world?
Maybe folks at ABC should wear a bracelet around their wrists, with the letters, WWPJD - What Wouldn’t Peter Jennings Do?
*****
Quote of the Day
Anyone who maintains absolute standards of good and evil is dangerous. - Tom Robbins
Dan Coody - the last hurrah?
Mike Masterson - what were you thinking?
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