Festivids Reveal: Fire Door (Friday Night Lights)

Title: Fire Door
Fandom: Friday Night Lights
Song Title: Fire Door (live)
Artist: Ani Difranco
Length: 3:14
Summary: "I started to feel like I was on the inside instead of the outside"
Content notes: A few brief instances of non-graphic domestic violence. Song has some ableist language.  A couple spoilers for the series.
Youtube | Download (102 Mb H.264 MOV) | Subtitles file

Password: door

( Notes )

( Lyrics )

Chatty January: practical organizing (the activisty kind)

luzula's prompt: what is the most important lesson you've learned about practical organizing during the years you've been active?

In a word (or, uh, two): replace yourself.

The fundamental idea behind this is that activism and political organizing is not about organizing events or campaigns, it's about organizing people.  It's about supporting people to develop the kind of skills and habits and motivation to organize themselves and each other.

And the big thing about this is that it takes more work, more time, and more effort to develop new members of a group than it does to just do stuff yourself. 

Let's say you're a part of a group that supports tenants who are organizing to fight for better conditions in their apartment building.  So you've knocked on doors, you've met a few people in the building who are pissed off about the mold and the deposit theft and want to fight the landlord.  One of the first things you all might want to know is information about the landlord.  Where are their other properties?  Do they have other business connections?  Where do they live? 

If you've done this type of organizing in the past, you might know exactly what websites and library resources and government offices you can use to get this information.  But the point isn't just to get the information, it's to support the new people you've met who want to develop their skills and be better organizers. 

So you work with them.  This might mean sitting with them in a coffee shop and looking up relevant information together.  It probably means inviting them -- and strongly encouraging them to come -- to future door-knocking.  It means role-playing with them so they can practice talking with their neighbors about issues affecting them. 

Even if they have previous organizing experience, most new people are not going to be as emotionally invested in a project as you are, just because they haven't been involved in it very long.  So it still means reaching out, calling them to ask what they think of the last rally or the latest decision the group made. 

If your group has open meetings, it means taking time to talk to new people who show up.  It also means reviewing how meetings work, how decisions are made, and so forth, at the beginning of meetings so that new people can follow what's happening and plug in.

This kind of work can build the overall capacity of an organization by focusing on developing *people*. 

I'm still taking prompts for future posts.

TV Meme: Days 7-8

Oops, I'm getting behind!

Day 07 - Least favourite episode of your favourite TV show:

Everytime people talk about the bad BtVS episodes, all I think about is the things I like about them.  Even "I Robot, You Jane" has Giles/Jenny fun, plus that great final scene:


(This image comes from tumblr, but I can't seem to track down the maker to credit them.)

Hmm.  Maybe "Bad Eggs".  That episode is pretty boring.  Or "Wrecked" -- not because it was as bad, in and of itself, as some other contenders, but because it threw Willow's arc a bit off course.  Before that, I think Willow had one of the strongest character arcs I've seen on television.  After "Wrecked", it was still strong, but it never worked quite as well for me.

Day 08 - A show everyone should watch:

I don't believe such a thing exists.  Sorry.

( 30 Questions )