internet video Posts

• Quakers going Pagan? A Firm and Loving "No"
  This may be a somewhat new phenomenon to Streib, but it's not to Evangelical Friends. So how do I answer Streib's question? As Evangelical Quakers in Evangelical Friends Church Southwest, the answer is a firm and loving "No".
  (tags: quaker quaker.evangelical)
• Quakers Engaging Jon signs off (for now?)
  Originally I created this blog to be a non-threatening discussion board for people in the Tacoma community. It turned into a forum for unprogrammed and semi-programmed and programmed Friends to interact, share perspectives, and learn from one another.
  (tags: quaker quaker.blogs)
• Twittering a backchannel live feed of a city council meeting!
  I quickly learned that there was a video feed (which I’m working on finding an archive of), and others were watching from afar. And before I knew it…my twittering turned my timeline into a back channel for the Philadelphia City Council Public Hearing
  (tags: tech tech.internetculture comment)

• Video on Christian Quaker outreach
  A short video about the CQIM (Christian Quaker Internet Mission).
  (tags: quaker quaker.christian quaker.videos)
• YouTube: Quakers: Woolly-minded liberals?
  A British Friend gives a video response to a recent editorial.
  (tags: quaker quaker.videos quaker.conservative)

I recently applied for a position at a well-known Quaker social justice organization and decided to put together something of an activist resume. The resume I usually circulate understandably focuses on my tech work and professional experience and tries the impossible task of downplaying the Quaker connection (I've almost heard the application being crumpled on the other end of a phone interview when I've tried to explain what an "Advance and Outreach Coordinator" does!). I should have known that in the Bizarro World that is Quaker peace activism I wouldn't even get a sit-down interview for a job I'm professionally over-qualified for, but putting together this alternative time line was kind of fun so I'll share it here.

1987: Internship, United Farm Workers. Staffed petition drive out of NYC office, planned Philadelphia-area appearances by Cesar Chavez. I even got to do a little ghost writing for Cesar!

Late 1980s: Core member of Students Against Sexual Stereotyping, Villanovans Against Racism, VCACA (Central America solidarity) and other college-based social justice initiatives.

1988-9: Editor, The VACUUM, an alternative weekly for Villanova University. Most notably raised campus awareness around issues of acquaintance rape. Such a proto-blog publication, I should repost some of those articles someday! Right: vintage picture from the yearbook.

1991: Intern, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Peace Committee. Participated in anti-recruitment counseling, preparation of Camden NJ's Newton Friends Meeting for tutoring program.

1991: Member, Corn Rice and Beans affinity group. Street theater, etc., started vigils for first Gulf War on west side of City Hall.

1991: Founding member, Philadelphia anti-war coalition.

1992: Organizer of responses to Christopher Columbus re-enactment ships' arrival in Philadelphia. Participated in various actions that acted as core of Philadelphia Inquirer coverage (article behind paywall but starts "Hey, Columbus, ya shoulda stayed home. Shouldn't have come to America. Definitely shouldn't have come up the Delaware. The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria... sailed into Philadelphia yesterday..., expecting a hero's welcome. Instead they got bludgeoned by the vast array of anti-Columbus forces.")

1994-6: Founding member, Philly Food Not Bombs. Collected food & served at area protests and at weekly meals in West Philadelphia.

1993: Acquisitions Editor onStopping Rape: A Challenge for Men by Rus Ervin Funk.

1994-7: Board member, New Society Educational Foundation. Served as treasurer in critical time of transition.

1995: Acquisitions Editor, With Hiroshima Eyes: Atomic War, Nuclear Extortion, and Moral Imagination by Joseph Gerson. A co-publication with the American Friends Service Committee.

1995: Acquisitions Editor, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel. Still listed as a top-40 book on racism by Amazon.com.

1995-present: Founder, Nonviolence.org. One of the first peace-focused internet portals. Through this project served as webmaster to numerous national U.S. peace groups including War Resisters League, Fellowship of Reconciliation and Pax Christi USA.

1996: Fellowship, Friends Institute of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to support Nonviolence.org development.

1997-8: National Committee Member, War Resisters League.

1998: Profile, New York Times, "Iraqi Crisis Increases Activity on Peace Network" (Feb 21). Headlining article in CyberTimes edition. Still have desk and bookshelves, cat was old girlfriend's.

1998: Featured Op-Ed, USAToday, "Missiles Aren’t the Answer" (Nov 16th).

1998: Featured Guest, Oliver North Radio Show (Nov 16). To my everlasting regret, Ollie had a guest host on Mondays and I was eviscerated by his fill-in!

2000: Video/Web Transfer Editor, Philadelphia Independent Media Center. Edited and transfered raw footage of the Republican National Convention to the Philadelphia Indymedia.org website. I should dig up my protest videos and post them sometime.

2005: Fellowship, Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment for Quaker Leadership Program. Named after long-time AFSC Executive Director and his wife, fellowship supported development of new online magazine.

2006: Organized media campaign to support members of Christian Peacemaker Teams kidnapped in Iraq. Created syndicated news feeds for both activist and Quaker audiences.

Related: professional resume, workshops and publications list, list of organizations I've worked with, LinkedIn profile.

I've finally started getting internet video down. Next up will have to be Francis's "sleepy song."

Nonviolence.org readers may not be aware that my personal site has been the talk of the political internet for the last few days. Since posting an account of getting a phone call from a CBS News publicist, I've been linked to by a Who's Who of blogging gliteratti: Wonkette, Instapundit, The Volokh Conspiracy, Little Green Footballs, RatherBiased, etc. For a short time yesterday, the story was a part of the second-ranked article on Technorati's Politics Attention index.

A hack from CBS News called me to say they were doing a program on an issue that's central to Nonviolence.org's mandate: conscientious resistance to military service. After looking over the material, I thought the interviews of resisters who have fled to Canada would be interesting to my readers and so wrote a short entry on it. Thinking it all a little funny that a publicist would care about Nonviolence.org, I mentioned the incident in the "Stories of Nonviolence.org" section of my personal site. One by one the leading political sites of the blogosphere have run the story as further proof of the vast left-wing mainstream media conspiracy. It's rather funny actually.

I have to wonder is who's kidding who with all this feigned outrage? For those missing the irony gene: the Nonviolence.org PayPal account currently has a balance $6.18, the bulk of which comes from the last donation--$5.00 back on November 20th. My corner of the left wing conspiracy is funded by the vast personal wealth I accumulate as a bookstore clerk.

Wonkette's pages advertise "sponsorship opportunities," she's a recent cover girl on New York Times Magazine, her husband is an editor at New York magazine and in October she cashed out her blogging fame for a $275,000 advance for her first novel ("It's not Bridget Jones does Washington, it's Nick Hornby does politics": good grief). Eugene Volokh has clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Sandra Day O'Connor), teaches law at UCLA and just had a big op-ed in the Times. Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds teaches law at the University of Tennessee, has served on White House advisory panels, and is a paid correspondent for MSNBC. Yet he, like the others, calls a two minute phone call "recruiting"?

I'm beginning to think the real interest comes from the fact that this top tier of bloggers is totally in bed (literally) with the MSM. Their income comes from their connections with media and political power. Their carefully-crafted fascade of snarkish independence would crumble if their phone logs were made public. They're not really blogging in their pajamas, folks.

By mentioning the existance of blog publicists, I've threatened to blow their cover. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtains: my social gaffe was in publicly admitting that the mainstream media courts political blogs. Kudos to journalist Derek Rose on admitting the practice:

But why shouldn't a news organization's publicity department court bloggers? As a MSM member, I get emails from TV flacks all the time promoting their scoops. From ABC, for example, I've received emails regarding a tape they got of the Beltway sniper's call to the Rockville police; Barbara Walters' Hillary Clinton interview; and their 'Azzam the American' video ... as well as a Rush Limbaugh drug laundering story that never panned out. I even got attention from publicists when I was working for a newspaper that didn't have a 20th of the circulation of Instapundit...

Rose aside, there's incredible distortion in the "reporting," a term I have to use very loosely. Wonkette says "Kelley claims that a CBS minion put the screws to him to post something about a '60 Minutes' package on conscientious objectors" yet all readers have to do is follow the link to see I never said anything like that. Why do the cream of bloggers feel like a posse of self-absorbed seventh graders? When I started Nonviolence.org back in 1995, I thought the brave new political world of the internet might be All the President's Men. Boy was I wrong: it turns it's just Heathers. God help us.