April 2005 Archives

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | The Register

A fair review, without spoilers (but some hints for things to look for). I'm seeing it tonight.

Radical Hapa: GA every other year?

I believe GA could be even larger if it was every other year, and the time and money spent in the off-year could truly mobilize and transform district, statewide and regional UU relations.

The concept is one I'm familiar with too, and an idea I would be interested to discuss with other candidates for the GA Planning committee.

This short bio of me is taken from the Elections page at UU World Magazine.

Donald has worked in the Michigan and Heartland districts for over eight years on the youth, young adult, and communications committees and as part of the group reimagining district programming in the creation of the Heartland District. Currrently working as a K–12 swim coach and tech support at an Internet service provider, he has faith in our ability to come together for the common good and a tenacious willingness to work towards that end.

Tim Fitz has a blog. He's been a YRUU leader and an intereting voice in the UU world for the past couple years. I just posted on his blog a response to what he posted about recent happenings with the YRUU Steering Committee and the UUA staff.

The Church of the Younger Fellowship has a domain and site, if not much of anything in the way of content. Here's to the CYFers out there.

UU World Magazine has announced that it will go Quarterly starting with the September issue, and have weekly (ie more frequent than now) updates to it's site. I'm of mixed minds on this. One of the problems UUism has already is it's lack of exposure to the non-UU world. I'll be pleased if going Quarterly also involves getting UUWorld increasing its print numbers so it sends copies to Libraries and we get on the shelves of bookstores. I wonder if we could get Booksense and its member stores to stock us?

NPR : This I Believe

I've heard over the years much of Murrow's original essays, and am quite excited to hear that this programme is being conducted again.

I hope NPR can find a way of getting the essays published in papers, and re boradcast on other radio stations, as THEN this could have as much a impact as the original.

The following has been taken from Joseph Santos-Lyon's blog at:
Radical Hapa: Youth Ministry Associate

Jesse Jaeger Director of the UUA Youth Office informed me this afternoon that this letter from UUA President is officially public. I support the Youth Office in their efforts to manage both the transition and their professional responsibilities.

April 11, 2005

Dear YRUU Steering Committee,

The events of the recent Steering Committee meeting may very well reflect anxiety about change and uncertainty about power as we engage in a process of examining our ministry to and with youth.

Whatever the reasons, the Steering Committee’s demand that UUA staff leave the meeting so that SC alone could decide on the September YPS recommendation was clearly outside the boundaries of established procedures. Excluding the people who would work with and be responsible for the YPS staff, and refusing to discuss the issues interfering with collaboration, moved SC outside of right relationship with UUA staff to an extent that needs to be acknowledged. At this point, proceeding with “business as usual” is not possible.

I've not seen any discussion in the UU blososphere about the elections at this upcoming General Assembly in Forth Worth. I'll state up front that I'm running for GA Planning Committee at General Assembly this year, but this post I'm submitting as a catalyst for online discussion.

There is a UUA Page about the elections, with the slate as it will be presented to the delegates attending GA and mailed to congregations ahead of time. Missing from the linked ballot are the positions of President, Moderator, and Financial Advisor. There is no contest for those positions.

The only contested elections at GA follow, with the Nominating Committee nominee's marked * :

Commission on Social Witness – two to be elected

• *Catherine Blue
• *David May
• Jan Carlsson-Bull

Planning Committee – four to be elected , 4-year term

• *Barbara Atlas


• *Fred Cole


• *Donald Wilson


• Carol Agate


• Lynda Bluestein


• Karen Araujo

I'm waiting, rather impatiently, for the May/June issue of the UU World Magazine and it's section on the elections, now available online. It also has a listing of the entire slate, candidate bios, and statements if issued by the candidates.

I was surprised how little I heard off the elections before those in Cleveland in 2001. I heard very little, and saw less, in my congregation at the time. My only information came from the UU World, and I didn't have a CLUE who I was going to vote for until I go TO GA, watched the forums, and read the fliers. At that time, I was woefully ignorant of the UU Blogosphere, and I'm sure it was in it's infancy then.

Here's looking forward to blog-based debates. Who is going to harness the power of the internet before GA, like a UU Howard Dean? Maybe I need to get some videos online...

The ex-Presbyterian presents:
How to run a Goddamn meeting.

ChaliceChick posts on her own blog, and frequents a number of other UU blogs with posts, trackbacks, and comments of her own. I just read her post on how to run a meeting, which is both insightful, and funny.

1. Have an agenda and for the love of God, stick to it.

Definitely required. If you can't set up an agenda ahead of time, spend the first 10 minutes of the meeting creating it, THEN stick to it.

2. If you have two hours and fifteen minutes worth of stuff to say, plan two meetings.

The YAC in the old Michigan District had a 2 1/2 hour time limit on meetings. Anything not finished at that time had to be left to email or the next meeting. Weekend long meetings should never have individual sessions more than 2 1/2 hours long.

3. If people at the meeting need to have background information, put it in writing and send it to them beforehand.

Definitely. Said background information should arrive in each members hands no less than 1 week before the meeting itself.

4. If you’re doing something (like watching a DVD) in addition to the business portion of the meeting, do the business portion first.

I quote ChaliceChick: "Duh".

5. We aren’t Quakers, consensus is unnecessary.
So don’t ask me why I voted against your proposition. I know that an hour and forty five minutes into the meeting is a bad time to explain my nuanced position on the church’s support of social justice groups even if you don’t. I was outvoted anyway, so be happy with that.

There are some who will argue that consensus is necessary. I'll agree with CC, adding that if you want consensus, then that needs to be spelled out in the procedures the committee runs by, and that I've yet to find a consensus run body that has not lost entire swaths of voices, by way of persons unwilling to work inside a consensus model.

Also, procedures must also exist for use of a consensus model and the time it takes, and possibly going over timelines.

6. Once something is voted on, shut up about it.

You don't need to talk about these past decisions. They aren't the topics you're thinking of. Move along.

7. People who chose to work out things between themselves during the meeting sucketh mightily.

Leave time after the meeting is adjourned to have those discussions. 20 minutes should be enough.

8. Always keep the action in mind. Discussion should be moving toward a vote. Discussion of church history on any committee but the church history committee is punishable by severe beatings.

This one is rough for me. I've found many times where history of the group is very important to interject, especially if the group has high turnover, such as YRUU and Young Adult groups. UU's seem to have a hard time with institutional memory, and there are many times when it's helpful. More apt I think is asking ones self "Is this history and reflection moving us forward?"

9. Set a goal for the meeting. Achieve your goal. Adjourn.

That IS the point of any meeting isn't it? If you get done early, there's more time for coffee, beer, or skinny dipping, depending on the mentality of the group.

10. Lead the meeting, or I will start leading it.

Bad meeting facilitation is the death of getting real work done.

I've beeen neglecting a lot of things the past couple years. My music has been one, my learning another, self care ranks up there pretty high.

My self care has gotten better, if only because I drive my life at such a manic pace I don't have a choice, and also because I've moved in with Tessie and all that entails. This place I've lived for over 8 months now is staarting to feel like home, although my sense of home has been vague my entire life, prefering the company of loved ones over a place. Oddly and peerhaps aptly enough, this has been even more the case since I got my laptop. Give me a place to co-locate a server, a 1959 Eureka-Cadillac 53" Hi-Boy Ambulance, and I'll be all set.

Until then, I'm practicing pipes 20 minutes a day on my chanter, and taking half an hour+ per day Learning Perl.

It's good to have plans.

On August 23, 1779, the USS Constitution set sail from Boston loaded with 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of water, 74,000 cannon shot, 11,500 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum. Her mission: to destroy and harass English shipping.

On October 6, she made Jamaica, took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Three weeks later the Constitution reached the Azores, where she provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 6,300 gallons of Portugese wine.

On November 18, the ship set sail for England where her crew captured and scuttled 12 English merchant vessels and took aboard their rum. But the Constitution had run out of shot. Nevertheless, she made her way unarmed up the Firth of Clyde for a night raid. Here her landing party captured a whiskey distillery, transferred 40,000 gallons aboard and headed for home.

On February 20, 1780, the Constitution arrived in Boston with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no whiskey. Just 48,600 gallons of water.

Delocator.net

I like coffee. My friends, family and compatriots know this. I also have a bit of an aversion to the major corporate structures of the United States. I find it morally more appealing to support my local buisness owner.

That's where Delocator comes in. Type in your zip code, and it gives you a listing of all the independant coffee shops in that area. It's remarkably up to date too. It has the newest shops inn Ypsilanti added already.

I prefer Bombadill's Neighborhood Coffee House myself, where I am now.

Support your local buisness owners, and the local buisness owners in the towns you visit for work and pleasure.

Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival

I'm looking to put together a good sized group to go to this. It'll be a good time, and laughter will be sorely needed, even by then.

I've volunteered for another study at the University of Michigan. I'm awaiting confirmation of my screening bloodwork, but there should be no problems there.

I'm rather excited, as this will pay for most of General Assembly that isn't already paid for. It's also been a while since I've been in a study, as I've had trouble finding ones that I qualify for, and have been disqualified from a few as well.

Donald Wilson, Semi-Professional Guinea Pig. I'm all of a suddent being reminded of the show 2 Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place.

My Blog, My Outboard Brain by Cory Doctorow -- Cory Doctorow explains how blogging has given direction and reward to his "knowledge grazing," creating a repository that helps him connect the dots in the flow of information around him. This column is an excerpt from the upcoming O'Reilly book Essential Blogging.

The above is my goal. To do this I so need to further refine my blog mechanics and practice. I'm finding some of the tools I learned in my class Journal Workshop to be helpful in this sense. The Categorization is one such tool, similar to keeping multiple journals for different kinds of writing.

I'm looking about my desk and seeing all these books, being reminded of the need to properly organize them as well, to facilitate at the least my ability to organize the flow of information in and out of my brain. Books is the platform for doing this, but as yet I've been unable to not destory a CueCAT bar code reader in the process to facilitate speedier entry into the database.

With Queen playing in the background, I'll leave this post for the moment to go organize a bit more thought process.

The memorial service for Kelly Muzzi will be held at Birmingham Unitarian Church on
Saturday, April 23rd at 2:00 p.m.
There will also be two opportunities for visitation with the Thorne-Muzzi family, Saturday, April 9th, 1:00 - 5:00 and Monday, April 11th, 5:00 - 8:00.

I've now heard from one of her schoolmates that Kelly passed about 5am today.

I don't have many words. In fact, I'm leaving work now.

It is my sad duty to tell you that Kelly Muzzi, of Birmingham Unitarian Church, has been in an accident at school in Bennington, Vermont, and is unlikely to recover from her current coma.

From what I have been told, Kelly and her partner were dancing, and fell from a 3rd storey window to the pavment below.

Kelly worked with myself and others in the creation of the Heartland District and the DYSC, and was a wonderful and valuable person to have at meetings, keeping us centred on our goals and keeping us mindful of being a spiritual community.

I would ask you to keep Kelly, her family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.