April 2007 Archives
My package finally arrived in the mail. I've had the coffee pot for a while, but now I have the steamer, and having tested it, it works WONDERFULLY.
DM of the Rings is a web comic of a special nature. It's the story of a group of Dungeons and Dragons players, being lead through a huge campaign their dungeon master has created. To us the reader, that campaign is J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but to them it's something entirely new (although that doesn't make it a particularly good campaign).
The other neat thing is the artwork. Shamus Young has taken single frames from the recent Lord of the Rings films directed by Peter Jackson, and attached speech bubbles and the like to them. He is currently about half way through The Two Towers.
If you're not a role playing gamer, or you don't know any, a lot will likely go over your head. At the same time, I still think most anyone would find something to appreciate.
This is me waiting and writing at the coffee shop.
I did forget to add to My previous post: There are NO UU CONGREGATIONS in the section of the Upper Peninsula that the Heartland supposedly covers. I had a job lead in Sault Sainte Marie a while ago, and I had to use the UUA's congregation finder set to 250 miles to find a congregation. There wasn't a congregation in the UP closer than Marquette.
If there was, it might explain the synchronism between the following maps.
The top is a map of the Heartland District of the UUA. The green outline shows what we encompass. To the west of that is the Central MidWest District. The east portion of Ohio is the Ohio Meadville District. To the south and southeast is Thomas Jefferson District.
The second picture shows the division of the Upper Peninsula prior to Michigan Statehood in 1837. In the treaty after the Toledo War (or the Michigan-Ohio War), Michigan gave up rights to the Toledo Strip in exchange for the western portion of what is now the Upper Peninsula.
So my question is, WHY do these pictures mirror each other so well?! Is this some incredibly old Universalist Covention or Unitarian District boundary that we've just kept around for ages?
On FUUSE someone said that My comment of tearing apart our C*UUYAN leaders (see C*UUYAN: The Big Secret) and their work was a huge problem for him. I composed the following response...
The tearing apart you and I refer to shouldn't be the norm, which I see it to be now. I also fully admit that I'm actively involved in doing it, with these very posts.
But, that said, yes I said it should and will go on.
I'm referring to tearing down and apart in a very... philosophical way, though I know that it happens in a very real way, and I don't object to that on a base level as you seem to. There can be no healthy organisation that does not include a regular process of death and rebirth, same as we could not have a healthy forest or prairie without fire. People in our organisation will be hurt as we do our work. If there aren't, I would be more worried for our organisation than I am now.
I believe in the embracing of destruction, chaos, and baptism by fire. I do not believe that we always need ensure people are always happy, or feel good about what has happened. If I help create a C*UUYAN that does what is Right, adheres to and advances its mission and the mission of our Association, and will further the Good Work of UUism, but has no place for Me in it, then so be it.
Gini Courter, in her address to the General Assembly after a number of Youth and their Allies spoke to truths of racism and ageism in St Louis and our Association in general, mentioned an adage of the Information Technology world that I'm well familiar with: "In order to build good systems, you need to put the pain in the right place."
I would not presume to say the issues I reference in my above letter are equal to those of racism and oppression in our Association, though I believe a lack of openness and the appearance of secrecy can only exacerbate such issues as feelings of mistrust are given further fuel. Just as it is painful to unpack issues of racism, and painful to do the work dismantling institutions of oppression, it can be just as painful for individuals and communities to unpack and dismantle institutions of sustained deficiency, negligence, and wilful ignorance.
For too long have we allowed our institution to go about its work without facing the issues we've always known we have.
To tear apart... it has the connotation of violence along with it; A brutal, uncaringness about the object involved.
To dismantle... maybe that's a better term, as it implies more care.
What if I'd used the sentence "Yes, such openness will cause a good portion of the work the leaders are doing, and their individual actions, to be dismantled under scrutiny"? It is likely that many people would feel better about what they assumed would go on as part of this process, but I do not want to give the false impression that people, including Me, aren't going to be hurt by these processes.
Pain, and where we feel it, teaches us where there are problems.
Pain, and who causes it, gives us insight into how we can improve.
I can be one hell of a pain. These institutions, within C*UUYAN and beyond, have caused Me a LOT of pain.
Pain, and how we feel it, teaches us all different things. We need come together to share that pain, and what we have learned. Then, we will change, in response to that pain.
That change will cause pain.
And if we are vigilant, the pain we feel will be there, but manageable. If we regress, if we ignore the pain... well... we've all seen the destruction caused when a forest isn't allowed to burn on occasion. What should be a small blaze becomes a roaring inferno.
So yes, I support the burning of C*UUYAN and its leadership, in as much a controlled fashion as possible. When the flames die down, and the smoke clears, some will have fallen. Few will come out untouched.
The blossoms afterwards will be a sight to behold.
According to this report, a 15 year old student ended up spending 12 days in jail because his school forgot to account for daylight savings time when their Caller-ID system updated, and thus were mis-interpreting time stamps. Having a school principal say "Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time." to a kid that has never had detention is rather obscene.
C*UUYAN is the most secretive, inaccessible governance structure I have yet encountered in the UUA.
The C*UUYAN leadership (defined here as the Steering Committee, Conferences Planning Committee, GA Staff, and any appointed voices on those bodies such as the Liaison to the Board) doesn't meet very often in person, so much of it's work is done between these meetings via other communication means, be it email, conference calls, or the like. Very rarely do we as the populous of C*UUYAN actually see what goes on via these means. As a case in point, I went back over the past months since ConCentric, reading all I could find that was published by the YA/CM Office, CPC, and SC.
- April brings the call for ConCentric Resolutions (kudos for timliness this year), and a further revised version of the Alcohol and Substance Use policy.
- In March, neither the SC or CPC published anything about their work.
- In February, we found out what the staff selections were for Opus and ConCentric from the CPC, but nothing else.
- In January, nothing from either body.
- December brought us a brief letter from the head of the Steering Committee, of which but a single sentence stated what the SC had been up to, and that merely stated that they were "following up on" the work they have been tasked to do.
- November saw some more volume of writing, but most of it boiled down to "Apply for staff positions!". The minutes from the CPC September meeting were openly released, in a boiled down form.
- October probably saw the most activity, but only if one reads FUUSE. The letter from the CPC about the new alcohol policy came out, as did the announcements of who would be replaced those people removed from office. We also saw the ConCentric minutes, but they lack any revisions made to the resolutions.
- Lastly... The Heartland ConCentric representatives have nothing to report from the ConCentric Reps email list.
From all this, even as I review it all again tonight, I come to but a single conclusion: I have no idea what either the SC or CPC have been doing for the past 4 months, other than selecting staff for Opus and ConCentric.
As for the CPC, I can actually accept that to an extent. Our conferences deserve the best staffs they can get, and if all their time needs be spent finding and co-ordinating those staffs, so be it. Now, it'd be really nice to see a report on the staff selection process, how it was done, how numbers and perceived quality of applications have compared to previous years, what the CPC and the heads of each conference might think about the processes in general, and maybe that's all coming, but something more than "We feel great about the staff selections, here they are" is needed .
When it comes to the SC however, I cannot be so forgiving. From the above months, only 3 had any content from the SC, and one of those months we can discounted as useless, as mentioned before.
If I compare the SC to a congregational board, or to the UUA Board, I really do begin to wonder why it is I SHOULD support them to do the job I elected the SC members to do. They've not accounted for any of their actions, if they've taken any actions at all. I would want to see, as I get from every other committee group in this UU world, the individual reports of the members or task groups to the whole of the SC. If someone has been working on Project X, the status report of Project X from the committee member in charge of it should be a part of what the SC is reporting, even if it's a mere paragraph stating "We are indiscussions with several districts and their associated ROCs about Project X. Here is our expected timeline."
When a letter is sent or received by the SC, I don't always need to see that letter, but I do need to know that the exchange is going on. If the SC is sending letters to a body, but that body isn't responding, then we need to know that, because that is when the body of C*UUYAN can use the strength IT has, that the SC may not. The SC may be a governance and visioning body, but it's not an effective lobbying body, especially not without a mass of supporters from the general populous that they can only receive with forthright communication.
I do not think this stems from a desire of unfair oversight from a position of entitlement, or if I feel entitled it is only because I work with organisations that act on a basis of openness. I believe this to be the bare minimum required to begin being an accountable body, with this belief iis based in a decade of work in UU environments, as well as the public arenas with school boards, municipal, and county elected officials both volunteer and paid.
I need submit quarterly reports to My District Executive on the Heartland Young Adult and Campus Ministry Sustainability Corps activities, and I have to read those put out by the other committees. I read the UUA Board packets as they come out, and the minutes as well. Where is that kind of honesty on the part of C*UUYAN? Shouldn't we expect the same openness from C*UUYAN's leadership that we demand of our Committees of the Association, and Committees of the Board? Why shouldn't C*UUYAN be held to the same Openness Guidelines that we hold all other groups to?
We are a faith community that puts huge emphasis on process; we need look no further than a ConCentric plenary to see that. If we are so mindful of process then, how can we be satisfied with a final report of that process being presented at ConCentric, which often doesn't even include the process used, only the conclusions the leadership has made? Every organisation should have a policy book that outlines all the processes it uses. Where is C*UUYANs? How are meetings conducted? When? How can the populous access that body, those meetings?
I say the C*UUYAN leadership structures are secretive. The secret is how THEY (the SC, CPC, GA Staff) do OUR (C*UUYAN's) work. I have no idea how they do our work. Catch Me on a grumpy day, and I won't even imply that our work is actually being done, instead stating "I have no idea what the the Steering Committee and Conferences Planning Committee are doing".
If I were to write a request for information right now, based on what I know happened at ConCentric, and the published information since, it would be this:
- What communication has the SC had with the GA Planning Committee about alcohol consumption?
- What communication has the SC had with the offices of the Moderator, President, and Executive Vice President about alcohol consumption?
- Has there been any networking with the other groups in leadership at GA to get help in supporting changes to the environment at General Assembly surrounding inappropriate alcohol consumption?
- What is the status of the ConnectUU revision?
- Has there been a team assembled in response to the ConnectUU resolution?
- What has our Observer to the Board reported from the October and January meetings of that body? Are they going to the meeting this weekend? Is the Observer taking any questions for the Board from C*UUYAN?
- What process will the review of the RADIUS conferences go through?
- How will the SC effectively enact the GA Affordability resolution, with the most knowledgeable and skilled people C*UUYAN had to do that work having been removed by the CPC?
- What are the draft budgets for C*UUYANs work this year? Next year? Previous years?
- How is the work of the YA/CM Office delineated in the budgets, versus the work of C*UUYAN? Where can there be more clarity?
I happen to know the answers to some of those questions, but only because I am "in the know" and talk to a lot of people about UU politics in general. I'm part of a rumour mill. I wouldn't know the answers to any of those questions, if all I had to go on was what the SC and CPC has published to this point. If there were quarterly reports, a goodly number of those questions would be answered, some even with a single line or two.
If we want to stop the process where our Young Adult leaders are being torn to shreds as soon as they take office, the first step has to be for those leaders to open up all that is going on, because part of what makes it so easy for the leaders to be torn apart is that even they don't know enough of what each other are doing, let alone the larger populous that will soon be replacing them, or have a desire to help them, knowing what the leadership groups are doing. With each cycle of elections and appointments, we are knowingly entering into a situation where full competency in ones office is impossible, because no one ACTUALLY knows what has, is, or will go on.
Yes, such openness will cause a good portion of the work the leaders are doing to be torn apart under scrutiny. This scrutiny is one of the things that is so needed, as there are things we KNOW to be wrong, but until they are seen officially, we can't change them.
This openness will even cause the community to tear specific people apart for what they are or are not doing, but I don't believe at any faster rate than is already going on. In rather short order there will be the kind of revolution that results in a much cleaner, fairer, honest, and authentic organisation.
That is something I think we all want.
Clocky isn't new. I think I saw the prototype for it 2 years ago. What IS new, is that one can now buy Clocky from Nandahome.com.
Because who doesn't need an alarm clock that runs away and continues beeping until you find it and shut it off? Untill it rolls under the king size bed...
This quote has stuck out in My mind since I first heard it at a General Assembly a number of years ago. I'm writing another essay about C*UUYAN and I hunted Mr. Ladd down to get this sentiment exactly, as opposed to My much less eloquent paraphrases.
"We can say what we believe or what our values are, but how we acquire and spend our money is a more vivid and honest reflection of our values than what we say. Our budget reflects, or should reflect, what we truly believe."
~Larry Ladd, UUA Financial Advisor 1997-2005
