[vox] [fwd] Re: LUGOD and Public Commonwealth Project

[Bill Kendrick]

Folks from the Commonwealth Project spoke to LUGOD a little at Whole Earth
last month.  Here's a note from Davy Bui.

I'll be passing along another note from Ethan Ireland, who'll be at
tonight's LUGOD meeting to talk a little about the project, and how
LUGOD can participate, before tonight's presentation.

-bill!

----- Forwarded message from davy bui <d_dvb at yahoo.com> -----

Hello Bill and the rest of LUGOD,

The show is scheduled to hit Davis Community TV and
Sac Pubic Access (as well as online) in summer 2005,
probably in August.  

At heart, the show's basic theme is to highlight local
issues, culture, events, etc with the long-term goal
of empowering people to take control and
responsibility for their own communities and lives. 
In this sense, there is no difference between our
philosophy and the Open Source/FSF philosophy other
than scope.  "Free" (whether software or freedom) is
great but comes at a cost.  Our objective is to
present viewers with myriad ways to proactively engage
their lives.  If a person mindlessly consumes, votes
and does what any glitzy ad suggests, how is this
person going to stop using MS Windows?  I used to say
that MS Windows is symptomatic of why 9/11 occurred; 
Americans have been conditioned to just do whatever
they're told without question -- the ultimate
extension of Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning,
There Was the Command Line."  People are innoculated
with passivity across the whole social spectrum. 
That's why our show will spotlight political issues,
local artists and culture, technology, people, etc.  

There are several ways LUGOD (and I will try to
contact  as well) can help:
 
  * Content for the show - help us produce segments
that will demystify computers for people so they're
not scared of their own hardware.  The computer is
such a powerful tool and most people turn it into a
glorified calculator.
 
  * Web resources - We have yet to establish a
web-host or a webmaster to build our web site.  Any
help on this would be great.

  * Financial - This is the least time-intensive way
to help but certainly appreciated, nonetheless.

If you'd prefer, a small group of us can come to LUGOD
and make a short presentation, perhaps in July.

In any case, thank you for your interest and karmic
support.  It was great meeting you!

--davy


--- Bill Kendrick <nbs at sonic.net> wrote:

> 
> Hello Davy, this is Bill Kendrick from the Linux
> Users' Group of Davis.
> You gave me your card, and a small pamphlet about
> the Public Commonwealth
> Project's "Chew On This!" public access television
> show at Whole Earth, and
> mentioned you'd be interested in getting some tech
> and Open Source content
> for your show.
> 
> (I'm Cc'ing LUGOD's officer mailing list. To the
> officers: this is Davy Bui,
> and the project can be found at:
> http://www.public-commonwealth.org/ )
> 
> Please tell me how we can help, and how we can
> participate.
> You mentioned that "Chew On This!" might also air on
> Davis' public access
> channel.  Can you give us any further details on
> that?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> -bill!
> pr at lugod.org
> http://www.lugod.org/
> Linux Users' Group of Davis
> 
> 


----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
-bill!                         Linux vs Windows studies can be divided into:
bill at newbreedsoftware.com        1. Studies paid for by Microsoft
http://newbreedsoftware.com/     2. Studies that conclude Linux wins