"No Way Overlay!" (Repeal the Main Gate Overlay)

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to interview a resident of Tucson's West University neighborhood who is part of an effort to correct an incomplete process that was used to push development through.  John Patterson is part of Repeal the Main Gate Overlay and is helping to collect signatures for a petition that ends with the end of the month.  West University is a historic neighborhood of Craftsman bungalows to the west of the U of A, and an out-of-town developer succeeded in convincing the City of Tucson of the urgency of getting his out-of-place project into the neighborhood as quickly as possible.  This caused residents to be left out of the planning process and impact studies to be skipped over.  The residents may well have agreed to the high-rise development IF they'd had a chance to participate in the process.

I was connected with John and this situation through local community leader Beryl Baker.  Beryl had seen some of my work under the Exist Kind umbrella and was impressed such that she asked for my help with her campaign for office.  As you may recall from my post on October 17, 2011, she ran for City Council on the Green Party ticket.  She presented a lot of very common-sense ideas and promised that if she got very few votes, then that must mean that few citizens care about the issues that she cares about.  Well, she took an unprecedented 34% of the vote--that's over one third--so a lot of citizens proved that they did share her concerns.  She gave Beth and me a lot of credit for doing so well, so we promised to get together again in the future to get some more political ideas and messages out there.  "The future" came this month when she brought us into touch with John and a couple of other local leaders working to get things done in Tucson.  So, I'd like you to see one result of this over on my YouTube channel.  Here's the video of my "No Way Overlay" interview:

(If the above link doesn't work, follow this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv7r6ZY1Tt8)

Later that day, we broadcasted my regular programming live from Access Tucson and talked about this, as well as other current issues in Tucson.  See the next blog entry for a link to that and more details.

By the way, work like this costs us a good amount of money for raw materials and fuel used for promotional and publicity efforts.  If you would be so kind, I'd like to direct you to the front page of my website, www.existkind.com, and ask you to scroll down to the small button that says "Make a Donation".  Please consider helping us out with what we spend on printer ink, paper, fuel, video equipment repair, and the like.  Thank you very much!

Upcoming show episode: A perspective from someone other than the Democrats or Republicans.

I'm excited about the next episode of my show and how it seems to be coming together.  Over the years, I've felt that a major third political party would really benefit American politics.  In various aspects of life, I've concluded that when there are only two strongly competing sides to an issue, they tend to lock horns and end up in a stagnant stalemate, and this carries over to America's political system that is dominated by two big parties.  Adding a third or even fourth element can break up this impasse because if two parties lock and fail to make progress, the external elements will gain ground right under their noses.  This negative stalemate thus becomes too costly for those engaged because the external forces will just outperform them.

The idea of a strong third political party, such as the Green Party, has had its ups and downs over the years and people have doubted its success, including myself at times.  However, nowadays, our two-party system has become what many would consider to be dysfunctional to the point at which we would do well to give more merit to third parties and those that do not necessarily closely resemble the dominant parties.  My own thinking on this led me to invite Green Party member Beryl Baker back to the show, along with a couple of other local members.  I consider myself largely independent, as opposed to partisan, so it's my pleasure to present a variety of perspectives.  In addition to Beryl, I'll be joined by former Arizona House of Representatives candidate Kent Solberg and former state legislator John Kromko.  We'll take a look at the current state of things from a reasoned, critical point of view and review Beryl and Kent's achievements as they put themselves out there in their respective runs for office.

I'm excited for this show and I'll post more updates as it takes shape.  You can bet you'll be watching this promising show on YouTube after the fact.  Catch you later!

Final wrap-up of the Philippines charity effort.

It looks like we've done what we can for now with our efforts to aid survivors of the floods in the Philippines that occurred last year.  If you're new to the story, I'll sum it up here for you and you might look through this blog for detailed entries.
In December, I received word of a new subscriber to my YouTube channel--Senator Richard Gordon from the Philippines, who is also the chairman of the Philippines Red Cross.  Just a few days later, I learned of the disastrous and deadly flooding happening there.  These two events inspired me to launch an effort with the Exist Kind name on it to help survivors.  An acquaintance of mine is from the Philippines and I decided I should contact him for input and perhaps assistance with this idea.  Since he and I met while we were working for an Episcopal church, I then realized that a fundraising effort might do very well if it had the support and endorsement of the Episcopal Church.  During a New Year's visit to Phoenix, I stopped by the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona to see if the bishop might consider endorsing the project.  I was not able to meet with him personally, but my visit to the cathedral reminded me of the time years ago when I contacted another bishop to ask for a monetary donation to the organization I was volunteering with.  I realized that perhaps I should just take a direct approach and contact the bishops from all fifty United States.  I sent letters to one bishop from each state to request that they send a donation straight to the Philippines Red Cross for the flood effort and I requested that they simply mention that they were sent by Exist Kind.  I received a few responses in the subsequent couple of weeks, and that is where the project has left off.

I'm planning on bringing in a local Episcopal minister to broker the donations for a future effort.  I'd like to take this approach for any humanitarian crisis that may arise.  We don't yet have a way to keep track of donations and where they're coming from, but the idea is more to tap the bishops on the shoulder and urge them to donate to these causes.  Because of this shift towards a broader focus, I of course will not be referring to it as the Philippines flood effort but rather, something else that we generate in the future.  Whatever it gets named, it will refer to Exist Kind, the Episcopal Church, and relief efforts.  It will occur approximately once per year and only seek out modest donations from each diocese.

So that's the story of this project to date.  Thanks for reading and following along, and I'm looking forward to sharing upcoming Exist Kind projects along these lines.

List of pet PSA video links.

Hello, my friends, I'd like to introduce you to the dogs and cats who are featured on my YouTube channel thanks to the efforts of FAIR.  We are just starting to promote these videos through flyers and social media and I invite you to be among the first people to see them.  Here are the links:

Meet beautiful Bluebell

Ma Petite Chienne! (My little dog!)

Iyonna and Izzie

Carlton, a Great Dog at FAIR

"Boo-Boo", a Bait Dog Fostered by FAIR

Meet FAIR's "Tinkerbell"

Help to Sponsor FAIR's "Charlie"

Revisiting FAIR.

Another thing I'm working on as I return to business is promoting those PSAs I shot in Studio A with the help of FAIR.  Beth and I designed a couple of initial drafts of flyers that I want to distribute to call attention to the organization and once we get the approval from FAIR, I'll post digital versions of them.  They include pictures of the dogs and cats from the taping and contact information.  Stand by for these.

(Remember Bluebell, the husky mix with one blue eye?)

Emerging from the uproar, and other updates.

If you didn't see this on Facebook, here's why I've been out of the loop this month:

"Hello, supporters of Exist Kind: I want to acknowledge all delays and lack of communication on my part and apologize sincerely for it. In the last few weeks, my role of caregiver has been brought to the forefront. Recently, I was given some real property in exchange for supervising my very elderly parents (ages 82 and 97). My mother recently fell very ill and I have had to tend to her in addition to my usual duties to my father. I've been running her around to the emergency room and calling ambulances as she deals with both recovery from a blood clot and working her way through pneumonia. All of this has led to a significant transition in the household and my assuming of greater permanent responsibility for all household functions. So, my outreach and video production efforts have been on hold as I figuratively put out many different fires. I expect the bulk of this transitioning to be done by the end of the month, so I'll be at full power by then. Thanks so much for your time and energy towards Exist Kind!"

So that's why I've been away from the blog and staying low-key on everything else.  However, by the time you're reading this, progress is slowly but surely underway.  I'm currently balancing the life transitions with my usual Exist Kind work.  As a result, I can share some new things with you.

I've decided to actively look for an Episcopal minister who would be willing to act as a liaison between donating dioceses and beneficiaries for upcoming charitable efforts.  I have someone in mind with whom I'd like to talk first, and I'll look to others if necessary.

This Saturday the 25th is the annual Peace Fair here in Tucson, if you're not familiar with it, which is sponsored by the Tucson Peace Center.  Beth and I always look forward to attending and we always get to talk with interesting people, pick up good literature, and hear good music.  We're planning to attend Saturday if no more emergencies or problems prevent us.  Look for me in my yellow Exist Kind t-shirt with a redhead at my side.

I have more to tell you, but I'd like to put it in a separate post, so stand by.  Thanks for reading!

Responses are coming in!

We've gotten our first couple of letters back from our big mailing!  Pictured here is the one from Albuquerque.  The process appears to involve an executive assistant who screens requests like ours and then passes them along to the bishop at their discretion.  We saw this in action in a slightly different manner when we visited the Diocese of Arizona, as I mentioned in that previous blog entry.  Keep your fingers crossed so that we pass muster with the other bishops, and stay tuned.  I hadn't planned on posting updates because we didn't design a system for tracking donations this time, since they're supposed to go directly from the dioceses to the Red Cross.  But, recall that I did ask the bishops to mention Exist Kind to the Red Cross if they donated, so I hope to get wind of a few donations to share with you here.