Progressive Democrats of Cambridge - DFA Blog for Cambridge

Next PDC-DFA Meeting Thursday, July 19, 45 Mt. Auburn St.

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:39:20 -0700

From PDC-DFA chair Lesley Phillips:

Dear PDCers,

The next meeting of Progressive Democrats of Cambridge-DFA will take place at 7:00 pm this Thursday, July 19, at The Democracy Center, 45 Mt Auburn St. (near Harvard Square).

At our June meeting, we committed to conducting three candidates' forums over the next couple of months: our traditional -- and always very successful -- city council forum tentatively shortly after Labor Day, a school committee forum later in September, and a forum for the increasingly heated special state senate election (to replace Jarrett Barrios), for which as many as eight candidates have now announced, in early to mid-August. We will be making final decisions as to the dates and locations of these events at Thursday's meeting, and seeking volunteers for many of the tasks associated with them. PDC's candidate forums have been among our most successful and respected events in the past (as well as tremendous outreach opportunities), and we want to uphold our reputation, so please make every effort to attend and participate! (If you would like to assist with any of these but can not attend on Thusday, please let me know and we will work you in.)

If you have any other suggestions for agenda items or events this summer, please let me know, and I will distribute them prior to the meeting.

We hope to see you on Thursday!

Progressively yours,
Lesley

Reminder: Next meeting this Thursday, June 21

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:53:42 -0700

The next PDC-DFA meeting will be Thursday, June 21, at The Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge MA.

From an email from our chair, Lesley Phillips:

Dear PDCers,

This is to remind you that the next regular monthly meeting of Progressive Democrats of Cambridge-DFA is this Thursday, June 21, at The Democracy Center, 45 Mt Auburn St. (near Harvard Square). The general membership meeting will start at approximately 7:30 pm, preceeded by a meeting of the Steering Committee (open to all PDC-DFA members) at 7:00 pm. This will likely be our last regular (i.e. third Thursday) meeting until September, so please make every effort to attend!

The agenda for our meeting on Thursday will include consideration of a proposed endorsement in the upcoming special election in the 5th Congressional District, a look at what progressives can expect in our upcoming municpal elections, and beginning to plan our now traditional (and expected!) candidates' forums in the city council and school committee races and any other special events over the summer, with a focus toward bringing more members into PDC.

We hope to see you on Thursday!

Progressively yours,
Lesley

DFA Meeting at Democratic State Convention Saturday

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:46:47 -0700

If you're going to the Democratic state convention on Saturday, you might want to check this out:

DFA members "meetup" - A few DFA leaders across the state thought that
it might be nice to get together informally at the Convention on
Saturday. Representative Jamie Eldridge has invited us to get together
at his "Meet and Greet" on Saturday from 3:45 to 5:00 PM at the Cape Cod
Lounge in the Student Union Building. Jamie is running for Congress and
has been unanimously endorsed by the local DFA group, as well as the
Brandeis DFA group. He has generously allowed us to share his space so
that we can have an opportunity to touch base with each other at an
informal gathering. We'll be able to brainstorm about plans for a
statewide grassroots summit. Burlington would like to get together with
us this summer.

... via an email from Kate Donaghue.

Peace Rocks

Wed, 16 May 2007 10:42:36 -0700

When I was in college, I volunteered for an innovative educational program called PeaceGames. PeaceGames teaches grade and middle school children about the principles of nonviolence, and practical lessons in getting along peacefully. In addition to the lessons on nonviolence, PeaceGames includes a mentorship/tutoring component. When I was a volunteer, I wore two hats: one as an assistant volunteer teacher on nonviolence, and another as a tutor to third graders who needed help reading. It was a great, rewarding way to help out the Boston public schools.

In about a week, the group will host an exciting event called PeaceRocks Boston: May 22, 2007 at the Roxy in Boston. The event will have some great music - James Montgomery, Bill Paxton, Rashida Jones, and Donal Logue, among others - and a silent auction.

It should be a great event - check it out!

I'm now serving on an advisory board for an upcoming PeaceGames technology initiative, although only in a volunteer capacity for the time being.

Next meeting on meeting on Thursday, May 17

Mon, 14 May 2007 06:35:46 -0700

From PDC-DFA chair Lesley Phillips:

Dear PDCers,

The next meeting of Progressive Democrats of Cambridge - DFA will be on Thursday, May 17at 7:00pm at The Democracy Center, 45 Mt Auburn St.

The 2007 Cambridge municipal election season is almost upon us, so we will begin to take a look at both the incumbents running for reelection and the announced/anticipated challengers who will be wanting our support, and start making plans for candidate forums and other events.

We will be also be previewing the upcoming (May 19) Massachusetts Democratic State Convention in Amherst, including some possible last-minute agenda items. If you have not yet registered for the convention, you should know that in an effort to make the convention accessible to as many grassroots Democrats as possible, the non-delegate guest registration has been reduced to a very affordable $25; in addition, every paid delegate is allowed to bring one guest for free. If you are interested in attending and are unable to locate a delegate to "sponsor" you, let me know asap, and we will try to match you up! (If you are a delegate, and have not yet registered a guest, likewise please let me know, if possible even sooner!) Further information about the convention is available at www.massdems.org.

We hope to see you on Thursday!

Progressively yours,
Lesley

Project Lightbulb: a creative way to help the environment

Thu, 10 May 2007 09:44:35 -0700

PDC-DFA member Quinton Zondervan and I recently chatted over email about an interesting project he started recently, called Project Lightbulb. The website is very basic, but the idea is powerful (so to speak): Quinton is teaming up with other volunteers to buy energy efficient lightbulbs and to distribute them in public venues, to encourage home energy conservation. Piece of cake!

If you'd like to join in, head on over to the Google group and sign up! Or, just print out this brochure, buy some lightbulbs, pick a street corner, and start distributing.

* Full disclosure: Quinton and I are also working together on a business project, which is unrelated to Project Lightbulb.

Forum for State Senate Special Election

Sat, 05 May 2007 09:44:01 -0700

There's a forum coming up for the Democratic candidates in the special election to replace Sen. Travaligni. The forum's May 8; the primary is May 29. Details below.

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FORUM

Special Election for Robert Travaglini's Senate Seat
The First Suffolk and Middlesex Senate District

Ask Questions of the Democratic Candidates Running
in the May 29, 2007 Primary Election

The Candidates are:

State Representative Anthony Petruccelli (East Boston)
http://www.anthonypetruccelli.com

City Councilor Daniel Rizzo (Revere)
http://www.danrizzo.org

Where: LBJ Apartments, 150 Erie Street, Cambridge

When: Tuesday, May 8, 2007, 7:00 – 8:30 P.M.

Last Day to Register to Vote: Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Sponsored by Cambridge Democratic City Committee

Election Day Registration on the PDC-DFA email list

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:25:52 -0700

There's a great discussion going on right now on the PDC-DFA email list on election day registration, and possible pro's and con's. On one side is the argument that election day registration lowers barriers and encourages more people to vote; on the other side is the argument that prior registration (i.e., what we have now) encourages people to think about their choice, and makes manipulation of the electorate by wealthy political machines more difficult.

Drop by and join the discussion! Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProgressiveDemocratsofCambridge/ to sign up for our email list, then share your thoughts with the rest of the group!

Update: PDC-DFA member Jesse K-B has more on election day registration.

By the way, I don't really like the term "election day registration". After all, if all you have to do to vote is show up at the polls and prove you're eligible, then it's not really registration, it's just voting. I think we should call it "voting for everyone".

From a technologist's point of view, also, I'd be curious to see what kind of technology is used to verify that no one votes twice. Hopefully not some kind of Diebold disaster. I'd prefer purple fingers.

Wainwright and the Blogosphere

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:25:09 -0700

Recently I was invited, along with a number of other progressive bloggers, to a meeting with Wainwright Bank president Robert Glassman, to discuss how the bank could engage the progressive blogosphere. As an avid customer since around 2000 or so, I was excited to attend. The meeting was yesterday afternoon, and I think it was fascinating and, I hope, the beginning of a wonderful relationship.

One idea which was tossed out (and accepted, it seems) early on was the concept of Wainwright advertising on local progressive blogs. This seems like a no-brainer to me - why not advertise to a receptive audience? - and I said as much. It sounds like the bank will start that up relatively soon.

Most of the meeting focused on how Wainwright could establish its own blog, and what the ramifications of that would be. Because banking is a heavily regulated industry, the bank apparently must be very careful in its public positions, and that was a recurring theme throughout the meeting. I'm not sure what the regulatory restrictions are, but I imagine there are some which are obvious (for example, the bank may not give out account numbers and social security numbers), others less obvious (the bank probably has some information on stock trading and things like that which it can't reveal), and others which I have no idea whatsoever about.

Nevertheless, I think the group came up with some good ideas for the kinds of content which could appear on the blog. In no particular order:

Financial and money management tips
Highlights of the bank's services or its practices in supporting progressive causes
Guest posts from non-profit clients of the bank or from bank employees and customers
Commentary on news in the financial sector, or news which relies on a lot of banking jargon (e.g. the sub-prime lending scandal, the bankruptcy reform bill)
Commentary on political issues generally, like the war in Iraq or environmental issues (it sounded to me like a lot of people thought this might backfire, and I agree)
The "inside scoop" on the bank, including things like the bank's history and how it got to the place it is today, and brief views into a small part of the bank's board meetings.
Discussion of recent customer complaints, and what is being done to address them.

There are probably some other ideas I'm missing, but those were the highlights.

There was a bit of discussion on whether the blog would have comments. I certainly hope so; a blog is all about conversation, and without comments, you have no conversation. It's almost not worth the trouble. Of course, there's a danger that the comments could get ugly. But I think that danger can easily be mitigated in several ways:

Avoid posting on things which aren't really related to the bank, e.g. posts on political issues which are not financial in nature, or which are not guest posts from non-profit clients.
Treat commenters with respect. If someone has a beef with the bank, don't delete the comment or denigrate the commenter. Treat the commenter the same way you would a customer who is standing at a teller station.

And really, that's about it. The big bad blogosphere really isn't so bad, and in practice it's usually quite easy to satisfy fellow bloggers and commenters.

There was also a discussion of who should write the blog. I think many people assumed that Mr. Glassman would write it himself, but I disagree. I think it should be edited chiefly by a paid staffer, with Mr. Glassman and others guest posting from time to time. I know that would seem perhaps more condescending to some in the blogosphere, but it wouldn't seem that way to me personally. I don't have much time for blogging, and all I do is run a very small web development shop. I can't imagine I'd have much more time if I was president of the seven-hundredth-largest-bank in the country (or president of the 8000th largest bank, for that matter.) Not only that, but a chief blogger is going to have a lot more time to be able to really understand the blogosphere and have a proper conversation with them. Finally and perhaps most importantly, a chief blogger would probably not receive the same degree of scrutiny from regulators that a bank president would.

I certainly hope Wainwright will eventually establish its own blog, as I think that'll be an exciting development in the world of our local progressive blogosphere. It's exciting to have a bona fide institution as a partner, and there are a lot of interesting things you can do with such a relationship.

Along these lines, I mentioned briefly an idea I had about how the bank could really work together with the progressive blogosphere. The idea is to have the bank offer a turnkey business-creation package for progressive bloggers. Using this service, a blogger could have a legal entity created, proper paperwork filed with the state and federal government, and a business account (established at Wainwright, of course), all in a matter of a few hours, just by walking into a branch, filling out some simple paperwork, and maybe paying a small fee. I'd imagine not all bloggers would want to use such a service, but it could be really useful for those who really want to try and make some money from their blogs.

For those who have heard me go on and on about my pie-in-the-sky ideas for my business, this idea will sound familiar. I'd one day love to create an incubator for progressive businesses; if Wainwright were to offer such a service, it would be a great first step in that direction!

Also, I should mention that there's been some hesitation from other bloggers in attending the meeting, because they felt that they were just helping Wainwright figure out their marketing strategy for free, and/or are being asked to provide free advertising. I had some worries about that before the meeting, but they are pretty well allayed by now. As liberals, we are all very suspicious of being manipulated by corporations, and corporations with a progressive image are sometimes the worst offenders. That skepticism is healthy, but it should not be so strong as to wall us off from bona fide allies. If we are going to build a lasting movement for real progressive change, then we are going to have to build (or work with) institutions to keep the momentum going. Just as the union movement in the 1930's needed newspapers, union halls, solidarity committees, and all sorts of other supporting institutions, so will we need think tanks, media outlets, and yes, banks, to aggregate political and financial capital to support our causes. We should not hesitate to establish those institutions when we need to, but we certainly shouldn't re-invent the wheel when we have a perfectly solid ally, as we do with Wainwright.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Next Meeting: April 19, 8:00, 45 Mt Auburn St., Cambridge

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:40:46 -0700

From an email from PDC-DFA chair Lesley Phillips:

Dear PDCers,

The next meeting of Progressive Democrats of Cambridge-DFA will be at 8:00 pm on Thursday, April 19 at The Democracy Center, 45 Mt Auburn St. A principal agenda item will be finalizing plans for a candidates' forum for the upcoming special election to fill the vacancy caused by Sen. Travaligni's recent resignation. Please note the later than usual starting time -- this is because of a special event at The Democracy Center causing heavier that usual bookings.

Special note to steering committee members (and others who might be interested): if enough of you want to do this, we could effectively start the meeting a bit earlier by convening an open steering committee meeting at 7:30 pm on Thursday at one of the eateries adjacent to The Democracy Center (I'd recommend either Daedalus or Unique Pizza), and then move over to "45" at 8:00. Please let me know asap if you would tentatively be interested in this, and I'll post a final announcement on Wednesday evening.

Progressively yours,
Lesley

CCTV wins citizen journalist grant

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 06:18:34 -0700

Cambridge Community Television has just won an amazing grant from the Institute for Interactive Journalism.

According to CCTV's press release, the group "is a winner of a 2007 New Voices grant. CCTV's project, Neighbor to Neighbor, will embed citizen journalists in the city's neighborhoods to create media. N2N will provide residents the information they need to fully participate in civic life and will foster individual and collective action to improve the quality of life in Cambridge."

This should be a great way to encourage members of our community to become aware of what is going on in their neighborhood and to share the news with others in the city. It should also be a great way for cross-neighborhood communication, which is too rare around these parts.

Congratulations, CCTV!

Full disclosure: my wife is a member of CCTV.

NorthPoint

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:53:56 -0700

There's a great discussion going on about the development of NorthPoint on the PDC-DFA email list today. Check it out, and if you're so inclined, chime in!

I'm not too familiar with the issue, so please forgive me if this summary is oversimplified.

On the one hand you have a state law which stipulates that development is not allowed on landlocked tidelands (which the NorthPoint development would sit on, apparently.)

The state Department of Environmental Protection wanted to create an exemption from this law which would allow the development to go forward. The Association of Cambridge Neighborhoods recently won a case against the department before the Supreme Judicial Court; the department, as it turns out, doesn't have the authority to grant such exemptions.

Now it's up to the state legislature to decide whether or not to allow the department to grant such exemptions.

I don't have a particular pony in this case, although I tend to agree that development shouldn't occur on tidelands, since that leads to massive flooding like we had in Peabody last year. But, maybe it's the case that the NorthPoint development somehow would not have too great an environmental impact; I don't know enough details about the case.

Regardless, please feel free to join our email list and participate in the discussion.

Barack Obama in Boston

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 06:43:47 -0700

Come support Barack Obama in Boston at his New England kickoff event on April 20th at the Agganis Arena. For more info follow the link below.

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/northeast420

Hope you see you there!

Take action to help the environment this week!

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:44:28 -0700

Lately there appear to be a gaggle of things you can do to help the environment. Join in the fun!

- Make a donation to bring alternative energy to Cambridge. Thanks to an initiative by City Councillor Henrietta Davis, the New England Wind Fund has agreed to install a 2kW solar installation for a Cambridge school or municipal building if 150 Cambridge households make a donation to the fund. Go to http://www.newenglandwind.org/Cambridge to find out more and donate!

- Join the Climate Walk this weekend. The Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue, which began in Northampton on Friday, March 16, will arrive in Cambridge Friday, March 23. Go to http://www.climatewalk.org/ to join up with your fellow environmentalists!

- Join the Step it Up Rally to demonstrate against global warming. The Step it Up Campaign is coordinating actions across the country, including a big rally on April 14 on Boston Commmon. Go to http://www.stepitupboston.com/ for more information or to sign up for the rally.

H/T to Sam Seidel.

Spammers

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:08:58 -0700

An alert reader pointed out to me some occurrences of spam on this site. I'll admit, I have been neglecting this site for a little while, and I do apologize for that. I had thought I set the spam bar high enough to fool spam-bots, but alas, I was wrong.

Consequently, I've un-published a giant swath of comments and un-approved a giant swath of users, in order to keep things civil around here.

If your comment got axed or your account got deactivated as a result, but it really was legitimate, I apologize. Please email me at info (at) dfacambridge (dot) org, and I'll take care of it.

If you were offended by some of the comments that appear here, then again, I apologize. I should have been on the ball and have noticed the spammers when they first became a problem. Please accept my apologies and rest assured that I've boosted the protections to prevent this kind of malicious attack in the future.

If you are a spammer, please go do something useful for a change.