Trumpism, Consumerism And The Destruction Of Citizenship — Fighting Back
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Monthly Archives: August 2016
Call for D&D Showcase Presenters at NCDD 2016
NCDD is excited to announce that we’ll once again be holding our popular “D&D Showcase” during the 2016 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, and we are looking for presenters!
The D&D Showcase is a lively cocktail networking event that provides an opportunity for select individuals and organizations in our field to share some of the leading ideas, tools, projects, and initiatives in dialogue & deliberation with conference participants all in one space. It’s a fun way for conference-goers to meet some of the movers-and-shakers in D&D and hear about the projects, programs, and tools that are making waves in our work.
How the Showcase will work
Showcase presenters display simple “posters” about their work, tools, or projects and bring handouts and business cards to share with participants who are interested in learning more or following up. Showcase presenters will be ready to succinctly express what’s important for conference participants to know about their resource, method, research, program, etc. and to elaborate and answer any questions people may have.
During the 90-minute Showcase event, conference participants will stroll around the ballroom, chatting with presenters, and checking out their displays and picking up 
handouts. We’ll also have finger foods and beverages available as well as a cash bar, adding to the social atmosphere of the session.
The Showcase is a great chance to strike up conversations with leaders in the field and other conference participants who are strolling around the room, perusing the “wares.”
You can get a good sense of what the Showcase is like by watching this slideshow from our 2012 conference in Seattle.
You can also see Janette Hartz-Karp and Brian Sullivan presenting at the 2008 Showcase event here (back when we called it the “D&D Marketplace”), and check out the video of Noam Shore, Lucas Cioffi, and Wayne Burke presenting their online tools here.
Becoming a Showcase Presenter
The conference planning team is hard at work planning NCDD 2016, and one of our upcoming steps includes selecting people and organizations who are passionate about sharing tools and programs we know will interest our attendees as presenters during the Showcase. If you are interested in having your tool, project, idea, or work being featured in the Showcase, please email our conference manager Courtney Breese at courtney@ncdd.org and include: what it is you would like to showcase, a brief description of it, any links to where more information can be found, and any questions you have.
Please note that these slots are very competitive, and we will be favoring Showcase presentations that relate to the conference theme, Bridging Our Divides. So if your work, project, or tool focuses on helping people work across persistent divisions in our society, we definitely want to hear from you!
If you are selected as a D&D Showcase presenter, you’ll be expected to:
- Register for NCDD 2016 and attend the conference.
- Prepare a quick spiel or “elevator speech” about your Showcase topic that will get people interested in learning more. Practice it until it comes out naturally. We suggest you prepare several introductions of different lengths (30 seconds, 1 minute, etc.) so you can adjust quickly to different circumstances during the Showcase.
Prepare a simple, visually interesting poster and bring it with you to the conference.- Bring handouts about your program, method, online tool, publication, etc. that include further details.
- Have any laptop-dependent pieces of your Showcase presentation finished, functional, and ready to share (you’ll need to bring your own computer).
- Show up for the Showcase session about 20 minutes early so we have time to make sure everyone is set up and has everything they need.
You can find more information and advice for Showcase presenters on our Conference FAQ page here.
We are looking forward to having another informative and inspirational D&D Showcase this year, so we hope you’ll consider applying to be a presenter or urging your colleagues who are doing ground-breaking and critical work in the field to do so. We can’t wait to see all of the cutting-edge projects showcased in October!
a reason for hope: the Citizens Initiative Review
(Posted from DC) The Massachusetts 2016 Citizens Initiative Review just concluded. Twenty randomly selected citizens spent four full days hearing testimony and intensively deliberating to write a statement meant to inform Massachusetts voters about the pending marijuana legalization referendum. Tufts’ Tisch College is a sponsor of this process, and I made a few visits during the days of deliberation, which are open to the public. I can report that my fellow citizens were deeply responsible, thoughtful, serious, and civil. At the end, I understand they found themselves moved by what they had accomplished.
Their task was to write a statement to guide voters. Their short document had to include the strongest reasons to vote for and against the initiative. Their fine product is here.
In contrast to politics as usual, the CIR isn’t polarized, and it’s not about winning and losing. In a good sense, it’s personal: participants get to know each other and try to make something valuable together. It is demographically reflective of the whole state. Money can’t get you into the room or buy your ideas a better hearing. It’s open-ended: no one can predict or determine what the deliberators will write, and each voter who reads their statement will make up her own mind about the referendum.
To observe 20 of your fellow citizens–of all ages, races, and walks of life–playing a role in making policy is a beautiful thing and an antidote to despair.
Seven Short Films on the Commons in Seven Minutes
People constantly ask me for a definition of the commons as if a short sentence or two could begin to encapsulate the vastness and variety represented by the term “commons.” So as a quick introduction to the many dimensions of the commons -- the inner and outer worlds to which "the commons" merely points to -- let me recommend this seven-minute film, “Seven Short Films on the Commons,” (A thanks to Silke Helfrich for bringing this to my attention!)
The film(s) were produced by Amar Kanwar and the Foundation for Ecological Security, a leading advocacy group for the commons in India. The vignettes of each film are a lovely evocation of what the commons truly means to commoners in India. This is an important task -- naming and evoking the commons -- because governments and businesses of the modern world cannot see or generally refuse to recognize the commons. They are too focused on individuals shorn of social community, private property rights, and market growth. 
Here are the seven succinct declarations made by each short film:
1. Recognize the signature of our commons! The film flashes words on the screen referring to things we depend upon and share without realizing it: the air, folk dances, butterflies, playgrounds, the wind, grandma’s cure, the Internet. The list goes on.
2. Recognize the Reciprocity of Our Commons! The film notes how different elements of nature of which we are a part are interdependent....which leads to another point:
3. Recognize that Our Commons are a Web of Life!
Launching a New Mock Election Platform in Florida
As we get closer to the general election in November, teachers are asking how they might approach the election with their students. One method, of course, is through a mock election, and the Lou Frey Institute (parent organization of the FJCC) has partnered with the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections and the Florida Association of Social Studies Supervisors to launch a new mock election platform. The message below has been sent to folks across the state of Florida by the executive director of the Lou Frey Institute, Dr. Doug Dobson.
As you may know, LFI/FJCC has hosted a statewide online Mock Election for Florida students in each election cycle since 2008. To support those Mock Elections, we have used our own web-based voting platform, known as the Florida Student Mock Election, and have worked closely with the Florida Association of Social Studies Supervisors to involve teachers. Our collective goal has been to provide a voting education opportunity for as many students as possible. From 2008 through 2014, we provided Florida’s Mock Election vote totals to the National Student/Parent Mock Election (NSPME) so that they could be counted in their national totals. We also included their curricular materials among those that we made available to Florida teachers.
A little over a year ago, the Supervisors of Elections (SoEs) provided the Institute with a significant opportunity to form a long-term, statewide partnership; one that has the prospect of engaging larger numbers of students in Mock Elections and simultaneously strengthening voter education relationships between schools and SoEs. A significant number of SoEs had previous experience with a web-based voting platform known as DoubleClick Democracy, supported by KidsVoting USA. As we formed a partnership, they asked that we mothball our voting platform, establish a formal agreement with KidsVoting USA and offer DoubleClick Democracy to schools and SoEs throughout the state. We have done this. Since NSPME and KidsVoting do not generally collaborate, we terminated our informal relationship with NSPME.
At the moment, we, the Florida Association of Social Studies Supervisors and the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections are moving forward to enroll schools in every region of the state. We are also forging new relationships between SoEs and schools. We are all optimistic that we will see increased student participation in the 2016 Florida Student Mock Election along with continuing school-based voter education programs. You can review our plan at http://floridacitizen.org/resources/florida-student-mock-election.
I hope that you will support our collaborative efforts by encouraging schools throughout the state to participate in The Florida Student Mock Election.
Questions about the new mock election that will be launching shortly can be directed to me or to Dr. Dobson. We are excited about this new partnership and platform, and hope that you and your teachers and students will consider taking part!
Engaging Ideas – 8/26
Get to know Nuclear: Nuclear Fuel Cycle engagement in South Australia
Aug 25 '16
Get to Know Nuclear is a state-wide engagement process underway in South Australia. The program aims to engage citizens with the issues associated with the nuclear fuel cycle - mining, enrichment, energy and storage. The community engagement follows the report of a Royal Commission that examined the issue and provides...
City of Greater Bendigo Citizens’ Jury
Aug 25 '16
Greater Bendigo is local government area in Victoria, Australia encompassing the city of Bendigo itself and the rural area surrounding it. In 2016 the council decided to undertake a Citizens' Jury to ask how the council should spend money. There is a perception that the urban (majority) area of Greater...
Eurobodalla Citizens’ Jury
Aug 25 '16
Eurobodalla is a local government area on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. In 2016 the council embarked on a Citizens' Jury process to engage with the community on the question of how the council spends its money. Like most local governments across Australia, Eurobodalla has a growing...
the signal in this election versus the noise
Here is a graph of the presidential polls from this election so far. Most people choose narrow ranges for the y-axis in graphs like this, to draw attention to the shifts. I show the full 0%-100% range, to display how the whole American public has split. I also choose the stronger option for “smoothing,” so that each day’s measure is an average of several days on either side. The result is a highly stable advantage for Hillary Clinton all the way along.
It doesn’t really seem to have made that much difference what Trump has said, or what has been reported about Clinton’s emails and her Foundation, or how she has spent her $319 million in TV ads. It looks as if most people had their minds made up as soon as it was clear who the nominees would be.
The trend looked similar in 2012, except that it was always much closer that year.
I’d say that partisan identification outweighs almost everything, except that Trump is underperforming, for a GOP nominee, by a few points.