We all talk about change. But most hate it and most of all most hate to have change imposed upon them.
Back in 2005 when NPR ventured into a nation wide debate about how everyone in Public Radio would have to change, we could all agree on what we should do - but like knowing that you should give up smoking or lose 20 pounds, we got stuck on the do. We got stuck on the hard work of changing ourselves.
One of the really wonderful aspects of the Facing the Mortgage Crisis is that many of the 76 stations that are participating are changing.
They are becoming part of their community - they are giving their community its own voice - they are really getting to understand how social media can expand their reach and connection - that "voice" is mellowing - the are becoming vital to the future of where they live.
Here is a link to just 3Our community now goes beyond the public media demographic that we think we know and understand to many new people and organizations that are struggling to make sense out of a very painful crisis. Additionally, our sense of public service has greatly increased and appreciate the value of community engagement - to the point that “community engagement” becomes a non sequitur - how could public media not be fully engaged in their community? Leonard Sternberg CET/WXVU
How did this happen?
I think it is because we found a great issue - rather than try and be "New" as an abstract - we became part of a movement to save our communities - it must have felt like this in WWII. In so doing our walls broke down.
Over the next few months, I will explore this process of transformation further because I think that a great lesson is to be found here and I don't understand it all yet.
But I suspect that the general lesson might be this - that the more of us who make working on renewing our communities, the more we will ourselves expand as people. It may be that this crisis opens us up to see how much we need others - especially people who may not be like us or look like us.
As the hype about Green Shoots continues and the profits roll in on Wall Street - what is the picture on Mainstreet?
As NPR and KERA report foreclosures are on the rise:
On Thursday, RealtyTrac released a report that showed home foreclosures nationally have risen 15 percent for the first half of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. RealtyTrac’s figures suggest Texas’ foreclosure levels have dipped almost 15 percent compared with the same period last year.
RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio said the record levels of foreclosures come “in spite of the industry-wide moratorium earlier this year, along with local, state and national legislative action and increased levels of loan modification activity….” and are being driven by unemployment and a high number borrowers who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth.
“Stemming the tide of foreclosures is a critical component to stabilizing the housing market, so it is imperative that the lending industry and the government work in tandem to find new approaches to address this issue.”
There seems to be two Americas - those who work in the real world of where people live and the financial system that has other priorities.
It would seem that we are just beginning the work in Pub Media to make a difference in the real world - where we become part of the story ourselves.
Foreclosures and unemployment are still rising.
Goldman, JP Morgan Chase and now B of A announce massive profits.
CIT and other lenders struggle with bankruptcy.
The Financial Sector gets more concentrated in fewer hands
The "stimulus" has not reached main street
Many of the jobs are not coming back.
Wall Street think that this is good news.
How does this feel to you? Is this progress or what?
Here is what the Wall Street Journal thinks - it will surprise you - via Arianna Huffington
Here NewsHour show us what it is like to be paid in IOU's in California
Must be hell
In the worst hit places such as Cleveland and Detroit - there are no jobs. There wont be any old style jobs for years - if ever. So what do you do?
I read with amazement today that the market is recovering because the banks are making money again. Large companies are not - but it's ok that the banks are fine. I don't understand.
I read also today that 14 of the states have run out of funds to pay benefits to the unemployed. They are looking to Washington for borrowing.
KERA’s Shelley Kofler broke a story last week that Texas would have to borrow money from the federal government to help pay for rising unemployment benefits this month.
Today, Dallas Morning News reporter Robert T. Garrett writes that the Texas Workforce Commission confirmed that the unemployment trust fund would run out of money early next week and the state will have to borrow $643 million to cover claims through Oct. 1.
In addition, Robert writes that some 82,000 unemployed Texans scheduled to exhaust their benefits this week would not receive immediate 13-week extensions as expected.
A TWC spokeswoman blamed the delay – which could be at least a couple months – on stringent federal rules for accessing the benefits and state computer problems.
The news comes at a time when unemployment levels are rising. The DMN story notes that about 285,000 Texans were on unemployment compensation in the six weeks ending June 27 – nearly triple the number from a year earlier.
As of early June, 14 states had run out of money to pay for unemployment benefits and were forced to borrow from the federal government. Source KERA
Don't you feel concerned as well when you read this? What is going to happen?
When the mortgage crisis began it was linked to the predatory lending and the bubble. But now it's all about whether you can keep your job.
So now it's people who were not taken in - now it's about the solid middle class - people who did everything right are being thrown out on the street.
When you think of the typical listener/viewer of public radio/TV what do you see in your mind's eye?
Someone like me I bet taken here by Doc Searls at NPR's head office pre-beard.
But I am only a small part of the "Public"
Can Public Radio and TV really have a future if they don't include ALL the public?
I don't think so. One of the wonderful things about the Facing the Mortgage Crisis Project is that our 76 stations are making real progress in expanding their reach. Not by the old "Let's do a Spanish Program" but by reaching authentically into the larger community and offering a real hand of frienship and support while also asking for their help too.
Here are a couples of stories that make this more clear:
So what happens if you have lost your job and your house? How can you be "helped"?
An answer is that you need to find "Hope".
What is Hope when you have lost everything?
In some cases it is in seeing others like you take action - reinvent themselves and the community.
Many caught up in losing their homes - lost them not only because they had missed payments but that they had frozen and done nothing. They froze because of shame and fear.
They could have saved their home but they felt that they did deserve too and so froze.
Here is how some of our 76 stations are helping change the Story so that they have a chance.
What and who is really helping right now the millions of Americans who are caught up in the financial crisis?
Who is helping people to keep their homes? Who is helping people get through losing their homes and their jobs?
View bradley airport to greenfield in a larger map
76 Public Radio and TV stations in 32 of the worst hit markets - that is part of the who?
In each of these communities, you will find a unique collaboration of public radio and TV working together to:
Our mission is to use the Trust in public radio and TV to enable people and communities to take back their power and start to help each other. To reveal the depth and power that lives latently in the community.
Our hope is that if we can bring this power into the light, that it will grow over time. That a good shared experience with helping each other in our cities and across the country will prepare us for the larger work ahead of re-imagining America.
CPB funded this project after a beta test with KETC last year in St Louis. We know that acting as the convener works in one market.
I wonder what will be the impact when we try this in 32 markets. If we do what we hope, we will be close to the Tipping Point.
I will be posting regular reports here and on the national blog for the project that you can find here.
On the project Blog - you will also find links to the stations as their sites come online. You may live in one of these cities. Plus we will be experimenting with how the national work of Public TV and Radio can add more.
This is surely a work in progress. We don't know if this will work - it did work in one city.
Please join in and help with your comments and ideas. The bigger the conversation, the more chance we have of being successful.
If you are a laid of car-worker, journalist, forest worker, mass media marketer it is surely a bit like being the proverbial "Buggy Whip Maker" in 1905.
But we have a big advantage over those living in 1905. Today we can try our new things in public. We can talk about new ideas in public. By having this huge public conversation, we can find the now unknowable future much more quickly. In so doing we can limit the pain.
No city could be more in the fog than Detroit itself - the city that can look back at 1905 and see how it was the primary beneficiary of the end of horse power.
So today I called my new friend Luther Keith, the GM of Arise Detroit, and asked him to tell me how he was seeing things.
Few are as well connected with issues. I asked him if he was seeing any signs of the stimulus getting through to the community groups. So far he had seen none.
But what he was seeing signs of the growing understanding that what was really needed was a "Reinvention" What does that mean - for it is question that applies to all of us - Detroit is just the first mover?
What do you think?
Cities are warmer and have a longer growing season and can store water better.
The Edmonton Journal
If those long supply lines from California or Mexico are disrupted, far better that Edmonton has a robust local supply of food, she says.
Also, the drought is already causing big headaches for farmers just outside. Part of the problem is that large-scale, export-driven agriculture is more vulnerable to a lack of rain, she says.
In fact, Camrose county in mid-June declared a state of agriculture disaster as canola and hay fields withered under the lack of rain.
Small-scale SPIN operations can store water in the soil more easily and withstand hard times, she says.
But while many environmentalists retreat to the countryside for a purer life, she says, that's not helping to build healthy urban spaces.
"That's just leaving the mess. We need to stay and change the way cities work, to make them sustainable. There's plenty of vacant land for growing and the city should lease land to young urban farmers."
SPIN gardening got started in Saskatoon. Farmer Wally Satzewich discovered he could make more money growing greens and salad crops in the city than on his rural land, mainly because he could grow three crops in a summer.
Contrary to expectations, an urban location offers many advantages for growing food--a more controlled environment, fewer pests, more warm days and instant access to market. Edmonton, with 140 frost-free days, compared to 110 outside the city, and its excellent Class 1 soil, holds great possibilities.
According to advocates, most SPINners are first-time farmers, but it also appeals to established farmers who want to diversify or downsize, as well as by part-time hobby farmers.
The Canadian Conventional Wisdom is that we will have a successful Agricultural system when we finally export more.
40-50 years of effort have so far only made Canadian Farmers more poor.
Here is an excellent short movie made by Hellmans that shows that not only have we failed to export but we are now mainly importing food. Not just exotic food but all the basics such as Apples, Pears, Tomatoes etc.
So why has Hellmans got onside with Local Food? They after all are a Global Food Company. It may just be Greenwash like BP or Shell. But I am so sure. The writing is on the wall. The consumer is waking up and so is the farmer.
Maybe Hellmans are being shrewd - Like Toyota - seeing the coming thing and positioning the firm to be a real leader?
What do you think?
Link: @hyperlocavore