The Garden

Thursday, June 25,  2009
7 p.m.

Earth House
237 N. East Street
Indianapolis

"The fourteen acre community garden located at 41st and Alemeda in South Central Los Angles is the largest of its kind in the United States.  Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the county's most blighted neighborhoods.  Growing their own food.  Feeding their families.  Creating a community.  But now,  bulldozers are poised to to level their 14-acre Oasis."

 Filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy will be at the screening to discuss his work and to participate in the earth house food independence day.

More information about The Garden

For more information visit Earth House

Recently, users of Facebook forced a reversal of changes in the terms of use for the social networking site. What is not always talked about are the institutional connections of information technology.

Here is a link to a presentation of the issues related to proposed change in terms or service as well as information about the institutional structure  of Facebook in general.

for more in-depth information about human rights and information technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a good place to start.

Erik Möllberg

Erik Möllberg, Chair of the Indiana Chapter of the Alliance for Community Media, also runs the public, educational, and government (PEG) TV channels in Ft. Wayne. On January 29, he attended a hearing entitled “Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Services in the Digital TV Age” convened by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications & the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington, DC. Committee Chair John Dingell (D-Michigan) initiated the hearing to look into to Comcast’s attempt to move PEG channels to the more expensive digital tier in Michigan in response to the state’s new video franchising law. The Right-of-Way is pleased to present some of Erik’s impressions:

Download the April/May 2008issue of the Public Access of Indianapolis newsletter, The Right of Way.  In the lead story, Erik Mollberg shares his experience at a hearing on “Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Services in the Digital TV Age” convened by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications & the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington,  (Adobe Reader required.) 

Rev. Timothy Rouse, President of the South Bend Common Council.

After the closing of Comcast's public access television studio in December, the City of South Bend selected the local PBS affiliate, WNIT, to record its three remaining Common Council meetings for 2007. But when that contract was extended through 2008 without an open bidding process, African American Council members and previous bidders cried foul during a meeting of the Information and Technology Committee on February 6, 2008.

The Indianapolis Marion County Cable Franchise Board (CFB) oversees local cable franchise agreements, local access TV channels, and meets monthly. Public comments are allowed at the end of the meeting. The official meeting minutes and video archives of the meetings are available on the IndyGov website.

The Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission (IURC) oversees the state video franchise certificates for Comcast and AT&T.

I’ve been watching “ER” since long before George (Dr. Doug Ross) Clooney became Oscar-nominated lawyer Michael Clayton, but no more. I’m boycotting NBC because of its actions in excluding Dennis Kucinich from the MSNBC broadcast of the Democratic presidential candidates in Las Vegas on January 15.

This issue of RoW documents a victory for our friends in Philadelphia, multiple ongoing struggles at the FCC and in Congress, and machinations in our own state with video service providers operating in a variety of situations. But to this observer, all commercial video providers are single-mindedly focused on their ultimate goal: The Bottom Line. The moldy concepts of promoting the common good like clean air and water and preserving public property like the “public airways” seem to be no longer understood in our money-driven society.

Conceived in 1993 by Stuart Lowry, Jim Walsh, and Patricia Miller, WITT will be the first community radio station serving Zionsville and the greater Indianapolis area. The board of WITT has completed all of the regulatory steps with the Federal Communications Commission and has acquired an FM radio transmitter. Now they have two and a half years to begin broadcasting. To learn more about their vision for non-commercial community radio and how you can get involved, visit www.919witt.org.