POW! [Power Our World] Impact Forum

Shared Google doc with Current Movie List

Please add your suggestions too. If we don’t get to them next time, we’ll try to include them at a future Impact Forum. Our next is Impact Forum Tuesday the 23rd of February 2021. If you’d like to be added to the mailing list, contact us.

2021 – Impact Forum notes

Mark Finnern: Welcome everyone! Link to the main document we collaborate on. Love your playfulness Kimberly What’s your source?

Kimberly Wiefling: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . . . and I am genetically more Neanderthal than 91% of humans!!

Lauralee Alben – GRIEF CRY
as shown at the POW Impact Forum & comments

Grief Cry on Medium &on Poetry and COVID

Grieving orca carrying her dead calf

Jean Fox: Thank you, Lauralee!  The last time I saw you I was on my way to Mallorca which was amazing.  I already saved the link in your contact so I can follow up by watching.

Gillian Julius: I suspect we are a group of people who each are oriented more to listen to what others say rather than to what we ourselves have to say (we already know our own ideas!)

David Skellern: I need some time to digest this.

Jean Fox: I agree with David, I need time to digest.  But I’m so glad that we are all here!

Joy Mountford: I have never thought of films as being interactive but ….

Lauralee Alben: What happens when we breach walls like a humpback surfacing? Will our collective grief and longing propel us into a just, equitable, and regenerative world?

Dorothy Fadiman – Stealing America – Vote by Vote

Kimberly Wiefling: Find the whole film here.  And the TRAILER here:

Mark Finnern: Greg Palast has been on the voter fraud beat for many years

Gillian Julius: Also Mike Farb and Jenny Cohn

Dorothy Fadiman on LinkedIn

Lauralee Alben: Dorothy, how is it that you have chosen to be such a courageous activist and guardian of the truth?

Tad Hogg: How much does gerrymandering affect results compared to the other problems you identified?

Gillian Julius: What is your take on how impacted the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections have been? To me this is the #1 issue – voting reform, campaign finance reform…every other issue is downstream from having a working democracy

Julian Gomez: Two professors who’ve done extensive research on the technology of election fraud: Prof. Rebecca Mercuri, Prof. Gene Spafford

Rich Schineller: Ironically, I’ve been involved on several film projects with hanging chad Katherine Harris here in Sarasota.

Mark Finnern: Greg Palast tracked massive voter suppression. Democrats are not much better. Remember how they rigged the game against Bernie Sanders when running against Hillary. 10%+ difference in exit polls vs results in New York …

Claudia Brenner: Dorothy – what kind of seed would you plant — tonight?

Mark Finnern: @Claudia good question: @Dorothy what seeds could be planted tonight?

Michael MacKay – American MC – Riding with the Hells’ Angels

Lauralee Alben: Michael, How did you change as a result of filming these guys, and hearing their stories?

Jean Fox: Yes, the trouble is that no story can possibly contain the WHOLE story.  I love hearing the backstory.

Gillian Julius: Do you know the organization BACA?  They go with children to their court dates when they have to face their abusers…

Rich Schineller: We’ve worked with Shotgun Preachers on several Veterans Honor Runs and Selah Freedom and More to Life anti-trafficking initiatives here in Gulf Coast Florida.

Michael MacKay:  Wonderful to hear

Ray Martin: Michael, I love the message not to judge a book by its cover. I believe you did a great service in this regard, and I look forward to seeing the entire film. Thank you

Chuck Digital Art: Games and AR VR is what I do – I’m always looking at ways to find avenues for telling compelling real time stories with this easily accessible tech…

FUTURE PLANS
Mark Finnern: The next Session will be Future of Democracy 2.0 on Tuesday 23rd of February 6pm PST We are collecting pointers to interesting information where we make sense of it what it is and what we can do to point it in a positive direction

Gillian Julius: I have thoughts to share in response to Stephanie if you like, I will stay a bit longer…

Kimberly Wiefling: Thank you Zann! Love to connect further and support in any way I can!

Jean Fox: Thank you all.  Doug Carmichael would love to hear more from you too

Douglass Carmichael: The objective of making meetings actionable was my reason for starting Serious Conversations.

Ray Martin: I like Doug’s message!

Gillian Julius: That is a fascinating thought – living by fact vs relationship

Claudia Brenner: @Zann – thank you!!

David Skellern: Great start Zann and all.  Many thanks – it’s 2:30pm here.

Mark Finnern: Thank you everyone! See you on Tuesday Feb 23rd 6pm. Share your insights in the meantime here.

Gillian Julius: All the other species seem to create conditions conducive to continued life…we need to make that central to the systems we design.

Lauralee Alben: Yes! Funny thing is when my dog had to be put down – the grief was enormous… more so than when my sister passed away after a long illness.  Connectedness is the link for grief… being connected and breaking that connection

Ray Martin to Everyone: Thank you Zann! Thank you speakers and all.

Joy Mountford: Story of Dean and Jojo (dolphin) is great, one story but makes me think of preparation for the 30 year relationship with an animal and how to explain or share?

Claudia Brenner: COVID “break” and transformation is potentially very positive.  Thank you Zann and everyone! love this conversation

Lauralee Alben: Great question: Where do we get to discuss the world we want? Thanks everyone, especially Zann, for such a meaningful, inspiring conversation and evening. Bye for now….

Rich Schineller: Thank you for this conversation. Thought provoking.

2020 – Impact Forum notes

Sky Schuyler – The Third Harmony

This film about nonviolence theory and practice has music composed by Sky (Jim) Schuyler. Film info (including trailer) at thirdharmony.org

From Zann Gill: We have impressive diversity in the selections this evening, from non-violence to violence, from surreal performance art to syntropy as a principle in nature. So, because we have so much on the menu, we want to circle back to Sky, if not this evening, at another session because he has two more clips to show from this film. It would be very interesting to have a session that focuses on the two opposing ideas of two of our selections this evening. Question raised: Is non-violent or violent protest more effective?

Sha Sha Higby as the Minotaur with filmmaker Alex Gomez

Sha Sha Higby – Selections

This gallery of Sha Sha Higby videos shows her surreal, slow motion, meditation in film. Some comments from the group:

From Mark Finnern: looks very tribal in the best sense of the word. Book recommendation Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnston
From Gillian Julius: I love how it transforms into so many different things as you move
From Eileen Clegg:  Sha Sha – mesmerizing, so beautiful and emotional. . . .

Pete Forsyth – The Tipping Point

From Pete Forsyth: I’m excited to share info about The Tipping Point, a film featuring many of my friends in the Black Lives Matter protests. (Pete has worked on the Wikipedia article on the protests.)

From Shannon McElyea – That was great and needs to be seen. Did you get any footage of the alliance frontline sections? For instance Healthcare workers for Change, Moms for Change, Kids for Change, Vets for Change. I encouraged a retired Navy Captain friend of mine to get out there and he did and made a report. Those are very powerful. Fox News viewers believe what Trump says –– that it was just a bunch of violent anarchists. And the other side is NOT being told. Has not been told. It would be great if you interviewed those frontline folks.

Speaking of ‘riots’ in Portland, Here’s a petition to have DHS investigate the abuses by police and militia and the injuries sustained by the protesters. “Burns from flash grenades; bone fractures and lacerated scalps, necks, and hands from batons; trauma-induced seizures, traumatic brain injury, and face and neck lacerations from tear gas canisters and rubber bullets. These are the injuries that protestors suffered at the hands of federal agents and police during protests in Portland, Oregon this summer.

I know this because my colleagues and I at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) witnessed federal law enforcement agents and local police officers deliberately attacking the very people they are sworn to protect. We documented these injuries, excessive use of force, and the misuse of dangerous weapons in our latest report: “Now they just seem to want to hurt us: Dangerous Use of Crowd-Control Weapons against Protestors and Medics in Portland, Oregon.” This is the first time in the 34-year history of PHR that we have documented human rights abuses of this type and magnitude here in the United States.

From Kennita Watson: I have heard that much of the violence is white supremacists trying to give the movement a bed name.

From Pete Forsyth: @Kennita yes, there have been several times white supremacists (many/most from out of town) have come to Portland and instigated violence. A few of them (like Alan Swinney, who’s shown in the trailer) are now in jail, but even that feels like it only happens when there’s tremendous pressure on the police department, which often seems to give the white supremacists preferential treatment.

From Gillian Julius: People get more worked up over property damage than people being harmed; that’s why we need to have the protests.

From Mickey McManus: Pete is there a reason you have a Wikipedia logo behind you?

From Pete Forsyth: Hi Mickey, my work and most of my interests are around Wikipedia, so I’ve adopted that as my default Zoom background.

Scientific American article on Less-Lethal Crowd-Control Weapons relevant to the film Tipping Point.

Sebastian Kitchen – The Forest Explains

Sebastian Kitchen showed a private trailer for his forthcoming film about syntropy.

From Sha Sha Higby: I like how this film has a chorus or gentle repeating element that was spoken, helping the viewer to focus on the message.

From Gillian Julius: Is anyone here familiar with Elisabet Sahtouris’ work around syntropy as an evolutionary process? Here’s an interview with her and Daniel Wahl:  We are all holobionts. There is a school of thought that some mineral cycles have been broken since about 10K years ago with extinction of the last mega fauna. There are still plants around that evolved to be carried by these animals but the pathways are dysfunctional now.

From Dennis Britton: To understand better what Gillian is saying, see this short film of Didi Pershouse on The Great Work of Our Time. The film shown in October also adds context: A Message From the Future from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

From Sebastian Kitchen: She’s onto great things! We will be interviewing Walter Jehne.

From Mark Finnern: Wow, waking up the dirt sounds lovely.

From Shannon McElyea: Here’s The Soil will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet.

From Gillian Julius: I highly recommend Judith Schwartz’ books as well – Water in Plain Sight, Cows Save the Planet, and a new one The Reindeer Chronicles.

From Shannon McElyea: I also like Regenerative Farming saving us – saves the soil, and is resistant to floods and drought, sequesters CO2
Also this one.

Mickey McManus  We Are As Gods 

This is a film on Stuart Brand, which we’ll circle back to for discussion in the future.