PacificaWatch

. . . Jim Dingeman Dolores Umbridge, of Harry Potter fame . . .

. . . “Argh, some people have said we have no strategy. Argh, I have to differ with that because the strategy at all times, at every station, is t-to increase audience and increase the ability of the programming to, urgh, engage with the, urgh, the station [sic], and hence create more listener members. Argh, that’s to me always the stra-strategy of a broadcast institution – which we are. Um, so, one, I take umbrage with these comments that there is no strategy” – Dolores Umbridge Jim Dingeman . . .

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[UPDATE: Via Zoom, i attended the Sa18Mar2023 PNB Technology Task Force – for less than 5mins before being expelled, without warning, for no good reason by the Chair, Director Jim Dingeman. A presentation was being made by two bods from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, so i made a comment in the chatbox, explaining, with the linked evidence, that any CPB Radio Community Service Grant application, by a Pacifica station for the monies to be disbursed in FY2024, will necessarily fail, not least because two kinds of submissions, with deadlines of 15Feb & 28Feb, haven’t been made. Please see, as i said in my chatbox comment, Section 15(C) of the 2023 Radio Community Service Grant General Provisions and Eligibility Criteria, October 2022, page 18, https://www.cpb.org/sites/default/files/radio_community_service_grant_-csg-_general_provisions_and_eligibility_criteria_fy_2023.pdf.

[Having given the evidence, a few seconds later Chair Jim retorted, “Not true Jara[,] and if you want to simply state constant [sic] negativity about all this[,] time to go”. Within seconds i asked, “@JimDingeman, what’s not true?” Within 5secs i was expelled from the Pacifica public meeting! Simple as. And automatically refused when trying to re-attend. Oh dear.

[On this a post will be made, along with four on non-petulant matters: the directors violating § 312(a), California Corporations Code by not hiring a Chief Financial Officer; the directors violating § 12586(e)(2), California Government Code by electing four members of staff to the PNB Audit Cttee; the PNB majority violating Pacifica by-law Art. 4, Sec. 8 by extending delegate terms; & ED Steph ‘The Breeze’ violating by-law Art. 4, Sec. 4 by not hiring a National Elections Supervisor on either 1Mar or 2Mar (in the context of the timeline, per Art. 4, Sec. 5), given that the PNB hadn’t invoked that section’s “exigent circumstances” provision & set by 30Nov2022 a new timeline. Quadruple oh.

[But on the subject in hand, that post will include three screenshots showing Chair Jim’s appalling autocratic, authoritarian action on Saturday. (I hesitate to call it un-Pacifican given the history of peeps who get into positions of Pacifica decision-making. Jim, a hypocrite? No, that’s another universe, its own honour by desert.) The content of the post will be used in an open letter to his 20 fellow Pacifica directors. They need to have their attention drawn to three things: (1) they need to know that in the next 4wks, Pacifica can spend its time more productively by not trying to make CPB applications (it’s 4wks coz, although no-one has mentioned it in a public Pacifica meeting, other than PacificaWatch minions, the Radio CSG money is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis – https://cpb.org/sites/default/files/rfp/9ae3dc90/Grant%20Guidelines%20Radio%20CSG%20for%20FY%202023%20-%20New%20Applicant%20Guidelines.pdf); (2) they need to know that Director D has brought his office into disrepute by his action, an expression of both his inability to accept the evidence staring him in the face, as well as his inability to accept that in a forum open to the public that he can’t legitimately expel from the meeting those who present evidence he doesn’t like (moreover, that linked to the prospective grantor’s website); & (3), if these 20 fellows respect their office then they will censure Director D for being a dick, for being disreputable. An apology is irrelevant: the remedy is for Ungentlemanly Jim to publicly commit to stop being an autocrat, to stop acting as an authoritarian. But does he have the character to do this?

[Note that i wasn’t given time by Nuker Jim to post the illuminating contextual evidence showing how the CPB has deliberately, & explicitly, shaped the current situation for Pacifica, making plain the obdurate reality. That is, the Section 15(C) i cited needs to be read in conjunction with the CPB informing Pacifica, in no uncertain terms, that “[t]o be considered for re-entry to the CSG program, the Radio CSG program must be open to new applicants[;] Licensee and Stations must demonstrate full compliance with the General Provisions at the time of application[;] and Licensee and Stations must fulfill all requirements outlined in the March 28, 2013 letter” – CPB letter to ED Lydia Brazon & PNB Chair Alex Steinberg, 22May2020, emphases added (& to aid comprehension, semi-colons replace commas), https://mega.nz/file/cY8XCYLb#4IGXyzfasCgfm-GdaYYm6WPn2XaD4UcMJR8ZPTo-Q8c. So the CPB didn’t simply choose ‘comply’ – which is emphatic enough. No. That’s not at all how the CPB feels about Pacifica. Oh, no. So bears repeating: “must demonstrate full compliance” – no ifs, no buts. This isn’t doing a deal in a back alley, doing a deal without paperwork – this isn’t PacificaWorld: this is RealWorld.]

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The PacificaWatch TikTok message: audiofile at https://mega.nz/file/xYUk3L7J#FvqWxVioEEpu8GGF2nGwQNOq6eDI8aRlZ575PBcXdx4; key quote at 20:38.

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The PacificaWatch long form message . . .

The M13Mar2023 PNB Strategic Planning Cttee meet was chaired, this year as last, by Director Jim ‘I know I talk a lot, but I know I’m the best at knocking it out’a the park, OK’ Dingeman.

Those present (they were all directors last year): Director James McFadden (KPFA listener-delegate), KPFK Listener-Member Beth Gunten, WPFW Listener-Member Donna Grimes, WPFW Listener-Member Julie Hewitt, WBAI Listener-Member James Sagurton, & Director Jim himself (WBAI listener-delegate).

You may ask, why the two radically different kinds of designation? Well, as mentioned above, this is per Pacifica’s by-laws – it’ll be fully explained in a coming post, titled something like ‘On the cuckoos, the LARP’ers, the impostors: illegally extending delegate terms, 20Oct2022 PNB’.

But we need to stay focused on those at the 13Mar2023 PNB Strategic Planning Cttee meeting, those selected by their esteemed colleagues on the PNB as the cream of the cerebral crop. Their distinctive skill sets standing out from the crowd, easily recognised by their peers. The PNB had sent them on a mission to the Cttee, to exercise their cognitive capacities, to deliver the goods of strategic thinking: visions; scenarios; gathering/commissioning necessary evidence; scaled scenarios, temporally & spatially; thoughts; intuitions; sketches; ideas (inchoate, preferably formed); statements; arguments; paragraphs; gathering new evidence; initial working papers; initial document; collective document; getting even more new evidence; revised document; re-revised document; presented document; document recommended by the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee to the PNB; document adopted by the PNB; then monitoring the implementation of the policy by management; & mini-cycles re revisions. The whole production cycle, an exercise in iteration . . . And the deliberations this Monday evening, 13Mar2023, what did their strategic thinking yield, what did they put on display for the world to see? Please consider for yourself the evidence – that is, the presence of absence – not least at 22:17 & 35:31.

The audiofile

The audiofile isn’t at https://kpftx.org/archive.php, the curious, benign visitor being greeted with a defiant “Not Recorded” – this despite Chief Recorder Otis Maclay, who effectively owns Pacifica’s calendar & meetings archive because he owns the copyright to the contents, not just being present during the meeting but actually taking up the invitation of Cttee Chair Jim to contribute his opinions to the discussion (sic).

Chair Jim didn’t have the courtesy to ask his esteemed fellow committee members if it was OK to ask someone who hadn’t been accepted as a guest in the approved agenda, moreover one granted speaking rights. To be honest, in the spirit of inclusion, purportedly a Pacifica value, it was a surprise that the station cat wasn’t asked to comment, along with the termites, busily gorging themselves on the foundations, displaying teamwork unparalleled in PacificaWorld.

The audiofile, 1hr18mins, 108MB: https://mega.nz/file/xYUk3L7J#FvqWxVioEEpu8GGF2nGwQNOq6eDI8aRlZ575PBcXdx4.

The key quote: Mr D not only asserts that Pacifica has a strategy, he describes it

Director Jim Dingeman, to use his words, takes “umbrage” at those who say “we have no strategy”. The passage:

Alright, the next thing I had on the agenda was to talk about short-term strategic policy, argh, and comments on the current situation. Now, um, we all know that argh, there are some difficult decisions in motion right now, argh, that are due to many reasons. Argh, some people have said we have no strategy. Argh, I have to differ with that because the strategy at all times, at every station, is t-to increase audience and increase the ability of the programming to, urgh, engage with the, urgh, the station [sic], and hence create more listener members. Argh, that’s to me always the stra-strategy of a broadcast institution – which we are. Um, so, one, I take umbrage with these comments that there is no strategy. Now the question is whether this particular strategy is working right now, and it clearly has not, as far as I’m concerned. Argh, we wouldn’t be in this situation, fiscally, if we had not got to the point where our audiences had [sic] basically diminished, due to a whole variety of reasons, argh, and be thinking about having to re-boot and take, argh, decisions that are, argh, quite Hobbesian, to say the least [. . . and on he droned]

Chair & Director Jim Dingeman (emphases added, 20:46), M13Mar2023 PNB Strategic Planning Cttee – https://mega.nz/file/xYUk3L7J#FvqWxVioEEpu8GGF2nGwQNOq6eDI8aRlZ575PBcXdx4. (He mixes up Hobson’s choice & Hobbesian trap, when neither applies; & decision-makers are faced by neither a dilemma (there are more than two options) nor zugzwang (inaction is an option) – no, this is a deteriorating situation, fiscally & otherwise, because in the immediate & short term the pecuniary forces at work are so strong that their causal effect overwhelms any action/inaction; the situation is so out of control that it’s experienced as independent of all options, & so independent of volition, even of the will of the 21 directors, as they endlessly decide how to make decisions to direct with directions from their thrones. Whatever, say the millions & millions who don’t even know what a radio is because they never visit a museum.)

Serious, Jim?

The doc, Jim?

Give us a break, baby.

The 5-yr record of the PNB Strategic Planning Cttee, since 12Mar2018

https://pacifica-democracy-project.org/documents/strategic-recovery-plan-approved-feb-25-2021/ (this link is given coz the ‘strategic plan’ was never posted on a Pacifica site, & even if the Cttee minutes were indeed passed they’ve never been made public, posted to https://kpftx.org/archive_2021.php); & https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/210225/210225_7029_minutes.pdf

https://kpftx.org/archive_2018.php, etc.

Some 2nd grade math (as Andrew Weiss would say, “Bart, you may now leave your chair, pick up the chalk, and do the calculation for the class, then please put down the chalk, and return to your desk. You have 30 seconds”):

80 meets x 2hrs = 160hrs = 4 whole work-weeks;

4 whole work-weeks x 8 Cttee members = 32 whole work-weeks (assuming a prudent 8, understating a typical complement of 5 station directors plus affiliate director, PNB Chair, Pacifica Secretary, Executive Director, Chief Financial Officer, the Pope, attendants – in 2022 the membership was a magnifico 13); &

32 whole work-weeks = 4½ pages.

As a practitioner of billable time, i must say there’s something not quite right here. (Incidently, & as a public response to queries i have received over the years, i did offer my pro bono services to Pacifica in 2018, just after ‘the bankruptcy’ drama broke. I received no reply – except no reply.)

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