Posted 11:27 AM by Blah blah

TV show

Tomorrow we'll tape the next two episodes of our political TV talk show. For over a year, I've been producing this tiny show on public access TV (cable) for our county Democratic club. Everyone is a volunteer, except for a couple of guys from the station who help us out. It's not journalism. It's more a place to promote Democratic causes, organizations, and politicians. It's marketing.

I'm on the board for our political club. One time at a board meeting, I brought up this idea of getting the other side's point of view. I have moderate political views. I'm a pragmatist---not hardcore one way or the other. Someone said "You can bring on someone to talk about the other side, as long as that person is not the best speaker and we know that the Democratic speaker and her views will look better." End of story.

To interview, we asked Dolly, one of our friends and a member of the Cupertino City Council. She's been on our show a few times herself. She served ten years on the board of Foothill and DeAnza, two local excellent community colleges. Normally we change TV hosts on a whim. Dolly agreed to save us effort and will host both shows tomorrow.

Sometimes I host. I had fun interviewing my friend Lisa a couple of shows ago, about her work with a laser tattoo removal clinic, which serves young people like gang members trying to move to a new life. She's a trauma and plastic surgeon who this summer started a private practice.

Tomorrow we'll have two fascinating guests, both women politicians. Rosemary is on the Mountain View City Council. She was mayor of Mountain View in 2000 and ran for state legislative office this March. She lost. If you look at her resume you'll be blown away by her versatility. She's been a manager, a tax preparer, a community college teacher in computer networking, a politician, AND a webmaster! Seems like she mainly does contract web work now. That's the type of person we have more of here in Silicon Valley. People are willing to try new careers and experiment with old and new jobs like that, sometimes all at the same time.

Rosemary went to Afghanistan this May. She was part of a "delegation of 20 headed to Afghanistan to work on redevelopment projects involving health care, education and government. [Rosemary,] who has an economics degree and has worked as a commercial lender, will focus on microlending. Often...that means small loans of as little as $5 that borrowers can use to buy something like an oven or a loom....It's part of a larger effort to give women basic business training and form local support groups where they can help one another get back to work." (Metroactive)

We'll be showing her trip photos on the show. Our studio has a control that lets us switch between video feed and a computer with a Net connection.

Our second guest is Elaine, a business lawyer who is a Democratic candidate for Congress in the election this November. She's running in the 11th Congressional District, which covers Morgan Hill. Has a background in securities law which is very timely in this Enron and WorldCom climate of lies, where people don't trust the stock market. Our show normally doesn't broadcast in Morgan Hill, but I planned a special effort to do it. Morgan Hill is a tiny town southeast of San Jose with lots of hills and open space. My favorite high school English teacher lives there and raises sheep.

That's right. We hope at least five people and ten sheep in Morgan Hill will get to see Elaine's interview.