FURIOUS nads! by The One True b!X

Remember this situation regarding Denver’s “missing” Can’t Stop the Serenity charity donation to Equality Now from 2007? There’s some back-channel word today that the man in question allegedly has made a lump-sum donation to Equality Now, paired with some sort of apologetic statement, although it’s specific nature is not known to me.

It’s also still unknown whether or not a similar apologetic statement has been made to the people who, a year ago now, originally contributed that money in the first place.

One would hope that if the person in question indeed has suddenly made a donation, and indeed has coupled said donation with an apology, that such actions will stop people from attacking me for making the supported-by-the-facts claims that I did.

And while one global-level CSTS organizer has tried (without knowing any information whatsoever, and based solely on the coincidence of timing) to raise the specter that my posts are responsible for the cancellation of this year’s CSTS event in Perth, I doubt the same person will point to the coincidence in timing and credit me for helping to bring the Denver matter to a close.

(To be clear on the above, I’m not actually claiming I helped bring the Denver matter to a close. I have no idea. My only point is that if I’m going to be blamed-via-insinuation by someone for things based solely on timing, then that same person should have the decency to credit me for things based solely on timing as well. Fair is fair.)

At any rate, at this point it would appear that Equality Now is in possession of the funds due to it from the Denver event in 2007, which in the end was the point and the goal.

In addition, the world did not come crashing down as a result of transparency being forced upon the reluctant parties involved. Let that be remembered should there ever be a next time.

Addendum: I think that Dizzy sums it up nicely: “My goodness. All this kerfluffle from CSTS Global for nothing. No matter what b!X said, the situation is being resolved. And the timing is curious, so who knows? It could have been his whistle-blowing that brought this person out of hiding. And if not? Well it certainly didn’t hinder them from doing it.”

Back in July of 2007, the Mile High Browncoats estimated having raised approximately $1,900 for Equality Now, after accounting for expenses. As reported here last week, that money never found its way to that charity.

Before proceeding further, it is very important to reiterate that the events in Denver in 2007 were not the result of the actions of the person who organized the Can’t Stop the Serenity event in that city in 2008. While that organizer was involved in 2007, they were not that event’s de facto accountant. There is no reason for there to be concern about this year’s Denver event.

In my post last week, I deliberately failed to identify the organizer in question by name. That now changes, as necessitated by the public documents and information upon which this post is based.

We’re talking about the person or persons known as Jeremy Vinding. And here’s the curious chain of events from which I invite you to draw your own conclusions, presented with no further comment.

On July 31, 2006, a judgment was entered against one Jeremy J. Vinding in Jefferson County, Colorado, pertaining to a debt owed to one Cach, LLC in the amount of $1,954.34. The record available (.tif) on the Jefferson County website has a filing number of 2006099923 and a date of August 15, 2006.

On June 23, 2007, the Mile High Browncoats screened the movie Serenity to raise money for Equality Now, part of the global Can’t Stop the Serenity event. Within days, they reported having raised approximately $1,900 after accounting for expenses.

On July 19, 2007, one Jeremy J. Vinding satisfied the July 31, 2006, judgment against him in the amount of $1,954.34. The record available (.tif) on the Jefferson County website has a filing number of 2007086508 and a date of July 25, 2007.

On that same July 19, 2007, Jeremy Vinding (a.k.a. Ugly Virgin, a.k.a. accountantbob) posted what turned out to be his final message to the Mile High Browncoats mailing list.

In early 2008, Equality Now reported never having received the estimated $1,900 in funds raised by the Mile High Browncoats at its Can’t Stop the Serenity event in 2007.

While I no longer have any authority to speak on behalf of the worldwide Can’t Stop the Serenity effort, and can comment only from the combined perspectives of being the event’s founder, part of this fandom, and an observer, I post the following message because no one else seemed willing to do so until after this year’s events had passed.

Their argument was that making this information public might endanger this year’s worldwide CSTS events. My argument is that it is entirely unethical not to make this information public.

Here’s the short of it: Equality Now has indicated that they never received the money raised in 2007 by the Can’t Stop the Serenity events held in either Denver or Dallas/North Texas.

In the case of Denver, the person ultimately responsible for the estimated $1,900 raised — the co-organizer there who was serving as the event’s accountant — apparently has since disappeared and reportedly become completely incommunicado. That money, as near as anyone can tell, simply is gone forever, although no one knows why. Equality Now reports having no record of those funds.

In the case of Dallas/North Texas, the roughly $5,600 raised wound up in the account of the lead organizer there and got “lost”. He currently is under a signed agreement to make monthly payments over the next two years to Equality Now.

The fact that these two cities had “missing” funds has been known for some time — at least since February, in fact (although this year’s new organizer in Dallas/North Texas did not know until about a month or so ago and has been instrumental in getting the situation addressed).

I had thought that it was the right thing to do to wait until this year’s organizers in Denver and Dallas/North Texas made public statements on their own regarding 2007’s funds. But we are far, far past the point at which those statements should have been made, either by the current organizers in those cities, or by this year’s global coordinator.

It is important to take note here that these events are not run by Equality Now itself, but by fans. The only role Equality Now has in this entire process is to accept our donations — or report back that they have not received them. The onus of publicly disclosing problems with CSTS fundraising events rests with CSTS itself and no one else.

While this year’s organizers in both cities on Wednesday posted a statement to other CSTS organizers, the global coordinator (and some other local organizers) requested that those statements and the facts they contain not be made public. I disagreed with the notion of a delay, as I have for some time now.

The event-going public has the right to know what happened. There is no ethically-defensible way in which to withhold the fact that someone’s money did not go where it was supposed to, while asking them to give more money again this year.

That’s true even if the organizers this year are different, and processes have been put into place to prevent it from happening again (as they have been). The relevant people in both Denver and Dallas/North Texas are out, and new rules exist. The organizer in Dallas/North Texas is different, and the organizer in Denver, while not new to the event, was not that event’s accountant in 2007.

But even beyond the right of local event-goers to know, the fandom as a whole also has the right to know. Those two individuals are, for whatever reasons, in effect responsible for the fandom being bilked out of several thousand dollars being raised in its name.

It’s especially shocking and frustrating (if there’s even any way in which to rank these incidents) to see what happened in Dallas/North Texas. Not only was the individual in question the local organizer there, but he was 2007’s global coordinator — that year’s public face for the overall global event. To my mind, it’s unforgivable and inexcusable.

It’s a betrayal which, for me personally, surpasses — in the level of disgust, if not in amount of money — the 2006 debacle regarding the canceled Flanvention 2.

One final note of personal argument. It was suggested that this information be kept under wraps until after this year’s CSTS events concluded, so as not to scare off any potential attendees or donors. But let me share an example to explain why I vehemently disagreed with this notion.

If a newly-elected mayor had as one of his or her tasks putting a levy renewal on the ballot to be approved by voters, but discovered that their predecessor had embezzled funds from the existing levy, the new mayor could not ethically — under any rationale or argument whatsoever — keep that embezzlement a secret until after the election in order to make sure the levy renewal was passed by the voters.

In such a situation, the idea that learning of the prior missing levy funds might keep the voters from approving a new levy would fall under the phrase “tough shit”. Same goes here.

It’s stressful, it’s difficult, and it’s profoundly unfair for these two individuals to have created this situation. But those are not excuses for refusing to inform the fandom about what happened, and doing so in a timely fashion to allow them to make their own informed decisions about this year’s events.

In essence, these two individuals already took advantage of the fandom. Not telling the fandom about it before asking it for more money amounts to taking advantage of them a second time. That’s wrong.

My sense of ethics isn’t up for a public vote, despite some on the CSTS organizers’ forums trying to make it that way. And, to be honest, it’s absurd (to put it very tamely) that apparently I have to drag people kicking and screaming into exhibiting ethical behavior.

The resistance to exhibiting ethical behavior by making these unfortunate facts known to the fandom at large in a timely manner, delaying doing so for so long that it’s now mere days before this year’s events, became so rabid that one organizer accused me of simply wanting attention for myself.

As the founder of Can’t Stop the Serenity, why in a million years would I ever desire going out of my way to write a gut-wrenching statement such as this one?

All anyone had to do to prevent this coming from me was for Denver, Dallas, or this year’s global coordinator to have the ethical will to treat the fandom with respect and explain in a timely manner — in other words, at any time since this past February — what was done in its name.

No one was willing to do the right thing. Which I guess tells me something I wish I didn’t have to learn.

The original transgressions are on those two individuals out of Denver and Dallas/North Texas from last year. The on-going unethical stall on being up front and transparent with the fandom which CSTS represents is on Denver, Dallas, and this year’s global coordinator.

It will not be on me, any more than it already is by “virtue” of the fact that I was stupid enough to trust that the proper parties would go public in a timely fashion.

All of that said, it’s important to know one other thing: While all of this reflects poorly on the entire CSTS effort (or has the potential to do so) it is important to take note of the fact that these incidents are an aberration.

Remember that CSTS is a distributed effort, with each city handling its own fundraising activities. What happened in two cities last year has no direct bearing on what happens in your own city this year.

For two years running, CSTS has operated honestly and successfully, and is fully expected to do so again this year, and into the future, especially with tightened reporting processes which I’m told have been instituted in the wake of these disheartening revelations.

In other words, one should not at this stage feel hesitant about attending your local CSTS event this year. If you do have any questions, participating cities are linked on the main CSTS website.

Addendum: In the wake of all of this hitting the Web over the course of the day, a number of things have transpired.

The least important of these is the fact that I’ve been summarily banned from the global CSTS discussion board — not just the private organizers forums, but the publicly-accessible ones as well. In the end, it doesn’t matter, but it does demonstrate that the response to having to deal with not living up to their own responsibilities in this matter is to opt for pettiness.

More importantly, this year’s global organizer posted a response to WHEDONesque arguing that they simply were waiting until all the facts were known, that there is an investigation (of some unstated variety) underway, and that they did not want to “libel” people. Others, both in that same thread and elsewhere, have intimated and insinuated that in fact this very post constitutes libel.

Of course, it does not, as this post is the truth of the matter. And truth, as we know, is a defense — the defense, really — against libel.

It also should be pointed out that falsely accusing someone of committing libel is an act that itself could be considered libelous, so I’d suggest that people tread very carefully when they seek to characterize what I’ve posted here. Libel is not a word to throw around lightly.

It’s also not a wall to hide behind. If the global organizer was worried about libel, there still would have been nothing preventing them from issuing a statement — again, at any point since at least this past February — which simply said this: “Monies are missing from the Denver and Dallas events. An investigation is underway.”

There would have been no libel there, and it would have satisfied at least a minimal degree of transparency when it came to the fandom which CSTS claims to represent, and in whose name it raises funds for Equality Now.

Everything that has transpired today could have been avoided with two simple sentences posted at any point between February and this morning.

But in the main, I need to reiterate: Truth is a defense against libel. Anyone else thinking to suggest that the above post is libel needs to think twice about publicly making that sort of false claim.

Addendum: For the sake of the archive, the bulk of the public discussion about all of this took place in this WHEDONesque thread.

Addendum: It should be pointed out that when certain parties state that I have “no legal standing in this matter whatsoever, has no authority to make any statements regarding these events” they’re making entirely irrelevant observations.

To return to the comparison I provided originally, about a mayoral financial scandal: If we added to that hypothetical the discovery of the scandal by a third party — say, a reporter — that reporter would have “no legal standing” and “no authority to make statements” in the sense that the confused commenter on WHEDONesque suggests. And yet, said reproter would be entirely within not just his rights but his obligations to write a story about the scandal.

So, once again, critics of the outing of this information find themselves relying on entirely spurious and irrelevant arguments which distract from the issues at hand. Little surprise there.

Really, there remain open questions which can be answered without offering any of the horrible dangers which the apologists claim exist.

What, precisely, do you mean by “investigation”? This never once has been answered and in fact when the CSTS organizers themselves in a private forum began asking that very question, CSTS global summarily locked the thread and ended the discussion.

When you state that “other sponsors agreed it was important that the announcement be delayed”, to which sponsors are you referring? It’s irresponsible not to specify because there might be sponsors who supported the release of the information whose views are being misrepresented by an unspecific “other sponsors”.

I’m sure there are others. You likely can find them being posed — and then not answered — in the WHEDONesque thread.

Addendum: My favorite part of a comment that did not last long on WHEDONesque, but also was cross-posted to the private organizers forum on the CSTS website (and which someone was kind enough to share with me), is this bit.

And as for Dallas… well, the money is getting to EN, even if later than expected. So it’s not exactly “stolen” any more is it?

This comment was posted by an assistant to this year’s global organizer, and the one responsible (for example) for locking a previous thread about the missing money once organizers began to ask who, exactly, was conducting the “investigation”, so that the organizers could make an informed judgment as to whether or not such “investigation” was sufficient and/or independent enough.

It’s a charming argument: So what if funds raised for charity ended up being utilized for other purposes, so long as two years from now the charity will actually end up receiving that money? Forget the fact that people gave the money with the intent that it go directly to the charity.

Monthly payments over the course of two years in order to make sure a charity gets the funds it should have received in total within months of the event is reduced to the money simply getting there “later than expected”.

As a friend of mine quipped in reference to this: “Equality Now, lending to Browncoats since 2007.” Not exactly the motto for which Can’t Stop the Serenity was looking.

Given that the above blockquoted remark was made by someone in a position of high authority within this year’s CSTS structure, it now is incumbent upon any and all other such persons to disavow and disown the remark and the astonishingly stupid attitude it reveals.

Addendum: Said organizer also took issue with my having called them a “flunky”, which I had done in this post. But since you clearly can see their pattern of shutting down discussions of decisions made by the global coordinator, I stand by the use of the term.

The autocratic bullshit of treating Can’t Stop the Serenity event organizers like employees instead of partners — springing (to give but one example) without prior discussion a signed agreement on them at the last moment, and tossing the ensuing hyper-critical discussion of said agreement into the memory hole (read: deleting it) as if it never happened — has to stop. Maybe that works down in Austin (although given the board resignations a couple of months ago, I gather not so much), or wherever this year’s flunkies are from, but it’s obviously not what people expect in this case.

And also, more importantly: If you don’t make a public statement about the missing funds (and discrepancies in reporting) from last year (note: nothing to do with Portland), I’m going to do it for you.