I've written a new MetaFilter post, "Distinguishing character assassination from accountability", pulling out quotes from eleven writers from the past 40 years on how we take and charge each other with responsibility and power within communities, and in particular how we do accountability in progressive groups -- from Jo Freeman and Joanna Russ discussing "trashing" in the US feminist movement to people in the last few years and weeks talking about times to get on the phone, making trusting relationships for accountability, and lessons from Occupy. Perhaps the most immediately useful link in there is this "pod" discussion and mapping worksheet.

Speaking of MetaFilter: after the US election in November, I decided to take some concrete steps to be a better neighbor, so I took a CPR and first aid class. In it I learned about how amazing and underappreciated automated external defibrillators are. I did a bunch of reading and wrote up this MetaFilter post:

If someone had a heart attack right next to you, could you get to your nearest automated external defibrillator, grab it, and use it within 3-5 minutes of their collapse? More and more, the answer is yes, because of Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) programs (that statement is from 1995; 2015 update to AHA guidelines).

On average, when a person in the US calls 911 because someone's suffered cardiac arrest, emergency medical responders get to the scene in 8-12 minutes (Red Cross) -- but for people suffering cardiac arrest, for every minute defibrillation is delayed, the chance of survival goes down about 7-10% (American Heart Association, PDF). Bystanders (even untrained ones) who use AEDs on victims can save lives; "Application of an AED in communities is associated with nearly a doubling of survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest."

But where's your nearest AED?...

In that post, I commented about how difficult it can be to get PAD data, in New York at least. I ended up sending in a document request to the New York State Department of Health, and need to review what they sent back to me. Also I happened to mention my amateur AED research while talking to my city councilmember at a local Democratic Club meeting, so he might be introducing a bill soon to make the PAD data for NYC more accessible? So that's cool.