fireflySun.com On Why Cable Access Is Coming Around

"Cable access is beginning to come around and should come around," proclaims a source from within the Ehrenfels camp. "Wyatt talks to a lot of people in his community. He introduces himself daily to D.C. metro riders, residents of highly trafficked D.C. streets, students at local colleges, tourists at the National Mall. He's overwhelmed by the appetite many of these people have for the work he's doing and claims to derive enjoyment from the personal contact. "This is where it's at," remarked Ehrenfels. "This is why I became an author. I enjoy the indepth discussions with those individuals interested in my work or in my campaign." When he is done pitching his book and handing out his flier, he is often detained for questions about dreaming and about the opposition of psych profs to students and colleagues who want to make a living studying dreams in a university setting, where dream research is grossly under-represented. "D.C. metropolitan residents [which include residents of Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia] are the most discerning people in the world. Understanding what I mean when I say that Psychology policies and procedures behave like prejudices, they want to know more, and I mean they don't want to wait to read the web site. I have enjoyed many supportive and edifying conversations on my daily journey across the Metro system's Orange, Blue, and Red lines."

While many people find what he has to say both fascinating and disquieting, Wyatt Ehrenfels is delighted to meet the occasional Metro rider finishing his own sentences. And when Wyatt encounters a rider who does not take a personal interest in the book or campaign, he is often met with the statement beginning, "I know someone who...". "Many D.C. residents know someone who is either in the field or who has some grievance with the field. In the latter cases, we're usually talking about residents acquainted with people who were either surprised they could not find work with a B.A. in Psychology, who were disappointed with the education, or who know someone in Psychology -- a roommate or neighbor -- they do not like very much."

Although he's still an obscure author, Wyatt was surprised to learn a few people he met on the D.C. streets claimed to be familiar with his book title. "They never seem to be able to recount exactly where they learned of the book, but they insist nevertheless they know that title." And you know, Wyatt brings something else to the table. When cable access producers invest in Ehrenfels, they get promotion. Wyatt finds odious the idea that no one will watch the program he worked so hard to prepare for, and so he finds a way to reach people in that community through the Internet and advertise the program, as he did with OKTV. For his OKTV show, he e-mailed -- and is e-mailing -- students of Montclair State University and William Paterson University and faculty at Ramapo College and Fairleigh Dickinson University, which is actually where he got started in Psychology at the age of 13."

For a number of psychology professionals, students, and non-degree holding supplicants, word of Wyatt Ehrenfels's two-episode agreement with OKTV, serving three counties widely regarded as the metropolitan suburbs of New York, brought sheer dismay. Just as the residents of Psychology Nation fashioned a new strategy for coping with Wyatt's diversifying media portfolio (which includes 4-page article solicited by the editors of New Therapist Magazine), which amounts to isolating OKTV as an example of substandard community programming, the author and expatriated social psychologist reported renewed hope in his quest to expand media outlets. A source close to Wyatt Ehrenfels dislosed that the Ehrenfels camp only recently implemented a broad outreach strategy. "After this initial period in which our [OKTV] announcement appeared to have broken the backs of our opposition, some of our detractors began pointing out that OKTV is and will remain the only outlet for our campaign to reform Psychology education and research policies and procedures. But OKTV was one of two cable access stations to respond favorably to a pitch that we submitted to only 6 stations in the local area." According to the unnamed source, the reason for the restricted search was strategic. "We needed a local station, some place Wyatt could get to with minimum expenditure and which could produce a tape that we could then mail out to any station that responded favorably to a second and unrestricted round of mailings. OKTV was a big win for us if you see the tapes, and we now have exactly the instrument we need in these tapes to go national. And OKTV is nothing to sneeze at. They bring a level of professionalism to cutting edge people and issues. Some stations want to be handmaidens of local institutions, which in our opinion, upsets the balance of power in society by denying citizens a voice. Some stations will not entertain your pitch without a local sponsor. Ehrenfels, who brings what we like to call his unique brand of anti-establishmentarian iconoclasm, may not be able to make inroads with producers who televise flea markets and puppet shows, but I don't tune in to public access to watch some guy cast his lure into the local fishing hole. And if a station has ever televised a college professor or member of the APA, [it] should responsibly televise Wyatt Ehrenfels even though he does not represent an institution. Because in a way, he does. And he does it better than those in whose charge we have placed these institutions."

Wyatt Ehrenfels Visits American University. Plans Fall Blitz of Local Campuses.

Wyatt Ehrenfels kicked off his university tour with a visit to The American University in the nation's capital. The author (Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun) and social psychologist went to "plan B" after efforts to arrange for university-sponsored speeches failed. "I contacted a number of campus officials by phone at a number of schools in university-rich Washington D.C., but they found creative ways of denying me a speaking engagement on campus, even when I posed as a career counselor with information vital to students' professional development, the labor market, and life after the bacceleaureate. I even tried personally posting some rather benign fliers in places widely recognized as campus bulletin boards which, in some cases, drew e-mails from school officials threatening to fine me. But I was not to be denied. I wish I could have chalked my new game-winning strategy up to an epiphany (the kind that hits you during your morning shower), but I owe the idea to an American University student. She seemed to think that if students were anything like her, they'd be pleased to help out an author who approached them on campus to discuss his work. And she was right! The American University students welcomed me into their community. I found them interested in discussing my work and willing, if not eager, to post my fliers in their residence halls. In so doing, these students allowed me to better manage my time and resources and to gain access to restricted areas that receive heavy student traffic."

Ehrenfels has learned that many of his primary points of contact (PPCs), the students to whom he personally introduced himself on campus, follow-up by e-mail to inform him that that they found the web site a stimulating source of vital career information as well as interesting ideas for reform of Psychology education and research policies and procedures. By all indications, the web site spurs PPCs to broach the subject of Wyatt Ehrenfels with other students (e.g., "Check out this web site. I met the author on campus today").

"I owe a lot to these students and particularly to the student who told me how to 'get it done.' I think this unstructured and personal approach will prove more effective than the contained speeches scheduled and approved by university officials, many of whom are denying their students by denying me an opportunity to address them. This is most egregious when the idea or effort to arrange a speaking engagement is initiated by the students themselves, many of whom lobby for my appearance after reading my posts and reviewing my web site, as was the case at George Mason University, where at least one psychology professor rebuked a graduate student for her efforts to schedule me for a weekly brown-bag luncheon. As a student leader within the psychology department, she discussed the arrangements as if they were routine. However, despite her initial enthusiasm, communications broke down after an e-mail in which the dismayed student alluded to the reproach, and it remains unclear whether she was instructed not to respond to my e-mails beyond that disclosure. One visitor to my web site asked me what I would say to the GMU faculty, a question I had not entertained, but to which I answer, "I don't have anything to say to them personally, but if you happen to cross paths with a GMU professor, tell him (or her) I'm coming."