One's Treasure
The Ob(li)fious portfolio, which I have been compiling since my third year at Webster University, was in a messenger bag that was stolen earlier this month from an anti-profit coffee house in Portland. I am excited that the portfolio, a packed museum of notes, relics, nonlocal articles, paper topics scrawled on post-its losing their adhesive, and ideas for meetings and the collective, in general, was recycled back into the cosmos, so ideas can be born fresh again. I sincerely hope whoever has found it has found some use for it.

Please contribute.Ob(li)fious is a site intended for gathering together an active movement that seeks reassessment of traditional constructs and ideas through peaceful dialog, emphasizing the necessity of responding to concepts conveyed through various languages and media with our own language and media. The group promotes awareness and intelligent though not elitist dialog, rather than doctrine or dogma, and is driven by the idea that the world is invented by an array of people and ideas that are sometimes voiceless due to suppression or lack of an arena in which the voices can peacefully assemble and come to recognize a viable agreement. All perspectives are encouraged, as we seek information through careful research. The group will conduct its own research, which will be documented, synthesized, and explored through various creative projects that the group will determine autonomously and collectively. In accordance with the group's intention to share information freely, one of its outlets will be an independently published magazine, seeking neither notoriety nor profit.

Organizational Procedures, part 2

Ob(li)fious will soon be available as an online fusion of zine and academic journal, and will be distributed locally in paper copies free of charge for the first issue, hopefully at Powell's and Reading Frenzy. Once a local production team and small reader base is established, the journalzine should be released nationally to high schools and colleges, which will pay solely for production costs.

The organization may decide to run itself as a nonprofit, driven by volunteers and funded by subscriptions and grants. At that point, copies will be sold online and at local independent bookstores and publishing companies, such as Powell's, Reading Frenzy, and Microcosm Publishing. As with all decisions of the group, these decisions will be made collectively, where anyone may offer her recommendations and reservations.

Organizational procedures, part 1

Writing
Research and explorations are conducted by all collaborators, submitted pieces for publication are selected based on unanimous decision of the editors. Final revisions, after being reviewed by the editors, are entrusted to the publishing committee, which will oversee the sustained production of a magazine and/or website. Blogger.com, a free-access blog website, may serve as a suitable medium for publication until the community decides otherwise.

Education
The primary educational mission of this collaborative project is duplicitous: 1. educate ourselves through intuitive experience and research; 2. open our discoveries to dialog through publication and creative enterprise. Educating ourselves necessarily involves being receptive to persons who are not necessarily in socially acknowledged positions of authority or credibility.

In addition to publication, other means for engaging in education and dialogue will be decided upon and conducted by all members, which may include interactive performances, demonstrations, and exhibits.

Government
The community will internally hold open dialog exploring its organizational structure that will give all persons operating by free will within it an environment that is comfortable and conducive to advanced learning processes.

The community will have full rights to rearrange its constitution, in keeping integrity to its ideals here set forth.