POTSDAM -- Peak Moment TV continues the theme of local communities on Monday, Jan. 19 and Tuesday, Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. on WCKN-TV, Digital Cable 30. Program host Janaia Donaldson concludes her discussion with Community Rights educator Paul Cienfuegos. "In 160 communities in nine states, we've been passing rights-based ordinances that strip corporations of their constitutional so-called rights; that enshrine the right of a local community to govern itself by community majority; and ban specific activities which are legal but which the community considers harmful," he tell her.

Cienfuegos notes that the laws they're passing are illegal: "They're direct frontal assaults to unjust law, which is how real social change happens, like the American revolution and anti-slavery movement.” He describes two recent laws now being challenged in major lawsuits, saying organizers are positively excited about this opportunity. Examples abound, including the current situation in the Finger Lakes.

Protestors are facing charges of trespassing as part of an ongoing civil disobedience campaign called We Are Seneca Lake against a Houston-based energy company, Crestwood Midstream, which seeks to bury highly pressurized gases—methane, butane, propane—in abandoned salt caverns along the banks of Seneca Lake. So far, at least 170 arrests have been made.

Now in its seventh year, the Peak Moment TV programs air every week at 7 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday. Peak Moment explores locally reliant living for challenging times. The programs are underwritten locally by The Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

All the programs are available on the internet at www.wordpress.peakmoment.tv/conversations/ in both video and audio format. More than 80 Peak Moment TV shows are now available on DVDs which can be borrowed from the Potsdam Public Library from the collection of shows purchased for broadcast locally.