Reviewing the Green Party Debate

Last night, I watched the videos that I posted yesterday of the Green Party debate which occurred on Sunday. After watching the debate I agree with what Jared Ball said, it was more of a discussion than a debate. A discussion makes more sense when the Green Party convenes anyway. Below is my review of each of the candidates as well as a couple of my differences with what I heard in the discussion. ...

I will review each candidate as they appeared on stage from right to left, as that was the order they responded to questions. As a non-candidate I will review Ralph Nader last.

Dr. Jared Ball
Dr. Ball did not speak to me, at least not directly, and that was the point. He is working to get the word out to the community about the Green Party through the hip hop movement. I have always said that if you can get the 50%+ of voting aged American's that do not vote into the polls to vote for a cause you could start a revolution. Ladies and gentlemen, Jared Ball could very well be that revolutionary.

Dr. Kent Mesplay
Dr. Mesplay was very intelligent and put thoughts together well. He was very clear on almost all topics presented to him and it was obvious where he stood with each. He was a little subdued throughout the discussion but I did see some fire from him in his closing arguments. He was a great counterpoint to Dr. Jared Ball whose answers he followed in the debate.

Cynthia McKinney
As a six-term former member of Congress from Georgia( the first black congresswoman from that state ), she definately has the most high level political experience in the group of candidates. All of her responses showed that experience as many of the issues she had already dealt with on the congressional floor and in committee. I don't really need to say much about her as she speaks for herself, and quite well.

Kat Swift
What were you doing ( or are planning to do ) when you were 34? Were you running for President of the United States of America? The fact that she is running for President speaks volumes to her courage. Unfortunately she had to follow Cynthia McKinney for most question all night and that had a spotlight on her inexperience in high level politics. However, she did make a run for mayor as a Green Party candidate in the state of Texas and received 30% of the vote with 1/20th of the budget. Perhaps her strategy of speak the truth and people will vote for it works.

Jesse Johnson
Technically he is not a candidate, as he stated in his opening statement. That is based on the fact that he is the chair of the West Virginia Mountain party and is not allowed to hold or seek political office. That is really not important, as he was a great speaker to have at this event. His acting experience combined with his passion give his words a tremendous amount of power. He has presence.

Ralph Nader
While it is very clear that Ralph Nader isn't a candidate at this point, it was important that he was at this event. His opening statement was a powerhouse. In many ways it reminded me of the way Bill Clinton speaks. He doesn't tell you what to think directly but rather inspires you to think about what he is saying. It even had a dash of humor that garnered some laughs with the line, "there are people who really get angry about that." It is obvious why the Green Party wants to draft Nader as a Presidential nominee.

My Arguments
While I can agree with almost everything I have 2 points of contention with statements made last night.

1. Be a politician
I heard a few of them say that they were not politicians and I can understand why. The word politician has some nasty stuff associated with it, but that is not what it means at its core. I liken it to when I was in sales. At first I hated being called a salesman because of the negative connotations associated with the word, and I did poorly. At some point I saw that it was possible to be a salesperson and hold on to my personal values and take care of the customer the way I wanted. When I accepted the fact that I was a salesperson and sold to people based on my personal values I excelled as a salesperson. We must accept that it is possible to be a politician who acts from their personal values. Be the shining example of what is possible. Be the reason people need to wake up and start voting for Green Party( or any third party ) candidate. You aren't business as usual. You aren't a Democrat. You aren't a Republican. You are a Green Party politician and you don't act like the politicians people are used to.

2. Make distinctions between the office and the office holder
Language is a powerful thing and with great power comes great responsibility. The office of The President of the United States should talked about with respect in all cases, even when the person holding the office is not held in high regard. When you speak down about the office holder it needs to be clear that you are talking about the individual and not "The President." The main reason is that when you finally achieve that position, you do not want people to mistrust you just because you have the position you spoke so poorly of. This goes for all political positions that Green Party members are striving for.

--
Daryl Joseph Ducharme is a proud member of the North Carolina Green Party

Who Killed The Electric Car?

Who Killed The Electric Car is the name of a documentary I've wanted to see for a while. I actually wrote a post about the movie's website back in April. In case you haven't heard about it, here is a taste – the movie's preview.

This is a movie a lot of people should see. As I stated in my April post about the movie's website, there is a bias in the way this movie is presented so you may be skeptical. Well if you believe in this technology, you'll already want to watch it. If you think it is hogwash, then you should watch it to better understand where the other side is coming from. ...

Because I believe everyone should see this movie, I have it right here for you to view(though I did not post it). Please purchase it if you enjoy it.

If you watch the whole thing, you will learn a lot about events that I did not even know occurred. The thing that made me watch this now is that I am in the market for a new car in the near future. A major selling point for me is gas mileage. The only vehicle on the road today that gets decent gas mileage at a reasonable price is the Toyota Prius. This movie makes me want to wait until they unveil their Plug In Prius for regular sale.

Some of the parties that are deemed “guilty” in this film made me think of something else I had been looking back into lately. I've noticed that while my writing on wrestling has picked up lately ( thanks to Jericho's return ), my political writing has been non-existent. I have done what many American's do around politics, tune out and hope it all works out. That doesn't sit well with me so I decided to re-energize myself. I need to be ready to watch the Republican CNN/YouTube debates this Wednesday. So I went to my favorite candidate, Bill Richardson's, website to see what he has been up to. He unfortunately doesn't get as much media attention as some others. One thing he said in a recent debate that relates to all this is best said by him:

Originally posted by Bill Richardson:

And It's gonna be also the American people – I'm gonna say this honestly – sacrificing a little bit...when it comes to being a part of an energy efficiency revolution

. More great videos from this debate can be found at http://action.richardsonforpresident.com/page/s/unlvdebate. From this documentary it seems the sacrifice won't be as big as consumers think. However, it remind us as consumers that we do need to think.

Much more could be said, but I would love to hear what others think. Please, watch the movie before you make any comments. If you like it, please purchase it to show your support.

Some other good bits of info can be found at:
Plug in America
Who Killed the Electric Car segment on PBS's NOW

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

On Saturday I got to do something very special. Along with my wife and brother in law, I went to see Rush in concert. It's been a while since I've been to a concert, and I believe the last one was Rush as well. But it was a pleasure for more than just a chance to see them play live. The nights playlist was different than what you would expect, and yet it was the same. ...

I love live albums and there are some perennial concert classics that always seem to get played. For instance, Spirit of the Radio, Tom Sawyer and some part of 2112. All great songs, but I've heard them live. In some cases I have 3 different live versions on CD plus the Rush in Rio DVD version. Because of this I went in with some songs that I would love to hear, but I wasn't expecting them to play.

Limelight is one of my favorite songs and it was likely to be played ( in fact it was first in the playlist ). Some others that I like were played as well. The song that has the line from the title of this posting, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose", Circumstances I didn't think would get played. The songs from Hemispheres that usually get played are The Trees and La Villa Strangiato, neither of which was on the playlist. Instead, they played Circumstances which was awesome. Another song that was unlikely but very cool is Natural Science. They played it! In fact the whole first part of the show was a mix of stuff from their new album Snakes and Arrows and older stuff that you don't usually hear.

During intermission we heard a part of 2112. Not as played by Rush, but the string quartet version of 2112. That was quite amusing and gave way to a conversation about how cool it would be to have a string quartet play Rush songs during intermission, then the band could play the songs they didn't.

The second part of the show started out with more of the same mix. A bunch of great Rush songs that you wouldn't expect mixed in with songs from their new album. As the saying goes though, the more that things change, the more they stay the same. Then the familiar opening to Spirit of the Radio started and we began a set, albeit short, of more expected songs. They did mix things up a little and had a great intro into Tom Sawyer by the boys of South Park acting as Lil Rush.

All in all, a great concert. My wife wrote down the playlist and might be putting it on her blog, but I think their was only 23 songs played that night. Given the number of albums they have and the fact that some albums got more coverage than others, not every album was represented. However, much of their career for the past 30+ years was represented including the theme song from Summerslam 2005, the cover of Summertime Blues.

If you haven't bought their new album yet, make sure to pick it up. While you are at it check to see when they are coming to your area and get yourself some tickets if you can. They once again put on a great show and played some great music.

Watch the drama unfold

Many people around my age probably remember the Schoolhouse Rocks song entitled "I'm just a bill". I not only remember it but I have the DVD and my 3 year old loves it. That song makes the journey of a bill on its way to, hopefully, becoming a law interesting. Once we get older, many of us have quickly lost that interest. However, I have found something today that might rekindle that interest for some of you. ...

I was reading an article on slashdot that discussed the Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007 ( S. 735 ) and how it relates to the Mooninite Scare in Boston earlier this year. I wanted to see what the bill, well amendment, actually said. My googling lead me to GovTrack.us. The first sentence on their about page says it all:

Transparency in government is key for a healthy representative democracy.

Feel Free to read more of the about page.

While checking out the site I came across a very interesting find. The have a ton of feeds for watching bills make their way through congress. They have feeds for new bills, new laws and each bill has a feed to watch that specific bills progress through congress. As I stated before you can read the text of the bills. You can also see who sponsored and co-sponsored the bills and as they are voted on you can see who voted for and against these bills. While this information is all available online in other forms, they have created a nice system for more easily tracking bills.

I suggest checking out the new bills and keeping an eye on a few that interest you. If they were just introduced, the full text might not be available yet but it should be soon.

Joost Review

For the past couple weeks I have been beta testing Joost. For those that don't know, Joost is a new web venture that puts on demand video on the web. The service is free, and paid for by advertising that is interspersed within the shows you watch. The grand plan for Joost seems very cool. On Demand television without paying the cable company. Let's see how well that plan is doing in my short review. ...

Joost is currently in an invitation only beta, though as of this week all users now have unlimited invitations, so take everything I say with the knowledge that things may change.

Joost is pretty nice system. It opens up in full screen mode when you first start it up. It seems more like a media center than a program running on your computer right away. The first thing that loaded up for me was a "Channel" of Joost recommendations so that I could get started. I had read on the Joost website that the "Fight Network" channel had Ring of Honor wrestling so I went to check that out first. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have any ROH material up so that was disappointing. Someone had told me about the show "Stella" on Comedy Central so I went to check that out. This was available and I got a chance to watch a whole show.

When I first started watching shows the commercials would jump in at random points, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Since the latest upgrade it seems that has changed, the commercials now seem to come in at natural points in the shows.

Currently the Joost system is pretty basic. It allows you to watch shows from channels you select and it pretty decent quality as well. They also have a "My Joost" section that has some widgets for you to have up while you watch your shows. The selection of widgets is small right now but I have heard that they will be increasing the number of widgets and allowing others to make widgets. However, when I watch a show I don't need to be doing much else, especially with video on demand.

Once in a while I would run into a glitch or two. Sometimes I would just get disconnected from the network or the show would stop and go to the next in the list. However, these are minor inconveniences as you can easily get right back to what you were watching. The biggest problem I saw with Joost is the current availability of programs. What they have is pretty limited, but this is just beta. They have made deals with CBS and recently on their blog I read that they made a deal with Turner Broadcasting Systems. Content is on their way but will it be any good?

In conclusion I think the system is pretty sound for a beta product and will only get better as they increase the numbers of users. The only downfall for this system might be lack of quality content. At home, I only have very limited cable so that the network stations come in clearly. I don't really need cable because their really isn't that much to watch. That is why a system like Joost could be very good with the right content. I would love to be able to watch wrestling, the only thing I really miss from cable, and would love to be able to watch it on my schedule rather than it's broadcast schedule without having to pay for extra stuff.

By the way, if you'd like an invite just let me know. I am more than happy to let my friends and relations check out this new system.

Review: Firefly (Original Television Soundtrack)

Within the past year I was introduced to the television show "Firefly" and the movie that was made after it was cancelled called "Serenity". As this show is well beyond just "brilliant but cancelled" I became a big fan. When this soundtrack came up in my amazon gold box deals I had to check it out. ...

Of course, for a fan the Firefly soundtrack is a must have. One of the many great things about the series was the music. It set such a great mood for this future, yet so present day, 'verse that Joss Whedon created. Today I have been playing the songs in random order at work and they are great background music to work to. It sets a wide assortment of moods, to go along with the ways visuals the music went with, but for the most part it is very soothing. I feel that the music on this album would be great for anybody to have in your library, especially if you are a fan of soundtracks.

For fans of the show it is missing "The Hero of Canton", but after listening to it I feel the song would almost be out of place with the rest of this music. Of course, if you own Firefly: the Complete Series you probably have access to the Easter Egg of Adam Baldwin ( Jayne ) singing the song, with a slight modification.

As I said before, this is good music even if you aren't a fan of Firefly and Serenity. However if you haven't seen them yet do so, you will become a fan as well. It is what television was meant to be.