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Sketch Comes Through and Other GPTX News

14/6/2019

At a lunch meeting Wednesday, Laura Palmer informed me that her husband Don "Sketch" Palmer was the angel who got harriscountygreenparty.org back online for another six years. As mentioned earlier this week, hcgp.org is no longer in HCGP's possession, and the Party will not likely spend the thousand bucks to ransom it.

As of last week's Annual State Meeting of the Green Party of Texas, Sketch is the newly elected GPTX treasurer. Here is the complete listing of the State Executive Committee, delegates and the Green National Committee, and current regional coordinators. The regional coordinator system may be retired soon.

Just prior to the ASM, I relented to Laura's plea to stand for an at-large position on the SEC, and fortunately for me I was not elected.

The Post 2504 Landscape
A Green buzz is reverberating through Texas and all around the nation in the wake of HB 2504 becoming law and guaranteeing a ballot line for 2020. The National Committee has a vested interest in having a strong Green presence in the second-most populous state. Veteran Greens like me, who have faded from the scene to avoid intra-Party squabbles, are becoming active again. Among those with whom I have conversed, the focus have shifted more than ever toward recruiting candidates for 2020 and amassing the funds to back them up.

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harriscountygreenparty.org is Back Online

12/6/2019

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This is an update of an item posted here Saturday before last. The good news is that the Harris County Green Party has it web presence restored, as of yesterday according to whois.com. The domain harriscountygreenparty.org is secured until May 2025.

The not-so-good news is that HCGP will likely have to find a new short & snappy domain name for the HCGP website. They cannot reclaim the hcgp.org at the usual annual rate, as the Network Solutions chat transcript below shows.

A message arrived yesterday in one of my email boxes, informing me that I had been removed as primary contact for the domains currently owned by HCGP. That was what prompted me to contact Network Solutions in the first place. I'm quite OK with not being the primary contact, even if I didn't request the removal. A second chat session revealed that NS could not tell me who has taken over the role of primary contact.

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Governor Abbott Signs Ballot Access Bill

11/6/2019

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HB 2504, which we have examined in several recent posts, is now state law. The Green Party of Texas officially has access to the 2020 general election ballot. I tried to make this post look like straightforward news reporting, but I failed in that endeavor. I'm pretty doggone excited about it.

Individual candidates who wish to run as Greens will have to pony up filing fees or collect a goodly number of signatures on a petition in order to run for elective office; the amount of dollars or signatures varies according to the office sought.

There's potential confusion in reading the record. The legislative history for HB 2504 says "Effective immediately," but that is merely an indication that the bill's status as statute takes effect immediately. The provisions of the bill itself go into effect on 1 September 2019, at which time the Texas Election Code will be officially modified.

I'll try to find out whether the effective date means that a prospective Green Party candidate must wait until September to begin collecting signatures; that doesn't appear to be the case, as there's nothing to stop a candidate from raising funds right now.

To be continued.

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GPTX Annual State Meeting This Weekend

7/6/2019

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I won't be attending this year, but I thought I'd at least disseminate today's press release:

*****

Green Party delegates from across the state will gather this weekend June 8 and 9 for their Annual State Meeting held this year at the Belton-Temple Holiday Inn, halfway between San Antonio and Dallas.

Besides electing new party officers and minor bylaws improvements, Greens will plan for their 2020 candidates support for political offices, and the need for local leadership in solving the climate crisis through legislation and ordinances. A carbon tax, single-payer health care, the need for cities to have noise ordinances curtailing loud delivery drone services, the social changes of driverless cars, doctor shortages, lunar-solar power, women’s and minorities’ human rights, the runaway military budget, death penalty abolition, immigration solutions, cryptocurrencies and banking, and more forward-looking topics may be discussed.

The Green Party of Texas is one of many in the U.S., and is part of a growing movement around the world for decentralized government and ecological responsibility. Read about the Ten Key Values at https://www.GP.org and www.txgreens.org.

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A Musical Epiphany: Facing a Dying Nation

3/6/2019

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Promotional image for IVH's June 2019 concert at the Midtown Arts & Theatre Center, Houston (MATCH)

Before getting to the main thrust of this item, here are three facts to frame it:

This past weekend I participated in a series of concerts with International Voices Houston, which I did not publicize on this blog for a mixture of reasons not worth delving into here. (I did publicize it on Facebook, for what that's worth.) I have now sung in the IVH's low tenor subsection for four consecutive performance cycles—i.e., since April 2018. The choir rehearses mostly on Mondays; last spring, no longer having Green Party duties on Monday nights, I gave in to the entreaties of some fellow choristers at First UU Church and (sort of) auditioned.
I am a vicarious psychonaut—i.e., I have never (to my knowledge) consumed hallucinogens, but I enjoy hearing and reading accounts of trips from people who have, including some friends and acquaintances. The reason I don't indulge is that, in my 20's, an acid-eater friend of mine informed me that LSD amplifies your emotional and mental states; even as a youth, my emotional and mental states tended to be pretty dark most of the time.
For decades, I have suffered from literal nostalgia: per Webster, a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. In my case, I've caught myself weeping as precious memories leap out of their boxes when I hear songs I associate with poignant moments—even goofy songs like "Rock Lobster." Don't you dare judge.

"The World Is a Stage" was a concert featuring a couple dozen songs from about 20 different Broadway musicals spanning more than 80 years, from Porgy and Bess to The Greatest Showman (adapted from the film). When it comes to musical theatre, I have pretty particular tastes, and at the outset I worried that this show would be an exercise in pandering. Happily, it wasn't. Artistic Director Mark Vogel's taste in musicals is roughly similar to mine.

I was particularly grateful for the inclusion of the medley from Hair, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In." It closed the first half of the show. (The second half opened with a heart-tugging "I Know Where I've Been" from Hairspray.)

Even more gratifying, we didn't just stick to what the middle school–level arrangement prescribed: Providing a more graceful segue between the parts, our two sightless and soulful sopranos Jessica Callahan and Jennifer Parrish wailed out "Flesh Failures" minus the "Manchester England England" part. By the time we got to "Let the Sunshine In," I could barely sing for the lumps in my throat.

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We're Sorry. This Site Has Been Disconnected.

1/6/2019

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Sigh. I figured I'd give them a few days to straighten it out before officially bitching about it here. It's been a week now.

The Harris County Green Party's website is currently offline.

There's placeholder/squatter content on both hcgp.org and harriscountygreenparty.org. The former is listed as for sale; the latter, pending renewal through Network Solutions.

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Green Party Houston ≠ Harris County Green Party

24/5/2019

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At this point, it's worth reporting that there is a new Green entity in Harris County. This is not to say that the Harris County Green Party has officially bitten the dust: It hasn't. But several HCGP members who are currently not active with HCGP have formed a group that they are calling Green Party Houston. It doesn't have a website yet, so nothing to link to here.

I welcome this development, primarily because a group that is not the official county party can do things in the broader community that HCGP cannot, whether due to restrictions imposed by the State of Texas, by lack of resources, or by internal policies. However, the Green Party of Texas can grant it delegates to annual state meetings and conventions.

Let there be no misunderstanding: It would be easy to assume that Green Party Houston is an effort to compete with or supplant HCGP. But that's not the case. Nothing would stop anyone from being an active member of both. The current co-chairs of HCGP know of the group's existence. So there is no problem in naming some names: Longtime Greenie Alfred Molison and 2016 post-DNC-screws-Bernie refugee Jan Richards got the ball rolling.

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People's Stock Photo Party

24/5/2019

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For the most part, I like peoplesparty.org, the redesigned website of the Movement a People's Party, If you navigate to the old domain, forapeoplesparty.org, it redirects you to the new one. Once you get there, you're treated to an au courant, NationBuilder-style layer-cake homepage with a rotating gallery of photos at the top. Some of the photos include founder Nick Brana with a group of fellow MPP ralliers. The rest...well, that's the part I don't like so much.

Even if the many photos that adorn the site are not purchased from istockphoto.com or one of its competitors, they most definitely have the look of stock photos. They consist mostly of well-scrubbed and -coiffed Millennials of various ethnicities, some sitting and smiling or daydreaming or looking with intensity at the camera, some conversing, some doing what looks like work.

I'm looking forward to a time when MPP can replace the stock-looking images with actual of People's Party activists in action.

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H-Town's 9th Annual WNBR Rolls 8 June

22/5/2019

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Group photo of the participants at the start of WNBR 2018, taken in front of Super Happy Fun Land

Gently edited group photo of the participants at the start of WNBR 2018, at Super Happy Fun Land

Last year I posted about World Naked Bike Ride just a couple of days before the event. This year I didn't want to wait that long: We're 17 days from takeoff. This post is a copied, pasted, and hella modified version of last year's.

*****

RIDE! RIDE! RIDE! Ride to demonstrate against fossil fuel addiction, for safe human-powered transportation, against car culture, and for bodily freedom. Meet at Super Happy Fund Land about 7 pm on 8 June; the ride starts at 9 pm.

NOTE: The pages linked below may contain photographic depictions of boobs and butts. Viewer discretion is advised.

The Facebook event for the Houston ride
The new H-Town WNBR website, including a list of rides in other North American cities and the dates for those
The main website for the WNBR movement

Bare in mind that the dress code does not require riders to be fully exposed. The term of art is "Bare As You Dare." Consider your comfort zone and the possibility of encounters with law enforcement. The City of Houston does have a nudity ordinance.

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HB 2504 Passes the Texas Senate

21/5/2019

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Party-line vote yet again, 19-12. Start this video at about 5 minutes in to see it happen—though if you blink, you might miss it, because those senators legislate fast. On to the Governor's Mansion it goes.

Greenfolk: Assuming that Governor Greg Abbott signs HB 2504 as expected, get yourselves ready to collect dollars or signatures when you run for office. If you take the petition route, your magic numbers are 500 for districted races and 5,000 for statewide (or 2% of the vote for that office in the last election if that is a lower number).

The Secretary of State's Office provides a table of the fees and petitioning requirements for parties that nominate candidates via primary elections. When HB 2504 becomes law, candidates from so-called convention parties—e.g., Greens and Libertarians—will still be required to pay the fee or submit the signatures by roughly the end of August, even though their parties will have ballot access guaranteed.

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<<Previous

Sketch Comes Through and Other GPTX News

harriscountygreenparty.org is Back Online

Governor Abbott Signs Ballot Access Bill

GPTX Annual State Meeting This Weekend

A Musical Epiphany: Facing a Dying Nation

We're Sorry. This Site Has Been Disconnected.

Green Party Houston ≠ Harris County Green Party

People's Stock Photo Party

H-Town's 9th Annual WNBR Rolls 8 June

HB 2504 Passes the Texas Senate

DBC Sez...

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