The author of the press release was Earl Gerhard. For those unfamiliar, Gerhard was heavily active with the Harris County & Texas Green Parties in the early days. The highlight of his activity was getting Greens to volunteer for activist Ada Edwards's District D City Council campaign, helping to push her past Third Ward real estate broker Gerald Womack. He was also involved with Greenwatch TV in those days.

HCGP has a history of losing valuable people like Earl to burnout, death, moving away, or the border collie howl of progressive Democrats running for president. Earl faded away without much fanfare due to some combination of factors.

The 2004 Green National Convention was one of the biggest highlights of my activity within the party: seven of us in a rented van that left San Antonio one evening night, stopped to pick up some Dallas folks in the middle of the night, and continued on to Milwaukee & back. Sooooo many cool memories:

• kat swift (now katija gruene) and Jolene Garcia working some magic to stop a state trooper in Melissa, Texas, from giving us a speeding ticket
• staying in the summer hostel at Marquette
• Medea Benjamin pouring me beers at the street festival we set up, where Michell Shocked performed
• eating lunch and reading the platform in its entirety, thinking, "Yes! This is exactly the kind of world I want to live in!"
• the Texas delegation passing during the second-round delegate count in order to be the state that, in English y en español, put David Cobb over the hump to defeat "None of the Above (& endorse Ralph Nader's independent campaign)"
• kat taking a driving shift on the way back and jamming ABBA and Blondie on the stereo

Forgive me, readers, for I have neglected this blog for far too long—almost three months. In the theology of Blogistan, that's a cardinal sin.

Fortunately, I can report, without revealing too much just yet, that my life circumstances are changing in such a way that will allow me to throw a blog (entry) on the proverbial fire more regularly.

Conventioneering 2020
Here in Texas, party convention season begins today for Greens and Libertarians. Here is it shapes up for Greens in 2020:

• 10 March, 7 pm: Combined precinct conventions in all counties with party affiliates (Bexar, Collin, Dallas, Denton, Harris, Orange, Tarrant, and Travis)—see this page for details.
• 14 March, various times: County conventions in the aforementioned counties.
• 21 March, various times: District conventions for the nomination of candidates for offices that straddle two or more counties.
• 18-19 April: GPTX State Convention, location still TBD.

GPTX's State Executive Committee has agreed in principle and practice that candidates who have filed to run but not paid the new HB 2504 filing fees should still be on the ballots at conventions, just in case the fees are overturned via legal action (lawsuit still pending). Among those candidates is Your Humble Blogmeister, running again for US Senate, up for nomination at the State Convention. All Green candidates in Texas are unopposed in their various county, precinct, and state conventions; however, None of the Above is on all the ballots, as always.

We should be able to post some info on the results of the precinct and county conventions here in Harris County in the very near future. Both of the Harris County events will take place at Midtown Bar & Grill, 415 West Gray Avenue, 77019.

Another Ridley Run
The last entry before the long silence mentioned some names of Texas Green Party regulars who filed to run for various offices. Four of those regulars actually paid the requisite filing fees, as prescribed by last year's HB 2504.

One of the four names was Hal J. Ridley, Jr. A resident of Bridge City in Orange County TX, Ridley is in his third race for the Congressional seat in TX-36, which covers southeast Texas from Pasadena to Orange and Newton Counties on the Sabine River, skipping Jefferson County (Greater Beaumont/Port Arthur/Nederland). Although most of the district's area is in the Golden Triangle and points north, most of its people are in eastern Harris County.

Ridley will host a District 36 convention at Nokturn Coffee Shop on Saturday 21 March, 4-6 pm. Nokturn is located at 17062 Saturn Lane, Houston TX 77058, just west of Johnson Space Center. The main purpose of the convention is to confirm his nomination for the Congressional race. Residents of TX-36 who wish to participate should have their voter registration cards on hand to prove that they have not voted in any other party's primary election this year.

Unlike in 2016, the race will most likely feature a Democratic sacrificial la— er, nominee. In 2018, after the Green Party had lost ballot access in Texas, the Democrats of District 36 chose longtime Houston radio personality Dayna Steele to lose to Rep. Brian Babin.

Ridley wanted me to get the word out about his candidacy, and of course I couldn't turn him down. I am now informally a member of his media team—which, when you think of it, is pretty sad, because I don't have a list of media contacts for press releases and the like. (Note to self: Learn how to press-release.) He does not as yet have an entry in Ballotpedia yet, so I suppose we should take care of that as well.