Chlorophyll

In spite of the fact that the Iniciativa Verde (Green Initiative) is only a few months old, Juan Manuel Velasco was named Minister of the Environment. I had the chance to spend a couple of days with Juan Manuel when I was in Buenos Aires last December, and as far as I could tell, he is everything you might hope for in an elected Green: energetic, well-informed, and willing to risk his own career for the cause.

The vote in New Paltz was 514-379. Sad news, but it still remains established that Greens can do well when given a fair chance.

West brought the Green Party to national prominence as one of the first Green mayors, and then by flouting the law by performing same-sex marriages. He faced criminal charges for this until a court decided there was no interest served by prosecuting him, and dismissed the case. West faced a "smear campaign" by his opponent, but refused to respond in kind.

Thinking about going to the United States Social Forum this summer?

Thousands of grassroots activists will be gathering June 27-July 1 in
Atlanta for the first U.S. Social Forum to build relationships, learn
from each other's experiences and insights, and develop the
consciousness, vision, strategy, and leadership needed to make another,
more just world possible.

Proposal 277 changes the way the national and state parties split money raised. Normally when someone gives to the national party, they are given a chance to split the money with their state. This proposal changes the rules so that the national party gets more if they did the fundraising, and the states get more if they do the fundraising.

Of course, states are free to invite donors to share, or not. The national always offers I believe.

Anyway, this proposal changes it from 50/50 to 60/40, with the larger share going to the state or national, based on who asked for the donation.

There are only six days left to vote on this. It would be a shame to have this fail because it didn't get a quorum. To see if your delegate has voted yet, just step this way.

If you qualify, you can have your expenses partially covered by the party. The Diversity Committee has put together a form to fill out and send to them. If you are interested, all you need do is hit the link below, fill out the form, send it in, and voilà, you're all applied!

2007 Diversity Committee Waiver Application

This is an application for a waiver/scholarship to attend the Green Party of The United States Annual National Meeting in Reading, Pennsylvania. The Diversity Committee has been allocated up to 15 waivers for registration and meals to assist individuals who are low income and who represent communities that are traditionally disenfranchised.

I just got an email encouraging me to head over to Current TV and vote for a documentary on Cliff Thornton, the Green Party of Connecticut's recent gubernatorial candidate. It's rather vague about when and where the documentary would air, but whatever it turns out to be, it's more than we have now -- so please help out!

For Immediate Release
April 11, 2007

Green Parties in Canada and United States warn of disastrous consequences of
an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities

OTTAWA – At the initiative of the Leader of the Green Party of Canada,
Elizabeth May, the Canadian and U.S. Green Parties are jointly calling for a
comprehensive and open dialogue to stop the escalation of tension in the
Persian Gulf.

The escalating tension, combined with suggestions the U.S. may have a war
plan that includes targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, led the Green
Parties of the U.S. and Canada to state today that nuclear facilities should
never be targeted for deliberate attack.

Back in the early days of this blog, I talked about the Political Compass, a site that puts political thought on a grid, as opposed to a simplistic, one-dimensional spectrum.

One of the pages it has is an analysis of the 2004 Presidential candidates. Notice that Kerry is right of center (as is every single European government, but that's another topic). More to the point, they have Ralph Nader and David Cobb positioned so close, they overlap. My friend Ron Garcia, in Nicaragua, was suspicious of this, and invited David to take the test for himself -- so he did.

The site currently has him placed at about 3 notches left of center (out of ten), and about 3 notches toward Libertarian (on the Libertarian-Authoritarian spectrum). David reports that in fact, he should be at 8 Left and 9 Libertarian.

For the record, my own score was 8 Left and 8.05 Libertarian. What's your score? Leave a comment and tell us!

So... the New Zealand National Rugby Championships are coming up, and the multinational corporations that advertise at is want to ban streakers. The Greens say that streaking is a source of amusement to Kiwis, and are against the law. I think just being against this law is amusing.

I was part of a sit-in seven years ago, when I was a grad student at U-M. Today, the same student organization is sitting in again... for the same reasons. This time, the adminsitration had them arrested. However, the students have a website, and there is another site where you can send a message directly to the administration.