Saturday, October 28, 2006

Kermit and the Lily Pods

Just down Worcester's Main Street from Woosta Pizza (true), WCCA public-access hosted us for a pending podcast yesterday. Ryan at Ryan's Take and Saint Kermit join us in making the session available in a day or so.

Comment Request: Before I prattle, leave a comment here about whether you'd appreciate podcasts as part of Marry in Massachusetts.

Jim Henderson (not quite Jim Hensen) and a crew of five or so have quickly become aces at video and podcasts. Ryan, Lynn, Susan and several others of us have jived about just maybe doing some together or separately. We talk, while they do.

Yesterday's was more elaborate than mortal bloggers need, but it whetted our egos and geekiness. The station simultaneously broadcast our half hour live and recorded it. They'll stream it themselves, as well as providing Saint Kermit with video and separate audio to convert to an MP3. The latter is what Ryan and I are likely to make available directly or by link.

In contrast, the minimum setup would be a microphone and software to convert audio into a format like MP3. There are a couple of free or cheap services that let you do this by calling on your phone. While it would be even more tasteless than the shouting babblers recording every inconsequential motion or thought into a cellphone call, you could record your podcast political commentary while you walked the pavement or sat in the food court.

Yesterday, Jim moderated a discussion of pre- and post-election issues -- the campaigns, candidates and what we expect to happen at the ConCon and in the next administration. That's more than a half hour would allow, but this is not the first of these that Jim has organized and led. He watched the time carefully as it flipped by on the monitor and edited his topics on the fly.

In addition to him and we two bloggers, state Green-Rainbow co-chair Luc Schuster sat with us. He's the only real politician, as an elected Cambridge School Committee member.

Jim's a Green too (hence Saint Kermit) and all four of us identify as progressives. So, it would seem that the discussion might lean too heavily to the third party or that we would each nod in turn as some other lefty spoke.

Fortunately, we differ enough on candidates and issues that we didn't agree on everything. Even where we were pretty much aligned, we had varying takes on what this would mean for the election and afterward. As for Greens, the discussion did mention them more than MSM articles would have (15% as opposed to 1%). In as much as we dealt with what we thought the effects of related topics -- Working Families Party, protest votes, and Question 2 about fusion voting -- there's a lesson for those who only consider the two majors.

We'll let you see if you think this is worthwhile. You can tell the Saint Kermit people what you'd like to hear and see. They are always on the lookout for good interview subjects and discussion topics.

Meanwhile, do you want to have podcast options on this or other blogs?

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