It was a first for many reasons — our first time working with the Rockland County Times, the Hudson Valley Business Journal, and the Nyack Village Theater. And, thanks to the last, the HVDU’s first Webcast! So let’s give you a look:

Karen Bulich Moreau of the Land & Liberty Foundation leads off for the Proposition side of the question.

Paul Gallay, President of Hudson Riverkeeper, leads for the Opposition to the Motion.

Adam Schultz of the Independent Oil & Gas Assn. of NY (standing, left) takes a Point of Information from Buck Moorhead of NYH2O (standing, right) At the table, L to R: Tom West, The West Law Firm; Karen Bulich Moreau, Land and Liberty Foundation; Dr. Kathy Nolan, Catskill Mountainkeeper

Tom West, of the West Law Firm of Albany, speaks in favor of the motion

HVDU head honcho Patrick McGrath makes a point at the Fracking Debate. At left, supporters of the motion - Tom West of the West Law Firm, Albany NY; Adam Schultz of Gilberti et al. of Syracuse, representing the NY Independent Oil and Gas Assn.; Karen Bulich Moreau of the Land & Liberty Foundation, Feura Bush NY. At right, opposing the motion: Dr. Kathy Nolan, Catskill Mountainkeeper; Paul Gallay, Hudson Riverkeeper; Buck Moorhead, NYH2O.

The Teller announces the results of the voting: 10 red chips in favor of the motion, 22 green chips against the motion. The motion to support the NYS DEC's proposed fracking regulations failed to convince the audience at the Nyack Village Theater. Photo credits: Christine McGrath

Video (courtesy of Rockland World Radio.com) Part 1:

Part 2:

NYACK, NY (16 November 2011) – The Hudson Valley Debate Union, which brings interactive, face-to-face “Oxford-style” debating to the Hudson Valley and beyond, announces its next debate event, covering one of today’s most pressing environmental issues—the question of hydraulic fracturing—“fracking,” for short—to extract underground reserves of natural gas and other fuels.

In a first for the HVDU, the event is a joint production with The Rockland County Times, which has covered the county since 1888, the Hudson Valley Business Journal, “the definitive source of local business news since 1986,” and the Nyack Village Theater, which is both hosting the event and providing livestreaming video of the event for debate participants anywhere via the Web.

The debate will take place on Thursday 1 December 2011, from 7:30 to 9 p.m., at the Nyack Village Theater, 94 Main Street (2nd Floor), in downtown Nyack, New York. The Web streaming will be available on RocklandWorldRadio.com. Web stream viewers will be able to vote on the motion by using the chat room function linked on the front page of the Rockland World Radio side.

The motion for the debate will be:

This House supports the adoption of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s proposed regulations for high-volume hydraulic fracturing (6 NYCRR Parts 52, 110, 550-556, and 750)

Scheduled to speak in favor of the motion will be:

• Ms. Karen Bulich Moreau, President of the Land and Liberty Foundation, Feura Bush, NY
• Mr. Adam Schultz, representing the Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York; attorney and partner with Gilberti Stinziano Heintz & Smith, P.C. in Syracuse, NY
• Mr. Tom West, founder and managing partner, The West Firm PLLC, Albany NY

Scheduled to speak against the motion will be:

• Mr. Paul Gallay, President of Hudson Riverkeeper
• Ms. Kathy Nolan, High Peaks Regional Director for Catskill Mountainkeeper
• Mr. Buck Moorhead, co-founder and Vice President of NYH2O

Hudson Valley Debate Union founder and executive director Patrick McGrath comments:
“First, I want to thank Dylan Skreloff of The Rockland County Times and Richard Quinn of the Nyack Village Theater for opening their venue to HVDU’s brand of performance debate. We will love to have you in Nyack, but if you can’t make it there, no worries—thanks to the Theater’s RocklandWorldRadio.com, the debate will be livestreamed, and those watching on the ‘Net can vote on the motion through the Web site’s chat room.”

“Hydraulic fracturing—‘fracking’—is one of the top environmental and resource extraction issues of the times. Opponents of fracking cite potential effects on drinking water and the harms of chemicals used in the process. Proponents of fracking state that the process gives access to ‘a century’s worth’ of natural gas, and will create thousands of jobs in regions of upstate New York that currently suffer from high unemployment.

“The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has now proposed regulations that will open some of the Marcellus Shale formations in upstate New York to fracking production. Some towns have passed local laws banning the process, and bills have been introduced in the Legislature in Albany to shut down fracking statewide. Our Principal Speakers represent environmental advocates, landowner organizations, and industry groups, who are all ready to take Points of Information from each other—and from you the Voting Guests.

WHAT HAPPENS AT AN ‘OXFORD STYLE’ HUDSON VALLEY DEBATE UNION EVENT?

“Voting Guests in the HVDU audience participate along with the Principal Speakers,” McGrath explained. “The Principal Speakers at the debates each get ten minutes for their speeches. The first two minutes and the last two minutes are ‘protected’ — but the six minutes in between is subject to Points of Information. That’s where anyone in the the audience can stand up, raise his or her hand, and shout out, ‘Point of Information!’ Nothing between you and the Principal Speaker—you just stand up, right from your chair — and rip it. The Principal Speaker on the floor at the time has the right to refuse any and all Points of Information, but they are strongly urged to take at least one or two.

“When all of the Principal Speakers are finished, the question will be called, and the audience in the theater will vote on the motion. We’re doing this low-tech: we’ll pass around the ballot box, the Voting Guests will drop in the green and red poker chips we use as ballots, then we’ll count the chips, announce the vote total and find out if the motion has passed. Now that’s what I call participatory democracy,” McGrath said.

Further information about the Hudson Valley Debate Union can be found at the HVDU’s Web sites: www.hvdebateunion.org and www.hudsonvalleydebate.com. The HVDU’s YouTube channel is located at http://www.youtube.com/user/hvdebateunion

I’ve been working on setting up the Fall 2009 season, and it will be exciting. More on that later.

The big move I can announce right now is a serious upgrade in our tech capabilities. You probably didn’t know this, but up until this point, the entire computing power of the HVDU rested on one 1998 vintage HP Pavillion 4450. The darn thing was wheezing, for crying out loud. So, when I was doing my shopping in BJ’s Wholesale the other day, I happened to see this new Gateway in the aisles for $399. Which I had already seen advertised in the BJ’s coupon book earlier in the year at $475. So I checked my credit limits, took a deep breath, and took the plunge for the Gateway and a good generic brand monitor, for $559 altogether. I’ll bet it was less than what I paid for the Pavillion in 1999.

What this has done, inter alia, is allowed me to set up a YouTube channel. And I have posted some videos, though not of the HVDU (yet) — but rather the event that started my thoughts about creating the HVDU in the first place.

I’ve described briefly at this page on the main HVDU site the event that started it. You can also read a fuller account that I wrote for the group I worked for at the time.

Again, this event took place in September 2000, at the opening event of the 146th season of the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. The famous priest and scholar John Henry Newman — later a Cardinal, and soon to be declared ‘Blessed’ by the Roman Catholic Church — founded both the University and the “L and Haitch” at the same time. Newman’s motto was ‘Cor ad cor loquitor’ — ‘heart speaking to hear’ — which is still the L&H’s motto.

At any rate, when the L&H decided to make the opener of the 146th season “The Pornography Debate,” the Auditor (student president) of the L&H, Paul Brady tracked down our organization, and invited us to participate. We decided to send our eminent General Counsel — also an Eminent Irishman — as our speaker, and I decided that this had to be covered for us, so I made my way to the Fair City.

Fortunately, the UCD’s Film Society took the initiative and had a videotaper in the audience. And that is why you’re now able to see these videos below. They’ve made the transition from PAL video to NTSC video to DVD to MPEG-4 and, for all that, they’ve held up quite well.

I will leave the drama of the debate itself to my earlier account. What I’m presenting here is the other story — my encounter with Points of Information and the whole Oxford/Cambridge debate tradition. Which is what I’m trying to bring across with the HVDU. Because after the encounter at the L&H, the Bush vs. Gore debates of October 2000 just did not match up. And I wanted to bring that face-to-face action here — which I’ve now started to do with the HVDU.

So I’m not presenting here the story of the Pornography Debate. (The entire video is more than two hours.) What I’m presenting is — How do you make a Point of Information? Because I realized that if these Irish kids could do this, anybody could. Including people in the Hudson Valley.

With these preliminary remarks, let’s go to the videos.

‘Points’ and shouts in Dublin’s Fair City

First, let me present the Auditor of the L&H, Paul Brady, who invited us there, and who was generally acknowledged as the Coolest Sideburn Champion of Ireland and Britain that year. The L&H is also a very active social club, and here Paul Brady describes what goodies the Society had on offer for the ‘freshers’ who decided to join that year:

Then, just before the invited guest speakers entered, Brady made a brief statement of the Standing Orders for the debate:

The first speaker in favor of the proposition, “This House believes ‘Pornography gives more pain than pleasure,’” was student Una Cassidy. Here’s an excerpt from her speech, where she turns down a number of Points (at 1:55, 2:14, and 2:36); she makes a slip at 2:46 and gets called on it; and she takes a Point at 3:39 and does quite well with it.

Making the first student speech against the motion was Owen Purcell. He punts on a point of information at 0:35, makes a refusal at 2:58, and takes a point at 3:16

For me, the highlight of the debate was student Laura McGarren’s speech supporting the proposition. You may think that she’s speaking a bit quickly, and keeping up with her brouge is a challenge, but she deftly swats away a number of Points of Information, and at 3:40 makes a superb “take” of a Point from Owen Purcell, rebutting the question instantly on her feet. Top marks for that one.

Finally, one of the guest speakers, Dr. Mary Murray, a clinical psychiatrist from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, makes the case for the victims of pornography she treats in her clinical practice, and handles some Points rather nicely as well.

This event is what started the HVDU, and I hope that these videos let you understand why.

Planning for the Fall 2009 Hudson Valley Debate Union series, that is.

The plans are not quite final yet, and I don’t want to spill the bean jar quite completely, but I can say this:

• The Fall 2009 season will be Rockland-focused
• The Fall 2009 season will definitely be newsworthy (in a Rockland context)
• The Fall 2009 season will be venturing to new sites
• The Fall 2009 season will have significant new friends

When the plans get a bit more solid, you’ll see it here first. I promise!

Ed Mechman of the Archdiocese of New York blogged on his experience at the Marriage Equality Bill debate, and so did talk radio host Kevin McCullough of Musclehead Revolution.

You can see photo albums of HVDU events here:

The Marriage Equality Debate (6 May 2009)

The Indian Point Debate (30 March 2009)

The McCain Debate (20 October 2008)

The Obama Debate (29 Sept 2008)

Here’s a photo of the Marriage Equality Debate to whet your appetite (courtesy Bert Berat Images):

Scene from the HVDU Marriage Equality Debate

Originally scheduled to be a No Confidence in the Stimulus Bill debate, the subject was changed on 16 April when Governor David Paterson of New York introduced the Marriage Equality Bill into the New York Senate and Assembly.

The Governor said he wanted a debate on the bill, and the Hudson Valley Debate Union was prepared to give it to him.

Since the Indian Point Debate was cast as, “This House urges the NRC to reject the re-licensing of Indian Point Generating Stations Nos. 2 and 3,” the HVDU cast the motion as, “This House urges the New York Senate and Assembly to reject the Marriage Equality Bill (Assembly Bill 7732/Senate Bill 4401).”

One of the guiding principles of the HVDU is to frame its debates around decision points, that is, real legislation or executive decisions or judicial decisions that affect concretely, rather than abstractly. With a real Bill in the Assembly, the HVDU could take on the Marriage Equality mission

It took some scrambling and a lot of phone calls at the last minute, but we got a full slate of Principal Speakers for both sides. Speaking in favor of the motion (and against the Bill in the Senate and the Assembly) were:

• Mr. Ed Mechmann, of the Family Life/Respect Life Office, Archdiocese of New York
• Mr. Kevin McCullough, radio talk show host and author of Musclehead Revolution and The Kind of Man Every Man Should Be
• Mrs. Judith Anderson, co-director of Hudson Valley Coalition for Life

Speaking against the motion (and in favor of the Marriage Equality Bill):

• Mr. Michael Sabatino, former communications director, Marriage Equality New York
• Ms. RoseAnn Hermann, marriage ambassador, Empire State Pride Agenda
• Mr. Richard Sussman, attorney/mediator and marriage ambassador, Empire State Pride Agenda

The debate was calm and restrained, and no voices were raised in anger. When the voting chips were counted, it was evident that more supporters of the Bill had come out than opponents; the motion was rejected 49 votes to 27.