dinner 2.0 with neil abercrombie

last week (september 2) i was invited to dinner 2.0 with neil abercrombie. this invitation was kind of out of the blue and i didn't know quite what to expect. it turns out that it was a casual dinner (on paper plates for that matter) with the congressman. he greeted us individually; there were only about 20 people. and we all sat down for dinner (from kakaako kitchen).

it turns out that it was basically a meet and greet. a chance for us to ask the congressman questions. and just talk story. the cool thing was that it was streamed live on ustream. i was told that there were upwards of 400 people tuning in. (did any one see me?)

there were many interesting talks. some of not were:

the congressman's energy independence bill. we spent a while on natural gas.

the congressman's thoughts on how the legislators are changing. he mentioned a couple times that it seems that more than ever people are out to demonize each other. it seems that respect and honor has been replaced by winning at all costs.

he talked about the shipyard the cola

scott from http://www.hosef.org/ was there

he explained why he was having these types of dinners. he wants to get back to what he called "direct government". meeting with the people face to face and even virtually. the congressman is a techie. he uses NING as his campaign site; http://neilabercrombie.ning.com/, he went to the geek meet at ala maona park a few months ago, and of course he has a twitter account. overall it was a really interesting night. he's definitely a cool dude.


oh.... wait. so i did have one comment about the dinner. so, i did find the discussions to be a little "old". i understand that all the issues were important. but, it obviously wasn't the most relevant discussions for for 20somethings in hawaii. actually, i don't really hear any of our politicians talking about things that i'm most concerned with. hmm... haha and i'm not sure how to ask those questions either.