This is primarily a photo blog: a group of Vermonters (including a not paltry contingent from Vermont’s Green Mountain Daily) showed up in Lebanon, New Hampshire this morning to help out with the canvassing.  Later, we got to see John Edwards speak, and had a real treat shortly after.  

It was a day much colder than expected, and canvassing was fun.  Everyone was incredibly polite to one another.  We crossed a few paths with an Obama canvasser and wished each other good luck.  Everyone we spoke to while canvassing was polite as well, and the common theme, even for people who weren’t supporting Edwards was how nice it was to have a good set of choices this time around.  

After the fold, I’ll post about the speakers we had at the pre-canvassing as well as the treat we got with seeing Edwards, but first, probably one of the best portrait shots I’ve ever taken:

The whole photoset of photos from today can be seen here.  I’m just posting a select few for the blog itself.

First, David Zucker, who was coordinating the volunteers in Lebanon:

People who do this sort of work are often overworked and overtired, but he was great.

After David, we got a cool speech from Matt Dunne, who ran for Lt. Governor in Vermont last time around and is an awesome progressive:

After Matt, we got Kevin Leahy, which was a treat:

Then, we got the fairly manic Ben Cohen (from Ben & Jerry’s fame):

The idea was simple after this: we canvass for a bit and then we had reserved seats in the auditorium in front.

Here’s what ended up happening though: the Fire Marshal shut us, and a large number of other Edwards supporters, out of the auditorium.  So this was really disheartening; we had expected to have reserved seats, but no such luck.  They were going to have us stand outside and meet with Edwards briefly but no one seemed to like that plan.  Then they figured out that we could have an overflow room, and that as a thank you, we’d get to see Edwards speak briefly in the overflow room.  They brought us in, we waited a bit, and then the candidate appeared, walking into the center of this gymnasium and standing on a chair to talk to us:

He spoke briefly, off the cuff, thanked everyone for coming and apologized for the overflow room, and then left again.  I positioned myself to get the picture up top on his way out– came out far better than I expected.  We were all milling about, getting ready to head out, thinking it wasn’t worth sticking around just to hear his speech pumped in through speakers.

Then something really surprising happened.  He came running back into the room, without his jacket, and someone tossed him a basketball:

This was a real treat.  We got to watch a presidential candidate just hang out before his speech, and have some fun, the afternoon before probably the most important debate of his political career:

He didn’t seem to mind that he’d missed a few baskets, and he was as relaxed as I’d ever seen him.

So really, that’s it.  We headed back to quiet Vermont and over the next few days we’ll be doing more campaigning, canvassing, etc.  This was a real treat.  I’ve worked for campaigns before but never got to see the candidate from this close.  

I’m glad we did it and it was really fun, once you got over the bitter freezing (“Can I still feel my fingers? No, I can’t!) cold.   Yikes.  Oh well.  All for a good cause.

Anyway, one last photo, of three of our bloggers.  John Odum is in the middle.  The one to the right of John is, I think, bvt and the one to his left is greenvermonster.

………For trying to Tarrant Vermont! That’s right, I said it! What were they thinking? TV ads minutes apart for months and Vermont still said no. Did they actually think they could just dump a bunch of money into advertising and get their way? I’ve never been so proud of Vermont’s Public Service Board, way to stand up to the big guys.

Regardless of Maine’s acceptance of Fairpoint’s terms, our state did the right thing. Monopolies of any utility especially statewide is asinine, just too much power for one company to possess. The simple fact is Vermonters asked for things, issues that were side-stepped or minimized by Fairpoint.

There was no negotiation or middle ground. Fairpoint pretty much said here this is what we’re going to do, approve it. For someone to already act like a monopoly in the state when they’re not even yet, makes me wonder what the future holds? It’d be nice if they were at least fair and to the point with Vermont.

Those ads on TV look like anywhere small town Vermont, but what are they really telling us? How financially they will be able to do this……How financially this will help them. What about us? Where is the promise to Vermonters not to start jacking prices once they take over? Where’s the promise that when there’s a storm of significant proportions that they’re going to get out and get the lines back up in a timely manner? With a monopoly there aren’t any competitors for service, so why bother? What if it made better financial sense for the company to wait a week? They tell it to you straight in the ads, its all about the company finances.

Is all hope lost? Not really. If Fairpoint will come to the table, and Vermont’s Public Service Board holds steadfast, than an understanding can be had. In this case Vermont needs to think less like government and more like a corporation. What do we want to get from this, and how will it benefit us? The Public Service board should negotiate for better rates and increase caps from the start. Time will tell if the company is fair and to the point, and this was a good thing for Vermont.

Think ice fishing in Vermont is as simple as grabbing some gear and bait and going? You’d certainly be wrong this year. Vermont Fish and Wildlife has enacted a rule that they hope to have the legislature approve as law this session. Good luck, you’ve got to have a degree to understand language put into this one. Certainly not something written for the average Vermonter.

Please go to www.vtfishandwildlife.com to read it yourself. It’s very confusing and leaves a person with nothing but questions. I was only able to glean several things from it myself, but what I did, alarmed me. There is to be NO PERSONAL BAITFISH COLLECTION, all those traps I went and bought will have to sit and collect dust. The money and time I spent on the art of collecting ones own bait. Nothing like making people have to go buy bait, fishing used to be a poor mans sport. How can a minnow on the approved species list, caught in Lake Champlain, be bad for use as bait in Lake Champlain? KEEP YOUR RECEIPT for your bait with you. But don’t forget that it’s only GOOD FOR 48 HOURS. No longer do you just have to remember your license, but lose or forget that receipt for your bait and you’re fined. So much for setting up a tub of water in the house to keep your minnows alive during the derby, Now you have to run to the baitshop and wait in line like everyone else in the morning. THE MINNOWS MUST BE DESTROYED WHEN YOU LEAVE THE ICE, no more bringing them home and using them tomorrow.

Intrigued yet? All this and more because Fish and Wildlife is all up in arms about this new fish disease that they think might be coming, or might already be here. Well which is it? It seems more like a knee jerk reaction to me than, just like a few years ago with not baiting deer because of Chronic Wasting Disease.

Why the hoopla and drastic steps? Why not just ban importing bait from places where the disease is known. If it’s here, it’s here, and there’s not much we can really do about it. How is my catching minnows in the lake, and using them as bait in the same lake going to make a difference?

Wouldn’t it have been easier to create a baitfish trapping permit? Make people sign off that they read a pamphlet and have them pay a couple bucks, then turn them loose. Nobody, nothing is a heck of attitude to have, especially when license sales drive your agencies budget. Who will want to buy a license, go wait in line, and still be afraid they didn’t dot their i’s and cross their t’s. F & W went and made things way too complicated.

I encourage everyone to contact the government that supposedly represents us. Legislators, senators, the Governor, everyone needs to know how many people this will affect. Tell them you want to go fishing, but it’s too complicated, and it shouldn’t be. Vermont Fish and Wildlife needs to have a better, less complicated plan for bait regulations in Vermont.

The department is likely to strong arm this into law by “educating” legislators on the issue, stand up to the propaganda.

If the Fish and Wildlife department is trolling for fines, then this Vermonter is not biting!

( – promoted by odum)

Regardless of how the nomination fight comes out, I think the Iowa caucus will go do in history as a historic moment.  Clearly, the fact that a bunch of white folks trundled out in the cold to support a black candidate for president is a historic moment, but there is another less momentous, but not unimportant shift: from the Boomers to GenX.

GenXers have always grown up in the shadow of the boomer generation.  We grew up with the fights about Vietnam, civil rights and the culture wars echoing in our ears even though we were too young to be involved in them.   We were frequently critiqued for being uninterested in politics and civic life.

Yes, it is true, GenXers as a group seem a lot less interested in going to protests and sit-ins.  Voting trends have largely been in decline among young people. While that was seen as apathy among many liberal Boomers, it masked a more subtle civic engagement.  Starting in the early 90s and continuing to today, community service rates soared among young people.  GenXers weren’t, as a group, terribly interested in protesting, but they were keen on helping their neighbors.  

I think the Iowa caucus will go down as the day Generation X roared for the first time.  The candidates who drew younger voters not only had a message of change, but they also engaged voters in new ways.  Edwards has been an impressive machine that relies quite a bit on community service.  Obama’s transcendent message resonates about the need to stop arguing and get the job done.  Even Ron Paul’s call for getting the government out people’s lives embodies a very GenX view of conservatism.

It is easy to overstate generational values, but I do think there is something to this.  Huge numbers of people under the age of 35 are now participating in the process for the first time.  I think that is because, for the first time, we have candidates that are articulating messages that resonate among young people.  For the first time in my adult life, we have presidential candidates that are not re-fighting the Vietnam war or the culture wars for the 10,000th time.  We have a black candidate who is not all about civil rights.  We have a woman candidate who is not about feminism.  About time!!!

This time round the roar may not be enough to carry the day, but I feel that at last there are political leaders speaking to our generation.  Boomers are a large and vocal bunch, so I have no doubts that they will continue to dominate the political scene, but at  least now we have a seat at the table…  

Vermont’s network of hospitals announced Friday a new statewide policy not to seek payments from patients or insurance companies for medical errors that result in serious harm.

. . .

Representatives of the hospitals outlined eight areas of medical error that they would not collect payment for, such as performing surgery on the wrong body part or wrong patient or injuries arising from being prescribed incorrect medications.

(Vt. hospitals change policy on medical errors, Times Argus, 01/05/08)

That’s a relief! Next time they cut off my leg when I’m in for stitches to my hand I’ll still have pocket cash for a night on the town.

Of course one would think we wouldn’t be charged for gross negligence in the first place … but … ***sigh*** … that’s the medical business folks.

But I don’t know if that’s the most ridiculous part of the story. Farther down we find

Under the surveillance program, hospitals will report to the state all medical errors to determine the root causes and to get a handle on the total number of cases, according to Jill Olson, the vice president of policy and operations quality for the hospital association.

“Under this system, the hospitals will report to the Health Department any medical errors and then will work with them to determine if there are any root causes,” she explained.

Well Rama told me it is really annoying to be charged for crappy ‘news’ reporting.

“It is really annoying to be charged for crappy ‘news’ reporting,” Rama explained.

I guess it’s fair. If I lose the wrong limb it’s a freebie. If they lose their journalistic capabilities it’s on my dime … damnit!

(Host) Progressive Anthony Pollina says he will be a candidate for governor this year. Pollina says he's planning a campaign that will present a clear alternative to the policies of Republican incumbent governor Jim Douglas.

No surprise, eh?