A classic from WKRP: http://www.hulu.com/watch/322/…

(Probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen on television).

This is, amazingly enough, not a spam post.  

The title of this post is, in fact, a word for word quote from a recent request for proposals posted by the state of Vermont.

What are they looking for?  Well, let’s look at the RFP itself:

The Office of Purchasing & Contracting is seeking to establish purchasing agreements with one or more companies that can provide and manage eBay and Specialty on-line site sales.

The state expects to periodically have surplus item(s) available for sale via eBay or Specialty on-line listing site in an effort to realize the best possible return for each item(s).

Yes.  That’s right.  The state wants to hire an outside contractor whose sole job it is to list things on eBay.

Clearly, a job too specialized and sophisticated to hire a state employee for it.

And how much is the state willing to pay to avoid having an actual employee handle this?

The estimated annual value of this contract is $50,000.00.  The annual value and quantities are estimated only based on prior usage; actual purchases may be higher or lower depending on the state’s needs.

Odd sidenote: for whatever reason, this is a sealed bid, issued on the day of a Holiday weekend, distributed at 2:30 am.  Something about that seems a little… odd… to me.

There’s a bit of history about this story, but here’s the quick and simple version (in quote format to separate it, but I wrote it):

Vermont lesbian couple gets a civil union, has a kid through artificial insemination, and then divorces in 2003.  Biological mother renounces homosexuality, moves to Virginia to keep the kid from the other mom.  Custody battles ensue for the next six years.

The biological mom (Lisa Miller) has constantly blocked her ex-partner (Janet Jenkins) from seeing the kid, using the law in Virginia as a bit of a shield to hide behind.  Yesterday, however, things took an interesting turn.  As Brent Curtis writes in the Rutand Herald:

In a 21-page order, Judge William Cohen granted sole custody of 7-year-old Isabella Miller to her nonbiological but court-recognized parent, Janet Jenkins.

[…]

“In the long term, the change in custody will be in (Isabella’s) best interests as she will have the opportunity for maximum continuing physical and emotional contact with both parents,” he said, adding that both parents were equal in terms of stability, financial resources, emotional availability and other considerations required for child rearing.

Where they weren’t equal, he said, was in their willingness to work together. While Miller has repeatedly and consistently blocked Jenkins’ access to Isabella, the judge said Jenkins has agreed to allow Miller access and would allow Isabella to continue to attend church events with her other parent.

This isn’t the end of the story.  This problem with the jurisdictions here, and the back and forth between Virginia and Vermont– it creates a bit of legal chaos, and has real life consequences that are fairly serious.  The lack of legal clarity here, the fact that DOMA does an end-run around the constitution in order to circumnavigate full faith and credit… this is why we are in this mess in the first place.

…I don’t think I can ignore this.

Salmon gave a very strange, long, and convoluted speech the other day.  It covered his personal history, the fact that he thinks he had five drinks before getting behind the wheel the other night and talks a lot about his military service.  It even included product placement for The Ethan Allen Institute.

There were also some interesting responses to questions:

Salmon defended the pay raises Friday, saying four jobs in the auditor’s office were compressed into three, leaving those employees with more duties but still with salaries less than their predecessors. Salaries and benefits for next year are expected to be 26 percent, or $76,000, less than last year, he said.

How is this different from other state employees?  Lots of positions are being left unfilled and people are just expected to do more work.  Most of these people are not getting raises.  But apparently, Salmon’s office still gets them.  

I’m pretty sure I have a problem with that.

I can’t do this story justice nearly as well as Colbert can:

The VAFSC has been a fairly active part of the peace movement for as long as I’ve been in Vermont (and, most likely, considerably longer).  I’ve done a few projects in coordination with them, and I’m a bit floored to find out that we’ll no longer have a Vermont chapter of the AFSC.  The group’s website has been replaced by just the following message, before new contact information and an announcement of a Nov 20th memorial service of sorts for the organization

(I really wish they’d spelled “regrettably” correctly, but that’s beside the point).

I don’t have a lot to say about this.  Joseph Gainza was interviewed over this and thinks that the fact that Obama won actually hurt their efforts to keep the organization financially, with people thinking that we no longer need to support a peace group.  He’s probably right.  Combine that with the economy the way it is at this moment in time, and it’s a recipe for shutting down a group which was never really rolling in cash.

But I do just want to say that the VAFSC was a good group which did some really good work.  I’m sorry to see them go.

(I’m promoting this back to the top again because I think it’s an important enough issue that it warrants further discussion. – promoted by JulieWaters)

I want to start this with a disclaimer.  Some time ago, I was part of a union drive that was organized by AFT that was a bit of an unmitigated disaster.  It is difficult for me to be objective, but I didn’t want to just post this without acknowledging prior involvement with the group.

With that in mind, I’ve just heard that they are attempting to organize child care workers in Vermont and want to wholeheartedly endorse this effort.  As some of you know, I spent several years doing training and technology support for early childhood educators, and working with their resource and referral agencies throughout the state of Vermont.  During that time, I worked with hundreds of people and learned a lot about how valuable their services are to the people of Vermont and how important it is that people go into the field, despite the long hours, low wages and generally being treated not particularly well.  

With budget cuts and layoffs at the state level (as well as with some of the local support agencies), resources are being stretched thin.  Many Early Childhood Educators have local network groups which can help provide support for one another, but the power of an organized, unionized, front is of immense value.

Having an organized entity looking out for the interest of child care providers in Vermont has potential to:

1. allow them to respond with force to attempts on the part of the state of Vermont to limit their benefits without due process;


2. give them access to group rates for multiple forms of insurance;


3. give them a solid voice to address concerns with a system which may not be looking out for their interest;


4. give them access to lobby legislators for stronger support of their work and clients.

I don’t know if AFT can pull this off in Vermont.  They need to use organizers who know the population and respect the work they do.  It’s not the same as organizing in other regions or with other professions.  Many child care workers work in isolation from one another and those who work with networks may perceive this as an attempt to undermine their own organizing efforts.  If this drive, however, uses the right approaches, finding good and productive ways to work with the local networks, focuses on local organizing (as opposed to relying on people from out of state to do their organizing work), it’s got real potential to turn into something of great value.

Per psychology today:

Yesterday, Mr. Delong, a 10th and 12th grade Honors English teacher in Piasa, IL was suspended for assigning an article about homosexuality in the animal kingdom to his students. Should teachers ask their students to read about controversial topics? Should we allow parents veto power over the curriculum?

This suspension makes one thing clear: we’re not even supposed to have the discussion about certain topics which make some people uncomfortable.

A few years ago, I got an e-mail from a former student.  It’s one of the many things floating around the internet, which is listed in some detail at snopes.com.  

The specifics of the e-mail itself are not relevant– it’s about ANWR and how it wouldn’t be that bad to drill in it after all, and how it wouldn’t do that much damage.  Feel free to read it for yourself if you like, but this story isn’t about that.  This story is about her comments after I challenged her a little on it, and why these e-mails, along with so many other pernicious lies tend to be so pervasive.  

This was her response:

I just thought it really interesting as it honestly gets harder and harder to find the truth in these situations! These days with internet…who knows what is real and what is fabricated which is exactly why I sent this along to all. It may be the truth, it may not, damn these things are hard! It is just another piece of the puzzle. Honestly, how do you know this is NOT the case? I don’t!

It was at this point that I suspected I had failed as a teacher, and more importantly, it was at this point that I got a glimmer of what was to come.

The point of these e-mails is not to make an argument.  It’s not to present facts and support them.  It’s to call things into question and give people plausible deniability.

Take, for example, the many e-mails that got sent out during the election of 2008: Obama the Muslim.  Obama the non-American.  Obama the friend of terrorists.  This, of course, was not done just through e-mail, but sometimes even supported his opponents.

But the intent of these stories was never to convince people that any of what they said was true.  It was to give people pause and concern.  It was to drive up the negatives.  It was to cause people to call Obama into question.  People who were uncomfortable with not voting for him simply because he was black suddenly had a whole new set of excuses as to why they should be concerned with him.

Back to what my student said:

It may be the truth, it may not, damn these things are hard! It is just another piece of the puzzle. Honestly, how do you know this is NOT the case? I don’t!

This, of course, is absurd.  You learn the truth about things by evaluating sources, investigating them and making reasonable and justified conclusions.   There is, of course, one thing she was right about: sometimes it is hard.  But that’s part of the responsibility of living in a free society: knowing what the &^%! you’re talking about or, at the very least, not basing the most major part of your political activity on things you don’t understand.

Years ago, a friend told me a story: she and her partner were walking on a bridge at dusk; there was another couple nearby.  At some point, a huge number of bats flew out from under another bridge and across the water.  One of them, sort of whimsically, said “there go the fruitbats.”  She, of course, didn’t know if they were fruitbats or some other kind of bat.  They were just being silly.

The other couple nearby overheard them.  The woman asked her guy “those are fruitbats?”  At this point he concocted a fairly elaborate story of the nature of these ersatz fruitbats, why they hang under the bridge, what sort of fruit they eat, etc.  The guy, obviously was making it all up, probably to impress his date.  But I think about that story sometimes and wonder how readily and comfortably we lie, pretend and simply make it all up as we go along.

Bear in mind: I’ve no problem with a good tall tale.  As children, we live and thrive on tall tales: spinning stories out of nothing but our imaginations.  But there is a point that needs to come where we grow beyond these things, learn to have conversations in a world that has some connection to reality, and learn to put aside the childish approach towards reality which trades not in honesty and respect but in simply saying whatever you think will make you win.  Even in the example I outline above, I’ve no real problem with some guy just babbling on about fruitbats to impress his date.  

But… there’s something happening that’s really been bothering me for some time now, and I think it’s this:

We don’t argue any longer.

By “we” I don’t mean everyone.  I’m talking in the realm of politics and policy; I’m talking about the way we used to argue.   Here’s an example of then Senator Paul Simon, presenting an argument, a point of view, a perspective, on how we should interact with the rest of the world:

Note the lack of name-calling, the lack of interpersonal squabbling.  Agree or not, Senator Simon is trying to tell you why you should agree with him, not berating or attacking you for failing to.  Similarly, Bob Dole is clearly capable of a good argument:

But why argue when you can diminish, ignore, cajole and pretend?  Why argue when you can simply suspend someone for introducing a topic?

Why argue when you can just intimidate instead?

Why argue when you can, instead, simply pretend that Obama is affiliated with terrorists?  Why argue when you can shout people down?  

Why stand on the merits of your own facts?  Why rely on reason?  Why bother with tools, research and skills when you can just shrug and treat all positions as equal, no matter how ridiculous argument is?  Why take responsibility for knowing, for learning, for doing?  

I’ll tell you why.

Because it’s worth it.

I’d never heard of “Free Vermont Radio” until July of this year, when I received the following e-mail:

I have added your music to the site http://www.freevermontradio.org

We play 99% Vermont Music!  If you have anymore please sent to us at..

Free Vermont Radio

attn: Artist Submissions

P.O. Box 28

East St. Johnsbury Vermont, 05838

Also, here are some banners you can put on your sites to send fans over to request your music…

http://www.freevermontradio.or…

Thanks,

Dennis Steele (Founder)

Free Vermont Radio

It was a little strange.  I do sometimes allow some of my music to be on internet radio stations, but usually there is an agreement in place, and usually people ask first.  I have a lot of music that I allow people to download for free, but I’m clear about the use of such files.  From my own web site:

Permission is granted to use parts of the site (such as downloading an mp3 file or an image) for personal and not-for-profit use. Web content may not be published on any other site without permission.

So that, in itself, is a bit of a flag for me.  It, however, gets worse.  Turns out there’s a connection (and a fairly overt one) between Free Vermont Radio and Second Vermont Republic.  

As you might expect, when someone tries to do business that involves me (whether they get my permission or not), I want to know who it is and why.  So I did a simple google search: “Dennis Steele Vermont.”

This was the first link I got.  It’s Dennis Steele speaking before the SVR convention, along with links to Free Vermont Radio.

I also did a little more searching.  I noticed this:

When it comes to buying locally and supporting Vermont made goods and services, fifth generation Vermonter Dennis Steele truly puts his money where his mouth is. The Kirby businessman and Vermont Patriot has just launched a new Internet radio station, Free Vermont Radio, entirely devoted to promoting Vermont musicians and their music worldwide.

The new radio station had hardly been broadcasting a week, when its collection of Vermont based music surpassed one thousand tracks (individual tunes) from dozens of CDs. Dennis often receives as many as 10 or 12 CDs a day from Vermont musicians eager to share their music with the rest of the world.

I have to say, it’s got to be really easy to collect one thousand tracks when you just cull things from peoples’ web sites without their permission.  I have to wonder how many other musicians made it onto this site without their permission.  

The idea looks nice: local Vermonters supporting Vermont music.  And on the surface it seems like a good thing.  But this is not what that site is.  That site supports SVR, a group which willingly organizes with white supremacists secession movements.  Steele’s 2008 speech at the SVR came well after news about their involvement with the League of the South was first widely publicized.

Let me be clear about this: Steele is welcome to use his web site to support any belief or any organizational affiliations he so chooses.  He is welcome to do this.   But I think he’s got an obligation to come clean about where the music on his site comes from, whether or not the people involved gave permission to be affiliated with supporters of White Supremacists and whether or not he actually pays any money out to any of the musicians he uses on his site.  I’m all for freedom, I’m all for music and I’m all for Vermont.  

I just don’t see how “Free Vermont Radio” supports any of these things, unless it just means that Vermont musicians provide material to this “radio” station for free.

From today’s Rutland Herald:

The battle over how to deal with the state’s dwindling unemployment insurance fund continues. Next week… officials in Gov. James Douglas’ administration will offer a new version of their plan for the program, an earlier version of which lawmakers have already rejected.

The governor, who sent a scathing letter to legislative leaders last week about the issue, will again propose splitting the pain between workers and employers…

“The governor’s proposal that we rejected would have increased the tax on Vermont’s business community by $80 million over two years in a time when they are facing tremendous economic challenges,” Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said recently. “It proposed draconian reductions in benefits to people who have just lost their jobs.”

In an economy in which businesses are struggling to keep their doors open, there’s real question about the wisdom of giving them a dramatic tax increase, even if it is something that in normal times seems fair and reasonable.  Furthermore, cutting benefits is just short sighted and dangerous.  It leads to less revenue going towards those businesses and causes people to cut back spending even more than they already had.  

There are good ways and bad ways to handle a poor economy.  Cutting benefits to the point where it accelerates the depression is not among the good.