I’ve been having a bit of fun with the music as of late.  After the fold are a few pieces of music I’ve been playing with.

Six-string banjo:

Baritone Guitar:

Standard Acoustic Guitar

Today’s Brattleboro Reformer has in an article titled Vermont Yankee annual event spotlights safety.

So let’s see… a plant with aging, cracked, cooling towers, a crane that let nuclear material drop, a significant increase in radiation levels, that lost a set of fuel rods… well I’m sure having a once a year safety day should make us all feel better.

Two interesting things about this piece from the Rutland Herald:

Field & Stream named Douglas a fishing “villain” this month.

His crime? On opening day, Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Wayne Laroche gave the governor a hand with his fishing rod.

“The Vermont trout opener reportedly found the governor on the river and in front of cameras – flipping his hook back to a Fish & Wildlife official, who dutifully baited it for him,” according to the magazine.

This part is funny enough.  We’ve discussed this specific incident before, but the fact that Fish and Wildlife has gone after him for it is just hilarious.

But the other part I find interesting is how Jason Gibbs, who is serving as an official state-paid spokesperson for the governor, seems to be jumping in as a campaign spokesman here:

“The governor enjoys fishing a great deal, and as often as his schedule permits,” Gibbs said. “The Fish & Wildlife official was simply being helpful and polite. The untold part of the story is that the governor had baited his hook before this particular action and, in fact, had not only baited his hook hundreds of times, but has also baited the hooks of his sons, who he has enjoyed bringing fishing, as most fathers would.”

Hey, who needs campaign finance reform when you can get the taxpayers to pay for your surrogates?

I guess we won’t be hearing much of anything about why Douglas deserves to be reelected, but at least we’ll get plenty of personal attacks on Symington:

Sometimes we will see political endeavors which either attempt to (1) solve a non-existent problem, (2) attempt to solve a problem through purely rhetorical and non-functional means, or (3) just blame other people for the existence of the problem with no attempt to solve it whatsoever.  Examples of these would include (1) attempting to “fix” social security, (2) the pushing of offshore drilling or (3) claiming that Democrats want us to lose in Iraq.

There are multiple purposes for these approaches: if you frame them properly, you can easily appeal to low information voters in doing so.

The Rockham Selectboard this week actually had the wisdom to avoid all three of these pitfalls, despite pressure to do otherwise.  Per the Rutland Herald:

Rockingham Select Board tabled indefinitely a proposed sex offender ordinance Tuesday night, after the town’s attorney urged them not to adopt it.

Attorney Michael Harty said the proposed ordinance would land the town in court, since a legal challenge is all but guaranteed, and the town had a “one-in-three” chance of being the test case.

[…]

The ordinance would have barred anyone with a sex crime on his or her record from living within 1,000 feet of any school, day-care center or public playground.

Now the thing is, it’s easy to pass this sort of ordinance because, honestly, no one wants sex offenders to live in their neighborhood.  No one likes the idea of it and as soon as we start talking about them living near schools it’s easy to appeal to the fears of people everywhere.

I’ll make this clear: I will admit readily that I personally don’t care too much for the idea of child molesters living near a school.  It’s one of those concepts that creeps me out.

The thing is, that’s not the point.  People who commit sex crimes are not all child molesters.  They’re not all repeat offenders.  They’re not all predators.  

And they do have a right to live in the place of their choosing and they do have the right, once they’ve served their time, to be citizens just like the rest of us.

And the fact of the matter is, this sort of ordinance serves one specific purpose: to allow us to think we’re doing something about child molestation without actually doing anything about it at all.   It gives us a feeling of accomplishment, but does absolutely nothing to protect any child anywhere.

So, good for the Rockingham Select board.  You allowed common sense to override fear and rhetoric.  Too bad Rutland isn’t as sane as you guys.

Crossposted to Daily Kos

Seven years ago, I watched in horror as the events of September 11, 2001 unfold from the comfort of my home.

The horror I experienced had a little to do with the planes themselves.  The deaths were tragic, horrendous and inhuman.  

But through that directly personal and human horror, I had a much worse feeling down in the pit of my stomach, one that unfortunately came true in so many ways.

The deaths were tragic, but I feared more for the loss of my country, my rights and the sense of security I felt here.

I’m not talking about physical security.  That’s a relative concept.  Living in Southeastern Vermont, I felt no less in danger from external violent forces than I had the day before.

I’m talking about the security that comes with living in a free and civil society.  I’m talking about the security that comes with having the rights of habeus corpus, due process and the right to an attorney.

Our country has failed us on these fronts, and in doing so may have achieved a goal which terrorists would have been unable to accomplish on their own, to destroy us from within.

They’d done this under the auspices of a single phrase, repeated again and again:

911.

911.

911.

This is not a day of memorial.  It is not a day of reckoning.  

911 has been transformed from a day of tragedy to a crass political marketing tool.  It has been bled dry of meaning.  It has been stolen from those of us who respect and mourn for the loss involved and its meaning has been twisted into a single simple statement:

Republicans will protect you.  Democrats will throw you to the wolves

Or, more succinctly:

Four more years!

Four more years!

Four more years!

And, of course:

Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but today is a day I want to reclaim.  

I watched in horror from the comfort of my home, but the horror was real.  I’ve watched in horror for the last seven years as we’ve capitulated, time and time again, on FISA, on Iraq, on patriotism, on honesty, on truth and on justice.  

This.  

Can.

Not.  

Stand.

So today is a day that has no meaning for me any longer, but I desperately want to reclaim its meaning.  I want it to be a day when we remember what we lost, not just on the front of death and despair, but on the fronts of wisdom, common sense and personal freedom.

September 11th, 2001, was a day that everything changed for us.  It’s the day that Republicans were given a green light to pull out every underhanded, fear mongering trick in the book, and too many of us let them do so.

September 11th, 2001, was a day that everything changed for us.  It’s the day that we started down the path of allowing ourselves to justify torture, to detain people indefinitely for questioning, to give any right-wing politician the excuse for any anti-immigrant agenda they saw fit to enact.

September 11th, 2001, was a day that everything changed for us.

Let’s make September 11th, 2008 a day that we start to change it all back.

Per today’s Rutland Herald:

A high school social studies teacher is suing a grade school in his town over a $1,400 line item in the school’s budget that he says goes to a cause he doesn’t support – lobbying state legislators for public education causes.

[…]

The money is relayed to the VSBA in the form of a $1,400 fee, a part of the voter-approved school budget, according to the complaint and educators involved in the case.

Okay.  So.

A Fair Haven high school instructor is suing the school, forcing them to waste time and money, in order to overturn a line item that was part of the school’s budget that was voted on by the taxpayers.

Why not just sue the voters?

Per today’s Rutland Herald:

A Dorset man, who told the court he does not recognize the right of the state to require a driver’s license, was arraigned on Monday after police said he hit a Manchester Police officer with his car while trying to escape a traffic stop.

[…]

Armstrong, who gave his name in a court filing as Claude-Emerson..Armstrong, did not enter a plea on any of the charges. Judge John Wesley said under the circumstance, the state would assume Armstrong was pleading not guilty and entered that plea on Armstrong’s behalf.

During a court hearing, Armstrong referred to himself as a “sovereign citizen” and asked the Bennington County State’s Attorney’s office to produce any contract between himself and the state of Vermont.

I wonder if this could get me out of paying off my student loans.

Per today’s Rutland Herald:

Neglected maintenance on the brakes on a Vermont Yankee refueling floor crane failed in May as it was holding a cask full of spent nuclear fuel because Entergy Nuclear failed to correct ongoing problems with the crane, a recently released inspection report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated.

The crane has accumulated seven problems in more than three years, a result of “Entergy’s failure to take timely and appropriate corrective action,” the special inspection report stated.

But not to worry.  I’m sure they’re doing everything else just perfect.

Damn.  I wish I’d thought of this.  Per VPR:

A consumer group says the owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant have used deceptive advertising in their campaign to operate the reactor for another 20 years.

The report quotes one of the ads:

“That’s because one-third of our electricity comes from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which has been providing reliable electricity with zero greenhouse gas emissions for the last 35 years.”

This is, of course, demonstrably false.  VT Yankee is not a zero emissions plant, and the electricity it provides is neither consistent not reliable.  But hey, why would we let facts get in the way of a good PR campaign?

Oh, and in response to questions about the zero emissions claim, VT Yankee spokesmodel Rob Williams had this great claim, as reported in the Rutland Herald:

Williams said the reactor was “essentially” free of greenhouse gas emissions. “Compared to other sources it is zero,” Williams said, stressing that Vermont Yankee produced one-third of all the electricity used in the state.

Well, okay.  So it’s not zero emissions.  So why not make the above claim in their ads instead of… what’s it called again?  Oh right: lying.

The complaint came from the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, which included this gem in its press release:

“Vermonters would be far better off if Entergy put all the money they’re spending on ads into hiring competent managers and engineers who can help to prevent the plant from falling apart until it retires in 2012,” said Burns.