If we want our constitution to allow for the ownership of guns without any notification, information or record keeping, we are welcome to attempt to amend it, but there is every reason to track guns and have some details about who owns them, especially when it comes to the issue of guns that make their way into the hands of kids, leaving violence in their wake.
(I think Odum’s idea of promoting some of Julie’s best writings to the front page is exactly the right way to say “goodbye.” First I chose “Messages from the Future” because I loved the irreverent humor, and I thought the title sort of says what a writer’s (or an artist’s) legacy should be. But I settled on this one, because it features a rare glimpse of Julie and her friends making music. She was an amazing musician.
We love you Julie, and we’ll miss you…but we have your words, your pictures and your music. They won’t fade away. – promoted by Sue Prent)
Earlier this month, a small group of musicians banded together to perform a benefit show for the Greater Falls Warming Shelter, an overnight shelter in Bellows Falls, VT.
We were, of course, thwarted. Not only was there an ice storm that night, but there was actually thundersleet going on. The last year, we had a large audience and raised over $700. This year, we had about 15 people, but still managed to raise $350. So we decided to give it another try. We’re doing the show again, this time on April 16th.
Our featured musicians are Jesse Peters, Julie Waters and Ali Chambliss. Here is video of the piece we used to close the show last time:
Here’s one of the solo pieces I performed:
If you would like to donate but are unable to attend the show, please send your donations to:
Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA)
91 Buck Drive
Westminster, VT 05158
Please mention that the donation is for the Greater Falls Warming Shelter and please reference the benefit concert
BELLOWS FALLS, VT. – They tried it once, and now they’re trying it again.
In February of 2011, Julie Waters, Jesse Peters and Ali Chambliss attempted a benefit show, braving bad weather which included not only icy roads but a surprise appearance of thundersleet. The concert was wonderful, but sparsely attended. Despite the audience of a mere 15 people, they were able to raise $350. So, they figured, it was worth trying again, hoping to get a much larger audience in better climate.
Julie Waters took on the task of wrangling a new date for the show. “It didn’t take too long,” she explains, “but I wanted to make sure everything was in perfect order before publicizing the show.” She had to get the go-ahead from the warming shelter’s board, the other two musicians and the venue. “I was especially hoping to be able to get the Church again,” she continues. “The acoustics in that building are amazing. I think of the venue itself as the fourth member of our group.”
The Greater Falls Warming Shelter is a valuable resource in Bellows Falls. According to the Brattleboro Commons, “in its first year, the center served 44 individuals for 371 bed nights during the 93 nights it was open. More than 75 volunteers stayed overnight at the shelter or provided some kind of support such as laundering, cleaning, donating furniture, providing supplies or helping with the fundraising concert. Monetary contributions to the shelter may be sent to the shelter’s fiscal agent, Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA), at 91 Buck Dr., Westminster, VT 05158.
In addition to Waters, Jesse Peters and Ali Chambliss will be headlining the show.
Julie Waters is a folk artist in the truest tradition, weaving stories, motion and rhythm, creating lyrical poetry through the strings of her guitar. More than simply a creative approach to music, her performances turn on a dime, first evoking ancient modal melodies, and then suddenly sliding into a rock and roll beat that morphs straight into the 21st century. According to Folk Singer Peter Mulvey, “Julie’s playing is kinetic and moving, and memorable a season after you hear it.”
Jesse Peters is flexible enough to play instrumental dinner music one day and jazz-rock with his trio the next. His writing style is similarly broad, with modern groove numbers interspersed with more traditional finger-picked tunes and a few rockers thrown in for good measure. “Jesse’s amazing,” explains Julie Waters. “I’ve played with a lot of guitar players in my time. Jesse is among the best. Playing with him pushes me to be a better musician.”
Ali Chambliss is one woman, with a guitar, an array of songs and a tremendous voice. Her original songs are crafted from a well of emotion deep and challenging as it is beautiful and poignant.
Suggested donation is $10.
The Greater Falls Warming Shelter opened November 22nd at 83 Westminster Street (behind Athens Pizza) to provide a temporary spot for an overnight stay. It will remain open until April and is staffed seven nights a week by volunteers who serve in two shifts from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. and 1 a.m. to 7 a.m. New volunteers are urged to contact the shelter at bfwarmingshelter@yahoo.com or leave a message at (802) 463-2567 to learn about the shelter and the on-going training provided. Members of the shelter steering committee will also be at the concert to provide information.
It continues with a long litany about WBC, none of which I disagree with. Then it gets to the meat of the matter:
ANONYMOUS cannot abide this behavior any longer. The time for us to be idle spectators in your inhumane treatment of fellow Man has reached its apex, and we shall now be moved to action. Thus, we give you a warning: Cease & desist your protest campaign in the year 2011, return to your homes in Kansas, & close your public Web sites.
Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS: We will target your public Websites, and the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover. It is in your best interest to comply now, while the option to do so is still being offered, because we will not relent until you cease the conduction & promotion of all your bigoted operations & doctrines.
This is unacceptable.
No matter how hateful, bigoted, pathetic and disgusting the behavior of the members of the Westboro Baptist Church, they have the right to be bigoted. They have the right to be vile, sad, disturbed people with a twisted view of their own sense of purpose. They have the right to believe that gay people deserve to die and the right to say so, provided they do not cross over the line into violence or threat of violence.
This is Democracy at work. Even the people we find most disgusting have the right to their opinions.
And the minute we find anonymous attacks on those rights to be acceptable, even to the point where some of us may cheer them on, we forfeit part of our right to engage in discourse. The minute we decide that silencing our opposition is of more value than even simply shunning them? At that point, we are no better than the members of the tea party who would rather shout down their opposition than allow them a voice.
I do not know who “anonymous” is. I don’t really care. Nor do i care about Phelps or his group of thuggish degenerates.
I care about what we do. And we have an obligation to oppose systemic DOS attacks on those whom we dislike. We have a moral imperative to allow those who would speak against us and our rights to do so.
There isn’t a lot of video out there that I can find of Dave Shapiro. You can see him at the beginning of this piece– he’s the guy hunched over a double-bass doing very solid work behind the scenes, making the other musicians look good, but around 6 minutes in, his fairly incredible solo starts:
Dave was a friend of mine– not a close friend. We talked from time to time about doing music together, but it never quite happened. That’s my fault. I needed to make it happen and just never did.
I don’t know exactly how Dave died. There’s not much word out there about it right now. It’s not important.
So I’m just going to share a little bit. He and I taught at the same college for a time and at one point our courses intersected so we could commute together, which made the rides more interesting. He knew a lot about the history of Jazz. Had been there for a lot of it. He hated the Ken Burns Jazz series– he had a conspiracy theory about it. Dave had conspiracy theories about everything. This one involved the Burns series focusing only on musicians whom the label sponsoring it (Columbia?) had signed. I didn’t know if it was true or not.
He also insisted on explaining to me why every single thing in Charles Mingus’ autobiography was a lie, though I don’t remember any details about it. The rides were fun. I never could tell how much of what he was telling me was complete crap and how much was genuine, but it was a lot of fun to hear the stories regardless.
My favorite story of his though is one I’m convinced was true. There’s a ride from Newfane (VT) to Grafton which is not a long ride, but an unpleasant one in poor weather. He had a gig at the Grafton Inn and there was a snowstorm. So instead of the 20 minutes he would normally take, he gave himself an hour and a half, and slowly made his way there. Took him most of that time but he made it to the gig. He was the only guy in the band to make it.
It was an anniversary party for this couple. I can’t remember which anniversary– 30th, 40th… whichever– but their son was there and asked if Dave wanted to try just jamming out some — he was a drummer and they were the only musicians there so they figured what the heck. Turns out the son was an amazing drummer– absolutely fantastic. They jammed together for a few hours.
Dave didn’t realize who he was. How would he? Dave never gave a damn about pop music. It was all about jazz for him. Wouldn’t have been able to tell Justin Bieber from Marky Mark.
So he had absolutely no idea that he’d spent the evening jamming with Steven Tyler until they were wrapping up for the night. He just thought it was funny– not so much that he jammed with a famous rock star, but that he had no idea whatsoever that he was doing it.
Dave was a great guy and a fantastic musician. I know he didn’t have an easy life, and I know his wife died several years before him. I enjoyed those rides with him, the strange stories. I loved arguing with him about music theory.
At one point, he tried to explain to me the value of 1/1 time, which basically boiled down to never having to worry about keeping proper time. I don’t get to spend a lot of time around people who as mentally convoluted as I am. He had his rant about 1/1 time and I had my rant about how C# and Db are completely different notes and it was a mistake to confuse them. Between the two of us, it could be rant central, but it was great and awesome ranting that hadn’t happened for way too long.
So… what does it mean when a bass player dies? Does the rhythm of the universe skip a beat, or is it just our hearts? Do we lose a bit of our collective soul, or does his talent disperse throughout the world, releasing that light to the rest of us?
Dave touched a lot of lives, as a musician as a teacher, and I mean a lot and I don’t even know how to explain how important that was, not just for his music, but for his teaching and the number of students he was able to shepherd through a basic understanding of math and statistics, something sorely lacking in this world.
I’m going to play at a local open mic tonight. I think I’ll have to dedicate a piece to him.
During routine surveillance, steam was seen coming from the high-pressure coolant injection system at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant at 11:25 a.m. on Feb. 16.
“All unnecessary personnel were cleared from the reactor building as a precautionary measure and valves in the steam path were closed,” said Larry Smith, Yankee’s manager of communication. “The issue has been entered into the corrective action systems and an investigation has been started to determine the source of the steam.”
I’m beginning to think that the chief economic impact of the closing of Vermont Yankee will be on the professional investigator industry.
A major manufacturer in the nuclear industry is reporting a potential “substantial safety hazard” with control rods at Vermont Yankee and more than two dozen other reactors around the country, according to a report made public Wednesday by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy said it had discovered extensive cracking and “material distortion,” and likely would recommend that the boiling water reactors using its Marathon control rod blades replace them more frequently than they had been told to previously.
Oh, and…
Signs of cracking in the blades would include increased levels of boron and tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, in the water used to cool the reactor, said Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman.
“As long as there is no significant increase in boron or tritium observed, the recommendation would be continue operation until the end of the operating cycle,” Sheehan said in an e-mail.
Sorrell and the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut are asking a federal appeals court to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reconsider a decision it made regarding its waste confidence rule.
The three-member commission of the NRC ruled in December 2010 that nuclear waste could be stored in pools or dry casks at the nation’s 100-plus nuclear sites for 60 years after a reactor shuts down. Until then, the limit was 30 years.
In the lawsuit, the AGs claim the NRC violated federal laws requiring a site-by-site review of health, safety and environmental hazards.
The problem here is that the NRC hasn’t actually inspected the storage site for VY itself but ruled based on a generic sense of how such sites tend to impact the environment.
Think of it as giving a student a passing grade because most of his classmates got a passing grade, even though he never took the test.
I have to say, I’m kind of amazed to see Sorrell do, well, anything. I wouldn’t call his lack of interest in his office exactly Salmonesque but, to this point, he’s not exactly rising to head of the class, so I’ve no real confidence that this will go anywhere. In all likelihood, he’ll just give up once he gets bored or tired. But in the meantime, he’s at least making the motions of doing what an attorney general is supposed to do: uphold the laws and challenge people who would do the state harm.
But, even if this does peter out, not to worry:
Larry Smith, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the casks containing spent fuel in Vernon are designed and tested to prevent the release of radioactivity under the most extreme conditions — earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods.
Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and David Vitter, R-La., say applications for the Pilgrim nuclear station in Plymouth, Mass., and the Vermont Yankee plant in Vernon, whose owner, Entergy Corp., applied for 20-year license extensions for the two on the same day, Jan. 27, 2006, are taking too long.
…and…
Vitter, who represents Louisiana, Entergy’s home state, has received $20,000 in campaign contributions from the company since the 2002 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington-based group that tracks money in politics.
A reporter actually looking at the money trend between a politician’s stated views and his supporters? I didn’t know they were still allowed to do that sort of thing.
Now, Vitter and Inhofe are claiming that the reason the NRC is taking so long in the case of Yankee and Pilgrim are because of the people protesting against them.
You know what? That would be awesome if it were true. It would be a testament to the ability of people to influence politics and policy and the things that effect their community.
That said, Vermont Yankee’s wounds are primarily self-inflicted. It’s not like anyone made them lose fuel rods. It’s like anyone made them fail to maintain their cooling towers. It’s not like anyone forced them to leak tritium into ground water.
This is a company that has made false statements to public officials. It’s a company which has not properly maintained safety. It’s a company that clearly does not care about Vermont or Vermonters in any form.
Activists may have managed to call attention to VY’s hardships– there are stories that wouldn’t be out there without the close scrutiny. But without VY engaging in such consistently egregious and dangerous behavior? The relicensing would have come through by now.
I’d love to give activists credit for this– it would be a rare opportunity for me to agree with David Vitter about something. But no, not so much. Activists are of value, but they don’t make the decisions. We call attention. We bring to light. But we don’t have that kind of power, as much as I sometimes wish we did.
But Entergy CEO Wayne Leonard says Yankee’s future should be decided by the feds. He made his comments in a conference call with investment analysts.
(Leonard) “We strongly believe that this is federal jurisdiction. We have choices that need to be made and we’ll make them at the appropriate time.”
Never mind the fact that part of Entergy’s agreement to purchase Vermont Yankee involved an agreement to follow the will of Vermont:
A court challenge would contradict Entergy’s previous promises. A former chairman of the Public Service Board says Entergy expressly agreed to submit to Vermont oversight when it bought the plant in 2002. Michael Dworkin now heads the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School.
(Dworkin) “I think if you review the transcripts of what they said in the hearing room under oath at the time you’ll see that they said repeatedly that this was a commitment that was binding, that they would not break it, and that it could not be reversed by going to federal court.”
Good thing this isn’t a Friday, or I’d have to place another option on the poll: “VY stops pretending to be truthful and honest.”
On Saturday night, a small group of intrepid musicians braved an ice storm to do a benefit show for the Greater Falls Warming Shelter, an overnight Shelter in Bellows Falls, VT. This is the closing number where all three of us came together to perform.
Please mention that the donation is for the Greater Falls Warming Shelter and please reference the benefit concert.
The Greater Falls Warming Shelter opened November 22nd at 83 Westminster Street (behind Athens Pizza) to provide a temporary spot for an overnight stay. It will remain open until April and is staffed seven nights a week by volunteers who serve in two shifts from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. and 1 a.m. to 7 a.m. New volunteers are urged to contact the shelter at bfwarmingshelter@yahoo.com or leave a message at (802) 463-2567 to learn about the shelter and the on-going training provided. Members of the shelter steering committee will also be at the concert to provide information.
I don’t yet have permission to post the other videos, so I’m holding off on samples from the sets of Ali Chambliss and Jesse Peters. Suffice it to say that they were quite wonderful and a lot of fun to watch. Below are my four pieces. The piece above the fold is the closing number the three of us did together.
The lead-up to the show itself was kind of an adventure. Jesse had been suffering from a major cold / laryngitis thing, so we weren’t certain he would be able to sing. I’m still recovering from a rotator cuff injury so I wasn’t sure how my playing would be, since a lot of day to day actions involving my left arm are painful, and all three of us had to brave an ice storm that came in that night.
The ice storm, of course, also damped down the crowd– this was our second year doing the show. Last year we made $700. I’d expected to exceed that by some amount, but we ended up with anywhere from 1/8th to 1/4th last year’s audience but still managed to take in $350, which is part of why I’m asking your help. The ice storm itself was a perfect example of why the shelter is so important. It was a dangerous night to be out and illustrates how the shelter can be a matter of life and death.
In the end, it was a pretty great show and a lot of fun to do, despite the ice and the thundersleet that came through as we were packing up, I’m glad we did it.
I’ve talked to the other performers, and we’re all actually up for doing another show in the near future to make up for the paltry earnings of our February show. In the meantime, would you be willing to benefit a small amount to the shelter? Oil prices are up this year and they can use all the help they can get.
Even if you are unable to donate, would you be willing to do me the favor of sharing one of these videos (or this entry) with your friends and including the donation information when you do so? The more we can do to promote this shelter and its works the more we can do to drum up donations.
Per 
