Evening Update: School board member and Mouth-of-Glenn Doug Isham apparently lost faith in his conservativeness a bit in light of this diary. I linked below to his public Facebook page, which listed him as a fan of three Michelle Malkin FB groups (’cause one is never enough).

By midday, his FB page had magically lost those links. Naturally, I adjusted the link to go to the Google cache version of the page.

But now its back, albeit with one fewer Malkin fan links. I guess three was just too many.

Why the sudden concern about being pegged as a Michelle Malkin devotee? I dunno, maybe because he’s a School Board member, and she’s historically been so great with kids…?

Some education the kids get in Winooski, eh? First we hear that the school board joins in with the right wing crazies to protect students from evil, socialist indoctrination by proudly becoming the ONLY school board in the State of Vermont to censor a speech by President Obama to schoolchildren.

But it aint getting any better.  

Word from the school is that the same day Glenn Beck trashed the cute and rather tame conservation video “The Story of Stuff,” School Board member Doug Isham brought up the topic at a board meeting, leading the Superintendent to drop it into the too-controversial-to-show-without-explicit-administrative-approval category, along with Presidential civics talks.

Beck says jump, Winooski schools jump. That’s twice now. If I were a school parent in Winooski, not only would I be starting to feel embarrassed, I’d be looking for some new school board candidates:

From: Stephen Perkins sperkins@winooski.k12.vt.us

Date: September 25, 2009 9:16:55 AM EDT

To: All Winooski staff wsd.staff@winooski.K12.vt.us

Subject: Controversial issue

It has been brought to my attention that a 20 minute video entitled “Story of Stuff” (two years old) is controversial in its content.  If you plan on using this video in class please contact your principal for clearance and potential opt out letters if necessary.  This is per policy.  Following this procedure will save us all some unnecessary aggravation.  I will not and do not have time to view this before the end of the day.  I am sure that this memo will cause many to view it that did not even know it exist.  

We are dealing with the effects of unbridled access technologically.  Because this title was brought to my attention,  I am following our policy.

I know…. what fun I must be having.  

Regards,

Steve

—

Stephen L. Perkins, M.Ed.

Superintendent of Schools

Curious about the video? Here it is.

• Matt Dunne has launched http://www.vermontfuture.org/, which asks visitors:
  

  What are the best ways to help Vermonters find good jobs and lower costs at home? How do we preserve our beautiful state and build a better Vermont for the next generation? What are your ideas for running a more efficient government?

  Impressively, the not-yet announced candidate also sports a link to a Facebook group already boasting 365 members. This compares to 276 members for Deb Markowitz’s Facebook group and 126 members in Doug Racine’s. Whoa.

  Totten reports that Dunne has opened a campaign bank account and is still considering, but GMD hears that his campaign paperwork is already en route to the Secretary of State’s office. Look to November for a formal announcement.

• And speaking of November announcements, vtbuzz reports that Peter Shumlin is “99.99 percent in the race” and will announce some time next month, before the November 19th candidate forum hosted by the Vermont LCV.
• And Deb Markowitz has stirred up a lot of conversation with last week’s Manchester Journal interview, in which she drops a couple policy bombshells that raised eyebrows. First, she suggests reducing unemployment benefits to close the next budget hole (emphasis added):
  

  I was personally shocked by (State Auditor Thomas) Salmon’s proposal (to trim unemployment benefits from $425 per week to $300 per week). To resolve this deficit it’s likely everyone will have to give something. We may need to reduce benefits and we may need to rquire [sic] employers to pay in a little more to get us through – hopefully there will be additional money coming from Washington to help out.

  …and immediately follows that with something that isn’t going to make the NEA happy:

  JOURNAL: Is funding the teaching retirement fund via the property tax off the table?

  MARKOWITZ: I don’t know if it’s permanently off the table but certainly doing it the way Gov. Douglas proposed is off the table.

  I, uh, er, ah… seriously?

I posted a piece to the Guardian site on the liberal reaction to the Baucus health care bill passing out of the Senate Finance Committee with the help of Olympia Snowe. Public option promoters among the liberal online activist set (folks like Chris Bowers and Jane Hamsher) fully expected this result, so in a sense nothing has changed. The cooperation of Snowe, however, gives ammunition to those in the traditional media and the Obama Administration who wouild like to jettison the public option in favor of something seen as “centrist,” rehardless of its ultimate viability and effectiveness. From the piece:

The dangerous dynamic for the Obama administration is clear. If, as all signs indicate, they truly would prefer to abandon the public option in a final bill, the left will try to cast them as standing with the nasty insurance industry over regular folks. The White House will move quickly to try and get ahead of that rhetoric, while simultaneously touting Snowe’s support for the finance committee bill.

The next round of the battle will be an attempt by Reid, in concert with Baucus, the Obama administration and senator Tom Harkin (whose committee produced a bill to the liking of progressives), to merge the products on the table into a final bill to be presented to the full Senate.

Given the blowback from AHIP’s aggressiveness and the current unanimity of progressives, the left may – for the moment, at least – be able to counter somewhat the narrative of bipartisanship created by Snowe’s vote and influence this next, crucial stage. The one thing that now seems certain is that a healthcare bill will pass both chambers of Congress, and while many pundits will count the left out of the process after Snowe’s engagement, modern progressives have proven to be a far more resilient lot than their immediate historical predecessors.

Here’s a link to the complete piece.

PS… Also, for those who may have read the post about my son Tucker’s parentally-assigned film project and his associated blog, he watched his first film today; Troy, the big Hollywood treatment of the Trojan War story. His review is up here (keep in mind, he’s 10).

A lot going on today, so rather than report or opine, here’s Rep. Peter Welch from a few days ago on legislation to reform credit card interchange fees (‘swipe’ fees). Credit Card reform is something Welch has pursued for some time. In this video, he is introducing testimony from Kathy Miller of the Elmore Store in before the House Financial Services Committee on October 8, 2009. Miller has testified in hearings at the request of Senator Leahy in the past, so she’s become a bit of a go-to Vermonter on the Hill, I suppose.

Maybe it was a re-enactment of the campaign. Maybe it was a sort of absurdist performance art. Maybe it was all a cleverly enacted, satirical commentary on Washington politics.

From online accounts, it was actually exactly what it looked like; President Obama halfheartedly shining an important and ignored constituency on, while the elite members of that constituency just basked in the honor of it all. Thank you sir may I have another, and all.

Last night at Obama’s big speech to the Human Rights Campaign, the newly minted Nobel Laureate didn’t even feel the need to make sense all the time, such as this on Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell:

“We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country.”

Then stop doing it.

“It’s not for me to tell you to be patient,”.

No, its for you to be President and lead.

“I’m here with you in that fight.”

Yeah? How about telling the voters in Maine.

“Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach,”

Is that with or without your help, Mr. President? Is it really enough to simply not make things worse? Is that what it means to be a “fierce advocate?” Really?

Basically, President Obama made a “what I will do if you elect me President” speech. Nothing about the process beyond it-takes-a-while and I-know-some-people-think-it-should-move-faster. A little bit of “I can’t ask you to be patient” so listeners could tell themselves they weren’t being patronized.

But they were. The Human Rights Campaign is beginning to cross a line, whereby it looks less like a serious advocacy organization and more like a fund for cool, high-powered Hollywood event sponsorship. Between them and the new President, there suddenly seems to be a real dearth of fierce advocates for LGBT issues inside the beltway these days.

You know, I’m a big fan of democracy. I generally tend to encourage people to run for things. I generally like to see candidates from the left, I generally encourage such challenges to come in the Democratic primary, and I generally find myself concerned about the entrenched power of incumbency. So more power to Daniel Freilich, the announced primary challenger to Patrick Leahy who has garnered attention already in the national online media, right?

Okay, but I can’t help but feel annoyed reading Mike Eldred’s write-up of the guy.

Freilich recently returned to Vermont after 13 years on active duty in the Navy. After he left active duty for the Navy Reserves, he and his partner Donna Wilder searched Vermont looking for a place to relocate from Washington, DC, where they live now. “We found Wilmington and just fell in love with the area,” he says. “We liked the people we met and the area is just physically beautiful.”

So he moves to Vermont from New York in 1992 for his medical residency. He’s been gone for 13 years, has decided to “relocate” from Washington DC, so I infer from the piece that he was only a Vermont resident from 1992-1996. All of four years. He does seem to be registered to vote in Westford, but under a Rockville, MD address. I’m not sure how that works, but at least he has retained a connection to the state.

But it still feels a little too Jack-McMulleny to me. Maybe it’d be a little more appropriate to re-acquaint yourself with the state and become part of a local community before asking people to vote out Patrick Leahy on your behalf. If you really think Leahy should go, maybe it’d be a better idea for you to find others who feel similarly and see if you can work together to find a more suitable candidate?

C’mon, man. I know jobs are tight, but there are better ways…

UPDATE: Obama walks what is a bit of a rhetorical tightrope in accepting this nomination, very well. His appropriately toned remarks are up at TPM. One kind of gets the feeling that he was as weirded out at the news as everyone else.

WTF?

President Barack Obama made history again Friday, winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

[…] This year’s Peace Prize nominees included 172 people — among them three Chinese dissidents, an Afghan activist and a controversial Colombian lawmaker — and 33 organizations, the highest number of nominations ever.

Seriously? How… weird. I’m not knocking it, it just is… weird.

On the one hand, I remember the decades it took Jimmy Carter to be honored after his historic and hugely impactful contributions. On the other hand I think of how many causes and activists – such as former Nobel Prize Winner Jody Williams and the international effort to ban land mines she speaks for – who deserve such an honor and whose cause could use the boost that Williams and the land mine effort received after her victory.

And on the third hand, I think of how self-evidently weird this award is and how it will open the door to yet another round of everyone from letters-to-the-editor-writers to TV pundits verbally beating the crap out of Obama for no apparent reason beyond either his political persuasion or as an expression of stealth racism.

And all three of those hands are scratching my head as I wonder WTF?

At any rate, congratulations are in order for our President – I hope. Weird as it all seems, it is awfully fun to think about the people who must be going nuts at this news (here’s looking at you Bibi…).

(And sure enough, conservative heads are exploding from coast to coast. Heh. This is turning into seriously big fun…)

Things n’ links:

• Scuttlebutt: Rep. Joe Acinapura (R-Brandon) is not running for re-election. Or so I hear. Sometimes I also hear voices, though, so you never know.
• Hallenbeck reports that Adam Howard of Cambridge has been appointed by the Governor to fill Richard Westman’s seat. Westman was recently appointed Tax Commisioner.
• Have you been to vtdigger.org yet? For heaven’s sake, go. Here’s a link even. Geez, why haven’t I put it in the link list yet?
• Hmm. Dunno.
• Bernie makes inroads with the anarchist caucus.

This is Tucker. He’s my 10 year old kid.

Tucker wanted more freedom during after school time. His mother and I chatted and I came up with a scheme to sneak more learning in on him. Heh.

It’s hard not to notice how so many kids seem to know less about the world in general than we did at their age. Not that we were geniuses, but, well, you probably know what I mean. A lot of that information about who we are, where we came from and what the world is like was kind of seeping in there around the age of 10, and I’m worried that I aint seeing it. But how to get it in there without more classes, without too much pushback from the kid, and in a way that might be interesting?

Hollywood, baby.

So here was my deal. Once a week, Tucker will be watching one movie – a historical film or a biopic or somesuch. Not to present it as real history, but to get him acquainted with dates/times/names that he oughta know. We then talk about what he thought of the film, including what was “real” and what parts were made up Hollywood silliness. Hopefully enough of the reality “takes” to make a difference – and maybe to get him interested in learning more.

Oh, and he’s got a blog going, where he will review the films and give his impressions. What will the movies be? Well… you’ll have to read the site, no? Each week will be a surprise, although they’ll progress in “chronological” order.

So check out his site here and send some encouraging comments…