Facing declining membership and interest, the Second Vermont Republic has opted to join with the more established institution in Vermont, the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Insiders at both groups defend the decision, acknowledging that while SVR's goal of a secessionist Vermont, and the SCA's goal of re-enacting medieval settings and battles with homemade armor, weapons and costumes may seem, at first glance, to be incompatible – they actually speak to a similar psychological desire among their respective adherents.

The new combined leadership unveiled its vision for an independent, medieval-esque Vermont modeled on Renaissance Faires and jousting tournaments at a festive news conference (pictured, right), complete with lutes, mead, and the prominently displayed flag of the independent Republic of Vermont.

"I'truth, we say unto thee," a spokesperson announced to the assembled media. "By my troth, we shalt bend knee to the empire no further! Let the hard steel of the mace be our answer to those that would defy us! To the evil lords in Washington D.C., we say only; 'Have at thee, miscreants!'"

SVR/SCA spokesmen then concluded the press conference with a call to the "wenches" to bring flagons of ale to the dozen in attendence.

There is a tentative deal in place that would change the way television coverage for Burlington City Council meetings is provided. Under the new arrangement, CCTV will no longer cover the meetings as a free service, but rather, future meetings will be offered on Cable pay-per-view in a cooperative arrangement with HBO and Wrestlemania Inc.

At least some of the councilors are likely to adopt entertaining stage names, according to one insider. Details could not be confirmed, as most have already retained talent agents, making them more difficult to contact at post time.

Despite a year’s warning, all-night smoke-filled staff meetings, and rampant abuse of alcohol, the Green Mountain Daily front page team was unable to come up with a tenth “joke” post on April Fool’s Day in order to “go the full Onion” by offering readers a complete slate of mock news and discussion.

GMD writers collectively released a press release when word of the news broke this morning that said, simply “Yeah, but what’re ya gonna do? We’re just not that funny.”  

• The House Appropriations Committee passed the Speaker’s $120 million jobs and transportation infrastructure package, and it may hit the floor today.
• Though its unscientific and easy to overstate, the Doyle poll results are in, and the hubbub is not merely that the “pros” beat out the “cons” on same-sex marriage in the 13,000 person survey, but that, for the first time, Jim Douglas’s negatives are greater than his positives (which seem stalled at the republican base of around  41%). That’s gotta hurt.
• For those wondering exactly what Jon Stewart’s reportedly “disparaging, off-color remark about the governor” delivered during his recent stand-up appearence at UVM was, the line from Stewart (after taking a few moments to generally wax complimentary about Vermont), according to those present, was “…why is your Governor such a shithead?”
• The blog that dare not speak its name. Former Administration Secretary Michael Smith, in an op-ed this weekend, decried a headline he’d read on “a blog.” And yes, that was us (we made him “sad”). I seem to either read (in the papers) or hear (on Vermont This Week) with some regularity, references to what “the blogs” or “the blogosphere” is talking about in Vermont, when what they mean specifically is GMD. I guess we’re still a little too scary to utter. Sorta like saying “Betelgeuse” three times. After all, we seem to remain the only more-or-less daily-posting blog in the state (I’m counting Charity as closer to weekly) that is never afforded a seat on the revered newsprogram (now that Jon Margolis is on the rotation, along with VDB’s Baruth and VT Tiger’s Norman). Of course, we at GMD are notorious for trashing hotel rooms and stealing magazines from TV studio lobbies…
• Picture of the day:
  

Former State Senator and US Congressional candidate Mark Shepard, who has been one of the most outspoken opponents of both civil unions and marriage equality, has recently declared his deep, abiding love for Vermont Daily Briefing blogger Philip Baruth.

Shepard’s anti-gay rhetoric has been among the most vehement and persistent among opponents of gay rights in Vermont, but had taken a different turn in recent weeks, as Shepard inexplicably turned his public wrath specifically towards Baruth. In letters sent to (and published in) multiple papers across the state, Shepard wrote:

During my 2006 congressional race I had an odd interview with blogger Philip Baruth that was very telling about the length to which supporters of homosexual marriage will go to get their way. During the interview I presented a question that turned the interview completely around, causing Baruth to struggle defending an idea he clearly had not thought through.

Baruth published our entire conversation on his blog along with some very bizarre editorial comments. The interview, which can be found under news at www.ShepardForCongress.org, demonstrates that even as a leading advocate for homosexual marriage he had not begun to consider its ramifications. Baruth’s closing statement and nonsensical editorial remarks further demonstrate that he will accept all sorts of marriage arrangements and slander anyone who thinks differently in the cause of bringing about homosexual marriage.

.

Baruth had been caught off guard by the attention that bordered on obsessive, but in light of Shepard’s recent professions of affection, psychologists say it makes perfect sense.

“It comes quite clear if you read Freud’s discussion of paranoia,” an anonymous psychoanalyst commented to GMD. “Freud analyses the process of projection that constitutes the paranoiac’s chief defense and organizes the paranoiac’s delusions of persecution: the basic homosexual desire, “I (a man) love him (a man),” is negated into “I do not love him-I hate him,” which then, as a result of projection, becomes “He hates (persecutes) me,” and from this the paranoiac derives the justification “I do not love him-I hate him-because he persecutes me” (1911c [1910], p. 63). What we have is a system of transformations to defend against homosexuality.”

Baruth has commented that, while flattered, he is already married.

Remember last year’s scuttlebutt over the Vermont State Police’s illegal, warrantless seizures (or at least demands) of prescription drug records from a few vermont pharamcies? It was a story broken at this website that hit the traditional media almost immediately – most notably the Rutland Herald/Times Argus and the Mark Johnson show. A reminder:

Based on confirmation from law enforcement sources, pharmacies that were approached by the State Police on Friday November 30th and from legal sources representing people affected by State Police conduct last Friday, GMD can add the following to the reporting that has occurred already.

• The Department of Public Safety was planning last weeks pharmacy checks (“Fishing Derby Friday”) for several weeks.
• The State Police visited multiple pharmacies on Friday November 30th.
• At least two three pharmacies were told to by the State Police to turn over patient profiles for every patient who received a schedule II prescription from that pharmacy.
• At least one pharmacy was told it would be required to update the patient profile information with the police every two weeks.
• At several pharmacies the police merely introduced themselves to the pharmacist, gave their business cards and asked the pharmacist to call the police officer if they encountered any suspicious behavior such as indications of “Doctor shopping” or prescription fraud.
• Late Friday, due to intense push back and complaints from pharmacists who were concerned about requests from the Vermont State Police that they reveal confidential and federally protected medical information about their customers, State Police management sent an email to all State Police involved with the pharmacy checks throughout the state instructing them to cease the pharmacy checks. After the email went out, Fish Derby Friday ceased (for now).

The story moved quickly, and the state police went through most of the stages of grief in the course of a week. First there was denial. From behind the scenes came reports of – if not anger, at least annoyance. Then came bargaining, as the State Police Spokesperson on the damage control beat suggested that there may have been a grain of truth, but that it was one incident… or maybe it was a misunderstanding… but that it certainly wasn’t part of a coordinated, intentional attempt to collect vast amounts of personal data from Vermonters without warrants or even suspicion. The bargaining imploded rather quickly when that spokesperson was confronted on air during the Mark Johnson Show with the reality that it was more widespread than the officer was willing to admit.

Although there were no public signs of depression, by the end of the week they were into acceptance, as they held a “mistakes were made” press conference (although there was never an acknowledgment that that this was part of an intentional program, as some observers believed.

Still, the officer in charge of media spin was caught in some serious BS:

Just up from the VT Press Bureau (h/t DB):

The Vermont State Police admitted Friday that detectives recently asked three pharmacies to hand over all their information on patients prescribed powerful painkillers, despite a directive from state law enforcement officials not to do so.

Lt. John Flanagan said three State Police detectives requested that information from three pharmacies in Vermont during the last two weeks, but that supervisors have now put a stop to that effort.

“Mistakes were made,” Flanagan said. “From our perspective this is a training issue and we have taken steps to remedy it.”

This directly and completely contradicts what Major Tom L’Esperance was desperately spinning saying on Mark Johnson’s show. In that appearance (and you should listen to the podcast – it would seem to be a complete fantasyland account based on what we now know), he insisted it was an isolated misunderstanding at one pharmacy, and proceeded with an elaborately detailed counter-history of the incident. I’m not saying he personally made it up – but somebody sure did. Circling the wagons doesn’t work when the wheels all fall off.

Yup. The officer on point in the spinning of tales (if not the eventual mea culpa) was Major Tom L’Esperance. The guy just promoted by the Douglas Administration to head the Vermont State Police.

Figures.

Author and former Free Press editotial page editor Stephen Kiernan’s mea culpa in Monday’s Free Press has generated a lot of hubbub. Kiernan penned the Free Press’s anti-gay marriage editorial way back in April 25th of 1999, during the civil union era, and wrote this week of his regrets:

While many people surely noted the Free Press’ editorial supporting gay marriage (March 15), possibly no one read that opinion with greater interest than I. Of course, thousands of Vermonters care deeply about this issue. But the Free Press’ declaration reversed a 1999 editorial saying Vermont was not ready for same sex marriage. I wrote that editorial — to my enduring shame.

It’s a boon for the cause, I suppose. But I’m less than impressed. It is, frankly, a much easier position to take now than it was then. And if Kiernan sincerely wants to attone – well, let’s just say, that’s a much easier thing to do to a large anonymous population than to look real people in the eye – and there are two real people conspicuously left out of his act of contrition.

Old Free Press pieces are impossible to find online, making it easier for Kiernan to gloss over the particulars – but I have a copy of that original editorial right here. And while it does indeed condemn the notion of same-sex marriage it does so first and foremost by crudely, condescendingly, and arrogantly condemning two of the only politicians who were willing to come out in favor of marriage equality at the time – then-Lieutenant Governor Doug Racine and then-House Speaker Michael Obuchowski. Until Kiernan specifically and directly apologizes to these two men, as far as I’m concerned, his confessional is just a little bit too easy.

Check below the fold for the salient excerpts…

At the time, of course, Racine-bashing was a routine thing in the Free Press editorial page. The paper loathed Racine like nobody else except for Bernie Sanders. To all of us working for the Democratic Party at the time, it was… weird. And the right leaning paper was, of course, no fan of Speaker Obie’s either.

Kiernan didn’t need to malign the two in order to make his point, but he chose to predicate the entire piece on his disdain for them. I’d love to post the whole thing, but fair use restrictions limit me to excerpts. Here, then, are some of Kiernan’s words from his editorial entitled “Gay ‘I dos’ fraught with legal, cultural dont’s”:

One of the most dangerous things a politician can do is speak about a huge and controversial subject without weighing the consequences first. Yet that is precisely what Lt. Gov. Douglas Racine and House Speaker Michael Obuchowski did last week on the issue of same-sex marriage.

In response to a mailing by  a Hawaiian advocacy group opposed to same-sex marriage, both men declared their support of granting homosexual couples marital status identical to heterosexual couples. That was a serious mistake.

There are legal obstacles to same-sex marriage that are far from simple. There are cultural concerns profound enough to to make any responsible politician treat this issue with greater care than the two Democrats showed…

With all due respect to people on both sides of the issue, there are clear reasons why the definition of marriage should not be changed. They are legal and cultural…

…there is a voluminous legal precedent for legislatures to treat classes of people differently – so long as they have a reason for doing it, and the issue in question is not a fundamental right of democracy (such as the right to vote)… That’s why leaders such as Gov. Howard Dean and Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin have shown discretion, and respect for the seperation of powers of government, by keeping their views on this issue private…

Homosexual couples do not have the same legal rights as heterosexuals in many situations… Repairing these inequities does not require redefining marriage. Racine and Obuchowski have not sponsored legislation to remedy any of them. They might score political points by supporting same-sex marriage, therefore, but they do not address the actual fairness issues…

…Good Vermonters stand on both sides of the schism on this issue. However, they can agree on what the law allows and doesn’t allow….They can agree that making such a fundamental change in one of society’s most sacred institutions – in the absence of that consesnsus – is inviting warfare within Vermont’s borders and unprecedented assault from without.

If Stephen Kiernan really wants to, as he says “look back at (his) conduct with a clear conscience,” he’ll swallow his pride and do the mature thing: apologize to Racine and Obuchowski for maligning them – directly and publicly.

(Recently I attended a booksigning at Northshire books with local author Amy Seidl. It was a great experience and I was more than impressed with Seidl, I was genuinely moved. I don't always do “moved.” Anyway, I wrote the following largely at the event…)

On March 20th, I was fortunate enough to attend a reading and discussion by the author of the new book, Early Spring: An Ecologist and her Children Wake to a Warming World. Even more fortunate still, I gave the writer, Amy Seidl, a ride to and from the event in Manchester Vermont from her home in Huntington. Being thrust into 4 and half hours of driving with someone you’ve never met is a sketchy proposition at best, but Seidl and I hit it off well, and I was afforded the opportunity to get to know her a bit.

Seidl is described on her website as “a practiced ecologist, activist and mother of two girls… By drawing on her 20 year career studying ecology, evolution, and butterflies across the North American continent, she illuminates the historical significance and the everyday local impacts of global warming upon the 21st century landscape.”

At the event and during the car ride, Seidl speaks comfortably, clearly and with an elegant literacy. Speaking before a crowd of about two dozen, Seidl has a relatively slight voice, but its focus and clarity hold the crowd as well as another with a bullhorn might. Her style does not demand attention so much as it invites it through a distinctive intelligence and a warm, focused passion.

It’s also easy to tell this is her first book. The joy she takes in reading her words before a crowd is infectious, belying a newness to the process and to the text itself.

Fielding questions from the people in attendance, Seidl’s manner and message brings out a degree of honesty from the questioners not usually apparent at gatherings around the topic of global warming. Concerns about the expense involved in changing energy patterns at home. Requests for clarity about the climate and geologic history of the planet that might, to some, be interpreted as a tentative challenge to climate change mechanics, but that Seidl the researcher recognizes as genuine scientific curiosity.

As far as the particulars of her premise go, Seidl starts by saying nothing environmentalists haven’t heard before from others (or from themselves); the reality of climate change, the practical consensus among experts, and its inseverability from human-generated carbon – but her voice is uniquely personal. She is, in a sense, a scientist writing as the un-scientist – not in terms of her content, which is firmly grounded in research and empiricism, but in terms of the method she has chosen to communicate her message. Rather than leading with numbers, figures and data, she plants her message firmly in the personal, using the scientific as a supplement. Her writing is a series of narratives and ruminations around her own experience as an individual, as a member of a community, and as a mother. When her daughter enters the narrative, she moves to its center, contextualized against the changing environment, while the author herself becomes a supporting player.

Still, throughout her writing, the biology Phd wears her scientific foundation and technical training on her sleeve, and her wording is sprinkled with turns-of-phrase belying her academic background.

Seidl is concerned first and foremost with our individual perspective on, and role in, a greater view of life itself. It’s a view nested in a reverential aesthetic one would expect from an ecologist, but is also uniquely interlaced with an informed participant’s perspective on the process of evolution. The result is writing of a special beauty that feels at once subjectively personal and objectively concrete.

Seidl weaves narratives that flow seamlessly from her own perspective to that of members of her community, and to her children. At one point, her prose guides listeners from her perception of a caterpillar, to the caterpillar itself. It is a prose that flows almost organically, and without cleanly defined beginnings and endings. In this way, Seidl engages us in the conversation she has clearly been having with herself for some time, encompassing her role as mother and citizen, yet always placed within a bedrock of hard science. In fact, the real talent to her writing repeatedly shows itself when, just as the elegance of her narrative threatens to carry away listeners along its form at the expense of its message, Seidl picks the perfect moments to reground her listeners in the stark realities at the core of her book.

And it is the starkest reality of all that separates her book from the many others on the topic and makes it fundamentally different. Previous climate change discussions are universally situated against the context of prevention; of avoiding a carbon “tipping point” of no return, after which fundamental change to our environment cannot be avoided. To Seidl, that discussion is now moot. We have tipped and there is no going back. There is, of course, mitigating ongoing damage and minimizing its effects, but Seidl is here to tell us that the change is upon us regardless.

It’s a dark message, and yet Seidl accomplishes an amazing thing. She manages to deliver it in a way that is serious, but not fatalistic. Urgent, but not despairing. She reminds us that humankind has faced other, natural shifts in climate – and that some cultures have survived such transitions, and others have simply disappeared into extinction. Seidl the evolutionary biologist calls on us to recognize the empirical reality we face, and to learn from both types of cultures. Doing so highlights both the need and the approach to adapt our agriculture, energy use and lifestyle.

At the same time, Seidl the mother and storyteller calls on us to not simply accept the nature of our changing existence, but to internalize it. To define ourselves as individuals, as well as a species, that are in a period of evolution. Only by, as she says, “owning the meaning of this time” can we truly be prepared to survive the transition and make our destructive impact as minimal as possible.

Early Spring presents the urgent need for us to evolve or perish, and calls upon us to do so with a very human, personal – and reassuringly hopeful voice.

Ken Silverstein is reporting that Senator Sanders (and one other unknown/unnamed Senator) has placed a hold on the nomination of Gary Gensler to chair the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

From Sanders’ website:

Market Regulation Sanders has raised objections to the nomination of a former Treasury Department official, Gary Gensler, the chair the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.  “While Mr. Gensler clearly is an intelligent and knowledgeable person, I cannot support his nomination,” Sanders said.  “Mr. Gensler worked with Senators Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of A.I.G. and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history.  He supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which allowed banks like Citigroup to become ‘too big to fail.’ He worked to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron and the spike in energy prices.  At this moment in our history, we need an independent leader who will help create a new culture in the financial marketplace and move us away from the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior which has caused so much harm to our economy.”

Sanders’ act of defiance is the latest sign that the post-AIG-bonus world may be a dicier one for the Obama administration as its economic repair strategy continues. Along with Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan, Gensler was a key figure in stymieing the efforts of the Commission he’s now been tapped to head to regulate then-new “exotic” financial instruments such as hedge funds. His nomination is as clear an example as you’ll find of one of the architects of our economic meltdown being offered the reins of financial power in its wake. Measured against the basic ethics of natural consequences so promoted by we parents, it is nakedly outrageous.

And it underscores the Obama approach to the economic crisis. First off, you can forget accountability, despite his populist rhetoric on venues such as the Tonight Show (rhetoric that is starting to feel patronizing).

In simple terms, there are two schools of thought on the matter.  

The one most commonly held by economists at this point is that much of what has become the basic machinery of our financial system since the deregulation era is broken. That we need to scrap parts, rebuild others and create some bypasses.

In the eyes of Obama/Geithner/Summers, the problem is that the machinery is all stopped up. That if we put enough Drano in, we can bust up the clogs and get things moving under the current machinery. Likely, then, there will be some adjustment of the regulations to keep clogs from reoccurring.

It’s easy to see the risk. Smart people have smart suggestions for rejiggering and simplifying the machinery in ways that pretty clearly will work more efficiently and with greater confidence than previous iterations. Now is the time to do that, with the government and the public prepared to put major resources into fixing things (and to not continue to reward those that designed the crappy machinery to begin with).

The Obama approach, on the other hand, is doomed to failure if the machinery truly is trashed – and even if it’s not, if its only mostly trashed, and Obama can successfully jump start it and tweak the settings enough to keep it from stalling out, its likely just to limp and sputter along in a sickly, inefficient manner. Hence the concerns that the best we can hope for under the Obama model can be a more or less freeze on the status quo, a stop of the slide, and a decade of flat, non-growth, non-recovery to look forward to.

I suspect Obama and company hope for the latter scenario, but also then hope that the perky investor set will go back to their high-rolling, gaming ways – like video game junkies who cant help themselves – and dive back into the economic jumble backing all kinds of creative new funds, widgets and investments heretofore unguessed at, replacing the old bubble with a new bubble.

Maybe. It could happen. But its a big gamble (and obviously one with no long term vision for a better global economy). A somewhat faith-based recovery plan, as opposed to the more concrete structural strategies being recommended by wiser minds, and most nauseatingly, it further cements the notion and status of an elite financial class that, by all rights, should be run out of Wall Street (and Washington) on a rail after the greed-driven chaos they’ve called down upon us all.

It seems Anthony Pollina doesn't want his list of supporters to forget about him in the early hubbub around the inevitable Democratic Party primary for Governor next year. The following went out to his email list Thursday: 

Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:01:53 -0400
From: apollina@sover.net
Subject: Vermonters to Douglas – Get in Touch Sometime

Dear xxxxx,
Being on the Pollina for Governor email list I thought you might want to share perspectives that help separate political rhetoric from reality.  
    
This week Douglas co-hosted a Health Care Summit on behalf of the Obama Administration. For those who support real reform, a single-payer system, the irony was too great to ignore. A health care summit convened by Douglas had to be seen as a farce by those who know Douglas' record.

Vermonters fight to maintain health services, even in hard times, Douglas leads the charge to throw people off services and raise costs for lower income and middle class working families. Vermonters send their message of universal healthcare to Douglas. He ignores it. Vermonters believe health care is a right. Not Douglas. Obama gives hope. Douglas turns his back on Vermonters. Obama needs a Republican ally, which Douglas is eager to be. But, when it comes to health care, this charade goes too far.

At a rally before and inside the Summit, single-payer advocates, health providers, med students and others, were heard clearly. Even the media got the message. Not sure about the Governor.

Real reform is not a public insurance “option.” Catamount Health is such an option using taxpayer, public dollars to subsidize private insurance. It helps some folks. But is no guarantee of care.  In Massachusetts you buy insurance or pay a fine. Not real reform.

Real reform means removing the one thing we do not need in health care – greedy insurance companies standing between us and the care we need.

Douglas says we can't afford reform. But, even the Business Roundtable says U.S. health care costs are bad for business and puts workers at significant disadvantage.

Obama says if he could start from scratch he would have a single-payer system.
Douglas called Catamount annoying and would have killed it if he had a line item veto.

When Douglas returned from a trip to the White House in February, citizens met him at the airport protesting his budget cuts. Justifying his cuts Douglas said, “Vermonters are already the highest taxed people in America.” We've heard it before. This time, with Channel 5 filming, citizens proclaimed, “it's not true.” The Governor repeated; “It is true. It is true. It is true.” Childish, but more importantly, wrong. During our campaign I challenged his spin on taxes and Douglas backed down, flipping, flopping and admitting, it is not true. The people were right, to speak up and not back down.  

Our actions and voices make a difference. I'll stay in touch with occasional emails to remind us, of the challenges we face, the difference we make, and the importance of being sure we are heard.  

Anthony
Talk about difference. Look at the Burlington Free Press editorial March 18; “The Time Has Come For Marriage Equality.”  They completely reverse their position. In 1999, they opposed civil unions, justified discrimination and predicting violence if civil unions passed. Now they say; “Vermont boasts a long and proud heritage of civil rights and social tolerance – and we call for adding marriage equality to that heritage.” Think Douglas will get the message?

Oy. Just a reminder of why IRV would be a good thing; it essentially allows a left wing, cross-party primary election to coexist on the same ballot as a general election, even if it does so in a flawed manner, as Wes so ably pointed out.

Still, warts and all, IRV is the best answer we've got, as a traditional runoff election would clearly be unconstitutional in Vermont. With these stakes, its not a good idea to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And if we don't have IRV next time (which is seeming like the likliest scenario at this point, in light of how the Burlington mayoral election went down and all the nervousness/questions that have arisen around it), we on the left are going to have to figure out a way to creatively force a primary. Whatever the hell that means.