All posts by Sue Prent

About Sue Prent

Artist/Writer/Activist living in St. Albans, Vermont with my husband since 1983. I was born in Chicago; moved to Montreal in 1969; lived there and in Berlin, W. Germany until we finally settled in St. Albans.

The F-35 has friends in high places.

local/regional, National, , , , ,

Jasper Craven  deserves kudos for his well-researched and insightful look  (Vermont Digger, April 13) into political forces driving the rather incongruous choice of Burlington Airport for the Air National Guard’s F-35 program..

With three surrounding cities opposing the F-35 plan,  a considerable grassroots opposition force, and all the issues of locating in the midst of a bustling city, one must really ask…why?

Mr. Craven’s article synthesizes the interest factors into a landscape of political blackmail, over which Governor Phil Scott bashfully presides.

Like so much that unseats environmental and ethical concerns these days, jobs are at the heart of the matter.  More precisely, it is the threat of jobs disappearing.

It’s the kind of political blackmail we’re regrettably used to from DC, but it’s pretty disheartening to the good people of Chittenden County, Vermont.  

We have only the word of interested (and therefore conflicted) parties to the siting, that failure to locate the F-35 at Burlington airport would mean an end to the Air National Guard’s Vermont mission.  If we are to believe, as we are told, that the Vermont Air National Guard is considered to be an elite within the force, this claim seems rather counter-intuitive.

To politicians who have grown accustomed to short interest cycles driven by frequent elections, it’s sufficient just to dangle the possibility of job departures in order to recruit their support for the most dubious of enterprises.   This, in a year when Vermont unemployment  stands at the remarkably low figure of 2.8%.

One has to ask whether we can ever shake this bugaboo in order to do the right thing, if we can’t do it when unemployment is so low.

Despite the fact that joblessness is the Republican cudgel, in Vermont, it holds sway over our Democratic DC delegation as surely as it does our Republican Governor.  This means that business interests, represented in this case by Ernie Pomerleau of Pomerleau Real Estate and Frank Cioffi of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, hold greater sway over politicos than do their constituents who must actually live with the product of their ambitions.  

Business interests are putting their money where their (collective) mouth is:

In recent weeks, Pomerleau has purchased, through his company, Pomerleau Real Estate, seven paid stories in the Burlington Free Press that highlight the stories of Air Guard members. An eighth so-called advertorial will be released in the near future.

Cioffi’s GBIC is also doing its part to pitch the project and dismiss  voices of opposition as little more than cranks:

GBIC has produced numerous reports promoting the F-35 in recent years. In 2012, it commissioned a study that projected no decline in home values from the F-35 basing, a claim that was challenged by real estate appraiser Steve Allen. He said the data set used was “extremely small” and therefore “statistically unreliable.” In addition, the study included home purchase data by the Federal Aviation Administration, which offered top dollar to residents.

A week before Scott’s Pentagon meeting, GBIC sent a detailed memo to Air Force Secretary Wilson providing background on the F-35 basing in Vermont. The GBIC memo appeared to downplay the state’s opposition to the planes, characterizing F-35 opponents as “a core group of perennial protesters, many of whom are longtime anti-military political activists.

“Vermonters overwhelmingly support the Air National Guard,” the report reads. 

“We are proud to have been selected for the basing of the F-35A.”

Say what?

Beyond all the legitimate issues about process and quality of life, which continue to roil  the community at large, there remains an overarching question  that has yet to be answered.  It is likely to remain unanswered for strategic reasons, but the people of Chittenden County, and indeed all of Vermont, should not be expected to accept the siting without an answer. 

That question has many parts: ie. what role will nuclear weapons play in the Vermont deployment of F-35, should it ultimately come to pass; will nuclear weapons be stored at or near Burlington airport; if so, how many and in what state of readiness; how will they be transported to and from the base;  what is the likelihood that armed nuclear weapons will fly through Vermont’s airspace on a non-emergency basis; and what provisions will be in place for dealing with an F-35 crash in Vermont, even, heaven forbid, a “dirty” accident (nuclear radiation release) in the beating heart of Chittenden County?

I would say that there is a 100% chance that we will never have answers to these questions, but will be expected to simply accept the Air National Guard’s greater wisdom on the nuclear issue.

Well, I for one, do not.

My gripe du jour.

Business, Uncategorized

Have you tried to get a truly cheap cellphone option lately? I have, and now, for my sins, I am about to go incommunicado.

First of all, let me just say that  I am not a Luddiite.  I just don’t believe in paying for bells and whistles when all I need is a portable pay phone.

For those of you too young to remember life before cell phones, a “pay phone” was a wonderful convenience  that was available on virtually every second or third street corner.

Phone booths were almost as ubiquitous as public washrooms, and, in some of the seamier parts of town may have actually been easier to find (alas!)

Anyway, I have a computer.  I sit at that computer for far too many hours in a day so I have no interest in consulting a miniature version of it when, finally, I am out and about.  I also have no interest in texting.  If I had wanted to type a note, I’d have sent it from my email while I was sitting at my desk.

When I am away from my desk, I only want a phone in order to reach out for help or be reachable in an emergency.  If I am at a store, I might phone my husband to ask if he’s thought of anything he needs.  That’s just about it.

I have a sturdy flip-phone I bought years ago, that will probably outlive me. I’m not interested in moving “up” to a “smart” phone.  I have a Garmin for navigational help and I prefer to remain the “smart” component in my telecommunications universe while I am on the road.

So I am looking for the cheapest cellphone option I can find, and that is not easy.

First, I visited our local AT&T office and ended my existing line on our business plan.  When my husband and I finally got around to reviewing our wireless service, we discovered to our horror that we were paying a fortune to maintain my dedicated cell phone line.  

( Why we are still with AT&T is a long story that involves my husband’s service while he is in Canada for a couple of days every week.  When AT&T took over Verizon’s Vermont customers some years ago, they grandfathered his special plan that kept the cost of international calls to a minimum.)

Having not resolved my phone issues by myself, I asked my son to see what he could do.  He returned from the AT&T office with the good news that I could bring my flip-phone in, have them install a new sim card and assign me a new phone number, and walk away with 40 minutes of talk-time, good for twelve months, for a one-time payment of $10.  If I used additional minutes over the course of the year, I would have to pay $10. again to re-up my minutes, but I am unlikely to be on my cell phone for even twenty minutes over the course of  a single year.

Sounded good to me, so I hied on down to AT&T on a Saturday afternoon and joined the interminable queue waiting for service.  When I had the opportunity to explain what I wanted, I was told that no such plan exists and that the best I could do was to pay $100. to have my phone enabled for 400 minutes which would be good for a year.  If I didn’t use up my minutes within the year, they could only be added to my next year’s available after I paid another $100. for an additional 400 minutes.   Not a good deal for someone who couldn’t use even 100 minutes in a year of cell phone service, but I was growing weary of the battle and inclined to cave.

That’s when my husband got into the act.  He phoned At&T and the person he spoke with told him there was no such thing as either the $10. a year plan my son had been pitched or the $100. a year deal my local AT&T had offered me.

This consumer melodrama came immediately on the heels of our last misleading encounter with AT&T.  

A couple of months ago, when my husband was first tackling the crazy-high cost of our cell service, he spoke with an AT&T representative who promised that he could reduce our overall charges with some fast-talking plan magic.  At the same time, he told my husband that he could have a brand new tablet added to the service for free.  Never one to refuse a freebie, even though he could see no earthly need to have a tablet, my husband agreed.  When the confirmation email arrived, it included a bill for the first of ten monthly payments for that supposedly “free” tablet.  We immediately contacted AT& T and told them to cancel the whole thing.  They reluctantly agreed and sent a return label for the tablet which hadn’t even arrived yet.

After that, it took us a full billing cycle to get the tablet charges and extra phone number removed from our bill.  We wasted literally days on the phone, being placed on hold, passed from person to person, referred to the wrong department and repeating the whole thing again and again until we were utterly confused and exhausted…all for a “free” tablet that my husband had never even asked for.

Then, of course, began the aforementioned adventure of trying to get a simple emergency cell phone for me.  After searching through other available providers, I am forced to conclude that AT&T may be no worse than the others.  This is progress?

I resent the fact that you can get a cell phone to take your picture, give you directions, play music, browse the internet, do your shopping and wake you from your nap; but you’ll pay through the nose for one that allows you to do nothing more than place phone calls the way we all used to do for a quarter a call at the corner payphone.

Now, get off of my lawn!

Bias at the Franklin County Courier

local/regional, , , , , ,

I am generally a big supporter of local independent newspapers, but John Walters’ article in Seven Days raises a longtime issue many of us have had with the (Franklin) County Courier over political bias that extends to its editorial policies. 

Walters’ piece discusses this bias as it specifically impacts Cindy Weed (P-Enosburg Falls), who is defending her seat against Republican  Felisha Leffler.  Besides being a Republican challenger to Weed, Ms. Leffler is the girlfriend of Gregory Lamoureux, the paper’s owner, publisher and chief reporter.    

As custodian of his little corner of the Fourth Estate, Mr. Lamoureaux should bend over backwards to avoid the appearance of bias, especially when it comes so close to home.

Weed is quick to point out that she was not the aggrieved candidate who apparently contacted Walters with the current complaint of bias against the Courier.   While she has had an ongoing struggle with the Courier just to get them to print her letters as Representative for the district, as well as those of others who support her positions; she is not the only one to remark on the Courier’s biased editorial policies, but rather one of many  unhappy locals.

Mr. Walters may have focussed on Cindy Weed due to a similarity in the bias issue involving Mr. Lamoureaux and his relationship to candidate Leffler to a bias controversy weathered a few years ago by publisher and co-editor of Seven Days, Paula Routly, who is the domestic partner of Tim Ashe (D/P Chittenden).  The circumstances at Seven Days had one notable difference: there was little indication that any conflict of interest had actually affected editorial policy at Seven Days.  The same cannot be said for Mr. Lamoureaux’ stewardship of the County Courier. 
If Mr. Lamoureaux’ excuse for the appearance of political bias is that he can’t afford a bigger staff in order to distance himself from occasion for bias,  he should know that he does himself and the Courier no favors with this argument.  I have friends who have cancelled their subscriptions to the Courier due to the peculiarly unwelcoming policies it practices with regard to letters-to-the-editor, especially when they fall outside the political views of Mr. Lamoureaux.
As Walters mentions in his article, the St. Albans Messenger has a policy of printing virtually every letter to the editor that it receives, without alteration.  This is just smart business practice as it provides a kind of “buy in” from the community, encourages subscriptions and makes for a much livelier read.  It isn’t as if there is so much more pressing news in Franklin County that the Courier can’t find room for commentary from all corners of the political spectrum; and the more the merrier.
If anyone, but particularly an elected representative, takes the trouble to compose a letter to the editor, it is a wise publisher who recognizes this for the gift it represents to a free and fair press…not something to be undervalued in these uncertain times. 

I did not know that.

Uncategorized, , , ,

Forever eager to understand what fresh hell Donald Trump has in store for us, I, like many other folks, frequently check my search engine  for an update. Today I came across an article discussing His Nibs’ America First obsession, and how it doesn’t seem to matter that the self-branded products from which he and his family draw a handsome income  are only rarely made in America. 

No surprise there.

What did surprise me was the discovery that Trump Water is sourced from the sparkling waters of our own home state!

Now, you may recall as I do that, in kinder, gentler times (2008) Vermonters were growing quite concerned about the activity of bottling operations in the state. Disputes arose between enterprising landowners and their surrounding neighbors over the ease with which water could be withdrawn at an alarming rate from the shared aquifer simply by sucking it out through the property of a single user.

There was even a legislative attempt to limit the impact of such profligate schemes, led by the Vermont Natural Resources Council.  The effort resulted in a 3-year moratorium on commercial extraction and bottling.  In the meantime, the plan was to map the existing aquifers.

“It’s no longer an under-the-radar issue,” said Jon Groveman, the general counsel of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. “There is now a sense that groundwater is finite and needs to be protected.”

I remember some movement to get a water issue placed on town ballots in order to declare local aquifers a public resource and therefore not salable to private enterprise.  I have no idea how much was finally accomplished toward mapping the aquifers, but I suspect rather little, as funding for environmental initiatives soon after dropped precipitously.

As we experience the drought of 2018 we would do well to remember those concerns once again.

I don’t know who is bottling Vermont water for Donald Trump, but whomever it is ought to be ashamed of diverting a public resource in order to enrich a public nuisance.  

‘Tis the Reason to Say “Treason”

local/regional, National, , , ,

Kudos to BP for doggedly re-focussing us on Vermont’s timely issues.  These days, it is beyond me to do the job.  

I’m like the clueless cat who is so easily distracted by fast moving objects that he walks into walls.  Every morning I learn about some new outrage that Donald Trump has unleashed on basic American values and I’m off in hot pursuit.

So, please bear with me while I work through my indignity, time and time again.  

If you haven’t been surfing the underbelly of legitimate news sources, you may not have caught yesterday’s head-slapper du jour.  From The Washington Post and The Guardian, we learn that Russians are praising Scott Pruitt for removing restrictions on ASBESTOS(!) and showing their gratitude by marking bales of the carcinogen for export with Donald Trump’s face and name!!

Better than the Onion; you simply can’t make this stuff up.  In the story lie two reminders of the way in which the 45th president has so far managed to keep Republicans on his leash.

What, in any other administration, could singularly bring about ruin becomes nothing more than a forgotten anecdote when enmeshed amongst layer upon layer of daily scandal, violation  and incompetence.  Asbestos, the scourge of a healthy living environment throughout the late 20th century, has apparently been given one of Donald Trump’s famous pardons and is now poised for a comeback!!

It’s all but forgotten today because Donald Trump has spent the past two days ripping the pins out from under NATO and all of your traditional alliances, and shows every indication that he will kiss Putin’s pinkie when they meet privately later this week.

IMHO, it is time to break out the “T” word.  Surely it is treason for any president to take advantage of his presidential privileges in order to serve the counter-strategic interests of our most powerful adversary.

Still, the GOP has made its deal with the devil and is clinging to him like stink to garbage.  Most are so complicit at this point that they must inevitably be touched by the “T” word as well.

I was interested to read yesterday in the Messenger that one-term Republican Senator Carolyn Branagan, who filled Dustin Degree’s vacated seat when he was appointed to a position in the Scott administration, and who had earlier announced that she would not run again in 2018, announced that she was now considering running as an Independent.

No mention was made of her reason for dropping GOP endorsement, but Branagan is known to be a moderate and I’d like to believe that she has simply chosen the moral high ground.

Being a woman must be additional motivation to run far, far away, even from the Vermont GOP.

One has to wonder how many Republicans in regional races have made a similar decision to leave the party’s branding (and funding) behind.  Just how toxic will the GOP label prove to be in the coming years?

Requiem for the Soul of the Republican Party

National, Uncategorized, , ,

Today is the United States’ traditional birthday, and pollsters are scrambling to take the patient’s pulse even as we feebly attempt celebration amid record heat induced by unchecked fossil fuel consumption, and try not to notice the cries of refugee mothers and their children separated by “baby jail.”

According to CNBC, which could never be mistaken for a liberal source, less than half (47%) of U.S. adults call themselves “proud to be American.”  That number has dropped 10 percentage points in just the last five years.  

That’s despite our supposedly booming economy and all the “greatness” Donald Trump insists he is bringing back to the nation.

A CNN poll reports that half of all Americans view Donald Trump as a racist.  Is it any coincidence that, also according to recent surveys, close to 90% of Republicans approve of  the policies of Donald Trump while almost no one else does?

One can not resist reflecting on the other half of Americans who apparently do NOT see him as a racist.  In order to subscribe to that position, one must either have never read any of his own comments on brown and black people; or must themselves be racist.  Both possibilities are inescapably damning for the future of the democracy we attempt to celebrate today.

Every single day since and including his inauguration, another demonstration (or three) of his willful ignorance, epic narcism, unabashed dishonesty or pure unadulterated abuse of power has turned the nightly news into a spectacle not for the faint of heart.

Even today, as the Senate Intelligence Committee finally delivered its verdict in agreement with all of the nations intelligence agencies, that Putin’s Russia did indeed interfere in the 2016 election for the purposes of getting Donald Trump elected; Republicans, from Mitch McConnell on down to the last man standing, are doing all they can to avoid acknowledging the truth.

Such a demonstration of unquestioning allegiance to a complete scoundrel like Donald Trump pretty much confirms for me that they share all of his most odious positions, and that includes racism. 

He’s their sick puppy; whether he plots to invade Venezuela, sleeps with our enemies, chokes our allies, maintains the most corrupt and incompetent cabinet in recent history, and ultimately destroys ten years of economic growth; he is aided and abetted by the party of Lincoln.  Now isn’t that the greatest irony?

Let it henceforth be agreed that the Republican party is not only the party of Baby Snatchers and liars, but it is also the party of racists.  Sorry, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain.  I appreciate your heroic efforts to save the soul of your party, but if you lie down with dogs, you’re going to wake up scratching.

Happy Fourth of July. 

Democrats: Framing is Everything.

National, Uncategorized, ,

I am concerned that the language being used by some Democrats to advocate for reform of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of Homeland Security is only going to undermine party unity and messaging in the 2018 election cycle.

We’ve done this before and it did not serve us well.  We allowed the other side to brand themselves “Right to Life” while branding us as “Pro-Abortion.”  The far more accurate descriptor, “Pro-choice,” fell by the wayside in the war of words and we continue to allow them to represent us as baby killers, while we defend our moral high ground with perfectly sound arguments about individual liberty and responsibility that get drowned out by the simple poisonous messaging that the Right does so much better than we, who place a high premium on truth and tolerance.

Now, in the understandable outrage felt by decent folks in the face of Donald Trump’s grotesque reign of incompetence and baby-snatching, we are once again in danger of losing the messaging war by reaching for a bigger and more empathetically distant target than we should be immediately addressing.

Yes, ICE is a badly flawed remnant of post 9/11 planning panic that was allowed to fester and grow its mission even under Obama.  It has created self-justifying enforcement redundancies,  and even un-American over-reach practices that should be dismantled in short order.

But we have to regain some control in Congress to have any hope of affecting beneficial change; and loudly calling for the “elimination of ICE” is unlikely to help us get there.

It’s a negative message that allows unprincipled Republicans to cynically charge that Democrats want to foster lawlessness.  

Whenever we rest on a negative message without providing the positive policy alternative, the Republicans are only too happy to leap into the breach and define a sinister significance  to the Democrats’ position.

T250px-Statue_of_Liberty_7his will never do.

Democrats must insist that their leaders get a better grip on messaging and use more constructive language.  Don’t say “Abolish ICE” and let them finish the sentence.  Talk about “reforming” the institution and remodeling the Homeland Security mission as a whole into something that more closely reflects our traditional American values concerning immigrants, who have been the lifeblood of our young and upwardly mobile nation.

By all means, keep elimination of ICE in mind as the ultimate goal, but don’t use that as your stand alone message.

We have much better immigration messages available, and we need look no further than the Statue of Liberty for the right language.

 

President of the United States: Baby-Snatcher-in-Chief

local/regional, National, Uncategorized,

Nothing Donald Trump does comes as a complete surprise anymore.  The more odious the things he said on the campaign trail, the more likely it has become that he will, sooner or later, hand down policy edicts as President that make those outrageous statements pale by comparison.  I am convinced that his early quip about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue and getting away with it was not merely a throw-away line.

So, no surprise there…

What still totally takes my breath away are the polls describing a malevolent turn to the Republican party as a whole, and the complicity of its surviving elite.  I call them “surviving elite” because a number of that elite have seen the writing on the border wall, folded their tents and stolen silently into the night.  Some, like John McCain, have not been so silent.

The defections only seem to strengthen Trump’s cult-like hold over the so-called “Grand Old Party.”

Last night, Kate Larose, candidate for the Vermont House from St. Albans held a campaign launch in the Bliss Ballroom of the Franklin County Museum.  Everyone was welcome, including the kids for whom there was a mountain of empty cardboard boxes and an invitation to build their own town.  Pizza, salad and ice cream sundaes were served up on a side-table.

Even though I know that Kate is running as a Democrat/Progressive, there was no specific reference to political party and the theme of the evening was our community: what we like about it and how we hope that it will improve.

I’m sure that this was a deliberate effort to counter the poisonous vapor of national politics wafting our way from the south, and refocus voters on local/regional concerns.

I commend Kate and the other gathered optimists who can see a future of harmony worth fighting for.  I am grateful for their positive fervor.

I once felt exactly as they do and wish I did still.

This year, I will volunteer to man the phones for Democratic/Progressive candidates and contribute what I can to each campaign, as I always have.  Not to do so would be inexcusable, I know.  

But I will do so without much hope for the future of our fragile greater democracy.

I like to think that local Republicans, my neighbors, could not possibly support the Fascistic inclinations and pure mean-spiritedness of Donald Trump, but those polls have forced me to look at them in a troubling new light.  While we always differed on matters of policy, I never doubted that they were good people with whom I shared most overarching values.  

That certain knowledge always made participating in the political process a pleasure.  Win or lose, It felt good to be part of something greater than myself, and I always came away with confidence in the overarching better nature of the “system.”

Not anymore.

Donald Trump has violated nearly every civil and moral norm of American society; has never accepted responsibility for any of the evil he has unleashed on that civil society; lies uncontrollably;  indulges his personal vanity in the most grotesque manner; enriches himself and his family, whenever possible, at everyone else’s expense; and has cynically undertaken a personal assault on the constitution, the like of which we’ve never seen before.

Anyone who excuses or enables this devil is not my neighbor, nor my countryman.  This is what constitutional crisis looks like.

If we survive this period of infamy, somehow reclaiming our democracy from the brink of oblivion,  we must be prepared to eliminate private funding from elections, reign-in influence by lobbyists, clearly define legal parameters to limit the ultimate power of the presidency, and seriously question the legitimacy of the two party system.   We will also have a heap of fence-mending to do with our traditional international allies: “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…”

Failing rigorous commitment to reform, we will justly assume our place on the dustheap of fallen empires throughout the ages.

Goodbye, Old Friend!

local/regional,

Tomorrow at 11:00 AM, friends will gather at the Meeting House in East Fairfield to celebrate the life of Perry Cooper, who passed away late last fall.

I’ll be there with my husband Mark, and so will many of our mutual friends from the Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth.  It was at a meeting of the NWCRG that I first met Perry in 2004 when we gathered to strategize a response to Walmart’s proposal to site one of their big box blights on a field of prime agricultural soil on the outskirts of St. Albans.

In the years since, Perry had become a dear friend and frequent collaborator in the ongoing fight for a progressive and sustainable community.

Perry had also added a new dimension of scientific curiosity to my life as well as some valuable historic perspective on the role of non-civilian nuclear energy in the ’50’s and the 60’s.  He had a first hand knowledge of those formative years, from his work on nuclear submarines at Electric Boat.  His stories were true spell-binders.

He had a keen intellect combined with the spirit of a rebel.  For years he worked on his own wave theory, which he explained to me at some length.  Using language and illustrations, he made it surprisingly understandable even to a science amateur like me.  I hope his written memoir and the outline of his theory will find their way to people who will appreciate them.

Perry had a lot devoted friends, children and grandchildren, so I have every confidence that they will.

I know that music played a huge role in his life, but others are much better able to expound on that than I.  He was extremely kind to animals, demonstrating a whole lot more patience with them than he could ever spare for human fools. All of my house pets over the years have been fond of Perry.

He’d occasionally drop by my house unexpectedly when he was in St. Albans to visit a healthcare professional or just to do some shopping.  That was always a treat, and if it was a cold winter day, I was glad that I usually had some homemade soup on hand to warm him up as we passed a little time catching up.

We shared our politics, and could talk for hours on that subject. He was also an occasional contributor to Green Mountain Daily, where he used the handle “Witchcat” and occasionally locked horns with one writer or the other.  Even in white-hot argument, Perry managed to be pretty articulate. 

I am very grateful that, toward the end of Perry’s life, I was able to introduce him to nuclear safety experts, Arnie and Maggie Gundersen.  They came with me to visit him just days before he passed away and it was delightful to see how much Perry rallied to enjoy Arnie’s great appreciation of his first hand accounts of being a “cowboy” in the early days of nuclear energy wrangling.  They talked for a very long time; and when we left, Perry seemed as happy and animated as his old self.  I think this was the best parting gift I could have given him.

As we grow older and lose our dearest friends, one by one, it becomes  more and more difficult to fill the void that is left behind.

I doubt I will ever again have a friend quite like Perry.