Seven Days has a good story on the Montpelier Boy Scouts controversy today.

Again, Thierry Guerlain distinguishes himself in his stand for principle. As quoted in Seven Days, Guerlain says:

 “They went from teaching the boys discrimination to also teaching them spite,” said Guerlain, who called the decision not to volunteer at the event a “spiteful move” on the part of local Boy Scout leaders. “I’m surprised that we’re even discussing the fact that it’s more important to get the trash picked up conveniently by the Boy Scouts than to respect the civil rights of lesbian and gay parents who are disinvited from the Boy Scouts.”

I keep thinking about this and I think about what this means to the participating Boy Scouts. I was a Cub Scout for a few years but I was never a Boy Scout, but I always thought that the organization had something to do with citizenship. In fact, I could almost swear that I read something about it, something like this:

 The Boy Scouts of America is one of the nation's largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations. The BSA provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness.

 The parade is part of Montpelier's Independence Day celebration, recognizing the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Here's part of what the Declaration has to say about citizenship:

 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

It's not just me, but I have to say that the “created equal” thing, as well as the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” thing, are pretty relevant both to this issue and to recognizing full citizenship for our fellow Americans. Funny that the Boy Scouts don't see it the same way.

And the other thing about citizenship is that it has a lot to do with petitioning your government, engaging in a dialogue with bodies like the Montpelier City Council in a political way to bring them over to your side of an issue. By failing to show up, the leaders of the Montpelier Boy Scouts deprived the Scouts of an opportunity to participate in citizenship in a very direct way; they also deprived the community of the chance to have that dialogue.

As our own John Odum said (again quoted in Seven Days):  “The local scouting organization simply walked away and slammed the door on their way out,” wrote Odum in an email to Seven Days. “Just think of the messages they are sending to the kids themselves by just walking away at the first hint of a difference of opinion: that its OK to angrily dismiss others' deeply held beliefs, OK to walk away from commitments, and that its fine to stand by while homophobic comments are being spread, supposedly on their behalf.”

This is not a pot-kettle thing, this was a total failure of the Boy Scouts hierarchy to live up to their stated principles. 

 Phil Scott is nervous says Vtdigger.com.

In an animated speech, Scott told members of the Republican state party recently he is dismayed that Corren has more money available for the lieutenant governor’s race than Scott has raised in donations from supporters in the past two election cycles.

“This is a formidable candidate who will be running against me with $200,000,” Scott said. [added emphasis]

At least for now it looks as if Republican Phil Scott will be facing a well funded candidate. Progressive Dean Corren has qualified for $ 200,000.00 in public campaign funding to run for Lt. Governor. He hopes to gain the backing of the Vermont Democratic Party and has gotten a verbal statement of support from Governor Shumlin. Although some of Scott’s good’ole Democratic allies have decided to cover his back and do what they can to keep Vermont’s number one top Republican in office.

In his last election Scott, according to a VtDigger.com data base enjoyed a substantial lead in contributions over his opponent Cassandra Gekas. Scott’s campaign bank account in 2012 was well over the now “formidable” $200,000.00.In fact it was stuffed full with over $350,000.00 to Progressive/Democratic candidate Gekas’ $90,000.00.  

Now 2014 rolls around and faced with an aggressive opponent in what funding-wise at least may prove to be the most level playing he has ever run on he is complaining loudly about it. So Lite Governor Scott is in what looks like a real race and he is complaining and dismayed about it. Guess races aren’t always easy,but don’t cry about it.  

Dick Mazza’s knickers not withstanding, Dean Corren is getting down to business.  

With the first substantive press release from his campaign for Lieutenant Governor, the candidate, who has already demonstrated the proactive ability to qualify for matching funds,  shrewdly allied himself with the state’s Democrat-in-Chief; to wit:

BURLINGTON, VT — A candidate for Lieutenant Governor announced his support for equal and open access to high speed internet service, calling it one of the keys to growing Vermont’s economy. The announcement came on the same day Senator Patrick Leahy led a hearing at the University of Vermont on preserving an open internet.

Dean Corren, the Progressive candidate for Lt. Governor, said he was grateful that Sen. Leahy held this hearing in Vermont, and his attendance reflects the importance of this issue to Vermont’s economic development. “The internet must be used as an interstate tool of competition and a race to the top,” said Corren. “Let’s not create a race to the bottom in which the largest companies can outbid Vermont’s startups and growth companies for access and bandwidth, we must preserve equal access across the board,” he said.

“Some of Vermont’s fastest-growing businesses, and a great deal of our future economic potential, rely on unfettered access on a level playing field,” says Corren, citing his own work as Chief Technology Officer for Verdant Power. In developing energy from tidal flows in the East River in New York, Corren explained he often needs fast access to send and receive large graphics files, along with streaming video of installations at remote sites.

“This is one of the great economic development issues of our era — even greater in scope than uniting the nation by railroads, the internet unites the world socially and economically in a way that should yield enormous benefits to Vermont.

“Today’s challenge is to make sure we realize the benefits of the technical capability to serve the world with information and information services, without being throttled,” said Corren.

“In the new information economy, the fundamental communication infrastructure is critical to Vermont’s development of clean, well paid jobs,” said Corren, “and we cannot sacrifice Vermont’s small employers for the sake a of a few corporate giants.”

Take that, Dick Mazza.  

Crossposted on thevpo.org, where you’ll also find thoughts on Darcie The Libertarian, Tom Pelham’s periodic eruption, and the Freeploid’s Kommitment to Kwality.

Apparently the race for Lieutenant Governor won’t entirely be the Prog/Dem kumbaya sing that seemed likely when Governor Shumlin endorsed Progressive Dean Corren. Because here comes Dick Mazza, putative Democrat and close friend of Phil Scott, pissing in the communal punchbowl. Peter “Mr. Microphone” Hirschfeld:

Among Corren’s Democratic detractors is state Sen. Dick Mazza, a political power broker from Grand Isle who will attempt to use his sway to thwart Corren’s bid for the nomination.

… After Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin expressed support for Corren’s candidacy last week, Mazza says he was flooded with calls from angry pro-Scott Democrats. The result is a newly sprouted coalition of Democrats that Mazza says will work hard to deliver Scott to a third term.

Mazza is talking about an active organization to raise money for Scott and even write him in on the Democratic primary ballot.

Which would be an absolute disgrace.

I detect two strains of thought behind Democrats’ prospective betrayal.

First, and relatively understandable, is that some moderate Dems would feel more ideologically at home with Phil Scott than Dean Corren. I can accept that.

What I can’t stomach is the other thing: that some Dems just hate the thought of supporting a Prog, even if there’s broad agreement on the issues.

Look, I realize I’m not a member of this Mutual Aggravation Society that some Dems and some Progs are part of. Because of past slights, real or imagined, they just can’t stand the other guys. A couple years ago a local Democrat wrote a letter to the Times Argus complaining that Shumlin had had the gall to appoint a Progressive to some state commission, and that this Dem would never again vote for Shumlin.

That kind of attitude astounds me.

Maybe if I were part of the long history of the Dem/Prog competition/coexistence I’d get it. But in this day and age, when the two parties work closely together on many issues — and many campaigns — it seems remarkably retrograde. Which is as good an adjective as any to describe Dick Mazza, Senator For Life and Friend Of Phil.

 

A little controversy popped up in Montpelier a couple of weeks ago, and even though it's no longer a debate in the City Council, it's still attracting attention and generating some angry words.

Okay, I'm not going to bury the lede: Mayor John Hollar and Councilor Thierry Guerlain did the right thing when they stood up for principle even when the other side was the ultimate American-as-apple-pie organization, the Boy Scouts of America. 

Let's start with what did not happen. The Montpelier City Council did not bar the Boy Scouts from the city's annual Independence Day celebration. It's true, they won't be there selling bottled water or collecting garbage, but it's also true that they chose not to make their case to the Council.

The Montpelier City Council publishes an agenda for every meeting, and part of that agenda is called the consent agenda, a list of items that are considered so uncontroversial that they can be expected to pass without debate. Any member who thinks an item on the consent agenda will require debate can ask to have that item removed from the consent agenda.

That's what happened a couple of weeks ago, when Council member Theirry Guerlain asked to have the request by the Boy Scouts for permission to sell bottled water removed from the consent agenda. Guerlain's reasoning was that the anti-gay position of the Boy Scouts of America is a big deal, and is worthy of full debate. All but one of the council members agreed, so the request was passed to the next scheduled meeting, last Wednesday.

What happened next was pretty simple: faced with the opportunity to explain their position on gays in scouting, or to make their case for why the Boy Scouts and the good deeds they do are worthy of support even despite their antigay positions, the Boy Scouts just didn't show up, depriving themselves and the people of Montpelier of a chance to debate the issues.

By the way, and to show their public spirit, the Boy Scouts also won't be volunteering to clean up the site, which they've been doing for years. 

The letters to the editor section has been filled with criticism of the Council, and particularly Hollar and Guerlain, with letter writers tossing around terms like “bullying” and questioning whether the next step is to interrogate the hot dog vendor on “whether he believes in Jesus as his savior or Allah and Mohammed as his choice for spiritual guidance“.

Even my friend John Walters, one of the more astute observers of the Vermont political scene, seems to be missing the key point on this. Here's what he says at his new blog, thevpo.org, explaining that discriminating against gays in 2014 is not exactly like buying Krugerrands during the height of apartheid:

 Since then, I’ve realized that while Guerlain and like-minded Councilors were being petty and small-minded, so were the local Scouts.

I disagree. I think Thierry Guerlain had it exactly right:

 “I hope that we don’t approve (the vendor requests), and I hope that it makes national press, and I hope that the message gets to Washington that we said no,” said Guerlain. “We’re not going to let a group that openly discriminates against gays sell water at our parade. … It’s difficult, it’s uncomfortable, but I think it’s our chance to do the right thing.”

 This is not a matter of raising highfalutin' principles over petty disputes. The speed with which marriage equality and social disapproval of discrimination against gays and lesbians have spread throughout our society has been inspirational. You can't just say that the Boy Scouts' discriminatory practices should be overlooked because of the other good they do, or because their brand of discrimination isn't as bad as other types of discrimination we have struggled, and continue to struggle, to overcome.

We're Vermont. We were the first state to outlaw slavery, and we actually did divest from South Africa back in 1986. We have led the nation in gay rights, and we don't have to accept discrimination just to get volunteers to clean up after our parade.

John Hollar, Thierry Guerlain, and the council members who voted with them got it right.  

Every so often we have to give a shout-out fto the Conservation Law Foundation, who tirelessly fight the good fight and take plenty of verbal abuse in the bargain.

Having successfully engaged the attention of the Obama Administration’s EPA on  Lake Champlain, and brought greater scrutiny to phosphorus contributions from agricultural sources, CLF is looking to expand the state’s requirements regarding run-off control from all non-agricultural business use within the watershed, as well.  

Under provisions of the Clean Water Act CLF is asking the state to mandate limits on pollution from all commercial, industrial and institutional uses within the watershed.

The Conservation Law Foundation is asking the state to use its existing authority to require commercial, industrial and institutional property owners to obtain permits that would limit the amount of pollution flowing from their properties…

Runoff from parking lots, big box store roofs, campuses and other impervious surfaces carries pollutants and nutrients into Lake Champlain. That accounts for about 14 percent of the lake’s phosphorus loading,

While there is bound to be some political push-back, it appears that Natural Resource Secretary Deb Markowitz is in agreement, at least in principle, with the CLF’s assessment that “green infrastructure” should be a component of all development, urban or otherwise.

I’m glad to hear that.  I think most Vermonters simply assume that is already the case, and that all of the issues with lake pollution are the fault of farmers, who often feel aggrieved by the manner in which the phosphorus issue has painted them the villains.

We have a long way to go to enjoying a cleaner lake.  More than a century of dairying, and over-fertilized crops has left a deep deposit of phosphorus in the sediments of Lake Champlain; and that is as much the fault of poor USDA policy as the farmers themselves.  

Even if farming in the Champlain Valley was to cease entirely, today, that sediment would continue to bring up algae blooms in St. Albans Bay every time it was disturbed.  A solution that would permanently remove or stabilize the phosphorus deposit remains persistently ellusive.

This issue has even been raised as yet another very good reason to oppose the laying of pipeline beneath the Lake.

“Fourteen-percent” of new contributions (from development) is a very significant number, however; and represents an opportunity for great improvement if initiatives to curb those discharges are adopted at the statewide level.

So, when you inevitably read letters from the development community in your local paper, complaining that they are being unfairly targeted by CLF, remember what a thankless job CLF does to protect Vermont’s natural resources; and, maybe write a letter of thanks to counterbalance the hue and cry of the able-but-inconvenienced.

Yesterday, for the fifth and final year, First Nations people from Alberta were joined by other native and non-native Candians, and by people from around the world, to undertake a spiritual walk  around the toxic industrial mine site that is the Athabasca Tar Sands.  

They have chosen once again to make the difficult journey, exposing themselves to petro-chemical vapors that lay heavy in the air at the site, in order to raise awareness of the assault on native Albertans’ health and the global threat that the massive extraction operation represents.

“During the Healing Walk, hundreds of people walk 9 miles through what were once traditional hunting, fishing and gathering grounds, but are now wide expanses of strip mining and drilling that constitute one of the largest industrial undertakings the world has ever seen. There, they offer healing prayers for the land and build unity among people impacted by tar sands development through panel discussions, workshops, music and drumming.”

Climate Change experts have warned that fully exploiting the sticky reserves of the Tar Sands could mean the end of life on earth as we know it, greatly accelerating the all ready frightening speed at which our global ecosystem is being forced out of its sustainable “sweet spot.”

This year, Vermont is taking it personally.  

A group of Vermonters who share concerns about air and water pollution and are actively working to stop the plan to move tar sands oil through an aging pipeline in the Northeast Kingdom,  pooled their resources to send KC Whiteley of Montpelier to Alberta to join the Healing Walk and bring a message of solidarity from Vermont.

“Vermonters care about their land just as the First Nations people in Alberta care about theirs,” Whiteley said. “We want to show our support for their cause, and I will bring their stories home.”

Even as the First Nations group assembled to walk in Alberta, Rep. Peter Welch continued the fight to prevent passage of a bill that would open Vermont as a corridor for moving tar sands oil to east coast refineries. Such an “accommodating” arrangement would have real potential to befoul local waters and contaminate farmland; and that’s before the carbon payload is unleashed on the rest of the world.

The National Wildlife Federation reports that organizers of the Healing Walk plan to hold future events in other locations impacted by tar sands extraction and processing.

If Congress can’t be dissuaded, in some coming year, that could be Vermont.

http://www.economist.com/blogs…

Editor’s note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843, this blog will answer some of the more frequently asked questions about The Economist itself.

MOST newspapers and magazines use bylines to identify the journalists who write their articles. The Economist, however, does not. Its articles lack bylines and its journalists remain anonymous. Why?

Part of the answer is that The Economist is maintaining a historical tradition that other publications have abandoned. Leaders are often unsigned in newspapers, but everywhere else there has been rampant byline inflation (to the extent that some papers run picture bylines on ordinary news stories). Historically, many publications printed articles without bylines or under pseudonyms-a subject worthy of a forthcoming explainer of its own-to give individual writers the freedom to assume different voices and to enable early newspapers to give the impression that their editorial teams were larger than they really were. The first few issues of The Economist were, in fact, written almost entirely by James Wilson, the founding editor, though he wrote in the first-person plural.

But having started off as a way for one person to give the impression of being many, anonymity has since come to serve the opposite function at The Economist: it allows many writers to speak with a collective voice. Leaders are discussed and debated each week in meetings that are open to all members of the editorial staff. Journalists often co-operate on articles. And some articles are heavily edited. Accordingly, articles are often the work of The Economist’s hive mind, rather than of a single author. The main reason for anonymity, however, is a belief that what is written is more important than who writes it. In the words of Geoffrey Crowther, our editor from 1938 to 1956, anonymity keeps the editor “not the master but the servant of something far greater than himself…it gives to the paper an astonishing momentum of thought and principle.” The notable exception to The Economist’s no-byline rule, at least in the weekly issue, is special reports, the collections of articles on a single topic that appear in the newspaper every month or so. These are almost always written by a single author whose name appears once, in the rubric of the opening article. By tradition, retiring editors write a valedictory editorial which is also signed. But print articles are otherwise anonymous.

Different rules apply on our website, however. A few years ago we decided to start using initials as bylines on our blog posts, to avoid confusion on our multi-author blogs (such as Democracy in America, which covers American politics). Our journalists can and do disagree with each other on our blogs, so we use initials to enable readers to distinguish between different writers. This approach is not without its faults (we have four staff members with the initials “J.P.”, for example) but is the best compromise between total anonymity and full bylines, in our view. We also identify our journalists when they appear in our audio and video output. And many of them tweet under their own names. The internet has caused our no-byline policy to fray a little around the edges, then, but the lack of bylines remains central to our identity and a distinctive part of our brand.

State auditor, Doug Hoffer has just released a report on the database employed by the Green Mountain Care Board to keep tabs on costs and other trackable indicators concerning health care provided to Vermonters.

“The Vermont Health Care Uniform Reporting and Evaluation System (VHCURES) is a digital catalogue of all fees for medical services and products that insurers paid over the last seven years for Vermont residents.”

While the report does not represent an actual audit of the system, it does provide thoughtful insight into how the database might better serve to inform individual Vermonters of  their healthcare choices.

Release of the report coincides with efforts by the GMCB to entertain bids from contractors to overhaul the existing system.  It’s observations will hopefully guide the Board in evaluating which contractor can provide the most accessible solutions for the public, as that is where the Auditor finds that the current the database system falls short.

As more and more Vermonters are opting for higher deductibles and therefore becoming directly responsible for a higher percentage of the cost of the healthcare services provided to them, it is crucial that they have the necessary tools to make informed choices.

Those tools must provide information not only on comparative costs but on quality of care as well.  The goal is to move toward greater accountability so that, equipped with the facts and figures before they go in for procedures, consumers may effect some control over the marketplace.

Coming so soon after the software glitches that plagued the Healthcare Connect roll-out, it’s nice to see a proactive interest from the Auditor’s Office in giving Vermonters a much more rewarding experience with VHCURES.

Information is power; and it can be hoped that, armed with the information gleaned from a more transparent and accessible healthcare database, consumers will demand greater efficiencies in order to bring the escalating cost of healthcare under control.

A man of the people, Hoffer is always looking for ways to better serve the interests of ordinary Vermonters. No surprise that he has no challenger in the November election.

Oh, there it is. The news we’ve all been waiting for with — what’s the opposite of bated breath? — from Vermont’s Largest Newspaper.

Starting July 1, the price of home delivery will jump just as precipitously for many customers.

How much appears to vary from household to household.

So reports Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz in this week’s Fair Game column. And he has to say “appears to vary” because the Burlington Free Press has thoughtfully decided to slow-play the bad news.

It’s the opposite of the paper’s approach two years ago when, as Heintz points out, the paper imposed a stiff 31% price hike at the same time as it launched a redesigned slimmer, trimmer, and yet somehow fatter (in terms of margin and type font) newspaper, dubbed by me “the Freeploid.”

Nope. This time, the ‘Loid has published not a word about its loyal readers taking it in the shorts — instead, notifying subscribers by mail.  

Not that I’m in the least bit surprised at the news. The ‘Loid dropped a big fat hint back in January, when it announced the pending addition of USA TODAY “content” to its daily paper.

Asked whether prices would rise for subscribers receiving the extra USA Today content, a Gannett spokesman, Jeremy Gaines, said, “As we introduce enhanced products, consumers tell us they are willing to pay for the added value we’re bringing them.”

And now it’s time to pay the piper for his expanded “content.”

Myself, I’ll be looking closely at my options, and actively consider cutting back to online-only. If other readers follow suit, the Freeploid can kiss some of its relatively robust print-only ad revenue goodbye, as it continues to pursue short-term gains at the expense of long-term viability.