Our favorite ex-Wall Street plutocrat has suffered a bit of bad publicity lately. His vanity project public advocacy group, Campaign for Vermont, recently released another TV ad that was so predictably empty of content that it raised the ire of the usually phlegmatic Terri Hallenbeck:

Titled “Voices for Change,” the ad features Campaign for Vermont Co-Founder Bruce Lisman and a string of unidentified other people calling for change.

“We can make Vermont more affordable,” one says.

“Create more jobs,” adds another.

“And help families be more secure,” chimes in another.

… No one calls for brighter colors or cuter puppies or offers to teach the world to sing in harmony, but you get the drift.

Ooooh, burn!

Well, after that, I imagine that Lisman and his “brain trust” (Jason Gibbs, Shawn Shouldice, et al) realized they had to put a little meat in that empty bun, STAT. So he’s taken a plausibly bold step on a substantive policy issue.

And, shockingly enough, I agree with him on this one.

Lisman is promising a big push for ethics reform in state government. In the 20154 legislative session, CFV will begin its first State House lobbying effort with ethics reform as its #1 issue. Peter Hirschfeld in the paywall-protected Mitchell Family Organ:

Lisman… wants elected officials to have to disclose information about their personal finances, as well as any interests in which they have a financial stake.

Lisman is also calling for an independent, “quasi-judicial ethics commission” to regulate and monitor officials held in the public trust.

He’s right. Our ethics laws are laughable.

It’s not the most urgent problem facing Vermont, but it’s an issue worth addressing. Especially in this dawning age of one-party rule in Vermont. Usually, when one party dominates the political scene, it gets lazy and corrupt. See: Massachusetts during the Tom Finneran/Billy Bulger era, when rampant corruption and featherbedding opened the door to justified criticism of liberal politics and public-sector unions. And also opened the door to a string of unimpressive Republican governors. (Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and cough Romney.) Not to mention the abortive political career of Scott “Centerfold” Brown.

I don’t want to see that happen in Vermont, and ethics reform would help prevent it.

The bigger news, however, isn’t Lisman’s issue of choice; It’s that CFV will establish a significant lobbying presence under the Golden Dome*. To date, although Lisman has spent close to a million bucks on CFV, he’s had a “surprisingly low profile in Montpelier,” as Hirschfeld puts it. And if CFV has moved the political meter so much as a millimeter, I haven’t seen any sign of it.  

*Speaking of which, the Dome itself is badly overdue for a re-gildng. Maybe Bruce could dig around in his sofa cushions and pay for a new layer of gold plate? There’d be some nice symbolism and synergy at work, don’tcha think?

But if he puts his Bear Stearns fortune behind a State House lobbying effort, he could start to move the dial. He could certainly be far more influential than, say, Lenore Broughton. And I suspect that his big ethics push is just a media-friendly foot in the door. It’s a feel-good issue, and one where he can probably win either way. Serious ethics reforms are, frankly, a longshot; but the Legislature may well disgorge a watered-down version that will allow Lisman to declare victory and move on to other issues.

Like, oh, education reform (union-bashing and for-profit “schools of choice”), public-sector pension reform (let’s kill those defined-benefit plans!), and tax reform (create a more “business-friendly” climate by cutting corporate and capital-gains rates). Bruce Lisman isn’t spending a million bucks and counting to incrementally change Vermont’s ethics law; he’s doing it to make Vermont a more fiscally conservative place.  

The political media love to speculate about Lisman as a gubernatorial candidate. I don’t. I’ll say it again: Bruce Lisman will never be Governor of Vermont, and I seriously doubt he’ll ever run. Independent candidacies are the longest of long shots, he’s getting up there in years, and he lacks the dynamism or charisma needed to launch a one-man movement à la Arnold Schwarzenegger* or Jesse Ventura. (Or even Angus King.) I see him as a much smarter version of Lenore Broughton: A person with the resources to make a huge difference in Vermont, but with the intelligence to productively channel his efforts.  

*Technically, Ah-nuld was a Republican, but first and foremost he was Ah-nuld.

______________________________________________________

p.s. The Hirschfeld article contained a stunningly apropos blooper regarding Our Governor, who is not a fan of tighter ethics rules:

As for mandatory financial disclosures, [the governor’s general counsel Sarah] London said Shumlin “has felt that the voluntary system we have has worked for our small state.”

“But he’s always willing to discus other options when they’re put forward,” London said last week.

I’m they meant “discuss,” but I like “discus” better. Because Shumlin is “always willing to discus” other people’s ideas. He’s also willing to shot put them, javelin them, and catapult them as far away as possible. Just watch him tie Tim Ashe’s tax plan in the ejector seat and push the big red button.  

There is a reason for this

but we still will not look for it.

Children with guns off to war,

and adults wringing hands.

The useless explanations,

beyond control nattering over the Net.

And ‘government please help us’

because it is all just too much.

We lost our way over the years,

and our children have lost their hope.

Too much work now, our children.

We have so many ‘things’ to do.

What goes on in their minds

that makes them this way now?

They are becoming dangerous.

They are taking us up on it.

Please help us, we moan and wail.

Please make this go away.

A twelve year-old studies Dickens,

while another twelve year-old loads a gun.

And on the news, no future for either,

no growing up to be like in the books.

How many will survive long enough

to matter to us chained as we are to ‘things’?

Yes, please please help us.

Come with your guns and save us.

My little boy, my little girl, put the guns

to our heads until we look, and finally act.

Before our last bit left of humanity

is shot to pieces before our eyes.

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

Today, as I watched the gang at Hudak Farm in St. Albans Town raise the giant female effigie that is their annual fall mascot and a local landmark, I decided I wasn’t quite through with the topic of Walmart.

Of all my beefs with the project (and they are many), perhaps the thing that disturbs me most is how the one little farm that stood up to raise objections in the permit process was not only the butt of some very unneighborly behavior; but finally was utterly and totally ignored by each level of permit review, despite their active participation in that process.

The selfish interests of the developer, JLD Properties can perhaps be excused.  Mr. Davis never once approached the Hudak family to ask how he could make his project less problematic to the farm; but, I suppose, business is business; and he simply got by with what he knew he’d be allowed to.

There was no consideration of the Hudak’s expressed concerns regarding traffic impacts when the Town DRB issued its permit to Mr. Davis.  

What excuse has the Town of St. Albans for not requiring so much as a couple of stop signs by the Hudak property so that the family might still have safe access to their farm fields across Route 7 after Walmart opened its doors?  

Speaking on behalf of the farm, Marie Frey told the DRB early on that, at the very least, some sort of overpass across Route 7 between the two sides of the farm should be considered.

I’ve been to plenty of DRB hearings where one person’s property would be negatively impacted by changes for which the neighbor was seeking a permit.  Almost without variation some offsets are required of the permit seeker in  order to address the neighbors’ concerns.

Nothing…nothing was asked of JLD Properties and Walmart.  Perhaps if the Hudak’s were dairy farmers rather than vegetable farmers they would have gotten more respect(?)  As it was, their own local permit body simply hung them out to dry.

Moving on to Act 250, for which one of the principle concerns is supposed to be preservation of a working landscape in Vermont,  Hudak Farm continued to participate in good faith and was completely ignored in the ruling.  Attention was paid to the interests of the City of St. Albans; to Hannafords’ and Maplefields’ business interests; but was a single thought given to the nearest business to be impacted by Mr. Davis’s Walmart?  

No.  

Though the farm is less than three-tenths of a mile from the proposed store entrance, the survival of one of the best local food sources in Franklin County was of so little interest to the District 6 Commission that they couldn’t even be bothered to consider it.

Next it was the turn of the Environmental Court to disregard the interests of the little family farm.  Still participating and getting nothing but grief for their trouble, Hudak Farm was once again ignored in the final ruling.  Adding insult to injury, the ruling even completely misplaced the location of the farm, saying it was not even located in St. Albans Town.  

It is, in fact, located partially in Swanton and partially in St. Albans Town.

When the Environmental Court decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of Vermont, even that body failed to require anything of the developer with regard to Hudak Farm.

It is that experience that continues to trouble me and makes me wonder whether Act 250 has been so weakened through the Douglas and Shumlin years that, faced with development pressures, traditional farming in Vermont will not have a chance of longterm survival.

And what a shame that is for all of us.  Just when the rest of the world is recognizing food instability as one of the chief threats to social stability; and that farmland should be valued as a precious commodity;  Vermont can’t even depend on the laws that were specifically crafted to protect local farming.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Walmart parking lot was full this afternoon so it appears that everyone got what they wanted.  

Of course the check-out clerk in Hannaford’s told me it had been very slow for a Saturday and that the parking lot at the two-day annual Crafts Fair, usually a huge draw, was practically empty.  

She said she’d heard from a friend that food prices over at the Walmart were not particularly low.  As she handed me my bag,  she shrugged and said,  “People will believe what they want to believe.”

Ain’t that so.

     In an October 17th article in Ring Magazine’s online publication [Hopkins on Boxing and Black Fighters, by Lem Satterfield] Philadelphia boxing legend and reigning IBF Light Heavy Weight Champion Barnard Hopkins stated:

“The great Sugar Ray Leonard, right now, if he was boxing, the way that they want you to fight, the people that pull the strings of the puppet, he would be boring today. Ray Robinson — the great Robinson — would be boring today… Because the feeders of the people that buy entertainment. They’re being fed that if they duck, don’t buy it. If they’re slick, and they beat [their opponent] nine out of the 12 rounds, and the guy just can’t hit him because they were slick and smart enough to hit and not get hit, ‘He’s not crowd-pleasing, he don’t sell tickets.’ Because they done fed the followers and they done fed [that] to the customers. The customers will drink anything that you give them if it’s promoted right…But when you take away the skill and you take away the slick, and you take away the boxing ability and say that’s not entertaining, or that’s not entertainment, then, to me, it’s like trying to erase a culture that you know has dominated the sport way back then where you were slick. And I’m talking about black fighters. Yes, I said it.”

    These quotes, and more found in the article, have led some boxing fans to charge Barnard Hopkins, who is an African American, with being a racist.  Hence, the question remains, is racism a legitimate concern here?

     No.

    It is not racist to recognize that different cultures, different subcultures, produce different styles and different ways of approaching the arts, society, and boxing too.  The Irish, for example, have a certain literary history based on their experience of English oppression and subsequent material poverty that produced a very specific trajectory of poetry and fiction.  Now of course that does not mean only the Irish can write poetry and fiction, it is just to say that they have developed those arts in a way which is particular to them, and a great treasure for the entire world. It is not racist to say this.  Likewise, it is far from racist to say that it was American Black culture (including its more immediate three century back story of Euro-American oppression) that produced the Blues and then Jazz.  That said, some White guys, here and there, got good at these forms of music (“Take Five” anyone?), but that does not negate the fact that these art forms (these types of music) are a contribution from American Black culture. And again, the Irish do not exceed at literature because they are Irish, and the Blacks do not exceed at Jazz because they are Black.  Rather, granting a similar cultural starting point, you could give any ethnicity or nationality some centuries of the same experience they went through (and go through) as a people and smart money would be you find the same basic result.  If the Irish occupied England for 800 years, I have 20 down that the English would have their own James Joyce.  Of course this is not to say that only the Irish can write, or only the Blacks can compose music; it’s just to recognize that these cultures developed their own special forms that most would agree is something genius to behold.  And here boxing is no different.  

    One culture produces one way of approaching the subject, while another something different.  Hopkins is right that a case can be made that Black’s have developed an American boxing form which is both slick and effective (hit, move, avoid two punches, move and hit again). On the other hand, Mexican culture has tended to produce fighters which are huge on heart, bravado, and balls, but less interested in the slick aspect.  Not that there are not exceptions to the norm (the great George Foreman after all was not exactly slick), but all this is more true than not.  Making a statement of this sort is no different than recognizing that different cultures have developed different types of music, measures of beauty, etc. There is nothing racist in this assertion.  The one difference is that in poetry or music we, together, can only come to general agreements (or disagreements) about what we feel is the more interesting or developed style.  In boxing, we pit those styles, and, by extension, cultures of boxing against each other in the ring, and at the end of the night, one hand is raised, one remains lowered, and there is often blood.  

    So I offer Barnard a “cheers” and (as a Dutch American who had the pleasure of spending a little time in a boxing gym years ago) I give him that the Black, slick, style of hitting and not being hit (from Robinson, to Leonard, to Mayweather, to Roy Jones, to Hopkins) often (all else being equal) rises above those competing styles that it faces in the squared circle.  I also give him that for the capitalists, the marketing executives, and big media heads they employ (who are all upper class, and mostly White) are in fact trying to sell us a reality in which those Blacks who are winning, those most often from the forgotten America, are in fact the enemy of our passive viewing pleasures; even if they know only victory in the ring, they are in fact an enemy we should consider lost; that is what The Market would have us believe.  When real life cannot be obliterated by fact, the sophist’s plausible retreat is denial wrapped in the fog of repetition.  So Hopkins wins again; Mayweather wins again, but they really lost because they did not stand in the center of the ring, and get their heads smashed in so we can see more blood.  And HBO would rather play a decade old rebroadcast of a blood bath than give you the Cuban Master, Guillermo Rigondeaux, in the actual here and now.  Not that Gatti vs. Ward was not great in its own way, but really, we did see what happened when Gatti stepped into the ring with Mayweather.  But here I digress.

    The above, of course, is a little black and white. As I said before, there are exceptions, shades of grey, and sometimes good reason for divergence.  Vladimir Klitschko is a very defense boxer; doesn’t like to get hit, Ukrainian, and trained into this form by Emanuel Steward who was a Black man from Detroit.  Canelo Alverez is, in all likelihood, ultimately of Irish heritage, but learned to box in Mexico where he was immersed and assimilated into a proud Mexican culture.  So no surprise he fights like a Mexican. Joe Calzaghe?  Slick as hell, fast, combo puncher, and didn’t get hit much.  His trainer was his old man.  His old man was a Jazz player.  And you know what, getting back to music, the Stones were pretty F*cking Badass, and they were importing Black R&B back to America from the American Muddy Waters records they heard in England.  Just because the Stones were White does not make R&B a product of European culture, and Calzaghe (who is Welch-don’t know if the English historically consider the Welch White) does not make slick boxing a Welch art form.   But at the end of the day, slick boxing is largely a Black contribution to the sport, and the fact is the corporate machines that feed us our likes and dislikes according to what they perceive as in their self interest, does not like it and, presumably, does not like that the slick boxer often emerges with the win. Back in the day they didn’t like it when Jack Johnson or Mohamed Ali was champion either; but back in the day their reasons were often a little more blunt. Slick boxing a Black achievement? It could be argued. Slick boxing as a more effective form of the art? More than not. Racist? Naa.  Just the opposite man.

###

Update: Per the Freeploid, Paige will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Congratulations to Vermont’s #1 Birther, H. Brooke Paige, whose winless streak remains intact following the Vermont Supreme Court’s dismissal of his lawsuit against President Obama, the State of Vermont, and Secretary of State Jim Condos, arguing that Obama is ineligible to be President.

Dismissed without consideration. Because, of course.

For those just joining us, Brooke Paige was the “other” Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012. The guy who managed to lose to the hopeless John MacGovern by a 3-1 margin in the Republican primary. (MacGovern then went on to lose to Bernie Sanders by a similar margin in November.)

The guy once described as “somewhat eccentric” by Vermont’s foremost authority on eccentricity, True North Reports.

Paige’s take on Birtherism is different from most. He acknowledges that President Obama was, indeed, born in Hawaii. But he interprets the Constitutional standard for the Presidency as requiring two parents who were both U.S. citizens. And since Obama’s father was Kenyan, Obama himself is effectively Kenyan by the transitive property.  

Paige’s suit, filed in August 2012, sought a declaration that Obama’s filings for re-election were “null and void” and an injunction barring Condos from putting Obama’s name on the ballot. The case was dismissed in Superior Court in November; Paige sought an expedited hearing before the VSC and was rebuffed.

And in a decision filed today, Associate Supreme Court Justice Brian Burgess (in one of his last acts before retiring from the high court) laid the final smackdown on Paige’s futile crusade.

The redoubtable H. Brooke, I’m sure, will keep on not taking “no” for an answer. And technically, he has a point: Burgess’ ruling was not based on the merits of Paige’s case, but on the “mootness doctrine” — the idea that further legal proceedings will have no effect. Burgess also noted that Paige failed to identify “any negative result to him,” which means he lacks standing to bring the suit.

I can almost hear Paige crying “Aha! So you’re saying my suit might possibly have merit!”

(Quite possibly, based on past experience, right here in the comments section on GMD.)

Postscript: As noted above, Paige will try to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. And as I predicted, he has interpreted his defeat as a victory, sort of: he told the Freeploid that the VCC dismissal was “as positive a ruling as I could have anticipated.”

The technical term for that, aside from “delusional,” is “setting the bar really low.”  

In recent days, two of our most senior solons (combined age: 139) have come to the conclusion that they are irreplaceable.

Vermont’s Democratic attorney general, Bill Sorrell, said Thursday he plans to run for a ninth full term as the state’s top prosecutor next November.

Asked if he would seek re-election to a dysfunctional Congress in 2016, [Sen. Patrick] Leahy responded, “At the end of yesterday, I was thinking, I probably should, just to try to have some more grown-ups down there.”

Sorrell originally announced his intention on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show earlier this week (key passage about 33 1/2 minutes into the show), and provided some additional self-actualization in a follow-up with Seven Days’ Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz. Leahy stated his intentions — and provided a fig-leaf caveat by saying he wouldn’t make a final decision until 2015 — in a news conference after his Escape From Washington on Wednesday.

I have very different views of these two men; Sorrell has been a decidedly mixed bag as AG, and is the very definition of a man born on third base who thinks he hit a triple. Leahy has been a strongly positive force, and I’ll vote for him without hesitation if he’s on the ballot in 2016.

But the two men’s determination to stay in office only exacerbates a couple of real problems: a gridlock in the top offices, and the fact that our political leadership (Beth Pearce aside) is a complete sausage party. While right next door, in supposedly antediluvian New Hampshire, women occupy the Governorship and all four Congressional seats.

Governor Shumlin himself has acknowledged that Vermont’s gender gap is an issue that needs to be addressed — but I don’t imagine he’ll ever step out of the way himself to make way for a female Governor. (He certainly didn’t lift a finger to replace John H.A. Campbell with Ann Cummings when he had the chance.) He’s indispensable, just like Sorrell and Leahy. At least they are in their own minds. Take Bill Sorrell, who consulted the state’s leading expert on Being Attorney General — himself:

Sorrell said he pondered a number of questions before deciding to seek another term: “Did I still have the energy for the work? Was I very engaged and was it interesting to me? Or should I pursue other opportunities? What was I bringing to the table? Was I being value-added or not and such? And how did my staff feel about me as leader of the organization?”

The answers, he said, convinced him to run.

There you have it: Bill Sorrell loves him some Bill Sorrell. And so should you.

As for our Senior Senator, I know the “grown-up” comment was a reference to the Tea Party kiddie pool that tried to hijack the government, but there’s a less charitable interpretation: Does he really think the voters of Vermont are incapable of choosing a different “grown-up” to be our Senator?

I dunno, I think we might be able to find somebody else who could fill the job. Maybe even somebody without the old twig-and-berries between their legs.  

While perusing the Mitchell Family Organ this morning, an obituary caught my eye. An obit of an ordinary man, of the kind undervalued (and frequently discarded) by our 21st Century First World society.

Tom Companion was only 51 when he died unexpectedly on Sunday. His life in two paragraphs:

Tom was a 1980 graduate of Harwood Union High School and then began his working career as a carpenter, working for several construction companies in the Central Vermont area. Tom went on to become an assembler, working at the Bombardier Corporation in Barre before being employed by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters for over 16 years, first in the service department in Waterbury and more recently as a maintenance technician at their Essex plant.

Friendly, warm hearted and convivial, Tom was the well-known and well-liked Saturday morning greeter and money taker for Rodney’s Rubbish Removal, located at the Crossroads Beverage Center in Waterbury. In his leisure time, Tom was an avid hunter, loved 4-wheeling, camping in Sharkyville in Bolton and was a master tinkerer of all things automotive. A creative builder too, Tom enjoyed working on construction projects for family and friends. He is lovingly remembered for his devotion to his wife Susan, and his innate dedication to all those who he considered friends.

He held no high office, he won no awards, he probably never dazzled anyone with his rhetorical brilliance. In an age of literacy and technology, he was good with his hands. Throughout most of human history, a guy like him would have been highly valued — while a guy like me, good with words and lousy with tools, with horrible eyesight to boot, would have been marginalized. And probably would have been the one to die young.

I never met the man. Frankly, if I saw him on the street, I probably wouldn’t give him a second thought. I, like most people, am impressed by education and title and wit and connections. And except when I need something fixed around the house, I have very little contact with the world of folks like Tom Companion. But our society wouldn’t work without them.

And we need to remember that.  

We also, those of us in left-wing politics, need to bear their interests more strongly in mind. We tend to live on a more intellectual plane. I doubt that the Tom Companions of this world care much about the issues that tend to occupy a lot of our time: fighting gas pipelines or Air Force jets or keeping Vermont pristine. They need jobs and economic activity and growth. They need building projects and affordable energy.

Hell, they need Walmart. If only because their purchasing power keeps on dwindling.

Is that to say we should abandon our principles and roll over for development and growth and corporate interests? No. But we do need to find a balance between principle and pragmatism. And we need to not forget where the left-wing movement started in this country: in labor unions and populism. That needs to be part of our equation today.

Well, enough of me projecting my own stuff onto a dead man I never met.

A service celebrating the life of Tom Companion will be held from the Waterbury American Legion, 16 Stowe Street, on Saturday, October 19, 2013 at 1 p.m. with a reception to follow. The family requests that flowers be omitted; rather memorial gifts would be appreciated to Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, PO Box 459, South Hero VT 05486. Assisting the family is the Perkins-Parker Funeral Home and Cremation Service in Waterbury.

This diary is dedicated to my dear friend and inspiration, Marie Limoges, who, at eighty-seven years old fought harder than anyone else to educate the community to the mistake that is Walmart. Because even at her advanced age, she still cares what the future will bring for Vermont.

It’s mornings like this that remind me why I became a Progressive.

I opened my Freeps to find out what I missed at the Walmart opening in St. Albans, only to discover that Peter Shumlin was on hand, eager to wrap himself in hyperbolic “Walmart fever,” so that he might pick up the stink of cheap exploitation for the purpose of…cheap exploitation(?)

Quoth our good governor:

Anyone Who says Walmart and downtown can’t thrive together is dead wrong.  We’re here to prove it.

We? We?  

So, Governor, are we to understand that you have joined the Walmart club, embracing all that that represents…crap made in China, low wages, union bashing, predatory pricing, bait and switch and all?

You’ve had quite a change of heart since you appeared and spoke at the first event held at Hudak Farm in 2003 to raise awareness of the damage the proposed Walmart would mean to the local economy and the tragic waste of prime agricultural soil the project would claim.  Of course, back then, you were vying with Peter Welch (who also spoke) for the Democratic nomination to fill Bernie’s vacated congessional seat.  

I’ll be having a good look at your campaign finance records next year.

Well, sir, you may have noticed that our downtown, pretty as it looks in its TIF finery, has already gone south after more than ten long years of Walmart waiting in the wings.  

Gone are the pharmacy, toy and bookstore, clothing store and children’s shop that were the last to resign under the dark shadow of discount doom.  Well before then went the stationary store, supermarket, department store, shoe stores, menswear, appliance and furniture stores; more childrens and ladies’ wear stores… every department of J.C. Penney except women’s wear.  

Once the predatory giant marked St. Albans for its own years ago, no general merchandiser was foolish enough to set its sights on downtown.  We know because we have been told as much.

So, what are we left with in our pretty new cityscape?  Giftshops and galleries; antiques and vintage clothing; coffee shops, restaurants and bars.  All very nice places to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

St. Albans is no longer the shiretown it once was; a place where working-class people gathered from all over the countryside to visit the post office and do their essential shopping while they gossiped with their neighbors, discussed local politics and made new social connections.

We still have the courthouse and city hall; and the post office is over there in the little shopping center, but it doesn’t have a generous lobby anymore, where people used to hang out and shoot the breeze for half an hour at a time.  

Now we all pile into our cars and drive to the edge of town, to hurriedly “get ‘er done” before heading home to the TV.

I know that shiretown will never return; that the worst damage has already been done to our downtown by Walmart and the culture of discount ultra-consumerism that it spawned.  It remains to be see whether or not the gentrified froth that remains of our traditional downtown can actually be economically viable.

I sincerely hope that it can; but Governor, if it turns out to be a dud, I will remind you of your words often and at inconvenient times.

Here’s hoping both you and Big Jim (who has expressed his wish to do so) get to serve out some years as Walmart greeters. You deserve as much.

I should not allow the (at this writing, likely last-minute) budget deal in Washington to prevent me from taking note of a classic piece of Wieselschaft from the pen of Everyone’s Buddy, Phil Scott. The occupant of Vermont’s “bucket of warm piss” recently took time out from his rigorous schedule of… whatever it is a Lieutenant Governor does… to craft an opinion piece that’s an amazing mixture of The Bold and The Bland.

The piece, published in Sunday’s Mitchell Family Organ (and paywalled, sorry), is entitled It’s Time To Lead.”

And that’s about where the boldness ends.

The subject, of course, is the budget standoff in Washington. Phil’s take: our leaders need to stop bickering and take action. Wow, what a stunner.

But wait, there’s more.

You’ll never guess how Mr. Inoffensive, the man seemingly born to be Lieutenant Governor, apportioned blame for the federal mess.  

Yep. It’s everybody’s fault.

Equally.

It seems as though, in the current environment, every side is trying to declare victory at any cost. With that as a goal no one wins. In fact, every one of us loses. The longer the House, the Senate and President Obama perpetuate this finger pointing and name calling, the harder it becomes to reach a resolution.

Sheesh.  

To be (briefly) fair to Vermont’s top Republican officeholder, it’d be awfully tough for him to call it straight, and assign the lion’s share of blame where it belongs: on the Republican dead-enders in Congress and the party leadership that enables them. But still, apportioning the blame like a parent slicing a cake for three jealous children is a bit much. At least it is, if Scott has any aspirations of someday holding a meaningful political office. Y’know, an office with duties and responsibilities and stuff. An office that requires… leadership.

Because blaming everyone in equal measure is either a blatant lie, a revelation of his true loyalties, or really really stupid.

Taking the options in reverse order: If he honestly believes that all parties are equally to blame, then he’s too dumb to be Governor. Might be too dumb to occupy the warm bucket.

And if he’s doing some ill-considered partisan spear-carrying, then by God, he’s a lot more of a Republican than he wants us to believe. Because what he’s doing, in his budget-standoff comments and his cautionary bleats about Vermont Health Connect, is giving the smiley-face version of Republican dogma: the Democrats are wrong, we’re right, and health care reform is a job-killing disaster.

But I suspect the truth is this: he knows the Congressional Republicans are screwing the pooch and playing chicken with the Full Faith And Credit, but he knows that if he says so, he can bid a fond farewell to any future role in the GOP.

Now, I believe that Phil Scott is the last best hope for the VTGOP, and I think Vermont is best served by having multiple relevant parties. So I can sympathize with his desire to maintain good intraparty relations while keeping up the fight for the soul of the VTGOP. But his essay is simultaneously a call for leadership, and a complete failure to exercise leadership himself. Not a good sign for a potential leader.

On the other hand, it’s just the ticket for the Lite-Guv’ship.  

It looks as if the jig may be up for Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency:

An opinion poll conducted by NHK of Japan, found that nearly half of those responding were against the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s plan to allow the restart of shut down nuclear reactors after safety checks. Only 19% of responders approved of the plan, 32% were undecided, and 45% were against it.

But PR life must go on for other Japanese industries; and so a refrigerator manufacturer, having the misfortune to be called “Fukushima Industries,” decided it was time to rehabilitate its brand.  

To inject what they thought would be just the right note of optimistic warm-and-fuzzy, the company chose a smiling (and presumably, unspoiled) egg wearing big red shoes and angel wings; and they named him “Fukupy.”

You heard that right: “Fukupy.”

The small, egg-shaped mascot greets visitors to the company website with the cheery message: “”I’m Fukuppy. I think I’m kind, with a strong sense of justice, but people say I’m a little bit scatterbrained.”

The unfortunate moniker works in Japanese by contracting the company name and combining it with the word for “happy.”   All this gets lost in translation, of course, leaving English speakers howling.

The company reportedly is going back to the drawing board with this one.

We really wish they would leave it alone…or better still, hand it off to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency; because Fukuppy says it all.