Van lines survey: VT second highest number of people moving in

Business, National,

For the third year in a row a survey by United Van Lines [Ed. updated link 3/17] suggests Vermont is a desirable location for people wishing to relocate. movinvtUnited is one of the nation’s largest moving companies and has tracked customer state-to-state migration for the past 40 years.  In the 2016 national study Vermont moved up from third to the second of the top states with increases of inbound moves.

Moving In: The top inbound states of 2016 were:

  1. South Dakota
  2. Vermont
  3. Oregon
  4. Idaho
  5. South Carolina
  6. Washington
  7. District of Columbia
  8. North Carolina
  9. Nevada
  10. Arizona 

Vermont’s jump continues our state’s trend up, which runs counter to other states’ trends in the Northeast. New Jersey tops outbound states with New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania continuing to have substantial outbound moves according to the United Van lines survey.

Despite certain demographic challenges to population growth (aging population, people leaving, and a low birth rate) Vermont is, at least according United’s survey, going against a trend toward outbound growth in Northeastern states. Although our population is staying the same or slightly declining we are doing something right regarding this positive trend.

Obama, Sanders and Clinton beat Trump! Says end of year poll

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What was wrong with 2016? Well at least it is coming to a close and various year end lists and polls are appearing. One of them is Gallup’s most admired person poll.wwww2016

Since 1946 the Gallup organization has conducted a poll of Americans asking them which man or woman in the world they admire the most. Perhaps the good news for Democrats stung by the recent election is that for the ninth year in a row President Obama was the one found to be most admired. Hillary Clinton was named the most admired woman. The poll conducted Dec. 7-11, 2016, was based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,028 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Obama won with 22 percent of the vote. Trump came in second with 15 percent, Pope Francis was third with 4 percent and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders came in fourth place with 2 percent of the vote.

Obama has the second-largest number of first-place finishes among men. The first place goes to former President Eisenhower, who was named Most Admired Man 12 times.

On the female side, Americans named Hillary Clinton their Most Admired Woman. It was her 15th consecutive year at the top spot, and her 21st time overall at the top of the list, a Gallup record.

First lady Michelle Obama came in second among the most-admired women, followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. 

Not sure what value any of this has in the bigger scheme of things but given the grim year coming to a close maybe it offers a wee bit of a bright spot.

The not-so-good news is President-elect Trump was only seven percentage point behind Obama. So what was wrong with 2016?

waylaughing

Santa and the Doodle-Li-Boop

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This version of Twas the Night before Christmas is  worth hearing at least once a year.It’s suitable for work and guaranteed Trump free!

And it seems this was just one of Art Carney’s “hits” –along with “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”, his spoken-word record, accompanied only by a jazz drummer, poem in syncopation Carney performed “The Song of the Sewer”, sung in character as Norton (This was the character Carney played on the early TV  comedy The Honeymooners)

 

A visit from Old Nick

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Christmas is just one week away, and democratic oblivion may not be far behind.  In this darkest of times, I thought it appropriate to revisit a classic, seen through a new lens.  The words are mine, but when I turned to the internet for images, I found surprisingly many. My favorite was the one signed “Hefner 2015” and sourced from consumepopculture.com.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the housetrumpus
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Prayers had been said and candles snuffed out,
The children lay dreaming, no clue what about.

The grownups were gone; they succumbed to the flu
Leaving two little girls to try and make do.
The peace of their sleep was abruptly ended
As the clear sense of evil upon them descended.

Away to the window Meg crept from her bed
And peeped through the curtains, heart pounding with dread.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow
Lent an eerie suspense to the quiet below.

Drawn as she was to see what was out there
Meg failed to notice the smell of burnt hair.
It came from the hearth in that very room
And from it delivered a Creature of Doom.

Out from the chimney his minions they came
And he whistled and cackled and called them by name;
“Now Hellfire! Now Brimstone! Now Pitchfork and Vixen!
On Pestilence, Plague! On Donder and Blitzen!”

“To the one by the window! To the one in the bed
Don’t let them escape or it’s off with your head!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky;
So into the room came the hell angel flood
Surrounding the children and screeching for blood.

Then He Himself emerged from the din,
Ultimate Evil, the Father of Sin.
Meg recoiled at the vision and raced to the bed
To save her wee sister, the last of her kin.

She gathered herself to her maximum height,
Picked-up the broomstick and charged him with might.
The Terrible Beast was so taken aback
That he momentarily ceased the attack.

Too soon he recovered, his fury excited.
He reached for Meg’s sister; the room was ignited.
But before he could carry the child away
The trumpet of dawn introduced a new day.

Their evil tormenter now cringed from the light;
He and his minions were ready for flight.
As the shriveled-up husks of the nightmare receded,
Meg said to herself, something final was needed.

Drawing a breath from the depth of her being
She blew like the wind as the specters were fleeing.
A cloud of grey dust was the only left trace
Of the horrible hoards and the devilish face.

Then in a twinkling as daylight poured in,
Up the chimney it went and away with the wind.
But as it flew off, Meg could still faintly hear,
“Just wait ’til I get you the same time next year!”

 

 

Feminist Impersonator, Christina Hoff Sommers

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I’ve got to say that the most recent op-ed by conservative, Christina Hoff Sommers brought forth an involuntary wince from me. It’s making the rounds of the usual suspects including the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. I caught it in the St. Albans Messenger, and here, for what it is worth, Is my two cents on the subject:

In the wake of Donald Trump’s macho march to power, how anyone could deny that the U.S. is essentially a patriarchy is beyond me. It has confirmed what most women have suspected since puberty, that there is a tacit acceptance culture of catcalls, pinches and grabs governing the male-centric universe. Despite efforts to codify protections from those behaviors, they persist and go largely unchecked in the greater U.S.

I don’t know with whom Ms. Sommers is hobnobbing, but few of the feminists in my acquaintance have been “man-haters.” Those that were generally had a pretty concrete personal experience of abuse that put them in that frame of mind. If you’ve been bitten by a savage pitbull, you aren’t likely to be overly fond of the entire breed.

I can only assume that Ms. Sommers lives in some bubble of privilege and has therefore been spared the frequent reminders of women’s inferior status vis-a-vis practical power, that the majority of women now simply take for granted as the norm.

It’s funny that she criticizes the contemporary feminist, who typically is young, single, sharing a crowded apartment and carrying a ton of student debt, as “elitist,” when she herself so clearly meets the definition of a class elite:

Forty years after Roe vs. Wade enshrined a woman’s constitutional right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, we have come to a place where that right has never been in greater jeopardy, and even birth control is under attack. The very idea that women should not have the right to make choices concerning their own bodies is paternalistic.

Meanwhile, male “choice” through chemical performance enhancement is fully funded without question, and represents a booming sector of the pharmaceutical market.

Concerning the “Womens’ March On Washington” scheduled for January 21, Ms. Sommers offered this snooty suggestion:

“If I may offer some unsolicited advice. If that voice is calm and judicious rather than hyperbolic and harping, people just might listen.”

Well, thank you very much for the advice Ms. Sommers. That and a nickel won’t even get you a ride on the streetcar these days. As a matter or record, we are on the whole the calmer, more judicious gender.

It took many generations to get up enough lather to challenge the patriarchy in the last decade of the twentieth century, but no sooner had we declared a modest victory following Roe, and confidently retreated from the battlements, than the old habits of patriarchy began to reassert themselves.  Now, as we near the second decade of the twenty-first century, many of us look back and see how much ground we have lost in the battle for true gender equality.

I think the election of an admitted sexual predator to the highest office in the land by significantly less than half the electorate is reason enough to raise our voices in protest.

(written in memory of GMD’s late, great pillar of feminist argument, Julie Waters.)

Norm McAllister faces another accuser in January

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The New Year is quickly closing in on us. While we are all preoccupied with what national horrors January 20 will usher in, Franklin County women may want to take note that the second trial of accused sexual predator and former state senator Norm McAllister is scheduled for the week of January 9, 2017. The pretrial conference and jury selection are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of that week, and the actual trial begins on Wednesday, January 11 at 8:30 AM at the Franklin County Courthouse on Lake St. in St. Albans.

I plan to be there in symbolic support of the three alleged victims, even though only one of those victims’ complaints will be heard that week. I hope many more local women will join me there.

The first trial, which took place last fall, turned out to be no more than an exercise in humiliation for the young woman complainant. In the courtroom, men significantly outnumbered women, and the front rows of the gallery were lined with male members of the press and the defendant’s allies. It’s funny how that happens.

So the victim was confronted foremost with a throng of curious but indifferent male faces as she attempted to summon memories of the most intimate and embarrassing details of the attacks.  The accused, on the other hand, sat facing front and was never required to answer a single question.

I described the experience in great detail on GMD in the hope that more women would feel compelled to fill those front seats at the next trial to give the victim a little moral support.

The third victim has since passed away in circumstances that have not been shared. She was the mother-in-law of the victim who will be testifying in January.

Like so many victims of unspeakable assaults and sex trafficking, these are women who were already challenged by poverty and a total lack of alternatives. Victims such as these do not tend to have confident and articulate friends who are likely to show up in a courtroom to demonstrate their support.  An unpleasant courtroom experience is therefore made even more lonely and punishing for them.

It is no wonder that the young woman who testified at the last trial crumbled under pressure from a relentless attorney skilled at targeting her weaknesses. We owe these women our gratitude for their courage and sacrifice in bringing these crimes to trial. It may seems a thankless job, but for every woman who does step forward to charge her attacker, there are dozens who simply bottle up the nightmare inside them, so that their tormenter remains free to attack again.

Was justice served in the first McAllister trial? I don’t think so, and many others agree; but that is faint comfort for the young woman who was returned to the blunt world from which she had emerged, far worse for the wear and without the benefit of closure.

So, if you, like me, feel that sexual assault against one woman is a crime against all women; and sexual assault committed by a man of stature and responsibility against a weak and vulnerable woman is particularly repugnant; perhaps you will think about showing up and wearing a teal-colored ribbon to show your support for victims of sexual violence.

Trump’s Business Pick’s History With Steroids

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Donald Trump revealed several more administration picks today; and while there will undoubtedly be plenty of discussion of the others, one might just slip through the cracks without any discussions of the skeleton in her closet.

The president-elect named WWE bigwig, Linda McMahon to head the Small Business Administration, citing her experience together with husband Vince McMahon in turning the WWE into a billion-dollar business.

What no one has so far mentioned about Mrs. McMahon is that in 2010, following the lurid murder/ suicide scandal of Canadian WWE star Claude Benoit, she was called to testify before Congress on the topic of rampant steroid abuse within that enterprise. Benoit had taken his life after murdering his wife and children.

Steroid distribution was not even illegal until 1988. In 1991 steroids were officially classified as “controlled substances.” Nevertheless, use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs continued to be rampant in the WWE, and all roads seemed to lead to Vince McMahon who was caught in the snare set by the feds for one Dr. Zahorian who supplied McMahon’s stable of ‘athletes’ with their drugs.

Due to “sloppy procedural errors,” the case against McMahon was dismissed.

Then, in 2010, following an unsuccessful Senate run by Linda McMahon, a 1991 memo from Linda to the other execs at Titan Sports (parent of WWE) turned up, which suggested a tip-off may have occurred when her husband was under investigation:

“Although you and I discussed before about continuing to have Zahorian at our events as the doctor on call, I think that is now not a good idea…Vince agreed, and would like for you to call Zahorian and to tell him not to come to any more of our events and to also clue him in on any action that the Justice Department is thinking of taking.” 

The story is lengthy and baroque, but well worth a read. The long and the short of it is that the feds have never been able to hold either McMahon accountable, thanks in part to the long reach of their gold-plated associations.

My interest in the McMahons dates to a single year in my own amateur body-building competitive “career” back in 1991(?)   Vince McMahon was the chairman of the amateur division of the IFBB. Having won the regional title in Burlington, I came under the wing of the regional chair (who will remain nameless) and had the opportunity to compete in nationals down in Orlando. As I was truly a natural I knew I didn’t have the chance of a snowball in hell of even placing, but went just for the experience…which did not disappoint, let me tell you.

It was very WWF, complete with “trophy girls” in spike heels, big hair and spangled bikinis. The audience looked like it had descended from a region of outer space somewhere near Vegas. It was as much of a spectacle as anything that took place on stage. No one smiled or spoke backstage and there was none of the camaraderie one encountered at regional events.

I remember going to breakfast in the dining room of the motel where we were all staying and seeing Vince McMahon and what looked like a bodyguard of bouncer/mobsters wolfing down waffles and eggs with a steely, unwelcoming look on their faces.

Of course, by then my regional chair had regaled me extensively on the steroid story, even subtly hinting that I might want to try it myself. It was well known back then that ‘everyone’ in the IFBB, was using and that it was actually encouraged in order to exploit the entertainment value of freakishly overdeveloped bodies.

Even the amateur women were doing it, as I discovered when I walked into the waiting room at sign-in. These gals bore no resemblance to the amateurs I had competed against at home.

“Scary,” I thought, soon after abandoning any thought of continuing with bodybuilding.

Steroid use in the IFBB was simply a given, and McMahon and his goons were the very picture of an underworld vibe. As little as I ever cared for wrestling, I was certainly intrigued when the WWF took off and the McMahons became a freak show for the whole world to observe.

I guess the point of this stroll down memory lane is just to say that Linds McMahon’s chops as a “small business” entrepreneur were built on exploitation of illegal drug use and a generally very shady past.

I wonder how long it will take the media to unwrap this pungent package of poo?

Tayt Brooks finds a job

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Guess who’s getting his hands on the cookie jar?

Governor Elect Phil Scott announced a number of appointments today, but the one that really piqued my interest was that of St. Albans’ own Tayt Brooks who will serve as “director of affordability and and economic initiatives.”

As you may recall, Brooks occupied space in the Douglas administration as “economic development commissioner.” It sounds pretty much like his old job has simply been rebranded to protect the innocent.

It’s an interesting position for Brooks who formed his own superPAC, Vermonters First, and famously coaxed Leonore Broughton into parting with north of $100,000. in 2012, laboring and bringing forth a goose egg for Republicans in statewide elections…other than that of incumbent Lt. Gov., Phil Scott.

As director of that superPAC, Brooks got himself into hot water over having dinner with gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock during the 2012 campaign.  That’s strictly a no-no, as it has the optics of coordination between the campaign and the supposedly “independent” superPAC. Of course we believed that the topic of the election campaign was never even mentioned!

In that same election cycle, Vermonters First sent Franklin County voters an absentee ballot request to complete that resembled an actual ballot and apparently confused many voters.

As I recall, the activities of the superPAC belied the notion of anything that could remotely be considered“coordinated”…or even competent!

One ham handed-flyer distributed by VF-PAC was so garish and badly designed that we at GMD speculated that Brooks had amateurishly designed it himself on his own computer, so that less of Ms. Broughton’s dough went out the door. Would that was all! The flyer also featured the Seal of the State of Vermont. On campaign literature, that is also a big “no-no,” and even caught national attention.

Leonore was at it again in the 2016 cycle, even though Vermonters First appears to have evaporated. The entire superPAC depended upon one donor, and I suspect she figured she could do just as well (or poorly) without Brooks ministrations.  At least she bagged herself a governor this go-round.

Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I plan to put the office of “affordability and economic iniitatives” on speed-dial at my house.

There are a whole lot of affordability challenges that Mr. Brooks ought to be tackling, like telephone, cable and internet service; prescription drugs, textbooks…and fresh fruits and vegetables! The list goes on and on.

Somehow I suspect Mr. Brooks attention will not be devoted to making ordinary Vermonters’ lives more affordable; the ones who are just struggling to get by.  It’s pretty easy to guess that this office will have its laser focus on making business (and I don’t mean Mom & Pop operations) more “affordable.” That’s where the “incentives” come in. We’re not talking free in-state tuition for students who commit to living and working here after college graduation. We’re talking tax cuts, custom infrastructure and other goodies for the likes of IBM.

I suppose Brooks was bound to get office space from Scott.  Hopefully, the governor won’t  allow him to play with scissors.

 

Monday Trump administration fun-facts!

Business, National, , , ,

Donald Trump’s buildings are always (he says) the tallest, but according to the Washington Post  his cabinet really will, by far and away be the richest one ever! Biggestly!

When George W. Bush assembled his first Cabinet in 2001, news reports dubbed them a team of millionaires, and government watchdogs questioned whether they were out of touch with most Americans’ problems. Combined, that group had an inflation-adjusted net worth of about $250 million — which is roughly one-tenth the wealth of Donald Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary alone.

Commerce Department Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross, Jr., is a longtime Trump acquaintance (he managed one of Trump’s bankruptcies). Forbes rates him the 232nd wealthiest person in the US, with a net worth of $2.5 billion.

Ross has worldwide interests according to the maritime news publication gcaptain.com: fatcatrowboat5[Ross] built his fortune investing in troubled companies, including the oil and gas, steel and financial industries. He has a large ownership stake in Navigator Holdings, and his Diamond S Shipping is one of the world’s biggest owners of medium-range products tankers.

As the agency’s name suggests The Department of Commerce is charged with promoting American business in the US and overseas.This  includes gathering economic data, enforcing international trade agreements, and issuing trademarks and patents. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is part of the Commerce Department. NOAA (which includes the National Weather Service) manages scientific data on weather, oceans, and climate conditions to assess the health of the world’s oceans. I recall recent efforts by Congressional Republicans to privatize the U S Weather Service.

So fat-cat Wilbur Ross, Jr., as Commerce Secretary may soon oversee NOAA — but under President Trump I doubt he needs a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.