Crossposted at, you guessed it, The Vermont Political Observer.

Warm day in downtown Barre. Small crowd, mainly retirement age (Yr. Obdt. Svt. included) gathering on the front lawn of the Aldrich Public Library. The occasion? Scott Milne’s long-awaited launch of his gubernatorial candidacy.

Phil Scott was there. Jim Douglas was there. My frenemy Senator Joe Benning was there.

Who wasn’t there? Well, as far as I could tell, Barre’s Republican Mayor Thom Lauzon wasn’t there. And he usually manages to make himself conspicuous where the cameras gather. Interesting. I seem to recall Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz reporting that Lauzon and his wife donated $2,000 to Governor Shumlin’s campaign.

Checking… yes, yes he did.

Still, the front section of the library, comfortably air-conned, was full of Milne supporters and the legions of media desperately looking for a sure-fire story during the summer slump.

Milne was introduced by Douglas, who gave Mr. Bunny a hearty endorsement after delivering what sounded very much like a statement for his own candidacy. (Must’ve made the Republican audience wish for What Might Have Been; Douglas is their Beau Ideal.)

Douglas lauded Milne’s experience in “the real world” of business and commerce, someone “outside the bubble, unaffected by the stale air of the State House.” That’s rich, coming from a guy who spent virtually his entire adult life in that same stale air.

And then the Man of the Hour stepped to the plate, promising “a campaign of ideas” and said that he would “not be vilifying the Governor.”

In the following few minutes, Milne used these words in direct or indirect reference to the incumbent: questioning whether Shumlin’s course is “responsible and realistic,” calling the Governor’s agenda “ultra-progressive,” referring to Shumlin as “headstrong about the need for exuberance and rapid, radical change,:’ said the Administration was one of “unbridled experimentation,” decried “bullying tactics” and “brazen displays of power.”

But he won’t be “vilifying” the Governor. Bwahahaha.  

Milne depicted himself as moderate, “cautious,” “responsible,” and reluctant to make any wholesale changes. He said “cautious” a bunch of times.

The strategy, thus, becomes clear: in order to capture the center, Milne will go all-out to portray Shumlin as a fire-breathing radical. Without, of course, vilifying him in any way.

It’s hard to see this working. Shumlin spends far too much time courting the center and catering to the business community to be convincingly marginalized as an “ultra-progressive.” (When he said that, I could almost hear the guffaws exploding from Prog Central: “Shumlin a progressive? You must be joking!”)

After his speech, his crew made their way to the Elks Club next door for a hamburger lunch. It took Milne a while to get there; he first had to submit himself to his first media scrum. The key point for me was the inevitable exchange about Act 250, given his frustration and anger over the regulatory troubles facing his dream project, the mixed-use Quechee Highlands development. It’s run afoul of the regional Act 250 board and the town of Hartford.

Milne claimed that he is “very supportive of the concept of Act 250,” but then accused Shumlin of “hijacking something into a political ideology rather than a practical program that needs to be applied more pragmatically.”

Not exactly grammatical, but you get his drift. But when asked for specifics on how the Administration had hijacked the process, Milne came up short of the mark:

“I think if you look between the poor management at the Agency of Commerce over the last four years, very poor management at the Agency of Natural Resources, there’s very evidential answers right there.”

Not much meat on those bones, is there? He charges the Administration with “hijacking” the process — an aggressive power grab — and all he can offer as proof is a nonspecific charge of “poor management.”

Hey, a travel agent ought to know that it takes positive, organized action to hijack anything. You don’t do it by accident.

The Milne kickoff was a happy event for the true believers. But if this is the tack he’s going to take, he’s gonna get shellacked by the Governor.

 

Crossposted at The Vermont Political Observer, where you can also read my takes on that new “centrist” political action committee, the ethics and legalities of high-stakes political fundraising, and a Republican candidate’s kinda-sorta-almost call for “another 9/11” to wake up the country. You can’t make this stuff up.

Two news items on a single theme: Big Mac Mystery Meat, and toxic baubles.

Second one first, ‘cuz there’s a direct Vermont connection. Two-Fisted™ Attorney General Bill Sorrell has filed suit against Dollar Tree, purveyor of cheap crap and nothing but cheap crap, “for selling jewelry that contains toxic substances.”

What’s more, DT is a repeat offender. Sorrell says the botto m-barrel retailer is in violation of an earlier agreement to stop selling jewelry with unacceptably high levels of lead and cadmium. Charming. Sorrell’s office says the chain has sold “over 30,000 individual items… through its stores in Barre, Bennington, Burlington, Derby/Newport, and Rutland.”

The original 2010 settlement arose from what the AG’s office calls “a growing awareness… that many products imported from China and other countries contained toxic substances.” And the release adds, not at all reassuringly, that

“…although Dollar Tree routinely requires the testing of products it purchases for resale to consumers, its testing protocol does not ensure that all items of jewelry sold in its stores are free of toxic substances.”

So they require testing, but the testing program doesn’t ensure untainted products. I guess if they had a really thorough testing program, that’d interfere with the free and open flow of cheap crap. Which probably violates Dollar Tree’s constitutional right of free speech. Heck, if money is speech, isn’t a commercial transaction also speech?

On to Mystery Meat. McDonald’s, purveyor of oddly gray “hamburgers,” is portraying itself as “a bit deceived” over an audit of a Chinese meat supplier. The Daily Mail reports that Shanghai Husi Food was shut down after “a TV report showed workers apparently picking up meat from the factory floor, as well as mixing meat beyond its expiration date with fresh produce.” Yum, yum!

Mickey D’s CEO Don Thompson says “We are no longer serving product from the primary facility there that has the challenges and the issues.” I should hope so.

But that’s not the bad news.  

The bad news is this, from CNBC:  

McDonald’s and many other food companies rely on third parties to perform audits to check whether facilities are complying with food safety rules and other regulations. It is not uncommon for suppliers at the center of food safety scandals to have received high marks on their audits.

Apparently, a whole lot of weak links in our food chain is the hidden price we pay for Cheap McCrap. And cheap pizza and “chicken,” since KFC and Pizza Hut have also served meat from the factory floor and compost heap at Husi Food.

At least they didn’t find elevated levels of lead or cadmium. Then again, how can we be sure they’re testing for that?

 Wealthy tourists will soon get a chance to see the dramatic effects of climate change while luxuriously attended to.

High-end cruise operator Crystal Cruises has announced plans to become the world’s first luxury cruise line to sail the Arctic Ocean via the world famous and elusive Northwest Passage.

Scientific estimates are that the Northwest Passage, which runs along the northern coast of North America through the Canadian Arctic connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, will be open year round by mid-century or sooner. This passage is an arctic short-cut sea route sought by early polar explorers for hundreds of years. The growing effects of Climate Change are now allowing extended travel through the still difficult passage.  

The first luxury cruise an “expedition-style voyage” through the “once un-passable Arctic route” is scheduled for August 2016 aboard the Crystal Serenity.

“During this voyage, speakers will enlighten guests on information regarding climate change, and how it has impacted this passage. With the recent retreat of polar ice, the time is right for us to lead the way within the travel industry, as Crystal has done throughout our 25-year history.” [added italics]

The Crystal Serenity carries 1,070 passengers and boasts the highest crew-to-passenger ratio in the industry. It will be accompanied by an escort vessel to act as helicopter platform and Zodiacs.  Oh and Crystal Cruises wants you to know that both vessels on the 32-day cruise will run on low sulphur fuel.

Climate change has prompted a series of Northwest Passage “firsts” trips in quick succession recently. In 2006 the 365 ft. cruise liner MS Bremen made the trip, guided through the ice by satellite through the Northwest Passage. Then in 2012 and 2013 cargo ships carrying liquefied natural gas and coal made the journey. In 2014 a ship loaded with irony is scheduled to attempt the passage.

So see it all now, priced at $19,755 per person, double occupancy reserve now 20% deposit down ($500.00 non-refundable). Crystal Cruise says their trip will maneuver the

Yup, a tour made possible by climate change views a “vast unspoiled landscape.”

Well, you better act now, see it before it’s gone – and Bon voyage!  

Once touted as the answer to U.S. energy consumers’ dreams, it is beginning to look like the natural gas extraction process known as “fracking” may be as much of an envionmental obscenity as the name suggests.

First, neighbors in the vicinity of fracking operations in Pennsylvania complained of wells contaminated by chemical effluent from the process, and of uncontrolled methane releases into the aquifer that could actually make the water combustible.

Those complaints were dismissed by the industry as unproven and the “selling” of fracking to the American people as an unlimited source of cheap energy continued unabated.

When initial concerns were raised that pressurized fracturing of substrates far beneath the surface might induce earthquakes, they too were met with derision by the industry.

Vermont became the first state to place a moratorium on the practice in 2012, followed by other states.  In June of this year,  North Carolina lifted its moratorim on fracking before even ensuring that promised rules were in place.

As this extraction method rapidly spreads across the country, the negative evidence is mounting, and it suggests that the practice is even more damaging than originally imagined.

Methane, the volatile fracking byproduct that featured spectacularly in the early news, is a gas with far more potential to hurry climate change than even CO2.  There are massive amounts of this powerful greenhouse gas sequestered deep in the earth, comprising the primary component of the “natural” gas and oil that are the desired products of fracking.  

Freeing the natural gas for collection also frees excess methane to do its worst.

As if that weren’t enough to worry about, states like Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, which have not been known as earthquake prone, are suddenly alive with seismic activity.  These also happen to be among the states where fracking has been most enthusiastically adopted, and a correlation is beginning to establish itself between fracking and increased risk of earthquake.  

The risk may be primarily associated with the “discard” phase of the process, in which waste water and chemicals from the fracturing phase are discarded through injection into deep concrete-lined wells.  

Investigation of the phenomenon is still in its early stages and it won’t be known for some time whether the fracturing itself contributes to seismic activity; however, there is little disagreement that some aspect of the process is directly linked to greater seismic instability in areas not previously known for earthquakes.

One more negative which must be weighed against any remaining argument for the practice, has to do with another frequent byproduct of fracking: radiation.  Of particular concern is radium,  substantially present in the eastern shale deposits which happen to be rich repositories of oil and gas and therefore ripe for fracking exploitation.  

The radiation liberated in the fracturing phase escapes with methane into the atmosphere, and doubles-down its contamination when tailings from the extraction process are dumped, ultimately finding their way into the aquifer.  Radium-226, one of the radioactive substances sequestered in the oil rich shale beds, has a half-life of 1,600 years.

Tar sands and fracking: the worst of the worst.

In our last desperate attempts to quench an unsustainable thirst for energy, it seems we will commit to the fires anything that will burn, even our bridges.

The extremely popular Co-op Food Stores in Lebanon and Hanover, New Hampshire and White River Junction, Vermont are in a spot of bother over their employment practices, as exhibited in the recent firings of two longtime employees. Dan King and John Boutin, both with more than 10 years on the job, were fired without notice last month. The Valley News:

King, 56, said he was given a check for vacation pay, a check for the week he’d worked, and a severance package of one month’s pay. He also was told the company would continue his health insurance through July.

“They gave me a card of the HR person for if I had questions, and that was it. There was no handshake, no goodbye, no ‘thank you for your service,’ ” he said.

The Co-op was entirely within its rights. Labor law permits “at-will” firings unless terms of employment are otherwise specified, and the Co-op employee handbook makes it clear that employees serve on an “at-will” basis. (As the VNews article points out, most people don’t realize that the vast majority of non-union employees can be fired “at will.”)

Still, the firings seem a bit abrupt and contrary to the spirit of a cooperative. In this case, of course, the Co-op is an old-fashioned one — dating not from the Sixties or Seventies, but from the 1930s, and oriented entirely toward serving its members. Newer Co-ops, generally, aim to balance the interests of customers and workers.

Both King and Boutin had positive performance evaluations across the board. Both have had criticism for the Co-op’s policies and work environment, and both were involved in an effort to unionize Co-op workers. Co-op management has denied the firings have anything to do with unionization activity, but there’s been no alternative explanation; the Co-op cites labor law as requiring privacy in such matters. Which is true, but in this case it seems to serve the employer’s interest much more than the employee’s.

The Co-op Board will consider the “at-will” policy at a meeting on July 23. The meeting has been moved to the Hanover High School auditorium in the expectation of high turnout.

I’ve been a member of the Co-op for almost 15 years. (I’m also a member of the Hunger Mountain Co-op in Montpelier.) I’ve never had any reason to complain, and I have no inherent reason to mistrust Co-op management. But in the absence of a better explanation, I have to conclude that, at the very least, something smells a little funny here.  

The U.S. is nothing if not a study in contradictions. The same people who rail against a woman’s right to choose and marriage equality on Tuesday, rage on Wednesday at what they see as liberals trying to limit their rights: to guns…or God…or tax evasion…or pollution and despoilment…  

The folks who object to an influx of violence refugees on our southern border close ranks to prevent immigration reform legislation from getting a hearing in Congress while also slashing government funding that might at least provide more screening and enforcement capability to the department charged with maintaining border security.

But the contradictions don’t end at traditional political rivalries.

Look no further than the President himself to find a contradiction as vexing as any that plays out in Congress.

On the one hand, President Obama publicly dedicated his administration to curbing climate change.  The EPA is proposing new regulations to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants; and that’s a good thing, as detailed today in Vermont ANR Secretary Deb Markowicz’ op ed.

But even if the EPA succeeds in making this one stick, the “other hand” of Obama has just dealt a resounding slap to the future of clean air by proposing to permit, by executive order, sonic exploration for oil and gas deposits beneath the ocean floor; and seems likely, in this election year, to cave to political pressures and endorse the Keystone XL Pipeline.

By itself, either of these two initiatives has the potential to release enough CO2 over the coming decades to completely dwarf current emissions from coal-fired power plants;  nevermind the collateral environmental risks of each.

So, we have to ask if the Obama administration is just as short-sighted as its science-denying opposites.

Indeed, to accept the science but take anything but a hardline against fossil fuel expansion is worthy of even greater condemnation than might be directed toward the hopelessly ignorant.

  Last month on the 17th President Obama announced that through executive order he would create the world’s largest marine protected area in the Pacific Ocean. But this move wasn’t quite complete. The President has not determined what the size of the area will be or what specific statute it will be created under.

So fast forward to now … but not too fast or you might not even see it. What is it? It’s an announcement on a mid-Summer Friday of a thorough and specific ocean plan for the Atlantic. Obama just got the ball rolling on opening the Atlantic Coast to oil drilling exploration. The current prohibition will be lifted on the area from Delaware to Florida.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management [BOEM] gave oil companies permission to scan the ocean floor for oil and gas deposits using powerful sonic blasts – a technology that the government estimates could harm nearly 140,000 sea creatures, including endangered whales and sea turtles, the Associated Press first reported.

This is a step in eventually allowing oil companies to apply for federal drilling leases in 2018.Some Florida elected officials and environmentalists are already letting it be known they are unhappy with this move. I’d guess they haven’t gotten over  the Deepwater Horizon disaster in Florida as quickly as Washington has.

The “sonic cannons” or “seismic air guns” used in this process fire shockwaves beneath the ocean floor. This produces waves of sound (100 times louder than a jet engine) that then bounce back to the surface. The BOEM acknowledges potential risks to sea life, but claim they have developed a “balanced approach” to help understand the potential offshore resource. Survey results will also map marine habitats and other undersea data but will remain proprietary corporate secrets disclosed only to the government.  

Balanced approach to coastal risks but export oil, baby, export. All this “sonic cannon” exploration comes while the 1975 ban on shipping US crude overseas continues to erode. Some policy makers and the oil industry are almost delirious at the prospect of loading US oil into tankers and sending it overseas to sell.  

At a White House ceremony celebrating this yet-to-be-planned marine life protection area in the Pacific Ocean, Obama recalled:

“Growing up in Hawaii, I learned early to appreciate the beauty and power of the ocean,”

Well, you know the ocean’s beauty and power are one thing but, whoa, how about that “sonic cannon?” Obama saveth in the Pacific and selleth in the Atlantic, yet the world’s oceans are all one. Ah, trade-offs.  

Book reviews are a little out of the ordinary for GMD; but as it touches on homelessness, exploitation and nuclear cataclysm, Vermont novelist Chris Bohjalian’s latest release ventures right into our bailiwick.

Known for his well-researched, issue oriented story-telling, in “Close Your Eyes. Hold Hands” (Doubleday), Bohjalian invokes the nightmare of a homegrown Fukushima-style nuclear disaster.

The pivotal event takes place not in Vernon, but at a fictitious facility located in the Northeast Kingdom; and Bohjalian has taken great pains with the technical accuracy of his story.  Benefitting from the counsel of our mutual friends at Fairewinds Energy Education, Maggie and Arnie Gundersen, the author successfully avoids pure sensation while telling a poignant tale of life in the shadowy aftermath of a massive radiation release.

The story is told by Emily, a fifteen-year-old girl whose parents have presumably died in the accident, and who are believed by the fleeing population to have been guilty of negligence leading to the reactor meltdown.

Isolated both by the loss of her parents and the real and imagined hostility she encounters as their daughter, Emily slips away during a mass evacuation of her schoolmates, adopts a false identity and flees alone.  

She ends up living the life of a homeless youth in Burlington, eking out a sordid living in the company of other desperate individuals, including a nine-year-old child whom she attempts to protect as a surrogate for all the loved ones she expects never to see again.

She cannot fully abandon the idea of returning to the Exclusion Zone where her home was, in order to finally achieve closure;  and the certain knowledge that she must inevitably confront the mortal truth of her family’s fate underlies her daily battle just to survive and evade the authorities.

Bohjalian does a credible job of imagining the interior dialogue of a teenage girl of exceptional intellect but conflicted emotions.  Emily is devoted to the poetry of her namesake, Emily Dickinson, and the story  is interwoven with facts about the poet with which a troubled young woman might identify.

It is also rich with references to landmarks and habits that anyone familiar with the downtown Burlington scene would relate to as authentic.

Remembering Bohjalian’s delightful features in the Free Press back in the days of his own daughter’s infancy and early years, when he was just learning about the unfamiliar world of little girls,  it is easy to imagine that she was his inspiration when he chose the challenging viewpoint from which to unwind his narrative.

It is always risky for an author to adopt the voice of the opposite gender; even more so if it is the voice of that gender in the turbulent years of youth when, by design, her mannerisms, tastes and even vocabulary are almost hermetically inaccessible.

That the reader can forget the male novelist’s identity for a while and enter the painful world of a displaced girl child is a testament to Bohjalian’s talent. It suggests a penchant for risk-taking that parallel’s that of his young heroine.

It is only in the closing pages of the book that we are reminded of where we recall hearing the title sentence

“Close your eyes. Hold hands.”

Those were the instructions given by police to the small survivors of the Sandy Hook massacre as they were led away from the building through a path strewn with the corpses of their classmates.  

In raising that memory, Bohjalian reminds us that life-altering tragedy is an every day possibility for each innocent in our perilous world.

(This probably should have made it to the front page sooner; but there’s been a lot going on here; and better late than never.   – promoted by Sue Prent)

UPDATE: Today on VPR was an amazingly frank interview with “Beau Kilmer, a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corporation.”  While quite brief it was refreshing to hear actual facts being discussed, not hyperbole and blatant falsehoods.  After 30 years of Just Say No propaganda and outright lies about Cannabis I have come to NOT expect such truth through any media…

http://digital.vpr.net/post/ra…

A little late to the pot party, Vermont finally does something to legitimize the second biggest cash crop in Vermont.  Shumlin announced that Vermont is handing $20,000 over to the Rand Corporation (with an unspecified amount coming from an unnamed foundation) for them to study all aspects of legalizing pot, including a report of Colorado and Washington state’s rollout.  They say the report will be on legislator’s desks next January.

Jeb Spaulding was interviewed by Bob Kinzel from VPR and his report on Wednesday, Spaulding mentions some aspects of the study.  But what I think is the most important part was not mentioned: the savings to be found in the criminal justice budget by not prosecuting and jailing pot offenses.  I certainly hope that’s going to be addressed, one would think that would be a ‘no brainer’…

http://digital.vpr.net/post/sh…

Crossposted at The Vermont Political Observer, where you can also enjoy my recent musings on Republican County Committees, a famous actor supporting a local Democrat, and… Gucci Beer. Again.

So the Democrats (and Prog/Dems) have a supermajority in the Vermont Senate. They rule the roost. And they’re almost certain to retain a big edge next year; even the Republicans are hoping to win no more than two or three seats.

Which makes me wonder why the two Democratic members of a key committee, plus the chair of a very important committee, have endorsed a Republican for one of Vermont’s highest offices, and are likely to get away with this bit of disloyalty.

I’m talking about John Campbell and Dicks Mazza and Sears. The first two sit on the Senate’s Committee on Committees along with their favorite Republican, Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott. Sears chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. All three have endorsed their buddy Scott and turned their backs on the likely Democratic standard-bearer* and only liberal in the race, Progressive Dean Corren, in spite of the fact that Governor Shumlin has given public support to Corren.

*Corren has to win the Democratic primary as a write-in. He should be able to do that, but it’s no sure thing; Mazza’s openly talking of a write-in campaign for Scott. Which would lead to a goddamn embarrassment for Vermont’s dominant party: a Republican in the #2 spot on its ticket.

If these men keep their privileged positions, it’ll be a disgrace. And, based on past history, it’ll almost certainly happen.

The Committee on Committees is an obscure bit of Senate hierarchy, with one big exception. Every two years, it selects all the chairs and members of all the Senate committees. That is one big moment of muscle-flexing for an otherwise quiescent body.

The three members of the CoC are: the Senate President (Lieutenant Governor), the President Pro Tem, and a Senator elected by the entire Senate. For many years now, Dick Mazza has been rubber-stamped into this position – even though this is far from the first time he’s endorsed a top Republican. He supported Brian Dubie for Governor in 2010, and has backed Phil Scott every time he’s run for Lieutenant Governor.

The lopsided Democratic majority could eject Mazza in a hot minute and instead reward a more faithful member of their party. They could also choose a President Pro Tem who’s more in step with the party’s mainstream. And the new CoC could replace Sears on Judiciary. But, given the hidebound nature of the Senate, I fully expect that all three will retain their influential positions this fall.

There’s no good reason for this. The explanation, of course, is the mutual respect of Senators and their unwillingness to publicly embarrass a colleague. Which is not a good reason, just a dearly-held rationale in the hearts of our solons.

Campbell, Mazza, and Sears do not deserve to be rewarded for their disloyalty. If there’s anything like party discipline within the one-sided majority, the Senate’s Committee on Committees will get a makeover. And, ideally, somebody else will wield the gavel come January.

But, as I said, I don’t expect it to happen. The Senate’s too damn clubby for that.

(It’s not often these days that Vermont Republicans get to enjoy a laugh at the Dems’ expense. They must be blowing chortle-bubbles in their Scotch glasses over this.)