Update #2 December 27, Downed Wire Day 33 (no doggerel this time): The day after Christmas (Friday 26th), a  guy temping for FairPoint showed up, a day late and a truck short. His truck had broken down, he said, and he was driving his girlfriend’s Blazer. Girlfriend was doing the ride-along. All he had for equipment was a ladder, and no back-up, to haul up 200-plus feet of phone line to a height that would allow unimpeded access for delivery trucks and emergency vehicles. When I got home from errand-running, the line was up, sort of, lower than normal, at its lowest point about as high as my DIY pole. He left the ladder, so we assumed he would be coming back with help.

WRONG! I just saw the taillights heading down the driveway, and the ladder is gone, so I guess he’s done as much as he’s going to do. That line will be down in the first ice-storm, and then we’ll get to do it all again. {Heavy sigh}

Well, here’s the newest update on the FairPoint phone line draped across the driveway saga, now 31 32 days old.

Got a phone call this morning (December 24) from “private name, private number” who turned out to be “Byron,” from FairPoint, speaking with a slight southern accent. He was checking in to see whether the problem still exists, and whether it would be okay for a couple of technicians to drop by tomorrow – yep, on Christmas – “to take a look at it.”

Of course I said okay. And I note that no repair promise was made. And I thought, “Gee, FairPoint must be paying something like triple overtime to get these folks to work on Christmas.”

I was getting ready to go picket with the unions, and maybe I’ll still do that, to show solidarity from someone who has been waiting over a month for a repair and who puts the responsibility where it truly belongs: on the incompetent, intransigent management.

Merry-Happy-Whatever-You-Celebrate, friends. Please keep a kind thought for the unions – Communications Workers of America (Local 1400), and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (Local 2326) – who are struggling for their jobs and dignity and fighting a widespread public perception that they are to blame for the backlog of no-service, no-repair complaints.

Update: Here’s the promised doggerel with today’s (non-) events:

A FairPoint Christmas

‘Twas the day before Christmas, and when the phone rang

A guy named “Byron” from the FairPoint gang

Said they’d be working tomorrow, would it be okay

For a crew to come here by truck or by sleigh

To look at the line over the driveway hung low

With a word of apology for being so slow.

Of course, said I. It’s been four weeks,

A little more, even, and my tone was bleak.

I slept that night with extra hope for the morrow,

Tempered with a sense of cynical sorrow.

Two weeks in I had built us a quick-fix pole –

To make space for our cars was the immediate goal.

And it worked well enough for us to go under

It stood through two storms to my great wonder.

But now FairPoint would fix it, or so Byron said.

I spent a nice Christmas, hope mingled with dread.

I checked all day, I could see it from here,

That fragile pole still keeping the driveway clear

Enough for Wayne who delivered our wood.

And when Ross plowed the driveway that pole still stood.

Good thing, too, since as darkness fell

There was no news from FairPoint, nothing to tell.

No guys with a truck, no temps who’d been hired

To come to the sticks to fix our phone wire.

I felt bad for the union folks out on their strike

Who’d be back at work, except for the spite

Of managers and owners who refused to agree

To concessions workers made with deliberate speed.

Those workers had a Christmas but only just thanks

To people who donated toys to their ranks

So the kids would manage a bit of good cheer

In what has been a very lean year.

Six p.m. has gone by, and there’s no sign of a truck,

Just one more instance where the customer’s stuck

With lousy service and promises broken

Regardless of the rosy words that were spoken.

If I had a choice, I’d cancel my service.

But with no cell near, I’d be rather nervous.

And without a connection for web and WiFi

How would I then political trickery decry?

I’m with the unions, FairPoint should settle,

The workers have shown such strength and such mettle.

The issues are serious, customers leaving in droves,

What more do you need to drive the point home?

And so I exclaim as I peer through the night

Support the workers, my friends, the unions are right!

[Update #3: Day 15, still no action from FairPoint beyond a couple of phone calls. I had contacted the Vermont Dept. of Public Service again on Friday to make sure our repair ticket and lack-of-service-complaint had not been closed out since we do have a dial tone. I was assured that it would not be closed until the line was fixed, although Christine Peterson at DPS said she could not really push FairPoint too hard because folks without dial tone service were a priority. Within a couple of hours, “Carrie” who identified herself as calling from FairPoint (Maine area code) left a message inviting me to call back to let her know “if they’ve fixed that line yet.” It was not a toll-free number. I called, left a message (“No, Carrie, of course ‘they’ haven’t fixed the line, as I’m sure you know. And I note this is not a toll-free call, so I want you to remove the charge for this call from my bill.”

At least the guy who plows my driveway will be able to get under the wire now that I’ve propped it up with my jury-rig. That could be important in the next couple of days.

[Update #2:  On Day 9 of the downed-wire-across-the driveway FairPoint non-response, my firewood supplier had called to say he was bringing 3 cords. With wood being in short supply, I didn’t turn him down. Instead, I jury-rigged my own pole out of stuff I had on hand: plastic conduit and a broomstick anchored to a metal fence post I hammered into the side of the driveway (not to worry, phone lines this old are all low-voltage and coated) to lift the wire. It was high enough for the truck to get through, and it survived the windy, snowy, sleety night, and may last long enough for the second load of firewood to be delivered tomorrow, which will be Day 11. Crossing my fingers … oh, that’s what FairPoint’s plan is, too, I guess. But they’re getting paid for less and less service.]

[Update #1: Response from Public Service Department; robocall from FairPoint; live person call from Fairpoint. See comments for details.]

It’s been a week since a big section of a neighbor’s pine tree blew down across my driveway, taking out the power and phone lines. I walked down to the also power-and-phone-less neighbor’s to borrow a car so I could drive up to Town Hall to phone in the report to Green Mountain Power.

Now, I’m not particularly thrilled with Gaz Metro’s near-monopoly ownership of Vermont’s electric (GMP, acquired in 2007; Central Vermont Public Service, 2012) and gas (Vermont Gas, 1986) companies in Vermont. Not to mention the company’s (ahem) absorption of a rate-payer-financed loan without repayment, a deal okayed by the Shumlin Administration and the Public Service Board.

But I admit to being impressed when a GMP truck, complete with bucket lift, rolled into the lower third of my driveway an hour after the call, and disgorged two guys with a chainsaw. The driveway was cleared and electric power restored in about another hour.

Contrast that with FairPoint’s total lack of response. The GMP/Gaz Metro guys had told us that they could not – were not allowed to – restring the phone line. They tied a couple pieces of orange surveyor’s tape onto the wire where it draped obliquely across the driveway, and that was that. I was not surprised.

So, my wife filed a wire-down repair request that day via FairPoint’s website. The next day, Tuesday the 25th, I filed another. On Friday (late Thursday night) I sent another. Having the wire draped low over the driveway means no deliveries from FedEx or UPS. Getting the tenth-of-a-mile-long driveway plowed is problematic. I have now also filed a complaint with the Public Service Department.

I’ve now heard from a mutual friend that a gentleman, a double-amputee who lives with his wife on a dirt road just a couple of miles from the middle of town, can’t get FairPoint to fix his phone line either.*

[Update 12/8/14: Spoke to the man’s wife today. She said their line was repaired, took about a week. I said we were still waiting; her response: “well, you have two legs.” Yeah, there’s that.]

At best, FairPoint management’s pre-snowstorm confidence seems entirely misplaced:

Expressing confidence, a FairPoint spokesperson stressed the fill-in techs are experienced and well trained.

In a statement, FairPoint said despite the strike, network reliability hasn’t  been interrupted and emergency 911 service has been fully operational, though there have been a small number of customers who’ve been “inconvenienced” by the strike.

Especially given the post-storm Saturday disclosure of a nearly 6-hour outage* affecting 9-1-1 emergency reporting and dispatch services in “many communities” on Friday afternoon and evening. Guess who three weeks ago took over the contract for that?

[*corrected from 4]

So, between the company’s casual and negative response to its striking workers, the total lack of action or even communication regarding repairs, the inept handling of Vermont’s 9-1-1 service, and the increasing number of consumer complaints, it looks like calling FairPoint is a wrong number.  

Dear Governor Shumlin,

Congratulations on having the Lt. Governor’s race turn out exactly the way you (and Floyd Neese, and Jeb Spaulding, etc.) intended: the Progressives got tagged with the loss, the Democrats didn’t (couldn’t) spend (“waste”) any of “your” money on it because of public financing restrictions, and you got your fair-haired, tame, “nice-guy” Republican for the “we-govern-in-a-bipartisan-manner” photo ops.

Too bad about Corren and the Democratic and Progressive base actually believing in your early “endorsement.” But then again, it's good for politicians and voters to know how much your endorsement is actually worth, since after your early “endorsement,” you went out of your way not to mention the Progressive potential ally on healthcare reform. We also know this tactic as throwing someone under the bus.

While (soon-to-be-former) Free Press political and State House reporters Nancy Remsen and Terri Hallenbeck and Seven Days columnist Paul Heintz have published many pages of election analysis, much of which was likely somewhat reassuring to you, I thought you should hear about the other side of your narrow plurality and the ways in which you, yourself, managed to, as my colleague Caoimhin Laochdha so aptly put it, “suppress [your] own vote.”

There was a split in the Democratic Party between the base that stayed home or symbolically voted ‘none of the above’ for Governor, and the old bulls (and moneyed interests with investments in your campaign fund) who’d rather support a Republican than a Progressive for Lt. Gov. And the pundits (with the notable exception of John Walters at The Vermont Political Observer here and here) are all looking at Dan Feliciano’s five points with “what if” eyes, instead of at the impact of your own faithlessness on voters who would likely have marked their ballots for you, but didn’t.

Just thought you should hear a different message than you have apparently taken away from the too-close election results, and that message is not about pandering further to tax-cuts-for-millionaires Republicans and DINOs. The message I heard in Franklin County — and GMD colleague Caoimhin Laochdha heard in Washington County — was one of disgust with your betrayal of Democratic ideals. Specifically:

==> Most of the folks identified on my call sheets (in a dozen hours of call-time volunteering, about 500 phone calls) as “leaning Democratic” said they would definitely not vote for you, even as they affirmed that they would definitely vote for Congressman Peter Welch.

==> An active Democratic volunteer and member of the County Committee, coming in the door and hearing me ask about Shumlin, demanded, “Shumlin?! Why are you asking about that guy?” with a tone of deep contempt. Answer: because you were essentially funding the operation through the Coordinated Campaign.

==> I talked face-to-face with nearly two dozen Democrats and Progressives over the course of the week leading up to the election, none of whom had voted (if they had voted early) or planned to vote for you. None had/would vote for Milne; most planned not to vote in the gubernatorial contest (with one or two “Let’s throw a few votes Dan’s way”).

This pattern also showed up in Washington County, which is philosophically and economically distant from Franklin County, and it should be concerning to you, Governor Shumlin. After reading the far-fetched post-election analysis from the Burlington Free Press, my Washington County colleague relayed his experience as follows:

It was an undisputed undercurrent in Washington Co. I heard loud and clear from too large a group of people that they either did, or planned to (1) “withhold” their vote for Gov. Shumlin and vote for no one; (2) skip early voting (which I took as uninspired gubernatorial apathy) or (3) vote for Feliciano as a 'safe' protest vote against Shumlin and/or too tweak the Republicans. (Number 3 was the least expressed view, but when you hear it a half dozen times, that's pretty significant). And then let's look at the difference between the Gov. Shumlin and [Progressive Senator Anthony] Pollina and Democratic Senator Ann Cummings, both of whom easily outpolled both Shumlin & Milne in Washington County [Note: the vote totals previously stated here are corrected, below, to reflect a serious transposition error in the number of votes received by Shumlin and Milne in Washington Co. — see vote comparisions in comments below. – cl]. These sentiments, alone, made the difference between Milne barely winning Washington Co. instead of Gov. Shumlin walking away easily with a 2,500 vote advantage

 And as John Walters noted in an email to me:

[Peter Shumlin] got 33,000 votes fewer than Peter Welch, for instance. Between that and the fact that voters returned a very solid D/P majority in the legislature, it's clear that a whole lot of reliably Democratic voters skipped the gubernatorial race or voted for someone else. And that doesn't even count the liberals who stayed home rather than opt for Shumlin.

So the message you need to take away, Governor Shumlin, is not how many Republicans voted for Milne, despite your stubborn protection of the tax-privileged one percent. It’s how many of the Democratic base a) stayed home rather than hold their noses and vote for you or b) voted, but not in the governor’s race (a weird kind of bullet voting that made Milne’s votes count more). It’s how many good Democrats and Progressive allies could not bring themselves to hold their noses and vote for a Democratic incumbent who would rather keep the top-bracket tax payers safe from any tax increase than keep our neighbors and their children from going hungry, shivering under jackets through a cold night, and not getting healthcare or buying needed medicines because they’re in the crack between eligibility for Health Connect drug subsidies and Medicaid or Medicare, and because of the total balls-up mess you’ve made of Vermont Health Connect.

And the message you should get, dear Governor Shumlin, is don’t bother pandering even more to Republicans, who campaigned on some vague concept of “affordability,” knowing in their hearts they were talking about making Vermont more “affordable” for the one percent, not for the rest of us (a version of “trickle-down” economics, which, as we all know, didn’t work for Reagan, Bush One, or Baby Bush, and helped crash the economy). They’re talking about slashing taxes, and thereby requiring cuts in services beyond those you’ve already demanded, resulting in, among other outcomes already mentioned, our neighbors trying to find the money for the property taxes when the Republicans have cut the income sensitivity funds.

The message, Mr. Shumlin, is this: raise the marginal income tax rates two percent for the one percent to fund needed services; stop playing guessing games with universal access, single-payer healthcare funding; and get Vermont Health Connect up and running.

Sincerely,

NanuqFC

Well, folks, guess what: I’ve already voted in the 2014 election.

I expect I’ll be busy on election day, November 4, and there are few real contests among statewide office holders, so why not?

That said, the down-ticket contests could be crucial to local districts, which makes it important to get out and vote!

In Grand Isle, for example, the hottest contest is for State’s Attorney. In the primary, Doug DiSabito, who has not held public office before, captured both the Republican and Democratic nominations, defeating long-time incumbent David Miller. Miller is running a spirited (one local observer called both campaigns “aggressive”) write-in campaign. It is noteworthy that in the primary election, 23 percent of eligible voters in Grand Isle cast ballots, one of the highest rates in the state for this year’s mostly lackluster primary.

In Franklin County, the major contest is in St Albans City. Incumbent Democrat Mike McCarthy is facing a serious challenge from Republican Corey Parent. In 2012 McCathy eked out a 15-vote win in a recount over Republican Casey Toof.

In the Franklin County state Senate races, newcomer Dr. Bill Roberts, a pain management specialist who also works with opiate addicts, and former Senator Sara Brannon Kittell are running against incumbent GOP Senator Norm McAllister and former state Rep. Dustin Degree. In 2012, Degree lost his bid for a senate seat by 35 votes in a recount.

Yeah, Franklin County was recount central two years ago.

With contests as close as these, you gotta know that your vote counts, that it matters!

The basics on voting NOW:

1. Go to your town or city clerk’s office during regular office hours and request an early/absentee ballot. OR download a “Request for Early Absentee Voter Ballot” form. Fill it out, mail it in or give to your city/town clerk.

2. You can vote right then and there, or take your ballot home and either mail it back or drop it off. Make sure to sign and date it ONLY in the marked spaces.

3. Return your ballot in the envelope by mail or in person to your city/town clerk before November 4, 2014.

4. Remind your friends and family to vote. Email them, put something up on your Facebook page, tweet them, call them on the telephone – whatever it takes to get them to vote.

All politics is local, and this year it’s even local-er than usual.

Please vote. Now. This week. Next week. On Halloween if that tickles your fancy. Or for the sake of tradition, on November 4. Just vote. Do it. Please.

From Ernie McLeod at Vermont Freedom to Marry (where I saw it before I went out for a Free Press) comes this great news: two Vermont-connected lesbians are among the 20 MacArthur Foundation grant award winners for this year.

Mary Bonauto helped Beth Robinson and Susan Murray with the Baker v. State lawsuit that eventually resulted in the groundbreaking legislative recognition for same-sex couples that was civil unions. Vermont's was her first marriage equality case.  Bonauto lives in Maine and has worked on marriage equality in many states. Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer arguing for DOMA repeal on the Edie Windsor case against New york state in the Supreme Court, reportedly told The New York Times, "No gay person in this country would be married without Mary Bonauto."  

After her appearance in this morning's Burlington Free Press for her MacArthur Foundation fellowship grant, few Vermonters will need an introduction to Alison Bechdel, who has made her home in Bolton since 1991.

Bechdel is the creative genius behind Fun Home, a graphic memoir exploring her childhood and relationship with her possibly gay father. She followed that book with Are You My Mother?. And before that, for 25-plus years she drew and gave voice to a varied and diverse community of lesbians, bisexuals, and occasional gay, bi- or straight men in the syndicated comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For.  The MacArthur Foundation recognized Bechdel this way:

[Referring to Fun  Home] An impeccable observer and record-keeper, Bechdel incorporates drawings of archival materials, such as diaries, letters, photographs, and news clippings, as well as a variety of literary references in deep reflections into her own past. […]  As in Fun Home, the images in Are You My Mother? do not always correspond to or illustrate the words; rather, they mutually interpret or often tug against each other, creating a space between them that invites a multiplicity of interpretations.

 

Brava! to both women for well-deserved recognition and congratulations on the grant of funds ($625k) that help provide security on which to base future endeavors.

Have you received your driver’s license renewal notice from the Vermont DMV recently?

It comes with plenty of changes, none of them good for anyone concerned with privacy and records protection.

In fact, mine came with this scary poster:

And the kicker (one wonders whether some DMV employee has a sense of irony … nah) is the bottom line:

Thank you for helping us keep America safe.

Here are your license renewal options: Get a “Real ID”- compliant driver’s license (and for that you get what they call a “gold star”); OR get a “Driver’s Privilege Card,” good for a maximum of two years, and marked in a scary red banner:

NOT FOR FEDERAL IDENTIFICATION

For those who don’t know what “Real ID” means:

1. In effect, the state no longer regulates the issuance of driver’s licenses and non-driver’s identification cards; the federal government does.

2. In about 18 months, the United States will have established a de facto national identity card, without which you cannot board a plane or enter any federal building (with the likely exception of the Post Office).

3. The REAL ID Act imposes on states, now including Vermont, federal regulations on data retention and storage; documents required to issue a driver’s license (see below); and the linking of databases, to name just a few.

Think about it.

Some of the most infamous tyrannies (think Germany in the late 1930s, or South Africa in the 1970s) required that their citizens carry their national ID cards with them at all times, subject to severe penalties, or even the suspicions/whims of a cop having a bad day.

[REAL ID document requirements and latest local intrusions after the jump.]

REAL IDs cannot be issued in Vermont unless you renew your license in person at a DMV office.

You must bring with you 3 forms of ID:

• passport and/or name change documents, including marriage or civil union certificate;
• at least one document containing your social security number
  • your social security card
  • a W-2
  • 1099
  • or a pay stub);
• two pieces of mail with name & street address, or if you’re using a PO box,
  • copies of property tax bill
  • utility bill
  • property insurance policy.

If you’ve got all that, you get a “gold” star for your REAL ID-compliant driver’s license or non-driver ID. And, the contents of all those “proof of identity and residence” documents will be encoded onto your REAL-ID gold-star Vermont (hah) Driver’s License.

If not, or if you choose to renew by mail, no gold star for you! instead, you get the scary, red banner NOT FOR FEDERAL IDENTIFICATION on your 2-year “Driver’s Privilege Card,” after which time you have to come up with the documents for your federal national identity document.

So let’s remember that, originally, your social security number was only to be used for, um, your social security account and related tax forms. Right. Now, think of all the places you are asked for your social security number.

Now imagine how many places will refuse to accept any identification other than the gold-star REAL ID: federally chartered banks, federal courts, the aforementioned airlines, grocery stores validating debit and credit cards, car dealerships, insurance companies, clinics and hospitals receiving federal funds.

Imagine how suspiciously the state cop will regard you when you offer your “Driver Privilege Card” with your insurance card the next time you have a taillight out or you’re traveling a mite fast.

And now imagine how undocumented migrant workers might feel, since, according to current DMV website examples and a statement at the top of the renewal form I received, the non-REAL-ID-compliant “license” is the same card that they get: a “Driver’s Privilege Card.”

Vermont’s DMV already has scanned every driver’s license photo it has into a digital database, which is potentially available to any federal or state investigator for any reason – or none. All they have to do is ask. And now the askers will have access to your property tax bill, your home owner’s or renter’s insurance policy, and what you’re paying for utilities and to whom.

The final intrusion is, to the best of my recollection, a brand new renewal question, regardless of which brand of driver ID document you get:

4. Do you have a history of any physical or mental condition including diabetes, epilepsy, seizures or blackouts, (other than properly corrected eyesight) that could affect your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle?

Answering yes requires explanation and details of medications.

Which means that suddenly the DMV has your health information in its files, available to anyone who has access to DMV records, and apparently without any of the protections built into healthcare records elsewhere.

And what if you say no? Will the DMV check into healthcare records to confirm or challenge your answer? On what authority?

This is not the security state: it’s the surveillance state. And Vermont has surrendered.

Thank you, Vermont DMV, for helping “us” keep America submissive and surveilled.

There was a teeny little piece in the Freep that caught my eye a few weeks ago announcing commencement speakers for area colleges and universities, presumably culled from press releases. On the list was Norwich University’s announcement of its commencement speaker, also released on its website:

Commencement: General Keith Alexander

Former director of the National Security Agency General Keith Alexander will be Norwich University’s 2014 commencement speaker.

Alexander, who completed his 39-year Army career on March 28, 2014, served as the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and director National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service.

Norwich university’s website offers a bit more on Gen. Alexander’s former job responsibilites:

As the NSA director and CSS chief, he was responsible for protecting national security, foreign signals intelligence, combat support, and protecting U.S. national security information systems.

I wonder how many times General Alexander has been asked about spying on Angela Merkel. Or the rest of us. And about Edward Snowden.

If you check out the (former) cyber spy chief’s interview with John Oliver for his new show Last Week Tonight, you’ll get material unlikely to be seen or heard at this Saturday’s commencement (such as Alexander’s embrace of Oliver’s rebranding suggestion, “The only government agency that really listens”).

From Norwich’s commencement info:

On Saturday, May 10, at 2 p.m. during commencement exercises Alexander will address approximately 400 students matriculating from 33 undergraduate programs and one master’s program. The ceremony, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Shapiro Field House.

[emphasis added]

Will activists show up on Saturday to protest the violation of privacy of ordinary citizens by the National Security state? Stay tuned.