Well, we’ve come to the end of our VTblogosphereTV series, and it’s fitting our final guest is Blogger Emeritus John Odum. He got us started in June of 2008, and his support has been instrumental in the project’s sustenance.
One sign that the show was fading was my inability to get the web version uploaded and posted in a timely fashion, so this show is actually from the week after the election. But John’s account of Montpelier election night in the City Clerk hot seat is timeless. The discussion of whether John Campbell would retain his Senate President Pro Tem gig– less so.
Thanks to all the fantastic guests that made the time to share their knowledge and passion. It’s been a blast, but it’s time to wrap it up. The only gnawing uncertainty is that this retirement is at episode 45 on a 4 and a half year run. Five more episodes by June would make it 50 episodes and 5 years. But do you know how much work it is to scare up guests in a non-election year? pfffft– forget it. That’s a wrap.
(One of the most critical races in the state. This is to save Democrat Sara Kittell’s seat! Two vacant Senate seats and Vermonters First wants ’em both for the GOP. – promoted by Sue Prent)
Caroline Bright is running for State Senate in Franklin County. And the election is tomorrow, so vote for her! Why? Watch! She has had to answer charges of youth and inexperience, but that is not the only thing she has in common with President Obama. It’s eeeerie I tell ya, eerie.
Doug Hoffer will make a fantastic Auditor. He has run for the office before, so he’s a seasoned campaigner. He is running in a very blue state with a Presidential race drawing good “D” turn out. But insider consensus seems to suggest that his opponent is a better politician with better name recognition. I must say though, in my informal polling, political non-junkies say “who?” to the names of both candidates for the office of State Auditor of Accounts. So to answer the “who” question, please watch this interview with Mr. Hoffer, especially if you are unfamiliar with the skills and values he will bring to the Auditor’s position.
Doug will bring the will and know-how to improve transparency in the Auditor’s office. While we were discussing “Standing Watch,” Auditor Salmon’s webcast, Doug shared that such media outreach by the Auditor’s office could better serve Vermonters if it were on public access TV, and not just the Auditor’s website.
He vowed to put the entire budget on line, including contracts entered into by state government. Though Doug has progressive values, it soon becomes apparent that he has no patience for government programs that do not deliver their intended outcomes. He also sees that the Auditor’s office itself is in need of more frugal practices. He cited Auditor Salmon’s recently commissioned study on alternative revenue streams as an example of spending that does not deliver to the taxpayer. Taxpayer dollars went to The Bronner Group which tags itself as “The Business of Government,” but it is unclear whether any public benefit resulted.
Doug’s past work as a policy analyst gives strong sense of how a study can result in tangible benefits to Vermonters. The Job Gap study for the Peace and Justice Center provided momentum for the idea of livable wages in this state, and now we have policies like a minimum wage indexed to inflation and a strong earned income tax credit. This work is especially valuable given that States with higher minimum wages are faring better in this recession.
Likewise, The Leaky Bucket study looked at how dependence on imports drains our economy. Much of this work provided the intellectual foundation for initiatives like Vermont’s Farm to Plate specifically, and Vermont’s re-embracing of localism in the economy generally. He also tackled producing a Unified Economic Development Budget to demonstrate how we can best support producers in Vermont.
We also discussed Vermont’s single payer health care initiative as a huge undertaking that is fundamentally about the intersection of dollars and values. And finally we couldn’t help but talk about the actual campaign itself, such as the State Trooper overtime story. This story in particular highlights just how Doug will approach the Auditor’s job: by gathering all of the relevant facts, avoiding redundancy and grandstanding, and seeking solutions that are based on careful deliberation.
(In the interest of providing voters the wherewithal to make a more informed choice among Democrats running for office in Vermont. Trust Randolph06, aka Mike Abadi, to put his finger on one of the hotter political pulses in the state. – promoted by NanuqFC)
So the Orange County Democratic State Senate race is getting so interesting that even Burlington based media is Seeing Orange. Tig Tillinghast is challenging incumbent Mark McDonald for the seat and he is making internet access a centerpiece of his campaign. Tig learned from his time on the Thetford Selectboard that state law hinders communities from funding their own solutions and he wants to remedy that.
Tig begins by discussing his early role as an advertiser shaping an embryonic internet. He then describes bringing Watershed Publishing to Vermont when he migrated back. The need for decent internet service in Vermont became quite obvious quite quickly.
So Tig discovered “the Map of Doom” at the Department of Public Service, which carves up the state for internet providers, and once an area is claimed by an entity, that area is “protected from help.” More specifically, ECFiber.Net recently found itself apparently snubbed by the Vermont Telecommunications Authority when the VTA assigned Orange County towns to Fairpoint. Incredibly, the State waived $6.6 million in penalties Fairpoint earned for poor service and told them they could spend that money claiming more towns. Poor service? Let’s help you expand!
One solution Tig offers is to update Act 79 to allow towns to have bonding authority to raise funds for internet service.
Internet service is obviously vital if Vermonters are going to be able to offer their products globally, and Tig has experience with that at fresh maple syrup. But this isn’t just an exercise in international e-commerce, he has recognized the non-virtual (actual) community that forms around the practice of sugaring and has tried to capture that in his writing.
And much of the rest of the interview focuses on “the vitality of the villages.” Functioning towns, that are not just bedroom communities, provide services, jobs, make it possible to age in place, and create shared identity. The oddness of the Orange County seat (hint: it doesn’t include Orange) rounds out our discussion of communities, virtual, actual, and political.
[Note: No endorsement implied. Just continuing the VTblogosphereTV tradition of showcasing the qualities of the guest.]
(As always Mike Abadi gets to the heart of the scene, here in an interview with GMD front pager John Walters. Enjoy! – promoted by NanuqFC)
John Walters has been a GMD Frontpager since December, and he has been incisive and prolific. Oh what the hell, I’ll also call him “two-fisted” in case he ever seeks higher office. But seriously, his background in print, radio, and as an author have immeasurably enriched the GMD reading experience.
Our focus moved to some other stories John’s followed: Paul LePage’s visit to Vermont, Randy Brock’s campaign, and “Lismania,” the Campaign for Vermont fever that is (was) sweeping the state. John approaches his work with such care and wit that the result is nutritious and delicious.
As we enter campaign season, John’s work will be indispensable in helping sort out the truth, the lies, the half-truths, the white lies and the hypocrisy.
Visiting JD Ryan’s five before chaos is always fun, especially to see how deftly he handles right wing trolls. But JD is not just a keyboard commando; he has been involved with urban exploration for years now. The photos he brings back from his field trips to abandoned buildings are quite haunting. In this interview, JD brings historical depth and humor to the work.
This spring JD travelled to the Catskills to visit the borcht belt, a series of resorts in New York. Though these buildings served a much cheerier purpose, JD’s photos capture the heaviness of times past.
So visit five before chaos for the politics, stay for the urban exploration, godlessness, and films of questionable quality. oh yeah, and the music. Here is a piece he wrote combined with asylum photos. The result is morosely beautiful.
Last time Jack McCullough visited VTblogosphereTV in 2009, he discussed the outcry that resulted in a well-respected nonprofit organization reversing a decision in order to salvage its reputation. It was also a February. Strange now that Jack leads us through another case study of internet activism forcing an organization to rethink its policies, this time concerning the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood.
Who knew that the month with “love” celebrated smack dab in the middle of it would become National “assault on women’s reproductive freedom” Month? The Komen story, the Santorum surge, the question of whether health care reform would fully cover contraception, it seems the headlines of the past month have reflected the cultural mentality circa 1958, not 2012.
Jack closed by sharing some success he experienced locally starting a Facebook page, this one getting South Burlington Little League to allow a boy to play who had missed a registration deadline. So whether you love it, hate it, love to hate it, or hate to love it, Facebook can be a powerful tool for activism on any scale, and organizations like Komen are learning just how quickly and forcefully their top-down decisions can be met with bottom-up pressure.
This interview takes place just before Odum announced his goodbye to the GMD community. It has been tough not to notice, however, that he has been moreprolificthanever. So fret not, as his bid for Montpelier City Clerk does not culminate until Town Meeting Day, John will still be GMD’s heart and soul for at least the month of February.
First we discussed John’s print journalism gig at The Bridge. Then we reflected on Odum’s ode to odious 2011, and how the Occupy Wall Street movement has already improved the political dynamic in 2012. Next we previewed the statewide races, in particular Governor Shumlin’s rock star status and the GMD Oddsmaker. We turned to another rock star who’s up for re-election, Senator Sanders, considering his lack of opposition as well as his recent “corporations aren’t people, my friend” legislation.
Finally we discussed the Republican Presidential primary and the supposed inevitability of Romney. John nailed it and said South Carolina would determine whether we in Vermont would have a choice between Romney or Paul or a Romney-Gingrich-Paul choice on our primary day. (John assumes Santorum will be out.) Then I asked John if he advised voting in the VT Repub Primary, and he said no, that after crossing over years ago and voting for Fred Tuttle, he felt bad about it.
Funny though, the guy who now needs to win big in Florida is decidedly NOT a “purity of the process” guy. Here’s Romney defending his own crossing over to vote in Democratic primaries:
I’ve never voted for a Democrat when there was a Republican on the ballot. And any chance I got to vote against Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy, I took. I have always voted for a Republican any time there was a Republican on the ballot.
So it looks like Vermonters will have a chance to apply Romney’s own logic on Town Meeting Day. So what say ye GMDers? Purity of the process or a chance to vote against a walking corporation?
oh and John, This blog will be a bit like the Enterprise without James Tiberius Kirk at the helm, but I know you’ll make a great City Clerk. And note that he is on record as getting leftygeek.com up and running by Town Meeting Day!
(Jessamyn is a smart, insightful person on information technology issues. Her ideas are well worth exploring. – promoted by jvwalt)
For those of you needing introduction to Jessamyn West, let me start by offering links explaining how she came to be dubbed an internet folk hero.
With her professional blog librarian.net and her personal blog jessamyn.com, she spans a wide range of topics of interest concerning technology, information access, and life in central Vermont. She frequently travels to discuss the digital divide and her book Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide was published last summer. Randolph is lucky she lives here and I was thrilled she was able to trek up to the ORCA studio in Montpelier for this interview.
Hear Jessamyn explain the factors that put Vermont in a “technological shadow.”
Watch as she obliterates the argument that the internet has made libraries obsolete.
Learn librarian terms like “recall” and “relevance.”
Marvel as she uses a drug war analogy to explain SOPA and PROTECT IP.
We also got to discuss Wikipedia and her work on the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation. And last was an inspiring discussion about the Occupy Libraries in places like New York and Boston, which sprung out of the Radical Reference movement.
So check out her work online and in print if you are looking for lots of fun with a depth of insight concerning the potentialities in our future. Her writing is both well-informed and punchy and I was glad we were able to capture some of that special combination in this interview.
Norsehorse AKA Morgan Brown is a successful and foresighted activist who keeps three blogs, Vermont Watch, Montpelier Matters, and Beyond Vermont State Hospital. Though this interview occurred the week before Irene hit us, Morgan’s insights into the state of mental health services in Vermont remain salient. For he has not merely been calling for the shutdown of Vermont State Hospital, he is recommending a community-based treatment model. If you agree with him, please sign this petition:
We the undersigned petition Governor Peter Shumlin of the State of Vermont to support the building of a more robust community-based mental health services system, including a major increase in peer run alternative services and supports as well as more affordable housing opportunities, in order to foster a holistic and healing, cross-disabilities, independent living, recovery-based and trauma-informed model, rather than building a new Vermont State Hospital (VSH).
When I first interviewed Morgan way back in the dark days of the Douglas administration, he was working on saving the state’s Housing Coordinator position. Not only did that position survive the chopping block, but that Coordinator actually assisted Morgan in securing permanent housing.
Last Spring, Morgan noticed that a Governor’s Housing the Homeless Summit was open only to stakeholders. Morgan acted quickly and got the Summit open the public.
Now Morgan would be the first to say that these successes were group efforts (though I think he pretty much solely got the Housing Summit open to the public.)
So when Morgan challenges the Shumlin Administration’s intent on building a new State Hospital, you have believe that maybe citizen activism could turn the tide!
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