This week, we learned that the two top executives of Montpelier's Kellogg-Hubbard Library have resigned, and that management is being restructured. Beyond that, a number of questions are unanswered. Given the cozy insularity of many Vermont institutions, public and private, large and small, I fear these questions will never be answered.
(Pretty much the only media source for this story is the Times Argus, whose website and archive are behind a paywall, so I won't bother embedding a link. I'll include some fair-use quotes in this story. To see the rest, subscribe! Or go to your local, ahem, library, and read it in the February 9 edition.)
For the last six-plus years, the Library has had a rather unusual two-headed leadership model. An Executive Director (Daniel Pudvah) responsible for finances, fundraising, and such. And a library Director (Robin Sales) responsible for day-to-day management. There are reasons to have this kind of structure, but I'd always wondered if it was really necessary in a smallish library like Kellogg-Hubbard.
Now, I'm wondering even more -- about the original move, and its reversal.
In a story that, as far as I can tell, has gone unreported except by Vermont Digger, the University of Vermont's Board of Trustees has chosen UVM's next President. It happened at a Board meeting last weekend.
They're not naming the name just yet; they have to negotiate a contract first. We won't know Dan Fogel's successor until late February, according to a UVM release. Negotiating on behalf of UVM will be the board's Chair, Robert Cioffi.
(Who, FYI, is a native Vermonter now working as a venture capitalist in one of the tonier precincts of Connecticut. Gee, another venture capitalist running something. There's a surprise.)
Let's hope they've made the right choice. UVM has, to put it mildly, a mixed track record in presidential selections. And to judge from the Vermont Digger account, it doesn't look like the Board has learned very much from the Dan Fogel kerfuffle.
After the jump: big bucks, "modest revisions," and octopus ink.
The Environmental Evangelical Network (EEN) a green evangelical “pro-life” group that supports EPA rules limiting harmful mercury is catching the wrath of fellow “pro-lifers”. The EEN favors specific restrictions on emissions from power plants because they will protect the health of the unborn. The EEN critics maintain that to portray safeguards against environmental hazards as “pro-life” is to obscure the meaning of the term.
While the EEN’ers still deny that human activity is driving global warming the group has urged support for regulatory restrictions by sponsoring TV, radio ads and billboards. A spokesman spells out their view this way:
We believe protecting the unborn from mercury poisoning is a consistent pro-life position,
Mercury exposure can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and blindness in infants. Low doses may result in developmental delays affecting walking, talking, attention span and learning disabilities.
However the EEN’s broader views and actions spell trouble for them from 30 other religious “pro-lifers” and conservative anti-EPA legislators including, The Family Research Council and Sen. James Inhofe. It appears these critics see a threat to the “pro-life” brand name. Says Inhofe about the EEN’s position:
To claim that EPA’s devastating, job-killing regime is somehow ‘pro-life’ is absurd.
This is a troublesome junction for control of the issue when a brand boundary gets blurred and is no longer focused as they wish it to be. And worse still for Sen. Inhofe is the intersecting issue with his longtime pet villain, the “job-killing” EPA. So while watching the "pro-lifers" fight over their brand can you imagine the EPA protecting life?
As if there aren't already enough compelling reasons to immediately retire BWR Mark 1 reactors like the ones at Fukushima and at Vermont Yankee, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates has just identified a doozy of a containment flaw that had previously escaped detection!
Analyzing data from the first day of the Fukushima accident, after the tsunami but before the explosions; and comparing those numbers to data collected during a test forty years earlier at the Brunswick facility in North Carolina, Arnie noticed a striking similarity which suggests an entirely unanticpated explanation for how those explosions came to pass.
In the scenario proposed by Fairewinds, as cooling failed at Fukushima, there was an accompanying build-up of contaminated hydrogen gas in the containment vessel. After about eight hours, the pressure build-up in the vessel so far exceeded it's designed capacity that it actually stretched retaining bolts on the vessel "lid," creating a space through which volatile gas escaped into the reactor. A single spark was all it took to set off a blast, ripping through the reactor and rocketing contaminated debris and gases into the atmosphere.
When the possibility of a hydrogen explosion in the Mark 1 was finally recognized in the 1980's, a design modification involving a vent was made to all containments for that generation of reactors. This modification has come to be widely accepted as a permanent fix for the problem.
It turns out that, even though the vent appears to have functioned properly at Fukushima, it never could have prevented the exact problem that precipitated the explosions that occurred there!
The potential for a similar chain of events linked to that single design flaw still exists in all Mark 1BWR reactors that remain online today.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has long maintained its official position that the original design flaw in this generation of reactors was resolved through the vent modification, and that the containment vessel could not be breached.
This new evidence suggests otherwise.
Have a look at the brief and very straightforward explanation that Arnie Gundersen provides for this phenomenon:
So Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell has declared H.97 - the bill passed last session by the House that would provide limited collective bargaining rights to home-based child care workers (and a bill I did some work on) - dead. He does not intent to let it come out of committee. Barring some last minute intervention from the Governor, it's likely to stay dead (and Shumlin has already picked his controversies for this election year... this bill is not on the list).
It should never have come to this, and has because of self-destructive behavior on both sides.
On the union's side, it's no secret in the Statehouse that AFT has continued to wield a strategic sledgehammer, even those times when finesse has been called for. Vermont legislators are more prickly than most on that regard.
On Campbell's end, it seems to be simply about pique. He's not able to see beyond some of that strategic clumsiness to judge the issue on its merits, simply because bill proponents have dared to cross him. And when you dare to cross Campbell, apparently, political reality becomes an afterthought.
Putting aside the ethics of the bill and the right to collective bargaining - a right Democrats are supposed to stand for - consider the more politically crass implications. Campbell is assumed to be eyeing higher office - possibly the governorship after Shumlin moves on. He'll inevitably face a primary, and this move won't play well in that arena.
But more than that - consider the general election. In its earliest form, this bill could have unionized 8,000 low-income Vermonters, mostly women. That's 8000 union members who would get mailings endorsing candidates - and most of those would be Democrats.
This is why I have little doubt that Republican insiders are laughing their butts off at Campbell's decision to let his personal pride overcome his common sense.
Oh looky here, a new hashtag has appeared on Twitter this afternoon -- #kurtfacts. It's the old Chuck Norris meme, except with Kurt Wright as the hero. Samples:
"Kurt Wright can blow bubbles with beef jerky."
"Kurt Wright was born in a log cabin ... that he built with his bare hands."
"Kurt Wright has a bear skin rug in his living room its not dead it's just afraid to move"
Hilarity, to be sure. Feel free to Tweet your own, preferably subversive, entries. (I just Tweeted "Kurt Wright has one freakishly large tooth. Named "Nigel.") Or maybe start #wandafacts or #mirofacts.
Gov. Peter Shumlin today appointed Jill Krowinski of Burlington to replace outgoing state Rep. Rachel Weston for the seat representing Ward 3.
"Jill has worked hard to get young people involved in the political process and registered to vote," Gov. Shumlin said. "She also knows how the House and Senate operate from her time working as assistant to former House Speaker Gaye Symington, so she'll hit the ground running."
"I want to thank Governor Shumlin for giving me this incredible opportunity to represent Burlington in the House of Representatives," Krowinski said. "I'm ready to get to work with a great group of legislators from Burlington and excited to work for a great community."
Among her priority issues are health care reform, education, and empowering young people to get involved in their communities. Krowinski graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a BA in Urban Studies and Political Science in 2002. In addition to her work for Symington, she has served as Executive Director of the Vermont Democratic Party and founded a non-profit dedicated to registering young people to vote. She is currently the Vermont Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Krowinski serves on the Board of Directors of the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra, Begin Blue, Vermont Access to Reproductive Freedom, and is a Commissioner for the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington.
Sorry for the dry style, this is written for radio news. Just wanted to get this out here.
A request by the American Civil Liberties Union for what amounts to a massive records dump from Lyndonville's Wildflower Inn was granted yesterday by a Caledonia Superior Court judge.
The Wildflower is being sued by the ACLU on behalf of a lesbian couple from New York who were denied a request to hold their wedding reception there.
The Wildflower Inn will now have to turn over the documents requested by the ACLU.
We're just about a month out from the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that precipitated nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi.
It bears mentioning again that, while any effort to apply lessons learned to current nuclear operations seems to be advancing without appreciable urgency, there is plenty of evidence that industry and government agents in Japan and here at home hastily circled the wagons even before the affected population had been warned to evacuate.
The grisly truth is that, in the aftermath of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, protecting economic interests has been given a far higher priority than human health and safety.
In a February 2 interview conducted by CCTV host Margaret Harrington, Maggie Gundersen of Fairewinds Assoc. points out that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission...that's our guys...knew how serious the situation at Fukushima was, fully nine days before residents were ordered to evacuate!
So effective has the effort been to deflect negative messaging from Fukushima that, if one does not go well out of one's way to find information about radiation impacts, or even the progress of stabilization efforts at the devastated facility, one is unlikely to know anything at all.
We are dependent on the efforts of independent investigators, like Fairewinds Associates, who, facing a desperate information void, have seized the initiative to do the thankless work of analysis and public education that so-called "regulatory" agencies and governments have completely abdicated.
Bruce Lisman's vanity proj-- er, campaign stalking hors-- er, public policy organization, Campaign for Vermont, continues to crank out opinion pieces, press releases, and radio advertisements. And while I appreciate CfV's copious ad buys on my favorite radio station, WDEV, I must also note that its true character is coming into sharper focus.
For those just joining us, Lisman is a native Vermonter who made a fortune as a top executive for cratered Wall Street giant Bear Stearns. In retirement, he has returned home with the avowed goal of promoting the greater good of the Green Mountain State through a "nonpartisan" effort called Campaign for Vermont. Which, although it claims to be a broad-based coalition, seems to be centered entirely on Mr. Bruce Lisman. For instance #1: Bruce's oddly unfocused smiling face appears on every webpage. For instance #2: CfV's position statements, although supposedly a group effort, are entitled "The Lisman Perspective."
There are many other indications that the CfV is (a) solidly Republican, and (b) an attempt to whitewash Lisman as a potential future candidate for office, in hopes of avoiding the fate of rich-guy flameouts Rich Tarrant and Jack McMullen. I outlined these signs in two mid-December diaries, "Lismania" and "Lismania II."
So now, on to the latest, including a fourth word in the CfV nameplate, and two new (very obviously anti-Shumlin) radio ads.
250-1
75-1
