The Committee on the Protection of Constitutional Rights is hosting a birthday party and appreciation celebration for the U.S. Constitution (note to Kestrel: yes, including the amendments) in the House chamber of the Statehouse, with refreshments in the Cedar Creek Room.

It’s all happening on September 17, Thursday, from 5-6:30 pm.

The speaker for the occasion is Professor Sheldon Novick of the Vermont Law School, where he has taught Constitutional law and American legal history, among other subjects. He’s also the author of a well-received biography of a Supreme Court Justice of whom nearly anyone who survived high school American Studies classes has heard: Oliver Wendell Holmes (no, no, not the guy played by Basil Rathbone who went around saying “Elementary, my dear Watson!”  That was Sherlock Holmes).

More on the flip.

We’re talking about Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 30 years on the US Supreme Court, nominated by Teddy Roosevelt (on the recommendation of Henry Cabot Lodge), served until FDR was elected.

But I digress.

Professor Novick’s topic is “Toward a More Perfect Union.” From the press release:

People have always disagreed about the meaning of the Constitution, beginning with its first words, “We the People of the United States.” The Preamble seems to speak of one people, but owing to compromises made with slavery and tradition, not everyone could be a citizen, vote, or hold office. Gradually, since the Civil War, non-white men and women of all races have been gaining full legal citizenship. Our federal republic has been moving toward the “more perfect Union” free of compromises that the Preamble promised. President Obama says that his appointment of the first Latina to the Supreme Court is another step in that direction.

And wouldn’t you know it, the host group is a subcommittee of the VDP State Committee. Seems like Democrats are the only ones who actually care about the Constitution since oh, say, the year 2000, although schools are now required to “develop programming” to observe the Constitution’s birthday every year. (The regulation was set up in 2005 and somehow got through a Republican Congress as an unfunded mandate for any educational institution receiving federal money.)

C’mon down to the Statehouse on Thursday. I’m not promising birthday cake, but how often does anyone get to blow out 222 candles?

If you can’t make it, check out the Constitution Day website. Find out which “Founding Father” you’d be.

Here are some words that figured prominently in the one I was identified with: “extremely smart,” “happily married … no children,” “stir up support,” “not flamboyant,” “thoughtful leadership.”  

The Vermont teachers’ retirement fund has found plenty of front page space recently especially with calls from Governor Douglas to sluff it off wholesale onto the local property tax rolls. In today’s Barre/Montpelier Times Argus (Retirement funding tops agenda for new NEA chief, Times Argus, 09/14/09) new Vt NEA chief Martha Allen keeps pace with vocal disdain for recent attempts to review the system claiming “They are out to eliminate our pension system as we know it”.

The easy, comfortable solutions to this mess won’t work. I think the true answer lies in the uncomfortable and unknown which requires a different story line entirely.

Face it: teachers are invaluable parts of our educational system, and teachers in general deserve to have compensation commensurate with their experience and education and abilities.

Face it: unlike legislators and governors who are able to increase their salaries more or less in the dark, employees of Vermont’s various governments are generally held up to the public spotlight and discussion at salary negotiation time. Rightfully so in the latter … too bad the prior don’t have the courage to do so too.

Now we can get to the murky part …

First: the Vermont State Teachers Retirement System (VSTRS) is defined by state law (Title 16, Chapter 55) and administered under the auspices of Vermont’s State Treasurer by a board of varied sources (VSTRS Board of Trustees, State Treasurer’s site). Local school districts and supervisory unions have no power or decision making regarding this retirement fund. We (I’m currently serving on Williamstown’s school board) don’t set retirement, contribution, payout or any other rates.

There is some cloudiness in this in that supervisory districts do negotiate teacher salaries which does directly affect post-retirement payouts; but state law has so successfully insulated retirement from year to year salary negotiations that we end up with decisions in these two arenas being made in literal isolation.

The above by itself should have all the anti-unfunded mandate freaks screaming in anger when it comes to any attempt to push any part of the retirement fund onto the shoulders of local tax payers. I fall under the aforementioned category, and I know I’m at the alarmed hair pulling stage.

Unless, of course, the whole idea behind Douglas’ push was to send the money along to pay for the move … but that never was the intent behind the rhetoric.

One concept that has gained a certain amount of public currency is a statewide teachers contract. This would have the advantage of bringing the retirement and salaries systems to the same table at the same time, but it would also leave local communities totally at the mercy of state government regarding how education is delivered.

Not many years ago Williamstown was lucky enough to have a dedicated town resident who also had a wide range of education, knowledge and direct experience. Bill volunteered his services to the community by offering to teach a course in international events, and the Williamstown school board gratefully accepted his offer and expertise. The teachers’ union complained under the guise that Bill’s volunteer activity meant a certified (ie. union) teacher did not get a job because of Bill’s activities and thus contractual obligations were violated.

In the end the court’s sided against the union view, but imagine now a state teachers’ contract that arbitrarily decides no town can use volunteer teachers under any circumstance.

A state wide contract would also eliminate any possibility for local districts to offer anything beyond cash compensation … hire at the state’s prescribed wages or go without … end of story. Suppose a district comes up with an innovative educational process that teachers would almost pay to take part in (for their own professional development for instance)? Too bad … the state decided.

No, I don’t see bringing contract negotiations to the state level as being to anybody’s benefit other than the General Assembly and Governor’s office. They would get the power to dictate even more than already exists.

The easy, comfortable solutions to dealing with a burgeoning fiscal obligation aren’t going to work well for Vermont’s communities, and doing nothing will only make matter more untenable vis-a-vis the Vermont State Teachers Retirement System.

Here’s what I propose: end the statewide defined benefits retirement package for teachers’ retirement and engage in educational choice.

The first half is a fairly simple, even if distasteful to the fund’s membership, process. Move from defined benefits to a contribution system. A teacher gets out the actuarial (am I misusing that word?) value of what they put in. All people currently in the defined benefits system would be moved immediately over to the contribution system with allowances made for the current value of their retirement as defined under current law … complex financial equations but simple for those with appropriate computers and bookkeeping skills.

Doing this would alleviate any concerns over FUTURE needs. We, Vermont, would still be rightfully on the hook for catching up to what things should be today.

The other uncomfortable part of my prosal, educational choice, would give local school districts greater leeway in both the content and manner of education. This could be, for example, doing away with most state and federal mandated standards and letting the towns decide which standards make the most sense and work the best for them. Another possibility is to keep the mandated standards but drop the age/grade level correlation so students could progress at a pace that makes more sense to them. A student gifted in reading and writing but having problems with math and US history should not be kept back from advancing in reading and writing simply because of a lack in other subject matter.

I like this second option: forget the concept that you graduate high school at age 18. One should be graduating when the time is ripe whether it’s at 17 years old or 60. Meet the standards and receive a diploma.

An advantage with this educational choice approach regarding teachers’ retirement and salaries is local schools would now be able to offer something of substance beyond cash rewards. A young teacher, for instance, may find a low paying job in Vermont to be preferred because that young teacher can learn and develop in ways that aren’t available elsewhere.

Of course this would increase demands on local school boards and administrations. But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?

So how would I phrase my proposal? Pick up a funnel. Normally we pour our liquids into the wide end of the funnel so everything is directed to the small opening. Our intention is to place the liquid in a very specific spot.

Now turn that funnel over. Imagine pouring the liquid into the small opening so we can let it pour out over a larger, unknown area. This is my picture of a successful education: we don’t know all of what folks will need to know in 20 or 30 years. But we do know there are some fundamentals that will allow the future to understand what it is they need to know and how to learn what they need to know. Let’s focus on those fundamentals (ie. pour into the small hole) so, as the need arises, the future can learn what it needs to know (flow out the wide hole).

We should be reforming by inverting our educational funnels.

And when we start thinking this way, we can start finding sensible answers to the fiscal issues running amuck with the teachers’ retirement fund. We can disconnect entirely the link between local supervisory union salary negotiations and the state law making process vis-a-vis teachers’ retirement. We can offer teachers something of value in place of the comfort that comes from a state guaranteed defined benefits package.

We can do and be better.

Representative Joe Wilson Is Reportedly a Member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a ‘Southern Heritage’ Group Taken Over in the Last Decade By Radical White Supremacists Who Defend Slavery As ‘A Benign Institution;’ He Also Denounced as a ‘Smear’ the True Claim of Biracial Daughter of Late Senator and Ex-Segregationist Strom Thurmond

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Monday, September 14, 2009)

By SKEETER SANDERS

Until last week, Joe Wilson was virtually unknown outside of his South Carolina congressional district. Now, the entire country is learning who he is.

The conservative Republican stunned and outraged many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle and was loudly booed when he shouted “You lie!” at President Obama as he was delivering an address to a joint session of Congress on health-care reform.

Wilson accused the president of lying about a promise he made that his health-care reform proposals would not provide coverage for the nation’s estimated 13 million illegal immigrants. The congressman apologized to the president within an hour after his speech and Obama accepted Wilson’s apology.

Two days after his apology, however, Wilson recorded a YouTube video defending his opposition to Obama’s health care plan – as well as requesting donations to the congressman’s re-election campaign. As of late Sunday, Wilson raised $1 million.

Wilson’s outburst against the president may have been motivated by more than annoyance over illegal immigrants.

It turns out that Wilson is, according to a candidate biography on the nonpartisan Web site OurCampaigns.com, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a longtime Southern-heritage organization that, according to the  Southern Poverty Law Center, has been taken over in the past decade by radical white supremacists, who advocate secession from the Union and defend slavery as a “benign institution.”

Nor is the nation’s first African-American president the first person Wilson has publicly called a liar. The congressman did the same thing to the biracial daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond, to whom Wilson was a former congressional page.

Wilson called Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a retired teacher, a liar when she came forward in 2003 that she is the eldest daughter of Thurmond and a black woman who worked for Thurmond’s family as a maid in the 1920s — despite the fact that the Thurmond family acknowledged her as a long-hidden relative.

DEFIANT WILSON WON’T APOLOGIZE TO CONGRESS, FACES REPRIMAND

Meanwhile, Wilson, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said emphatically Sunday that he won’t apologize to his colleagues in Congress for his outburst — increasing the likelihood that the House will reprimand him as early as today (Monday).

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Wilson made it clear that he would not bow to House Democrats’ demands that he stand on the floor and issue an apology to his fellow lawmakers. “I’m not going to apologize again,” a defiant Wilson Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “I believe the American people know I’m a civil person. I respect the institution of the House. I have apologized to the president. I believe that should be enough.”

Wilson took an even harder line after his TV appearance, issuing a statement declaring, “The American people are fed up with the political games in Washington. I refuse to participate in an effort to divert our attention away from the task at hand of reforming health insurance and creating new jobs.

“Having apologized on Wednesday to the White House, we agreed that we must move forward in a civil manner to do the work the American people have sent us here to do,” the Wilson statement continued.

Wilson denied a suggestion by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that his outburst against the president was racially motivated. In a column published Sunday, Dowd wrote that what she heard Wilson shout in the House chamber was, “You lie, boy!” — a highly racially-charged epithet that is deeply offensive to African-Americans.

“Surrounded by middle-aged white guys – a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club – Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t,” Dowd wrote. “But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

“Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber,” Dowd wrote.

Asked by Wallace whether race underlay his outburst, Wilson responded, “No, no, I respect the president.” the 62-year-old Wilson added that his ancestors lived near those of first lady Michelle Obama in Georgetown County, South Carolina.

WILSON’S REPUTED MEMBERSHIP IN RACIST-CONTROLLED GROUP RAISES QUESTIONS

But revelations of Wilson’s reputed membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans are likely to raise more questions about the motive for his outburst against the president.

The 113-year-old SCV, according to a 2006 SPLC report, had undergone a purge of its longtime moderate members — including several present and former U.S. senators — who were replaced by “racial extremists.” That, in turn, led to a bitter severing of relations between the SCV and other Southern heritage groups, including the Military Order of Stars & Bars and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The report noted that some 300 moderate SCV members were expelled, accused by the radical racialists of disloyalty for criticizing racism in the organization.

And in a 2008 expose, The St. Petersburg Times revealed that since the 1990s, clusters of SCV members “have aligned themselves with ‘heritage groups’ like the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens” — both considered racist hate groups by the SPLC, with the CCC essentially a revival of the white citizens’ councils that sprung up in the 1950s and 1960s to resist the civil rights movement.

The question arises: If it turns out that Wilson is indeed a member of the SCV, how credible then, in the face of its takeover by white supremacists, are his denials of Obama’s race being a factor in motivating his outburst against the president?

WILSON ATTACKED OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BIRACIAL DAUGHTER OF STROM THURMOND

In 2003, Wilson called Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a retired teacher, a liar when she came forward in 2003 that she is the the out-of-wedlock, biracial daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond and a black woman who worked for Thurmond’s family as a maid in the 1920s — only to apologize after the Thurmond family acknowledged her as their long-hidden relative.

Thurmond, a former arch-segregationist who became notorious for his fierce opposition to civil rights legislation — leading the longest filibuster in Senate history against the civil rights bill of 1957 — had a sexual liaison with the then-16-year-old Carrie Butler in 1925. Thurmond was 22 at the time.

Within days after Washington-Williams’ revelation, Wilson told The State newspaper of Charleston, South Carolina that he didn’t believe Williams. He deemed the revelation “unseemly” and “a smear on the image that [Thurmond] has as a person of high integrity who has been so loyal to the people of South Carolina.”

But after the Thurmond family acknowledged that Washington-Williams was indeed the late senator’s eldest daughter born out of wedlock, Wilson apologized but insisted that Washington-Williams should have kept the fact that Thurmond was her father private.

Washington-Williams, who now lives in Los Angeles and will turn 85 on October 12, did not learn of Thurmond being her father until she turned 16 and met the senator in person for the first time in 1941.

WILSON A RECIPIENT OF ‘GOVERNMENT-RUN’ HEALTH CARE HE OPPOSES FOR OTHERS

Wilson’s strident opposition to what he sees as “government-run heath care” in the president’s reform package is inconsistent with his being a recipient of government-run health care. Wilson is a retired colonel of the Army National Guard. As such, he receives full health-care coverage under the military’s TRICARE program and will retain such coverage for the rest of his life, according to Newsweek magazine.

In fact, Wilson’s family — he has four sons now serving in the military — has been a beneficiary of such “government-run health care” for several generations, according to the magazine.

Yet Wilson voted 11 times against expanding health-care coverage for veterans, according to the liberal-leaning South Carolina political site IndigoJournal.com, citing a blistering campaign ad by Rob Miller, Wilson’s Democratic opponent in last year’s election.

Miller, an Iraq War veteran and former Marine Corps captain who lost to Wilson by eight percentage points last year, is running against Wilson again in 2010 — and has raised more than $1 million in the days since Wilson’s outburst.

# # #

Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

So, waddayaknow? Now Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie does sound like a candidate – this despite the near universal hubbub that said he wasn’t going to run.

Part of that conventional wisdom was always, in my view, flawed. The idea that if he were serious he would have jumped on it quickly may be an axiom that applies to most politicians, but ignores the fact that this is Brian Dubie we’re talking about. Brian Dubie does not do politics quickly. In fact, his same-day statement that he was considering it probably qualifies as a lightning speed political response on the Dubie scale.

But the hubbub was deeper and broader than that, so it does seem likely that the GOP rank-and-file groundswell on the Lieutenant Governor’s behalf may actually be swaying him – and Hallenbeck (at the only political blog, professional media or otherwise, that still refuses to link to anybody else’s sites) indicates that Dubie’s final decision is to be put off at least another week.

But it’s also likely that the hubub is being generated somewhat by those who want it to be true – and mutterings suggest they may well be some of the same folks who have also encouraged Tom Salmon to switch parties and make noises about the top spot himself. There are a lot of GOP or GOP-oriented movers and shakers who have little confidence in Brian Dubie to withstand the rigors of a full-on gubernatorial campaign, and I – for one – can see why they’d be concerned.

The fact is that Dubie’s continuing hesitation on making a final decision against the increasing pressure to make one as quickly as possible both underscores and exacerbates the fault lines in the Republican Party, and the longer he puts off an announcement, the more those tensions are likely to rise.

On the other side, Matt Dunne is sounding more and more likely to enter a race for Governor. After failing to oust Brian Dubie from the number 2 spot two cycles back, Dunne would need to make a big splash quickly after announcing – probably by raising a lot of money – to be seen as competitive given that the race (and the fundraising) is already underway. But the fact is that Dunne is perfectly capable of doing that, and in a Democratic Primary setting, he is not to be underestimated (just ask John Tracy).

Dems tend to fall into one of two categories regarding Dunne; those who really like him a lot, and those who refuse to accept just how many other Dems really like him a lot. If Dunne gets in, he may well jump to that shared leading status in just a few weeks.

The political shakeup means that the next month or so is an opportunity for new faces to jump into races up and down the ticket. For the top spot, the next organic opportunity to jump in and be taken seriously as a major competitor may not be until March, exploiting what is likely to be fatigue over a contentious legislative session. Clearly, though, anyone entering in March would face an uphill fundraising climb, so look for at least one new announcement this fall that will more or less set the battle lines.

( – promoted by odum)

How big a slash did the Salmon switching parties story make? A search of the Times-Argus shows that Pete the Moose and Tom the Republican are tied for the number of stories about them in the last 14 days.

The latest stories today? A back ground piece on Vermont party switching in general and news that the moose now has a lawyer representing him.

Moose, 7

Salmon, 7

Cheney still the hero of Caledonian Record?

This  is Vermont Caledonian-Record’s Sept 11th editorial plea that we heed the warnings of Dick Cheney.

“Former Vice President Dick Cheney is right when he warns that those who wish to hamstring our military and our intelligence agencies would cripple the country’s ability to defend itself.”

In the  Caledonian Record’s remembrance of that day Cheney’s warning stood out among the standard “he keep us safe” nonsense .It stood out more than their conveniently failing to remember the anthrax attacks on Vermont Sen.Leahy and others when claiming  Bush kept us safe after Sept. 11th. Why let the facts get in the way of the “He kept us safe” meme? Torture,open ended detention , two wars, eight years and still stupid.  Maybe it’s just a little Caledonian nostalgia and a wish on their part to go back to the glory days of 2003 when the National Review could gush in all seriousness  “What of our vice president? Is he, too, a “daddy politician”? You bet, as Donald Rumsfeld would say. You get the feeling that things are going to be all right if Mr. Cheney is on the case.”

Some insight from someone that knows………………..

In a recent interview Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Bush Secretary of State Colin Powel when asked ,

“They started things and had no idea what their ultimate plan was. What, you really intend to hold people forever without charging them with anything?”

 Col. Lawrence Wilkerson,  said “I’ve come to the conclusion that the man truly is – whether he was that way when I knew him before, when he was Secretary of Defense, I don’t know, that’s not at issue with me any more – the man now is just crazy,”

http://pubrecord.org/nation/49…

http://caledonianrecord.com/ma…

http://www.opinionjournal.com/…

[Update: it eventually struck me that there are implications for all those military folk being cashiered from their service simply because they are gay, many of them linguists in Arabic and Pashtun and other languages directly relevant to the safety of U.S. troops. And President Obama could halt the discharges with an Executive Order, but refuses to do so. — NanuqFC]

For all the computer geeks out there, here’s a story about Alan Turing, originator of the Turing Test for machine intelligence and the first storable software for Manchester University’s Mark 1 (first recognizable modern computer), code-breaker of the Nazi Enigma cipher of World War II, recipient of the Order of the British Empire, Fellow of the Royal Society — and post-war convict (h/t to Pam’s House Blend, although the diarist there asserts that Apple Computer’s logo is an homage to Turing, who committed suicide by eating a cyanide-laced apple, found beside him when his body was discovered. Snopes and common sense say not so.)

His crime? He was gay.

The Guardian also has the story.

Alan Turing was convicted of “gross indecency” after reporting a break-in by a man he’d picked up and taken home weeks earlier. During the investigation, he acknowledged he’d had sex with the man.

He got to choose in 1952 between going to prison and being injected with estrogen for a year to kill his sex drive. He lost his security clearance as a result of his conviction and was denied entry to the U.S. Alan Turing committed suicide two years later at age 41.

And on September 10, 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, responding to an online petition, issued an apology for the way Britain treated Alan Turing and many other LGBT people with prejudice and criminal prosecution.

Way too little, way too late, but a piece of our cultural history that should be shared and appreciated.

And, if you’re curious, check out Turing on Wikipedia.

Obama’s highly anticipated health care speech did not disappoint, and the shameless heckling from the Republican side of the aisle amounted to icing on the Administration’s public relations cake, so clearly contrasting as it did the President with the political craziness that has aligned itself against him. Obama’s poll numbers will receive a bump – albeit a smaller one than supporters would like to see, as it will primarily come from renewed enthusiasm from the progressive wing of the party which began losing patience with the Administration on this issue (and others) weeks ago.

And praise is coming in by the bucketful. Engaged progressives – from the pundit class to regular citizenry in water-cooler conversations – are using terms such as “turning point” and “game-changer” in describing the success of the speech and the renewed momentum for reform.

Inspired pundits notwithstanding, however, the game has not changed. We are still working the same board with the same pieces and the same rules. What Obama may have done, rather than change the game, is simply hand himself a “get out of jail free” card, enabling him to regain lost ground and political momentum. But there is still a reform bill to be finalized, and the deeper political realities beyond any sense of this week’s ideological momentum remain the same. What matters, of course, is what happens next.

Political reality may be 90% perception, but that remaining 10% is made up of intractable policy realities, and Obama said nothing that mitigates the core political challenge to health care reform.  

Two distinct lines from his speech collectively frame the biggest single problem that remains: “For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need,” followed a few lines later by “individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers.”

Few reformers argue the need to get everyone insured in order to capture savings and increase efficiency in the system, hence the near-universal calls from the left for an individual mandate.

The problem, then, is not whether to have such a mandate, but how to make it work.

A publicly administered and funded insurance option is the simplest, most obvious means to that end. Obama spoke correctly of distinguishing between means and ends, warning against a dogmatic fixation on such a public option by progressives, but the fact is any other means gets sticky, and come down to simply giving people money in some way shape or form, something Washington is loathe to do. And lawmakers should be wary; the notion of simply paying out for individual private insurance without any meaningful regulatory cost controls is an unsustainable, budget-busting gift to an industry already practiced in gouging its clientele.

So without a public option, a fairly straightforward game of policy logic becomes an equation that doesn’t balance easily at all, and despite huzzahs from enthusiastic liberal lawmakers, Obama continued to lay the groundwork for a delicate abandonment of a true public option in his speech. For reform to work without such an option, Congress and the Administration will have to show a willingness to proactively and firmly regulate in a way inconsistent with everything we’ve seen from both up to this point.

If this dynamic that was underway before the speech continues to play out in the direction it had been heading, this meeting of the irresistible force of policy logic with the immovable object of a Congress either chronically confused or simply beholden to insurance and pharmaceutical contributions will leave only one place to balance off the numbers in any final bill; on the backs of middle and working class Americans.

Unless we see more than rhetoric from Obama and Congress – and soon – this debate will continue on the track it has been on for the last week, and could very well still lead to a uniting of the progressive activist base with the far right to defeat a final product seen as doing far more harm than good. Without clearer, firmer and bolder leadership than can be contained in a single speech, we will see a bill, perhaps not as egregious as the abomination that emerged from the mind of Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus, but close enough. A bill that will not provide an immediate, meaningful public option, will still require people to buy insurance, but will only provide assistance to purchase that insurance to the poorest Americans, and in some deferred form – such as tax credits – which will not come when needed.

The middle and working class will again witness what happens when wealthy Congresspeople (especially when looking to make a tough bill’s numbers round out pleasingly) decide what is “affordable” on their behalf. Reform activists still have their work cut out for them if there’s to be a different outcome.  

We all know that Jim Douglas isn’t running for guv again, but did you know that Rob Roper is stepping down as Vermont GOP Chair and Brian Dubie is heading off to Alaska before announcing his gubernatorial intentions?

Palin/Douglas ’12 bid on the horizon or some other equally nefarious undertaking?

From Thursday's Times Argus:

 MONTPELIER – The executive committee of the U-32 school district recently wrote to the Montpelier school board chairman asking to jumpstart consolidation talks and is open to the study of merging the two high schools and perhaps even sharing a superintendent.

This whole argument predates my residence in Montpelier by many years, but as I understand it, when U-32 was being developed the U-32 district towns approached Montpelier to see if they were interested in joining the regional district and Montpelier said no.

Since then, given the physical plant problems in the Montpelier district, there have been proposals floated in Montpelier to approach U-32, but, smarting from the memory of 1967, sternly rebuffed Montpelier's overtures.

The new approach is different. First, it comes from the U-32 board. Second, it comes at a time when the finances of the state education department and the two districts is more constrained than it has been in years. Third, it comes at a time when there is a vacancy in the office of superintendent for Montpelier, following the recent death of Steve Metcalf.

Both my sons went straight through Montpelier's public schools, and graduated from the high school, but the economies of scale and scope that this proposal offers make this an attractive idea.

I hope the two districts can find a way to make this happen.