UPDATE: I wasn’t sure it was going to go in this direction, but design expert John Huntington is now saying the Indiana State Fair has blood on their hands.

http://www.controlgeek.net/blo…

It’s tempting to call the stage collapse in Indiana this week a tragedy. It was certainly a tragic loss for the families of the dead and injured, that much is true. On the other hand, it appears that the organizers of the show should have known enough to evacuate the area, and especially to get the light operators down from the structure, before there was any loss of life. They had plenty of advance warning, and a nearby outdoor concert was evacuated in time based on the same information.

Whether the stage collapse was due to a fluke, unpredictable gust of wind known as a gustnado, and whether the force could have been anticipated, will undoubtedly be investigated in the coming weeks and months.

A different human tragedy, though, is entirely manmade, and could be easily remedied.

One of the concertgoers killed in the collapse was Christina Santiago, who had become known in the Chicago community as a dedicated advocate for gay women’s health care. Santiago, 29, was a program manager at the Howard Brown Health Center, which provides health and services for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.

It was reported on Facebook and Dailykos yesterday that the local coroner’s office was refusing to release the body to Santiago’s legally married spouse, Alisha Brennan, because of Indiana’s discriminatory marriage laws. This appears to be incorrect. In fact, the groups concerned with Santiago, Brennan, and their family are reportedly working with the coroner’s office to obtain release of the body.

Alfarena Ballew from the Marion County Coroner’s office called to offer this statement, “Her friend and her aunt are working together with the life partner to take care of the remains. We have nothing in writing from the partner asking to claim the body. Our records show that the next of kin is her aunt. Our understanding now is that they’re all working together to release the body and take care of the services.” Ms. Ballew described the incident as a “misunderstanding” and says the office is on track to release the body shortly.

Still, the bolded language above deserves special attention. Even in the face of a legal marriage, this government agency has determined that Santiago’s aunt is her next of kin. Would this be tolerated, or even suggested, if this were a married heterosexual couple?

To even ask the question is to answer it. It’s encouraging that this situation appears to be on its way to a resolution, and the coroner’s office appears to be handling it with sensitivity. Nevertheless, can someone explain to me how the public interest or family values are served by refusing to recognize this marriage?

Note: all the technical information about the storm and outdoor stage construction posted or referred to here comes from John Huntington, a colleague of my son at City Technical College in Brooklyn.

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

What: Montpelier Taser Committee meeting

When: Tuesday, August 16th, at 6:30pm

Where: City Manager’s Conference Room,

             City Hall, 39 Main Street, Montpelier

             (use back entrance of building, room is down hallway on left)

Lineup: Attorney Jack McCullough of Mental Health Law Project of Vermont Legal Aid and attorney David Sleigh of the law firm that has litigated most if not all of the Taser cases brought against police departments across the state thus far.

On Tuesday, August 23rd the committee has expressed a desire to have at least one of the other police chiefs before them, either Burlington or South Burlington, since it did not work out for them to do so this week. Also on the agenda for next week is for the committee members to listen to, as I understand it, an audio tape of one of the incidents that occurred within Montpelier they have been continually informed about by Chief Facos as why Tasers are sorely needed.

The committee is now considering holding the public hearing on Thursday, September 8th, however they will be revisiting the conversation about when to do so during their meeting this evening as well.

Montpelier Taser Committee members:

Jeff Dworkin, Chair

Zachary (Zack) Hughes, Co-chair

Vicki Lane

Polly Ellerbe

Nick Marro

Marilyn Mode

The main contact for the Montpelier Taser Committee is Jeff Dworkin.

By the way, if one would desire to perform a public records request in order to obtain the e-mails between committee members as well as any e-mails either received by or sent by committee members in communications with others relating to the business of the committee, co-chair Zachary (Zack) Hughes is the person assigned to handle such requests (it might be best to consider requesting to receive the e-mail and related public records by e-mail, unless one also requires hard copies, which could end up resulting in a fee to cover the cost of printing, copying and mailing, etc.; if one is also inquiring about other documents the committee might possess and are relying upon during their work and deliberations, one should inquire and take it up with Zack).

On the Montpelier City Council agenda for its October 12th meeting is the Taser Committee Report (view bottom of page of City Manager’s weekly report of August 12th under ‘Upcoming Council Meetings’; PDF version), here.

fyi:

• Vermont Public Records Law (PDF version)
• Informational presentation on Montpelier Vermont and Tasers online slideshow of mine (via Google Docs; recently updated), here

For those on Facebook, check out and, if so inclined, “like” the Montpelier, Vermont and Tasers informational and community discussion page, here.

…and persuades this fence-sitter to finally join them.

Up to now, I’ve not been on the Progressive’s mailing list; but when Cindy Weed told me that Governor Shumlin was going to put in an appearance at the State Committee meeting, I decided this was one I didn’t want to miss.

Sunday afternoon, at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rutland, Martha Abbott set  a cordial tone for the meeting by observing that,

” If the Democratic Legislature takes on our issues and fights for them, we win.”

The agenda opened with an economic primer by Jeff Thompson of the Political Economy Research Institute, who explained the factual evidence that economic stimuli, not budget cuts are the key to turning the economy around.  

Said Thompson, lack of demand, not Government spending, is the primary down-driver of the recession. Despite the low cost of borrowing, business investment declined in the recession and still lags, while the savings rate has climbed higher, but only among high income earners.   Ordinary folks aren’t spending as they once were; but they also aren’t saving because they can barely cover the essentials.

The answer on the state level, says Thompson, is not to cut taxes, because to do so would also necessitate a cut in public investment and therefore, jobs.  He points out that, on average, Vermont has not managed to preserve as many public sector jobs as other states have; and that these job losses not only represent an extension of the jobless cycle, but also real impacts on public health, safety and education.

Mr. Thompson reminded us that historically, we’ve seen much higher taxes on upper income households in the not so distant past, and that there is absolutely no evidence supporting the assertion that slightly raising taxes on those households would cause the rich to flee the state.  

Finally, he believes that not tapping into the rainy day funds for the short-term relief and stimulus they could provide represents “fiscal mismanagement.”

This presentation was followed by a legislative summary; then a break and organizational business, ending as Governor Shumlin took the podium.

The Governor’s words predictably tracked his stump speech, carefully steering away from any points of contention.  This speech was immediately followed by audience questions read by Martha Abbott from cards that had  been collected earlier.

In retrospect, I think it would have been  a more authentic interface with the governor if he had dispensed with the stump speech and simply entertained questions informally posed from the modest-sized audience.

Some attendees expressed frustration with the format, and a number of questions went unasked in the brief amount of time that was allowed.

Despite an inhibiting format, the issue of Governor Shumlin’s reluctance to raise taxes on the wealthiest Vermonters came up repeatedly in the Q and A’s;  as did the harmfulness of public sector cuts.

Had the governor attended Mr. Thompson’s earlier presentation, he might have framed his responses differently. As it was, his answers sounded a little insubstantial in light of the contradicting evidence that had just been rather exhaustively presented to us.  

“We must agree to disagree,”

was Mr. Shumlin’s final answer when caught in the conundrum.

As the governor stepped down and prepared to leave, I caught up with him and once again posed the question I have raised repeatedly since March: “Why did you re-appoint Dan Luneau to the District 6 Environmental Commission?”

Once again, the governor demurred that

“we must agree to disagree.”

I pointed out that I had provided a very good reason why Mr. Luneau should not be re-appointed and he had provided none for why he should.  The visibly exasperated governor replied that Mr. Luneau is his friend and that he trusts Mr. Luneau.

After a few parting words about how he might expect challenges in future Act 250 proceedings concerning Exit 20 of I-89, where Mr. Luneau’s family business is positioned to benefit from surrounding development, I rather heatedly broke off the conversation.  

Before I left the building, I located Morgan Daybell.  He had asked me much earlier to organize for the Progressives in St. Albans and I had said I wasn’t sure I was ready to do that.  Now, I think I am.

I’m not sorry I helped elect Governor Shumlin, but I now realize it will take more than the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to hold his feet to the fire.  

So these are the sort of things that happen when I am relaxing over the weekend and let my mind wander.

I decided to try my attempt at a twitter hashtag, #MessagesFromTheFuture, with random thoughts, such as:

Of course, I am no twitter genius.  There are plenty of things I can do that are a lot smarter than this, but at least I’m amusing myself, if no one else.

In the meantime, I am taking pictures.

So this is a close-up of a leaf from our garden.  (No, I do not remember which kind).  Notice the patterning on this leaf.  I’ve been a fan of fractal designs for a couple decades now, and this just kind of blew me away, because it actually matches (or comes very close to) matching one of the fractal designs I used to work with.

I wish I knew where I had put those files– I’d include a matching image here if I had one.  I’m hoping those of you into higher math (you know who you are) will remember this pattern and be able to provide a link to it.  By the way, this is a much smaller version of the photo.  Clicking on it (as with most of these) gets you to a larger version.

Macro work is kind of fascinating for me.  Since I do it outdoors, generally without a tripod, I have to take a great many shots of moving targets to get one just barely in focus. It’s complicated, but fun, and most focal work is manual and takes precision that I tend to lack without the help of an automatic camera.  But still… I sometimes succeed and sometimes come close enough that I’ll go ahead and make it public anyway.   This close up of a jewelweed, which is about the size of my thumb, however, is just kind of perfect:





And I like these Syrphid Flies quite a bit:





These are two of my favorite flowers:





This one came out moderately well:



This bee came out very crisp and clear:





This bug is significantly smaller than the nail on my pinky finger:





And this spider was small enough that I thought it was a speck of dust.  If you are familiar with echinacea flowers, you can get a sense of just how tiny this bug is:

And speaking of spiders…



It’s been a long week.  I’m still learning to live with illness.  I’m doing well, but not great.  There’s a very good chance I’ll need a surgery which will take a month to recover from, but I don’t need it urgently, and can wait until a quieter time.  My vision is mostly good, but not great, and my mood varies.

Though I am finding the vision to be improving, the speech problems I’m experiencing are of extreme frustration to me.  I like to talk.  I get up and talk in front of people comfortably and without hesitation and the vast majority of what I do for a living involves talking to people.

I know that if this is taken from me, I will learn to work with it, but it is, in some ways, more difficult than the double vision, if for no other reason than that it is lingering while the double vision for the most part is not that persistent an issue any longer.

But I will manage, and find a way through.  And the surgery will be brutal and unpleasant, but I will survive it and it will improve things, at least for a time.  

And in the meantime, I find humor in small things, amusing myself on twitter, taking pictures that I kind of love, getting ready for an exhibit next Spring, and just mostly enjoying life despite the moments of fairly extreme frustration.

Mitt Romney blurted out recently that in his opinion, "Corporations are people, my friend." So what are some of these incorporated “people” up to these days?

Two familiar corporate giants, Chiquita and Disney, are hooking up.

Agreement Links Companies with Long History of Quality Products & Services reads the press release headline. Chiquita will bring its “healthy fresh” products to Walt Disney World Resort and Disney Cruise Line and receive brand exclusivity within their respective categories.

Chiquita, which started its long corporate life in Central America as United Fruit (where its involvement in internal politics led to the term banana republic), may still need an image assist.

In 2007 Chiquita pled guilty to violating US law by making illegal payments to the Colombian rebel group FARC and paid a 25-million-dollar penalty. This past May lawsuits against Chiquita involving this case and allegations of rebel killings of Colombian citizens were consolidated and will be heard in a Florida court this year.

But this is Disney World so: as part of their collaboration, Chiquita will serve as the sponsor of both the "Crush 'n' Gusher" at Typhoon Lagoon (themed around a tropical fruit processing center), and the "Living with the Land" attraction, where Chiquita will join forces with Disney to help teach guests about nutrition.  

Amazing it didn’t occur to them that Crush ‘n’ Gusher sounds like a description of United Fruit’s method of repressing peasants, crushing union activity and subverting local governments in their banana-republic glory days. And Chiquita/Disney’s “Living with the Land” attraction more than likely will not highlight the lack of genetic diversity in monoculture and intensive pesticide growing practices that have already made one type of banana plant extinct and placed a second one now under the same threat.

Guess Disney World couldn’t be a better partner for Chiquita Brands to help remake its image to more closely match the fantasy it wants the rest of us to believe.

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

Billed as “The Largest Vermont Tea Party Rally in History,” Friday night’s “freedom bonfire” in Bradford at one point drew slightly over 30 people, including the organizers, the invited speakers, and yours truly. The audience was from the 50-and-above crowd, and several declared that they had, in fact, come from New Hampshire to attend the event.

Peg Coutermarsh of Bradford was the MC.

Speakers were Henry Lampman of the VT John Birch Society, who went on about the pervasive threat of socialism within the US since forever; John McLaughry of the Ethan Allen Institute, who talked at length about the recent debt ceiling debacle and argued that the coming election was the right time for the tea party to take over the State House in Montpelier; Rutland City Treasurer Wendy Wilton, who had brought along her (in)famous spreadsheet (alas, no Powerpoint) of the endless horrors (in the shape of taxes) that would befall us all when Peter Shumlin got his way with Green Mountain Care. Finally Steven Howard of the Vermont Campaign for Liberty tried to make the argument that our inherent sense of liberty is what makes us so uniquely American, and warned that the flame of liberty was smoldering.

Howard then had the honor of lighting the bonfire, while participants were given the opportunity to write their messages to President Obama on sticks to throw in the flames (apparently the Tea Party hasn’t gotten the memo that the president prefers Twitter).

Unlike with last year’s event, there appeared to be zero media interest in this year’s Vermont Tea Party bonfire.

More pictures from the epic event here.

Would a Progressive Burlington, Vermont Mayor partner with the Koch brothers? Obviously not. Their well-heeled right wing legal activism has been condemned by liberal icons including Burlington’s own Bernie Sanders, and anything they did in liberal Burlington would carry a heavy taint. Would the same Mayor partner with a corporation, which like the Koch brothers, defeats progressive change on a state and Federal level? Say that the corporation’s work-a-day existence (instead of building Dixie Cups like the Koch brothers), is selling nuclear missiles and cluster bombs, propping up dictators, and doing detainee interrogation at Abu Ghrahib and Guantanamo. Say that the corporation, like the Koch brothers, was instrumental in the notorious Citizens United ruling, and two controversial Supreme Court decisions in recent weeks. Say one of the court cases was the dismissal of a sex-discrimination lawsuit, brought on behalf of 1.5 million women who have worked at Wal-Mart, which likely will drastically complicate the ability of disempowered victims to stand together in class action suits. The other suit, stopping six states from limiting emissions of greenhouse gases under federal common law. One of those six states being prevented from regulating climate change was the Mayor’s home state, Vermont. Would Burlington’s Progressive Mayor Bob Kiss, partner the City of Burlington with such a corporation? Apparently so.
Read the full story
 here

After the bastards busted

the union, my life went

to shit; I lost my job,

and then my house and my

wife and kids; they should

never have given Wall Street

that money back in ’08, but

they did, and that’s what

started it, and that’s why

I’m here today, because they’ve

taken everything and doing

this is all I have left.

I want you to all get behind

the counter now; the police

will be here soon, and I don’t

want anyone to get hurt except

me; and not until I make my

statement, not until I tell

every sonofabitching media

bastard just who is responsible

for what I’m doing and why

this is going to happen again

and again all over the country

because the more they take

from us, the more of us are

going to do this; this isn’t

terrorism, it’s anger and despair,

and a lot of other things.

You folks want to see a picture

of my wife and kids?  They’ll

probably call her and I hope

she doesn’t say some stupid

weepy shit about how things are

not that bad, cause they fucking

are, and it’s past time something

should have been done about it;

if I could use this gun on every

one of those fat pig bastards

and the politicians who help them

do this to us…yeah, then things

wouldn’t be that bad, Marsha;

then maybe we could all live like

human beings, instead of like

a bunch of hateful frightened

sheep afraid to face what needs

to be done before it’s all too late.

Here’s the police.  Will you look

at all those guns and rifles.  You’d

think they were coming after bin Laden,

the assholes.  They want me to throw

out my gun and come out, but I’m

going to send you folks out now, just

hope the stupid fucks hold their fire;

then we’ll have us a nice chat; then

I’ll tell them all about what is

really criminal in this fucked-up

country, and who they should be

pointing all those fucking guns at;

who they should be really worried

about, because it isn’t me or you

or your friends or any real honest

regular person; it’s those fuckers

in their big fancy offices plotting

to do it all again, and the government

will give them more billions, and why

not our fucking Food Stamps too;

might as well take it all, you bastards!

No, I’m not coming out you assholes;

I want to read a statement.  My name

is…’aagh!’……………………

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

The President’s wife has an affair with a staff member.

The staff member writes a dissertation about the role of President’s spouses in fund raising.

The staff member’s wife sues for divorce (“but, honey, I was only doing research.”)

The President leaves his job early but gets full pay and then a professorship at almost double the pay of any other member of the department.

The staff members gets a very golden parachute to leave his job.

Everything’s wrong with this picture.

No soap opera could get away with this.

If you thought extending Vermont Yankee’s operating license was a bad idea, wait until you hear what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized the Tennessee Valley Authority to do!  

Nuclear energy expert Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates believes you have a right to know:

Yesterday the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and Fairewinds Associates issued a report to the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority regarding numerous concerns with the Bellefonte Unit 1 nuclear project. First designed with slide rules back in 1968, Bellefonte Unit 1 is America’s oldest nuclear power plant that has yet to generate any electricity. TVA began construction in 1974, mothballed the plant in 1988, and cannibalized the plant for scrap metal between 2006 and 2008. Alarmingly, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently allowed construction of Bellefonte Unit 1 by TVA to start again with its 1968 design and its 40-year old weakened foundation and containment. In the video and in its report, Fairewinds identifies seven areas of substantial risk for TVA if it continues to construct this aged facility

You can’t make this stuff up.  Here’s the video:

Fairewinds Report for Southern Alliance for Clean Energy on TVA Bellefonte Plant from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.