UPDATE: The big site changes are still afoot, but have been more challenging than I expected, so they’ll have to trickle in over the week.
As you’ll infer from what’s been done so far, I’m rearranging the ad structure. Yes, they’ll be a bit more intrusive, but to keep this up, it’s going to have to start paying for some of the time I’ve put into it over the past 5 years, so I’m afraid the ads will get a bit more prominent – or at least, I’m going to start selling banner ads.
Again, I appreciate your patience in all this especially if your viewing this using Internet Explorer… I have no idea why the big white spaces – wish I had a $%#%@&# test server). Stay tuned…
Big changes afoot for GMD in 2011, and they start this weekend. Expect the site to be largely down (or crazy-messed-up looking) tomorrow (Sunday the 2nd).
Monday the third, it’ll look prettier than ever – with a couple big announcements(Not quite yet).
As is the tradition at VTblogosphereTV, our year-end holiday special features John Odum of Green Mountain Daily. Last Yuletide season, John described how the pivotal bloggers’ summit set the goals of opening up the process in the VT Gov’s race, ratcheting up the enthusiasm, and increasing participation in order to strengthen our chances in November. His ghost-of-xmas-past assessment is eerily prescient, given how the 2010 election cvcle played out in Vermont. It is largely because of this kind of thinking from the netroots that the 2010 “enthusiasm gap” turned on its head in VT.
We were reading everywhere how the Republicans were amped while we in our own state got involved in a strong five candidate Dem primary for governor, which ended in a squeaker close recount that was played so right that it resulted in unified and energized Democratic base. And in November, our pick, Peter Shumlin beat Brian Dubie by running on a platform of single payer and retiring VT Yankee, our failing nuclear power plan down on the MA and NH border.
So it may be no surprise that this year’s “progressive psychological lifeline” (as Odum calls it) came from Vermont in the form of Bernie Sanders’ 8 1/2 Hour Tour De Force. We’ve been pumped in 2010 and we are happy to spread the energy to the rest of our battered and beleagured nation.
Not only did one of our three federal representatives provide the tonic after a defeating election cycle, our incoming governor looks serious about moving us towards a statewide single payer system. This is exciting stuff and it is exactly how the states have to approach the federal reform law. The best thing about the health care changes at the federal level is it gives states the room to build a complete system.
Peter Shumlin’s last job was Pesident Pro Tem of our state Senate and he had a large part in overriding the marriage equality veto. He knows how our little state legislature works. We might just get it done here; it might take a decade but we just might show the way for the whole nation to get there. Remember even in as regressive a year as 2010, we still made progress. Elections are over, let’s get some policy victories in 2011.
Happy New Year GMDers! looks like we done some good in 2010 and I just had to brag to the kos crowd. crossposted there
Happy New Year to Vermont from a Texas judge! Judge Jon Wisser issued a temporary restraining order that threw a monkey wrench into the plans for a “hurry up” vote to expand access to the nuclear dump where Vermont plans to send material from VY.
The plan up for a vote was to expand access to the low-level nuclear waste dump in West Texas to all states and commercial nuclear companies. Unbelievably, Vermont’s two representatives on the committee for the dump planned to vote for the plan, even though it was likely to shut Vermont out by taking such waste on a first-come, first served basis, as reported earlier this week here by BP and quoting a December 1 report by Vermont Digger.
Texas Vox, “the Voice of Public Citizen in Texas,” regards the order as a win for folks who oppose the dump entirely.
The final vote on the plan was to have taken place on Tuesday, January 4, by the members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission – just before Governor-elect Peter Shumlin will be inaugurated. That vote is now apparently on hold.
Texas Vox reports that at least 4,000 anti-expansion comments were received during the public comment period, which ended on December 27.
Stay tuned.
PS: As someone with a Vermont ISP, I found the (presumably state-tailored) advertising (by Google) on the Texas Vox site interesting: “Click to hear more about the safety of Vermont Yankee.” followed by “www.iamvy.com”.
The Vermont Department of Children and Families has promised to hire 20 news staff members… to eliminate a backlog of benefit applications in just over a month.
The department and Vermont Legal Aid released the details of the plan that will include the hires and the elimination of the backlog by Feb. 1.
Legal Aid, which called the agreement a “corrective action plan,” had threatened to sue DCF for failing to process in a timely fashion applications for public benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid benefits within 30 days. In the plan, DCF has agreed to comply with a 30-day processing standard for new applications by July 1.
Of course, when Vermont Legal Aid first threatened to sue over this, Dale claimed that “legal action against the state could complicate efforts to solve the problem. Vulnerable Vermonters, he says, are better served if the state is focused on fixing the problem, not fighting litigation.”
So, clearly, without the lawsuit, we would have seen serious progress in the last five weeks, because without groups like Vermont Legal Aid in the mix, everyone’s just climbing all over one another in the effort to find better and more helpful ways to provide aid and services to the poor. It’s really quite a shame they had to go in and you know, force the state to hire enough people to follow the damned law.
The Shumlin transition team has announced that Biomass Energy Resource Center Executive Director Chris Recchia will be the new administration’s Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, and Chittenden County forester Michael Snyder will serve as the next Commissioner of Forest, Parks and Recreation.
According to the press release, Recchia served “as Deputy Commissioner and then Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation from 1997 to 2003. In addition, Recchia was director of the Ozone Transport Commission in Washington D.C., where he headed up 12 states and the District of Columbia on coordination of air pollution programs.”
And although it hasn’t been formally announced yet, news is already in open circulation at ANR that my former co-worker at the Vermont Natural Resources Council Water, Jon Groveman, will be the next lead counsel for the agency as well. I can say from first hand experience that there is no sharper mind for natural resources law and advocacy in Vermont than Jon, and the news that he’s being brought onboard pegs the competence, professionalism, and effectiveness meters for the new Markowitz-helmed ANR.
The woman whose image was part of the campaign to encourage and empower women as factory workers while men were enlisting or being drafted for World War II has died, according to the Lansing Journal.
Geraldine Doyle was 86.
Doyle was the model for the poster that was created by J. Howard Miller in 1942 for Westinghouse, titled “We Can Do It!” That image was taken for Rosie the Riveter when it was re-popularized by feminists in the 1970s.
Interestingly enough, Wikipedia names two other women as the inspirations for the iconic image of women taking on men’s work to help the war effort.
There was a song, Rosie the Riveter, purportedly inspired by Rosalind P. Walter, “who came from old money and worked on the night shift building the F4U Corsair fighter.”
Wikipedia goes on:
Rosie the Riveter became most closely associated with another real woman, Rose Will Monroe, who was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky in 1920 and moved to Michigan during World War II. She worked as a riveter at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Ypsilanti, Michigan, building B-29 and B-24 bombers for the U.S. Army Air Forces.
Few of the ‘Rosies’ holding jobs, especially in formerly male-only occupations, would be where we are without these women of the wartime factories, particularly those who refused to meekly return when that war was done – and at the government’s behest – to unpaid homemaking and/or gender-stereotyped work .
Year-end syndrome is upon us. Everyone feels a little hung-over whether or not they’ve indulged. The holidays tend to be defined by how the whole year played-out, for better or worse. In good years we kill ourselves constructing the “perfect” celebration, embrace hordes of friends and relatives with our hospitality, then sigh with relief when it’s all over. In bad years we hunker down, turn a partially blind eye on grim reality and determine to maintain a brave face of cheer until the last visitor is wished well. Then we sigh with relief when it’s all over.
“Good” year or not, the season brims with guilt and regret; and with the certain knowledge that time is racing us all to one final Christmas, one final New Year. Perhaps that is why some families do nothing but bicker over the holidays. Perhaps that is why, statistically, so many lives end at this time of year…sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Both of my parents passed away in the week between Christmas and the New Year; one in 1986 and the other in the final hours of the twentieth century. I couldn’t help but feel that this was somehow intentional on a deep interior plane.
2010 was rough. Resources have been short in my household, but thankfully we have work now at the end of the year. Others have not been so lucky and face the new year with no relief in sight. A plague of personal crises among friends and extended family tempers the forced gayety of the season this year, as each one silently reflects on the loss and challenges that lay ahead. There is no gift that will ease grief, loneliness and desperation.
There are things to celebrate about 2010; but much of that has to do with circumstances not being quite so bad as they might have been. So raise a glass (if only one) to 2010 as it fades into the acrid mist of memory. Innocent of the future, we’ll tumble into 2011 and simply take what comes our way.
Today I appointed Michael O’Neil as Director of Vermont Emergency Management – currently Chief Engineer and Emergency Management Director for the city of Burlington’s Fire Department. Mike’s experience heading up emergency services in Burlington has prepared him for any emergency that could adversely impact the lives of Vermonters.
Announcement-by-social-media? Media history? Nah… probably I just missed another press release. Grumble.
Long time Windham-4 Representative (and former Speaker of the House) Michael Obuchowski will be the Commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services in the new administration. From the transition team press release:
The department employs more than 350 people and oversees construction, renovation, maintenance and other services — including security — related to state buildings and grounds. The department also manages the state’s vehicle fleet and coordinates worker compensation claims.
“I can’t imagine a better fit for this job,” said Gov.Elect Shumlin. “Michael’s extensive legislative background and direct experience with state buildings and grounds will enable him to hit the ground running in this position.”
Obuchowski is a great guy and has done a lot for the state of Vermont. While it’s hard to imagine a House Democratic caucus without him, it’s great to see him recognized with an appointment (although I was hoping the rumors about a potential appointment to Treasurer would bear out). It ain’t sexy, but it’s a nuts-and-bolts position, and Obie does nuts-and-bolts very well
The woman whose image was part of the campaign to encourage and empower women as factory workers while men were enlisting or being drafted for World War II has died, according to the