The word “absentee” has a context to it: it’s not always used to simply describe absence, but it’s often used to describe neglectful absence.  Its context is generally one that’s perjorative, which is why it was alarming to see the headline in today’s Free press: “Absentee rates rise for teachers in Burlington.”

But the article itself isn’t referring just to unscheduled absence or people disappearing from their jobs:

Burlington teachers were absent an average of 14.6 days for illness, conferences, personal days and other reasons in the most recent school year, and school-district officials are studying that number as they address a 23 percent jump in substitute-teacher costs since 2007.

Now… if this piece had been serious journalism, it would have done a little investigation: how did these breakdowns vary from previous years?  Are teachers really shirking off more (as the headline implies), or are they just being dragged to more work-related conferences?  “illnesses,” “personal days,” and “conferences” are three very different things and lumping them all together into a single factor is irresponsible and potentially misleading.

From my point of view, I can’t tell if this is a deliberate attempt to make teachers look like they’re not doing their jobs or just a poorly executed piece, but either way, there’s a level of irresponsibility here that needs to be called out.

(Good stuff from Matthew. Wish I’d written it. – promoted by odum)

Before I begin, I feel like I should put a disclaimer out.  I don’t often expect much from the opinion page of the Burlington Free Press, but I think most of us agree that it hasn’t been too rough on our side of debate this year.  But after reading executive editor Mike Townsend’s “Commentary Lite” piece in the paper today, I was a bit baffled.  If it was all just simply an engaging piece of self-satire aimed at the lack of depth seen in their own coverage of the July 15th filing reports and their implications in the race, then my hat is off to them.  Unfortunately, it appears that isn’t the case, and the rest of the editorial board must have taken the day off for this one to have seen the printing press.

If you have not clicked on the link yet, and read for yourself, it is probably worth doing so.  Among other things, the article touches on Democrats stifling Progressives, economists at Vermont Tiger, and Democrats needing to become more like Republicans.  In all situations, it falls flat on its face.  So I figured I would tackle the questions, and maybe we could have a Q&A of our own.

Why has the election for governor already begun? Didn’t we just have an election?

It has begun because this is the window of time that a modern political campaign needs to get going.  All across the country there are gubernatorial candidates filing to run.  The difference is that the Vermont Constitution gives the governor only a two-year term.  While we can have the debate as to whether the short-term is a positive thing, it certainly congests the election calendar.

Why are Democrats pushing the election campaign up so early?

Because they want to win, and were frankly embarrassed with how late the Symington campaign began.  It takes time to connect with every part of the state, and that is why the framework is being laid now.



So this is the answer? Starting the election a year and a half before we vote and disrupt my Sunday dinner with phone calls and door-knockers?

If that is their strategy, then they are not running a smart campaign at this point.  Though there are no guarantees as to whether Jim gets nervous and you get called for a poll.

Will the Progressives permit the Democrats so rudely to relegate them to the dustbin of obscurity?

Now here’s one that’s not happening anywhere.  Democrats know they’ll need Progressive voters to unseat Douglas, it’s a no-brainer.  So if courting them and ignoring them are now the same, then yes, it is occurring.  Given that the Racine camp is already reaching out to Progressives, I would guess that they will receive plenty of attention, particularly during the primary.

What can they possibly do about the issues 17 months before the election?

No one is on the stump.  They are fundraising.



Oh, Democrats are going to make campaign finance reform an issue again?

No.  I doubt it shows up on any candidates radar.



With the potential of a big Democratic field, will they be able to work together to defeat Jim Douglas?

No one knows at this point.  There certainly is potential for them to, but candidates haven’t really had to make their pitches against each other yet.  With the Tom Salmon Show still in operation however, surely there will be some level of conflict.

Next is a section about “money”, where Jim does take a few hits, VT Tiger is invoked, all sorts of odd stuff goes on.  It eventually finishes with the notion that Democrats are going to have to become more like Republicans, which is foolish given the state’s partisan make-up, the struggles tied to the incumbent, and the way the public has reacted to the past legislative session.

Finally, the seminal question…

How will this affect me?

For the average Vermonter, it won’t.  You’re not going to see TV ads.  You’re unlikely to get called for a long while.  You probably won’t even see people on the side of the road asking you to honk your horn.  Most likely, you’ll just decide when you get in the booth on election day, if you choose to show up.  But candidates raising early money won’t become an emotional burden for the average Vermonter.

In a Friday filing, the department that’s supposed to represent Vermonters’ interests against the purely commercial concerns of Entergy Nuclear told state regulators that a full cleanup of the Vernon reactor site is unnecessary.

The Department recommends that site restoration include removal of all above ground structures and all below ground structures to a depth of at least three feet below grade, followed by regrading and reseeding where necessary or appropriate.

Don’t worry, say our state protectors:

the vast majority of contaminated materials will need to be removed

Entergy needn’t bother with the rest. That’s headed down the river to Mass. and Ct.

No point in looking for what’s been swept under the rug. There’s not enough money in the cleanup fund to deal with it anyway.

The full filing isn’t on line yet, but a pdf is making the rounds.

One of the consequences of Douglas budgeting seems to be failure to keep Public Service Board and Dept of Public Service websites updated.

Case in point- Docket 7530, in which Entergy asks to extend its boundary fence, because the increased radiation from the 2005 power boost puts them over the state limit.

A Public Hearing was held July 13, but the PSB website still doesn’t make the filing documents available to the press and public.

Some weeks are really good for birding.

I’m going to start with a trivia question:

What are these two birds and what are they doing?

I’ll explain after the fold, but first, a quick note: these are all smaller versions of the images.  Clicking on them will get you to larger versions with more detail, location of shot, etc.  All these were taken in Southern VT or NH, not far from the Connecticut River.   Many were taken at Herrick’s Cove, one of my favorite birding spots.

The bird on the left is a chestnut-sided warbler:

It may look in the picture above like they’re in an argument of some sort.  

That’s not quite right.

The previous week, I got a very poor photo of one of these guys, seeming to argue with a much bigger bird.  At first, I’d thought the bigger bird was feeding it, but when I realized the smaller was a chestnut-sided warbler, I thought, “no.  That doesn’t make any sense.”  So I dismissed it.  

Then, days later, I saw this scene:

So what’s going on here?  Why is such a small bird feeding such a big bird?  Did a Chestnut-sided warbler adopt a much larger bird?  

Not exactly.

The other bird is an immature Brown-Headed Cowbird (the adults look like this).  Cowbirds are predatory nesters.  They don’t create their on nests, but put their eggs in the nests of other birds and some of those other birds will feed the baby cowbirds along with their own young.  Not all birds fall for this,  but many do.  Per wikipedia:

It seems that Brown-headed Cowbirds periodically check on their eggs and young after they have deposited them. Removal of the parasitic egg may trigger a retaliatory reaction termed “mafia behavior”. According to a study by the Florida Museum of Natural History published in 1983, the cowbird returned to ransack the nests of a range of host species in 56% of the time when their egg was removed. In addition, the cowbird also destroyed nests in a type of “farming behavior” to force the hosts to build new ones. The cowbirds then laid their eggs in the new nests 85% of the time.

Now, I knew that cowbirds were predatory nesters, but it had just never occurred to me that they did so with much smaller birds.  I had always figured they’d use robins or grackle nests, picking a host that’s of similar size and diet.  But they seem to be indiscriminate.  They’ll even put their eggs in nests of birds that won’t feed them what they need to survive (house finches are an example of this).

So, live and learn.  

Even without that fascinating scene, it was a pretty damned good week for birding.  In our yard, I accidentally found a pair of American Redstarts, with the mamma yelling at me when I was near the baby (I didn’t stay long):

I also found this immature Baltimore Oriole

Several good looks at Black and White warblers

A few Common Yellowthroats

An Eastern Kingbird, feeding its young:

One of the best looks I’ve ever had at a Great Crested Flycatcher

Several gorgeous looks at an Indigo Bunting

This Mystery Dragonfly

A Mystery sparrow (or Wren)

A pair of Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers

A Yellow Warbler (part of a whole family of them)

All in all, a pretty good week or so.  As birders, we often focus on the rare and unusual birds.  I get that, but I don’t have a single photo here of a bird I think of as “rare.”  Every one of these birds (except for the great crested flycatcher) has shown up in my yard at one point or another.  But I still think it’s one of the best weeks of birding I’ve had in some time, because the common birds were pretty fascinating.

As usual, feel free to treat this as an open birds & birding thread and post your own photos if you like.

The news tonight is that Walter Cronkite died tonight at age 92.

It is sad news. He was important to a lot of people.

I never quite got it. He was known as the most trusted man in America, people called him Uncle Walter. People will feel the loss, even though he's been off the air for a long time.

For me, I really couldn't get the reverence people felt for a man whose job was to read the news on TV.

Back when Cronkite was on TV he embodied a certain image: authoritative, avuncular, stolid. He was trusted because his voice, his whole persona, exuded authority. When they were looking for someone to do his job, he was the right guy for the job.

We didn't even know that we were in the running, or even that they were doing this, but the Times Argus today published the first edition of their Best of the Best, their Readers' Choice awards for the best of all that you can find in Vermont.

 And it's not just restaurants, movie theaters, and state parks.

 Here's the category we're interested in:

Best Vermont Political Blog

Green Mountain Daily
www.greenmountaindaily.com

I didn't find the full text online, but here's what they said about us:

“For a modern, liberal take on the political scene go to www.greenmountaindaily.com. This team of bloggers holds strong opinions and has been delivering strong insight into Democratic and Burlington politics for several years.”

So this is a GMD thank-you to the Times Argus, the readers of the Times Argus, and the loyal readers of GMD who voted for us.

A couple of years ago we posted about how Apple was trying to crush innovation by “bricking” people's iPhones.

Maybe it's something to do with owning the hot, exclusive technology that makes you arrogant, but this case is too ironic to believe. The hot new technology this time around is the Kindle, the new e-book reader from Amazon that many people consider the first e-reader that, although not perfect, is the first on that's even worth looking at. Three bills brings it home, and you can buy over 300,000 titles.

But what if you buy a title and Amazon changes its mind? Well, then you've got a bit of a problem, as Amazon customers learned this week when they found out that books they had bought from Amazon were suddenly gone.

Or should I say “bought”? The customers thought they owned these books, but Amazon changed their mind, or the publisher changed their mind, so, poof, no more books. All the books by, get this: George Orwell!

That's right, the author who visualized and warned us against Big Brother, the all-seeing, all-powerful dictator, who knew what you were reading, what you were doing, and had the power to make you love Him. That George Orwell.

Now the giant, all-powerful, octopus-like e-retailer claims to feel bad about how it handled this situation, but you have to wonder if they would have acted this way if they had any real competition in the e-reader market.

Now maybe they do. It's not on the market yet, but it looks pretty good to me.

Senator Bernie Sanders,

The record profits made on Wall Street reported this week are an atrocity, offense and tragic mockery of our federal government and our national economy.  The method in which these profits were made, as well as unfair advantages offered specifically to Goldman Sachs, demonstrates a failure of change on Wall Street.

Power brokers familiar with the revolving door between Washington and Wall St. are directly responsible for the financial crisis as well as the current jobless recovery.  Key officials in the Federal Reserve and National Economic Council wink and nod to the managers of Goldman, their recent employer.  Together, appointed officials and investment bankers shake hands in full daylight, assuring the media that all is well, while conspiring in the foreign language of finance few can understand.  

Senator Sanders, everyone who works on Main Street, America, is fuming about this travesty of capitalism.  

con’t below the fold

The promise of the American Dream is based on a democratic government that can provide a level playing field for everyone who works hard and uses their wit, experience and a bit of luck to succeed.  Entrepreneurs who create tangible products and services that benefit our economy have yet to see any benefit from the trillions of dollars released to the traders and hawkers of imaginary wealth.  The American Dream has died.  All we see now is a parade of Robber Barons who do not play fair or pay their fair share.  

I ask you, Bernie, to bring this issue to the forefront of attention.  Because you are committed to several other important policy changes, I ask you to speak earnestly with your colleagues who have the position and power to effect immediate change.  There need to be hearings and if necessary, and independent investigation of leaders in the National Economic Council and the New York Federal Reserve.  

As always, I appreciate your work and will never forget the opportunity to help introduce you at the American Legion in Northfield.  Bernie, you represent the political pride of Vermonters and have always been the man people can turn to when action is required.  I look to you to take the time to speak with your colleagues in the Finance Committee to begin to address a corrupt conspiracy between Washington and Wall Street and the death of the American Dream.

Yours sincerely,

Nate Freeman

# # #

( – promoted by odum)

In another example of Press Release Journalism, the 7/17 Times Argus brings us news of two promotions in the VT Agency of Natural Resources:

Justin Johnson, who has served as deputy DEC commissioner, was named commissioner on Thursday.

Sabina Haskell, the Natural Resources Agency’s communications director, moved up to deputy secretary.

Haskell is the former Brattleboro Reformer editor who became the ANR spokesflack a couple of years ago. She’s clearly qualified for that position, but what skills or experience does she bring to a top management post in a major state agency?

As for Johnson, I don’t know anything about him except that he may have been the agency’s spokesflack before Darren Allen. I could be wrong about that; a Google search reveals only faint traces of Johnson, past or present. (Can anyone in GMD-land fill in the gaps?)

At least in Haskell’s case, this appears to be another example of the Douglas administration promoting people with no apparent qualifications (other than loyalty) into important state positions. Maybe Haskell and Johnson are budding geniuses — but they might also be Mike Browns. If there were any reporters left in the state, maybe they could do a background check. Or at least get these people’s resumes, and flesh out the ANR press release a little bit.  

Via the Huffington Post, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers President Edwin D. Hill asks why Central Maine Power, a subsidiary of Energy East, which itself is owned by the Spain-based Iberdrola, is pushing to cut the health benefits of its own workers in instead of putting its energy and resources into fighting for real health care reform on Capitol Hill.

As political weapons are sharpened for another historic showdown over health care reform, it’s important to talk about what this debate means for tens of thousands of workers like Dick Rogers, a 28-year member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1837 in Manchester, Maine.

Rogers is a first-class service worker at Central Maine Power, one of those hearty souls who climb utility poles looking for trouble and fixing it.

Local 1837’s contract with CMP expired on May 15.  The company is demanding a big bite out of Rogers’ and his co-workers’ health insurance coverage. But Rogers and his co-workers already spend more than $3,000 per year for family medical coverage, with high deductibles for hospitalization …

Now consider the financial condition of the company that’s driving the hard bargain at the table.

Iberdrola’s worth in 2007 was $70 billion, approximately the same value as Verizon Communications Inc., the largest U.S. telecommunications company.  In 2008, Iberdrola’s revenues were $36 billion.  CEO Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan’s salary is a secret, but his contract with Iberdrola — covering his total compensation — is nine pages long.  

For amusement Galan heads up the company that sponsors Spain’s entry in the America’s Cup.  The yachts cost an average $150 million.

With the millions Iberdrola spends on influencing legislators in Washington and Augusta, Hill asks why Galan and other CEOs looking for take backs at the bargaining table aren’t using their influence to support legislation that would reduce health care costs for working people and business owners.

Galan hires the best lobbyists to overcome resistance in getting permits for new utility construction. Wouldn’t it make sense for Galan to assign some of his lobbying heavyweights to help win meaningful health care reform to reduce costs here in the U.S.? Wouldn’t that be a better way to enhance his firm’s profitability in the long haul?

To read the whole story, click here.