Op/Ed

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…and “discovered” America.

The history books I studied in school portrayed a great man.

Those who knew him told a different story.

Protests are going on right now in Hong Kong because China wants to control which candidates will be on the election ballot in Hong Kong. The U.S.A.  owes a lot of “debt” to China, and Chinese firms own a lot of property in the U.S.A.  So, is their a correlation, is China interferring with elections in the U.S.A. by  Chinese owned multi-national  corporate sponsors giving donations, possibly under the guise of their corporate subsidiaries, to “non-profits” like Vermont Public Radio which refuse to allow all candidates to participate together in general election debates?

…didn’t even take as long to build as the Brattleboro Skate Park, look it up.

If everyone donated one dollar for every discussion about the Brattleboro Skate Park, those seeking a skate park would have had enough money to build 73,242 skate parks by now. The time for superfluous discussion is over. The discussion topic of the skate park has been beaten to death. I sincerely think it has been discussed more than Vermont Yankee, the Middle East, and the Champlain Monster combined. It has gotten to the point of gross absurdity. It has become an embarrassment to our community’s supposedly progressive reputation. It is now time to get behind the Memorial Park Skate Park site and donate money.

There is no way to peace. Peace IS the way… David Swanson ()

Ask yourself, and then ask your congress members “why are we at war with so many people in so many places around the world?”

How are these people threatening our “homeland”?  (Don’t fall for the ISIS BS).

Why have we been replacing secular, progressive “regimes” with Islamic religious strife?

The 3 little pigs, Peter Shumlin,  Dan Feliciano and Scott Milne  are going to the debate at VPR Sept. 23, 2014, APPARENTLY BEING HELD IN BRATTLEBORO, and we could ask, is this all about women-hating???

No, it is worse than being woman haters.  This appears to be criminal money laundering.  Governor Peter Shumlin signed a budget bill giving taxpayer dollars to VPR, Vermont Public Radio.  He also did this in past years.   VPR, Vermont Public Radio, refused to allow Ms. Cris Ericson, a woman, to participate in the general election  governor candidate debates on VPR. 

On the first birthday of Earth Day, April 22, 1970, more than a million people marched up Fifth Avenue to Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park to celebrate the day’s events on an unprecedented scale.Beginning September 21, 2014, just days before the United Nations Climate Summit convenes in New York City, nearly 3,000 climate events are taking place around the globe. The two mile procession of the crowds assembled in Manhattan held a moment of silence “to honor the victims” of climate change.

Unfortunately, the UN summit assuredly will result in “treaties” of the participating nations, not the concerns of the people. It is the 2015 Climate Change Conference in Paris, France where “leaders are hoping to stamp out a binding agreement.”

What does “one week prior to the general election” really mean?    The Secretary of State Elections Division has announced on its website that Early and Absentee Voting Ballots will be at your Town Clerks Office on September, 19, 2014.   That means you can start voting.  But, the Elections Division has not distributed the NEW internet version of the Candidate Information Guide which Vermont Election law 17 V.S.A., Chapter 59, Section 2810, requires shall be published one week prior to the general election. 

• Tell Americans and the world that the corporate media that works to destroy the beautiful Chavista peaceful revolution for a government of all Venezuelans and not just mostly for the rich, is the same media Martin Luther King condemned for lying and promoting US “atrocity wars and covert violence on three continents, since 1945, meant to maintain unjust predatory investments”

• Dear President Maduro, slanderous Western media, promoting war and violence for capital gains of the mercilessly amoral automaton functioning speculative interest banking industry, has put you in their spotlight to better target you with defamation. This is then your opportunity to be heard a bit world-wide. In telling the truth about the USA, you will be protecting all of us, Venezuela included. 
  

Co-working Space – Should we have one?

When we two Vermonters walked into a co-working space in San Fransisco, we gasped. In front of us was a large room with long tables at which people were sitting laptops plugged into outlets in the middle of the tables. 

It was quiet. Some people were walking around. A tour showed us the phone booths, a conference room, the coffee gallery (of course, it was San Fransisco) and and upstairs space where companies were renting larger offices.  The space was specifically for “social entrepreneurs.” For us two, who at the time regularly camped out at the Blue Moose, it was a vision of what we lack here. 

One solution to the chronic income short fall in Brattleboro is a program that has been implemented around the US with considerable success that has benefited cash strapped communities a Payment in Lieu of Taxes or PILOT for businesses that are listed as not-for profit and yet generate revenue.  While it would not be a legally binding, it is an agreement between the town and income generating business like the Brattleboro Hospital, Windham Land Trust, colleges, and not for profits that generate say more than $100,000 in revenues per annum to pay fixed percentage of revenues like the Brattleboro Housing Authority that pays 10% of their revenues as a PILOT.  Why should multimillion dollar businesses like Windham Land Trust, the hospital, the Retreat not contribute equit

In the unfinished business of what happened on September 11, 2001 lay the questions raising doubts about the official story. During the 13 years after the attacks, the 9/11 memorials have centered on creating a status quo of remembering the heroes, volunteers and victims who lost their lives that day.

And like many remembrances, there is a blind spot that blocks out the other side of the story. By their nature, memorials need to be one-sided. There can be no doubt as to why people commemorate war memorials. In our pride and blind patriotism, we would not believe that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated from within and without.

The CVS pharmacy chain just announced that it has ceased sellimg tobacco products.

Quote:

Health is everything.
Your health is our #OneGoodReason to be tobacco free.

Community Appreciation Day was a huge success on Friday and we have you all to thank for that!!

We would like to extend a special thank you to Vermont Country Deli for allowing us to purchase a whopping 1250 fresh baked cookies, Gougers Market for prepping all of the lettuce tomato and onion, Putney Road Market for helping us to purchase several hundred hot dogs, veggie burgers, and hotdog and hamburger rolls, and Hannaford’s for helping with the purchase of 20 lbs of summer slaw and hundreds of hamburgers.

Thank you to these local vendors for helping to make such a successful event!

Once the New Brooks House gets established, it would be interesting to add a new 2-Story canopy made to modern standards.

DESCRIPTION:

Another slaughter of men, women and children in the land of the Bible. Probably many have heard the voice of God demanding it. The Jewish Bible is in the Christian Bible. Intelligent understanding of sacred scripture might make it more difficult for the mega genocidal thieving and enslaving amoral private speculative banking backed neocolonialist media and military to overcome Mankind’s natural spirituality and humanity

……………. “the candidates being considered for Town Manager is a confidential personnel human resources matter. The names of the candidates are therefore not made available to the public.”

Furthermore, the name of the new Town Manager after they have been hired will not be made public pending notification of next of kin who may want the applicant to find employment closer to home because property taxes in Brattleboro are unaffordable.

Years ago one sunny morning, a messenger in my office came back from a delivery. He looked dazed and moved slowly to sit down. When asked what was wrong he replied that a man had landed with an explosive sound on the sidewalk in front of him on 34th Street. He had just jumped from the upper level of the Empire State Building. The man’s heart burst from his body and landed 10 feet from where our messenger was unchaining his bike. I asked one of our supervisors to take him home.

Too often successful and attempted suicides are unnecessarily violent. The fact that other people are affected by someone’s suicide is compounded when they are particularly brutal. And, too often many suicides are gruesome because they have no way out other than ending their life violently.

Please get out and vote in the Democratic Primary next Tuesday, August 26 [or vote in advance at the Town Clerk’s office] … and please WRITE-IN the name of Dean Corren for Lieutenant Governor! We in the Windham County Democratic Committee voted without dissent on Monday, August 18 to give him our FULL SUPPORT. Dean Corren needs your write-in vote as a Democrat in order to run as a Progressive / Democrat on the November ballot.

Book: The New Nuclear Danger 2002 by Dr. Helen Caldicott page 203: Three Tennessee Valley Authority commercial nuclear reactors —
Watts Bar Unit 1 (near Spring City, TN) and Sequoyah Units 1 and 2 (at Soddy Daisy, TN) — have been chosen as the “preferred” sites to manufacture tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons. The decision breaches the longstanding policy of not producing bomb material in civilian nuclear power plants. According to Robert Tiller of Physicians for Social Responsibility, “Our leaders are upset that Iraq might use civilian facilities to produce components for weapons of mass destruction, but the United States is now committed to do that very thing — turning a civilian reactor into a bomb facility.”

Too Urban?

It’s seeming that the Elm Street parking lot is quickly becoming the favorite choice for the location of the Brattleboro skatepark. It’s an odd turn of events considering this location is not supported by BASIC or the larger skateboarding community. It’s a little bit confusing because when the new Selectboard pulled the $50,000 dollar designer rug out from under BASIC and roped everyone back to the start line it was to “ensure due public process and identify the most ideal location for a skatepark.” Is the Elm street lot the best location for a skatepark?