Op/Ed

Les Montgomery and Susan Avery both had recent LTEs in the Reformer about the proposed skateboard park at the Crowell location, and cited several reasons to explore an alternate site.

Ms. Avery further suggested that no alternate site solution had been offered. She went on to say: “Neighbors of the Crowell Lot and concerned citizens of our town must continue to collaborate in working toward finding alternate locations for this activity. We need a better place; better yet, we need to come together for a “win-win” resolution.”

Here’s my suggestion:

To the editor,

I’m pleased that legislators have agreed to decriminalize possession of marijuana, but the conversation shouldn’t end here. Marijuana is a much safer substance than alcohol or hard drugs, and that’s one reason legislators should move swiftly to begin regulating-and taxing-this market similarly to the way we regulate alcohol.

As Attorney General William Sorrell explained at public hearings on the decriminalization bill, it would be better if users had a legal way to obtain marijuana rather than continuing to buy it from the illicit market. Sorrell suggested decriminalizing possession of a small number of plants, which would make a lot of sense, but ultimately the best solution is to allow regulated cultivation and sale of marijuana to adults who wish to use it.

How Well Is Medicare Plan D Working For You? How well is Medicare Plan D working for U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and U.S. Congressman Peter Welch? (all over age 65)

I received this letter from my current Medicare Plan D today, simply dated, “May 2013”  so  I have no idea what day of the month they actually sent it.

I took my family to the Top of the Hill Grill for dinner on Tuesday night around 7:00 pm. Just before we arrived, apparently someone walked off with the staffs tip money, jar and all!

If anyone at that time noticed that happening, I would hope that they would tell someone anything that might bring the theives to justice. Maybe a description or a licence plate #.

Cornel, how am i doing?

TITLE:
IF Our Re-elected Prez is WarCriminal, What Are We? King would have asked! by jay janson

DESCRIPTION:
Cornel West, most outspoken anti-imperialist and defender of Black and minority civil rights since Martin Luther King now says Obama is a war criminal, a black puppet of corporate plutocrats, head of the US killing machine. Will West tell us that King said America, Americans, are responsible for the atrocity wars, being capable of making them unacceptable and inoperable through non-participation and conscientious objection?

DESCRIPTION:
 Presiding Judge, “he knew about everything that was going on and he did not stop it, despite having the power to stop it from being carried out.” US President Ronald Reagan also had the power, greater power, to stop the massacres being perpetrated by dictator General and President Ríos Montt.  Instead visited him in Guatemala City and praised Rios Montt as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment. Who was more guilty?

t

Shumlin’s List

If the ” Nazi’s”  over at the Vermont Board of Medical Practice and the “Nazi’s”  “we” elected to the Vermont State Legislature would stop telling doctors how much prescription pain killers they can (and can NOT) prescribe, and stop hounding and stalking patients and trying to falsely accuse them of “selling” the scant few prescription painkillers they are allowed, while simultaneously the Police are scanning the Vermont  Prescription Drug Monitoring plan  patient history so they can harrass the patients; if all this wasn’t going on, do you seriously think people would want a Lethal Injection if they had enough prescription painkillers to be comfortable?

Referring to front page article in today’s Reformer 5/15/13 “Clements also said that the plans are only on paper at this time and machinery or changes in drainage could have a further impact on the trees. These two trees will be trashed. I don’t see any other way around it, ” said Clements. The Reformer article neglected to mention one of the trees to be removed as a consequence and unlikely to survive the construction of the proposed skatepark project is the majestic Norway Spruce many have come to identify with Crowell Lot as one of the original estate trees that has up to now survived at least two major hurricanes, Irene most recently, and has often been the center of this contoversy and a primary example of what’s at stake for those wanting to defend the right to preserve the park as a green area and natural tree lined setting void of excess concrete. 

“But what can I do?”  It’s a question that comes up a lot in conversation and one I’ve grappled with in recent months as  I’ve tried to figure out a response to it.  When nothing we do seems to make any difference, why should we even care what’s going on let alone try to do something about it?  Or to put it another way, what is an ordinary person to do in the face of the kind of unsettling news that has become routine in the last ten years?    

DESCRIPTION:
Antiwar leaders do not call for the prosecution of US homicidal crimes against humanity ALREADY committed in Syria, nor of crimes committed in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Cuba, Lebanon, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Guatemala, Congo, Korea and Greece. Crimes committed without arrest, arraignment, indictment, punishment, imprisonment, or hanging

TEXT:
 Antiwar leaders protest, “Hands off Syria!”, but do NOT call for the prosecution of US homicidal crimes against humanity ALREADY committed in Syria by CIA, State Department, Congress, the Executive branch and investment bankers.

A recent LTE from Putney resident Elan Moses contained too much misinformation to be useful (Governor’s misguided views on gun control).

While his point that Vermont’s lack of gun legislation opens the door to many abuses, his suggestions for curing this were naïve and disingenuous.

“It does not mean we do not make efforts to make it harder to acquire semi-automatic weapons here in
Vermont”. I don’t think he has any idea what a Semi-Automatic firearm really is. (Unfortunately, this attitude is widespread in America. The very word “semi-automatic” has a high scare factor despite the fact that the
overwhelming majority of hunting rifles used in the USA today are semi-automatic).

The citizens of Brattleboro had rejected the Police Fire Station proposal at least three times, as I best remember, over a ten year peiod. I was aghast again to find not only was the town and Slectboard was pushing this, the town and Selectboard knew that if they gave it the voters it would be rejected. This was the opinion of the Selectboard.

They then had the town representatives vote on it.  When I spoke to representives in my district, he  said, “I’ll vote the way I want, regardless of what you would like.”  This is the most egregious example of the town representatives. He was absolutely in favor of the Police Fire station regardless of what the people in his district wanted. I aksed him if he would reconsider and put this before a town wide vote, and he said, “No, I have made up my mind. And the citizens don’t have the information they need to make an informed decision.” 

Open Letter to Governor Peter Shumlin:

Dear Governor Shumlin,
If you would please read the Vermont Journal, page 6A, May 1, 2013, you will find that Vermonters are outraged and angry at your Administration.

I join them in their written protest against over-regulation.

I just had the quintessential bad experience trying to return a rug to Macy’s; hard to reach customer service, no call backs, endless e-mails, and then being told the rug was not returnable because the 30 day period had expired (due to Macy’s own unavailability and failure to respond).

Because our struggling little hamlet is not without her own public relations and customer service issues, I am with the hope that it will hit a mark and make a difference for the better.

A reverse-history brain-twister to provoke imagining what victims of US firepower must feel. A ubiquitous, war criminal media, steeped in latest techniques of psyop constantly programs a reverse-reality that justifies undeclared wars meant to maintain high profitability for predatory investments and a confidence in the exceptional goodness of Anglo-Saxon America that obviates compassion for the wars designated enemies.

If Vietnam had bombed the United States for fifteen years bringing death to some three million Americans in cities, towns and countryside across America during a brutal occupation by a half-million heavily armed Vietnamese soldiers, there is no way that the US would not have brought Vietnam before the International Court of Justice.

F Troop in the People’s Republic of Vermont

Yup, I was born in Vermont, but through no fault of my own, I wound up living in the People’s Republic of Vermont. As that poet said, “Brattleboro is a socialist experiment gone deeply awry.” I would add, it is a socialist experiment, greased with payola, and incompetency that makes the F Troop look like an efficient organization.

Guns for Tots: Time to arm the Children?

It is absurd to think that we need to have armed guards in schools. A more pragmatic approach is to arm the children. From kindergarten to college, everyone is armed, from the tiny little cute derringers in the guise of a cell phone, to the backpack portable semi-automatic rifles, or the gym bag size to hold a few Berettas.

When, we Americans think of our proud tradition of gun ownership we recall Daniel Boone as a child killing a bear with a flintlock or Davie Crocket as a lad killing a mountain lion. Tupac Shakur who wasn’t afraid to face life with a gun in his hand, “No longer living in fear, my pistol close in hand.” If our heroic ancestors can kill these ferocious beasts, why can’t any child worth his salt — lock and load?

Reach Up? Governor Peter Shumlin is showing hatred towards low income Vermonters in more ways than one!

Give Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin’s administration an F-  for providing an air pollution permit to a  proposed BIOMASS Plant in a residential neighborhood of Springfield, Vermont, a neighborhood of many low income Vermonters.

This is abuse against low income Vemonters!

It’s not that women aren’t violent. Of course they can be and have been violent.

It’s that women have the evolutionary advantage of violent events and changes to their natural bodies that put them on notice of what’s to come.

Just spoke with friends in Boston and Cambridge and they have never seen anything like this before. Everything is shut down; public transporation; taxis; schools; government offices, businesses- everyone in Boston and surrounding towns have been ordered to stay inside. A friend who lives in Cambridge said it’s like a ghost town – nobody on the streets, no sounds of traffic, nothing. Very eery.

I hope that no more innocent people are killed in the ongoing search for the remaining bombing suspect. 19 years old – you wonder how someone becomes this evil; this twisted by such a young age. Frightening times we live in. I wonder if we will ever see peace.

I doubt it will happen in my lifetime – hopefully in my grandson’s.