Radical SAHM
Posted: Friday, May 10, 2013 - 08:06
Filed Under:
Activism, History, Governance, Foreign Policy, Elections, Military, Politics, Environment, Diplomacy, Common Assets
Activism, History, Governance, Foreign Policy, Elections, Military, Politics, Environment, Diplomacy, Common Assets
By Vidda Crochetta
What is it about the future we seem to fear so much? Will we all end by “dining on ashes” paralyzed like lumps of coal on a fire? Will there be any free space left to sit on the ground “and tell sad stories of the death of kings?”
We have to start somewhere.
Yet, the time is at hand and we do not have what it takes to coalesce our minds and spirit into a reckoning force that cannot be ignored.
But the night is young. In the darkest hours only those who are the bravest will rush in “where angels fear to tread.” Let’s hope that we have not grown so old and inflexible that we who really care caves to our fears and by doing so have outlived our usefulness. Shall we go “once more into the breach dear friends?” Do...
Posted: Friday, April 12, 2013 - 10:17
PRESS RELEASE: Innovative Co-op Solar Hot Water Heating Program Ends on April 30th
The Energy Co-op of Vermont announced that it has expanded its Co-op Solar hot water heating program to include Addison county. The program is designed to help Vermonters save money and energy by heating their water with the sun. In 2012, Co-op Solar helped install over 40 solar hot water systems in Chittenden county. This February, Senator Bernie Sanders, Andrew Perchlik from the Department of Public Service and CEDF, David Blittersdorf, CEO of AllEarth Renewables and Board Member of the Energy Co-op of Vermont, Tom Berry from Sen. Patrick Leahy’s office, Jon Copans from Congressman Peter Welch’s office, and local officials joined members of the Energy...
Posted: Friday, April 5, 2013 - 10:10
by Vidda Crochetta
While Senator Sanders may portray our Social Security programs as solvent, it really depends on your reading of what actually happened. The Social Security coffers as it stands today may very well be in the black - as best as in the black can be for a program that’s post Baby Boomer era.
With most of us Baby Boomers closer to our sunset than our sunrise the “contributions” we pay into Social Security is not the same as before. We are increasingly dependent on what the younger generations put into this Roosevelt-inspired retirement piggybank. Unfortunately, the population scale of our young folks shrink into the shadow of a huge and very needy Baby Boomer population.
When the seeding of this population bomb reached...
Posted: Monday, April 1, 2013 - 09:22
By Bonliz Hoag
“A reverence for life is a reverence for wildness. A reverence for life beyond your control. Something you don’t dominate. That is the native habitat of new ideas. Of real humanity - to expose yourself to things beyond your control. And just ride out the consequences. That is what I seek and want to protect. Elements that are beyond our control.” -Doug Peacock “Hayduke Lives” www.herondance.org.
While pondering Mr. Peacock’s ideas, several thoughts come to mind. Certainly we share his deep appreciation for the value of Wildness. This value is, in good part, what inspired us to carve out the 217-acre postage-stamp of Land called the Dionondehowa Wildlife Sanctuary & School which we imagined we could “give back to...
Posted: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 - 09:02
Filed Under:
Activism, Business, Economics, Health, Media, Governance, Foreign Policy, Military, Politics, Environment
Activism, Business, Economics, Health, Media, Governance, Foreign Policy, Military, Politics, Environment
By Paul Fleckenstein and James Marc Leas
Faced with snowballing criticism of the F-35 program as the most expensive, wasteful, and ineffective weapons system in history, “The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Built,” Time magazine, Feb. 25, 2013, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the most senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, dropped three bombshells in a widely circulated letter to constituent Christopher Hurd on the morning of Tuesday, March 12:
The F-35 program has been poorly managed and is a textbook example of how not to buy military equipment. The causes of the F-35 program’s present difficulties are too numerous to detail in my response to your letter; however, I believe the F-35 program is approaching a point where the military...
Posted: Thursday, March 21, 2013 - 08:27
March 21 marks the one-year anniversary of the day Vermont’s troubled nuclear power plant license to operate expired. One year later, the plant is still splitting atoms but for the first time in almost forty years, Vermonters are not buying any. Entergy remains at odds withstate leaders who are contesting the plants future in Federal Court, beforestate regulators and among activists who have dubbed March 21 – Energy Independence Day.
How did we get to this point? How did a plant that had been a core state asset -- providing about one-third of the state’s electricity for forty years -- become a pariah?
Writing in the New York Times, Matt Wald suggests that as nuclear plants switched ownership from state utilities to out-of-state...
Posted: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 - 13:57
Maybe it’s time we turned the shortage of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) political bloviations over to Mythbusters. We haven't heard this many anguished cries of alarm since Eisenhower and Sputnik. At least the 1958 National Defense Education Act resulted in a massive improvement in science textbooks and instruction – an approach with more promise than our current practice of importing indentured foreign workers.
The first step in busting the myth is to take a look at the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics projections of the fastest growing jobs. Only two or three of the top 30 could be considered as requiring extensive STEM training. Even for the few STEM jobs projected to have dramatic percentage...
Posted: Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 10:24
Filed Under:
Food&Health, History, Governance, Farming, Elections, Military, Politics, Trade, Environment, Education
Food&Health, History, Governance, Farming, Elections, Military, Politics, Trade, Environment, Education
The Vermont Commons News Cooperative is bringing Democracy School to Waitsfield May 4 and 5. Contact Rob Williams to get the details and sign up.
The Daniel Pennock Democracy School is a stimulating and illuminating course that teaches citizens and activists how to reframe exhausting and often discouraging single issue work (such as opposing GMO's, gun control, militarization, compulsory vaccination, etc.) in a way that we can confront corporate control on a powerful single front: people’s constitutional rights.Democracy School explores the limits of conventional regulatory organizing and offers a new organizing model that helps citizens confront the usurpation by corporations of the rights of communities, people, and the earth....
Posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - 13:50
Filed Under:
Activism, Economics, Food&Health, History, Media, Governance, Politics, Environment, Energy
Activism, Economics, Food&Health, History, Media, Governance, Politics, Environment, Energy
Posted: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - 16:15
By Richard Watts
Bill Sorrell and David Fredericks answer questions from the press in front of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Court House, Foley Square, Manhattan.
At a few minutes before 10:00, the court room on the 17th Floor of the Federal Court House in Manhattan fell silent. More than 80 dark-suited (mostly) lawyers and observers turned quiet as they waited to hear the arguments in the latest round of Entergy et al. v. Vermont et al this cool New York City morning January 14.
After the judges entered and the court was called to order, there was a moment, fittingly, when four Vermont journalists were allowed to take photos (see VT Digger and Vermont Public Radio). Then the action was fast and furious. Over the next 37 minutes, the...