Page 4-- JOURNAL OPINION--January 22, 2014
Editorial
Letters
Fountain has ties to Wells River Bradford beauty needs some help
To the Editor: To the Editor:
I just readthe article written about BeauregardHouse inNewOrleans by Lillian The Bradford Beautification Committee needs help from the community to
"Balanced" and "fiscally restrained" were the first Gahagan in the Jan. 8 Journal Opinion. purchase new planters forthe downtown. The existingplanters have, formany years,
words Gov. Peter Shumlin used to describe his fourth ThefountainthatisinthepictureofthecourtyardhastiestoWellsRiver.Itwas servedthepurposeofdisplayingsummerandfallflowersandwinterevergreens.The
the fountain that was in the yard ofthe Baldwin House at the north end ofthe village, existing planters now need to be replaced.
budget plan during his address to the Vermont Legislature Is was disassembled and taken to New Orleans and assembled again in the Our plan is to purchase 10 planters at a total cost of $1,800. These new ones
courtyard by Dan Fuller. Dan is a relative of Marilyn Fuller whom most people know have a self-watering feature and a life-expectancy ofabout 15 years. The cost of
last week. We would love to see which dictionary he was from her 4-H work. It may be that Lillian Gahagan didn't know about this individual planters is $180 for the larger ones and $120 for the smaller size. They will
consulting as he was drafting his speech, because we're connection, also need to be filled with new potting soil. We hope to have these new planters in
Mrs. Keyes wrote two books about the house. One was The Chess Player and place before Memorial Day. At this point we are short of this amount by $800.
pretty sure a couple of entries might be incorrect, the other was Mrs. Castel's Loger. If you are willing to help us in our volunteer effort to make the village area as
Let's start with the latter. Shumlin says his spending We have ties to New Orleans as my husband was born there and has relatives attractive as possible for residents and visitors alike, please send a check payable
there. We visited places she wrote about in our visits there, to the Bradford Beautification Committee to Carolyn Coffin, PO Box 490,
proposal will rise 3.56 percent over the current year. But LuellaLasseigne Bradford, VT 05033 before March 1. Any donation large or small will be
there's nothing restrained about an increase of that size. Wells River, VT appreciated. Ifyouhavequestionsyoumaycall(802)222-4423.
Carolyn Coffin, chair
Most Vermonters will not be seeing incomes rise at that B,.adford Beautification Committee
level. Birding mistake correction
Shumlin says additional revenue has been generated To theEditor: , ,
Because the paper only arrived on Jan. 17,I msureI ll be the last to make an It's school budget time again
through job creation over the past few years. According ornithological comment about the lovely birdpictured on the front page of the Jan. To the Editor:
8 issue. But I'll give it a ~o nonetheless.
to the state's Department of Labor, there have been 3,700 The image is a stunning picture of a boreal chickadee, replete with the "rich Are you paying attention? South Bud ington s budget is going up seven percent.
jobs added to the labor force over the past year. brownflanks"souniquelyd|stinctiveofthisrarevisitorfromtheNorth.Thehead Norwich issimilar. Other school budgets wi l l also increase. Lastweek, Ileamed
Somehow, we doubt those jobs will be lucrative enough istypically more brown than black, but we can't seethat inthe picture. This is the thatthe Rivendell Interstate School budget is increasing 1.7 percent. They are to be
northern cousin of our ubiquitous black-capped chickadee, congratulated and thanked. This is the second year in a row that they have held the
to cover the $88.5 million in additional General Fund ItssouthernlimitpassesrightthroughourterritoryhereintheUpperConnecticut line on spending.
Valley, but it is seen casually down to Pennsylvania and beyond. We were first The school funding process in Vermont is so complex very few people can
spending Shumlin is proposing, taught this bird by our dear departed old friend, Babs Nutt of Etna. understand it. There is talk about fixing the school budget problems in the
I their
But really, the 3.56 percent figure is a bit misleading as S.A. Morse Legislature. What are the chances that when they get done witl: fixes, itwillonly
Swifiwater, NH be more complex?
What happens when a business has competition'? Aah, they look for cost savings
total spending across the state budget will actually rise and more efficient ways to do their business that makes their product more
closer to 4.8 percent, according to spreadsheets available We like Bradford Treasurer candidate competitiveinthemarketplace. SolegislatorsandtheDepartmentofEducationand
on the Vermont Agency of Administration website. That the unions, let's compete. Let's make it easier for independent and charter schools
To the Editor: , to exist rather than make it harder. Then to increase the competition even more,
seems less fiscally restrained and more 'fiscally WewouldliketoannounceourdaughterseandidacyforTreasureroftheTown allowuniversalschoolchoice.Thatwouldonlybefhirastownswithoutschoolsdo
loosed' if you,,,, ask us. ofBradford. HernameisJenniferRivers, and she is a lifelong resident ofBradford, have choice. So why shouldn't all students have choice?
Members of her family have owned property and businesses in town for several So if you are worried about your property taxes and the cost of education, go
As for balanced , since Shumlin has taken office the generations• She and her husband, Paul have lived and raised their family in to the meetings and speak up. There were only two members of the public at the
Bradford for the past 28 years• meeting last week for a District that spans four towns.
General Fund budget has increased over 25 percent. The Webelievesheiswell-qualifiedtoassumethepositionofTreasurerofBradford. MaryDaly
Education Fund, however, has risen just 15 percent. ShehasbeenAssistantTreasurertoretiringTreasurerHenriettaPowersforthepast Fbirlee, VT
two years, during whiehtime she has learned the day-to-day operations of the Town
That's hardly strikes us as balanced, office.
She has completed numerous training seminars with the Vermont League of
Cities and Towns, and she knows the softwareprovided by the New England
Municipal Resource Center, which the Town uses for all its financial records. As the
Treasurer s Assistant, she has worked in all the functions of the Treasurer s Office,
American Life in Poetry including processing town payroll, accounts payable warrants for the town,
collecting taxes, and working closely with our external and internal auditors• ews
by Ted Kooser Prior to working in the Town Office, she worked for 21 years at Dartmouth
U.S. Poet Lau reate College as a data processing technician in the Registrar' s Office, for 16 years as the
So much of what we learn about life comes from exchanging stories, and bookkeeper at Benjamin's Garage, and for four years as the bookkeeper at by Charles Glazer
this poem by a Californian, Peter Everwine, portrays that kind of teaching. Earthworks Unlimited. She possesses the organizational, accounting, and
communication skills, as well as the attention to detail required to effectively and First, it was a sad day in Brooklyn when police arrested a prosecutor after they
I love the moment where he says he doesn t know if the story is true but it transparentlyperform the duties of the office, caught her rummaging through a backpack that hadbeen left in the courtroom. She
ought to be. ShehasdeeprootsinBradford.Pleasevote forheratTownMeetingonMarch wound up allegedly taking a wallet from the knapsack, which belonged to a
A Story Can Change Your Life 4.
On the morning she became a young widow, Robert and Patrieia Benjamin
my grandmother, startled by a sudden shadow,
looked up from her work to see a hawk turn
her prized rooster into a cloud of feathers.
That same moment, halfway around the world
in a Minnesota mine, her husband died,
buried under a ton ofrockfall.
She told me this story sixty years ago.
I don't know if it's true but it ought to be.
She was a hard old woman, and th0ugh she knelt
on Sundays when the acolyte' s silver bell
announced the moment of Christ' s miracle,
it was the darker mysteries she lived by:
shiver-cry of an owl, black dog by the roadside,
a tapping at the door and nobody there.
The moral of the story was plain enough:
miracles become a burden and require a priest
to explain them. With signs, you only need
to keep your wits about you and place your trust
in a shadow world that lets you know hard luck
and grief are coming your way. And for that
--so the story goes--any day will do.
paralegal, obviously intending to give the victim a fuller understanding of all the
aspects of criminal law.
Bradford, VT Here's another one of those that is too gruesome to include but too compelling
to leave out. Guess which way I swung on it? This guy from Missouri had fallen in
love with a woman from Maine after"meeting" her on the Internet, which means
Not an ymore ! he probably knew her about as well as you know the woman from AT & T who
To the Editor: keeps calling you to get you to switch long-distance carriers. The woman
Twenty million illegals can, in many places, be granted licenses, college tuition, apparently decided she wanted to end the long-distance relationship, and the man
food stamps and welfare. Affirmative action in place since 1964 is still needed, felt differently, so he showed up at her house, "pulled a chain saw from the trunk
Ninety million people out ofwork, and ofthose, nine million have given up. and cut part ofhis neck offto show her how much he cared for her, according to
Electric cars are touted as the wave of the future even though coal fired plants theAP report. He died at the hospital.
power them. Now here's a guy who s really tuned in to what women go for. Flowers? Nope.
Poetry? Forget it. Take a chain saw to vital organs. The ladies love it.
Global warming is promoted ever~thoughthg recorded temperatures for the last You gotta love it when rich guys get the shaft. Steve Kirsch, who founded
15 years show the earth cooling.
Our government spies on us and our allies and friends. Infoseek (never mind--all you need to know is that it made Kirsch really rich) built
We legalize drugs, but rail against weapons for self defense, himself a house, filled with all them futuristic gewgaws that people have been
Washington blunders through crises after crises and lies about it when predicting would be in every house for years. You know, by now you're supposed
to be able to walk into the house and say, "Man, it's hot," and the air-conditioner
revealed--Benghazi, health care, NSA, FBI, IRS, terrorism, jobs created, knows to turn itself on. Then you walk into the kitchen and say,"meatloaf, medium
unemployment numbers, etc.
Mainstream media doesn't report, but rather seeks to influence. Hollywood rare' and have it pop out within moments. (I can't get toast to do that, even when
types are adored even though most have no education or talent at all. A show I give it a push;) That s what all the sci-fi movies have told us. I want it. Now.
without drugs, guns, murders and infidelity might be refreshing. Meatloaf. Don t want to wait any longer. Give it to me now. Meatloafl Meatloafl
The devastating parts of Obamacare are delayed until after the mid-term Meatloafl
elections. People get waivers with a wave of the king's scepter. Oh, yeah. Kirsch. Anyway, he builds this $10 million dream house, with
automatic lights, a rotating sculpture and a state-of-the-art stereo system
Good, Christians, morality, the pledge, the flag, the sanctity of marriage, love of throughout. Theqaad news: For one thing, motion sensors turn the lights on
country are ridiculed.
###
automatically. When you go to flip them off at the switch, that creates enough
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, Our leaders advise rogue nations with stern warnings and get langhed at, then motion to turn them back on again. When you turn on a CD to run throughout the
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department apologize.
of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright Our secretary ofstate, inhisyouth, calledAmericansoldiersmurdererswhenhe house, aU the televisions turn on, too.Thefrontdoortmloekswhenitsensesmotion
©2012 by Peter Everwine, whosemostrecentbookofpoemsisListening appeared before Congress. inside toward the door, so ifyou check to see ifthe guy on the other side ofthe door
, Long and Late, University ofPittsburg Press, 2013. Poem reprinted from The Constitution is considered by some to be outdated and should be isholdinga.44,thedoorconvenientlyunlocksforhim. As soon as you get near
abandoned. The Star Spangled Banner should be replaced because of its violent the back door, it locks on you.
Ploughshares, Winter 2012-13, Vol. 38, No. 4, by permission of Peter He's now hired an electrical engineer at $60 an hour to sort the whole mess out.
'.E erwine and the publisher: Introduction copyright ©2013 by The lyrics andreplacedby"WeAretheWorld."Football Is too violent--maybeplay touch football. Yes! ,, ,
Poetry Foundation. The introduction s author, TedKooser, served as Asolutiontobullyinginschools: Tellyourkidtomakefriendswiththebiggest, Car psychic Elizabeth Joyce says you shouldn t ever cut offblack cars,
United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of toughest kid in the school as mine did. He had no problems, because their drivers are more likely to act out "road rage." Those who drive white
' Congress from 2004-2006. We declare war on salt, transfers, sugary drinks, obesity Have we won an 9 cars are more conservative and get fewer tickets. (I'm on my secondwhite car, and
• • Y" I've never gotten a moving violation. Hmmm.) People who drive brown cars are
I've been around for more years than I care to reveal, and 50 years ago, hfe was "grumpy roadhogs,"while those in maroon cars tend to be"more spiritual" and will
better, healthier, more relaxed, more productive, slower and in general, a great time let you cut in front ofthem, although what that has to do with spirituality I have no
to have lived. Not anymore.
GeorgeHusson idea. This is what we've coming to. Talking about"car psychics." Boy, I wish I had
West Fairlee, VT one of those a few cars ago. That car was definitely inhabited by something long
dead and evil.
In Cullman, Alabama, a Benedictine monk created a four-acre miniature
version of, ancient Rome andthe Holy Land using empty cold cream jars marbles,
shells and otherbits ofjunk. Called 'Ave Maria Grotto,"it includes 125 Biblical
Change through the people building s,.,AguynamedBrotherJosephstartedtheprojectin1934andworked
nonstop on the work until his death in ! 961. That's 27 years. It seems hard to
To the Editor:
If there ever was a vote that had nothing to do Withpolities, the Unified Towns believe !hat he could have worked"nonstop" on anything like that for 27 years. I
and Gores of Essex County is it. It had nothing to do with Democrats, Republicans bet that s how long it took him to use up all that cold cream. But I bet he had
or Progressives. smoother skin than any other damn monk in the place.
LETTER POLICY
The Journal Opinion welcomes and encourages letters to the editor as a
forum for the exchange of ideas, news and opinions.
Letters should be brief (a maximum of 400 words) and include the writer's
name, address and telephone number. The publisher reserves the right to verify
the accuracy of letters, edit letters for clarity, space and content, and limit the
number of letters from any writer to two a month. Anonymous letters or letters
judged to be libelous will not be published.
Letters from political candidates will be accepted on public issues. Letters in
support of or disagreement with candidates will not be published less than seven
days before an election.
The deadline for letters is Friday at noon. They may be mailed to the Journal
Opinion, Box 378, Bradford, VT 05033 or emailed to editor@jonews.com.
It was a vote that will stand in the history of Vermont. It'll be felt from the
Northeast Kingdom to Southern Vermont. People came together to stand up to Finally, we learn that the author of a book about getting married swears that not
bathing before the ceremony brings luck to a marriage. So does wearing old
industrial wind and corporate money. Their mountains, their heritage and way of life underwear (!) and milking a cow while wearing the wedding dress.
is more important than any political lines or wads of money laid before them. I don t know about you--and I know you re not too sure about me--but ifI
After understanding what has happened to the mountains of the Vermont and the
rest of the Northeast, they proclaimed this land as their own backyard. They didn't were going to mar~ a woman, and I saw her unwashed in dirty underwear milking
cave in! a cow in her wedding dress, I wouldn't consider it the best of luck.
Dhyan Nirmegh (Best of luck to each of you this week/ You can reach me at
Starksboro, VT glazer.charlie@gmail.com. E-mail me collect/)
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amt;{ing
Who... what?
by Nessa Flax
At the turn of every new year, I make a valiant
effort to fulfill the dictum "out with the old, in with
the new."
And every year, I drown in a sea of papers.
For the past decade or so, digital detritus has
swelled the ocean of updating chores.
It is at this time of year that the vision of
becoming a hermit and living in a hut deep in the
observe what ideas have been brought to
fruition, and which have not. What plans have
been fulfilled andwhich have died an ignominious
death.
It is difficult to stay focused on the goal. What
can be tossed in the trash, be it literal or virtual?
I do realize that being a writer swells the tides
of oceanic stuff. But, really, a mom raising a
with phone numbers or email addresses that ring
not the faintest bell of recognition.
Who? What purpose did I have (or was
supposed to have) for contacting Doug" or
"Francis"? I don't even know anyone by those
names... But yes, that is my handwriting.
Staring at such baffling notes gives me the
oddest sensation.
woods sings a sweet siren song. passel of kids can't have it any easier. It is as if another me must have lived a portion
Going through piles and files ofthepastyear At least I am in sole charge of the waves of of time when this me was elsewhere. Or as if
is a life-in-review exercise hard on the psyche, chaos crashing at my shores, gremlins invaded my office while I slept to
Personal,.professional and financial intentions IfI had a nickel for every organizing system gleefully impersonate my writing for the sole
and decisions are brought to center stage and hit I have instituted and abandoned over the years, purpose of challenging my sanity.I keep telling
withklieg-brightintens|ty. I could hire a personal assistant. The truth is, I myself that whenever I make a note of names,
Recipes, moneyhandling, self-improvement love organizing things. I am just not good at phone numbers or email addresses, I must also
ideas, notes for columns, tax return data, maintaining any system, jotawordortwotoremindmyselfwhylhave
concepts for books to write, marketing plans for No matter what, I end up with piles and files written down their information.
my published book, articles earmarked for and important things floating like driftwood on It is a reminder that does not stay in my brain.
friends going through difficult times.., infinite random pieces of paper. So if you are out there, and I have not called
variations of life scrawled on paper and shining But what I most dread as I endeavor to bring or emailed you, my apologies.
on screen. Amid all this, it is impossible not to order to theprevious year is encountering names Please do not take offense. I am swimming as
fast as I can.
41 A V 4
