Take two thick slices of Noonie's day old bread, smear Honey Cup honey mustard
liberally over both. Cover both slices with green leaf lettuce. Then on one slice only lay smoked turkey on the lettuce,
a tomato slice on the turkey and sprinkle it with shredded carrot. Then on the lay a slice of provolone cheese over the
carrot then a green pepper ring on top of the cheese. Sprikle with sprouts. Cover with the other slice, lettuce side down.
The letuce should be stuck to the bread with honey mustard so it doesn't fall off when you turn it upside down to cover the
sandwich. Slice sandwich in half with a knife. Wrap in tightly in plastic wrap. Use too much wrap. Tape on label. Tadaaa!
Weighs one pound. Costs Four Bucks.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed,
to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Ethan Allen Tower
"During the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton
sometimes spoke of a 'twofer' (two for the price of one) presidency,
implying that Hillary would play an important role in his
administration."
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Political BBQ 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
The family and I are just back from the 3rd annual Political Barbecue and Hamburger Summit hosted by Philip Baruth and John Odum. Thanks to our fabulous hosts, the thing was a rockin' success once again.
The crowd size was similar to those of the last two years, even if its composition was a little different. We didn't see Charity there, and of course Bill was out of town- but most of the pillars were in attendance- Steve Benen, Jack McCullough, Jay Vos, Julie Waters, JD Ryan, Christian Avard, Neil Jensen, Linda from the Northeast Kingdom, and many many more. There was the whole Brattleboro crew including Steve and Gorty from the radio.
As for politicians, we had Anthony Pollina who genuinely seemed to remember our one meeting 19 years ago in Bernie's office. "You're still around?" he asked me. Gaye Symmington was there, and Chris Pearson... Kesha Ram showed up toward the end... Mark Larson was hanging out. Neither Ed or TJ made it, but I guess we'll forgive them. Selene wasn't there either- but not because of a birthday party as I mistakenly said in a previous post, but because she had to attend an event in another part of the state with Peter Welch. I heard her dad was there, but I didn't see him.
We brought a few of Poopsie's unbelievable grape leaf lamb dolmas which got gobbled up quickly. And the lake was relatively clean too so Poopsie, Koko, Yanna and I splashed around for a while. Poopsie ate a brat. Koko ate a hot dog and I ate a bunless burger with ketchup. Poopsie wouldn't let Philip toss the leftover watermelon, so I had to find a way to carry it home.
I love the blogger barbecue and have genuinely had a good time all three years. That's weird for me because I generally hate social events like that- but among the pols and the bloggers, I actually feel like I belong. And that's special.
...still sucks after all these years. More than a decade after I proposed using spoons as splashers to liven up the water streams dribbling into the putrid, stagnant water in the City Hall Park fountain, nothing has changed. The thing remains an embarrassment and an eye sore.
The fountain it replaced back in 1993 was better and spoon splashers would still be a cheap and effective remedy.
It's only 11:34pm- but I'm going to call it and go to bed. Looks like I'm going to beat Blurt again today. The score right now is BurlingtonPol-72, Blurt 68. And no cheap tricks today either. And no new posts except for this one. Blurt has two new posts up today. Both by Cathy Resmer. One on Al Jazeera covering the Al Jazeera controversy in Burlington and one on Speeder and Earl's turning 15. Tomorrow it's back to work, and back to getting only 2/3 the number of visits Blurt does. Even though tonight's victory is more legit, it isn't as sweet for some reason.
For blogging today I pretty much just tried to convince David Usher that the recent Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush was correct.
Wait a minute... Blurt just got five more visitors while I've been writing. Now I'm behind by one with twelve minutes left in the day. Shit... ok eleven minutes... come on... Somebody Google Amy Tarrant or something... 11:53... one more for Blurt. Now it's Blurt-74, BurlingtonPol-72... 11:55- I can't belive I've been sitting here for half and hour. Looks like I'm going 'till midnight after all... Now I know why the victory isn't as sweet tonight... because it doesn't exist. 11:57-Time to change the headline... 11:59. Shit. At least I was right to be psyched last night.
My blog got more visits Saturday than the Seven Days staff blog Blurt!! Final score: BurlingtonPol- 73, Blurt- 70.
I have no chance of ever beating them on weekdays. Monday through Friday Blurt does about 33% better than me, but I noticed last Satuday that I came awefully close. This Saturday I won!
In your FACE Seven Days!!!
Go ahead, call me a dork. I'll probably never win a "Daysie" award because I just can't bring myself to go begging for votes like our two friends who win every year, so- this is it for me. This victory and when Rachel Maddow left a comment might be the two best moments of this blog's little life!
OK- I'm not above using cheap tricks to get to my goal. I just need a few more visits before midnight tonight. I'm hoping this fake post triggers a couple of folks with subscriptions to my RSS feed to take a look...
Yesterday after work, the kids were climbing the walls so Poopsie and I decided to take them downtown so they could climb the rocks on Church Street instead. At Ben and Jerry's we ran into my old high school friend Bess Huddle, daughter of that writer guy David Huddle. Bess lives in Madison Wisconsin now and is working on her Doctorate in literature. She's in Burlington to get married Saturday. Congratulations Bess!
Down at City Hall Park we had a nice chat with Selene Hofer-Shall and Kesha Ram. Selene won't be making it to the blogger barbecue this year because she has to be at relative's 100th birthday party instead. Hopefully her father will be there though, with or without his magic bus, The Emerald Gypsy. He's one of the few folks I've met who agrees that fire alone wouldn't collapse a skyscraper.
Selene introduced Poopsie and me to former UVM Student Government president Kesha Ram. Kesha, we were informed, will be trying to take out Chris Pearson in a bid for the legislature. And look... she even has a website. That should be an interesting race.
Somehow we got talking about Mayor Kiss's potential vulnerability next year. Now, I'm not a Prog or a Dem- but I told Selene if the Dems really want a shot, they should run Ed Adrian. "I would LOVE to run Ed Adrian!" she said. (Heh, heh.)
Oh what else? Well, speaking of City Hall... Here's an interesting new blog by one of Bill Simmon's students. In the latest post we learn that the fountain in front of our capitol will soon be a fountain again.
My friend Ari over at Strange Blue Planet has a good post about sitting next to Tim Russert at Rockefeller Center. Very heartfelt and genuine. Read it here.
It drives me a little insane that people try to argue against this. The whole concept of insurance is that you spread risk over a large pool. What's larger than everybody?
We are such idiots in this country when it comes to sharing. "Why should I pay if you get sick?!" Duh. Well why should I pay if your house is burning? Why don't you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and hire your own private fire fighters?
Everybody needs health insurance. Everybody should have it. We treat each other like animals in this country. Civilized people don't behave this way. We need to change. Christians should know. You don't let people die because they don't have money. But we do. 18,000 deaths per year are directly attributable to a lack of insurance.
The richest 1% owns 90% of the wealth. That is not the free market. The game is rigged. We sit like docile sheep watching rich people on TV and we think we're them, like a dog who thinks he's a human. Meanwhile we're getting our economic skulls sucked dry by bone-crushing, deficit exploding, infrastructure collapsing policy that serves nobody but a small number of Oligarkhs. People who are not patriots, hold no allegiance to this nation or its principles and are happy to sell the Crysler Building to Quatar, and our ports to the UAE.
But it's OK. Because that's just the "Free Market" working its magic, and the federal minimum wage of 5.25/hr., which adjusted for inflation is about half of what it was in 1968, is still too much communism to stomach, and so is publicly funded health insurance.
Democracy can't function like this. The middle class is almost gone. If you are what used to be middle class in this country, you're actually relatively rich. And if you think you're middle class today, you're probably a debtor holding on to your illusion, by drowning reality with cheap plastic crap and entertainment. In the few moments you're not working, that is.
These are not the blessings of liberty we're passing on here people.
But still we have people sewing up their own wounds and dying on the street because Americans love to point fingers and feel superior until we ourselves fall, as anyone can, and then we drown in shame and helplessness. Looking down your nose at others when your up does nothing to help society. Turning inward in shame and self-pity when your down does nothing to help society.
I want federal single-payer universal health insurance in this county by this afternoon.
Channel 3 reports that at Wednesday's public forum on Burlington Telecom and Al Jazeera, Jamie Zeppernick of the Defenders Council of Vermont commented that Al Jazeera "does incite murder. It incites hatred and it incites violence."
This is quite a claim, so I wrote to Mr. Zeppernick and asked if he had any evidence. Here is his reply:
"Good day,
I have offered only a fractional amount of evidence at our events on the 9th and 10th of June. Further evidence is readily accessible from doing your own objective research on the issue. An exploration of the public record using a broad spectrum of resources will provide you with the best results.
Thank you and please let me know if you have further questions about our organization.
"We hold that petitioners may invoke the fundamental procedural protections of habaes corpus. The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled within the framework of the law. The framers decided that habaus corpus, a right of first importance, must be part of that framework, a part of that law." Voting to protect America: Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens. (Hang in there Stevens!)
Voting against the American Way: John G. Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. (Boo! Hisss!)
If you don't think Habaes Corpus is important, you're an idiot. Habaes protects you too. It would be a nice world if we could just trust one person with absolute power, but history has shown that always leads to tyrrany. And tyranny is terrorism's rich uncle.
I don't think I'm going to make it there. Too many unpaid bills piling up at my house, including Burlington Telcom's, which I haven't paid since this whole Al Jazeera thing erupted. I'd like to call it a protest, but the truth is I'm just kinda broke right now. Another economic stimulus check would be nice.
Plus I ran into Richard Donnelly last week in City Hall Park and he said they we're going to keep the channel. I asked him if that whole "contract" issue was basically baloney, and I think he said no. You gotta hand it to those marketing people. I shook his hand, said he was a good sport and continued on my way.
Anyway here are the details for all you freedom fighters who want to attend. The copy is lifted straight out of the 7D article linked to in my preceding post. I've been a lazy blogger lately...
The public forum will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Hauke Conference Room at Champlain College, Maple and Willard Streets, Burlington. Members of the public will be asked to limit their comments to under three minutes.
****** Update-
Richard Donnelly adds this update (by email rather than my preferred method, comment):
"Just to clarify one point, the final decision to keep the station on the air has not been made. I don't know how long that will take or what the contract negotiations will yield. BUT it is staying on the lineup in the meantime while this process takes place."
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars,
the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury,
shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States,
than according to the rules of the common law.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed,
to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
-Emma Lazarus, 1883
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Jessica Sklar
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