Author Archives: John S. Walters

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About John S. Walters

Writer, editor, sometime radio personality, author of "Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives."

I Guess We Can Add John Klar’s Literary Career to the List of Those Victimized by the Flood

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Pity poor Farmer John Klar, twice-failed political candidate, leader of the doomed Agripublican movement, and essayist for right-wing sites like American Thinker and, well, Vermont Daily Chronicle, and author of a new book that just hasn’t gotten the attention that Klar thinks it deserves.

Small Farm Republic was published at the end of June by the once-respectable Chelsea Green Publishing, lately best known for publishing books by anti-vaxxers and Covid deniers. About six weeks later, Klar posted a piece on Vermont Daily Chronicle griping about the lack of mainstream press coverage for his terrible book.

(No, I haven’t read it and I don’t intend to. I feel safe in labeling it as terrible because every Klar essay I’ve ever read has been terrible. I don’t need to go fishing in a brackish, stinking, faintly glowing pond, and I sure as hell don’t need to eat any fish that lived in that mess.)

Klar’s Komplaint is that “progressive” outlets such as Seven Days and VTDigger haven’t taken the time to “critique” his book. Well, a couple of points need to be made. First, our media’s attention has been dominated by the July 10 flood and its ongoing aftermath. It’s too bad for Klar, but even he might have to acknowledge that the flood is just a bit more important. In fact, it’s kind of tasteless for him to be griping about his book when thousands of Vermonters are struggling to recover. Of course, perspective has never been Klar’s strong suit.

But even in the absence of a major disaster, it’s doubtful that Klar would have gotten the attention he craves. Digger doesn’t do book reviews. And while Seven Days has an Arts section that publishes reviews, its primary focus is on creative writing, not sociopolitical polemics. These outlets to occasionally take on a nonfiction tome, but only when the author is a prominent figure. Think memoirs by Pat Leahy and Jim Douglas, not a guy who couldn’t come close to beating state Sen. Mark Macdonald when the incumbent barely campaigned at all because he was recovering from a stroke. (Klar also out-fundraised MacDonald by a margin of three and a half to one in that campaign.)

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For $250,000 You Get to Slap Your Brand on a Gubernatorial Press Conference. For Another $100,000 You Get to Interrupt the Governor.

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The Scott administration staged a nice little feel-good event yesterday. Gov. Phil Scott’s latest flood recovery press conference was held at, of all places, the 802 Subaru dealership in Berlin. Why? Because its billionaire owner, Ernie Boch, Jr., was presenting the governor with a donation to flood relief programs in the form of a great big cardboard novelty check for $250,000.

Boch and the administration got what they wanted. He got to open the presser with a boast about Subaru. The governor got a warm and fuzzy moment amidst the ongoing drudgery of flood recovery. But cynical ol’ me, it brought to mind a probably apocryphal anecdote that’s been variously assigned to Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Groucho Marx, and W.C. Fields, among others, but seems to have been first told in 1937 by newspaper columnist O.O. McIntyre:

“They are telling this of Lord Beaverbrook and a visiting Yankee actress. In a game of hypothetical questions, Beaverbrook asked the lady: ‘Would you live with a stranger if he paid you one million pounds?’ She said she would. ‘And if be paid you five pounds?’ The irate lady fumed: ‘Five pounds. What do you think I am?’ Beaverbrook replied: ‘We’ve already established that. Now we are trying to determine the degree.”

Well, our governor’s degree is a quarter million dollars. And for another 100 G’s, he’s willing to be interrupted in the middle of his prepared remarks and stand there like a goof while the sponsor hogs the microphone.

The money went to good causes, so I guess we can just ignore the unseemly optics. That’s how the media coverage played it, anyway.

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Man, the Agency of Human Services is Really Bad At This Emergency Housing Thing

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Well, in this context, “incompetence” is the charitable interpretation. The alternative is that the responsible Scott administration officials are deliberately biffing the emergency housing effort and obfuscating slash lying to try to cover it up. Fortunately, they’re pretty bad at obfuscation, too.

Actually, there’s a third thesis, and my money’s on this one: The administration has so thoroughly starved AHS of needed resources that its staff can’t possibly handle the workload, and its leadership is tap dancing around the inconvenient truth.

Let’s go back to last week’s appalling performance before the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee, where AHS leaders presented their first mandatory report on the disposition of motel voucher recipients. For those just joining us, the last-minute budget compromise reached in late June continued the voucher program for most recipients, set some stringent conditions for those receiving vouchers, and mandated that AHS report once a month on progress toward ending the program and providing alternative housing for all recipients.

The report was an embarrassment, starting with a rundown of the 174 recipients who left the program in July. Of those 174, a mere 34 had found apartments to live in. (There was no breakdown on how many were helped by AHS in finding new housing and how many managed the trick on their own.) That’s less than 20% of those no longer in motels. The vast majority — 113 in all, a staggering 65% — left the program for destinations unknown because they had failed to renew their benefits, a process that appears to be devilishly difficult.

AHS Secretary Jenney Samuelson told the committee that “we had not been able to make contact with” those 113 despite multifaceted efforts. But a very different story was told by advocates for the unhoused.

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And While We’re At It, Why Not Bring Back Eugenics?

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Can somebody do a wellness check on Bill Schubart, prominent denizen of Vermont’s shallow, brackish pool of “public intellectuals”? Because he just published an essay that brings to mind the toxic excesses of early 20th Century liberalism — you know, the fine folks who enthusiastically took up the eugenics movement.

No, he didn’t call for sterilization of the unfit. But he did advocate a return to the Good Old Days when there were asylums to warehouse the many, many types of people deemed “unfit” for proper society.

He did his level best to craft a frame of compassion around this appalling idea, but it didn’t work. When you start talking about removing certain people from society, you are headed down a dangerous road.

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It’s Going to Get Late Early Out There

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I went to Shaw’s earlier this week, and was met by this massive display of Halloween candy occupying a giant bloc of high-traffic real estate almost three months before the holiday. Thought it was funny, took a pic and posted it on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter.

It’s awfully early to be laying in the holiday treats. But it’s rapidly getting late for those trying to restore flood-damaged homes. Cold weather is just around the corner, and with it will come “the second wave of the disaster,” as homeowners and renters who can stay where they are for now could be displaced when the leaves turn and thermometers drop toward the freezing mark.

“The second wave” is how Barre attorney John Valsangiacomo, chair of the board of Capstone Community Action, expressed his concern over what’s coming in a matter of weeks. His words ring true, and there may be no way to avoid another massive displacement on top of what we’ve already seen.

Valsangiacomo was a guest on the August 9 edition of “Vermont Viewpoint,” broadcast on WDEV Radio and now available as a podcast. The show came to you live from Nelson’s Ace Hardware in downtown Barre, where host Kevin Ellis skillfully brought us the experiences and views of civic leaders and Main Street merchants.

There is much to say about the show, as well as Ellis’ equally insightful August 2 broadcast from downtown Montpelier. For now, let’s stick with Valsangiacomo’s words of warning.

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Our Shadow Governor at Work

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People occasionally tell me that I “like” a political figure I’ve praised, or “don’t like” one I’ve criticized. It’s a way of consigning my views to little boxes of emotion. It’s not about policy or character, it’s about “liking.” Or not. I find it subtly demeaning.

Former gubernatorial candidate Brenda Siegel is one of those I supposedly “like,” and Gov. Phil Scott is on my perceived “don’t like” list. Neither is true, really. With Siegel, it’s not about liking or not liking, it’s about respect. She acts on her principles. She’s the only political figure who’s put herself on the line for our most vulnerable. The much more “likable” Phil Scott has not, not at all, not ever.

He did help out a neighbor with his backhoe, an action posted on Twitter by a former member of his cabinet. The tweet triggered a widespread fluttering of hearts in #vtpoli circles. What a great guy! What an authentic Vermonter, helping out a neighbor in time of need!

Yes, well, I’ve always thought Phil Scott would make a fine neighbor. I’m sure he’s always ready to help out, especially if it gives him a reason to haul out one of his big-boy toys. But there are no circumstances that would find him slogging through floodwaters, rescuing unhoused Vermonters from a riverside encampment as Siegel has done.

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“They are building a prison, not a shelter”

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Hearty congratulations to the good people of Hyde Park, who have “amicably resolved” a dispute over the siting of a homeless shelter. “Amicably” is the word chosen by VTDigger’s social media poster to describe a deal that will severely restrict the civil rights of shelter residents, so the amicability does not extend to the unhoused.

The story as a whole, originally posted by the News & Citizen of Lamoille County, betrays a complete blind spot where the unhoused are concerned. Nowhere are their thoughts or feelings expressed, nowhere are they seen as anything other than pawns in a game. And I must confess a similar blind spot; the import of the story didn’t hit me until housing activist Josh Lisenby pointed it out on Twitter, which I refuse to call X. In fact, I borrowed the headline of this post from one of Lisenby’s tweets.

The tale of this amicable resolution is a tawdry one all round. It begins with Lamoille Community House proposing to open a shelter at what is now the Forest Hill Residential Care Home. That much is fine; cue the tawdriness, in the unshocking form of a California tech entrepreneur who looks, well, exactly how you’d expect he looks.

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Something Great is Happening Today in Ohio. It Wouldn’t Be Possible Here.

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Voters are reportedly flocking to the polls in Ohio today, as part of a drive to enshrine reproductive rights in its constitution. A similar effort could not possibly have happened in Vermont thanks to our paternalistic, top-down system of government.

In case you haven’t heard the story, abortion rights advocates in Ohio mounted a successful petition drive to put a reproductive rights amendment on the state ballot in November. Republicans in control of state government, realizing the amendment was polling very strongly, ginned up their own ballot question to try to derail the November vote. “Issue 1” would raise the bar for constitutional referenda from 50% to 60%. (Last November, Michigan voters approved a reproductive rights amendment with 57% support.) Republicans then scheduled the Issue 1 vote for today in hopes of winning a low-turnout election. But early turnout has been very strong, and it looks like the Republican chicanery won’t work.

Point is, Ohio is on track to hand a stinging defeat to the anti-abortion movement thanks to a governmental process that doesn’t exist in Vermont because our founders decided to protect We, the People from ourselves. They did not create a mechanism for the public to gain access to the ballot.

Regarding reproductive rights, things have worked out just fine in Vermont because the Legislature was like-minded. But what if it wasn’t?

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Former VTGOP Chair Picks a Fight with Front Porch Forum

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For all their fetishizing of the Constitution, conservatives sure have a funny notion of what the First Amendment means. Take Deb Billado. [Cue Henny Youngman voice] Please, take her!

Billado, the ex-chair of the Vermont Republican Party, is now the CEO of the Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing, a conservative religion-oriented nonprofit that promises to “work to restore the traditional family to its central, pivotal, and honored place in civil society.” The VIHF gets the bulk of its funding from none other than Lenore Broughton, devoted backer of ultraconservative lost causes like the defunct True North Reports and, well, the VTGOP itself.

This fall, the Institute plans to hold its second annual “Restoring Our Faith” summit, which was born out of the notion that the Covid pandemic enabled the secular takeover of society. This year’s Summit will feature discussions on these troubling cultural trends and the critical role of faith, marriage, and the importance of protecting children in a flourishing society. featuring a motley crew of D-list conservative ranters. The announced lineup is a decided step down from last year, when the keynote speaker was the somewhat unobscure Dennis Prager, panjandrum of Prager University, last seen getting approval from the Florida Board of Education for its curriculum materials that, among other things, teaches that slavery wasn’t such a bad thing because slaves learned potentially useful skills and never mind the whipping, sexual assaults, forced separation of families, and, well, that whole being enslaved thing.

More on this year’s “featured” speakers later. The issue before us now is that Billado is in a frenzy because Front Porch Forum apparently rejected an inquiry about advertising the summit to FPF subscribers throughout Vermont.

According to The Williston Observer, FPF rejected the inquiry based on its rigorously enforced Terms of Service, which are designed to keep the forums civil and community-focused. And this, sez Billado, is A VIOLATION OF HER CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, waah waah waah.

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Promoting a Worthy Cause? Opportunism? Or a Little of Both?

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Let’s start with this: VTDigger has been doing yeoman’s work since the skies parted and the rains descended on July 10. They’ve ramped up their coverage to meet the need for information and insight, and that’s been absolutely critical in this age of ever-diminishing traditional media. And as a nonprofit organization, Digger has to meet its costs somehow or other.

So why does its joint fundraising campaign with the Vermont Community Foundation make me a little bit queasy inside?

Because, I think, it either crosses an ethical line or comes very close to it.

The details: Digger and VCF are raising money by selling a line of “Better Together” merch. The proceeds, minus the cost of the goods, is split 50/50 between the two entities. VCF devotes its half to flood relief, while Digger covers the cost of flood reportage with its share. The graphic design is, to my uneducated eye, kind of lame — of a piece with Digger’s recent website reboot. But that’s beside the point, and I’m sure the simple, direct design has its adherents. I don’t do TikTok either.

As a longtime denizen of public radio, I’ve spent more than my share of time dancing around this particular line between journalism and fundraising. During pledge drives, I’d be delivering the news one minute and begging for donations the next. Still, this Digger/VCF arrangement feels different, I think because it’s happening in the middle of a dire emergency — and looks like it’s capitalizing on the crisis. I’ve been part of public radio pledge drives, which take huge amounts of planning and organization, that were halted or postponed because of breaking news.

So I asked Digger CEO Sky Barsch about it, and she offered a strong rationale for the joint campaign. I wasn’t completely mollified, but I see her argument.

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