Tag Archives: Chris Viens

News You Should View: The Last of His Kind?

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Apologies for skipping a week. Between Nicholas Deml and Sam Douglass, there was a lot going on. But here we are with another collection of news content worth your attention. Starting with a bit of sad news.

Remember when every newspaper had local columnists? They occupied a space between opinion and reportage. They were familiar figures to readers, and had their fingers on the pulse of community life. As a news consumer in southern Michigan, I got to know and appreciate Detroit Free Press columnists like Hugh McDiarmid (politics), Neal Rubin (entertainment, also penned the Gil Thorp syndicated comic for many years), and Bob Talbert (fluff and nonsense with a purpose). Those days are long gone, as newspapers have cut and cut and cut until there’s practically nothing left.

One survivor of the good old days: Jim Kenyon of The Valley News. I’ve been reading his stuff since I moved to this region in 2000. And now, at the age of 66, he’s retiring. I haven’t seen this reported in his own paper yet, but The Dartmouth has published an exit interview with him. I’m sorry to see Kenyon go, especially since I’m certain that he will not be replaced. He’s a luxury item in a bare-bones industry.

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The Dregs Find Their Own Level

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Time for a victory lap.

In the past several weeks, I wrote a series of posts about far-right extremist types seeking local elective office. Well, I couldn’t be more pleased to report that all but one of them lost on Town Meeting Day. The exception: Jennifer Cole Patterson, who beat The VPO Curse and somehow won a seat on the Franklin West Supervisory Union school board.

Funny thing. She won handily, but her fellow Fairfax fruitbat Daniel Mincica got absolutely trashed. Hard to discern a trend there.

In general, there weren’t nearly as many ultraconservatives on Town Meeting Day ballots as there were last year. Some of them, I’m sure, managed to avoid exposure. But my sense is that fewer of them are bothering. The vast majority lost in 2022. Maybe they’re getting the message?

Now, let’s run down the rest of the Dishonor Roll.

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Return of the Guy Who’s Definitely Not Racist, Not Even a Little Tiny Bit, How Dare You Suggest Otherwise

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This is kinda-sorta another installment of “Dregs of the Ballot” except, well, this one’s an incumbent. But what an incumbent he is.

Chris Viens is running for another term on the Waterbury Selectboard, where he currently serves as vice chair — having resigned as chair in November 2020 after suggesting, at a public event, that maybe we should segregate the police so we could, you know, have Black cops police Black people and white cops watch over The Rest Of Us.

I mean, that’d take care of the whole Black Lives Matter problem, wouldn’t it?

(Pay no attention to Memphis.)

All right, you might be thinking, he made one gaffe and took responsibility. That’s settled.

Well, except for two things. First, it’s not the only questionable thing he’s said. And two, his resignation announcement was an absolute disasterpiece of self-pity and blame shifting that, to my ears, was far worse than his original segregate-the-police remark. And although it’s more than two years old, it warrants a trip down Memory Lane.

Now the good people of Waterbury can make up their own minds on Town Meeting Day, but I’ll just note that there are three candidates on the ballot for two selectboard seats and Viens is the only one I know of who’s said some truly ignorant things in public spaces.

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