Tag Archives: VTDigger

It’s summertime, and racism is bustin’ out all over

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Perhaps in honor of our nation’s birthday, there’s quite a bit of sobering news for those who believe that Vermont is above all this racism stuff because, well, we’re Vermont!

Actually, I’d compare us to Scandinavian countries before the first waves of darker-skinned immigrants. They didn’t have racism because there wasn’t any reason for it to spring forth. But you add in some brown people — or even the idea of adding in some brown people — and boy howdy, turns out your attic is full of spiders.

We have, of course, the ongoing disgrace in Rutland, where opponents of setting 100 Syrian refugees might go so far as to eject the best damn mayor their city has ever had. And don’t try to sell me that the anti-refugee contingent are upset over process. That’s an excuse. No, they’re afraid of dark-skinned people wearing heebie-jabbies.

Exhibits B and C are separate reports detailing “stark racial disparities in Vermont policing and incarceration,” per VTDigger; Exhibit D is a series of truly disturbing incidents of racism in, of all places, Craftsbury — the summer home of Bill “Spaceman” Lee and an epicenter of Northeast Kingdom counterculture.

And the cherry on top of this shit sundae: Governor Shumlin urging federal authorities not to harass or “hassle” members of the Rainbow Family Gathering. I wonder if he’d express the same sentiment if it was, say, a Hip-Hop Nation event at Mount Tabor.

Call me cynical, but I doubt it.

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Disclaimer over here, boss?

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Recently, an opinion piece by the doughty and redoubtable John McClaughry made the rounds. It appeared in some newspaper op-ed pages, and in the Commentary column of VTDigger.

And it involved a significant, undisclosed, conflict of interest.

McClaughry’s missive was a big sloppy wet kiss on the feet of Charles Koch, one of the infamous Koch brothers. McClaughry regurgitated a few nuggets of wisdom from Koch’s recent book, Good Profit. The book is a self-serving explication of why the Koch brothers are fine, principled businessmen with a strong focus on customer service and an aversion to big gummint.

Except when they can profit from it, of course. Curiously, one Kochbit highlighted by McClaughry concerns Koch Industries’ production of ethanol, which is almost entirely a creation of government subsidy. McClaughry writes with evident approval:

… out of principle, Koch opposes the present government mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline as a political scheme that produces “bad profit.”

Which has not prevented Koch Industries from continuing to enrich itself with this alleged “bad profit.” But somehow McClaughry overlooks the evident hypocrisy and praises Koch for a principle he never acts upon.

But I digress. The point isn’t that McClaughry has blessed the world with a few hundred words of free-market rhetoric, but that his own conflict of interest was not disclosed by VTDigger.

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Yes, Peter Galbraith ran for Congress in 1998. No, he doesn’t want you to think so.

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One of the most curious aspects of the whole Peter Galbraith/Wikipedia sideshow is the furious debate over whether or not he was a candidate for Congress in 1998.

The stuff about the Kurds and Galbraith’s oil wealth and his frequently contentious career as a diplomat, that’s understandable. It seems clear that Galbraith himself, or a close ally, has been scrubbing his Wikipedia page of negative material. On the other hand, some critics of his diplomatic adventures have been just as obsessive about his Wikipedia entry.

But this Congress thing? Why does that matter?

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More Wiki-intrigue: Who is “FourViolas”?

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Recently, I’ve written a couple of posts about Peter Galbraith’s Wikipedia entry and the extremely assiduous pro-Galbraith editing activity of two anonymous persons — Devotedamerican and Westencivil.

Well, now I’ve got more intrigue to report, and it involves one of Galbraith’s competitors for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

Those who’ve been following the Galbraith story way too closely for proper maintenance of mental health will recall that the activity of Devotedamerican was brought to attention by another Wikipedia editor.

The plethora of edits was flagged to VTDigger by FourViolas, a Wikipedia editor from Vermont who reported having stumbled upon Devotedamerican’s work while inserting policy positions on the pages of all the Vermont gubernatorial candidates.

In an email, FourViolas asked to be identified only by Wikipedia username, saying the community appreciates anonymity.

Yeah, well, here’s the thing. FourViolas has been extremely busy editing Sue Minter’s Wikipedia page. FourViolas’ first edit came on March 17; after that, s/he was inactive until May 21. Since then, FV has been responsible for 12 more edits. Most of them add biographical detail fleshing out Minter’s experience and qualifications.

One of FourViolas’ edits conveniently omitted an important fact. See if you can spot it:

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Bedazzling the bucket

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The three contenders for lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary got together Tuesday night to talk about the job and how they might make it a little more useful. Or a little less useless, perhaps.

The relatively powerless second-in-command is, as far as I know, an oddity of American politics. (Do other countries’ governments sport institutionalized appendices?) A heartbeat away from executive power, but trapped in an unglamorous treadmill of boredom famously dubbed “a bucket of warm piss” by one of its occupants.

You could say the lieutenant governorship is what you make it, but it’d be more accurate to say that it’s what other people let you make it. Peter Shumlin gave Phil Scott a seat in his Cabinet, a generous gesture that Scott has repaid by strenuously denouncing anyone who calls attention to it.

Still, at the very least, the office can be used as a bully pulpit. You can advocate for your causes. You can engage in backroom politics in the Senate, where you do wield a bit of authority. Or you can set off on a gimmicky, photo-op-friendly Jobs Tour.

Oh wait, that one’s been taken.

The three candidates’ images of the job, to a large extent, mirror their separate capabilities and interests.

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Peter Galbraith has a new WikiFriend

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A few days ago, VTDigger’s Jasper Craven reported that an anonymous someone had been doing a whole lot of editing to Peter Galbraith’s Wikipedia page. The person known as “Devotedamerican” made dozens of edits to Galbraith’s entry between 2008 and 2011, all adding material favorable to Galbraith or removing unfavorable information. During that period, Galbraith actively considered a run for governor before deciding to run for state senate in 2010.

Devotedamerican has been silent since 2011. But now, Galbraith has a new WikiFriend, “Westerncivil.” It’s a cognomen strikingly similar in content and structure to “Devotedamerican.”

Westerncivil began editing Galbraith’s entry in the fall of 2014, but was only occasionally active until June 10, when Westerncivil made eleven separate edits to Galbraith’s page in a single day.

Craven’s article revealing Devotedamerican was posted on June 9.

Coincidence? Ehh, not buying it.

And Westerncivil has never edited anything else on Wikipedia.

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Who’s been messing with Peter Galbraith’s Wikipedia page?

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Way, way back in the spring of 2012, it came to light that an anonymous South Burlington resident had been adding a whole lot of material to Bill Sorrell’s WIkipedia page — turning it from a brief stub into a very Sorrell-friendly recounting of his accomplishments, and omitting anything at all negative.

Much of the added verbiage was strikingly similar to the bio on his campaign website. And at least once, Sorrell was referred to as “Bill” — an odd thing for a dispassionate Wikipedia editor to do.

Well, according to VTDigger’s Jasper Craven, there’s a new entry in the pantheon of small-minded Vermont politicos. Because one specific individual has spent ungodly amounts of time editing Peter Galbraith’s Wikipedia entry. The edits have been done by a user called “Devotedamerican,” but it’s hard to believe that anyone other than Galbraiith himself was responsible.

The Galbraith shenanigans go deeper than Sorrell’s. Not only did Devotedamerican post obvious fluffery, s/he also repeatedly scrubbed anything negative from the entry, particularly about Galbraith’s oil dealings in the Middle East. (You know, the ones that made him a rich man.) And did it so frequently that Devotedamerican was actually upbraided for his work.

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I wanted to be a Spaceman

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So yeah, Bill Lee’s running for governor on the Liberty Union ticket. I’ll give him this: he’s the only Vermont gubernatorial candidate to be mentioned on ESPN. He’s also the only candidate with a line of his own on baseball-reference.com. (110 wins, 90 losses, 3.62 ERA)

Otherwise, it’s a nice novelty and nothing more. After all, how’d the rest of that song go?

But now that I am a spaceman

Nobody cares about me

Not that Lee’s candidacy is meant to be taken seriously, but let’s do that for just a moment.

On the one hand, he says Vermont “is a perfect state,” and he wouldn’t do much as governor. On the other hand, his platform includes universal health care, marijuana legalization, abolishing the US/Canada border, turning the Bay of Fundy into a giant hydroelectric power source, and “bring[ing] the Tampa Bay Rays back to Montreal.”

“We’ll call them the X-Rays,” he said.

Ba-DUMP-chink.

Long reach for a little joke, especially considering the Rays were never in Montreal. They’ve always been in Tampa. The ex-Expos are now d.b.a. the Washington Nationals. So even his grasp of baseball is a little shaky.

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But why, VPR?

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Vermont Public Radio is the most richly endowed media operation in the state. It sits securely atop the nonprofit world as well, and many nonprofits privately bemoan VPR’s ability to suck all the oxygen out of the room.

It does a lot of good stuff. But once again, it has taken a step that makes me question its civic-mindedness. We think of VPR as a news organization; but when you look at how it spends its time and resources, you have to conclude that what it really is, is a lifestyle brand for comfortable white folks. VPR has three primary functions, in this order:

1. Outlet for NPR and other network programming. Carriage fees eat up a large percentage of VPR’s budget.

2. Producer of infotainment programming aimed at those near the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy.

3. News organization.

The latest emission from Your Favorite Lifestyle Brand is a podcast entitled “But Why?” It’s a platform for children to submit questions about anything and everything, and provide engaging and easily digestible answers.

This follows VPR’s other recent infotainment initiatives:

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Shummy just can’t help himself

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From The Life of Shumlin, by Parson Weems:

“When Peter,” said she, “was about six years old, he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet! Of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his way.

One day, in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother’s pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly, that I don’t believe the tree ever got the better of it.

The next morning the old gentleman, finding out what had befallen his tree, which, by the by, was a great favourite, came into the house; and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author, declaring at the same time, that he would not have taken five guineas for his tree. Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance.

“Peter,” said his father, “do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden? ”

This was a tough question; and Peter staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. A huge gust of wind sprang up out of nowhere and blew down your precious cherry tree.”

One of Governor Shumlin’s least endearing traits is his inability to avoid an expedient falsehood, even if it’s transparently obvious to eveyrone in the room. Well, once again he couldn’t help himself yesterday when touting a change in the estate tax that will give a bit of relief to rich folks and business owners.

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