That's right. The 2013 Daysies are here — in this week's whopping, 152-page print edition of Seven Days. And that's not all.

In other news this week...

• Radical leftist Rachel Siegel wants her fellow Burlington City councilors to talk about racism, sexism and gun control. But will they listen?

• Twenty-one months and $700,000 later, Burlington's new accounting system still isn't fully functional. According to one city councilor, that's leaving the Queen City "flying blind."

• And in this week's Fair Game: Vermont media outlets could soon receive a $2.3 million stimulus, thanks to Obamacare; lefties go nuts after Howard Dean pens an anti-death-panel op-ed; and Bill Sorrell and T.J. Donovan may be cruising toward a rematch. 

***UPDATE BELOW***

About 30 demonstrators rallied this morning outside criminal court in Burlington to denounce racism and voice support for an African American family involved in a July 1 fracas with Burlington police. The demonstrators held placards and chanted slogans such as "BPD — Stop police brutality!"

Susalyn Kirkland, 56 (pictured below), greeted the protesters following a brief appearance in court on charges of impeding a public officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. A hearing on her case was set for August 14.

"I didn't do any of that," Kirkland declared outside the courthouse on Cherry Street. "I don't know why they're lying," she said in regard to Burlington police. "They should be telling the truth."

Two of Kirkland's sons — Hassan Williams, 16, and a 15-year-old whose name is not being disclosed — are said by police to have attacked Sgt. Brad Trombley. The officer was responding to a complaint of BB guns being fired at a Spring Street home in the Old North End.

A sticker slapped on telephone poles and utility boxes around Burlington highlights dissent among the dissenters on the issue of basing the F-35 military fighter jet at the local airport.

A small band of graphic guerrillas who call themselves the Sticker Gang are seeking "to up the political ante by depicting the depth of the opposition to both the weapons system and the pols fronting for the 1 percent's continuing agenda of empire," gangster Albert Petrarca writes in an email.

Designed by a local artist who won't reveal his or her name, the sticker shows the war plane in a completely vertical ascent. It's got a skull-and-crossbones emblazoned on one wing; the nuclear radiation symbol on the other. The exhaust from the F-35's engine takes the form of the names of Vermont politicians who support the basing plan: Shumlin, Sanders, Weinberger, Leahy, Welch. 

"F the 35," the sticker proclaims on top.

Like many prophets, Garry Davis was egotistical, single-minded and ... uniquely in touch with a higher truth. The Vermont-based founder of the World Government of World Citizens, who died in Williston last week at age 91, gets a full-scale, strongly sympathetic send-off in today's New York Times.

"His rationale was simple, his aim immense: If there were no nation-states, he believed, there would be no wars," the Times observes.

Davis, the longtime companion of local philanthropist and activist Robin Lloyd, launched his world government in 1953 from the steps of the Ellsworth, Maine, town hall. His organization has since issued some 2.5 million "world passports." 

Davis was a regular at public meetings in and around Burlington. He often took advantage of the Q&A portion to pitch his project. Seven Days profiled Davis in 2001. Last month, a new documentary about his life was released, entitled My Country Is the World, and the World Is My Stage: The True Story of Garry Davis. 

"Whether Mr. Davis was a visionary utopian or a quixotic naïf was long debated by press and public," the Times recounts. "His supporters argued that the documents he issued had genuine value for refugees and other stateless people. His detractors countered that by issuing them — and charging a fee — Mr. Davis was selling false hope to people who spent what little they had on papers that are legally recognized almost nowhere in the world."

It's clear, though, where the Times and writer Margalit Fox stand on Davis' unparalled act of chutzpah in declaring himself head of a world government.

"What is beyond dispute is that Mr. Davis’s long insistence on the inalienable right of anyone to travel anywhere prefigures the present-day immigration debate by decades," the obit opines. "It likewise anticipates the current stateless conditions of Julian Assange and Edward J. Snowden."

Read the full New York Times story here.

A handful of speakers urged a Burlington City Council committee Thursday evening to put some teeth into the city's livable-wage ordinance.

Adopted 12 years ago but largely unenforced, the ordinance became the subject of a heated debate last November after the Skinny Pancake was granted an exemption to the rule when it opened a new restaurant at the city-owned Burlington International Airport.

The ordinance requires companies receiving $15,000 in city contracts to pay their employees a livable wage — $13.94 an hour for employees provided health insurance or $15.83 for employees without. A 55-page report issued in April by City Attorney Eileen Blackwood found that only 23 of 160 companies with contracts subject to the ordinance were in compliance.

Thursday night, at the Burlington Police Department's community room, the council's three-member ordinance committee continued its review of the rule, with an eye toward improving its enforcement. But at least one speaker was displeased with the committee's progress.

Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling said on Thursday he has apologized to two Burlington residents who had complained about BPD officers telling them early last Saturday that "Church Street is shutting down" and ordering them to leave the Marketplace.

Craig Mitchell and Dennis Ailor (pictured) — the two men confronted by a pair of cops — say they were causing no disturbance and were simply chatting with one another in front of Red Square at about 2:15 a.m. on July 20. The officers implied they were enforcing a curfew on the Marketplace, both Mitchell and Ailor told Seven Days.

"I felt degraded and disrespected," said Mitchell, who works as a DJ at Red Square. "I wasn't causing a scene."

Updated below with comment from Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling and Vermont State Police spokesperson Stephanie Dasaro.

Burlington's deputy police chief was allegedly caught in a state police dragnet looking for drunk drivers early Sunday.

Vermont State Police issued a press release Sunday saying Andi Higbee, 44, was stopped around 12:09 a.m. while driving off-duty in the town of Sheldon for failing to use a turn signal while turning from Casino Road onto VT Route 105. He was investigated for operating under the influence, the release said, and subsequently arrested.

Higbee was transported to the St. Albans barracks for processing and was later released on a citation to appear in Franklin County Superior Court on August 12.

Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling responded to the arrest in a press release. "Earlier this morning I was made aware that Deputy Chief Andi Higbee had been pulled over just after midnight by the State Police in St. Albans and subsequently processed for DUI. DC Higbee has been placed on paid administrative leave.

"No additional detail is available or expected today [while] we work to gather information regarding this personnel matter," Schirling added in the release.

The state police press release did not indicate Higbee's blood alcohol content. The Burlington Free Press reported Sunday that Higbee previously pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in 1999.  

Stay tuned to Off Message for updates on this story.

Update - Monday, 1:30 p.m.

Chief Schirling said Monday that he is hiring an outside investigator to conduct an internal review of Higbee's arrest to determine whether it violated departmental policies. Schirling said he has not selected the investigator yet, but hopes to by day's end.

Meanwhile, state police have still not released Higbee's blood-alcohol content. VSP spokesperson Stephanie Dasaro said Monday her agency generally does not release that information, though she admitted it has done so in the past. She said in this case it would not be released before Higbee is arraigned next month.

She also would not discuss whether Higbee had been served a notice of civil suspension, which if he had, would indicate that his breath test registered a BAC above .08, the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle. It is possible to blow under a .08 and be charged criminally, if there is other evidence of intoxication. But civil suspensions require a suspect blew .08 or higher. 

File photo of Andi Higbee by Andy Bromage

Debate over the F-35 has been dominated in recent weeks by the plane's opponents. But supporters of basing the fighter jets at Burlington International Airport went on the offensive Wednesday.

Their tactics did not prove as creative or as colorful as the opposition's deafening F-35 noise simulation and the fudge-gifting event staged at Sen. Patrick Leahy's downtown office. The organizer and two prominent backers of the Green Ribbons for the F-35 campaign held a traditional press conference at the Main Street headquarters of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The pro-F-35 speakers nevertheless made controversial claims that were met with skepticism from some of the reporters in attendance.

Chamber president Tom Torti argued, for example, that there's no validity to the case against the plane on the basis of the noise it makes. "We believe that's a red herring," he declared.

Plattsburgh's "international" airport (PBG) remains much smaller than Burlington's, but economic-development officials on the New York side of Lake Champlain sure do dream big.

Direct flights from PBG to Caribbean vacation spots represent "the lowest-hanging fruit" potentially within the airport's reach, North County Chamber of Commerce chief Garry Douglas recently told the New York Times. And that might just be the first step in giving substantive meaning to the "international" part of the airport's title, Douglas added. 

The Times reported his suggestion that it might be feasible in the longer term to board flights from Plattsburgh to destinations such as London, Paris and Tel Aviv. That would be quite a leap from the handful of domestic destinations PBG currently serves.

But PBG clearly does expect to handle many more passengers in the coming years than the 150,000 or so who boarded flights there in 2012. A remote parking site with 1500 spaces — in addition to the 2000 already available — is scheduled to open in 2016, the Times said. That's the same year when Plattsburgh's terminal is due to complete an expansion that will triple its size.

PBG's ambitions hinge almost entirely on attracting additional traffic from Quebec. More than 80 percent of its passengers currently come from Canada — drawn in part perhaps by PBG's claim of being "Montreal's U.S. Airport."

The New York Times on Friday became the latest national news outlet to cover Vermont's long-simmering fight over whether the state will host a squadron of F-35 fighter jets.

In an A13 story, Times freelancer Theo Emery doesn't break any new ground, but he captures the irresistible drama of the situation: A divided city fights over whether to support "our guys" — as pro-F-35er Nicole Citro puts it — or those who would be bombarded by the plane's noisy takeoffs. Vermont politicians line up in favor of the basing, while others decry undue political interference.

Etc., etc. 

While the themes of Emery's story may be familiar to anyone living in the Green Mountain state — or, at least, here in Chittenden County — it's surely news to many of the Times' 1.87 million subscribers. No doubt that will further elevate this local fight into a regional story with national legs.

You can read the story here.