Freyne Land

I’ve read both the online edition and the hard copy now, so I’m certain my eyes are not deceiving me.

The editorial page of today’s Burlington Free Press smacked Republican Congressional Candidate Martha Rainville right across the kisser with a crisp, stinging contradiction of a certain  "version of reality" she attempted to pitch reporters on Wednesday.

In fact, Marvelous Martha’s comments were so precious that day we had already linked to John Dillon’s "Rainville Wants Moderate Republican for Speaker's Post" story on VPR which had Martha saying what she said so everyone could hear it.

Obviously with control of Congress determined by the opening-day, party-line vote in January 2007 for House Speaker, being a Republican means Martha, if elected, would vote for the R candidate. It might be Dennis Hastert, if he survive the storm, or it might be a another Republican. Either way, it’ll be more of the same party running things.

Democrat Peter Welch has made a big deal out of this. Why shouldn’t he?

With 202 of 435 House seats currently controlled by the Democrats (one of them’s held by some Independent fella from Vermont named Bernie something-or-other), the party out-of-power - the Democratic Party - needs 16 more House seats. At the moment, all indications are the November 7 outcome House-wise (and Senate-wise, too, in fact) is completely up in the air.

Let me repeat that. The OUTCOME of the November election Congress-wise is UP IN THE AIR as we speak. And everybody knows why, right?

What if it came down to a one-vote difference and Vermont voters got to choose the next Speaker and determine the course of history as far as the next two years of the House of Representatives?

Those are the facts. The numbers don’t lie. It’s a fair question for a politician.

Still, what a startling surprise this morning to see the Freeps editorial page weigh in!

We checked the masthead and it’s the same personnel listed as the editorial board.

Just to be sure, we’re having random water and air samples from inside the Freeps 191 College Street headquarters analyzed.

If the samples come back negative, Marvelous Martha’s gonna have a problem.

Time for Plan B?

SPEAKING OF PLAN B.....

Moderate Martha may just have had the stool pulled out from under her as today's Washington Post reports that a well-known, well-respected Connecticut MODERATE named Republican Rep. Christopher Shays has joined the chorus calling for a timetable for withdrawal from the Bush-Cheney American Disaster called the War in Iraq.

Shays, the pro-military Republican, like pro-military Democrat Moderate Rep. John Murtha before him, was until yesterday an ardent supporter of the stupid, needless, macho exercise in international ignorance that will forever mark George W. Bush in the history books.

Now Chris Shays has decided he wants a timetable for U.S. withdrawal.

A Democrat says "timetable"  and V.P. Dick Cheney pops up from his bunker in Wyoming to slime and slander their patriotism.

Hey, Big Dick, we’re all ears now!

Shays, a 19-year veteran of the House lives in Bridgeport. You don't think he could be sweating reelection do you?

Meanwhile, this just in from Camp Rainville spokesman Brendan McKenna (formerly with the Rutland Herald): 

“As she has said before, Martha Rainville does not believe we should publish a public timetable for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. However, she does believe the time is rapidly approaching when our troops will have accomplished their mission in Iraq.

“She believes there must be concrete, measurable political and military objectives and there should be internal timetables, between the Iraqi and U.S. governments for bringing our servicemen and - women home, soon with honor and thanks for the work they’ve done and the successes they’ve achieved.”  (Underlining added by your Blogger.)

O-o-o-o-o-o! 

Sounds like a “Rainville Calls for Secret Iraq Exit Timetables” headline could come out of that, eh?

Things are, shall we say, in flux!

Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd was in Burlington, Vermont Thursday to plug the congressional candidacy of Peter Welch. Freeps reporter and blogger Terri Hallenbeck showed. So did Mary Morin from Plattsburgh, N.Y. headquartered WPTZ Ch. 5. (They have a satellite bureau in Colchester, Vermont.)

South Burlington, Vermont headquartered WCAX-TV, Ch. 3, did not attend the Welch-Dodd presser. We’ve heard Vermont's beloved WGOP-TV "doesn’t do endorsement press conferences.”

But news, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

I looked at it as a golden opportunity on a beautiful sunny summer morning to hop on the two-wheeler, pedal down to the 60 Lake Street location and question one of those Democrats who I’ve seen pontificate ad nauseum on the Sunday Morning TV panel shows for years!

Sen. Dodd, unlike any member of Vermont's congressional delegation, was one of those blind, stupid, asleep-at-the-wheel Democrats who on October 11, 2002 gave President George W. Bush the green light to ignore both international law and the truth and send our American troops into harm’s way.

Turns out I was a half-hour early this morning. It was actually scheduled for 10 a.m.

To kill time, I rode down to the King Street Ferry Dock restaurant for coffee. Took it outside to admire the boats. And right in front of me, a 50-something dude was soaping up on the top deck of his cabin cruiser. Then he dove in to rinse off the suds. When he came back up,  we started chatting.

He was from western Massachusetts, was in great shape and had big tattoos on his biceps. Big biceps, too. Ex-football player. In town for an annual get-together with some old college buds - class of 1976. Remembered when UVM had football.

He has three grown kids, he told me. Two girls and a boy. The boy, a 24 year old former Marine, did four years in the Corps, nine months of it in Iraq. But something happened to the kid in Iraq, said his father, attired only in a black Speedo bathing suit, as he toweled himself off from his morning wash on the bobbing King Street dock.

“He’s not the same,” said the tattooed parent. "He's being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” he said shaking his head. “Just like Vietnam. Didn’t the military learn a goddamn thing?”

"The military did," I replied. "I've heard 'em say it that they'd never let it happen again. Never let a White House lie like LBJ and Tricky Dick did back in the 1960s."

NEVER allow another dishonest president to send our young folks (now sending a lot of the old ones in the National Guard, too) to be killed and maimed fighting a war they could not win. Not even the mighty U.S. can just beat down the local rebels anywhere it chooses, install a White House chosen head-of-state, and leave. In Hollywood, maybe, but reality just doesn't work that way.

Several prominent generals did object. Their advice was completely disregarded. The White House was always able to find its "Yes Man" in uniform to run the Joint Chiefs.

Ol’ Pops from Massachusetts touched a chord. Vietnam always does and always will for this writer. Forty years later, a fresh set of flag-waving liars have pulled off another one. Needless to say, Pops got me primed for Sen. Christopher Dodd's upcoming live appearance.

We waited patiently for Candidate Welch's 20-minute Dog & Pony Show to end - endorsements from Angelo Dorta of the state teachers union and others. Then we got to pop the question we came for: "Sen. Dodd, how did you vote on the Iraq War resolution?"

“I voted for it. I’ve said over and over again over the years that had I known then what I know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote, in my view. But had there been one, I would have voted against it.

"I don’t know why politicians or people in public life have a hard time saying they made a mistake. It’s something we ought to get over. I believe very deeply and strongly that there was information that said that the possession of weapons of mass destruction existed. And if I thought that was still true, I would embrace that vote.

"It turned out, of course, that it was fabricated information and we were all misled and I regret that deeply. And my view today is we ought to be trying to figure out a way to disengage. We’re now there in the middle of a civil war. We’re spending $250 million a day - almost $2 billion-a-week of taxpayer  money to sustain something that, frankly, we can’t resolve. It’s now up to the Iraqi People. It has been for some time. "

Now as I transcribe the tape, it hits me - Sen. Dodd the Democrat did not utter a single negative attack on the dishonest Republican president who lied to Congress and to you and me about Iraq from day one!

And continues to lie!

According to CNN as of five seconds ago, there have been 2,839 “coalition” deaths so far since King George declared war on this country that neither threatened nor attacked us or had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11. Of that total, 2,612 were Americans.

The future through Dodd's rather cloudy eyes?

"I’ve used the analogy of Benjamin Franklin walking out of Independence Hall in 1787 and Mrs. Powell confronts him and says, What have you given us?

"And he said, 'A Republic if you can keep it.'

"In a sense that‘s what we’re saying today, those of us who disagree with the president on this issue. We’ve given them the opportunity. It’s up to them to keep it now. And there’s no treasury big enough, nor army large enough that can do that for them."

P.S. This just in: Invitations to the Fall Republican Dinner On Sunday September 17 just went out. Sen. John McCain, who due to rain could not land in Rutland a few weeks ago, is returning to Vermont to headline the event. The GOP invitation reads:

"You are cordially invited to attend the annual Fall Republican Dinner
                              with special guest
                          U.S. Senator John McCain
                                 and honoring
     Gov. Jim Douglas and House Candidate Martha Rainville"

No mention about rookie Republican Senate Candidate Rich Tarrant, a man who will be remembered for, so far, spending $5 million of his personal fortune on the slimiest, dirtiest, most expensive and most out-of-touch statewide political campaign Vermont has even seen!

“Politics Has Gotten Ugly in America”

That’s the opening line in GOP congressional aspirant Martha Rainville’s first-in-her-life political TV commercial. (Obviously she's been watching the recent rather "ugly" TV spots being aired by Republican Senate candidate Rich Tarrant, eh?)

“The two Parties are barely civil to each other,” says Marvelous Martha looking straight into the camera. “I’m running a different kind of campaign that respects my opponent, respects you.”

Rainville then lets everyone know she’s signed her own proposed “Clean Campaign Pledge.” There’s a shot of her arm signing it. In fact, that shot takes up 11 seconds of the 30-second commercial!

You and I who have nothing better to do than follow this stuff know that her opponent, i.e. Democrat Peter Welch, did not sign her campaign pledge. In fact, Welchie scoffed at it as the set-up, political publicity stunt it was.

What it appeared to be at the time was a ridiculous pitch for a $1 million campaign-spending cap by the candidate with the smallest campaign treasury. Everybody knows that with control of the U.S. House on-the-line big-time on November 7, and Vermont’s one-and-only seat being an open seat, the national parties and pacs will be spending millions on Vermont airtime.

Camp Rainville brass knew going in that Welch wouldn’t sign her campaign spending pledge. So what? What the heck do you expect her to talk about?  The great job the Bush administration and the GOP Congress have been doing the last six years?

No matter.

That’s because Martha’s pledge-pitch wasn’t about “clean campaigns” at all.  It was really about playing to the peanut gallery. About Gen. Rainville’s “image.” That’s what counts here, folks, er, voters!

And let’s not forget, Rainville’s is an image Vermonters have known and admired for a decade. It’s the image of a brave, intelligent,  competent, and dare we say, attractive,  commander-in-chief. The first woman adjutant general of a state National Guard in American history!

Not bad when you’re up against an image that, some say, resembles that of a bald, squeaky-voiced Statehouse retread, remembered across Vermont for his lawsuit-hungry law-firm’s ambulance-chaser TV commercials that ran repeatedly before the Six O’Clock News a few years back.

This inaugural Rainville TV spot confirms that the Clean Campaign Pledge Pitch was indeed part of the larger Camp Rainville battle plan. At least she has a plan, right?

“No negative ads or mail that tear down my opponent,” said Martha, “and no guilt by association...Vermont’s a small state but we can set a new standard for the rest of America.”

P.S. Caught John Dillon’s Rainville story on VPR.  JD covered the presser at her Williston HQ where the new TV spot was “unveiled,” as they say. She also took questions - it is America, ya know. Her least favorite question is:  “If elected, Martha, who will you vote for in January for House Speaker?”

"I don't know. Would I abstain? Would it matter? I think we spend a lot of time on who are you going to vote for as speaker and it really just detracts attention from what we ought we ought to be talking about. I think it's in some sense a ploy by some who don't want to talk about the issues, or who want to keep Vermonters stirred up about a personality rather than real concerns on Vermonters minds."

Obviously, Peter Welch has a different take.

"It matters enormously to the future of Vermont and to future of our country. It's the most important vote that Vermont's next member of Congress will cast. It's absolutely the most critical vote and it matters."

It’s one issue where it appears Welch has got her by the....ah...."baseballs."

Fact: If elected, Republican Rainville will vote for the Republican candidate for Speaker. Why the hell do you think the national GOP has her on its top-ten list? So she can vote for a Democratic House Speaker?

Got to give Martha a round of applause, though, for the great spin move she did suggesting there might be a “moderate” Republican in line come January.

"With this mid-term election, what I'm hoping is that that moderate voice will be stronger in Congress. And a lot of representatives have come to the realization that we need to change direction. And there are some, particularly in the Northeast, some Republicans that are very strong minded about that."

Nice try, Moderate Martha.

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Scidder, er, Scudder Parker, actually broke a news story today!

We’re not talking about his Statehouse Steps comments on “investing in our youngest children.” If you want info on that stuff, check the mainstream press.

What perked up our ears, was Mr. Parker’s off-the-cuff reply to the last question of the 20-minute presser: How’s the campaign going, Scudder?

“It’s going great!” replied the ex-minister, ex-senator and current energy-efficiency expert. “I was over in Caledonia County yesterday and I noticed that  Mr. Douglas is now the only statewide candidate I’m aware of who doesn’t support utility-scale wind.”

What?

“Mr. Dubie,” said Parker, “made a comment that he supports big wind at that meeting.”

GOP Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie can’t say that!  It’ll leave his running mate on the GOP ticket, Gov. Jim Douglas, looking both lonesome and out-of-touch.

Yours truly asked the Guv at his 10:30 a.m. presser if he’d heard anything about the Doobster going over to the other side on what he loves to dub the “industrialization of Vermont’s ridge lines.”

Gov. Douglas said he hadn’t heard anything about a position-switch on wind energy from his talented running mate on the GOP ticket.

Hmmm.

When we got home, we called the Lite-Gov’s office.  Dubie’s “chief-of-staff,” in fact, only staff - Martha Hanson answered.

Martha told us Brian was serving his Air Force Reserve duties today and not available for comment. She then proceeded to tell us that her boss, a commercial pilot at American Airlines, has indeed recently distanced himself from King James on the topic of wind power.

“What he said at Lyndon State,” said Hanson, “is that he is a wind guy.” Our Lite-Gov knows that “not everyone in Vermont wants it, not everyone wants to look out the window at it,” she said. And Dubie also “doesn’t believe in forcing it on communities,” she added.

“But he does recognize wind is more and more a viable source of energy,” said Hanson.  Dubie told the folks at Lyndon State that, as a pilot, when he looks down at commercial wind farms with big rotors turning, he finds they look "beautiful."

“The lieutenant governor is a supporter of commercial wind development in Vermont,” said Hanson. No "ifs," "ands," or "buts."

Somebody needs to tell Gov. Douglas real, real fast, eh?

**************************************************************************************************

DUBIE WIND UPDATE:

1. VPIRG Director Paul Burns issued a statement late this afternoon praising Lt. Gov. Dubie for his Tuesday Lyndon State College statement supporting wind energy:

"Lt. Governor Brian Dubie declared himself to be ‘an unabashed supporter of wind’ at a conference organized by the Vermont Council on Rural Development Tuesday.  That declaration puts him in step with most Vermont residents and VPIRG congratulates the lieutenant governor for his willingness to separate himself from Gov. Douglas on this issue.

"Lt. Gov. Dubie obviously recognizes what Gov. Douglas does not; wind power must be part of our energy mix in Vermont. Wind power is the most abundant renewable energy resource we have in this state and it could be providing twenty percent of our electricity within ten years.

"The lieutenant governor is proving that support for clean energy is not a partisan issue.  Wind power is a winner whether your chief interest is jobs, the environment or human health."

2. Martha Hanson just emailed us, saying she caught our radio report on WDEV’s “Evening News Service” with Rich Haskell.

She says Brian "did not switch" his position on commercial wind energy development and sent along one of his Lieutenant Governor’s Log’s from April 2006 titled “Harnessing Wild Energy in Our National Forest” as proof.

In it the Doobster writes in part: 

"It's a reasonable question: When does our desire for wilderness work against our desire to preserve an economic future for young Vermonters and their young families?

"From an economic standpoint, Vermont's conserved lands should be managed as a resource, a working forest. That means that the assets of the forest -- be it lumber for new houses, wood chips for heat, wind to turn turbines and generate electricity, maple syrup, recreational trails, wildlife habitat, wilderness and more -- should all be optimized. "

Ol’ Brian sure didn’t make a big deal about it, did he? Kinda camouflaged his wind support in a much bigger context. Perfectly understandable given his running-mate’s devout opposition.

But now Dubie’s completely out-of-the-closet on wind. And that's got to make King James lonesome.

Guess Brian wants a bigger job someday than lieutenant governor, eh?

No dummy is he.

Here's what Vermont's incumbent Republican governor will be doing this lovely Wednesday morning right after the Democratic gubernatorial challenger hold his Statehouse-Steps presser:

Governor to Outline Details of Property Tax Cap Proposal

Proposal Reduces Property Taxes by Millions of Dollars

WHAT:      Property Tax Cap Press Conference


Montpelier, Vt.—Governor Jim Douglas will outline the details and projected savings of his proposal to cap property taxes.

He is also expected to call on the next Legislature to enact additional changes they had previously refused, including a means test to protect Vermonters who own a home and land that has appreciated significantly over the years but are of modest financial means.  The Governor will also urge the legislators to end abuses of the system and close loopholes that allow the owners of million dollar homes to collect 5-figure government assistance checks.

Governor Douglas has proposed capping education property tax growth at around the rate of inflation each year.  “A real property tax cap would reduce taxes by millions of dollars each year and allow room for school budgets to grow responsibly to meet the needs of a community,” he said.

Governor Douglas also noted that making Vermont more affordable requires reducing the tax burden on working Vermonters, which according to the U.S Census Bureau is the highest in the nation.  “Property tax increases are making it more and more challenging for parents to provide for their children and for longtime residents to stay in their homes.  We simply cannot afford tax increases at double the rate of inflation, at a time when student enrollment is declining,” he added.

The Governor’s property tax cap proposal exempts special education and capital costs.

___________________________________________________________________________

As we report in today's "Inside Track" in the weekly edition of Seven Days, Vermont's Republican Team at the top is a little more worried about November 8 than we had realized.

Our GOP source was expressing the concern Ol' Scudder would continue his unorthodox "stealth" campaign - avoid harping on what our source described as the usual property-tax-raising lefty issues - and then sneak across the November finish line first by cashing in on the BIG WAVE that everybody knows is coming. The Big Anti-Bush, Antiwar, Anti-Republican WAVE that, here in Vermont, will be led by Independent Shoo-in Bernie Sanders in the Senate race.

The fear in GOP Land is the WAVE is so damn big on November 8 that Bernie, with his phenomenal get-out-the-vote power, and Democrat Peter Welch (and his dog) in the U.S. House race, drag Ol' Scudder along to victory, too. Maybe even one of them eager Dems running for Lite-Gov, too?

And we predict the size of the Bernie WAVE grew this week as the most desperate, richest man we know - Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rich Tarrant - started running his Bernie is a Child Molester ads on Vermont television.

A desperate man is Richard Tarrant.

At least Tarrant, our favorite Florida oceanfront mansion owner,  should have used a concerned Vermont mom in his child-molester TV spot, instead of some grizzled, gray and mean-looking old-timer who, some have remarked, comes across like a you-know-what, i.e. the kind of old-timer you don't want to let the grandkids play with alone, if you know what I mean.

So it's a Montpeculiar Day ahead, a "Double-Banger Plus."

Scudder the Democratic Challenger, followed by King James the Republican, followed by fresh-roasted African beans from Capitol Grounds.

We'll let you now this afternoon how it went.

Look at what just arrived from the HQ of the Democratic candidate for governor -ah, whatshisname?

Scudder Parker to Make Statement on Early Childhood Care and Education

Montpelier, VT- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Scudder Parker will present his vision to build a future for Vermont in which the care and education of our youngest Vermonters is a high priority, at a press conference on Wednesday, August 23 starting at 9:30 AM on the Statehouse steps in Montpelier.

Hey, who was just noticing that here it is late August, and Mr. Parker has had zippo in the way of press conferences on the Statehouse lawn whacking the incumbent?

Gov. Douglas' has his regular weekly press conference scheduled for 10:30 on the nearby Fifth Floor.

What a coincidence!

Let the games begin!

The big local Burlington story on the WCAX-TV News this morning?

The Church Street Marketplace entrance to the Burlington Square Mall is being painted!

I’m not making this up.

They’re painting the mall’s brick facade “Colonial Yellow.”

Surveys showed, said Marketplace spokeswoman Casey Baker, that tourists walking by on the pedestrian-only four-block brick Marketplace, had no idea there was a huge double-decker mall behind those doors. She said it all kind of blended in with the brick street.

Jeezum Crow! It only took 26 years for anyone to realize it. You see - human progress has not disappeared.

Two things:

1. GOP U.S. House hopefuls Martha Rainville and State Sen. Mark Shepard debate live at 9 a.m. on Ch. 17 in Burlington. Simulcast on WDEV Radio  550/96.1. And live online here. Mark Johnson moderating.

2. Check Louis Porter’s Vermont global warming article in the Times Argus. Ever wonder why there’s so much Canadian maple syrup?

Today is Freyne Land’s seventh day. Thank you, thank you, thank you for stopping by, for posting a comment, for telling your pals.

We’ll always keep a light on for ya’!

Now, excuse me while I go write up that other stuff that gets printed on newsprint (how old-fashioned!) and doesn't hit the streets until Wednesday morning, assuming the world lasts that long.

Imagine 10 years out:  do you really see newspapers - made of paper - in the picture?

______________

A cloudy, damp and dark day in Vermont’s Queen City it is, too.

And very, very quiet!

But then there is the Big World out there, a world we all got an earful of yesterday. Some objected. Others loved it.

In fact, about 7 o’clock Saturday evening, long after the crowds had cleared out, I was biking around Perkins Pier. Not a soul in sight, except for a distinguished older gentleman I recognized - a retired UVM prof. I figured he had been checking on his boat.

I mentioned to him how I’d gotten an earful from a few citizens about the earlier Vermont Air Guard's air-show-spectacular over the smallest largest city of any state in America.

He looked at me like I was nuts! Spread his hands about a foot-and-a-half apart and wiggled and waved them through the air while making a big air-rushing sound with his mouth. All the while, he’s saying something about “Did you see those afterburners spitting flame out the back? Oh, my God. That was fantastic!”

Yes, indeed, thought I, remembering personal experience of the fighter-jet's inspirational feeling. The rush of the power! The Va-r-o-o-o-o-m-m-m!!!

At the time, I was a high-school freshman (1962-63) and dreamed of going to Annapolis. I wanted to fly off aircraft-carrier decks. Nuclear submarine duty was my close second choice.

I wasn’t a journalist at the time, so I don’t have notes, but I remember the “understanding”  in my house that killed those career plans early.

My Irish-Catholic parents (which makes me Irish-Catholic too, eh?) were immigrants to New York suburbia from the Bronx in 1948. Blacks, called “Negroes” in the pre-Black Power days of the 1960s, and Puerto Ricans were the new arrivals in the Big Apple in Post World War II America. The whites, like my future Ps, were fleeing for the suburbs.

There’s a faint footprint way back there in my early 1960s memory of the moment mom and dad communicated that “understanding” to me. It was a “you-can’t always-get-what-you-want” moment, i.e. a Freyne appointment to the United States Naval Academy required Freyne political connections. And since dear old mom and dad were registered Democrats in what was then solidly Republican-controlled WASP Westchester County, fuggehedaboudit, kiddo! Lower your sights to Iona College in New Rochelle, run by the Irish Christian Brothers (where dad taught night school parttime and could get a 50 percent tuition cut).

Yuck. This little birdie was not staying in the nest.

Plan B?

How about a seminary outside Chicago? Can you say "vocation to the priesthood?"

It was August of 1966, exactly 40 years ago, and a time when things really started changing. And I mean really. And there’s no place I’d rather have been than the great city of Chicago.  And no better place to be to handle all the cultural and political incoming that went with the experience we now remember as “The Sixties.”

Unlike most seminaries of the day, the faculty at Maryknoll, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, urged its future missionaries to get involved in the “real world” of the streets of Chicago from tutoring in the Cabrini Green project (way before it became famous), to starting up a draft-counseling center and organizing protests on everything from open-housing, to helping Cesar Chavez’s grape boycott, to going door-to-door in Republican (at the time) Dupage County for an antiwar Democratic congressional hopeful, a college professor who didn’t have a chance.   

Yes, indeed. 1000 miles from mom and dad and the seminary's connections got us into the thick of things quickly. There were the civil rights marches with Dr. King in the summer of 1966, the April 1968 riots on the West Side, the August 1968 Democratic Convention, later officially dubbed a “Police Riot,”  catching Phil Ochs, Dave Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman in action, the 1969 “police murder” of Fred Hampton.  The nights driving that cab and the characters who slid in and spilled out. Mike Royko's column five times a week in the Chicago Daily News. And then there was Saul Alinsky. Never met anyone who opened my eyes wider or faster, than Saul.

Whew! A little Memory Lane swing for this Sixties teenager. Been having a Sixities flashback kind of feeling for the last two weeks.

Life is full of surprises.

By 1969, the Maryknoll seminarian had become an atheist. A sociology of religion class knocked a couple of us off our sacred intellectual/theological pedestals. Looking at our world from the outside - without the rose-colored glasses of faith and Almighty God and Jesus, Mary and Joseph and sin and hell/heaven/purgatory - was something none of us had experienced before.

But that’s a whole other story for another day....

All the same, God bless Maryknoll!

A very valuable three years it was.

P.S. Remember our retired UVM prof friend who loved the jets roaring over the Waterfront? Through a little subsequent googling we learned Professor X served four-years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force way, way back when.

Even put in a little Air-Guard duty in the Midwest.

Now it all makes sense!

A Saturday Afternoon Musing:

Who would have thought back in 1981 that electing a screaming socialist the mayor of Burlington, Vermont would lead to a crackdown on noise?

But it did.

The administration of Independent Mayor Bernie Sanders (1981-1989)  will be remembered for many things - for those who lived here at the time, the new noise ordinance will be one of them. The Sanderistas' crackdown on noise (out-of-control college partying, mostly), was one of the hallmarks of what the U.S. Conference of Mayors said in 1988 was America’s “most livable city."

So it was no surprise that more than a few people were taken aback by the "noise" from the Thunderbirds and other military aircraft that have been practicing and performing along the Burlington Waterfront over the last few days. A lot of people we ran into downtown told us they had no idea it was happening.

About 1:30 p.m. at the crowded Farmers Market in City Hall Park, we met one farmer who appeared pleased to see a reporter he could talk to.

State Rep. David Zuckerman is a Burlington Progressive who farms in the Intervale. He's a five-term lawmaker under the Golden Dome, but he only just turned 35 last Wednesday. Last winter he had an "exploratory committee" looking at a possible statewide bid for theU.S. House seat Bernie Sanders is finally vacating to move up to Senate. He eventually decided not to run and clear the track for Democrat Peter Welch, the guy with the dog. Zuckerman’s also the current chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. (A lot of delectable-looking musk melons were left over today.)

What’s been the public's reaction in Farmers Market Land to the aerial spectacular?

“There’s been a few people coming though who were excited and going down there to watch it,” said Dave the Prog. “Most folks who live in town have been dismayed at the noise. My own baby was crying a couple hours yesterday because of the noise and the vibrations from these planes.”

So, what’s the personal reaction of the farmer/politician?

“My reaction is that in a time of war like we have today, it’s appalling! To people in the war zones around the world, these sounds could mean instant death,” said Zuckerman, “and for us to take pleasure in looking at them is unfortunate. We really need to think about what these things mean.”

“Technologically, they’re fascinating," said Farmer Dave, as two more roared overhead. “But in a time in the world we’re in today, it is inappropriate to get excited watching war machines.”

But are you not proud of the Vermont Air Guard? It’s their 60th Anniversary!

“I support the individual work of the troops,” replied Rep. Zuckerman. "They do incredible things in our community. It’s just very unfortunate they have to be overseas right now.”

Ol’ Davey was in the zone.

“Unfortunately," he continued, "our Air and Army Guard have been misused by our federal government, and because of that, they now symbolize what’s going on overseas. To use these planes to get people involved in what is a misuse of our troops,” said the farmer/politician, “that I think is inappropriate.”

Agree with him or not, it’s always a pleasure to hear a politician take a clear stand, isn’t it?

The Vermont Air Guard Air Show may well have performed a service to the community the Vermont Air Guard was not anticipating. It's made a whole lot of folks, including this writer, stop and ponder the roaring jet noise. Inescapable. It's drowning out the TV set (PGA Golf Tournament from Medinah - Illinois, not Saudi Arabia). Just imagine what hearing this every day and every night would be like?

Especially if they were armed and from another country? And blowing up the Lake Champlain Ferry boats and the Water Treatment Plant and the Burlington Square Mall and the parts of town their intelligence forces had been told are hiding nationalist rebels?

Thank God it's our boys flying them, eh?

P.S. Burlington, Vermont is officially  an antiwar city.

Yours truly counted 157 folks attending Friday evening's Democracy for America fundraiser at Burlington's Union Station. Where once-upon-a-time people actually waited for trains, the politically aware gather for wine, cheese and repartee. The main attraction was the Connecticut Yankee in King George’s Court - U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont.

Mr. Lamont’s the guy who upset incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman in the August 8 Democratic Primary. The big issue?

King George and his War in Iraq.

Vermont-wise, Leahy, Jeffords and Sanders opposed the Bush war from the get-go, and at a moment when courage appeared in very short supply in Congress, they all voted against giving Bush the green light, making Vermont the only state whose entire congressional delegation did the right thing.

In Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, Al Gore’s running-mate in 2000, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the King, even got a kiss on the cheek for his loyalty.

Some folks of Connecticut said enough is enough.

Ned Lamont is 52. Raised in Syosset, New York, on Long Island’s North Shore. Has degrees from Harvard and Yale and owns Lamont Digital Systems in Greenwich.

Lamont’s upset victory was fueled by online support from national activist organizations like MoveOn.org and DFA, which was born as Dean for America and is currently headed by Ho-Ho’s little brother Jimmy (who by the way did an outstanding job on Meet the Press two weeks ago going head-to-head with Lieberman-defender Lanny Davis).

Lieberman, as everyone knows, is now running as an independent. In fact, he’s leading Lamont 53-41 in a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday. You've got to see Joe's post-primary online statement. Who says Hollywood gets the best actors?

No need for panic. Joe was leading Ned 51-27 in a July 20 poll.

Lamont had the sparkle Friday night at Burlington’s Union Station. Told his story. How Lieberman’s lockstep support for Bush on the War in Iraq sickened him. And how Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha, a Marine captain who picked up two Purple Hearts in the Vietnam War, inspired him when he courageously switched from hawk to dove last November.

When he went to see key Connecticut pols about finding somebody to challenge Big Joe from the left, Lamont said he was told, “Ah, we don't like primaries. He's a three-term incumbent. They got all these millions of dollars. It can't be done. If you feel so strongly about it, you do it!”

“So I said, ‘Maybe I will.’”

The rest is history. He decided to get in the race. And then one day he decided to go to a local DFA meeting at a diner in Norwalk. 

Turns out 125 Deaniacs showed and the response helped make Ned Lamont a household word and established Vermont-based  Democracy for America as a key new player in the brave new world of American politics. Said Lamont last night:

We had tens of thousands of Democrats register in the last couple months right before the primary. They’d had 18 years to register for Joe Lieberman.

I think they were registering because they wanted a change. We gave them something to believe in. It's hope and it's positive and I mean to do that.

Hope sure is a nice thing. It’s absence has been everywhere as recent polling has shown. Never in my lifetime have so few felt the country is heading in the right direction, just 26 percent in an Aug. 10-11 Newsweek poll. 

Why should they?

It isn’t!

One other Lamont line caught our ear at Union Station last night as he described his transformation from inexperienced political unknown to Democratic Party U.S. Senate nominee:

And there were these things called blogs. I didn't really know that much about blogs, but I do now.

Hey, Ned, don’t we all?