Freyne Land

Ready for the Big "Wings Over Vermont" Air Show on Saturday?

If Thursday’s little fly-bys were any indication, things are going to get real loud along the Burlington Waterfront. It’s the 60th anniversary of the Vermont Air Guard!

Impressive sight - all the gleaming, streaming, roaring jet fighter aircraft that are so utterly useless in a war fought against suicidal soldiers with explosives under the car hood or strapped to the chest.

Last military air show I saw like this was back in Chicago in the mid 1970s. Chicago, in case you didn’t know, has a bit of a lakefront, too (about 26 miles of lakefront!). Their air show happening this weekend, too:

Those Chicago Lakefront air-shows occurred in the years following our disastrous war in Vietnam. It was a war that showed the willingness of the White House to lie to the American people about the very basic reasons for going to war in the first place. (Geez, that rings a bell! Where have we seen a repeat of that lately?)

The U.S. military wasn’t real popular in the 1970s in large part because it had been betrayed by elected presidents of both parties. Sending troops to fight and die in Vietnam did nothing to protect our country. But what Uncle Sam couldn’t do against the Vietnamese in the jungles of Southeast Asia he was prepared and equipped to do in the skies over America and Europe to protect us all from the great communist threat called the Soviet Union!

Unlike the Viet Cong who neither had nor needed one, the Ruskies had a massive air force of their own and intercontinental ballistic missiles, too. Growing up 20 miles from Times Square, this blogger recalls plenty of air-raid drilling in the grade schools of the 1950s and 1960s.

Ah, the good old days, eh? Remember the draft?

Well, it turned out the Ruskies had another trick up their sleeves - ice hockey. They played a game that was faster and more exciting that the Canadian-style North American game. Ice hockey as we knew it, was never the same again after that 1972 "Summit Series."

Funny how, when you play sports against people who share the love of the same game you do, even hard fought, nose-to-nose physical sports like ice hockey, you start doubting if blowing up their country, i.e. butchering their civilians by the millions with nuclear weapons, is really a sane foreign policy and approach to life?

The Berlin Wall, the great symbol of that “Cold War” which was built in 1961, came down in 1989.

The Soviet Union no longer exists. Today, the National Hockey League is packed with Russian hockey players.

Things have changed.

The Viet Cong had no air power, but the folks in the black pajamas defeated the mightiest military on Earth and won the war anyway.

The Iraqis don’t have air power, either.  Hmmm.

The Chinese do, but they also make most of the clothes and consumer goods we buy. Killing their customers is simply not in their interest.

Which makes Saturday’s planned four-hour display along Vermont’s Lake Champlain shoreline of the U.S. military’staxpayer-funded “strength” alittle out-of-synch with the present times, doesn't it?

Heard Roger Hill the weatherman say on WDEV this morning that there could be a cloud ceiling at around 5000 feet over Burlington on Saturday. He wondered if that would be high enough for the air show to proceed?

Don’t know, but we do know a big, big crowd is expected, somewhere in the 30,000 range. Every politician in Vermont running for statewide office will be there!

And for a few hours Saturday, if the clouds stay away, Vermonters’ ears will have something in common sound-wise with those of their sisters and brothers in Fallujha.

Small world, eh?

Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie attracted over 100 supporters to the Lincoln Inn in Essex Junction at 9:30 Thursday morning to officially launch his reelection campaign. Doobie-Doo lost in 2000,  his first statewide shot, but won the next two. With Democrats Matt Dunne and John Tracy engaged in a temperature-rising Lite-Guv primary, and Progressive Marvin Malek M.D. in, too, Dubie's certainly favored to win a third term in the November three-way.

Brian, our favorite commercial airline pilot, was his usual folksy, pleasant self. Had some good lines:

“I have chose collaboration over confrontation. I’ve chosen to build relationships and not headlines. I promise to continue the work that I’ve started.”

But given what was on our schedule for 10:30 a.m. in Hinesburg, we couldn't help but notice what Dubie did not mention and it was a conspicuous absence. When he addressed the energy issue he promised he will "work for a sustainable energy future for Vermont. Our energyfuture is changing before our eyes."

Lt. Gov. Dubie mentioned increased cow-power (i.e. methane production from cow shit) the need for "greater efficiency and conservation," and the need to maintain a good relationship "with our friends in Quebec who may provide energy options forVermonters into the 21st century. Choices for our energy future arecritical as we move forward," said the Doobster!

But it's what he didn't say that stuck out. Lt. Gov. Dubie did not mention wind energy. Not once. Not even an allusion.

Do you suppose the fact that Vermont's most outspoken opponent of commercial wind energy  had just introduced him, sang his praises, and was standing over his right shoulder had anything to do with it?

The Dubie announcement was over in a half-hour and we made NRG Systems in Hinesburg for the 10:30 VPIRG announcement.

VPIRG released a 26-page report, a plan, actually, to get Vermont from its current use of 15 percent renewable electricity up to 50 percent or more in 10 years. It's called "A Decade of Change."

Skeptics take note!

"There’s a tremendous amount of optimism in terms of the solutions that areout there," said VPIRG's clean-energy guru James Moore. "It’s not pie-in-the-sky technology that doesn’t exist. Wehave the solutions to meeting our electricity needs through localrenewable resources - over half of our needs within a decade. That isvery achievable."

Sounds good. But what about Gov. Douglas' uncompromising opposition to commercial wind power in Vermont? VPIRG's report says in 10 years we could get 20 percent of our juice from it. We currently get just 1 percent. Why?

Because Gov. Douglas says he want to protect our pristine ridge lines, our unique rural landscape. It's the postcard look that makes Vermont "Vermont!"  And it attracts a few tourists, eh? Don't want to mess with that market, eh?

But NRG Systems CEO Jan Blittersdorf said because Vermonters don't actually see the sources of their electricity, they don't "realize the danger." The Wind CEO pointed out that 50 percent of our region's electricity currently comes from burning coal.

"It’s dirty and it’s harmful to our forests," said Blittersdorf. Gov. Douglas "may want to protect those ridge lines, but those ridge lines may be changed dramatically by the effects of global warming in not too long of a time."

Plus, she noted, with wind farm development surging (and a two-year wait for new commercial windmills at the moment), folks are suddenly learning wind farms bring in more than clean power - they bring in tourists!

“There are wind farms all over the place that are creating visitor centers," said Blittersdorf. "Other parts of the country and world are not finding their land is destroyed by this. In fact, people are coming to see them and enjoying what they see and finding them inspiring The fact that they don’t pollute our air and water and land is what Gov. Douglas is missing."

P.S. Coincidentally, we heard just a few days ago from GOP sources about a GOP state rep and wind-energy opponent who just returned from a  vacation trip through wind-farm rich Pennsylvania.

Guess what?

She had no idea that what the Guv loves to call "industrial" wind farms were so..."beautiful"....and "gentle"....and "pastoral."

Shhhh!

Democrat Scudder Parker’s been around a long time, but unlike the guy he’s running against, Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, this is his first statewide shot. His supporters regularly remark about “how smart he is,”  how great and timely is his “expertise on the energy issue.” And about how the "heart" of the former minister and state senator is firmly “in the right place.”

But politics is about putting all the pieces together, honing down one’s message and communicating that message to the electorate effectively.  Packaging counts if victory is your true goal. Jim Douglas and Howard Dean will tell you that.

As we alluded to in this week’s column, Scudder’s campaign has been having packaging problems. We’re talking free media. Ch. 3 & Ch. 5 on the tele, the Freeps and the Rutland Herald/Times Argus, the Associated Press bureau (with the brand new bureau chief from Atlantic City), and Vermont Public Radio.

Instead of calling press conferences on the Statehouse lawn to highlight Gov. Jim’s weak spots in the areas of energy, government secrecy, global warming and health care, Parker’s campaign has been communicating via scattershot with emailed press releases on a host of topics. No follow-up calls, though.  No requests for interviews Neither face, nor mention on the Six O’Clock News.

For example, last Friday afternoon, the Parker team released a 700-word statement by the candidate on Douglas’ embarrassing and failed attempt last winter to keep public records over in what used to be Tom Torti Land out of the hands of The Conservation Law Foundation, a group our Guv regularly labels  “extremists.”

Our Republican governor got caught doing something he rarely does - publicly leaning way too far to the right. And once Vermont’s leading Republican  realized it, we all witnessed one of the fastest political “sex-change” operations in memory. Douglas transformed himself, at least verbally, into a champion of open government!

From Parker's Friday afternoon statement:
    Governor Douglas has encouraged a dangerous trend toward closed government that we should not tolerate. This a trend in the fashion of closed government and secrecy instituted by George Bush. Governor Douglas has reached far beyond the privilege a governor needs with his staff. From someone who has supported open government throughout his career, this is the ultimate flip-flop to serve narrow political interest. This is about control of government. Governor Douglas wants to hide important policy discussions from the public.

Good issue. The incumbent is vulnerable by virtue of past deeds. But the challenger releases his “attack”  late on a Friday afternoon when the state's rather compact mainstream media has already charted their courses for Friday night TV and radio, as well as the morning papers.

Not a peep.

Then Monday comes along and there wasn’t a single political presser/media event anywhere. A wide open plate. A free-media opportuity missed. Even WGOP, er, WCAX-TV would have had to cover it.

You’d think a Democrat challenger with significant ground to make up would jump into the media fray in person, stand on the Statehouse lawn and whack the Republican incumbent clearly. and concisely for his pro-secrecy tendencies when it comes to public records

Think again.

Oh, well, nobody ever said politics was easy. eh?

On a brighter note for Candidate Parker, “Freyne Land” has learned from reliable sources that the chairman of the Democratic National Committee has been booked to spend a day in the Green Mountains campaigning with Scudder. We’re hearing the first week of September.

But It’s going to take a lot more than the Great Howard Dean to get Scudder closer to Douglas.

Hey, remember the 1990s when Dr. Dean was our conservative governor? Loved by Vermont Republicans while scorned by Vermont’s liberal Democrats and Progressives! The Vermont leader who refused to take a position on same-sex marriage prior to the December 1999 landmark court decision? The leader who appeared ashen and in need of medical attention an hour after the Amestoy Court’s ruling was released saying gay couples have marriage rights, too. The leader who described himself that day as feeling "uncomfortable about it just like anybody else."

But by the time he wrapped up his gubernatorial career three years later in 2002, Howard Dean had quietly began his presidential quest in earnest. Dean had undergone his own political "sex-change" operation. When it came to marriage rights for gay couples, Dean was positively born-again!

To gay organizations from New York to Los Angeles Howard Dean, the governor who signed the Vermont Civil Unions Bill was an absolute hero! They didn't care that he'd did not support homosexual marriage rights until the Vermont Supreme Court forced him to. Instead, They feted Gov. Dean at human-rights awards dinners, donated to his presidential quest and gave the unknown governor of Vermont two things he lacked - name recognition and a political base.

    Now look at him!

There’s a time and place for everything. And the folks at Seven Days say the time is now for yours truly to start up the blog-side of Ol’ "Inside Track." After all, it is 2006. The Internet has been an almost daily part of my life since I made the plunge in 1997 and bought that first iMac.

Remember dial-up?

Remember for a second the good old days before the “personal computer” entered and changed lives. Saw a story Sunday about IBM’s first personal computer introduced 25 years ago this month in 1981.

1981?

On the first Tuesday in March of 1981 - Town Meeting Day in Vermont - voters in Burlington threw out an entrenched and overly confidant Democratic incumbent who had just succeeded in his fight to make Church Street the pedestrian marketplace you see today. Mayor Gordon Paquette was so confident of victory he didn’t spend a dime on campaigning. No way, he thought, could that loudmouthed left-winger with the Brooklyn accent (who Gordie always referred to derisively as “Mr. Saunders” instead of “Mr. Sanders”) come close to winning.

Guess what?

The guy with the Brooklyn accent wouldn’t go away.

Neither will I.

This blog thingy could get interesting.

So thanks for stopping by and remember, we’ll always leave a light on for you!

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