| CONNECTICUT |
| What's Your Ecological Footprint?
If you're into green, you may be familiar with the fact that each of us has a carbon footprint, which is figured by how much energey you use, how often you fly and fill your gas tank.
But Stamford, Connecticut was the place for an event that allowed people to determine what their ecological footprint is. The event was Green Sunday Sustainable Living Festival.
Hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Society, the event featured exhibitors who were deep into a Green lifestyle, including those who offered clean energy, environmental justice, even holistic health, not normally a green topic.
The ecological footprint, unlike the carbon is based on energy
consumption, but then takes it a few steps beyond carbon, such as length of
time spent in the shower, how many are taken each day, excess use of water
in other ways, such as when washing dishes or brushing your teeth.
Other exhibitors let it be known how important it is to pay close attention to how we use the resources at our disposal. The event was an eye opener for many who throught they were green, but didn't understand that there's more to being green than consuming less gas.
Source: The Stamford Advocate |
| MAINE |
| Maine Warns Drivers about Wildlife
According to MaineToday.com, over 5,000 accidents involving wildlife occur every year in Maine. This time of year, bear are crawling out of hibernation, moose are active, as are deer, and the smaller variety, raccoons, rabbits and porcupines come out at night.
Moose pose the biggest threat. Many lives have been lost when people hit moose, and they don't always appear as you might think. According to MaineToday.com, Matthew Dunlap, Secretay of State, was driving at night and thought he saw a family of raccoons. He slowed and as he got closer, what had appeared as raccoons, turned out the be the hooves of a huge moose. This time of year, wildlife is more active almost any time of day. I've seen a bull and a cow moose during the day and my wife had a bear walk right in front of her one morning. The bigger animals are more difficult to see at night, so keep your eyes open for critters large and small, especially as you drive around corners.
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| MASSACHUSETTS |
| ROMNEY PICKING UP STEAM
The ex-Governor of Massachusetts cast his hat into the Presidential ring sooner than most and he was fully in,not tire kicking as have so many candidates. Much has been made of the fact that he's a Mormon and for that reason somehow unworthy to hold the office he seeks. But to those who have faith in the first candidate to start TV advertising and raising huge sums of money is the leader in the New Hampshire polls. If he takes New Hamphire and starts to gain momentum in other states with even a second or third place win, he could grab all the marbles to the surprise of the others in the ring.
He'd do well to take a page out of John F. kennedy's book
and face the religious issue head on. That might make the bigots stop and think
about it for a minute. Romney and his father before him are great political
leaders, so let's think about it. Did Mormons take over the Massachusetts Statehouse
when he was Governor of Massachusetts? They won't in the Oval Office either. |
| NEW HAMPSHIRE |
| DOING FOR OTHERS
The
Concord Monitor Is telling the remarkable story of Dick Gourley, a man
who taught himself carpentry and a variety of other construction skills when
he built two houses for his family. Now he's putting those skills to work
to help the elederly who have various problems with their houses. He's on
the Fixit Program team doing all he can to fix porches and railing, roofing,
and leaky faucets
Gourley told the Concord Monitor, "I often go back to my oil customers who paid me for service, and I want to pay back what they've given me." To recognize his efforts, David Poisson, the director of the Fixit Program told the paper that he had recently created the Dick Couley Award in honor of this remarkably giving human being. | |
| RHODE ISLAND |
| SAVE THAT BARN
The
Newport Daily News is
telling the story of Swan Farm, another piece of Northeast history that has
almost fallen to developers. Fortunately, A.J. Sardella, who grew up on the
land on which the barn stands, paints a marvelous word picture of the barn
as it was when she was young.
A walking
tour
has
enabled
people
to tour the property to better understand it's worth just as it is. Fortunately,
according to the paper, The Aquidneck Land Trust has signed an agreement that
may well preserve the 125 acres comprising the property. Edward S. "Ted" Clement
Jr., the land trust's executive director, told the Newport Daily News, ""If
we're able to preserve this property, it's really going to protect the town's
beauty, environment and financial position long term," |
| VERMONT |
| A DEER ON STILTS?
Sunday May 6, was the day for the All Speceis Day Parade and gathering that started from Hubbard Park and culminated at the Statehouse in Montpelier. The metaphorical characters, one man dressed as a deer on stilts and others as other animals came together to emphasize the totality of life on earth.
Source: Times Argus
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EDITORIAL
Vermont Has Secession Obsession, NewEngland-
Times.Com Has the Cure
By James H. Hyde
Editor
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Editor, James Hyde
Photo: Mark Hyde Copyright © 2006 All Rights Reserved. |
For reasons both passionate and hot, a growing number of Vermonters is coming down with secession obsession, and the symptoms are itchy and raw.
At the local level, in Killington, for instance, the townsfolk got their tax bills under the state’s Act 60, the infamous "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" education-funding bill. The idea is to force the residents of richer towns to pay higher property taxes, and poorer towns lower to spread the wealth--a genuine case of income redistribution. We thought that concept fell with the Berlin Wall.
Killington decided to secede from Vermont in protest. Other towns began to follow, but ever since they’ve been looking for a way to swap their Vermont license plates for those of New Hampshire, a state with no income or sales taxes that does just fine, thank you.
In order to gain its freedom, Killington and other "Gold Towns" seeking a divorce from Vermont need to get both state legislatures to go along. New Hampshire will likely vote "Yea," but Vermont would definitely vote, "Nay."
The problem here really isn’t that hard to fix. What costs the most for education isn’t per-pupil tuition. Enormous checks are cut each year to fund Supervisory Unions, of which there are sixty, each comprising two to four people who oversee education in a various but small number of schools. Each union member makes high-five or six-figure salaries. Sixty Supervisory Unions in a state with a total population of 620,000! That’s as ridiculous as having four principals for every school. And despite all of that high-powered educational know how, fewer than half of the state’s schools passed muster year before last, so most of the state’s kids were left behind--way behind.
Those are practical, reasonable remedies, but we know what happens when we ask a legislative committee to sit down and design a horse. The inevitable result is a camel, so we know not what would come of debate of the "medications" above.
But that so many schools failed to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind initiative makes the heavier burdens on "Gold Towns" all the more inexcusable. And even more disturbing is that these excessive taxes have driven some "Generational Vermonters" off their land.
People on fixed incomes whose families have been on the same land since homesteading days have been forced to surrender their heritages because they can’t afford the taxes. While the legislature did add an income-cap provision in Act 68 to curtail the phenomenon, the tax is still too high for many.
Here’s what NewEnglandTimes.Com thinks would cure secession obsession at the local level:
First, cut the number of Supervisory Unions to 15; Second, impose taxes on personal property, from cars (1% of bluebook value) to motorcycles, to computers ($25 to $50), to snowmobiles, etc., on everyone in the state who owns such items; Third slap luxury taxes on items costing $100,000 or more; Fourth, pass a law that earmarks these funds for the Education budget (any revenues derived from anything remotely related to transportation now must go in the Transportation budget). If these measures are taken, the burden is shared statewide as it should be and secession obsession evaporates.
On the state level, it’s a different issue. A group obviously "financially" challenged, sniffs that the rest of the U.S. "has lost its moral compass," and is thus unworthy to count Vermont as one of its own. They and 13% of Vermonters want the state to cleave itself from the Union.
What these folks clearly don’t get is what happens when federal Medicare is cut off and highway and educational funding, disaster aid, and a wide variety of other funds no longer find their way to Vermont coffers.
Were the state to declare itself independent, with the dollars would go the vast majority of the population. The new nation would become a ghost country, with only the 13% of the population left behind and living off the land because most businesses won’t stick around. And forget tourism. You’d need a passport to visit Vermont, and that’s the least of the inconveniences.
In the final analysis, my mother’s words come to mind: "This, too, shall pass," and it shall. If the founders of the movement (if it’s not a marketing ploy) sit down with the budget and see just how much federal funding actually comes into the state, we’re certain they, too, will be cured of secession obsession.
Jim Hyde, an author, award-winning writer and syndicated columnist, is editor and co-owner with his wife, Terry, of NewEnglandTimes.Com.
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