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B2 VOICES THE COMMONS • Wednesday, October 19, 2011 CHINA BUFFET Chinese Restaurant Dine In & Take Out 801 Putney Road, Brattleboro, VT 802-254-8888 • www.chinabuffetVT.com Mindel & Morse Builders LLC P.O. Box 643 Brattleboro, VT 05302 Mindel & Morse Builders LLC P.O. MILLIONS Box 643 Brattleboro, VT 05302 TO LEND AT LOWER THAN JMP Trucking & ExcavaTing, LLc COMPLETE SITE, UTILITY & SEPTIC CONSTRUCTION Complete Site Rehab – Electrical Trenching – High Pressure Water Jetting/ Pipe Camera – Municipal & Residential Water Services – Sewer, Septic Service Repairs/ New – Driveways, House/Mobile Home Lots – Culverts, Ditching, Concrete Flat Work – Insured For Town & State Right-of-Way Work – Asphalt Repair and Prep for Paving – Commercial/Residential Snow Plowing – Sanding/Salting – Emergency Service is Available – Free Estimates, Satisfaction Guaranteed – OUR OWN SWEET CORN PICKED DAILY! Fall Raspberries & Peaches Hybrid & Heirloom Tomatoes Route 30, Newfane 802-365-4168 EVER RATES Apples & Fresh Cider Eggplant • Green Beans Red, Green, & Yellow Peppers Lettuce • Herbs • Potatoes Pumpkins • Gourds • Winter Squash OUR OWN FRESH Fresh Fruit Pies • Bread • Fudge Maple & Black Raspberry Creamies A Fine Selection of Local Cheeses Fresh Cut Flowers • Corn Stalks Fall Mums www.duttonberryfarm.com OPEN DAILY 9 AM–7 PM Route 9, West Brattleboro 802-254-0254 *Rates based on your creditworthiness, see River Valley Credit Union for details. Who says that no one is lending money? Our multi-million dollar growth this year means we have multi-millions to lend. Call, stop in, or see us at rivercu.com The Future of Banking...Now �� 802-254-4800 �� ® rivercu.com Matt Skove/Audio Design Home Stereo/Flat Screen TVs Home Theater Installation Car Stereo/Remote Car Starters Sales and/or Installation “I’ll come to you!’’ 802-257-5419 Hours: Mon. – Fri. 8 AM – 5 PM & Sat. 8 AM – 12 PM Rt. 5 North, Bellows Falls, Vt. 802-463-3320 $ VT 1.00 OFF Lunch Buffet Brattleboro, or Buffet, $ 1.50 OFF China at Dinner Buffet only Dine In Only Exp. 10/31/11 Good Building energy-efficient houses since 1981 Brattleboro Pastoral Counseling Center is expanding our practice LICSW (preferred) or LCMHC Set your own hours • On-sight Insurance Billing Convenient in town location • Supportive Work Environment Enjoys working with adolescents and families Supportive Board of Directors BPCC Attn. Janet Goldstein 190 Main Street Brattleboro, VT 05301 Steve Mindel h. 802.254.6662 c. 802.254.0834 smmindel@gmail.com Steve Mindel h. 802.254.6662 Jonathan c. Morse 802.254.0834 h. 802.254.5791 c. 802.258.0902 smmindel@gmail.com morse@sover.net Jonathan Morse h. 802.254.5791 c. 802.258.0902 morse@sover.net www.bpccvt.com or email resume to bpccvt@gmail.com CHEEVER TIRE SERVICE Your Hometown, Full Service Tire Store Family Owned & Operated Most major brands available Rt 5 North - just north of the village Jason M Perry 274 Picknell Rd, Westminster, VT jmptruckx2@comcast.net 802--463-3038 Home 802-376-7448 Cell OSHA / MSHA Training coMPLianT Fully Insured • Presby CertIFIed Routes 11/30, Manchester 802-362-3083 We thought we would give you a flavor of some of the back and forth we’re starting to see in the comments that now appear on our website ( www.commonsnews.org ). The first comment here, by Howard Shaffer, a licensed professional engineer who worked as a startup engineer at Vermont Yankee, appeared in response to a letter in last Howard Shaffer Those of us who work in nuclear power know that “safe” doesn’t mean “perfect,” and “reliable” doesn’t mean “never has a problem.” Opponents demand perfection as a political tactic. We are always working to improve. Edward Jaffe I’m sorry, Howard, but for certain situations zero failure is what is required, because the consequences of certain failure modes are beyond unacceptable. You are dealing with massive spent-fuel storage and an old, hot-rodded plant. Not every failure leads to systemic problems, but at some point, given a fleet of more than 100 very old plants with very long license extensions — and a very lax Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) — in the U.S., the odds will catch up with us. Multiply 10 years by 103 really old plants. If you want to build new, safer nuclear plants, make the Arizona. Initially, only 250 people were going to be selected to transfer to the new facilities. My vice presidents asked me to stay in San Diego to give workplace violence prevention workshops to those who were not going to be transferred and who were seeking work at another company. N OW LET’S fast forward to Aug. 9 of this year. Almost 20 years later, I once again received two phone calls from two friends within a short time period. There had been a shooting at the Brattleboro Food Co-op, and the only information they initially knew was that it involved two employees. I had years without PTSD symptoms, and the phone calls triggered it again. Families and friends on both sides of this tragedy are in pain. Co-op employees and volunteers, customers, suppliers, fellow businesses, and communities — along with their friends and families — are experiencing distress. The human reactions to workplace violence are like the ripples expanding on a pond’s surface when a pebble is thrown into the water. And then the questions: Why? What happens now? Whose fault is it? Will it happen again some place else? How can I help? What can I do? Just like 20 years ago. It is my experience that two of the most important emotions and actions that we ought to embrace right now are grace and kindness — both for others and ourselves. On our local BCTV station and the ABC national feeling of dissatisfaction, then anger and, finally, with desperation. Only then do goals begin to emerge. A wife doesn’t calculate her divorce. First, she feels depressed; then, anger builds. She gets pissed off, she throws her wedding china, and then she sits down and decides she wants the house and the dog. In hindsight, it looks like those hippies, hopped up on LSD with peace signs on their foreheads, were just ending a war in Vietnam, but really they had to sort through a bunch of things that were wrong back then. Our black brothers and sisters needed to be able to sit at the lunch counter with us, women needed more rights, we needed a complete turnaround of post-war values, and we were tired of being made to fight a terrifying war in southeast Asia. I DARE SAY a clear agenda is starting to emerge on Wall Street. The nurses who marched POINT/COUNTERPOINT Perfection: political tactic or prerequisite? Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee. case and accept how bad the current situation is. Look at what is going on in Japan (a much more orderly society than ours). And when I toured VY last (2002), workers there were trying to impress my group with all the “security” they instituted since the 9/11 attacks. What a laugh: Village police who are used to wife-beaters and drunk drivers along network news, I saw recorded interviews from throughout Vermont after Irene’s floods. People who had lost their homes, businesses, land, and/or roads chose to leave their destroyed property and go help their neighbors. These acts of grace and kindness, in turn, helped the helpers to start processing their own situation. We humans, as well as our animal counterparts, all want — consciously or not — to believe we have control over most parts of our life. The tragedy at the Co-op that many have experienced, the trauma and destruction that many have and still are experiencing as a result of Irene’s damaging floodwaters, and the impact to the overall health of the economy and ecology in this country and worldwide can certainly increase our sense of lack of control. Therefore, I believe it is helpful to proactively keep in mind these contributing factors that can lead to what the Department of Labor calls “workplace violence.” For some of us, it takes only one factor to question our level of control over our life. For others, it could be a combination of factors. If we are consciously aware of these factors, we can better recognize and then help each other and ourselves to regain the sense of control over our lives. 1. Economic/financial stressors , including fear of being laid off or fired; unexpected expenses (medical, child care, housing, or transportation repairs, etc.); or the layoff of another member of the household. 2. Societal causes, including violence on our television programs, in the movies we last Wednesday want a financial transactions tax; others are protesting the injustices of the foreclosure crisis, still others are looking at workplace discrimination, and more are challenging student loan debt. Librarians and teachers are out there, so you really can’t doubt they’ll come up with some reasonable requests. As in most revolutions, it’s the middle class who finally has the means and the intelligence to organize and say what they need. Over here in Brattleboro, where it’s legal to burn your bra and (until 2007) to bare your breasts, where art is everywhere and people grow armpit hair and shop at the coop, we’re all cheerleading the revolution. Me, I’m starting a revolution of my own. Right now, it sort of looks like lazing around in my pajamas doing nothing. Fox News would have a real field day with that, but I have faith that revolutions have their own energy and their own agendas. As soon as we manage to say week’s issue by VY engineer Jim DeVincentis of Vernon. Edward Jaffe of Bennington, responding to Shaffer’s comment, lists himself as “professional member of Illuminating Engineering Society, retired.” What do you think? with some private guards. Ten ready-to-die commandos with a good plan could take VY. Maybe our nation’s enemies will evolve to more sophisticated attacks than a “failed underwear bomber.” Entergy plus the NRC plus General Electric plus the rest of the industry running old plants equals our “insane risk posse." If you all think the plant choose to see, and in the music we choose to hear, which can strongly influence our thought patterns. The causes can also tie into access to weapons or a spouse/partner leaving. 3. Institutional issues, including one’s company merging with or being sold to another; the company moving out of state/country; the company closing; or an increased use of technology that results in either a potential inability to learn this technology or a lack of need for as many employees because the technology takes over the work. 4. Structural issues, including company downsizing or departments reorganizing; mandatory change of work hours (longer, shorter, split shifts), especially with little to no warning; and the flow of work that can result in lack of co-worker support and/or lack of leadership support. 5. Cultural issues: Workers lack a forum to address grievances. Threats of violence among and between people percolate within the organization. Creativity and new ideas are discouraged — sometimes by peer pressure, sometimes by management. Empowered employees and a voice in the decision-making process are lacking. Workers are treated with disrespect by coworker(s), immediate supervisor, and/or senior leadership. This disrespect can manifest itself through bullying, mental harassment, and/or verbal abuse on both sides. 6. Management/ l eadership i ssues , including management whose styles are authoritarian, autocratic, or aloof; polarization between employees and managers; retaining employees whose performance has been poor for a long time; aloud we want change, the universe miraculously springs into action. I THINK ABOUT my grandmother. I’m sure she would get a huge kick out of the folks on Wall Street with their homemade signs. Not that she was opposed to Wall Street — she made a little fortune picking stocks out of the newspaper for fun — but she’d like the energy and the pizzazz of it all. She’d probably go down participated in various religious services. One of the more memorable stories Breeden shared with our class detailed his impromptu early-morning visit to a white church, where he dropped by and was allowed to participate in the service. When he returned to the same church later in the day, he was denied entry. He stayed, waiting, through the service. When it had ended, the choir recognized him and WIKIPEDIA.ORG is so safe, let’s have VY sell Vermont homeowners and landowners some insurance. Every homeowners’ insurance policy in the United Statees allows or requires the insurance company to offload that risk to me. The day my house has solid insurance against radioactive damage? That is the day you guys will have some credibility with me. ■ Violence FROM SECTION FRONT and ignoring employees’ pleas for help, be it for themselves or their colleagues. T HE MOST important information I have learned about people who commit workplace violence came from law enforcement: co-workers, supervisors, colleagues, friends, and/ or family members always, always, always know when an individual is troubled and in pain over the way(s) they believe they are being treated at work, school, or home. This was true when the shooter killed my colleague and maimed my friend and mentor. This was true when my colleague and friend committed suicide in the company parking lot. Unfortunately, the people who knew something did not know how to interpret their observations, or whom to talk to about their observations. Or they did report their concerns, but the conversations did not lead to a positive, constructive intervention. Raising these concerns can make all the difference: on Aug. 17, 2010, a Tampa, Fla., student was arrested for planning to blow up his former high school. Somebody knew the plan and tipped off the police. Now, though, we can learn to be smarter about what to do and not do when we notice somebody’s attitudes and/or behaviors increasing or changing negatively. Now we can choose to learn more about workplace violence, how to prevent it, and its inevitable consequences throughout communities. We have an opportunity to make a positive difference for a troubled person. ■ Revolution FROM SECTION FRONT there in her velvet housecoat and feed them all champagne. If you want to send a sleeping bag to someone on Wall Street, you can do so online ( nycga.cc/donate ). One sleeping bag is only $20, the price of a good pizza and a Vermont brew. Whatever you do, whether you are a tea party fanatic or a Wall Street protestor, don’t live a life without revolutions. However minor and pointless they seem at the time. ■ Breeden FROM SECTION FRONT were furious that he had been denied entry. They invited him for coffee hour in the church basement. Rev. Breeden’s warm and wise manner, combined with his eye-opening recollections, certainly made for a morethan-worthwhile hour. By the end of this Social Studies III class, it was clear that I would never forget the Freedom Riders.
The Commons • Wednesday, October 19, 2011 VoICes B3 LeTTeRs FRom ReADeRs Please be patient with repair of Marlboro roads Selectboard offers a progress report, thanks residents for their patience To all Marlboro residents: By now you will see work being done on all our roads to repair the storm damage and prepare for winter. Initially, all efforts were directed to opening all roads in town (especially Ames hill, higley hill, North Pond, Butterfield, Lower dover, stratton hill, and Adams Brook) and to rescue residents who were totally cut off by the enormous flooding on the Branch Brook. The town is contracting with various heavy equipment operators to supplement the road crew to get the work done. We have had numerous discussions with road foreman david elliott and feel confident that the work will be done before it snows. The Federal emergency Management Agency (FeMA) will look at the entire scope of the work needed to bring conditions back to where they were before the storm. FeMA will come up with an estimate for the total cost, then pay 75 percent of that bill. To date, we have found the FeMA representatives on the ground to be very responsive and helpful to work with. A word about work on the With the Occupy Wall street demonstrations now taking place throughout the United states, this seems to be an appropriate time for receptive people to look closely at the example of those who have given much for the advancement of justice and peace. It’s coincidental that one of those people, s. Brian Wilson, will be in our area on Oct. 21 to talk about his life, as described in his new memoir, Blood on the Tracks. In his introduction to the book, daniel ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, writes: “No reader, I believe, will finish this book without a sense of awe at the human spirit that is revealed in it.” Wilson, a former Vermont resident, Vietnam War veteran, attorney, advocate for veterans’ rights, and 1986 “Veterans Fast for Life” participant, gave the most in 1987 when he and others attempted to block a train shipment of U.s. weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras. Re: Karl Meyer’s Viewpoint [“Failed salmon program doesn’t deserve new life,” Oct. 12]. The effort to bring back the salmon was but a sixgeneration attempt of serious restoration. That is much too short a period of time. The herring run also needs an answer that has a bearing on the poor salmon returns. Henry Warch Westfield found Karl Meyer’s I Viewpoint [“Failed salmon program doesn’t deserve new life,” Oct. 12] to be grossly inaccurate. I think it would be better suited for publication in the National Enquirer. Karl, you might want to consider working for that paper. Judy Romero Bethel The writer works as an office assistant at the White River National Fish Hatchery in Bethel. Got an opinion? (Of course you do! You’re from Windham County!) Got something on your mind? Send contributions (500 words or fewer strongly recommended) to editor@commonsnews.org; the deadline is stream beds: Work on Whetstone Brook is being done by the state. Our crew has been working in and along the Branch Brook on Augur hole road. state engineers have been consulted as the work has progressed, and they have signed off on what has been done to date. restoration will take time since virtually everything washed away in many places. even though you do not see the road crews working on your road, remember they have prioritized the reconstruction. We thank you for your patience and support, and request that you drive with special care while the roads are being repaired. The Marlboro Alliance is planning a big celebration and potluck dinner in early december. Questions about the roads should be directed to the Marlboro Town Garage at 802-257-0252. Let’s all hope for a long fall and late snow! Marlboro Selectboard Marlboro The Marlboro Selectboard consists of chair Lucy Gratwick, and members Craig Hammond and Andrea Livermore. Giving his all for social justice Instead of slowing down, the train engineer had orders to speed up, and Wilson lost his legs just below the knee and part of his skull. As devastating as this experience was, Wilson continues in his efforts “to engage the public in recognition of the true nature of U.s. Imperialism.” he started his book tour by cycling from Portland, Ore., to san Francisco on his threewheeled, hand-powered recumbent cycle. he disavows air travel and wants to demonstrate a mode of personal transportation that reduces dependence on fossil fuels. he will be speaking at Friday, Oct. 21, at Putney Friends (Quaker) Meeting house, 1/4 mile north of Putney village on route 5. Prior to that, he will sign his book between 5 and 6 p.m. at everyone’s Books in downtown Brattleboro. Both events are free. Daniel Sicken Dummerston Not enough time to work Why VY Tabloid fodder employees keep talking about jobs There have been several letters published recently by folks wondering why Vermont Yankee’s employees always cite economics and jobs. I submit this letter in response to those who may truly wonder. The answer is quite simple. As VY employees, we think some things are self-evident. We know the plant is safe and the work we do is meaningful, or we wouldn’t work there, we wouldn’t have our families living close by, and we wouldn’t put our children in the schools across the road or the river. Yes, we want to keep working here, because we know that the care we administer via thousands of hours of maintenance and upgrades makes this plant one of the most reliable in the nation. Can we find jobs elsewhere? Yes, we can. But we have roots here. We love the community we live in as well as the job we work at. Our ability to find other work is beside the point. Theresa Derting Hinsdale, N.H. Friday to be considered for next week’s paper. When space is an issue, we give priority to words that have not yet appeared elsewhere. eDIToRIAL The road to renewable energy is a bumpy one The FIrsT drAFT of the new Vermont Comprehensive energy Plan is about 600 pages long, including appendices. Thankfully, the public comment period has been extended to Nov. 4, so people have more time to wade through the document, which addresses Vermont’s energy future regarding electricity generation, thermal energy, transportation, and land use. The most notable element of the plan is that it proposes a shift in all of Vermont’s baseload electric energy sources. This plan calls for the baseload, defined as the reasonable minimum supply of energy that utilities expect their customers will need, to consist of 90-percent renewable energy sources by 2050. Is this expectation realistic? CONsIder what the plan calls the single-largest source of energy consumption in Vermont: transportation. Gasoline for motor vehicles represents 25.2 percent of the state’s total energy use, followed by nuclear power for electricity at 15.27 percent, and fuel for heating at 12.87 percent. Given the lack of public transportation and the long distances that many Vermonters have to travel by car to work, shop, or play, reducing fossil-fuel use for transportation will be difficult. The document addresses a transition to electric vehicles, changes in land-use patterns to promote walkable downtowns, and increased public transit, but all these measures will require significant amounts of money. It will be just as difficult to reduce the use of fuel oil and propane for home heating. energy-efficiency efforts have made a dent, but without more money for weatherization programs and bigger rebates to encourage the purchase of more-efficient home appliances, little progress will be made in this area. As for getting more baseload sources of electricity, this too looks daunting. david hallquist, CeO of Vermont electric Cooperative, recently told VTdigger.org that he is leery of proposals that try to create enough energy through renewable sources to provide enough baseload power for the state in the short term. “The real challenge is: dirty energy is cheap,” hallquist said. “Clean energy is expensive.” hallquist said current rates for renewables are two to three times more expensive than fossil fuels or nuclear energy. For example, VeC pays 5 cents per kilowatt hour (Kwh) for nuclear power; 6 cents per Kwh for natural gas; 9 cents to 11 cents per Kwh for industrial wind; 14 cents per Kwh for biomass; and 20 cents per Kwh for solar. Long-term storage of energy from solar and wind generation costs an additional 23 cents per Kwh, he said. There is also the problem of aging energy infrastructure. According to IsO New england, the entity that manages New england’s electrical grid, one-fourth of the region’s 32,000-megawatt generating capacity is generated by plants that are more than 40 years old and due to be phased out soon. At the same time, New england is relying more on natural gas for heat and electric power. Nearly half of the region’s electricity comes from gas-fired plants, and that percentage is rising. But there are not enough natural gas pipelines to meet increasing demand, which leaves New england vulnerable during the winter and summer months, when electric use spikes upward. “It’s sobering in the sense that there are a number of forces coming together that will cause a transition,” Gordon van Welie, IsO New england’s chief executive officer, told The Associated Press earlier this month. “The consequence is that you have to do something about that, and it requires investment in additional infrastructure.” Van Welie doesn’t believe that wind, solar, and small-scale hydropower can fully make up the loss of energy from fossil-fuel and nuclear plant retirements. It’s not so much a matter of the intermittent nature of these energy sources, he said, as it is the lack of transmission lines to carry the electricity to urban areas. These are long-term questions without easy answers. eVeN IF Vermont Yankee is permitted to keep operating for another 20 years past the expiration of its original operating license, the 1972-vintage nuclear plant might not be able to keep operating safely or economically through 2032. The region’s aging oil- and coal-fired plants will soon face closure without expensive upgrades to meet tougher air pollution standards. And while there is broad support for clean energy in the abstract, there is always someone to raise an objection when there is a proposal for a new hydro or wind power project, a new gas pipeline, or a new natural gas or biomass-fired generating plant. The lack of state and federal funds for energy efficiency and new technologies, the general NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) attitude toward building new electric plants, and the stranglehold that the coal, petroleum, and nuclear industries have over the political process make the goal of 90-percent renewables by 2050 a distant dream. But unless Vermont takes steps to realize that distant dream, the state faces huge difficulty from the liabilities of its current sources of baseload power. Unless there is an honest, concerted effort by all involved to quickly upgrade our region’s energy infrastructure, New england will be an economic backwater in the coming years. Editorials represent the collective voice of The Commons and are written by the editors or by members of the Vermont Independent Media Board of Directors. We present our point of view not to have the last word, but the first: we heartily encourage letters from readers, and we love spirited dialogue even if — especially if — you disagree with us. Send your letters to voices@commonsnews.org, or leave a comment at www.commonsnews.org. Get The Commons in your mailbox Become a member of Vermont Independent Media today! It’s easy, it’s reasonable, and it keeps the presses rolling and the website live. Yes! I want to help support Vermont Independent Media and the work of The Commons, www.Commonsnews.org, the Media Mentoring Project, and VIM’s outreach to journalism programs in schools. VIM members get the paper in the mail and join us for occasional special events. We gratefully accept donations of smaller amounts, but we cannot mail the paper. MY NAME ________________________________________________________ ADDRESS ________________________________________________________ TOWN/CITY ______________________________________________________ STATE_____ ZIP ___________ PHONE _________________________________ E-MAIL _________________________________________________________ COMM-MEMB.form04.indd I wish to become a member. $55–$99 Loyal Reader $100–$249 Newshound $250+ Independent Media Mogul I already am a member, and I want to give an additional gift of $______________. My total donation is $_____________ I will pick up the paper at any of more than 150 locations around Windham County. Please don’t mail it, but thanks anyway. I enclose a check. Please charge my credit card. You can phone us (802-246-6397) or fax us (802-246-1319) with this information if you prefer. NUMBER 3-DIGIT CODE EXP. MM/YY ______________________________________________________________ CARDHOLDER’S SIGNATURE P.O. 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