Vermont Tiger

A Life of Adversity, and Fulfillment

Today is the anniversary of Helen Keller's birth in 1880. 

Things I did not know about her life:
She had been taught a simple sign language before she met Anne Sullivan.
Her father and Helen met with Alexander Graham Bell, who was instrumental in connecting Keller with Anne Sullivan.
She graduated from Radcliffe College.
She could read Latin, Greek, German, and French (in Braille, of course).
Mark Twain was a friend of hers and helped secure her financing for Radcliffe.
Charlie Chaplin was another of her friends.
She was a life long socialist and also a member of the IWW (the Wobblies).
She died in 1968, a few days short of her 88th birthday.

(1902 photo shows, from left,  Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, Mark Twain, and Laurence Hutton, editor of Harper's Magazine.)

Warning: Reading Art Woolf May Cause Blackouts

So the utilities don't want you to start using electricity to stay warm this winter. because

... if more people switch to electric heat this winter, they may not be able to meet the demand, requiring the companies to buy expensive power on the wholesale market ...

We'd always assumed that Art Woolf is widely read and hugely influential but we had no idea.

Heroes, Past and Present

One dies:

Bert Shepard, a World War II fighter pilot who lost his right leg when he was shot down over Germany but went on to pitch for the 1945 Washington Senators, becoming an inspiration for grievously wounded veterans, died Monday in Highland, Calif. He was 87.

But others are with us:

Greg Gadson, a lieutenant colonel in the Army's Warrior Transition Brigade, is a natural leader-the kind of guy you'd be looking for on the battlefield....[he] had suffered serious injuries in Iraq-resulting in both of Gadson's legs being amputated above the knee....The night before the Redskins game, Gadson spoke with no script, from his heart. "You have an obligation not only to your employer but to each other to do your best," he told the Giants. "You're playing for each other. When you find a way to do things greater than you thought you could, something you couldn't do as an individual, a bond is formed that will last forever." He told the team how much it had meant to him when his friends from West Point rallied around him in the hospital, and reminded them how powerful a team really is and how much stronger adversity would make them. "It's not about what happens to you in life," he said. "It's about what you do about it. It's about making the most of all your opportunities because I'm here to tell you, it can end in a flash."

After Big Oil, There's Always Big Spud

So says Vermont Tiger contributor (and former Vermont resident) Jonathan Lesser in the Wall Street Journal.  He proposes  a simple solution to combat high gasoline prices and global warming at the same time:

if Congress really wants to "do something" about high gasoline prices and global warming, it can always try rationing.

To lower gasoline prices permanently, you can reduce demand, increase supply, or do both. Congress long ago capped supplies by proclaiming from on high: Drillest thou not offshore, nor in ANWR. The next obvious step for our solons is to cap demand by rationing gasoline, and then gradually reduce the quantity of ration coupons.

How would this be accomplished?  Simple: 

"Trading" in coupons would be encouraged to ensure gasoline is allocated to uses of only the highest value. So Congress could reserve quantities of ration coupons for key lobbyists and their clients.

This rationing scheme would promote very useful and desirable social results:

As ration coupons are reduced, consumers would increasingly clamor for more electric cars, cars that ran on French-fry oil, and "flex-fuel" cars that burn everything from gasoline to garbage. Eventually, gasoline could just be banned, reducing prices to zero and eliminating all ill-gotten profits.

The genius of Lesser's plan is that it is easily applicable to the problems that are likely to result after gasoline is no longer used:

And if Congress then had to tackle French-fry oil speculators and impose a windfall profits tax on Big Spud, well why not?

One can only hope that Jonathan runs for Congress from his new state.

Cheer Up

It isn't as bad as those in the political-media complex want you to think it is.

At a time when there exists a sense of crisis over the economy, fuel prices and many other issues, this reinforces the odd, two realities of life in the United States today: The way we are, and the way we think we are. The way we are could use some work, but overall, is pretty good. The way we think we are is terrible, horrible, awful. Possibly worse.
   
Gregg Easterbrook, whose essay in the Wall Street Journal is not the kind of thing that sells papers

Will Legislate For Food

The Lords and Ladies of the U.S. Senate can't seem to get it right when it comes to running a restaurant.  But they have the answer for ... (you may complete this sentence with the item at the top of your wish list.  eg: the health care crisis, global warming, etc, etc.)

Sunday In The Garden

Peonies

After work, he was in the garden
while I was growing up—
bottle of beer, tie unloosened,
ambling through twilight,
watching flowers, testing tomatoes.

After I moved away to college, and then
Ireland then Germany then Spain,
my father gave me updates:
the height of the sunflowers,
rabbit problems, pumpkin density,
the state of the peonies.

....

Patrick Hicks

Headline Of The Week

Stupid flies live longer: study

This story, which we found here, suggests so many lines of thought that we won't bother to pursue any of  them.  But you have to wonder why anyone would want to study stupid flies.  Smart flies, yes.  But stupid flies, why bother?  And, anyway, how do they know?  Did those flies watch a lot of reality television?

Dispatches From Another Planet

Seems the farm bill is actually a good thing.  You just have to overlook a lot of stuff.  Also, there was some real fine work done earlier this year in Montpelier where, among its other accomplishments

... the Legislature worked to improve on our past successes in health care reform ...

We would like to introduce House Majority Leader, Carolyn Partridge, who composed that phrase and included it here, – presumably with a straight face – to someone whose premiums for a stripped down Blue Cross policy covering a family of two, recently rose from $780 to more than $900 a month.

Any more successes like that and we'll all be ruined.

Law & Order: Special Vermont Unit (cont.)

One hopes that these guys will not be locked up in the same joint with these guys.  Just imagine the kind of capers they might dream up if they put their heads together.