Archive - Mar 15, 2012
MIDDLEBURY — The Vermont Chili Festival last Saturday afternoon generated the largest turnout in the annual event's four-year history, drawing a crowd that organizers estimate to be as large as 5,000 to downtown Middlebury (click here to read the story).
Advertisements from the Campaign for Vermont and from Vermonters for Health Care Freedom are running in Vermont newspapers, on radio stations and on news-oriented Web sites. These organizations, which are not subject to the campaign finance laws and regulations that apply to political action committees and political parties, will be major players in this year’s elections.
There are about 626,000 Vermonters — a number smaller than the population of Memphis, Tenn. Compared to the single government of that medium-sized city, Vermont has 237 towns, nine cities, five unincorporated areas and four gores.
“We confront the 21st-century challenges of delivering good government with a 19th-century governance structure,” says Bruce Hiland, who chairs the Cornwall selectboard. He featured the contrast between Vermont and Memphis governance in his remarks at the recent Cornwall town meeting.
Here’s a joke circulating on the Internet that prompts a laugh, rings true to some Americans, but is also disconcerting.
It goes like this:
“A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, ‘If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?’
I was standing atop Middlebury College’s Snow Bowl this past weekend, in several inches of fresh powdery snow, gazing out with appreciation and even a little awe at the tremendous western view that opens up from the summit. In the foreground were the lower hilltops and ridges of Ripton. Further down, patchwork swaths of the Champlain Valley were visible. And beyond, the higher peaks of the Adirondacks silhouetted against a clear blue sky.
BARRE — For the second straight year and the third time in six seasons, the Mount Abraham Union High School girls’ basketball team is going to the Division II final at the Barre Auditorium.
The top-seeded, 19-3 Eagles earned that berth in a Monday night semifinal by outscoring No. 5 Lyndon in a dramatic fourth quarter, 19-16, in a 47-42 victory.
ADDISON COUNTY — On Tuesday, March 6, at around 5 p.m. Vermont State Police at the New Haven barracks received a phone call alerting them to an intoxicated driver in Addison. A short time later a second phone call alerted police to a vehicle off Route 23 in Weybridge, and troopers determined that it was the vehicle observed in Addison.
