Black Ram Farm

Musings from Rural Vermont

Peeps

Posted by blackramfarm on November 20, 2009

Lulu is on her way.  Jenny and Jessie too. We are all meeting up in Greensboro, at Jenny’s for tonight.  I am the first to arrive and as soon as I let the doggo out of the car, she took off.  I hope no one mistakes her for a deer.  She has three legs after all.

The girlies are best best best of friends, and so they will disappear to the back bedrooms and be on face plant most of the night.  Jenny and I will knit, spin and solve all of the problems of the universe, because that is what girl friends do.  She will tell me how to solve my issues, and I hers. Then we will tackle all the world issues that are meant to be talked about.

The sun is setting now at 4:19 pm and the night will be dark tonight.  Willies store closes at 5:30 in the winter, so I think there will be a quick run down to get supplies.  I left some stuff here from last weekend.  I think there is some dead lettuce in a bag in the fridge.  The only thing I have done so far, waiting for the crew was to bring stuff in from the car, then make some tea. Pee

I am looking forward to good times tomorrow with Lulu.  I think sushi and a movie. Maybe a trip to Burlington.  Who knows. I just am happy to have my peeps around. Lulu has just arrived!

 

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I will not be silent

Posted by blackramfarm on November 19, 2009

I could not take it any more and I could not figure any other way to address  it.  I tried, I looked, I sought out advice, then checked in with my moral compass and was reminded of a little thing on face book of all things. Kesha Ram, one of Vermont’s youngest (perhaps brightest )legislators from the Burlington area,  she lists a reminder on her info page:

The Seven Blunders of the World
(A list that Mahatma Gandhi gave to his grandson, Arun, on their final day together, just before Gandhi was assassinated)

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle

Now my words.

Silence in the face of injustice allows for the injustice to grow and to continue.  Truth, no matter how difficult to hear or how ugly remains true.  Dialog and action will stop injustice.   So when I attended the board meeting of the Lamoille Solid Waste Management District as a board supervisor, I had an obligation to operate openly and honestly and also to challenge unjust actions.

The very first day I was officially on, an employee came to me and disclosed that there has been and was fearful of continued sexual harassment by her boss and by some of the members of the board. She had reported it 4 years ago to the chair of the board and nothing was done.  The harassment had continued.  She was fearful that nothing was going to change.  I brought it to the board and in executive session, I relayed the issue and thought that the board would take steps to resolve the issue.

What I found instead was a board, whose majority didn’t get it.  I was harasses over the next several meetings with crude sexual jokes being told, disparaging remarks and innuendo.  I spoke directly to the offender each time and said the comments were inappropriate and offensive.  Twice I did this. Twice it was ignored.  Third time I sent a letter and submitted that letter for the record.

Shortly after, not only against me but also the employee who brought up the claim up became the subject of a story in the Stowe Reporter.  I was called a horse’s ass, a little lady who thought she is the savior of all women and the employee was identified and disparaged.   I addressed our Chair and asked what actions the board would take.  A sanction was offered, but not for actions against me, but actions against the employee. They are covered by law,  supervisors on boards are not employees and do not fall under the protection of the law.  I asked the Chair how he was going to deal with the harassment I was being subjected to.  He did nothing.  His plan was that perhaps if nothing was done, if silence and time was used,  if things settled down, perhaps, just perhaps the issue would go away.  Apathy.   I continued to serve.

Last week another claim came before the board and I had a hope that the Chair would have the backbone to finally address the issues of discrimination and patterns of harassment that has been imbedded in the culture of the board.  Instead the Chair dodged the issue and sided with the bad actors.  ” if I were Chip and Dave, I would be pissed too” was a statement made in an effort to settle hot tempters.  In trying to calm things down by siding and showing sympathy for the people who committed the bad acts, he led the board away from the issue.  He was asked what the claim was about and his response was that it was about money.  He then drew this analogy with a a qualifier. ” I have been in academia for 35 years and when ever you give an F you can expect some Hispanic Women to file a sexual discrimination claim.“.

Translation:  This new claim is because the employee, who has not earned compensation, but is asking for it, will try and get it by filing a sexual discrimination claim.  Therefore boys, lets focus on how we are going to handle the claim by focusing on the loss of compensation, not the issue of sexual discrimination.

I will not be quiet.  Silence is a tool used to continue the bad acts.   By being on the board and acting a member of one body, I would be contributing to the perpetuation of discrimination.   Because of the history and longstanding attitudes of certain members, for me to stand up in the meeting and speak the truth, in an attempt to create dialog, would not have worked.

We were at the point where there was a burning cross in my front yard, and to go to the cross and try to put it out with a bucket of water, would have had me lynched.

I called the Chair, Victor Ehly the next day, at his college office.  I spoke of my disappointment and specifically questioned him about his comments. He admitted to me that he was wrong and the comments were inappropriate and offensive.  He said he would not do it again.  But he fell short with a complete solution.  It is not good enough to say “sorry, I won’t do it again”. There needs to be a plan of action to open up the dialog about the culture. People need to examine and reflect upon their actions, then make changes in behavior.  I asked Victor what his plan was, to think about it and to get back to me with a specific plan for a change in action.  He never contacted me.  His action was to let things settle down and to hopefully ignore the issues again. Perhaps, he thought, If I don’t do anything it will go away.

Well, It will not go away.  I will not allow it to remain silent and secret.  My only recourse was to speak the truth openly and to do so by resigning and requesting that the town which I represent end their relationship with the district by pulling out.    I went before my town select board on Monday night and spoke the truth.  Openly and on record.   Now the town must decide if it will continue to engage with the district and the community will be watching.  I will continue to work with my town in this time of transition and evaluation of options.

It will be hard for the board of supervisors at the District to continue their tactics and culture of discrimination and retaliation now that the secret is no longer.  They will have to act openly and with transparency.  Kesha Ram put some words up on her face book page. Those words reminded me of the importance to principle.  There were no directions on how to specifically handle the issue, just the basic guidelines given from a very wise man.  Thank you Kesha.


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I am grounded

Posted by blackramfarm on November 18, 2009

I love having my tea in the morning.  I love tea around 4 in the afternoon.  I make black tea and take it with cream and sugar. Brown Betty is a good little tea-pot.  I have about a dozen other pots, some fancy and old and some funny looking, but Brown Betty has been a constant for a long time.  I also like having tea on this silver tray, with my silver creamer and sugar pot.  I reminds me of my Grandmothers who introduced to tea when I was a child.  Cambric Tea.

Lulu called me yesterday and said that she is now drinking tea on a regular basis.  Both my girls know how to brew a decent pot.   Tea in the morning is part of my routine.  So is writing. So is knitting.  They go together and are the glue of keeping things normal for me.  The world may fall apart all around me, but I am grounded with a simple gifts that my grandmothers gave me.

“I’m a little tea-pot short and stout, here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up, hear me shout, just tip me over and pour …. me…. out.”  wise words.

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Deadwood

Posted by blackramfarm on November 15, 2009

sunset

I love watching Deadwood.  One of my all time favorite shows.  When it first came out, I would watch an episode a couple of times in order to understand what the world was going on and half the time, re-watching to try and understand the language.  There are wonderful characters, all really flawed.   Our dog Jewel is really named after one of them.  I sent the first years complete episode out to Jim and Mim in Jamestown North Dakota, they had not seen it yet.   I have the second season on DVD and am loving it.

What is upsetting is when someone with some clout pulls the series, in the middle.  Deadwood never made it past mid-season of year three.  Big mistake for HBO, I canceled my account.   Other good shows that have a glimmer of  some promise are also truncated for unknown reasons.  Ian McShane jumped over to Kings,  and it was canceled just when it was going well.  I saw Gravity this summer and it was pretty good, and just when you are getting into it, poof, it too is gone.  So I have now discovered TV on my lap-top.  ABC.Com, CBS,  Hulu and the like.   So I really don’t need a TV service anymore.  Kinda of liberating to say the least.

The problem I am confronted with is trying to write, without the background of the boob-tube.  Radio suffices at work, but I like hearing words spoken when I write.    The need to multi-task my senses while I concentrate is most likely my brain needing stimulation in one area so that the words will come out correctly.  Dyslexic adaptation.  I also like to knit while I have to listen to stuff in meetings. Just sitting still, I wander.  I can listen to classical music without fidgeting, and wandering is what your mind is supposed to do in that situation.  Sometimes I see colors when I listen to symphonies.   I can’t read and pay attention to what someone is saying at the same time.  My ears and eyes don’t work that way.  But if I am using my hands, then I can listen well.  Most folks around town have come to accept that about me and don’t give me too much flack about it.  Work too allows me to have the radio on while I work.

Now I am under deadline for a story to go into the January-February edition of Livin’ the Vermont Way.  I am writing about Emilie’s buddy Mike Dolan.   Story is due today, and given that it is 8 at night, I have a couple more hours to finish it up.   Putting myself under pressure also helps me to focus my thoughts.  I doubt my editor Kyle appreciates that last-minute, here you go, but so far he has been wonderfully patient.

Deadwood is running on the background and the house is quiet.  Time to proof this blog and finish off the piece on Mike.

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Let’s all play nice now

Posted by blackramfarm on November 13, 2009

preschool kids in sandbox Aug 2006

Life in the Sandbox

Well last night’s VT-GOP was interesting.  Turns out that the invite I got from Bruce at church was to join a Stowe business man who had bought a table.  Buying a table means that you get to into the “private” meeting room prior to the dinner and smooze with the big-wigs.  Got a picture taken with Ari Fleshier and my host Jacques Bouramia,  chatted with Jim Douglas for a bit and enjoyed watching all the folks jockey for a moment with the Governor and the Heir presumptive, Brain Dubie.

I have a duck box from 2006, when I was manning a table, selling paint your own bird house, bat boxes and duck boxes to raise money for the Conservation District.  Jim Douglas came by to the event and I got him to sign his name on a duck box, in green paint.  I reminded  him about the box last night and we joked about it.  He asked if I was planning to run again, and I replied that I was planning to run for the select board.  ” Didn’t work out to well for Shaun Bryer” he said.   I let that one go.

Short speeches were given a plenty in the back room, then we were herded out to our perspective tables and to hear more speeches.  I was not surprised to find our table way up in the front of the room. The annual fall dinner is a general fund-raising event, so the cost of a table is pretty steep and with an added donation, your table can be up in the front,  ours was next to Brian Dubie’s crew.  So I guess I lucked into a pretty desirable spot.  I think that the other Lamoille county republicans must have been a bit curious as to why I have emerged back in public and managed to be placed where I was.

I love being enigmatic in those type situations.  I think I scare the local guys.  They had a hard time controlling me in the past election, and I am much too liberal in some of my views, making them very uncomfortable with the thought I might run again. In fairness, Jacques is a very nice guy, and he was most kind to let me tag along.  He had found out (via Bruce)  that I had run for a house seat a while back and had a fun time telling folks I was going to run again…not so soon cowboy.  I got a bunch of other stuff to do first.

local-salmonThe speeches at dinner were predictable.  It went a little like this…the republican party is the only party that thinks about the economy and the democrats are disorganized with any type of financial restraint.  The state is falling apart and all the Dems what to do is spend more. Blah blah blah.   Tom Salmon was given a thunderous welcome to the team.  He talked about his service in the war and when he returned to Vermont he expected the State House democrats to be working on solutions, not talking about trying harder.  Predictable.  More partisan language and finger pointing at the other team for all the problems. Gets old after a while.  Ari’s speech was a bit creepy,  focusing on being at Bush’s  right hand side at the campaign, in the White House, and all during 911.  He talked about Peace though Power and sprinkled a lot of right winged Christian speak though out.  Then things turned into a Obama slam and I lost interest.

My feet began to hurt and I had, had enough.  This blog confession will certainly put a nail in my republican coffin.   I need to find a new home.  It is not that I have seen the light, it is more about being sick of the darkness.  Can’t we all play nicely in the sandbox folks?

Editor’s Note:  An anonymous comment linking Tom Salmon to the news story in this Sunday’s paper was deleted.

1. can’t just post a slam without taking credit for it.

2. the point of the piece was to say that finger-pointing needs to stop.  to post a slam, without your name, is a sissy’s way of finger-pointing.  at least have the courage to say who you are. then maybe I will put up the comment.

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