Thanks to Seven Days, Vermont's liveliest alternative weekly newspaper, for giving Bill McKibben (arguably Vermont's most prominent intellectual) a platform to hold forth on Vermont independence this week. in his "Independence Fray" article.

I could spend time quibbling with some of Bill's observations here. To name but three:

1. His selective re-telling of the winter 2007 SVR/LOS brouhaha and Mr. Odum/GMD's role in it...(no comment - time to move on.)

From my media colleague Peter Phillips, who oversees the annual Project Censored project with his journalism students at Sonoma State University.

While I am not in agreement with his solution of impeachment (we're less than four months away from Election Day - time to let go the "impeachment" chimera), his article serves as a sobering reminder of the consequence of U.S. occupation for Iraqi civilians more than five years later.

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Good to see Christian Avard at Green Mountain Daily raising questions about Barack Obama's recent flipflop on the FISA situation.

Just the tip of the iceberg, I'd suggest.

I am currently reading Obama's Dreams From My Father - a compelling story about race, class, and the American Dream - very moving.

Seven Days "Fair Game" columnist Shay Totten spells out the Intervale's woes.

So let's get this straight - we've got a community-managed agricultural resource that is a global model for relocalization, and state government is making it as hard as possible for it to survive?

In an interview with Seven Days' Suzanne Podhaizer, Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser said this of the Intervale:

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”

The time has come for a third American Revolution. The first Revolution occurred in 1776, when 13 out of 30 British colonies in the western hemisphere seceded to prevent consolidation into an increasingly centralized British empire. John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were secessionists.  The second revolution, the opposite of the first, occurred between 1861 and 1865 (the misnamed “Civil War”) to create a consolidated American Union that could compete with the empires of Europe; a regime “one and indivisible” from which secession would be impossible.  

Throughout human history, there has been a persistent yearning among ordinary peoples to live under comprehensible social, political, and economic conditions that afforded them shared customs and memories, agreed-upon standards of right behavior, recognized status, security against brigandage and invasion, and reasonable prospects for achieving economic security.   

So he finds himself on the cusp of another July 4th and all its strange customs: Parades built on the back of cheap petroleum, night skies polluted by the small explosions of fireworks, kegs and coolers brimming with pallid domestic beers, grills stacked high with chickens who never set foot on the soft, brown earth during their short and brutish lives. And somewhere in there, perhaps, for some (and especially after a few PBRs), a swell of patriotism.   

Fritz Schumacher used to tell the story of the three professionals sitting around arguing about whose was the oldest profession.  The doctor said that his was the oldest because God operated on Adam to remove his rib to make Eve.  The architect, however, declared that even before that God built the world out of chaos.  Yes, said the economist, but who do you think made that?

“North Star” On The Long Trail– An Interview with Dana Dwinell-Yardley

conducted by Rob Williams, webeditor

VC: Tell us a little bit about yourself.  

Dana:  Well, I'm a 20-year-old Montpelierite and eighth-generation Vermonter. I take real pride in being born of our Green Mountain State, of having roots here. I love being outside. I was homeschooled for my entire life and now I work in the "real world" as a graphic designer.