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.)

The day I went to see director Christopher Nolan’s edgy new film “The Dark Knight,” I received an e-mailed article from my colleague Peter Phillips at California’s Sonoma State University. Phillips, a sociology and journalism professor, annually publishes a book called Project Censored, a collection of significant ongoing news stories underreported or ignored in the U.S. mainstream press. His article cited a January 2008 Opinion Research Business report that indicated that approximately 1 million Iraqi citizens – one million – have been killed since the U.S.

A 5 minute video mash from Eva of Seven Daze's "Stuck In Vermont" Fame.

Featuring our own blogger Jim Hogue/Ethan Allen.

Enjoy - and free Vermont! 

Surprised?

Do you think the "liberals" here in Vermont will catch on?

Nah.

Thanks to Counterpunch and Chellis "The Chalice and the Blade" Glendinning for this thoughtful review of SVR founder Thomas Naylor's new book Secession: How Vermont And All Other States Can Save Themselves From Empire.

Bess O’Brien is a filmmaker who lives in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Her newest film, Shout it Out, is in many ways a collaboration with its cast, a group of teenagers whose thoughts about being young in Vermont helped form the script. The movie will be touring the state this summer. Vermont Commons editor Rob Williams conducted this interview.

VC: Describe the genesis of the Shout it Out, “The Voices Project” movie. Where did the idea come from?

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.   

PRESS RELEASE

(Full disclosure - Chandler! is one of our advertisers, and, in my opinion, one of the nicest acoustic venues in the state.)

For more information contact: Chandler Center for the Arts:
Betsy Cantlin, outreach@chandler-arts.org or call (802)728-9878.

DISCOVER YOUR INNER BARD: THE PLAYING WITH SHAKESPEARE WORKSHOP

We hosted our first FREE VERMONT RADIO conversation with independent gubernatorial candidate Sam Young on Tuesday, July 1, in the WDEV's Waterbury studio.

Download the program here.

And visit Sam Young's web site.

Big kudos to Seven Days "Fair Game" columnist Shay Totten for taking some prominent members of the Vermont blogosphere to task in his Seven Days column today over the way in which the "Pollina/NOFA/Douglas" dust-up played out in the Vermont blogoland's "snark pit" last week.

Burlington Free Press blogger/journalist Sam Hemingway, Green Mountain Daily point man John Odum, and PolitickerVT.com all come in for some criticism.