My Co-op Rocks

Do you love your co-op? 

Then vote for our video in the My Co-op Rocks contest!  All you have to do is register and VOTE (leave a comment if you're feeling frisky)!

Song composed and sung by the super talented Missy Bly who also makes Clean City Soap which you can find on the shelves of City Market (look for her soap that smells of freshly cut grass).

The deadline for voting is April 12th so show your support!

Ed. Note: Some of the footage in this video — as well as Missy Bly's song — also appears in an ad that Eva recently produced for City Market. Eva produced this contest video on her own time, but Seven Days was paid to produce the ad.

UVM Students Protest Cuts

Mike Ives reports:

Several hundred students attended a budget-related walk-out/protest today at the University of Vermont. Organized by the campus group Students Stand Up, the event featured both faculty and student speakers. A few students held massive cardboard signs with life-sized cut-outs that read, "MISSING FACULTY" and "MISSING STAFF." One student shouted into a megaphone. A white sheet hanging from the Davis Center read, "VETOFOGEL," referring to UVM President Dan Fogel.

For background on the walk-out/protest, see Tim Johnson's coverage for the Burlington Free Press. See also Shay Totten's most recent "Fair Game" column.

I shot several videos at today's event and pasted two here. In one, I interview Nathan Stehle, a sophomore political science and philosophy major. The other video features freshmen Laura Lee Graffman, Juliet Kibbe and Heather Graig.

Just Sick...

I have this little cat calendar on my desk. I just ripped off yesterday's page and was greeted with this sickening cuteness. I had to share. Now I have to go lie down to recover. I feel like I just ate a jellybean-Peep sandwich.

Hal Colston on "Oprah"

Word has it a producer from the "Oprah" show will be in Burlington tomorrow--Friday, April 10--to film Good News Garage. Founder Hal Colston has already been interviewed by the producer, who talked to him about the GNG story as well as Colston's second venture, the anti-poverty nonprofit NeighborKeepers. Colston says he'll head to Chicago next Thursday, April 16, to tape the show "to capture my story as a local hero." This follows last year's piece in People magazine about Colston, and his appearance on "The Today Show." Does this make him a pop-culture hero, too? Either way, dude's deserving.

Ed. note: Pamela Polston wrote this post.

Vermont 12-year-old Speaks on Democracy Now!

Earlier today, 12-year-old Evann Orleck-Jetter appeared on the nationally syndicated radio show Democracy Now! Orleck-Jetter lives in Thetford Center with her lesbian parents, Dartmouth history professor Annelise Orleck and journalist Alexis Jetter. She testified last month in support of gay marriage at the Vermont Statehouse.

(Orleck-Jetter's parents collaborated on a 1997 essay and interview collection called The Politics of Motherhood: Activist Voices from Left to Right. According to Annelise Orleck's online bio, the book features women who were "moved by their motherhood to engage in a wide range of political activities from environmental justice work to peace activism to membership in the Ku Klux Klan.")

In today's Democracy Now! broadcast, Evann Orleck-Jetter told host Amy Goodman that she has always felt ostracized from her peers because her parents weren't officially married. Now that Vermont has legalized gay marriage, Orleck-Jetter added, she expects to feel more comfortable interacting with classmates and teachers.

"That really helped change things," she reflected of her experience at the Statehouse. "I felt honored that I could help change history."

More Marriage Media

I've been collecting links to coverage of Vermont's historic gay marriage vote yesterday. Here are some I think are worth sharing.

Photographer Karen Pike shot an incredible series of portraits at the Statehouse yesterday. This one shows a group of supporters, including my friend Hannah Hauser, waiting for the vote tally. If you're a gay marriage supporter, do yourself a favor and check these out.

"Fair Game" columnist Shay Totten has a new column out today, which includes his thoughts on the vote yesterday. Shay was Twittering from the Statehouse and reported the vote as it happened.

Lauren Ober of the Burlington Free Press reports that Representative Sonny Audette (D-South Burlington) was home sick for the vote yesterday. He was the only one who missed it.

The Freeps' Terri Hallenbeck penned this piece about the swing votes who enabled the override.

Lots of Vermonters — including the governor — shared their reactions to the news on yesterday's Vermont Edition on VPR.

Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic compiled a nice summary of national reactions to the vote.

John Odum at Green Mountain Daily speculates on the political implications of yesterday's vote.

Got more links for me? Please post them in the comments thread.

Raw Video: Beth Robinson Congratulates Same-Sex Marriage Supporters

Immediately following the House override of Governor Douglass' veto of the same-sex marriage bill, Beth Robinson of Vermont Freedom to Marry congratulates throngs of supporters. Bill sponsors Rep. Mark Larson and Rep. David Zuckerman also address same-sex marriage advocates.

Thanks to Shawn Lipenski for shooting the video and allowing us to post it on Blurt!

• If you have other video or images you would like to share from this historic event, please leave a comment on this post with the link, or email Blurt directly.

Tuesday Link Dump: Gay Marriage Edition

Enjoy your Vermont blog links for the day, in between celebrating.

• We've caught up with Iowa! Right before the vote, Broadsides Blog posted this moving video from an Iowa legislator along with some commentary right before the vote (see video).
• Blazing Indiscretions is proud to be a Vermonter today.
• Digital Digressions is overwhelmed.
• Just TV shares his letter to the governor on the issue.
• Dohiyi Mir shows support with pictures of adorable cuddling cats.
• Cartoonist Alison Bechdel also expresses elation with kitty cats.
• Evolving Peace made a post a couple of days ago drawing parallels between this struggle and those of other civil rights movements, specifically those of racial injustice, and praising the camaraderie of civil rights movements.  Included is a video of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Bill Simmon posts a first-hand account of the vote from Vermont ACLU Director Allen Gilbert.

Please, share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Friday: "Health Care is a Human Right" Panel at UVM

Vermont has been in the national spotlight lately, and not just for legalizing gay marriage. On March 17, the Obama administration held one of five "Regional Forums on Health Reform" at the University of Vermont's Davis Center. Seven Days political columnist Shay Totten Twittered the event while I interviewed protesters who rallied outside in support of "single payer" healthcare policy. The protesters heard from nurses, policy experts and local activists, among others.

Now organizers with the Vermont Workers' Center and the UVM student group Students for Peace & Global Justice are putting on their own healthcare summit. This Friday, April 10, from 3:30 to 6 p.m., six speakers will convene at the Billings Lecture Hall/CC Theater for a "Health Care Is a Human Right" panel discussion. The panel coincides with two screenings of Michael Moore's Sicko (tonight at 6 p.m. in Terrill 308 and tomorrow at 7 p.m. in Lafayette 403).

Friday's event includes the following speakers:

• A rep from the Vermont Workers' Center
• Dr. Marvin Malek
• UVM Anthropology Lecturer Larry Ziegler-Otero
• Sarah Hoffert, UVM Center for Health & Wellbeing
• Bronwyn Fleming-Jones '09, Public Affairs Intern at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England
• Sandra Schlosser, healthcare advocate

Ryan Winnick, a senior English Literature and Film and Television Studies major who volunteers at the workers' center, says the panel is an appropriate follow-up to Obama's regional healthcare forum. Winnick hopes Friday's event will inspire her fellow students to attend a May 1 health care rally at the Statehouse.

Winnick, 21, insists that healthcare policy affects students even if they don't realize it yet. "If healthcare isn't universal and our job security is threatened," she explains, "reform is the only plausible tactic."

Best Bites: Ed’s Barrr-B-Q

248 North Main Street, Barre, 476-8BBQ

The slogan at Ed’s is “The taste you can’t escape,” and crime plays into every aspect of the restaurant. The windows are barred and fake bullet holes addle the doorframes. The cheery yellow walls are bordered with trompe l’oeil barbed wire. Mugshots of Frank Sinatra and Jim Morrison adorn the spaces not painted with the names of Ed’s sauces and rubs, which he has sold since 2005. Named for different levels of capital punishment, each sauce that I tried had a unique personality.

Much of what passes for barbecue in Vermont is slow-cooked pork slathered in barbecue sauce. Not so at Ed’s. Chicken, beef and pork are smoked over apple wood and apple cider for a sweetly smoky, discernibly fruity taste. Think apple tobacco wafting from your southern grandpappy’s pipe.

These vapors provided the punch in the best pulled pork sandwich ($8.95) I’ve had in years. Super moist but not overtly fatty, no sauce was necessary on the satisfying shreds. However, a dash of sweet and tangy “Misdemeanor” did add to the experience.

The “Murder One” (hot, but not as strong as Capital Offense or Lethal Injection), served beside my delightfully crispy brisket burnt ends ($5.95) was more complex, with a fair amount of spice, but not a lot of heat. The clean-stripping ribs were enormous.  A trio ($12.95) overflowed their large plate. Baked beans were the best side, with a deep, surprisingly complex flavor tempered by maple syrup.

With last year’s loss of Finkerman’s in Montpelier, there had been a pig-shaped hole in my heart. After pounding a pile of pork at Ed’s, it’s been reduced to piglet size. Perhaps a “Double Bubba” pulled pork sandwich ($13.95) will be the cure?