Fringe Friday: August "Gus" Jaccaci

For week eight of "Fringe Friday," we feature independent candidate for Congress, August "Gus" Jaccaci, a self-described "visionary" who wants to give U.S. Rep. Peter Welch a "two-year sabbatical."

We mean no offense by "fringe." Vermont has a strong tradition of putting independent and third-party candidates — and their radical ideas — on the ballot. The reality is, these candidates seldom win more than 4 to 5 percent of the vote and remain on the fringes of the state's political system.

For more Seven Days fringe proflies, click here.

Candidate: August "Gus" Jaccaci

Party: Independent

Office Sought: U.S. Representative

Age: 73

Hometown: Thetford

Education: Harvard College (BA in English, 1960); Harvard Graduate School of Education (MAT, 1964); Rhode Island School of Design (MFA in Painting, 1965)

Occupation: Artist, Philosopher, Writer, Performer (Fun fact: Jaccaci has twice donned a colonialist costume to play Ira Allen on the Channel 17 show "Visionary Vermont"  — see clip below.)

Family: Jaccaci grew up in Madison, Conn., Hartwell, Vt., and Santa Fe, N.M. His father was a vice president at the J. Walter Thompson ad agency in New York City who handled the Eastman Kodak account. His wife, Joanne Jaccaci, is an adult educator and a "mystic" who resides in Maine. Gus Jaccaci has two sons and four grandkids.

Website: Gus4Congress

Platform: 1. "Abolish war." 2. "Build community." 3. "Learn love."

We recently caught up with August "Gus" Jaccaci for an interview at the appropriately named August First bakery and cafe in Burlington

IBM Denies Dubie Claim It Will Leave if Vermont Yankee Closes

* Updated with additional comments from IBM & Brian Dubie's campaign *

Republican Brian Dubie dropped this bombshell at Tuesday night's debate in St. Albans: IBM would move its Vermont-based manufacturing jobs to Bromont, Quebec if Vermont Yankee closes in 2012.

How did he know this? Dubie wouldn't say at the debate. His campaign subsequently failed to respond to email and phone messages asking just who at IBM relayed the information to the lieutenant governor.

When contacted by Seven Days, however, an IBM spokesman denied the claim.

Lite Guv Candidate Howard Differs with Shumlin on Prisoner-Release Plan

State Rep. Steve Howard, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, is splitting with Peter Shumlin on his prisoner release plan, saying Vermont shouldn't let nonviolent offenders out of jail until there are more treatment facilities ready to receive them.

Howard (pictured) made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with Seven Days today over coffee at Mirabelles cafe in Burlington.

Howard agrees with Shumlin, the state Senate president and Democratic nominee for governor, that health care and corrections are the two big "budget busters" in Vermont state government. But he said the state should find other ways to cut corrections costs, "not by releasing prisoners."

"I wouldn't agree with Sen. Shumlin on that plan," Howard said. "I live in Rutland. I started a neighborhood association because of an increase in crime. I don't necessarily agree with his approach 100 percent."

Shumlin has called for cutting $40 million annually from the Department of Corrections budget by transitioning 780 nonviolent offenders from jail into community programs for mental illness and substance abuse.

Shumlin's plan has become the most divisive issue in the gubernatorial campaign so far, with Dubie saying in a new radio ad that "Shumlin's plan would turn drug dealers and child pornographers out on the street long before their sentences were served." State Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, fired back today, slamming Dubie for using "Willie Horton"-style scare tactics.

Howard said Vermont communities like Rutland, Barre, Burlington and St. Albans need more drug treatment facilities before prisoners can be let out of jail.

Geek Nation: Interview with Ethan Gilsdorf

For this week's paper, I interviewed two authors coming to the Burlington Book Festival who exemplify "Geek Chic." I promised to post a longer version of my interview with Ethan Gilsdorf (pictured at right, photo by Meg Birnbaum) here on Blurt. Here it is, with a quick explanation of why.

When I started reading Gilsdorf's book, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, which is sort of half a memoir, I felt like I was revisiting my own past. Gilsdorf talks about using Dungeons and Dragons, back in the '80s, to escape from teen angst and the stress of living with a disabled mother. When he started dating, he gave up geeky pursuits, which were still considered pretty, well, freaky back then. But when he turned 40, Gilsdorf dug out the blue picnic cooler that held all his D&D maps, charts, character sheets and other paraphernalia and tried to figure out why they'd been a lifesaver in his teen years.

I have my own version of the blue cooler.

Who Do Vermont's Candidates Write Like? Mostly, H.P. Lovecraft

If you haven't found it yet, the website I Write Like is a very entertaining time-waster.

The site lets you insert a piece of writing (yours or someone else's) and then using what it claims is a "statistical analysis tool," it analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of famous writers.

Then it spits out an author's name, like Zoltar Speaks. (My recent piece about disgruntled Burlington chicken owners, it turns out, is a dead-ringer for David Foster Wallace.)

Being local politics junkies, we were curious who Vermont's statewide political candidates write like. So we copied their candidate statements from the Burlington Free Press "Comment & Debate" page and plugged them into I Write Like.

What did we learn? Either several candidates are sharing a single ghost-writer, or the program is a literary Magic 8-ball, with a set number of stock answers. Or it's totally legit and some of Vermont's wannabe leaders (or the staffers who helped write these pieces) write alike.

Four candidates — including two Democrats, a Republican and a Progressive — write like H.P. Lovecraft (pictured), the American horror and science fiction author associated with the subgenre "weird fiction." Indeed, politics at times can seem like a weird fiction.

Salmon Reigns on the Scarecrow

I suspect there's a whole generation of politicians who, deep down inside, are just frustrated rock stars who dream of stalking the stage, a la Mick Jagger. That was evident last weekend when State Auditor Tom Salmon, who's running for reelection in November on the GOP ticket, took the mic at the Tunbridge World's Fair to belt out his version of John Mellencamp's "Rain on the Scarecrow." Check it out here.

 

Music reviews fall outside my purview as a news writer, but suffice it to say, Mellencamp's lament about the death of the American family farm was a good song choice for Salmon, considering his Orange County audience.

Which left me wondering: What song would Salmon's Democratic challenger, Doug Hoffer, counter with? The logical choice would be Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant." Hoffer's resume includes his stint as the restaurant's maître d' back in the ’70s.

Any other musical requests for these or other statewide candidates? Please send 'em our way and we'll let the band know. Please note: There will be NO swimsuit contest in this race.

Prog Candidate for AG Sinks Her Baby Teeth Into the Vermont Yankee Debate

Do kids who live near Vermont Yankee have more strontium 90 in their teeth than the rest of us? Charlotte Dennett says she's working to ensure that they don't. The Vermont Progressive Party candidate for attorney general is making the issue of radioactive emissions and elevated cancer rates in Windham County — home to the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant — a focal point of her campaign.

Dennett (right), a Vermont lawyer since 1997 and an investigative reporter for more than 30 years, previously ran for attorney general in 2008. On Wednesday, September 22, she kicks off her campaign to be the state's top prosecutor at a press conference at Burlington City Hall. There, she''ll be trying to make political hay out of statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that Vermont has the nation's highest per-capita rate of cancer for young people under the age of 19.

"It's time we have a statewide conversation about the C-word," Dennett says, in a written statement issued Tuesday. "Legislators have been warned not to raise the issue because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ever since the 1990s, has claimed jurisdiction over health issues related to nuclear power plants. But the NRC does not control our constitutional right of free speech, and as a candidate for attorney general, my duty is to protect the health and safety of all Vermonters."

Much of Dennett's presentation will be based on research done by the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a New York City-based group of scientists and health professionals concerned about the health risks associated with nuclear power and atomic weapons testing.

Democrat Peter Welch Leads Tea Party Challenger in US House Race

Two-term U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) is leading his GOP rival by more than 30 points, according to a recent phone survey of likely voters.

The survey, conducted for Rasmussen Reports, gives Welch with an even greater lead over rival Paul Beaudry than a similar survey gave US Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) over his Republican rival Len Britton. In that poll, Leahy led Britton by a 62-32 margin.

The survey of likely voters found Welch earning 64 percent of the vote to Beaudry’s 30 percent.  Two percent prefer some other candidate, while four percent remain undecided.

Beaudry, backed by the Tea Party movement in Vermont, defeated two other Republican candidates in the August 24 primary. One of those rivals, businessman John Mitchell, was the preferred candidate of many establishment Republicans.

This is the first foray into electoral politics by the former radio talk show host. Like Britton, Beaudry has found it hard to raise money to challenge a popular incumbent. He also raised eyebrows by paying himself a biweekly salary. The practice is allowed by federal law.

Alice Eats: Blue Acorn

84 North Main Street, St. Albans 802-527-0669

Sometimes I wish I were a restaurant consultant instead of a reviewer. Every once in a while, I have a dinner that makes me want to grab the restaurateur by the shoulders and talk some sense into him. That was how I felt at the Blue Acorn. Nothing was inept — in fact, many things were good — but the restaurant is in need of some hand-holding.

The spellings on the menu were the first hint that something was slightly amiss. Poutine was written as "pouitini." One drink, composed of amaretto, Frangelico and Chambord, is called "Your Nuts." I assume the owners intended to assert that the drinker is crazy, but accidentally made a reference to the old dingly-danglies instead. A proofreader was clearly in order.

I ordered the apple-stuffed chicken (right), which came with a choice of two sides for $15. When I asked for risotto, I was told it had been discontinued. 

Given the name of the entrée, I expected to receive a roulade. What I got instead was two nicely seasoned but small chicken tenderloins with a pile of apple slices placed between them. I feel pretty solid on the definition of "stuffed," and this was not it. The chicken also appeared to be missing the advertised maple glaze. 

Did Dubie Disobey an Order on 9/11?

The front page of today's Burlington Free Press asked gubernatorial candidates Peter Shumlin and Brian Dubie to describe, in their own words, the "hardest decision you've ever had to make."

Shumlin, the Democratic state Senate leader, says it was the choice over whether to get into politics or remain a private businessman.

Dubie writes that his toughest choice came on September 11, 2001, while serving double duty as a commercial pilot for American Airlines and as a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves.

Dubie was en route to Boston's Logan Airport, he writes, when he learned a friend and colleague, Capt. John Ogonowski, was in the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 11, which was hijacked and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Dubie was asked by the airline to serve as "casualty notification" to his friend's wife and three young daughters.

As an Air Force officer, Dubie writes, he was also part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency team "responsible for airlifting rescue workers and supplies to disaster sites." While he was with his friend's family, Dubie writes, his supervisor called, "ordering me to FEMA headquarters immediately."