Billie and Louise — Our Friends, Too

Rutland Herald (Vt.) Editorial, Oct. 27, 2012:

Billie and Louise have won friends around the world. Letters have arrived at the Herald, via email, from Portugal, Ireland, England and around the United States, mostly pleading for the lives of the two coeds. Green Mountain College has reportedly been flooded with angry messages.

It is safe to say that the college’s decision to invade Castleton State College and target these two students for rape, torture and ultimately slaughter has excited alarm around the globe precisely because it was a deliberate decision. Women have been subject to rape, torture and slaughter in every country. Teenagers are chained in confining little houses for the violent pleasure of soldiers before they are dispatched. Old women are crowded into cages. Children are maintained in squalid, crowded camps covered in their own waste, stuffed with grain then trucked to their demise.

But it is the fate of two coeds whose end will be the result of a thoughtful, deliberative process that has produced an outcry. Probably it is because it puts the fact of human slaughter squarely before us as a human choice. Yet that is precisely why Green Mountain College carried out its exercise in thoughtful decision-making. It is part of an educational program about sustainable societies.

The cruelty involved in raising children for slaughter is a fact of life — if you want to call it cruelty. The end to which Billie and Louise are headed is ordinary and common. Their lives are what have been consequential. They have allowed a college community to understand that social relationships are about cycles of life and death. That is a useful sort of education.

Vermont college announces new animal sustainability program

Green Mountain College, a 4-year "environmental sustainability" college in Poultney, Vermont, has decided to do something about the problem of unwanted pets.

With the nation's animal shelters overburdened with the numbers of abandoned and rescued cats and dogs, most of which will never find homes, the sustainability professors at Green Mountain College have long been troubled by the "terrible waste of resources," as Bayley Hazen described it.

Hazen is assistant director of sustainable animal management at the college and was visibly excited to announce the new program.

"In GMC's continuing development of the nation's most progressive sustainable campus, many alumni and current faculty, staff, and students came together and realized that our unique resources and philosophy could be leveraged to make a huge contribution to the sustainability issues surrounding animal shelters."

In short, she said that GMC would adopt dogs and cats from "no-kill" shelters and then kill them as part of their animal sustainability curriculum.

"The numbers are still being worked out: we are carefully calculating, using the best science available, what level of funding should be budgeted, and we need to find a way for the college to benefit directly, but the commitment is already there, because this is something we can do to give back to the community in a way that has no price," Hazen said.

Animal rights organizations, including shelters in the region, as expected, expressed outrage.

"I don't mind," Hazen said, "because secretly they're glad we're doing this."

Hazen added that she is "mostly vegetarian" and loves animals, and that's why she loves Green Mountain College, because "they make the hard decisions that love requires."

Statehood quest at U.N.

Binjamin Netanyahu was in New York this week, meeting with European and U.S. officials before his speech to the United Nations General Assembly Friday.

After boasting of having a signet ring with his name on it, Netanyahu announced that he had formally submitted a request to the U.N. to recognize Israel as a "militant Jewish" state that is only 7 miles wide.

Then, he promised, Israel would fully and openly recognize Palestine as a "militant Islamic" state that can not be allowed to exist on Israel's borders.

"Israel is only 7 miles across," Mr Netanyahu kvetched, adding that many Jews were killed in Europe in the last century, culminating centuries of scapegoating and persecution. "So someone please tell me, how can the Jew be the bad guy?" he challenged the audience.

Palestinian Christians and Israeli Muslims were subdued in their responses to his offer.

An Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman would not reveal where they are being held, but assured reporters that the IDF has provided them a candle in the darkness.

Vegas Law Firm Buys Rights to Govt Communications

It's a twist that could be the turning point in the U.S. government's battle against WikiLeaks. The shady organization run by Aussie Julian Assange -- who is in hiding to avoid arrest under a Swedish miscegenation charge -- must now face copyright complaints in a Nevada court.

Well-known copyright troll Righthaven has bought the copyrights to the material published last week by Wikileaks, and has filed several complaints against Wikileaks in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

Each complaint claims harm to Righthaven's right to profit from the now-copyrighted material and demands a default judgment of $150,000, surrender of the WikiLeaks domain name, and payment of attorneys' feed.

Although in previous cases, Righthaven has settled out of court for a few thousand dollars -- with defendants recognizing that it would be even more expensive to prove the charges as spurious -- CEO Steve Gibson promises this case will be different.

"This is about more than defending our property rights and receiving just compensation for the use of our creative work. In this case, it's about defending our freedom," Gibson said.

"Publicizing the workings of our sovereign government so that anyone and everyone can read it is a direct attack on our democracy," Gibson added. "We will not entertain any offer of settlement and look forward to demanding justice in court."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley defended the decision to sell its communications to Righthaven.

"Theft of our diplomats' work will not be tolerated as anything less than the anarchic threat to our sovereign rights that it is," Crowley said. "These cables belong to the U.S. government, not to Wikileaks or any other so-called media outlet."

"They are proprietary communications, and they are now copyrighted to protect the free American people from having to see them," he added.

Wikileaks, currently found on the web at http://88.80.13.160, http://213.251.145.96, and http://46.59.1.2, did not reply to calls to explain themselves.

New service doubles your gas mileage

A Vermont entrepreneur has figured out a way to turn the state's mountainous terrain from a gas-mileage detriment into an asset.

Martin Bradford of Essex offers a service to commuters that could double their gas mileage.

A former truck driver, Bradford got his idea last year while driving a load of new cars to a South Burlington dealer: Why not carry commuters in the same way?

"Almost every drive in Vermont is significantly uphill or downhill on balance," Bradford told us in a recent telephone interview. "Wouldn't it be great if you could somehow drive only in the downhill direction?"

In short, commuters who use Bradford's service determine which direction is mostly uphill, and for less than they would have paid for the gas to drive it themselves, Bradford carries them and their cars in a customized trailer.

"The result has been impressive," gushed Phil McBigger, who drives home to Charlotte from work but rides in Bradford's trailer for the morning commute to Montpelier. "My gas mileage has literally doubled! It's a win-win: We still have our freedom, but we can also do so much at the same time to help save the planet."