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FEEDback READER REACTION TO RECENT ARTICLES
A LITTLE F*#KING CONTEXT
[Re “Capital Fireworks: Incumbent, Ousted Employee Spar in Montpelier Mayor’s Race,” February 26]: Seven Days is the third newspaper in the past week to print portions of an email I provided to Gwen Hallsmith in response to her Freedom of Information Act request after she was terminated from her position as planning director for the City of Montpelier. The email was sent between private accounts, never touched a city account or city server, and it is only bad fortune that it had not been deleted in the 17 months prior to her request. This quote, as selectively excerpted, includes curses and plain language not intended to be repeated. Standing alone, it sounds immature and vindictive, and I’d like to provide the context. The email was my initial gut response to a notice from a planning commissioner that the new zoning draft includes a 10acre zone — completely contrary to the Montpelier council’s longstanding goal of promoting development within the remaining developable parcels of our city — and that this major change was being spearheaded by then-director Hallsmith without any notice to the council, as we had asked her to provide in the event of substantive policy changes. Mayoral candidate Hallsmith and her supporters have suggested that this email reflects a lack of civility. I’d suggest, rather, that using partial disclosure
TIM NEWCOMB
to discredit political opponents is far less befitting our Vermont character than letting fly an expletive in private company. Andy Hooper
MONTPELIER
DOPEY ASSERTION
I am writing in response to the Straight Dope published on February 12. Although I realize the article was not written by Seven Days staff, I believe Seven Days still holds accountability for the words that it publishes. The article begins with, “You know how in some cultures men can show their uncovered mugs in public but women have to wear a bag over their heads?” This sentence perpetuates negative stereotypes about Islam and disrespects religious and cultural traditions by referring to hijab as a “bag” and implying that Islam is backward. These stereotypes play out in very real ways in the lives of Muslim women who wear hijab — from harassment to violent hate crimes to racial profiling to systemic employment discrimination to denial of access to public spaces. The point — that there are double standards regarding female and male bodies — could have and should have been made by critiquing dominant culture, which has no lack of examples of this. Corey Mallon BURLINGTON