WEEK IN REVIEW
encourage and nurture civil rights when you can sink a sharpened heel into a side without any regard for pain and suffering? Not unlike King Sisyphus, who labored in an endless and futile task, Flory squandered time and monumental effort to deny a basic human right given easily to so many man-and-woman couples: the right to marry a same-sex partner. Her comment that she has “no problem with homosexuality” shows her inability to see marriage as anything but a sexual issue — or even to refer to gays in a modern vernacular. The fact that her contemporaries could only muster the weak comment that they “respect” her says it all. She’s an ogre who will not be missed by anyone who values civil and united discourse. Christopher Maloney
WASHINGTON
BIG BROTHER IN VERMONT
TIM NEWCOMB
Bruce Marshall
ROCHESTER
individuals with intellectual disability (ID) were un- or underemployed. Many were isolated in sheltered workshops where most workers had a disability, were paid below minimum wage and had little expectation of competitive integrated employment (CIE). WIOA and CIE secure the dignity of economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities. CIE occurs in environments where individuals with disabilities work alongside, and are reimbursed at rates comparable to, nondisabled coworkers. Although Vaughn’s plan contemplates paying at least minimum wage, he apparently plans on hiring only individuals with ID. Consequently, his employees will be denied the opportunity to work alongside nondisabled friends, peers and neighbors, reminiscent of the days when individuals with ID were segregated in sheltered workshops. I realize Perky Planet is not intended to be a sheltered workshop. However, I am concerned it is not CIE. It could become so if Vaughn tweaked his business plan by also hiring workers without disabilities. Jane Callahan
WORK ETHICS
I salute Dick Vaughn for recognizing the value of workers with disabilities and for his desire to hire them [Side Dishes: “Level Grounds,” March 14]. However, the community at large, and the disability community in particular, would benefit more if his plan included hiring both disabled and nondisabled workers. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was enacted to address employment challenges facing people with disabilities. Prior to its passage, most
RUTLAND
Callahan works in Vermont Legal Aid’s Client Assistance Program
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CORRECTIONS
Last week’s 802Much story, “Endless Highway,” misattributed a quote to Steve Goodkind. It was Charles Simpson who said the Champlain Parkway would send the South End art and tech sectors into a “death spiral.”
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“Family Foundations in Vermont Quietly Manage Vast Holdings” also contained an error. It was Lyman Orton’s parents who founded the Vermont Country Store. Additionally, Community Heart & Soul is an initiative of the Orton Family Foundation.
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[Re “Trigger Warning: Business Is Brisk for Vermont Company Trying to Stop School Shooters,” March 14]: Among Seven Days’ standard fare of hemp-fiber kite manufacturers, kombucha Champagne bubblers, local haberdashers, homegrown politicians and high-wire musical acts, we now have a report on a new local firm, Social Sentinel, that makes its living monitoring children’s social media communications through artificial intelligence algorithms in the name of “school safety.” Frankly, the title of the article should have been “Big Brother in Vermont: Spying on Children Is Brisk Business.” The establishment of a privatized “thought police” monitoring communications is very disturbing, further demonstrated by
the doublespeak from CEO Gary Margolis, who implies he could have prevented the Parkland, Fla., tragedy while also saying that school shootings are not going away. The FBI certainly had all the information on the supposed murderer, so mere information did nothing, especially when witness accounts by teachers and students of that tragedy — that there was more than one shooter, that the shooter was wearing full body armor, that there was a live shooter drill that day and that there were police outside the whole time who did nothing to help — are now suppressed by the media and our elected reps as being “conspiracy theories.” What is perpetuating school violence is exactly these attitudes that cannot envision schools without violence, because violence is big business, from movies and video games to F-35s. Too much trust, principle and love have been lost — like the one-room schoolhouses that made Vermont a more civilized place.
4/9/18 2:48 PM