Vermonter.com

I remember when the Sunday edition of the Burlington Free Press used to have 5 or 6 pages loaded to the hilt with jobs. This was back around 1999. IBM was booming and tech jobs were hotter than the tattoos on Angelina Jolie’s butt. Now, jobs (say nothing of good paying tech jobs) are few and far between. A visit to the Sunday Free Press reveals only a meager page or two of jobs. Nurses were recently laid off from Fletcher Allen when just a couple years ago, hospitals couldn’t find enough nurses in the USA and were importing them in. What happened to Vermont?

While the rest of the world was busy tending to business, the liberal nutcases in Vermont were pushing “alternative lifestyle” agendas instead of promoting jobs. Mayor Kiss (my butt) of Burlington, another liberal nut job, was actually pushing to make Burlington a sanctuary city for illegal criminal aliens. Thankfully, that did not happen. What next – sanctuary cities for pedophiles and murderers?
Now, we have very few jobs and a lot of lazy, obese teenagers who cannot be motivated to pull up their own pants. Illegal Mexican workers are being brought to Vermont to do the work that teenagers used to do back in the 70′s during school summer vacations. The bleeding hearts want to assure these criminal farmers and Mexicans fair wages and living conditions. And who will pay for this? The working class (or what is left of it) people of Vermont. I never thought I’d see the day when taxpayers were being forced to pay for programs to benefit criminals. Don’t like the word “criminals”? Not politically correct? Too bad, it is what it is. When the rest of us start robbing banks (or better yet the homes of our liberal legislators) to pay our bills, maybe we could use some funding too? Oh but you say that is “criminal behavior” and people who rob and steal should go to jail? The law is the law and illegal is illegal. If you’re a criminal, you go to jail or get deported. Simple enough?
Let’s talk about refugees brought to Vermont, given food stamps, apartments and cell phones. As a working taxpayer, I would like to know why these people cannot work on Vermont farms? Why is there a need for welfare in Vermont when we have many able bodied (and many who could certainly afford to work and shed a few pounds) sitting at home, every day, creating more little career welfare recipients at our expense? Criminal workers, who needs them? We’ve got plenty of people who can work or go hungry from their own laziness.
Thank God for Jim Douglas. Unfortunately, the last bastion of common sense in Montpelier may soon be gone. Once the democrats have full control of Vermont, hold on to your wallets! Many of the more wealthy people in Vermont are now leaving, driven out by outrageous taxes and liberal foolishness. I guess that leaves the shrinking working class to pay for everything. Those who cannot afford to leave but must make do in order to stay.
Yes, the farmers are hurting and I sympathize with them but so are other working people and companies. Hiring criminals is not the answer though and something really needs to be done. It would be nice to see Vermont take the lead in common sense again but I fear that most real Vermonters have already “left the building”. Take Back Vermont indeed!
Here’s something I found posted on the ‘net. It’s a point of view from someone who is not from Vermont but has a keen sense of what is going on:

I own a little piece of Vermont because I love the rivers and Mountains and forests. I like her people too. The liberals are not as bad as they are in NYC or Boston or Philly though, they will actually treat a black person as an equal–unlike in Boston, Philly or NYC. the taxes are what makes it a bad liberal state really. the flatlanders came in to drive up prices like the Californians did to beautiful Oregon and Washington and Now Idaho and Arizona, forcing the working native Vermonters into a de facto peasantry–I have seen it happen to so many communities around the US and sadly to the wonderful state of VT.

Thankfully, the rain held off during a fantastic Elton John concert at the Essex Junction fairgrounds on July 21. 2008. The concert started off with an old classic, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding and continued on at full steam for the rest of the night. For a guy in his sixties, you wouldn’t know it. Elton John still has a few acrobatic tricks left and he didn’t hesitate to use them. The music itself was fantastic and his voice only began to show signs of wearing out during the beginning of the finale. His voice was a bit hoarse on his last DVD, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case during this performance.

Near the end of the concert, I was down front shooting some video near the stage. All of the sudden, all hell broke loose and the crowd rushed to the front of the stage. The security guy tried to restrain people but he was soon overwhelmed by the crowd. I was actually pushed to the front of the stage by the crowd but unfortunately, my video camera battery died just as I was 6 feet away from Elton John, preparing for some close-up shots.
After a few minutes, I struggled back through the crowd to my seat. Better to leave the space for the number of kids scrambling to get to the stage for autographs. I was surprised to see Elton John take several minutes to autograph everyone’s items just before the finale and at the end of the show. Most artists are pretty aloof and don’t bother to interact with the audience. To see a legendary performer such as Elton John take the time to be so gracious with his fans was the icing on the cake after one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended.
Sir Elton John indeed!

Got to see half of Pink Floyd (in the form of David Gilmour and Richard Wright) and a spectacular laser show at Radio City Music Hall in NYC on 4/4/06. Flew down to JFK just hours before the last snowstorm in northern Vermont to a nice sunny day in Manhattan. Quite a treat and the side trip to Ferraro’s in Little Italy for cannolis wasn’t too shabby either!

As for the concert (the first of just a few in the USA) things got off to a rocky start. Apparently a group of overzealous fans waited at JFK for Gilmour and his entourage to arrive and hounded him and other band members for autographs. They were traveling with their families and I guess the kids got a bit scared. One of them was assaulted by a “fan”. Nice welcome huh?

As for the concert itself, I was pretty lucky considering what most people went through. I had a second row ticket and was able to stand at the edge of the stage where most people were fairly well behaved except for one or two morons. Up in the mezzanine and other seats, there were a few fights, drunks and people smoking dope. Listening to a bootleg from this show, it’s pretty apparent that the NYC vocabulary is limited to “F*** You!” this and that for just about all occasions. Pretty sad. I’ll never understand why some people will pay big bucks for concert tickets only to attend and act like boorish idiots at every opportunity. I think next time I’ll skip New York though and head for a more civilized city where people actually go to a concert to enjoy it not make asses of themselves. If you want to read more about the infamous opening night in New York City, read the blog at www.davidgilmour.com

So much for the crowd festivities! The concert itself was absolutely spectacular. The first half was David Gimlour’s new album (the whole thing with special guests Dave Crosby and Graham Nash). The second half was all Pink Floyd with lasers, fog and sonic perfection. Probably the best concert I’ve ever been to and well worth the trip. Oh yeah, I know people in NYC are supposed to rude, etc. but everyone we met at hotels, restaurants, etc. were very nice. Must be all the bad ones found their way into the concert.