New Hampshire Wants YOU

Those of us avidly following the Vermont secession story in the press should check out a few newspaper stories filed in the last week or so.

This one from the Christian Science Monitor puts SVR in the broader context of secession movements around the country, and includes some interesting stuff about the historical case for and against secession's legality.


And this Boston Globe story is an update on a related secession story - Killington's bid to leave Vermont for a life of giddy tax-free abandon in the Granite State. I say we let 'em go ... Live free or die!

The interesting thing is that New Hampshire seems suspiciously eager for this to actually go ahead:

"CONCORD, N.H. --A New Hampshire commission established to help Killington secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire didn't have much to discuss at its first meeting Wednesday. That's because Vermont hasn't established a similar commission to work out the secession details.

Regardless, commission Chairman John Hunt insists the New Hampshire panel's existence sends a clear message to Vermont -- or any other state -- that citizens have a right to seek other alliances if their complaints aren't addressed.

"They (Vermont officials) might see this as a joke. I don't," said Hunt."

Hmmm.... what's going on over there?

That Way

This little video has nothing whatsoever to do with Vermont, but it's both funny and deeply frightening. And do watch it to the end - it only gets crazier. Don't play it at work, or any other place where being clocked listening to a '90s boyband might damage your reputation. An appreciative shout-out to my homie back in the Manchizzle, Conscious & Verbal.

I Want It That Way

Verbloggers in the Flesh

A late report on the weekend’s Vermont blogger meetup at Langdon Street Café in Montpelier. It was pretty cool – twenty people there or so and I think everyone had a good time. This was only my second blogger meet-up, and it was a lot more pleasant than the first.

I started blogging back in 2003, in New York City, and went to a blogger meetup organized by the folks behind the excellent NYC Bloggers site, which has spawned ripoffs in nearly every city where they have a subway map and some where they don’t. The main things I remember about that event, held at some anonymous bar in Hell’s Kitchen, was that everyone wrote their url instead of their name on the ‘Hello, My Name Is …’ stickers they gave us to wear, and nobody drank much. Most of the people there were a little tense and distracted because they were trying desparately to ingratiate themselves with Meg Hourihan and Jason Kottke (the Posh n’ Becks of the blogosphere.) It was kind of uncomfortable, and more than a little boring.

But the blogger meetup in Vermont was just as I’d expected: a laid-back gathering of people who were friendly and a little quirky, but who definitely had a sense of humor about their own geekiness. Some nice chats were had. The Vermont blogging community seems to really be getting off the ground, and for this big props must go to Cathy Resmer and Seven Days for spreading the good word. It’s especially impressive for a newspaper to be leading the charge, since most newspapers either see blogs as unwelcome competition or don’t really understand what a blog is.