Rutland Daily Herald from Rutland, Vermont • 4

TirSTif 3r 'it vv A4 Rutland Daily Herald Wednesday, October 17, 2007 Rutland Daily Herald FROM ARTICLE XVIII OF THE VERMONT BILL OF RIGHTS (Adopted July 1777) 'That frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, and a Arm adherence to justic moderation, temperance industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty, and keep government free." R. JOHN MITCHELL. President and Publisher RANDAL SMATHERS, Editor DAVID R. MOATS. Editorial Page Editor S1 ROBERT M1TCHEI.L, Editor and Publisher (1942-1993) Wednesday, October 17, 2007 7 James L.

Oakes Letters to the Editor Following the shooting, Oakes had immediately gone to the ministers house to show support. When he sent his deputy attorney general, Frank Mahady, to investigate the shooting, the shooter was found within a day. Oakes political career ended in 1968 when Deane Davis defeated him in the Republican primary for governor. Oakes was aligned with the liberal wing of the Republican Party that included George Aiken, Ernest Gibson, and Oakes law partner, Robert Gannett, who became a longtime senator from Windham County. The attorney general who followed him into office, James Jeffords, was part of that tradition, as well.

That tradition encompassed respect for the environment, and in a case that came before the Appeals Court, Oakes wrote a decision upholding Vermonts landmark land-use law, Act 250. Developers at Stratton had challenged the right of the state to limit their use of the land, and they were supported by conservatives who argued that the taking of property rights by government was unconstitutional. Oakes ruling was a strong defense of the governments power to balance property rights with other interests, such as environmental protection. Oakes was revered as a judge and loved as a human being. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Oakes was the model of what a great judge should be learned in the law, but ever mindful of the people law exists to service.

Sen. Patrick Leahy said, He would have been extremely well-qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Oakes has now passed on. Lawmakers and judges must now ensure that the constitutional principles he spent his life defending survive him. James L.

Oakes of Brattleboro was the kind of scholarly and humane judge who gives liberal activism on behalf of constitutional principles a good name. Oakes, who died on Satin day, was 83 years old. President Nixon appointed him to U.S. District Court in Vermont in 1970 and then named him to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1971.

On the Appeals Court he became known for numerous important rulings, including, famously, a dissent in the case of the Pentagon Papers. Oakes did not agree with the majority of the Appeals Court who supported the right of the Nixon administration to bar publication of the Pentagon Papers by The New York Times. The Supreme Court agreed with Oakes, and The Times was victorious. Oakes was a stout defender of press freedom, arguing that the press had a role, not just as a check on the malfeasance of government, but as a powerful vehicle for the effective functioning of a government that by definition is democratic in nature. Oakes believed judges had a duty to defend our fundamental rights.

In an article he wrote for The Columbia Law Review, he said he was not impressed by politicians who condemned such rulings as judicial activism. History sometimes demands action from judges, he said, when the rest of our political structure bogs down. In the 1960s Oakes was a Republican state senator and then attorney general, and in the latter role he showed he was willing to stand up against racism. It happened during the notorious Irasburg Affair. Someone had fired a gun into the home of a black minister and his family in Irasburg, and local investigators managed not to find the culprit, instead naming the minister on a trumped-up charge of adultery.

A still, small voice Making strides on child welfare Over the past couple of weeks, articles and letters in the Rutland Herald have highlighted problem areas in our child welfare system, which is overseen by the Department for Children and Families. Most recendy, a writer described significant deficiencies at the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center, Vermont's only juvenile detention facility. Many of the worst problems described in that letter have already been corrected. As a foster parent and state legislator, improving our child welfare system is one of my top priorities. I have personally experienced some of the often intense frustrations of working with the child welfare system.

But I have also some of the most extraordinarily dedicated and generous people I have ever met, including staff, case managers, administrators, foster parents, and guardians ad litem, among others. It is a complicated system, attempting to balance many complex needs and relationships, while trying to protect and care for some of the most vulnerable and hurt members of our community. Last winter, I toured Woodside with other members of the House Committee on Human Services, inspecting improvements already under way and talking with staff about remaining gaps and needs. In the 2007 session the Legislature appropriated $300,000 for renovations that will provide a classroom separate from the living room where residents spend most of their time. On a more recent tour 1 checked with staff and confirmed that the facility now has an automatic sprinkler system and air conditioning.

Locks are controlled by a central electronic system and do not require staff to open them manually with keys. I was also pleased to note bright, fresh paint in the main living areas. Psychologist Dan Hughes has noted that when a child is in the custody of the state it means that every adult citizen of the state is responsible for that child. Thats an awesome responsibility, and I take it very seriously. This fall, members of several legislative committees will review key sections of Vermont law dealing with children and families.

We hope to continue this work in the coming legislative session with the goal of improving the way the system works for our children and their families. There is unquestionably a lot of room for improvement in the way we carry out this responsibility, and it will require the participation of our entire community. Rep. PEG ANDREWS Rutland Putting surplus to good use I am writing today to the voting public in my home town of Fair Haven. Unlike most communities in the United States, you are in the position to maintain your economic surplus, improve your citizens qualify of life, and lower their future tax bills, the world and environment improved in the process.

As Benjamin Franklin said, An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Most communities in the developed world realize that energy costs have begun to redline." Most families and communities in the United States and elsewhere have realized that transportation and energy economics have become something very different. Our boilers have begun to seem more like monsters in the basement that steal our money while we sleep. The oil age that our parents raised us in is becoming a very tough society to maintain. These sentiments have become more and more evident from what we are being told by the oil industry itself.

British Petroleum BP has recently changed names to Beyond Petroleum. Chevron has created the Web project www.willyoujoinus.com. Here, visitors are informed by one of the worlds largest oil producers that the age of cheap oil is over. On this page, visitors are encouraged to play a video game in which they are in charge of energy production and infrastructure decisions for a large city. The obvious message of the game is that communities will no longer be able to prosper without diversifying their means of heating buildings, transportation, and electricity.

It does not take much research to discover that the lions share of the scientific community has accepted that the peak of the oil age is upon its and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. What lies before us is eithef feast or famine, depending on preparedness. In a world were my children will see the worlds population double by the time they are my age (31), what will they see oil prices do? Demand for energy from an astounding world population will be the greatest issue in the coming decades. This is the very reason that the voters of the town of Fair Haven, and all other Vermont communities, should unite to see that their surplus tax money be spent on cutting edge alternative heating technology, energy conservation, investments in renewable energy, and attracting said industries to our area. A large investment now will pay off when energy comes on sun rays and wind for years to come.

Thomas Edison may have said itbest, when he told Harvey Firestone, Id put my money on solar energy I hope We dont have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that. That was in March of 1931. We should get to work on that, shouldnt we? MIKESTANNARD Castleton Galloping galumpkis! Heres a cause to stir the blood of us gazillions of galoots of ga-slavic ancestry! My sainted babushka used to make the very best slow-baked golubtzi (singular: golubetz). Golabkis, schlolabkis! I first tasted glumpki (without the a and the s) that were made by the ladies of the Carpatho-Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was located near East Main Street in Bridgeport, as a church fund-raiser some 40-plus years ago. I can still occasionally get glumpki at the bazaars held semi-annually by Holy Trinitv Orthodox Church here in Springfield.

However you spell em, they are, in all their Slavic variety, gaga-1 ischious! BORIS G. von YORK Springfield Does horn violate noise ordinance? I find it truly amazing that in a time of worrying about everyone's feelings that we again have these narrow-minded individuals speaking about traditionUnd memories past. Is there trAly a need for the 10 of 9 whistlfc, or any other soundings of this horn? To Ms. Coutermarsh of Bradford, perhaps if you love the sound of this obnoxious and ridiculous tradition, you should have it moved to your town so you may enjoy this heritage first-hand, and perhaps you should rethink comparing this noise to the sweet and rather light tone of church bells, as they are two totally different sounds. To Mr.

Barbagallo and other aldermen that are involved in trying to institute another sounding of this device, I ask these simple questions and try to jog your memories or at least a flicker of a thought in your minds. Was it not to long ago an ordinance was voted in to limit the bass and decibel level of radios in vehicles traveling the city streets? What was that decibel level that was established for this purpose, and has anyone checked the level of this horn, and if so, is it under the ordinances guidelines? Do we not have an ordinance limiting the use of engine retarders (Jake brakes) within the city limits and for what reason? In this day and age do we not provide pagers for our firemen, and do they not have phones at their residences to alert them that their presence is required? Is there still a curfew in effect, as some state this was what the horn was needed for? What purpose other than tradition do you feel this horn serves, and during its absence were there any catastrophic events that this horn or its blowing would have prevented? In short, how can an elected embodied group of officials feel that it is a do-as-we-say-and-not-as-we-do situation? You should give the permanent resident vdters within a quarter mile the horn a chance to vote on this issild or at the very' least a recorded say in it. Secondly there is no need for a trial blowing in the morning, we all know what this contraption sounds like. I for one have been awakened by its use on many occasions in the early morning hours all the way on Oak Street at my residence, and I believe that it has never been documented as saving anyone. If I am wrong in that assumption, please prove it to me.

Please think before you act, or at least think before you speak, as I am silttf it will give the residents of the city a little more faith in our drifted officials in a time when you all need it desperately. DALEHAZZARD Rutland The Churchill of our times ii. I am oveijoyed that A1 Gbre just won the Nobel Prizd In many ways, A1 Gore is the Winston Churchill of the 21st century. Like Churchill he warned of the greatest crisis of the times and was ignored as the crisis built. Like Churchill, the machinations of politics prevented him from leadership in the ordinary course of events (though A1 Gore as robbed in 2000).

Both were saved for the right moment. ThL moment is now. ED WEISSMAN Dorset think about strategy, its about better ways to present Me. When they craft positions, they want to know, what does this say about Me? No normal person can withstand the onslaught of egotism and come out unscathed. And so there are two kinds of politicians: Those who become creatures of the process, and those who, like Pryce, resist and retain the capacity to be appalled by what they must do.

An amazing number gladly surrender. Public people almost eagerly dehumanize themselves, Meg Greenfield wrote in Washington, her memoir. They allow the markings of region, family, class, individual character and, generally, personhood that they once possessed to be leached away. At the same time, they construct a new public self that often does terrible damage to what remains of the genuine person. These politicians become denatured pantomimes.

They have no thoughts in private that are different from the bromides they utter in public. They confuse public image with real self. They talk to you as an individual the same way they would address a large crowd. These simulated creatures end up successful, Greenfield emphasized, but also sad and lonely. They become the victims of the tawdry scandals that blow up from time to time (like Larry Craig) But the other politicians the more interesting and impressive ones struggle to preserve their personal integrity.

Many of those who struggle hardest have suffered a personal trauma, like the death of a child or time in a POW camp, which has created a private space that they refuse to sacrifice to politics. When I asked Deborah Pryce to reflect on her time in the House, it wasnt the political issues that she remembered most. It was the people she admired (like Dennis Hasten) and the personal moments of compassion and bravery: for instance, the time Sonny Bono tried to rally the troops with an inspirational description of his own setbacks and recoveries; the time Chris Shays, the Republican moderate, was booed by his own caucus. Pryce has retained that honest, inner voice, and she has decided to retire after this term. Its not as rewarding being in the minority, she says, and with the new, longer workweek, its harder to get home to her adopted daughter.

David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times. A few weeks ago, I interviewed Deborah Pryce, the Republican congresswoman, in her Washington office. There was a doll propped up against a windowsill, and I wanted to ask her if it had belonged to her daughter, who died of cancer at age 9 in 1999. But that question seemed to Observer trespass on something David Brooks Qut of bounds, so I asked about her re-election campaign in 2006. Her Ohio House race had been one of the toughest in the entire country.

And when I brought it up, I expected her to talk about the vicious ads that had been run against her. Instead, she talked about the ads that she had put on the air against her opponent. I was appalled by what I had to do, she said. In close races, the national parties send teams of professionals to take over campaigns, and the candidates who resist their efforts generally lose. When Pryce spoke about the direct-mail letters that went out under her name, she did so with a look of disgust She said that her friends kept coming to herto complain about the TV ads she was running against her opponent Finally, her own mother told her she was ashamed of the ads.

The truth is, Pryce opponents did worse. But it was her own ads that she kept dwelling on, and as she spoke, I could see that shed been fighting the war that the best politicians fight the war within herself to preserve her own humanity. Politics, as you know, is a tainted profession. Professional politicians cannot serve their country if they do not win their races, and to do that they must grapple with a vast array of forces that try to remold and destroy who they are. There are consultants who try to turn them into prepackaged clones.

There are party whips demanding total loyalty. There is a culture of workaholism that strangles private life and private thinking. There are journalists who define them based on a few ideological labels. And then there is the soul-destroying act of campaigning itself. Active campaigners are compelled to embrace the ideology of Meism.

They spend their days talking endlessly about Me. When they meet donors, they want to know if they are giving to Me or Against Me. Whtn tHby meet advisers and fellow pols, they want to know, do they support Me or not Me. When they.