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(01/21/15 11:46pm)
On Dec. 17th, Governor Peter Shumlin announced that he was terminating his four-year quest to begin single-payer, government-run health care for residents of Vermont. In his press conference, Shumlin emphasized the economic risks that would have accompanied the single-payer plan.
“The cost of that plan turned out to be enormous, requiring an 11.5 percent payroll tax on all Vermont businesses and a public premium assessment of up to 9.5 percent of individual Vermonters’ income,” Shumlin wrote in his blog. “Further, the phase-in for smaller businesses and those that do not currently offer insurance would add an additional $500 million to the system. These are tax rates that I cannot responsibly support or urge the Legislature to pass. In my judgment, the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families and the state’s economy.”
Vermont has been involved in a long search for affordable health care. In 2010, the state established a commission to study different forms of health care the state could implement. Single-payer was chosen as the best option. In 2011, the Vermont state government passed H 202, which established Green Mountain Care. Green Mountain Care was a step towards universal health care for Vermonters. The Green Mountain Care Board was created in the same year to oversee Green Mountain Care’s design, and to make sure that it remained a health care system that could serve the needs of every Vermonter.
The state had expected to get $150 million in federal help to put the Green Mountain Care system in place and an additional $150 million in Medicaid assistance.
Single-payer health care involves the government paying as an insurer for all health care costs, rather than private insurers. Unlike single-payer health care systems in countries such as Canada or the UK, private insurers in Vermont could still operate, and even offer general health care.
The decision to try single-payer was a controversial one, and many argued from the beginning that a single-payer system would never work. Four days after Shumlin’s decision to end the program, Forbes published an article titled “Six Reasons Why Vermont’s Single-Payer Health Plan Was Doomed From the Start.” Scott Milne, Shumlin’s close opponent in the gubernatorial election, called for abandoning single-payer early on in the election season.
However, the decision to stop the single-payer program has been highly protested. On Thursday, Dec. 18, approximately 80 protestors gathered on the steps of the Statehouse for a demonstration in favor of single-payer health care. The protestors chanted slogans berating Shumlin, such as “which side are you on, Shumlin?” Several demonstrators burned their medical bills. After the rally, the demonstrators delivered a tray of burnt toast to Shumlin’s office with a note that said, “Dear Shumlin, your career is toast.”
On Jan. 8, more protesters rallied against the demolition of the single-payer system for Vermont, and later sat on the floor of the House and refused to leave. 29 of these protestors were arrested when police tried to close the building at 8 p.m. that night. Nine out of the 29 were charged with resisting arrest.
The Vermont Workers’ Center has played a crucial role in organizing the protests, and started a campaign called “Healthcare is a Human Right” in 2008. According to its website, “Since 2008, the Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign has been organizing to make universal healthcare a reality in Vermont. In 2011, our people’s movement succeeded in getting a groundbreaking law passed: Act 48, which commits Vermont to creating a healthcare system providing healthcare as a public good and ensuring everyone can get the healthcare they need, when they need it.”
The campaign members argue that if Vermont can successfully implement publicly financed universal healthcare, other states will follow suit.
An open letter titled “Now is the Time for Green Mountain Care,” which urges the government and legislature to stand by Act 48 and the creation of a publicly financed healthcare system under Green Mountain Care, has been signed by over 60 organizations, including Amnesty International.
“I know this is a huge disappointment to many Vermonters,” said Shumlin on his blog. “I know because I am one of those Vermonters who has fought for this to succeed. While the time is not right today, we must not give up on health care reform. We are doing transformational things in Vermont when it comes to the way we deliver health care.”
Some critics claim that Shumlin’s timing in announcing his decision to drop single-payer efforts was politically motivated. However, Shumlin’s staff insists that he did not have the complete financial analysis on single-payer’s tax increases until after the Nov. 4th election. Shumlin failed to win the majority of votes in the general election, and was only voted in as governor by the Vermont Legislature on Jan 8.
Shumlin has not given up hope for healthcare reform in Vermont, but believes that pushing for single-payer system now, when the state is not yet ready, will jeopardize its future.
“Those reforms can and must continue,” he wrote on his blog, “and our success will lay the groundwork for future efforts to implement a publicly-financed health care system. While now is not the right time for Vermont to take such a step, the time will come.”
(01/21/15 11:12pm)
J-term is generally recognized as a time for intensive academic exploration of typically non-traditional subjects, and the unique format of the four-week semester allows for a variety of options not present during a full semester. This year, Isaac Baker ’14.5 is spending his last J-term leading a student-taught course, ‘Microgrid Feasibility Study,’ with a small group of 13 students.
A microgrid is a smaller, more localized version of the larger power grid that brings distributed energy resources like wind, solar and natural gas closer to where energy is being used. In this case, the larger power grid in the area is operated by Green Mountain Power (GMP), which currently supplies approximately 80 percent of the College’s electrical demand.
The creation of a microgrid would allow the College’s electrical system to better withstand extreme climate events because the microgrid can operate as an island, called ‘islanding,’ allowing the community to operate independently without the larger grid in emergency situations. Energy for this kind of scenario could be generated by the biomass plant, which accounts for the other 20 percent of the College’s electrical needs, and a large part of the course is based on research of other sustainable energy methods to meet needs in the case of a major disaster like an ice storm.
Since microgrids encourage efficiency – production and transportation of energy from hundreds miles away allows for 30 percent of energy burned to reach the College, while microgrids would allow a 70 to 80 percent return – they create financial incentive to build solar panels or invest in other areas of renewable resources. The utility company provides a more marginal service in with this infrastructure.
The idea, which is steeped in academic grounding, first struck Baker while attending the Middlebury College School of the Environment in the summer of 2014, and it developed during a follow-up independent study this fall as he simultaneously crafted an application to teach the J-term course.
“I came out of the summer really jazzed about this idea and the resilience of the college energy system,” Baker said. “I know that there was a student-led course last winter, ‘A People’s History of Middlebury,’ but this was the only other student-led course I had ever heard of at the College. I was really inspired by this kind of alternative, activist-y history that people were really into. So I thought, let’s take that and do something else with it.”
The process of submitting an application is relatively simple, with interested students treated much like visiting professors with the exception of a twelve-student enrollment cap and the involvement of a faculty advisor. Interested students, who are usually upperclassmen, speak with the registrar in the fall to express interest in the option. Baker tried to be realistic in his academic goals, especially knowing that his topic relied heavily on a lot of information not yet obtained.
“I spent the fall interviewing consultants and experts who have been involved in this sort of thing for years. The end goal is a conceptual design, where we spend four weeks and hopefully by the end we get to what I call the 10 percent plan. We can’t build a micro-grid with only the information we have because there’s knowledge that we lack and a lot of work that hasn’t been done. The goal is to reach the next step and hand it off to a consulting firm who would look at it and say ‘Let’s see how the rubber hits the road and get you to 80 percent.’”
As the idea percolated in Baker’s mind, he was concurrently reading about the history of carbon neutrality on campus through the efforts of many of the founders of 350.org, a group committed to cutting carbon and CO2 emissions founded by Bill McKibben and students in 2007. This group created a ‘Midd Shift Report,’ which went to the Board of Trustees and led to the adoption of carbon-neutrality goals completely driven as a result of student efforts. In his desire to envision the future of carbon neutrality once it has been achieved, Baker eagerly took the opportunity to teach a course less about grades and more about ideas.
Instead of opting for a more traditional lecture-discussion format like that used in last year’s student-led course, Baker wanted to draw on his experience with horizontal leadership and project-oriented campaign planning with Sunday Night Group (SNG), creating a forum where all participants were viewed as equals.
“The actual amount of me just writing information on the board is a very small percentage of class,” Baker said. “Most of it is facilitating discussion or calling on and helping other people share research they’ve done with the rest of the group. Really they’re the ones doing the work, they’re the ones creating this.”
Zach Berzolla ’18 decided to take the course because he wanted to explore innovative, alternative energy options for the College.
“We’ve been looking at some of the stuff going on at other campuses, and most schools are doing it because it makes pure financial sense,” Berzolla said. “We’re hoping to approach it with a little bit more of an environmental twist. If we go ahead and find some sort of renewable resource, ours will, to my knowledge, be pretty unprecedented, because very few are set up where the entire microgrid is renewable. Most have mixes and are based on fossil fuels.”
Baker has been pleasantly surprised by the initiative taken by the students. About half of the students in the course worked with Baker independently in the fall in the national *SparkCleanEnergy innovation competition to design a grid resilience API, winning third place, a $1,000 prize and a trip for two students to the ARPA-E Innovation Summit in Washington D.C. Through this team-based project on grid resilience, these students became more energized and confident about furthering their research on the topic.
“They are pulling from many disciplines and previous experiences. For example, some students have brought in some research on distributive generation that I hadn’t even thought of,” he said.
Berzolla explained that the class dynamic in the course extends beyond the usual class meetings.
“Our class ends at 4 but we always stay longer,” Berzolla said. “Conversations always continue. Class ends but things don’t really end.”
Though Baker has spent the better part of half a year carefully planning the course, he has adapted to unplanned challenges as they arise. Baker had assumed that implementing community guidelines would be an easy, intuitive process, but navigating group dynamics is always tricky, and Baker has adapted the curriculum to facilitate a comfortable environment for all class members.
“It’s so easy to just drift through a class and not really see the people you’re there with,” Baker said. “Forming an academic and intellectual community is really hard to do, so I think on a broad level what I’m most happy about is that people are really connecting. We’re spending time with each other inside of and outside of class in these formal and informal settings that are allowing people to get to know each other really well. It’s really special knowing that after I’ve graduated I’ll have people I have shared a really important part of my college experience with.”
Instead of instilling passion in students for only four or twelve weeks, the unique design of Baker’s course is inspiring long-term involvement among younger participants.
Berzolla is passionate about the opportunity to stay with this project throughout his time at the College.
“For me, and I think a lot of the other freshman, this will be our baby going forward,” he said. “This is something we worked on and proposed and it’s something we want to see get done.”
“I think it’s something we will all be passionate about. It will take time, but my hope is that we will see it happen while we’re here,” Berzolla said.
During the final week of the course, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, students in the course will present their original research on college infrastructure, information on the 10 percent conceptual plan, how other students can get involved and how the project will manifest in the future. Taking place at 4 p.m. in the Orchard Room of Hillcrest, the final presentation will be open to the community, with snacks provided by the Campus Sustainability Coordinators (CSCs).
In the coming weeks, Baker will be meeting with a variety of professors to discuss how smaller pieces of the puzzle he has been exploring can be integrated in the curriculum of other classes in the spring. His next meeting is with Professor of Psychology Michelle McCauley to discuss her spring 2015 Environmental Psychology course.
Luke Linden contributed reporting.
(01/20/15 12:46am)
After defeating Plattsburgh State 63-53 on Jan. 6, the Middlebury men’s basketball team suffered its first two defeats of the season to Bates and Tufts and fell to 0-2 in the NESCAC this week on its three-game road trip.
The Panthers extended their unbeaten streak when they traveled to Plattsburgh and toppled the Cardinals in a relatively low-scoring affair. After no scoring for the first three minutes of the contest, Middlebury drew first blood and built a 10-4 lead seven minutes into the opening half. Much of the first half followed the general pattern of more defense than offense — neither team shot better than 31 percent from the field — and Middlebury took a 28-22 lead into the break.
The Cardinals began the second half on a 6-0 run to tie the game at 28. With a one-point lead at the 15:23 mark, the Panthers exploded on a 9-0 run behind four points from Dylan Sinnickson ’15 and a three from Nick Tarantino ’18.
The margin ballooned to 49-36 in favor of the Panthers as they held the Cardinals without a made basket for almost five minutes. Plattsburgh State refused to cave, cutting the lead to six with just under eight minutes left, but they couldn’t get closer than that. Once again the Panther defense responded by allowing only five points over the final 7:42 to secure a 63-53 victory.
Sinnickson led the Panthers in scoring with 13 points, while also pulling down 13 rebounds. Brown stuffed the stat sheet, tallying 10 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals. First-year Tarantino provided a welcome spark off the bench with 11 points, including nine from beyond the arc.
The team then traveled to Lewiston, ME to do battle with Bates in its first NESCAC game. The game began as a see-saw affair — foreshadowing what would turn out to be a very tightly-contested contest — only to see Middlebury gain a 19-11 lead with 7:36 left in the first half. The Panthers couldn’t muster much else offensively in the half, and even fell behind 24-23 on the heels of a 7-0 Bobcat run to end the half.
The beginning of the second half was reminiscent of that of the first half with the teams exchanging blows, including a Sinnickson three that would give the Panthers a 33-32 lead, its last of the game. Bates went on a 10-0 run to take a nine point lead as it held the Panthers scoreless for more than four minutes, but the game was far from over. Middlebury hung around and even made it a one possession game, 48-46, with 5:20 to go.
The Panthers just couldn’t do what they had to offensively to win the game, and the Bobcats took good enough care of the ball and made their free throws to put the finishing touches on a 57-53 win.
In defeat, Sinnickson was the only scorer in double digits for the Panthers, finishing with 17 points and 10 rebounds for his eighth double-double in eleven games.
On the final leg of this three-game road trip, the Panthers hoped to get in the win column in NESCAC play against Tufts. The fact that Middlebury’s largest lead was 2-0 at the 18:35 mark summarizes the game for the Panthers. Following a 13-5 run, they trailed 18-11, and were playing from behind for the remainder of the contest.
At the halfway point, Middlebury trailed 38-26, with its only comfort being there are two halves in a basketball game. The tables turned at the beginning of the second half as the Panthers came out firing on all cylinders to knot the game at 47, scoring 21 points before the 13:50 point in the second half. The Jumbos answered right back with a 7-0 run and never looked back, extending its lead to 19 with a little of over five minutes left.
The final score read 80-63 in favor of the Jumbos who shot a blistering 61% in the second half, and got an amazing contribution of 41 points from its bench (compared to only nine from the Middlebury bench). Despite the loss, Sinnickson turned in another outstanding effort, scoring a very efficient 26 points on 10-16 shooting.
The Panthers hope to get back on track after its disappointing opening weekend in the NESCAC against Castleton in another nonconference game on Tuesday, before returning home for NESCAC games this weekend against Wesleyan on Friday and Connecticut College on Sunday.
(01/15/15 3:01am)
Last Wednesday, students who opened up the Middlebury.edu webpage found themselves looking at a baffling new logo. With the start of the New Year, the College has rolled out a new visual icon and brand identity system for the College and its affiliate institutions. The new logo – a shield featuring icons of Old Chapel, the Green Mountains, a book and a globe – is designed to give thematic unity to the various entities that make up the College. This array of institutions includes the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, the Middlebury C.V. Starr Schools Abroad, and the Middlebury School of the Environment. While it was undoubtedly a difficult task to unify all these schools under one icon, the new logo falls far short of what many students expected from a long term identity system.
Although there were a variety of meetings and forums held to discuss the visual icon as it was under development, the final product left many students and alumni confused and disappointed. An unscientific poll of the Campus’ Facebook and Twitter followers had nearly 80 percent of almost 200 respondents express disappointment with the logo. Many alumni, weighing in on social media, reminded others of the 2007 “maple leaf” logo for the College – a logo which was subsequently retracted after students and alumni expressed outrage at what they saw was the poor design and confusing imagery.
The most common critiques expressed by students have to do with the visual icon’s too-slick, corporate look and its use of the globe and book images. The Editorial Board agrees. After the logo’s rollout, some jokingly referenced how the globe and book call to mind the “emoji” images of a smartphone keyboard. Moreover, the globe is simply confusing; The World Bank and the World Wide Web both use a nearly identical “vortex” logo. As a result, some students expressed confusion as to whether the new image was a reference to international studies or technological innovation. The need to unify the College’s schools and programs is understandable, but the globe and book come across as simplistic and obvious. Middlebury is world-renowned for its strength in languages and international studies and the need to hammer home this strength with a globe image in the logo is perhaps misplaced.
Part of the blame has to be on us, the students. The numerous discussions and sessions outlining the plans for the new logo were opportunities for students to weigh in, and now that the end result is less than satisfactory, we have to acknowledge that perhaps we did not make our opinions known as much as we could have.
Nevertheless, overall the logo comes across as one lacking subtlety and not necessarily fit for the long-term. The Board would have liked to see a variety of options released to the public prior to the official launch to explore what the other possibilities were – a stylized “M”? A revamped College seal? Either of these would have been infinitely preferable to the final product that is theoretically here to stay. The Editorial Board hopes that we can reconsider the new visual icon; if not, we hope that the next visual icon is an improvement.
(01/15/15 1:20am)
The College has offered admission to 280 students for the Class of 2019 under its Early Decision I plan. Decisions were released on Saturday, Dec. 6, via an online portal, and physical copies were mailed to applicants’ homes a day prior. The admitted students will represent about 40 percent of the class, which is expected to total around 690 students.
The College recieved 8,864 applicants in total, an 8 percent increase from last year’s pool of 8,196. This year marks the second largest applicant pool in Middlebury’s history.
Gregory Buckles, Dean of Admissions, said that 667 students applied under the Early Decision I plan, a three percent decrease from last year’s Early Decision I applicant total. The College deferred 80 applicants, who will be considered in the regular admission pool, and denied admission to 307 applicants.
Last year’s admissions process exhibited similar trends. Of the 686 Early Decision I applicants for the Class of 2018, 287 were admitted, 96 were deferred and 303 denied. Over the past three years, the acceptance rate for Early Decision I applicants has consistently hovered around 42 percent.
Buckles said that the 280 accepted students are from 32 states, the District of Columbia, and 13 countries. These statistics are lower than those for the Class of 2018, whose early decision applicants hailed from 35 states, D.C., and 19 countries.
The College has allotted $4.2 million in need-based financial aid to award to early admits. 42 percent of the Early Decision I class will be awarded financial aid, marking a significant increase from last year. Middlebury’s early decision program binds applicants to commit to attending if accepted.
Furthermore, Middlebury has expanded its partnership with the Posse Foundation, which pairs minority students in urban areas with participating colleges across the country.
As a part of this program, thirty students in the Class of 2019 will receive full-tuition scholarships as they pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Middlebury has hosted a new Posse group of ten students from New York each year since 1999 and added a second Posse of ten students from Chicago in the fall of 2012. The third and newest Posse group of ten hails from Los Angeles as part of an initiative by the White House to improve the presence of minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers.
Several faculty members at the College will visit the Posse Foundation’s Los Angeles office in the spring to meet the students and to hold science workshops and classes.
“I’m particularly excited about the addition of our third STEM Posse,” said Buckles. “Our science faculty are looking forward to working with the group.”
The deadline for regular admission applications was January 1, with notification in late March. Applicants admitted via the Regular Decision plan will have until May 1 to decide whether or not to attend.
(12/03/14 11:19pm)
I know that there are plenty of issues floating around just in time for holiday conversations with your politically extreme family members. So in anticipation of this inevitable reality, I have chosen to revive an old topic that has recently lost some of its steam: the minimum wage.
For those of you who don’t remember, there were two serious proposals put forth by the Democrats with regards to the minimum wage. The first idea was to raise the wage to $10.10 an hour, or by about 40 percent. The second was to more than double the wage to $15 dollars an hour. The idea behind this was to help minimum wage workers make it through a rough economy by increasing their take home pay. Well, that all sounds great. However, raising the minimum wage is harmful to both workers and, more often than not, to the small businesses and franchises that employ them. Economically speaking, there are a few similar yet slightly different ways of viewing this issue from both the business’s and the worker’s point of view.
Let’s start with the business’s point of view. There is one assumption I am going to make here that shouldn’t really surprise anybody: businesses want to maximize their profits. So, the minimum wage is raised. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) cheers as business owners and CFOs scramble to figure out what they are going to do. The basic concept that needs to be grasped is that the value of the marginal product of a worker’s labor (VMPL) will equal the wage rate at the point of optimal employment (when profit is maximized). Also, due to the concept of diminishing marginal returns, VMPL is decreasing as more workers are hired. Therefore, if the wage increases, the new level of optimal employment will reflect a decrease in workers. To put it more simply, workers will get fired. That’s a very microeconomic way of thinking about the minimum wage.
The more macroeconomic description utilizes the tried and true concepts of supply and demand. The minimum wage is what economists call a “price floor.” In other words, it is a legally set lower limit on wages. This lower limit is put in place to stop markets from adjusting to the true equilibrium price, which is almost always below the price-floor. This causes there to be more labor supplied than labor demanded, and therefore there is a surplus of labor.
Yet a third way that businesses could view a raise in the wage is simply as an additional cost of production, which will most likely be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. So businesses face a choice: whether to fire workers, increase prices, or take lower profits. Duke University wondered how the business community would react, and in 2014 conducted a poll of CFOs, asking them how they would react to a higher minimum wage. Over 80 percent said they would lay off workers. Moreover, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a raise in the minimum wage would cost 500,000 jobs. So instead of “giving America a raise,” #raisethewage would give many Americans an effective income of $0. Pair that with our abysmal job market, with labor force participation at a 35-year low and the increased costs to business due to the new healthcare law, and the outlook isn’t stellar.
The drawbacks don’t stop there. A higher minimum wage would disproportionately harm young workers (16-25), especially young minority workers. This is because by raising the minimum wage, the risk towards the business of hiring a younger worker has increased. After the last minimum wage hike in 2007, the Cato Institute found that unemployment in young workers jumped from 15 percent to 25 percent. So for those of you hoping to find a summer job flipping burgers, a wage hike could set those plans on the back burner.
A minimum wage hike would have very different effects in different parts of the country. This is due to differences between regional costs of living. A $10.10 minimum wage would disproportionally hurt workers in areas with lower costs of living, because the VMPL there is less than in areas like New York City. Moreover, if one area — let’s say Seattle — decides to raise their minimum wage to not $10.10 but instead $15 (and the areas around the city don’t), then Seattle is going to see increased unemployment. This is increasingly unfortunate because the workers who got laid off probably can’t afford to commute to the suburbs each day for work. So, how are they better off? They are not. With the macroeconomic climate as uncertain as it is, “giving America a raise” could be detrimental for many businesses that already operate on thin profit margins.
Finally, I know everybody reading this has been thinking, “Well, what about big business?” It’s important to note that according to the Small Business Administration over 99.7 percent of employers are small businesses, and over 64 percent of private-sector job growth comes from small businesses. Even so, the remaining 0.3 percent of employers who allegedly are exploiting their workers need to be addressed. The American Enterprise Institute has done some work on this very subject of CEO-employee pay gap. They decided to use the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut as an example, and found that even if all executives took a 100% pay cut, wages for their 400,000+ workers would only increase by five cents an hour. So would it be better for the board of directors to give all workers a nominal pay raise, or secure the best possible executives to run the company? I’ll let you ponder that one.
(12/03/14 10:17pm)
The Middlebury men’s basketball team was able to stay unbeaten on the season, defeating Rensselaer 87-78 in its home opener on Sunday Nov. 30 to advance to 5-0 on the season.
After a week of rest, the Panthers were ready from the get-go as Matt St. Amour ’17 opened the scoring with a three-pointer just 14 seconds into the game. The game went back and forth for the opening 10 minutes, and the Engineers held a 15-14 lead with 10:30 left in the half. However, the Panthers did not stay behind for long, stringing together a 16-5 run over the next seven minutes to take a 31-19 lead.
They held onto the double-digit lead for the remainder, leading 39-29 at the halfway point behind a balanced effort that saw nine Panthers score. Starting guards Jake Brown ’17 and St. Amour led the way in the first half with eight and seven points respectively while Dylan Sinnickson ’15 and Connor Huff ’16 both chipped in five.
Middlebury opened the second half with another bang when Hunter Merryman ’15 splashed a three at the 19:49 mark to give the Panthers a 42-29 lead. However, it was not that easy for the Panthers though, as the Engineers fought back with a 16-4 run of its own to make it a one point game at 46-45 with more than 14 minutes left. Neither team could gain any decisive momentum over the next five minutes and the score remained within one possession until the nine-minute mark.
That fateful stretch began when Sinnickson drained a step-back three and finished a layup off Brown’s steal from Rensselaer’s Jonathan Luster, and St. Amour swiped the ball and recorded two points of his own to make it a 10 point game, 64-54. The Panthers put the game out of reach over the next five minutes, extending their lead to 17, 80-63, with just three minutes remaining.
The last three minutes were merely a formality as the Engineers managed to make the game a single-digit game, 87-78, when the final buzzer sounded.
However, the final score doesn’t really mirror the overall complexion of the matchup. The Panthers took much better care of the basketball, holding an 8-18 edge in the turnover battle. They were able to force turnovers and then capitalize on Rensselaer’s miscues by scoring 27 points off turnovers.
Brown attributes his team’s ability to create chaos defensively to a number of factors; “I think we’ve found certain lineups that allow us to pressure defensively while turning it into an up-tempo offense,” Brown said. “As the season goes on, I think guys are becoming more confident in their individual defense and team defense.”
While Rensselaer shot better from the field, 55.8% to only 49.3% for Middlebury, the Panthers made four more shots due to the fact that they attempted 15 more than Rensselaer.
Sinnickson once again cued his team offensively by tallying 18 points, while Brown added 14 points, five assists and six steals. Middlebury also got much more help from its bench, which scored 29 points to Rensselaer’s 12. First-year Jack Daly ’18 contributed 20 solid minutes off the bench, scoring three points and assisting three baskets, while fellow first-year Nick Tarantino ’18 added eight points and eight rebounds.
The Panthers traveled to Rutland to do battle with St. Joseph on Tuesday, Dec. 2, hoping to repeat their success against the Fighting Saints, whom they have defeated for the last five years—including a resounding 115-74 victory last year.
(11/19/14 11:49pm)
Erin has selected for this week one of the most complex and nuanced problems America has grappled with over the past fifty years: abortion. However, she also previously discussed another complex issue in Voter ID laws. I feel the need to address both, at least in part.
I’ll start with Voter ID laws. I am conditionally in support of voter ID laws. Most states have some form of Voter ID laws. In California you need to provide your drivers’ license number in order to register. In Hawaii you need to show a valid ID, with a signature, and sign a polling place book in order to vote. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New York and Washington all have forms of Voter ID laws. Even Vermont requires first time voters to show ID. So to say voter ID laws are a GOP plot to disenfranchise Americans is absurd.
Canada, along with many European and Latin American countries require identification as well, often going as far as requiring specific Voter ID’s. In Mexico you need to apply for, and pick up, your ID in person. In the U.S. it is much easier to obtain an ID for voting than in other countries that require it. In Georgia, if you cannot leave your home, a government worker will come to you. In many states IDs are subsidized or provided and/or you can use your social security number. If the state provides subsidized or free ID’s for low income individuals, and like Georgia makes the process accessible to the elderly who cannot leave their homes, then I am okay with these laws. Moreover, in the 21st century you need an ID to do everything from driving to opening a bank account. I realize there is much more to be said about these laws as they stand today, but I feel like California is actually doing a good job on this complex issue.
Now to gracefully transition to abortion. Erin made one claim that really bothered me in her last column, which I will not let slide. She claimed that it is hypocritical of Republicans to oppose abortions and still claim to be champions of small government. The fact is that those two are not mutually exclusive. Most individuals who oppose abortion oppose it because they believe that abortion is equitable with murder of an innocent human being. Defending the innocent and defenseless is a primary function of just government no matter how big or how small.
The real question lies in how you define an unborn fetus. That question gets into the definition of when life begins. If you believe, like many Christians do, that life begins at conception, then it makes sense that you would be opposed to abortion in total. The Supreme Court has deliberated on this issue in several famous and consequential decisions, mainly Roe v. Wade, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. I will not bore you with the details, but I will share with you the key things to take from these cases. First is the notion of a “compelling state interest.” The court recognized the state interest in both the health of the mother and the potential human life in the fetus. The second major portion of understanding the decisions is the notion of “viability,” which was preceded by the trimester system. The commonly thrown around statement of “a women’s right to choose” I find to be an oversimplification of a very complex issue.
For me, the bottom line is that late term abortions (in the third trimester or after the point of “viability”) are barbaric and no matter how you slice it, they should not be allowed in a civil society. However, the personal decision argument has more weight in the period before “viability,” in my opinion. Keep in mind I was not raised as a Christian, so naturally comprehension of this complex issue is not particularly a question of faith. I feel that Senator Elect Cory Gardner (R-CO) has actually found an important issue to tackle, making the pill more readily available by allowing it to be sold over-the-counter. I feel that Gardner is striking a more healthy balance of opinion amongst my own party. Moreover, Gardner’s position doesn’t upset the establishment clause as Obamacare’s requirements do.
However, Erin’s column last week did not stop at abortion, I take offense to the accusation of the Republican Party as being a merger of religion and politics, as Erin claimed it to be. For the sake of discussion, let’s take that accusation to hold true and try to correct it. Should all religious individuals be barred from politics, simply because they vote in a way that reflects their (and more often than not their constituent’s) religious convictions? The answer is no. Should religious members of Congress abstain from voting on issues on which their vote may be issued by their religious convictions? The answer is no again. Religion being reflected in congressional voting patterns of member is okay; and if it wasn’t, it would be the voters who would need to determine that.
Finally to claim that Republicans are somehow in the wrong for being composed of a majority of practicing Christians is not only wrong but to an extent hypocritical. Democrats time and time again claim to be courting Hispanic voters, whom are overwhelmingly Catholic (about 80% according to Pew Research) and may have dissenting opinions within the Democratic Party on social issues. According to Alexander de Tocqueville, the unique way in which religion in the United States occupies its own sphere of influence outside of government, but instead in society and politics is one of America’s greatest strengths; and I agree. Religion and religious groups (Tocqueville praises the Catholics) help foster civic participation and engagement that are critical to a democratic society.
(11/19/14 10:02pm)
Men’s and women’s Swimming and Diving started their 2014-2015 season last Saturday, Nov. 15 by traveling to New London, Conn. to take on Connecticut College in a dual meet. Both teams fell to the Camels, the women losing 153-127 and the men falling short with a score of 172-90. Despite Middlebury’s losses as a team, many athletes still had impressive results in the meet.
“Conn is really good,” Andy Lee ’15 said. “We did much better this time around than we’ve done in this meet in the past. This was by far our best performance against [Connecticut College].”
The men dominated the long distance arena, with Michael McGean ’17 going a 10:03.03 in the 1000 yard free to secure a first-place finish, helping Middlebury outscore Conn. College in the event 14-5. Andrew Rosenthal ’16’s second place finish and Eric Stanton ’17’s fifth place finish also contributed.
A few events later, first-year Matthew Lantin ’18 won the first event of his college career, clocking a 1:46.09 in the 200 free. Lantin’s score combined with with the third and fourth place scores of Connor McCormick ’18 and Andy Grant ’17 allowed Middlebury to edge Conn. College in this event as well.
The Panthers swept the 100 breaststroke on both the men’s and women’s side, with first-place finishes by Stephan Koenigsberger ’16 (58.67) and Jamie Hillas ’15 (1:06.17). Lydia Carpenter ’15 and Christina Denbow ’16 earned additional points on the 100 breast with their fourth and fifth place finishes.
As sprinter Bryan Cheuk ’16 won the 50 free with a time of 22:12, and Lantin collected another win in the 500 free (4:45.80), the men’s team continued to shine.
On the women’s side, Hillas registered two more victories in the 100 fly (59.19) and the 200 individual medley (2:12.90). To cap off the meet, Morgan Burke ’17, Megan Griffin ’16, Ann Carpenter ’15 and Courtney Haron ’15 were able to edge out the competition in the 200 free relay (1:41.69).
Elissa DeNunzio ’18, Middlebury’s only diver entered in the meet, contributed 18 points total for her performances in the 1-meter and 3-meter dives, faring particularly well in her first competition on the 3-meter board. Coach Kimi Schmidt looks forward to helping both DeNunzio and Stephanie Andrews ’18, who will be participating in future meets, realize their potential this season.
Head Coach Bob Rueppel said, “I was very “happy with the weekend. Out of the water the team dynamics were great, and I was very pleased with what we did in the pool” despite the losses. Rueppel emphasized that although dual meets are important, “our dual meet record doesn’t necessarily gauge what’s going to happen at the end of the year.” He is “excited about where we are as a team,” and remains “very optimistic as to where we can take this by NESCAC’s.”
The team members share Rueppel’s optimism. Lee noted, “This is the best shape we’ve been in as a team at this point in the season.” This is partly due to the successful and well-attended preseason training sessions. “The intensity and yardage were definitely better than they’ve been in my time at Middlebury,” Lee said. “Every year we seem to step it up a bit.”
Lee also mentioned the first-years as a valuable new asset to the team. “[They] are a big class and they’re very fast. They’re also great with the team and have been doing well in workouts, which is always good to see.”
Panther swimming and diving will return to the pool on Saturday, Nov. 22 at 2:00 p.m. at the Middlebury Natatorium to face Tufts and Keene State in a tri-match meet as they continue to build upon last weekend’s start to their season.
(11/19/14 9:44pm)
Students, staff and community members gathered in the Robert A. Jones conference room on Nov. 12 to discuss the feasibility of creating a “microgrid” on Middlebury College’s campus.
A microgrid is a smaller, more localized version of a larger power grid that brings distributed energy resources (e.g. wind, solar, natural gas) closer to where energy is being used. In this case, the larger power grid in the area is operated by Green Mountain Power (GMP), which currently supplies approximately 80 percent of the College’s electrical demand.
The creation of a microgrid would allow the College’s electrical system to better withstand extreme climate events. For example, if a storm were to cause a large-scale power outage, then the College would be able to disconnect from the main grid operated by GMP and continue to operate with the electrical generation available on campus.
Panelist speakers included Michael Hightower from Sandia National Laboratories, Jito Coleman from Green Toolbox Consulting and Josh Castonguay from GMP. The three shared their experiences working with microgrids and discussed successful implementation strategies.
“Microgrids are the future of energy distribution — they’re cheaper, better for renewables, more local and more resilient,” said Isaac Baker ’14.5, who helped organize the panel with Director of Sustainability Jack Byrne. Baker will be teaching a Winter Term course analyzing the feasibility of College microgrid from a financial, regulatory and logistical standpoint.
As a part of his independent study, Baker has been speaking with microgrid experts and researching the implementation of microgrids on college campuses across the country that are similar in size to Middlebury. Baker formed the idea for a microgrid while attending the Middlebury School of the Environment during its inaugural run last summer.
Baker said, “As a part of the sustainability practicum course, we were put into groups of four and matched with Director of Sustainability Jack Byrne. Our task was to assess climate vulnerability for Middlebury College, and the vulnerability my group identified was extended power outages due to extreme weather.”
Baker stated that a microgrid will give more resiliency to infrastructure at the College, most significantly through the ability to go into “Island Mode,” where the microgrid can fully power the College if the main grid operated by GMP goes down.
Princeton University and Wesleyan University are currently among the rising number of schools that have successfully created their own microgrids. Princeton’s microgrid gained recognition two years ago when it successfully went into Island Mode and kept power running to the school through Hurricane Sandy.
“Once you have a microgrid, another benefit is that you’re you’re able to act as a point of aid for the college and the surrounding community during disaster scenarios,” Baker said.
Baker added that both schools he has been focusing his research on — Princeton and Wesleyan — have seen significant savings since” implementing a microgrid
He said, “The way it works economically is that [the microgrid] operates in parallel with the larger power grid, so at any moment we can take power from the grid or sell some of it back. This means we wouldn’t have to invest as much in storing our electricity.”
Additionally, the microgrid fits in with the College’s goal toward achieving carbon neutrality.
“Our goal is to figure out how and if we can make the College more climate resilient while achieving other essential institutional goals,” Baker said. “We probably won’t go forward with the project unless we can both decrease the amount of carbon in our electricity and also decrease the cost of that energy.”
A more detailed analysis of the economic costs and benefits of a Middlebury microgrid will be conducted in Baker’s winter term course.
Baker said, “The general outline is that we will be spending the first week examining our campus infrastructure and understanding the system we have here as best as we can. The next three weeks will go into developing a proposal for the project — how much it will cost and its feasibility from a regulatory standpoint.”
He continued, “If our findings show that a microgrid is something we should be considering, then we will be refining our ideas and start planning a presentation for the Board of Trustees.”
Baker added that the course — which has been filled — will contain a good sampling of students, from first-years to seniors. He said, “If [the microgrid project] goes through, it will inevitably be a multi-year project.”
Baker said, “What inspired me to do this project is that we have so much of the infrastructure already in place: we own our own power lines, we already produce a great deal of energy on campus, and we have access to two stable, inexpensive, and carbon-neutral sources of energy, wood chips and biomethane.”
He added, “We know we’re on track to hit carbon neutrality in 2016. Once we get there, the question will be how do we move forward and make carbon neutrality a visible reality here on campus? The College has been hailed as an environmental leader because we’ve made strong commitments in the past… building a microgrid now would put us ahead of the curve and show once again that we can walk the walk in the face of climate change.
(11/13/14 4:56am)
On Monday, Oct. 27, at 5:35 a.m., the historic Osborne House was moved from its home on 77 Main Street to the other side of the Cross Street Bridge at the corner of Cross and Water Streets. The move of this house, weighing a total of 120 tons, was not only an act of preserving one of Middlebury’s oldest houses but also a symbol of the first step in a series of cooperative projects between Middlebury College and the town of Middlebury. Carried by generator-powered dollies, this house will now live on the opposite side of Otter Creek, vacating a site for the new town offices.
The creation of the new town hall and new town recreation facility was a joint initiative with the town and College that was formally voted into action last spring. As evidence of cooperation between the town and the College, Middlebury College will contribute $5.5 million to the project’s total $7.5 million cost. This plan is the culmination of a decade-long conversation to replace these two aging facilities and to revitalize the community and economic perspective of downtown Middlebury. However, the original vote on this plan by residents of the town and the debates that followed showed that this plan had not always been met with complete optimism and support. Issues regarding parking, overcrowding and the College’s role in the process were among some of the concerns raised by residents. The final vote showed, however, that the majority was in favor of the move. Since then, as noted by Vice President for Communications and Marketing of the College Bill Burger, the stress that was felt in the spring, has largely been removed.
This most recent project stands as one example of the “payment in lieu of taxes” (PILOT) agreement, wherein the College makes an annual contribution to the town. In 2013, this sum, which is tied to the College’s endowment, totaled $251,617. This annual payment coupled with the College’s assistance on a number of town initiatives is a testament to the College’s willingness to help contribute to a vibrant downtown area. In 2007, for example, the College pledged $1 million to complete the renovation of the Town Hall Theater in the heart of Middlebury. In 2009, it pledged $9 million to the $16 million plan help fund the new bridge crossing Otter Creek.
The town and College have thus experienced a long history while coexisting together. “The nature of the relationship between the town and the College is very symbiotic,” noted Jamie Gaucher, Director of the newly created Middlebury Office of Business Development and Innovation Office. This relationship has been developed and fostered for generations, and it is now experiencing a new type of maturation at the official level.
The years of conversation between the town and the College regarding the College’s role of impacting the local economy culminated in the creation of the job that Gaucher now holds. The goal of this position is to bring new economic vitality and jobs to the town of Middlebury in light of recent economic events: “The community realized that it was in need of a new solution,” said Gaucher. “Middlebury had suffered some job losses, and there really was no prospect around what to do as a community to fix, or at least address, the local economy.” Gaucher explained his job as a three-part process: engage with an external audience, bring innovation-based and technology-based development to the area and leverage assets inherent to the college to make an economic impact for the town. This new job in itself, noted Burger, is an example of how the town and the College have come together: “This was a commitment based on the needs and allegiance between the College, town and local businesses,” he said. Agreed Gaucher: “The interdependence [between the town and College] was one of the themes that was woven into the cooperative spirit in the creation of my job.”
Clearly the days of the one-way flow of students moving between the College and the town have been expanded. Through this new position, the purchasing of goods and services from the local area, the College’s investment in local projects, and employment opportunities, the impact – especially the economic impact – of the College is immense. In response to commonly asked questions by local residents, town officials, state representatives and College employees alike about the College’s impact, the most recent Economic and Community Impact of Middlebury College fact sheet was published this past summer, with data collected since 2011.
As the largest employer in the town of Middlebury and in Addison County, the College has an enormous impact on the local economy. The College provides one out of every 10 jobs in Middlebury, making it one of Vermont’s top employers. By 2011, the estimated total number of jobs the College provided directly and indirectly to Vermont was 2,420, which had economic ripple effects on other jobs and wages in the state.
As consumers, the students of the College comprise a hugely significant factor. According to a study commissioned by the Better Middlebury Partnership (BMP) in 2014, one in every ten customers in town is a Middlebury College student. In 2011, according to the report, students spent more than $5.8 million at Vermont businesses, with about 80% of this spending occurring in the town of Middlebury. This total of $4.5 million spending in the town of Middlebury experienced the most patronage in the restaurant, food and beverages sectors, where students spent over $1 million in each.
However, the relationship is not one-sided. As evidenced by these numbers, college students rely on an accessible town, just as businesses rely on student patronage. “Both the town and the college realize that we have to work together for the greater good,” said Burger. “Gaucher’s position [as the head of economic development] is a realization that we really do succeed or fail together,” he continued. Thus the two-way partnership is of considerable importance. Gaucher noted that the distinction between the town the College can be hard to define, based on the flow of people, goods and services that occurs between the two: “I really do struggle to make it an ‘us’ or ‘them,’ or even to have a demarcation between ‘this group’ or ‘that group.’ I approach what I do from a community perspective,” said Gaucher.
(11/06/14 1:13am)
Gender roles in theory have very strict bounds, especially in how one expresses their gender. Men wear pants, women skirts and dresses. Men have short hair while women wear long hair. However, in practice, gender exists as much more of a spectrum and contains many components that change as time progresses. In many ways, gender expression is much less strictly defined than it was before and has a sense of gender neutrality. Women now wear pants, and pants aren’t solely reserved for men anymore in the contemporary United States. However, there is still the distinction between tight pants, which are perceived as more feminine, and baggy pants, which are perceived as more masculine. Short hair isn’t restricted to men, but there are several general distinctions between male short hairstyles and female short hairstyles. And as many new labels are formed as society progresses and people begin to describe their gender in new ways, new expressions for such gender identities have come along as well.
Androgyny, also known as gender bending, is the mixture of feminine and masculine characteristics, often used to describe fashion or one’s outward expression of gender. Androgyny can be expressed in many different ways to various degrees: men wearing fishnets and heels with a button down shirt and a tie, women wearing suits and binding their breasts whilst wearing make up. Famous androgynous people include Boy George, British 80’s pop star, and Andreja Pejić, formerly Andrej the androgynous fashion model icon.
In these cases society responds very well to androgynous expression. These are two out of the many examples of how androgyny is taking off as fashionable and beautiful in 21st-century pop culture. The ethereal beauty that androgyny provides of being neither female nor male, but both, is not something new. In many cultures and faiths, angels, gods and other divine or mythical beings are portrayed as beautiful and androgynous to some degree.
However, there is a very large difference between how society responds to angels and models and how society responds to an androgynous person walking down the street. Typically people who have an androgynous expression of their gender are discriminated against in society. How this stigma applies to androgynous men, women and non-gender conforming people also varies.
In the patriarchal society we live in, the man is worshiped, but not just any man: it is the straight and tough, manly man. Despite being so important and regarded as a strong quality, masculinity is actually immensely fragile. Women can now wear pants without discrimination because social change demanded they have that right. But it is highly unlikely that society will fight for the right for men to shamelessly walk around in skirts because why would a man want to? Is he a wuss? Is he gay? Even in fashion trends such as gothic, where it is popular for men to wear eyeliner and nail polish, men are ridiculed as feminine and weak. Keeping one’s masculinity is so difficult that the smallest hint of anything deemed female (a high voice, flowery perfume, a tight jacket) ruins your manhood and thus your value in society as a man.
Similarly femininity is just as fragile, but not because women are inherently delicate. Femininity is pretty. It is soft, sweet, vulnerable, pure. Masculinity is rough, dirty, strong, brutish. Not pretty. To add the smallest smudge of masculinity ruins the virginal purity of the girly girl, making her a tomboy. Why would you want to cut off such long beautiful hair or hide your womanly figure? Girls are raised to be princesses, not tomboys. Boys don’t want tomboys, they want a woman, or at least that is what we are taught, leaving girls just as afraid to wear basketball shorts or ties as boys are to wear dresses.
For gender non-conforming people it is perhaps the worst. When their androgynous gender expression leads to pointing out their non-binary gender identity, it too often leads to being told their identity is invalid, which is just one of the many struggles people of non-conforming genders face.
(11/05/14 6:51pm)
On Saturday Nov. 1, the Middlebury cross country teams hosted the NESCAC championship meet for the first time since 2003. On a blustery, cold day, the men took home a third-place finish while the women, led by by individual number-one racer Alison Maxwell ’15, were crowned NESCAC champions for the second year in a row, tallying the eleventh team victory in program history.
Williams’s Colin Cotton turned in a dominating performance to secure his individual victory, smashing the 13-year-old course record of 25:35 with a time of 24:56.
Colby sophomore David Chelimo, who finished as runner up to Cotton, led the race through the first several miles. Chelimo was followed closely behind by Cotton, Williams junior Bijan Mazaheri and Middlebury’s Kevin Wood ’15. During the second loop of the race, Cotton opened up a sizable lead, passing Chelimo and dropping the chase pack as he went on to win by a sizeable 16-second margin.
Chelimo finished in 25:12, a second ahead of Mazaheri’s third-place time of 25:13. Williams senior Aldis Inde took fourth in a time 25:17, effectively sealing the meet for the Ephs. Wood turned in a strong finish to take fifth in 25:22. Wilder Schaaf ’14.5 was the second Panther to cross the line with a ninth-place finish in 25:30.
Including Schaaf, the top nine runners in the men’s field were all under the previous course record time.
In the team battle, Williams scored 39 points to repeat as champions. Their 39 points were the lowest total scored in the men’s race since 2006 when the Ephs scored 30 points for their victory.
Colby took second with 76 points, their highest finish since 1993 when they tied for first with Wesleyan. Colby has undergone a rapid ascend in the ranks of NESCAC cross country: every year from 2004 to 2011, the Mules finished either last or second to last. The 2012 squad finished 9th of 11 and last year’s team finished fifth.
Middlebury took a close third with 80 points after finishing second the previous two years.
After the dust had settled from the men’s race, the women toed the line in the debut of Middlebury’s six-kilometer championship course. As predicted, the race was the latest addition to the storied history of battles between Middlebury and Williams.
Early in the race, the Panthers looked dominant: Alison Maxwell ’15, Summer Spillane ’15 and Adrian Walsh ’16, joined by Tufts junior Audrey Gould, constituted the lead pack, without a Williams runner in sight. The pack of Ephs, though, were running together and working through the race in a conservative fashion. As the race progressed, the lead pack strung out with Maxwell opening up a sizable lead and the Ephs creeping up in the field.
“Our strategy, as usual, was to stay in a tight pack or two for the first two or three miles of the race,” Maxwell said. “We definitely accomplished this for the first mile or so, but then I think the pace caused us to break up a little earlier than we wanted to.”
At the finish, Maxwell took home the individual title — the first Panther to do so since 2001 — in a time of 22:16.
“I was hoping to keep up with the front pack and out-sprint as many people as I could at the finish,” Maxwell said. “I definitely did not expect to be leading the race for as long as I was. It was a position I had never been in before, but I think it was good for me to run out of my comfort zone.”
Behind Maxwell, Spillane sprinted past Gould in the final 100 meters of the race to take second in 22:33. Gould took third and Williams sophomore Emma Zehner was the first Eph across in the line in fourth. Walsh maintained her strong position established early in the race to finish sixth in 22:45.
After Walsh came two more Ephs before Katie Carlson ’15.5 was the 10th woman and fourth Panther across the line in 22:54.
Because a team’s score in cross country is determined by the places of the top five runners, Middlebury needed a fifth finisher to cap the team scoring before too many Williams athletes crossed the line. Olivia Artaiz ’16 was the Panther who came through next, earning a 19th-place finish to solidify Middlebury’s solid top five.
When the points were tallied, the Panthers took first with 38 points to Williams’s 47.
Next on the docket for the Panthers is the ECAC Championship on Nov. 8 at Stanley Park in Westfield, MA.
(10/29/14 8:27pm)
Fifty-four years ago this past September, in 1960, the global cartel known as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded. Thirteen years later, in 1973, the Arab members of OPEC played their trump card, initiating the ‘Arab Oil Embargo’ in protest to American involvement in the Yom Kippur War. The resulting lack of supply throughout the western world caused the price of oil to leap from three dollars to 12 dollars per barrel throughout the 1970s. More important than this price increase was the newfound global order that placed OPEC at the forefront of global oil production and pricing. This OPEC-centric global order witnessed permanently higher prices. Meeting twice a year in Vienna, Austria, OPEC’s oil ministers set a production quota, deciding to either increase or decrease supply. Though there was always cheating among its members, OPEC has been very effective in keeping prices where they want them to be. Since 2011 the price of oil has remained relatively constant at 100 dollars per barrel. However, just in the past few years there has been increasing speculation that due to America’s own ‘energy revolution,’ the power of OPEC is rapidly declining and might not even survive the next decade in the same capacity.
Since June, the global price of oil has fallen 25 percent, settling at around $80 a barrel this past week. Popular sentiment maintains that seven of the 12 members of OPEC will fail to balance their budgets when oil prices are below $100, and this number only increases as prices fall. The Arab Spring of 2010 and 2011 drove a number of important OPEC members, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to escalate government spending in order to placate their own populations. These higher budgetary concerns, combined with increasing North American production, have thrown OPEC into seeming disarray. In short, the supply of oil is greater than demand, and it would appear that OPEC has lost its ability to control the supply. In addition, according to industry experts, the costs of finding and producing oil and gas in America will continue to decline. The American energy industry, as a result, might be better suited to weather sustained price drops than OPEC members. Is the end of OPEC upon us? Though this all seems plausible it does not hold up to the reality on the ground.
OPEC as an institution will exist in whatever form Saudi Arabia deems strategically expedient. These ‘break-even’ oil prices of today, which allow OPEC members to balance their budgets, fail to take into account the trillions of dollars in sovereign wealth funds (SWF) many of these countries possess. In many cases these SWF’s deliver more financial income than the oil revenues of their respective countries. Oil prices are low because of increased supply, and this is exactly what the Saudis want. The Saudis might be trying to stimulate the global economy, manage a slowing Chinese economy, grab market share, strategically contain Russia and Iran (an alignment of American interests) or simply curtail renewable energy projects. Whatever the reason behind Saudi Arabia’s decision to maintain a lower global oil price, the takeaway is just that — it is still Saudi Arabia that is setting the price. Just like the peak oil theory, I expect talk of the ‘decline of OPEC’ to be a contentious issue, but for now, OPEC still has a strong leader with strong direction.
(10/22/14 11:22pm)
Two weeks ago, seven candidates running for governor of Vermont, including incumbent Governor Peter Shumlin, gathered at Vermont PBS for a 90 minute debate on issues including healthcare, the heroin epidemic and the rising cost of college tuition. The moderator, PBS viewers and the exclusively student audience all provided questions.
Stewart Ledbetter, host of the TV program “Vermont This Week,” moderated the debate. Each candidate had one minute to answer the given question, a rebuttal phase directed by the moderator, and a one minute closing statement. Ledbetter opened the debate by asking each candidate to introduce him or herself and to explain “how you have prepared for the top political office in the land.”
Pete Diamondstone of Brattleboro, a Vermont resident for about 50 years and a representative of the Liberty Union Party, was the first to introduce himself. Diamondstone has run for governor every time since 1970. “I am a revolutionary, nonviolent socialist, and I am a secessionist … As a revolutionary socialist, I have to tell you that most of what we will discuss tonight will not be relevant for me, because most of what I will talk about is how we overturn what is destroying our society and our environment, which is capitalism,” Diamondstone said.
Cris Ericson, an Independent who is also running for US Senate as the nominee of the Marijuana Party, spoke next. Ericson opened her introduction by harkening back to the days of her childhood when Vermont was “the garden of Eden.”
“We’ve got to stop the F-35 strike fighter jets from being based here, and we’ve got to stop the natural gas pipeline from being built underneath Lake Champlain,” Ericson said.
Dan Feliciano, running as a member of the Libertarian Party, introduced himself next. “I’m a father, I’m a husband, and I’m a veteran. I have three children, I live here in Essex,” Feliciano said.
Feliciano spoke of why he chose to run, after his wife told him that: “‘Now that our son is 16, we need to start thinking about what we’re going to do differently, because he will be leaving and never coming back.’” He decided that he needed “to do something about this and couldn’t stand idly by,” said Feliciano, who has a background in healthcare and turning around big businesses and government organizations. Feliciano emphasized his desire to make the state more affordable for families, provide better healthcare, reduce property taxes and offer school of choice.
Republican candidate Scott Milne, Governor Shumlin’s biggest competitor, introduced himself next. Milne grew up in Vermont and moved back in the late ’80s to take a family business that was located in New Hampshire.
However, “What I saw over the past 30 years was a continuing difference between New Hampshire and Vermont and the effect of tax policies and government on people to prosper, and that has drawn me into this race,” Milne said. He promised to offer a “great voice” for those who choose to support him.
Bernard (Bernie) Peters is running as an Independent. Peters is a retiree from the Agency of Transportation where he worked for 36 years. “I’ve been watching politics for quite some time … from what I see, whichever party is in power is not working for the Vermonter. Neither party seems to realize, that when they say they’re working for the party, they’re not working for the party. They’re working for the tax payer and the voter. They are the people who are the boss, not the other way around,” Peters said. “All it takes it a lot of good common sense and hard work from everybody,” Peters said.
Emily Peyton, an Independent from Putney, introduced herself as “an earth activist.” She entered the race “to bring forth the very exciting solutions, and the hopeful solutions that you have to help make the earth a livable place, a place that you can thrive.” Peyton explained that she came to talk about “Economic systems that can allow us to laterally grow the economy, and things that we can do to honor the earth, and live in harmony with each other and our natural world.”
Finally, incumbent Peter Shumlin, the nominee of the Democratic Party, spoke. Shumlin has served two consecutive two-year terms as governor and is seeking re-election for a third. “I love Vermont more than anything. And I ran for governor four years ago, because after building two businesses, successful businesses, in Vermont employing Vermonters, I felt that I wanted more students, more young people, to have the same opportunity that I’ve had in this state,” Shumlin said. Shumlin has and will continue to prioritize building a state “where our young people can stay, and work, and thrive.” He concluded by citing the many successes of his past two terms and asking for two more years.
The candidates debated healthcare first. Six months after winning the 2010 election, Shumlin passed a law creating a single-payer healthcare system in Vermont, making Vermont the first state in the nation to do so. However, a recent poll showed that Vermonters are deeply divided over the issue of healthcare, as are the candidates.
“Healthcare has a heavily IT-based solution, and I think that going to a single payer system really doesn’t do anything to drive down the cost of healthcare,” Feliciano said, citing the technology problems of
Vermont Health Connect and the national healthcare marketplace website. Feliciano advocated for free market solutions by opening up the market and letting more insurers into the state to drive down premiums through competition. “You pick your doctor, you pick your hospital, you pick your insurer,” he said.
Shumlin said that to address the rising cost of healthcare, Vermont must continue to follow through with the single payer system.
“First of all, I’d disagree with Peter Shumlin,” Milne said when asked about healthcare. He referred to Shumlin’s healthcare reforms as “a reckless march toward single-payer.” Milne mentioned the failure of the single-payer system after four years.
Some candidates offered novel ideas, such as Peters who suggested giving to issue of healthcare reform as a school project to students in Vermont, which has “some of the nicest schools on the East Coast.”
Hussain Al-Mahr, a student in the audience, asked how the candidates would lower the cost of college tuition and attract more students to Vermont colleges. Views on education costs were as diverse as those on healthcare. Shumlin spoke of the challenge of getting Vermont students from high school into college, an issue he has already addressed as governor by implementing the early college, dual enrollment programs and Vermont Scholars programs. Milne dismissed Shumlin’s programs as ineffective over the last two year, but did acknowledge that the cost of college has risen above what most Vermonters can pay. By lowering the cost of kindergarten through twelfth grade education, Milne hopes to be more generous with scholarships for Vermont students going to college in Vermont.
“This issue of paying to go to school begins with an absurdity and if you accept it, you’ve accepted the absurd,” Diamondstone said. “We should be paying people to go to school. School is work … If a student goes to school and learns two and two is four, that student has contributed to the wealth of the society and should be paid,” said Diamondstone. Diamondstone continued to explain the flawed relationship between citizens and capital, and how a socialist society would change that.
“University of Vermont is a private for-profit college,” Ericson said. She was outraged at the amount of money it was receiving from the state and suggested that that money be redirected to the state colleges and to free, online education.
“There are debt-free methods of education. If you want to learn anything, you can go learn it, then we need a system of accrediting that learning,” Peyton said, referencing one called the People’s Free University. As another solution to the rising cost of college, Peyton suggested “increasing our food independence by giving people of your age land in order to make our state food secure.”
The moderator then asked what the governor would do to improve wages in the state. Milne would solve this problem by making Vermont more business-friendly through tax incentives and improving the education system. Shumlin would grow wages and employment primarily through education and job training at every level.
“We need to completely convert to a socialist system of manufacturing,” Diamondstone said. According to Diamondstone, this is the only way people can ensure that they are not getting ripped off by employers.
“How can we create a monetary system so that the economy spurts up from the ground?” is the central question around improving wages, Peyton said. She is not a supporter of “trickle-down” economics.
“They’re going to go by us like roadkill on the interstate,” Peters said, explaining how businesses will not choose to locate in Vermont because the state is not business friendly. His solution would be to keep more of the well-educated Vermont students in the state. Feliciano focused primarily on cutting costs, reducing taxes and eliminating laws that prevent businesses from expanding.
J.T. Lukens of 350 Vermont submitted the next question online: “Do you support divesting Vermont’s pension funds from fossil fuel companies?” Shumlin responded first, noting Vermont’s commitment to green energy through the increase in solar and wind power over the last several years. In terms of divestment, “it’s not the sharpest tool that we have in the drawer,” Shumlin said, but that he would be willing to look into it.
“One good reason to have fossil fuels in our portfolio is … to hedge against a bet we’re doing, rushing toward this renewable energy program,” Milne said. He would not support divestment, citing other, more pressing issues. Neither Peters nor Feliciano would not support divestiture of the pension portfolio either.
“We need to make our earth a priority,” said Peyton, a strong supporter of divestment. She also spoke of the need to stop using oil and start using things like hydro-power. She suggested creating more buildings out of agricultural hemp, using the quarter of the energy needed for normal buildings.
“Capitalism not only rips off works, it rips off the planet,” Diamondstone said. Diamondstone supports divesting all capital investments and opening a state bank.
Ericson would begin her term as governor with a “complete forensic examination of the pension fund” to eliminate fraud. She did not mention divestment.
Student audience member Beatrice Woodruff asked the next question concerning the drug problem and new measures to combat it.
“This is the one area that can really destroy Vermont ... are we doing enough? No,” Shumlin said. He referenced his increase in penalties for dealers and his new approach, looking at opiate addiction as not just a law enforcement problem, but a healthcare problem. He emphasized the need for more prevention. Feliciano thinks that Shumlin has “a good approach” and “wouldn’t change anything.”
“This is something I applaud Peter for,” Milne said.
Peters spoke of the importance of keeping kids from getting into drugs, or “it won’t be long until they can’t tie their shoes or anything,” said Peters, who supports harsh penalties for drug dealers.
“Notice, there was no heroin in the United States when the Taliban were in control in Afghanistan,” said Diamondstone, also a supporter of harsh penalties for dealers.
Peyton wants to “reign back” pain medication prescriptions and look toward alternate methods to control pain, such as marijuana or hypnosis.
Ericson began by questioning Shumlin’s alleged choice to give $5 million to a ski resort for a new snow blower, rather than toward a new drug treatment facility. “Peter, did you do that?” Ericson said.From the issue of opiates, the moderator segued into the need to fix Department of Children and Families (DCF), which has been under more stress with the rise of the heroin epidemic.
Peyton suggested a family mentoring system for families who need help making good choices.
Shumlin said that the number of case workers have increased and the policy for returning children to their parents has become more stringent, but there is still more to do to improve the department and keep Vermont’s children safe.
Peters pointed out that many of the people who get their children back often have them taken away again for a repeat offense, which puts the children in more danger. “If they’ve got a criminal record that bad, something bad’s going to happen,” Peters said. He believes that social workers “have their hands tied” by rules, but should instead be working more off their intuition.
Each candidate was given the opportunity to make a closing statement.
“If you could have all the money in the world, or you could have all the love in the world, which has more value?” Peyton said. She urged Vermonters to “improve the quality of loving in your life.”
Diamondstone emphasized the need to reallocate resources away from violence toward workers and the planet so as to benefit everyone on the planet
Ericson said she will do everything in her power to stop the pipeline and to get the F-35 fighter jets out of Vermont.
Feliciano reiterated his platform of cutting spending, getting rid of single-payer, providing school choice, cutting property tax and growing businesses.
“I’m a candidate who’s about as grassroots as you can get. I don’t have big business behind me, I don’t have corporations behind me, I don’t have nobody from out of state behind me,” said Peters, who is running as the Vermonter candidate with Common Sense for Vermont People.
“I want to make this state a place where more young people can succeed,” Shumlin said, asking for two more years to continue to improve Vermont. He thanked Vermont for the four previous years as governor.
Milne concluded by speaking of his mother, who was involved in Vermont politics 20 years ago.
Following the debate, the seven candidates made their way through the audience of students, shaking hands, taking pictures with students and meeting the future members of Vermont’s electorate.
(10/22/14 7:29pm)
For much of its early history, hip-hop’s basic unit was the group. The most popular artists of the mid to late 80s, when rap began to make headway into mainstream pop-culture, were groups: Run-DMC, Eric B. and Rakim, NWA and Public Enemy. As the 90s rolled through, more individual stars began to dominate the rap scene, all-timers like 2Pac, the Notorious B.I.G., Nas and Jay-Z. However, the group continued to have a strong presence in the rap world, from murdered out Mobb Deep to kushed out Cypress Hill to funky futuristic space pimped out Outkast. Through the 2000s, squads such as Dipset, the LOX and UGK continued to make their marks. And then, all of a sudden, the group faded away as a relevant force in hip-hop.
There are probably a couple of reasons for this transformation in the rap landscape. During the 90s rappers began to really start making the money they talked about all along, and an influx of earnings has a way of straining the bonds between creative partners. Why, if you’re Rakim, one of the most skilled MCs ever, would you want to split a $5 million deal with Eric B., a solid producer and DJ, when you could sign the same deal as a solo artist? Record labels began to identify a new group’s most marketable talent and encourage him to go solo, maximizing his income and reducing their risk.
Several existing groups experienced internal friction. Outkast famously went their separate ways shortly after the release of Idlewild, a smiling-through-gritted-teeth kind of split to work on individual projects. Dipset and G-Unit, on the other hand, went through extremely ugly breakups marred by diss tracks, taped phone calls, and no end of ridiculousness from all parties. Even the greatest hip-hop group of all time, Wu-Tang Clan, has released only one album since 2001.
All told, the group pretty much faded out of hip-hop relevance starting around 2006 or 2007. In its place another form of hip-hop organization came to being, what I like to call the clique. These are similar to groups in that they are made up of multiple artists, producers and rappers, but they are distinguished by being largely creatively independent of one another. The members may collaborate often, show up at each other’s concerts, and flex together on Instagram, but they are not a single artistic unit. The most prominent example of the hip-hop clique is Kanye West’s GOOD Music squad (they in fact had the smash hit, “Clique”), which includes Mr. West himself, Big Sean, Pusha T, Common, and a whole mess of other artists. While they share an umbrella under the GOOD record label and receive creative input from Yeezus, they are not a group in the way that Mobb Deep and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony were. In the same vein as GOOD Music, Rick Ross has developed his own stable of young talent in Maybach Music Group.
In addition to supplanting the group, cliques quickly became the best avenue for new artists to crack into the mainstream. As anybody who has aspiring singer/songwriters on their Facebook feed knows, the internet has virtually no end of musicians posting their work. The best way for a newcomer to make any headway into a broader market is to receive a co-sign from one of a handful of rap’s head honchos. Artists like West and Ross are amongst the few rappers who can still perform well in commercial album sales, which gives their signees credibility and a leg up on the competition. Even less established clique-masters have seen their underlings parlay association with the top dog into solo success; mere months after A$AP Rocky’s own album debut, his right-hand man A$AP Ferg rolled out two of the biggest hits of summer 2013.
So is this an obituary commemorating the death of the hip-hop group? Not quite. In recent months, rap groups have found themselves with a considerably larger share of the limelight than in previous years. Two Brooklyn groups, Flatbush Zombies and the Underachievers, have quietly gained substantial followings, and have even united as the supergroup Clockwork Indigo (they’re playing Higher Ground November 30). Ratking, a three man group made up of two rappers and a producer, has won enormous critical acclaim for their debut album “So It Goes.” Out West, groups like Pac Div and Audio Push have been making noise of their own. Obviously these guys are not ready to compete with Kanye’s merry band of fashionistos, but their continuous progress is proof that the group is regaining traction in hip-hop. Even the old-guard has noticed that the group has reentered the vogue: Outkast, Dipset, G-Unit, and Wu-Tang have all reunited in the past months to tour and record.
The reasons for the group’s resurgence are harder to pinpoint than its initial collapse. My explanation ties back to that all-powerful force in the music industry: the internet. Although receiving a major endorsement is a fast track to success, many artists have used the web to achieve wide notoriety without the help of a major record label. Groups are able to remain creatively independent and can develop their own sound without having to justify their record deal with a thrown-together, commercial single. The Flatbush Zombies have yet to release a single song that anybody had to pay for, yet they’ve sold out shows across the US and Europe. The ability to avoid the meddling influence of the mainstream music industry seems to be at the center of this, as evidenced by Ratking, whose lead MC Wiki was told by several major labels that they would only sign him if he left his partners behind. Fortunately, he did not lose faith in the power of the group. Perhaps hip-hop fans should never have either.
(10/08/14 11:29pm)
Kati Daczkowski ’18 loves apples. When she went apple picking last weekend at Happy Valley Orchards, a 16-acre apple orchard just two miles from campus, she ended up eating more apples than she actually picked.
“I love Honeycrisp apples!” she said. “The only downside of apple picking this weekend was the stomachache I got,” Daczkowski smiled. “But I still see myself going there all the time!”
Lucky for Daczkowski, and the rest of students on campus who don’t have time for daily visits to the farm, all the campus dining halls are currently stocked with both apples and fresh pressed cider from Happy Valley Orchards. The local apples are also featured in favorite dining hall desserts, such as apple crisp.
Middlebury residents Stan and Mary Pratt are the current owners of the 16-acre farm. Shortly after purchasing Happy Valley Orchards in 1998, they decided to contact Middlebury College food services for a possible supply contract.
“They were very positive and really wanted to do this,” Mary Pratt said. “They were already doing local produce with some other farms at the time, so they took us on, and we’ve been with them ever since.”
“I don’t think we would’ve even made it without the College,” she said. “It’s a big part of our business. I mean we’ve spread out now, and obviously we have the stand and we sell to the co-op but without the College, I think we’d be hurting. I really do.”
“It’s fun having a lot of students visit the farm. This fall, a lot of the sports teams came here and picked apples. During the winter, my husband is one of the [ice rink] Zamboni drivers at the College,” Pratt said. “I think we have a personal relationship with the College. And I like it because it keeps us young because we’re dealing with a lot of young kids.”
In addition to providing students with a fun weekend activity and the dining halls with crates of apples and jugs of apple cider, Happy Valley has started a new joint venture with the College this year. Small pints of the cider are now sold as concessions during football games.
“We’ve also paired with a hard cider company, called Citizen Cider, up in Burlington. We sell fresh cider to them and then they ferment it,” Pratt said.
In addition to cider, the farmstand at Happy Valley Orchards also sells home-baked goods, such as apple pies, cakes, muffins, and classic cider doughnuts. Unfortunately, none of these will be making an appearance on campus plates anytime soon.
“The donuts are a big hit, we usually run out everyday [at the farmstand],” Mary Pratt said. “My husband and his sister make the donuts and we’re not set up to do large numbers. Just doing the farmstand meets our maximum scale of production.”
“The doughnuts are incredible. Some of the best donuts I’ve ever had,” said Erin Giles ’17, whose favorite apple is Honeycrisp.
Honeycrisps are specially priced at $1.69 per pound, compared to all the other varieties of apples available (over 10!), which are $1.39 per pound. Mary Pratt explained the price difference as a result of demand.
“Honeycrisps are kind of new,” she said. They probably started in the 80’s. When you plant trees, it takes a while to get an apple. To get to production, it probably takes nine or ten years. In this country, there aren’t enough Honeycrisps [to meet demand].”
On the popular apple, Mary Pratt added. “It’s a little difficult to grow, but it does well in the Northeast,” she said. “Honeycrisp likes kind of a ‘coolness’. They do well here.”
However, the orchard’s best-selling apple isn’t Honeycrisp, but a Vermont classic, the McIntosh.
“Most people grew up with the McIntosh,” she said. “That used to be what mainly was grown in Vermont. Vermont used to sell a lot of apples to the United Kingdom. That was a big outlet [back then]. Macs are probably still the number one, but right behind are Honeycrisps.”
“Honeycrisp’s popularity is really helping us because McIntosh was beginning to lose its favor with a lot of people, especially with younger people. Now, the Honeycrisp is, in some ways, replacing it.”
Mary Pratt’s favorite apple is neither of these and probably one you haven’t seen in either Proctor or Ross.
“You know, it changes, but right now, and you’ll have to try one,” she said, as she handed me a small golden apple with a faint cherry blush, “I’d have to say it’s Vermont Gold. We only have a couple trees [in the orchard]. It was an apple that was started at UVM by a professor who’s since passed away. It’s a good apple.”
The smooth skin was thinner than a Honeycrisp, but the juicy crunch was pleasantly familiar. The flesh, though not as sweet, was refreshingly mellow and balanced. This was one good apple.
(10/08/14 6:12pm)
As of 2012, the estimated population of Americans belonging to the so-called “millennial” or Generation Y numbered around 80 million, making those born between the mid-1980’s and late 1990’s approach one-third of the total population. Of these 80 million, only 41.2 percent that were of voting age bothered to cast a ballot in the 2012 national elections, according to the Census Bureau’s 2012 Voting Report. As a member of this generation and a friend or colleague of many who abstained, I can hardly blame them.
I am extremely doubtful that anyone of my age could view a Congress comprised almost entirely of rich old white men (and one that is seemingly incapable of functioning as a legitimate governmental organ, no less) and genuinely believe that they understand our interests, let alone have them at mind. The fact of the matter is that these Exxon-bankrolled octogenarians will not for long continue to inhabit the nation that they are currently (mis)shaping — sometimes I wonder if Dick Cheney was even alive in the first place. However, while our deceased lawmakers sip celestial piña coladas and gaze down at us from that Great Big Corporate Consulting Agency in the Sky, we millennials will be frantically attempting to pick up the pieces of the Republic for which they supposedly stood.
Or at least we would, if any of us could be bothered to do anything beyond the occasional agitated Facebook post or impassioned student newspaper article. No one should care more about the precarious state of the Earth’s environmental, political and economic systems, yet most of us are content to conveniently ignore all of them. And why not? Unmitigated consumer capitalism, a gargantuan national security apparatus and climate change are all terrifyingly large and difficult problems ideally solved by someone else.
This collective political shrug is reflected in our voting patterns mentioned above. Although polarization between Democrats and Republicans has never been higher, they are far from representing the entirety of political opinion in America; other than a few new pieces of large legislation (e.g the Affordable Care Act and 2009 stimulus), Democrats spend much of their time attempting to protect what’s left of government regulatory systems and the social safety net while Republicans try to eviscerate them in a bloody, Randian fervor. What’s more, both parties are nearly unanimous in their support for hundreds of billions of dollars in annual military spending, fossil fuel subsidies and other means of corporate welfare. Coupled with district gerrymandering, suppressive voter ID laws and continuous wars under both Republican and Democratic administrations, it’s really no wonder that so many have become jaded.
All this being said, I remain quite hopeful. Generation Y was not born with an inherent sense of political apathy; rather, the main channels through which we can express our opinions and sentiments have become terribly inefficient and uninspiring. There has been a pervasive sense of smallness that causes many (including myself) to believe that even if we did attempt to mitigate our nation’s ills, it would be to little or no effect. However consider this: only 126 million out of nearly 206 million eligible Americans voted in the last national election, meaning a block of 80 million millennials carries incredibly significant and underutilized electoral weight.
Millennials have an energetic and better-suited approach to a world that is now considerably different from when our parents came of age — in only two decades, our tastes, habits and innovations have largely reshaped how the world communicates. Our exposure to world cultures, knowledge and beliefs through global connectivity has produced one of the least insular and open-minded groups of people to ever exist. Regardless of the myriad complaints and analyses written by most news/culture outlets, I remain truly inspired by what I’ve witnessed my peers being capable of. We have been unfairly dropped into a flawed system not of our making, but have the opportunity to change it, through both national and local actions.
Consider the impact of 80 million voters on progressive third parties — 60 percent of my generation didn’t vote because they believed the act futile, their views unrepresented. 2,500 ballots from the Middlebury student body may seem like a pittance nationally, but oftentimes local election margins are in the hundreds of votes. Research your state’s elections; request an absentee ballot; attend meetings or contact campaigns. The aforementioned establishment politicians continue to win because they count on our disillusionment. Yet however cynical we may be about the seemingly rigged nature of US politics, it is still a democracy and can be shaped by the actions of voters. The Populist and Progressive movements of the early 20th century began as largely a localized movement, one that came about from a similarly disenchanted base yet went on to completely revolutionize the country. We are now overdue for a new wave of organized change, one that is in tune with the real existential threats our society faces and led by those with the unique mindset and emotional investment necessary to see it out.
TEVAN GOLDBERG '18 is from Astoria, Ore.
(10/08/14 12:51pm)
On Oct. 3 and 5, the Opera Company of Middlebury (OCM) presented a concert staging of Guiseppe Verdi’s La Traviata at the Town Hall Theater. The production, directed by OCM Artistic Director and Executive Director of the Town Hall Theater Doug Anderson and joined by the College Choir under the direction of Associate Professor of Music Jeffrey Buettner, wowed sold-out crowds with big-city talent on a small town stage.
This staging is remarkable in many ways. The orchestra, College Choir and members of the principal ensemble practiced together for only three days, or about six hours, before opening night. It is a testament to the professionalism, dedication and preparatory rehearsal time of each of those groups that La Traviata appeared as a polished, seamless performance after so little combined rehearsal time.
Verdi’s 1853 opera La Traviata follows Violetta, a character based on real-life Parisian high-priced prostitute Marie Duplessis, who arrived in the city penniless and slept her way to a position as one of the richest women in Paris. Critical of decadence, aristocratic privilege and 19th century gender roles, La Traviata is a sumptuous production filled with party scenes and extravagant behavior that is also a tragedy, following Violetta’s journey from loose woman to doting wife to dying patient. Her ornate lifestyle is literally killing her, most likely from tuberculosis, and tragic forces separate her from the man she loves.
The songs of La Traviata are extremely recognizable, including the rousing drinking song “Libiamo,” which includes full ensemble and choir, and Violetta’s aria, “Sempre Libera.”
Soprano Rochelle Bard demonstrated an impressive vocal range and control as Violetta, appearing in most of the acts with her consistently rich vocals. She portrayed a woman of extravagance well, displaying ecstasy and agony in equal measure as Violetta traveled an emotional roller coaster. Bard has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in New York City and with opera companies around the country.
Joining her were the equally impressive tenor James Flora as her doomed lover, Alfredo, who has previously performed with OCM and will be performing with the Metropolitan Opera in 2014, mezzo-soprano Olga Perez Flora and decadent baritone Brian Major as Alfredo’s father, Giorgio.
There is an athletic dedication to the craft of vocalization present in opera that requires not just exquisite knowledge and care of the vocal chords, but practiced control of breath, diaphragm, posture, emotion and foreign diction. It is not singing that makes one a diva. It is the personification of passion through meticulously crafted trills, controlled vibrato and mastery of dynamic phrasing that allows a singer to even consider themselves a diva. Opera singing is difficult, and these professionals did it with an ease that made it seem as natural as carrying on a conversation.
The fact that the Town Hall Theater and Opera Company of Middlebury are consistently able to draw world-renowned opera stars to participate in their productions is astounding. And the cost for this professional quality performance, $40 to $50 per ticket, is a fraction of the expense of a large-venue production, making an art form stereotypically labeled as elitist or snobbish accessible to an entirely different audience.
Tickets to the Metropolitan Opera’s production of La Traviata, running this December and January, are selling for upwards of $400 each. This is due to the sheer number of people, in addition to the principal singers, required to stage such a lavish performance, including up to 80 orchestra members and equally large choirs, depending on the piece. On a stage as prestigious as the Met, opera stars charge large fees, and some production companies have started to place financial caps of $500,000 on each production. Operas cannot be staged eight times a week in the same manner as a play or musical because of the physical demands on the singers, who have required days of rest when they occasionally don’t speak at all to save their instruments.
Ticket fees cover only about 50 percent of the Opera Company of Middlebury’s production costs, with sponsors, intermission refreshment sales and raffle profits covering the remaining half.
The College Choir, fresh off of their summer tour to Berlin, Prague, Liepzig and Vienna, participated as the opera’s chorus. This community and collegiate collaboration provides students a unique opportunity to work with experienced opera singers and appear in a professional production.
Leo DesBois ’15 participated with the Choir in Madama Butterfly two years ago, and he is thrilled by the opportunity the musical collaboration provides.
“It’s incredible to kind of be so close physically to these amazing soloists to experience that level of musicianship, and also to work with a professional conductor of the caliber of Emmanuel Plasson, who has conducted at the Met, and all over the place,” DesBois said. “He brings an intensity and a precision to his conducting that you don’t get to experience very often. It’s also amazing that it’s such a big ensemble with the orchestra right there, the conductor, the soloists in this intimate setting, it makes you feel like it’s the real deal, because it is.”
Since the semester began, the Choir’s four-hour a week rehearsals have consisted primarily of Verdi’s La Traviata choral repertoire. Their only additional rehearsals were a sitzprobe, or seated rehearsal, on Tuesday, Sept. 30 and a ticketed dress rehearsal on Wednesday, Oct. 1. These rehearsals paid off, as the Choir was phenomenal throughout the opera, easily performing at the professional level.
The Choir’s first collaboration with OCM came in the Fall 2012 production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly after Anderson approached Buettner in the spring of 2012 about the possibility of working together. Due to the huge success of that teamwork, Anderson approached Buettner again about La Traviata, which has a critically important choral component.
“We had to learn the music very, very quickly, and with an opera, the challenge is not just learning the music but the Italian text and also the timing of the entrances, because the chorus is sort of like a minor character who has to pop in every now and then and say things, and it’s hard to get that timing right when you’re not with the soloists and with the orchestra,” DesBois said.
Orchestra, chorus and OCM members alike brought a thrilling combination of professionalism and musical excellence that made the three and a half hour opera seem much shorter. The audience buzzed with excitement at each intermission and, after the show, thrilled at the rare experience OCM and the Town Hall Theater creates twice a year.
OCM’s Spring 2015 production is Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, which will be staged May 30 to June 7.
The Town Hall Theater also broadcasts Live Metropolitan Opera productions on its big screen for a $24 admission fee, giving the community an opportunity to view the Met’s productions for a fraction of the in-person cost. The Met’s season opener is Le Nozze de Figaro on Oct. 18. Tickets are available for a discounted $10 for students at the Town Hall Theater box office. More information about the College Choir is available at go/choir.
(10/01/14 10:38pm)
On Tuesday, Sept. 30th, thirteen students gathered in Crossroads Cafe to compete in the TEDxMiddlebury Student Speaker Competition, in which participants delivered four-minute pitches to a panel of judges on an idea they wanted to further explore and share through a full TED talk. Rachel Liddell ’15 was the winner of the competition and will therefore be this year’s student speaker at the fifth annual TEDxMiddlebury Conference, which is currently set to be held on Sunday, Nov. 9th with the theme, “Living in the Question.”
Liddell’s pitch was titled “Sex, Power, and Politics: How and Why We Sexualize Powerful Women.”
She said, “I’m hoping students will gain a little insight into our own community at a micro level. At a macro level, I hope we all start thinking about how we act as voters and judgers of the people around us, and how we include the sexuality of women in our perception of women’s skill in a variety of areas including politics, art, history, anything.”
Liddell’s topic was inspired by her experiences running for and serving as the President of the Student Government Association (SGA).
“The way I felt perceived by my community was not always positive,” said Liddell. “Specifically, during my campaign, someone defaced one of my posters to make it sexually explicit. This experience was incredibly hurtful at the time, but over time, I’ve recognized it as part of a pattern in society at large. Discussing how powerful women are sexualized will address this pattern, and hopefully disrupt it.”
Founded in 1984, TED is a nonprofit devoted to the sharing of ideas in the form of talks lasting no longer than eighteen minutes.
“The TEDx program is a branch of TED that supports communities around the world to host their own TED-like events,” said Josh Swartz ’14.5, one of the chief organizers and board members for TEDxMiddlebury.
TEDxMiddlebury was founded under the Programs for Creativity and Innovation (PCI) and held its inaugural conference in 2009 for an audience of approximately one-hundred people. Since then, the conference has expanded to host 400 people in the Middlebury Center for the Arts (MCA) Concert Hall.
Notable guest speakers from past conferences include spoken word artist Big Poppa E from HBO’s “Def Poetry” series and Emmy Award winning director of NBC News Washington Jeffrey Blount.
“[The conference] has grown quite a bit,” said Swartz. “We professionally record all our talks and upload them to our YouTube channel. Our most popular talk from last year was queer and trans activist Alok Vaid-Menon’s, whose talk ‘We are nothing (and that is beautiful)’ was an editor’s pick on the TED website just this month and has been watched over 80,000 times.”
“This year, for the first time actually, the Middlebury Oratory Society partnered with TEDx and hosted a prep session [for participants] before the Student Speaker Competition,” said Swartz. This session was held on Monday, Sept. 29th.
Among the many changes over the years for TEDxMiddlebury was the inclusion of the student speaker. Ryan Kim ’14 spoke in the 2012 conference, and Alec Macmillan ’14 spoke in the 2013 conference.
“Having a student speaker has helped us further engage the student body,” said Swartz. “This is always an ongoing goal for TEDxMiddlebury.”
Ryan Kim ’14 and Alec Macmillan ’14 were the first student speakers for TEDxMiddlebury. Kim spoke in the 2012 conference, and Macmillan in the 2013 conference.
Swartz stated that between twelve and sixteen students deliver pitches in the Student Speaker Competition each year.
“Anyone can pitch. They have four minutes, and we try to limit their use of visual aids and multimedia, so the judges can focus on the presence of the person and their idea, which will ultimately become the foundation for a longer eighteen-minute talk” said Swartz.
With Liddell set to be this year’s speaker, Swartz and the other organizers for TEDxMiddlebury will focus their efforts exclusively on the November 9th conference.
Swartz said, “It’s motivating to be part of a team that works so actively to make each event better than the last — to work towards building something that is both inspiring for the student body and that represents and values many different identities, experiences, and ideas.”
Meanwhile, Liddell will be working with MiddCORE Instructor in Persuasive Communication Mike Kiernan to develop her winning pitch into a full eighteen-minute TED talk for the conference.
“I am so excited and honored to have the opportunity to speak at TEDxMiddlebury,” said Liddell. “Hopefully, I’ll influence the way people think, and I definitely plan on having fun. I am very grateful to talk about an issue for which I care deeply.”
