The disappearance of Brooke initiated Vermont’s first ever Amber Alert.  Vermont is one of only a handful of  states in the nation which has not adopted Jessica’s Law.

The computer tracking that implicated Brooke’s ex-step-dad in the murder can be used to find people who import illegal child pornography into their home. Apparently there is something before congress to support this measure: PROTECT is asking Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahey (D-VT) to use his power as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to push the Biden-Hatch bill past Senate obstructionists and onto the floor for a vote.

In at least 1 in 3 child pornography arrests, law enforcement finds evidence of a local child victim, but less than 2% of these leads are being investigated due to sheer lack of resources.

Fox talk show host Bill O’Reilly once suggested that his listeners "visit [Vermont] at your discretion," because it is a "hopeless, hopeless state" that refuses to "protect the kids" from child molesters.

This is a popular opinion:

“the law will not be added until there is an outcry by the people. as for who makes the laws it is the state government that is elected by the people. as to who is to blame it will rest on the people for letting their lawmakers pass laws that protect the criminals.”

Um, excuse me, can we say, civil unions? Did that go past the people, the heart and soul of conservative rural Vermont? No way! It was ordered down through the courts by the then-governor, now chair of the DNC, Dean! BTW, you can blame populated, liberal Chittenden County for throwing any actual voting we DO get to do.

You can't blame voters for this murder. O’Reilley can blame all of Vermont, if he wants to. I think anytime someone gets passionate about child’s rights it is a good thing. Others are blaming the parents. I’m sorry, but there is only one person to blame: the sick man that did this crime!

Why don’t we learn how to stop pointing political fingers, blame the man who did this, and hold him accountable? Somebody did just that, and they get my final standing ovation:

“Jacques is charged under a federal law that provides for the death penalty in a kidnapping resulting in a child's death. Michael Jacques, 42, could face the death penalty under federal law if convicted in the disappearance of Brooke Bennett.”

I guess federal prosecutors had to take things into their own hands, since Vermont politicians seem to believe that we can dismiss criminals and put them through some program for healing, a little slap on the wrist and they won’t be back, and after all aren’t people basically good?

Worldview can be a matter of life and death, folks. It really has been.

Even if something is done, it is too late for little Brooke, too late for her family and friends.

It is almost too late for the 14 year old abuse victim “Juvenile 1” who, unbelievably, is being called an accomplice and a teenage lover, instead of an alive fellow victim, in all of this. Oversight and minds like that just add to the victimization of children. 

We enter into a tall white New England Town Hall built sometime in the mid-1800’s (my house is 1846) and resting on the Town Green.  The lady up front with the voter registration list marks me off before I even tell her my name, because “she already knows it, dearie…”

We take a pencil and the paper ballot and go stand behind a wooden cubicle. There are 3. If you need more space (in case there’s a ‘crowd,’) there are tables in the back.

This is the same place where Town Meeting is held the 2^nd Tuesday of every March of the year.

Democracy in action: it’s a beautiful sight to behold! On this day, whatever the outcome, let’s just be thankful.

Today while the farrier was here trimming my pony’s hoofs, we discussed the upcoming senate race in our state. Why anyone would want to vote a self-proclaimed socialist into office, I do not know (my farrier is not of the type who would.)

I was bemoaning this very fact to my husband the other day. He reminded me that no matter what the smart, common sense farmers and rural dwellers who value independence and individual industry might vote, most of our state’s votes get thrown by Chittenden county, home to UVM and Burlington.

UPDATE: Burlington Free Press endorses Rich Tarrant for Senate!

Then I bemoaned this fact to a good and wise friend, who reminded me that it takes an educated people to make a wise choice. Never mind that said candidate is a socialist: he’s their bud. Would they really vote him in? Do they know what socialism is?

Then I remembered my own public school learning experiences. We had one year of ‘World History,’ a couple of years of American History, and all the rest- Social Studies. Even then, we had texts full of people starving and unindustrialized around the globe, and it was all nasty white free big business’s fault.

(I have nothing against helping people lift themselves up out of bad situations. I just think it needs to be done by charity followed by empowerment. This type of thing can’t happen without free enterprise. Granted, as WORLD magazine editor in chief Marvin Olasky frequently points out, the church has dropped the ball on this, but a socialized pooling of resources is not the answer.)

One of the things I am grateful for as a homeschooling parent is that we get to read through history as adults and see the consequences of ideas. I truly think our only hope is in the home educated children who are learning principles of liberty and freedom in their homes, away from the effect of the socialized government system.

I know many feel exactly the same way about this: in fact, it’s part of our mission.

Related Tags: Socialist Senate Candidate, Vermont Senate Race

The body of missing UVM student Michelle Gardner-Quinn has been found at Huntington Gorge in Richmond, VT. Richmond is the first rural exit after leaving Burlington on Hwy. 89. Hikers discovered the body.

Michelle is from Arlington, VA. She transferred to UVM from Baltimore just this semester. She had already made many friends at UVM. She was majoring in Latin American studies and environmental science and had studied abroad in Brazil, Costa Rica and South Africa.

Her parents were in VT for the weekend when she disappeared while walking back to her dorm around 2:30 am.

News from a local Gannett newspaper is here.

Vermont does not instill a death penalty.

A 21 year old UVM student is missing since Friday night. She was last known to be walking back to her dorm around 2:15 a.m.  

The FBI and Vermont National Guard have joined the search. The missing lady, Michelle Gardner-Quinn, is from Virginia. Her parents were in town (Burlington, VT) at the time of her disappearance as it was family weekend.

UPDATE: Friday, October 13, 2006

We had our first hard frost last night, a month late.

If this is the effect of global warming, we're all for it!

               Vermont right now.

               Caleb Kenna photo.

                   VT Life Prints

I thought I would talk about the school shooting that occurred in Essex, VT on August 24, 2006. School was not yet in session. The teachers were in the school.

The hour-long spree exploded out of a domestic dispute between Christopher Williams, 26, of Essex and his former girlfriend, schoolteacher Andrea Lambesis.

burlingtonfreepress.com 

Williams went to the school after fatally shooting his girlfriend’s mother at home. He was apparently looking for his girlfriend. He shot while in the school and then went to a residence to shoot someone else.

The story is full of tragedy, teachers locking themselves in classrooms, under cover police escorts of potential victims, stopping traffic as the killer is loose afoot, a chase…Williams eventually shot himself in the head, 2ce, but he survived.  He is being held without bail.

"It's not something that happens here," said (a VT) parent: the same thing we'd have said about the Amish.

I tell my children: sin is everywhere.

Obadiah Bush, great-great-great-great grandfather of President George W. Bush, had his home in Vermont when he left during the War of 1812, according to Stephen Mansfield, in his book The Faith of George W. Bush (c. 2003).

Related Tags: George W. Bush, Obadiah Bush, Vermont

It never ceases to amaze me how God takes care of us and supplies for our every need.

We have been getting our winter’s supply of seasoned wood deliveries yesterday and today. The man selling to us is brother to a baseball coach my oldest son once had. He and his wife own Morgan horses. His wife manages our favorite excellent restaurant in the next town. Most of all, the man was happy to see how our boys got right to each pile he dropped off, and had it thrown in the wood shed before he came back with the next load.

(They get 2 cents per log. It adds up!)

Yesterday, Vigorous came out with a complimentary dozen farm eggs for our wood man and his family. This morning Mr. Wood (as I’ll call him) brought us ½ gallon of his family’s maple syrup, tapped, collected, and boiled down by them this past spring, of course. It is the best we’ve ever tasted! I was just making oatmeal (organic, with our blueberries mixed in) and we poured the maple syrup right on. It was delicious!

Well, later in the day I was just realizing I’d have to go out for bread (too late to make any, and I also mean in the bread machine) when Mr. Wood came back with his final delivery, and what did he bring? A loaf of maple cinnamon bread from his wife’s restaurant of employ, along with a container of maple butter! The bread had just come out of the oven.

We had all just finished a scant tuna fish lunch, and did that bread ever go down well! I didn’t even have to leave to get more bread.

God uses people so often to bless us. It reminds me to try and not weary in doing good for others. We don’t give of our time to others as much as we used to: it’s all invested in the children, homeschooling, and life! But we still do manage to do good deeds for others occasionally. In that respect, God also provides, because often our helping of others is something laid before us suddenly.

I ran and got a bag of our frozen blueberries for Mr. Wood. Next week we plan on going to see his end of the wood operation. My boys are very curious about the conveyor belt which he uses to load his truck. Next year, they might help him load.

Since our guys count the logs to get their pay, it will be fun to tell Mr. Wood he brought us a total of 2,702 logs.

My husband and Genious are away on an overnight, but the boys at home saved them each one log to throw in when they get back (this evening). I like that! (I should probably add, yes- we saved them maple syrup, maple bread & maple butter, too.)

I didn't know Robert Frost homeschooled his children.

Frost and his wife, Elinor, home-schooled their four children and placed special emphasis on reading to one another.   -Carl L. Howard

                                                               Vermont Life Autumn 2005

The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

This was my sister's favorite post. She e-mailed me to tell me how much she laughed. She checked my blog every day from her desk at work. When I wrote, I always knew she'd be reading whatever it was. My sister's laugh and smile are one of the things mentioned as being most missed. -Allison

Some things you think will be easy, but it turns out they require more than you are willing to invest. Such was my experience with the scrap metal-junk car removal man yesterday.

My husband’s commute puts 20-25,000 miles a year on his car. Two of his past cars were at the end of the driveway, awaiting removal. (We bought him a new Hundai.) The company was on their way over. I expected the truck to show up, load 1 or 2 cars, and be on their way.

Not so.

I should have known I was in trouble when the driver came up the driveway for discourse. I had to interrupt a phone conversation to see what he wanted. He asked if he had the right place, the right cars, etc. Considering I gave clear directions to his company and it’s not every day you see 2 cars of this exact description parked at the end of a driveway, this should have been my first clue. But it wasn’t. Because I'm a snob.

I was too busy being smitten with the fact that I was getting to talk to a real old folk Vermonter. I love them. I know I sound speciest, but it’s true, and Vermonters know it. Their seniors are a wonderful, rare breed, and all seniors deserve our very best.

The man’s eyes lit up when he started talking about where their business is located: in the old days, it was a million-chicken farm operation. That’s when he had his old business, which he sold to a name in town I recognize- everybody knows them.

Then the light died as he came back to the present: okay, time to load the car up. I was to learn that this fellow not only dislikes what he’s doing now, but that he is also terribly afraid of his work. I believe the company is run by one of his children.

I should have been able to say “good day” and go back inside to my own work. Instead, I had to move my van so he could turn around at the top of the driveway. I believe he had plenty of room to turn around without my moving the van. However, I appreciated his caution. Better safe than sorry! My humanity was still hanging on by a margin of good will.

After moving my van, he indicated a need to talk with me again. My annoyance meter started to rise. Now what?!  Little did I know it was just the beginning…

“I don’t know how I’m going to get the car on when it’s up on a hill like that.” he worried. My internal voice said, connect the winch and pull it on, steering the car as you go. My helpful voice said, “Would you like us to push it off the hill for you?”

Yes.

Well, that didn’t work since 3 of 4 tires on the car were flat. Now we were in for the duration. I commenced to wait on the other side of the road watching “traffic” (3 cars total) for the next half hour while the man jockeyed his flatbed truck in every imaginable position, trying to back up to a car. My charm with the old Vermonter scenario was waning thin. Very thin.

He finally had the truck where he could pull the car on. Ok, see you later was my attitude as I crossed the road, thinking about my dinner to put on and the phone call to return.

Then he asked if one of my boys could step on the brakes in his truck while he loaded up.  Apparently, we don’t want the flatbed rolling into the road. Well, if a truck starts rolling, it’s not going to have one of my boys in it, so I got inside the truck myself.

I have to tell you that vehicle fumes make me sick. If we are idling the van and someone gets out, the side doors have to be shut quickly. I have a habit of never backing up without turning off the vents. It’s that bad.

Well, there I sat for the next 40 minutes, fuming in more ways than one while the man loaded the car inch by slow inch, with my door open to watch my children on the banks. By now I believed I could have driven his truck and had the job done myself.

At one point he called my older boys over to work the controls on the truck winch. I thought that was nice. He had no worries about allowing them to do that. Back to nice Vermonter.

Yet I railed again, internally. If you need 2 people, why aren’t 2 people here?

Finally the car was fully loaded, chained down and on its way. I stalked to the house, realizing I needed to charge those folks $35-$50 dollars an hour for my time. I already have a job! I was too ill to start dinner.

Much to his utter regret, my husband called soon after. It was no longer ‘our’ car that needed towing. It was HIS car. He got the brunt of my frustration. I believe the phone was burning in his hand by the time he hung up.

Feeling slightly better now for some reason, I watched Snow White for a little while, laughed at dwarf antics with my own little munchkins, and made a quick tuna melt and tomato soup dinner.

During dinner, in between laughing, we prayed for this extremely nice man who needs a different job assignment from his offspring. Truly, he has my sympathy. My husband called the company to say forget the 2^nd car: we don’t have it positioned right for pick-up; we’ll call you back. I didn’t want him saying anything disrespectful about the nice man. I think he gets enough of that already.

We thought the deal was over until my sons picked up a phone call off the answering machine today. “Uh, I’m on my way over there…I’m a little hesitant to pick up that car…I’ll need you to hold the brake for me again…”

Aaaauuugh!

My children told him not to come out, that the car wasn’t ready for pick up, etc.

On one hand, I resent that the job yesterday required assistance from myself and 2 of our sons. On the other, I am still glad to have met another old time Vermonter. I do wish it didn’t require such a price in health and in time. Unexpectedly. Then again, it’s already enshrined as a treasured family memory, Mr. Melancholy Vermonter included, bless his soul. It's the happy unexpected that is usually the most treasured.

I wondered how many of these man-child soldiers would be returning from their service unhurt. For the first time I understood the real price Americans pays for our freedoms. It made my freedoms so much more dear and precious to me. It made me question ever resting on the work already done or feeling complacent when people are out there in the world every day, even at this very moment, defending American rights and putting themselves in harm's way, in every line of duty, whether actually engaged in battle or not. It made me more resolute to never lay lax or take for granted any of our freedom.

My freedoms are paid for with lives. Let me never give up praying and being vigilant in honor of those lives.

Related Tags: America, patriotism, war, prayer, soldiers

Monday is kick-off lesson day for us: it kind of sets the tone for the week. Between finishing the Northern colonies and before moving to the Southern colonies, to l go over Vermont history again. I read to the children outside on the front lawn with the beautiful Green Mountains all around us.

Vermont history fits right in with the study of New York and New Hampshire, just as the state fits between those two states. Today's Vermont arose over a land dispute between those two colonies. We are reading of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. They were fighting tyranny and pushy landlords just as Boston was firing its first shots in Lexington and Concord.

The Green Mountain Boys were on their way to take Ticonderoga for the Continental Congress when Benedict Arnold showed up, dressed like a peacock, sent by Massachusetts to take command. The Green Mountain boys wanted to hang him right then, and they wouldn't let anyone but Colonel Ethan Allen command them. Ethan allowed Arnold to march with him at the head of the column, but not as a commanding officer. He was a guest. The rest is history.

Vermont is not Chittenden county, or Burlington where UVM is: even though that’s where the population is, and throws the votes. Vermont is not the activist judicial bench of Howard Dean which gave this country civil unions.

I love God’s Vermont, and the real  Vermonters, rural people who still exude the real character of that Vermont colony, who wouldn’t let rich landlords tell them right from wrong when they could figure it out for themselves. Praise God for those folks then, and bless the same type of folks now!