Davestuff

  Vermont Just Radically Overhauled Its Education System. Here Are 5 Surprising Things You Need to Know. A Seismic Shift in the Green Mountains For generations, Vermont's identity has been deeply intertwined with its system of local control and small, community-centric schools. But in July 2025, that long-standing tradition was upended. The passage of Act 73, formally titled "An act relating to transforming Vermont’s education governance, quality, and finance systems," initiated a radical transformation of the state's education structure. This sweeping 147-page law is poised to fundamentally reshape Vermont's educational landscape. For Vermonters and education policy observers nationwide, understanding the full scope of this complex overhaul is a challenge. This article distills the law into its five most impactful and surprising takeaways. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Say Goodbye to Local School Districts as...

Sometime in the mid-Nineties, NPR played a spoken word recording of a poem (?) called The Ballad of Dave and Eddie, about two friends who took California infrastructure into their own hands. I've never been able to find a copy of that recording, and the only reference I've ever seen to the work at all is in a 1995 back issue of West Coast lit magazine  Zyzzyva . I don't even know who the author is. I've reached out to singer/songwriter/poet Dan Bern to see if it's him. If not, I have no clue. I guess the NPR ombudsman is the next stop. However, I seem to have a copy or transcript in my archives; where I got it, who knows. For posterity, here it is. If I ever find an audio recording, I'll post that, too. It was fantastic. The ballad of dave and eddie by Dan Bern Dave and Eddie were at Venice Beach playing their guitars. They played for 2 hours and made 6 dollars and 37 cents in change. Then they got in Dave's car and headed back to Hollywood. They sat in ...

Some of my friends have been on a campaign to unfriend the many closet racists who have popped up in the last few months. I've had the urge myself and was just about to start when I had a kind of revelation: It's exactly the wrong thing to do. It is by now obvious to all of us that many Americans live entirely in environments of like-minded people, so compartmentalized and isolated from other people's problems that it can seem as though they don't exist. It is devastatingly easy to surround yourself in a cocoon of talk radio and Fox news and never be exposed to any experience outside that. But this is a two-way street. It is equally easy to spend your time reading The Atlantic and reading Bernie Sanders quotes and dismissing what Ted Cruz is saying. The Liberal way isn't any less blind and rigid than the Conservative. Unfriending people contributes to that. You, the unfriender, are closing your eyes to something that angers and hurts you. But that doesn't ...

There's a lot of discussion on and praise for the John Oliver piece on Miss America Scholarships , and with good reason. But what I haven't seen is the actual scholarship amount awarded. It turns out that's an easy number to calculate, because Miss America lists the names and amounts of all their scholarship winners. It was $323,000 in 2013 (for 2012 contestants). $323,000 is not the amount actually distributed, however. For instance, MIss Vermont Chelsea Ingram was awarded $3,000, but she was ( and still is ) a college graduate with a full time job and according to the scholarship rules, unless she's enrolled in at least 9 credit hours a semester, she won't receive anything. Lop off Miss Illinois Megan Ervin 's $8,000, too, and keep working your way down the list. By my unscientific sampling, then, at least 15% of the scholarships weren't used, so generously, they awarded $275,000 in scholarships. Even John Oliver got it wrong. At $275,000 Miss A...

Two years ago, I had the rare privilege of seeing a dream come to life, when The Road Home was launched. This 501(c)(3) nonprofit is dedicated to finding social, vocational and employment opportunities for post-9/11 veterans in automotive restoration shops through short-term internships. With the help of a generous sponsorship, we've been able to help veterans, as well as do our little bit to create a new generation of collector car enthusiasts. But with the sale of American Collectors Insurance to NSM last month, The Road Home USA is losing its charter sponsor. This means huge challenges ahead if I want to keep the lights on--more than just paying the bills, American Collectors covered all the back end legal and accounting work. While I am willing to take (back) on the overall outreach and management work, I do not have the time, money or expertise to handle everything on my own. The only way to keep this running is to find a new sponsor. The good news is that TRH is no lon...

Dear Jim, For the eight years I worked at Hemmings, you made it painfully obvious that if I wasn't sitting at my desk with a Word document open, you didn't think I was working. You and Rich Lentinello showed me over and over and again that you felt any time spent out of the office was too long, that a full day was too much time for a feature photo shoot three hours away; and you repeatedly publicly belittled those of us who sometimes "only" worked 8-5. The ludicrous, if informal, "three stories/day" rule for travel served only to generate a great number of truly terrible stories, none of which were ever rejected. Since quitting, I've written just as much as I did while working full time. But with the luxury of being able to do some actual research, the quality of my work has improved. And when I don't have anything pressing, I'll stop and read a book, or go for a walk, or play a game, or watch a movie, or just stay home. Because writing isn't...

IVOR LARSSEN: TENNIS PRO             Smash!  Grunt!  “30-Love!” calls the umpire.  Ivor takes a couple new balls from the ball girl, Linda, he thinks her name is.  He tries to learn all their names, but with over 30 tournaments in a normal season, and half-a-dozen or more matches in a good tournament, it’s hard.  Bounce, bounce, toss…Whack!  Damn.  Let.  The crowd whistles with the Cyclops and the umpire calls for silence.  OK, still first serve.  Bounce, bounce, bounce, toss…Whack!  That one feels good from the moment he reaches up, a high kicker at the corner.  But Joseba “Joe” Zulaika, the Basque great currently ranked in the top 30 in the world, has read Ivor’s motion and is ready with a backhand down the line.  Ivor comes up to the net following his serve and cuts it off, slicing it hard to the other side.  “40-Love!” call the umpire.   S...

2000 Ford Contour Sport It is an unloved, small American car today, but the Ford Contour was designed to be revolutionary. It was designed to be the first new World Car in 50 years. For some carmakers, the phrase “world car” has a frighteningly compelling ring. Like perpetual motion machines, squaring the circle or mysterious black helicopters, in some minds it can be an obsession that drives you mad, and, if you’re Ford, to the brink of ruin. Standing next to a first (US) generation Contour today, your first reaction is “So what? It’s a used Ford.” Your second, if someone reminds you of the numbers, is: “This thing cost six billion dollars? Didn’t I rent one of these once? Did they actually sell any?” The answer is complicated. If we’re generous, we can call US sales one million (peaking in ‘98 with about 260,000 combined Contour/Mystique). But let’s not forget, this is a World Car, so we can add sales of the foreign market Mondeo (which was comprehensively reworked by 1...

Fun Fact: On March 15, 1863, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles met with my Great- something grandfather William Aspinwall and John Forbes at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to discuss sending the two to England to buy suspected Confederate gunboats, specifically two ironclads under construction by Laird Brothers. For plausible deniability of what would be a covert action in direct contradiction to both Lincoln administration policy and international law, Chase only told two other people in the Union government about it. To lay groundwork, Forbes and Aspinwall personally funded the English activities of Lincoln’s spymaster Thomas Haines Dudley, whose network quickly identified a number of potential targets. Chase provided $10 million in 5-20 treasury bonds to obtain capital in England. Forbes sailed on March 16, and Aspinwall came two days later, bearing his trunks full of bonds. where in early April Forbes and Aspinwall obtained a £600,000 ($3 ...

Introducing the world’s first ever scientifically proven precipitation enhancement device (PED) for small and midsized farms. The Traverado PED© is based on research conducted by the US Army and is the only method of increasing rainfall that works on a small scale—right over your crops. The story of the Traverado PED© is one of coincidence, research and discovery, and for inventor Dr. David Traver Adolphus, it started one day in fourth grade. On that overcast day, his school held one of their periodical air raid drills*. When the big siren on the roof went off, David joined his classmates under their desks, and waited for the all-clear to sound. So he had plenty of time sitting under there to think, and to look out the windows, and then to wonder: “Why did they always seem to hold air raid drills when it rained?” A seed was planted. The seed didn’t sprout until years later, when Dr. Traver Adolphus saw a magazine article about new military technologies, including non-lethal pacif...

" I'd watch an Aaron Sorkin show about people changing cat litter." --Dave The Litter Box INT: Hallway. JIMMY is walking forwards carrying a TRAY OF CAT LITTER in front of him. He is accompanied by LESLIE, a perky Southern blonde; and MICAH, a distinguished middle-aged black man. JIMMY is in the middle of a conversation, which we hear part of as he comes into the frame. JIMMY: So what you're telling me is that the entire litter box changing schedule has been changed? LESLIE: Yes. JIMMY: The entire schedule? LESLIE: Yes. JIMMY: And when did that happen? MICAH: Just now. JIMMY: What do you mean, just now? MICAH: I mean we just changed the entire schedule. JIMMY: But when did you do it? When was there a time when the entire schedule could be changed? LESLIE: At lunch. JIMMY: At lunch? LESLIE: At lunch. JIMMY: As in, today at lunch? LESLIE: Yes. JIMMY: While I was already changing the cat litter, yo...

This got cut by about two-thirds to make it into print. Also the editor hated it. If you’re thinking about buying and selling modified cars, it’s handy if you’re either a complete genius, or don’t mind losing money. We suppose you could just be super lucky, but if you have that kind of kismet you’ll be too busy getting banned from casinos in Vegas and fending off lingerie models to have time worry about hotrods. First, ask yourself  if you’re looking for bang for your buck in a car you’d like to drive; or is money on the other end your ultimate goal? They can be the same thing, but it’s much easier to have a single goal in mind. Either way, if you take the complete genius route, then you have a two-pronged plan of attack. Figure out what the next big thing is and buy it; and at the same time use your massive mental powers to make yourself love that car, whatever it is. Even if you have picked the right next hot car, and on top of that successfully predicted that peopl...

c. 1900 Roberts Electric, one of the oldest known operating electric cars BoingBoing  science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker writes in The New York Times , It will come as no surprise to hear that only a tiny fraction — less than 1 percent — of cars driving along American roads are fully electric. What might be more surprising is the fact that this wasn’t always the case. In 1900, 34 percent of cars in New York, Boston and Chicago were powered by electric motors. Nearly half had steam engines. What happened? Why do we end up embracing one technology while another, better one struggles or fails? Her thesis is that, "Society shapes the development and use of technology," and we don't necessarily end up with the technology best suited for our needs (ie, VHS vs. Betamax). She doesn't really answer the electric car question, but says, We drive gas-powered cars today for a complex set of reasons, Kirsch says, but not because the internal-combustion engine is inherent...

Indistinguishable tall chubby cars from Nissan, VW, Mitsubishi, Vauxhall, Suzuki, Ssangyong, Hyundai, Mercedes, Seat, Renault, Škoda, Toyota, Dacia, Honda, Audi, Ford, Citroën, Kia, Mini, Peugeot and Volvo. Hooray

Apparently, I didn't grasp the seriousness and weight with which they regarded themselves. Also I wasn't being paid enough for what was essentially a complete rebranding, so I really didn't feel motivated to try that hard. It didn't help that the agency I was freelancing for was owned by an ALMS driver . Not at all. ALMS: [like] a 9,000 RPM, 700 horsepower, 200 MPH Swiss watch. America's breathtaking, world class professional racing series. From production-based Corvettes to Aston Martins to Le Mans Prototypes, there's no other American racing series to compare. The world's greatest sports cars prove themselves in the American Le Mans Series. At 200 MPH, you barely have time to think. That's why we serve drinks. The most sophisticated, well-run race teams in the world sometimes make it to the starting line. That doesn’t mean they’re good enough to win. The world’s greatest racers, in the world’s greatest cars, come to compete in front of Americ...

I have bought a new vehicle, a Persian Ivory 1980 Peugeot 103 LVS U3 moped. Top of the line, baby! It could use new seat padding and I think a reed valve; I'll probably save up for a 15mm carburetor. Although as it took two years for me to buy this, don't expect that any time soon. I am considering hand-porting the engine, which should yield some notable gains. In the meantime: Specs! SPECIFICATIONS 1980 Peugeot 103 LVS U3 ENGINE Type                           Two-stroke aircooled piston port single, chromed aluminum cylinder Displacement                       49 CC (2.991-cu.in.) Bore x stroke                        40 x 39 mm Compression ratio   ...