Vermont Phoenix, first to emerge...tributes to Dean from Vermonters.

[madfloridian]

Vermont Phoenix, some tributes to Howard Dean from Vermonters.

This is the homepage on which I found these great links, just to give credit to this person, David Budbill
http://www.davidbudbill.com/index.html

From there he links to the THE JUDEVINE MOUNTAIN EMAILITE: A Cyberzine
An On-line and On-going Journal of Politics and Opinion.

This is the February Issue from 2005, and various Vermonters respond with their knowledge and appreciation and sometimes disagreements with their former governor. No matter their thoughts, there is a common thread of respect.
http://www.davidbudbill.com/jme35.html
SNIP..."What is clear in the pieces below is that Howard Dean is a doggedly determined, focused person with an iron will who can and will jump gladly into what seem like impossible situations. Howard Dean is an honest, blunt--sometimes brutally blunt, straight-forward man with a real vision for the Democratic party--not one concocted by focus groups and opinion polls. As David Rocchio says, below, "Howard Dean is a Teddy Roosevelt in a world of Karl Roves." It is also clear that Howard Dean is a quick study. He is someone who can and does learn from past mistakes, and who is willing to adapt and change his tactics, while not changing or watering down his vision.

Dean's biggest problem now that he is Chairman of the DNC is not going to be the Republicans, but, rather, the inside-the-beltway Democrats. Dean's victory was a genuine coup. This upstart populist stole the chairmanship right out from under the noses of the Democratic establishment power brokers. He was able to do this because American Democrats, those of us outside the beltway, were furious, and still are, with the way the DNC bungled two presidential elections with their willingness to compromise and water down core Democratic values and with their desperate attempts to become Karl Rove wannabees. Now, for the first time in years, the Democratic Party, led by Howard Dean, the Vermont Phoenix, has someone who can take it and us into the future....."

My favorite is this one:
HOWARD DEAN WILL SHARPEN THE POLITICAL DEBATE
by Dirk VanSusteren.
SNIP..."I am an unabashed Howard Dean fan. And it's not because he is a liberal or conservative (as some of the very liberal Democrats in Vermont would argue). But I like him because of the excitement and clarity he brings to American politics. I think as DNC chair he will do the job of raising money for the party, recruiting candidates, getting younger people involved in the political process and articulating "Democratic" values on the Sunday morning news programs. All this will be important for his party, but I also think it will strengthen the two-party system in general, which has worked quite well for this country. In his presidential campaign he showed flashes of liberal populism; and the more he continues as DNC chair to promote populist values in his party, the more clearly the Democrats will distinguish themselves from the Republicans, and the more likely American voters will have real choices when they vote. So, Dean, as a spokesman for his party, will force people--Democrats and Republicans alike--to think: which is a good thing....."

Vermont cartoonist Tim Newcomb penned this prophetic drawing on November 15, 2004, just 12 days after the election.
Copyright © 2004 Tim Newcomb

[Cha]

1. Nice Piece, madflor!

Vermont Phoenix! Very descriptive of Dean and the 'toon goes with it(and to think ..it was "prophetic"!)

"This upstart populist stole the chairmanship right out from under the noses of the Democratic establishment power brokers. He was able to do this because American Democrats, those of us outside the beltway, were furious, and still are, with the way the DNC bungled two presidential elections with their willingness to compromise and water down core Democratic values and with their desperate attempts to become Karl Rove wannabees."

:dem: Power To The People Powered Howard! :kick:

Dean can take us into the future and he should talk to Tim Newcomb because he seems to have a grasp on the future, too!

[mandyky]

2. Thanks, madfloridian

Excellent articles.
Loved the cartoon!

[madfloridian]

3. Easy as Pie, a tribute to the emperor, from the main webpage.

Beautiful, powerful...I like this guy.

EASY AS PIE
The Emperor divides the world
into two parts:
the Good and the Evil.

If you don't want to accept that,
The Emperor says
you are Evil.

The Emperor declares himself
and his friends:
Good.

The Emperor says as soon as
Good has destroyed Evil,
all will be Good.

Simple as one, two, three.
Clear as night and day.
Different as black and white.

Easy as pie.
http://www.davidbudbill.com/emperorlive.html#easy

[BrklynLiberal]

4. I saw another toon that showed Dean as a Phoenix rising from the ashes

right after he was elected chairman of the DNC.

[Eloriel]

5. I like his opening paragraph:

DAVID'S NOTES:

This issue of The Judevine Mountain Emailite is about Howard Dean. It brings you pieces by people who actually know and have worked with Howard Dean. This decidedly cannot be said of David Letterman, Cokie Roberts, Diane Sawyer and the other media pundits who did so much a year ago to foist off on the American public their distorted and perverted image of Howard. If you want to know what Howard Dean is really like, read the writers here.

[mandyky]

6. I devoured that site, madflor

I have it in my favorites. I found a link to an Arrianna article - "Unelectable My Ass" which I'd not read before. What a find!!

[madfloridian]

7. Budbill has a book of poems coming out: "While We've Still Got Feet."

http://www.davidbudbill.com/wwsgf.html

Wrenchingly real, fiercely emotional and unexpectedly funny."
--The Chicago Sun-Times

"Budbill both informs and moves. He is, in short, a delight and a comfort."
--Wendell Berry

"With rare honesty, affection and grace--and with language so precise and descriptive you will know immediately you're soul-deep in something extraordinary."
--The Los Angeles Daily News

"Budbill writes out of the real, contemporary New England, not from the past, not from the cellar holes. He speaks from the New England which is Appalachia--poverty, exploitation, and good people."
--Donald Hall


* * *
David Budbill is beloved by legions for straightforward poems dispatched from his hermitage on Judevine Mountain. Inspired by classical Chinese hermit poets, he follows tradition but cannot escape the complications and struggles of a modern solitary existence. Loneliness, aging, and political outrage are addressed in these poems that value honesty and simplicity and deplore pretension.

The poems in While We've Still Got Feet grow out of the peace of a mountain wilderness home, the pleasures of daily life, and an acute awareness of the melancholy passing of time as the days turn through the seasons. These poems are written in a clear way with blunt honesty, humor, and insight into the human condition. Beneath the surface of these simple poems is a wealth of meaning and passion. As before, Judevine Mountain--and David Budbill--deal with opposites: solitude and loneliness, contentment and restlessness, the allures of the city versus the country and the ever present tension between the desire for engagement with the world on the one hand and withdrawal from it on the other. There is no resolution for the conundrums and dichotomies of this life, but rather the comfort that comes from a clear articulation between life's opposites...."