Monthly Archives: March 2012

Who Cares About Kelsey?

Posted on Friday, March 30, 2012 by No comments yet

#VT – Vermont premier for Dan Habib’s new documentary, Who Cares About Kelsey?

April 11, 2012 3:30 to 5:30pm
Burlington Hilton, 60 Battery Street, Burlington, VT
The film screening will be presented by Dan Habib and followed by a post-film Question & Answer session.

Admission is free, but you must register to attend: http://www.uvm.edu/~cdci/kelsey/

The film follows Kelsey through her senior year of high school as she faces emotional/behavioral challenges, difficult relationships, and an uncertain future. Along the way, a team of trusted adults meets with her weekly. With them she plans a future she might never have let herself picture a few years earlier. Who Cares About Kelsey? will make viewers reconsider the “problem kids” in their own high schools and spark new conversations about an education revolution that’s about empowering–not overpowering–our most emotionally and behaviorally challenged youth.

Please spread the word… post on your Front Porch Forum, etc.

Taking ownership…

Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 by No comments yet

We know that Front Porch Forum will be successful in a community when we see folks stepping up to take ownership of their town/neighborhood FPF.  After a controversial posting on the Cambridge FPF this week, Dennis just posted the response below to his neighbors… a wonderful example…

We have an amazing Front Porch Forum in Cambridge. Starting with just a few participants in June of 2010 we now have 937 members representing well over 60% of all the households in Cambridge, and this while a good portion of our town is still awaiting our long promised broadband access. I can’t help but think that one reason for our success is the respect that we have shown one another and the respect that we all have for our Cambridge Front Porch Forum.

That said, I would like to remind all that this is a NEIGHBORHOOD Forum. I do believe that courteously and civilly expressed opinions related to purely local issues, town government for example, have a place in our forum. It is not, however, the proper place for debating national or statewide political issues, endorsing candidates or promoting controversial political views with origins and ramifications well outside our own neighborhood. There are plenty of places on the web and on talk radio where those views can be expressed and those who are so inclined to forcefully express their opinions know where they are. This is a place where lost dogs get found, where a neighbor’s child looks for what she needs for a school project, where neighbors can ask for help with a difficult task, where local businesses can offer specials to their neighbors and where community groups can get the word out about their activities. It is not meant to be a place where someone who is not a close personal acquaintance can get in your face and assert strong partisan opinion. I hope and expect that it is the expressed will of our forum community that it stays that way.

That said, the opinions expressed above are strictly my own. Our forum is very lightly moderated and I have no part in that process. I am however deeply committed to the success of our Cambridge Forum and appreciative of the benefits that it has brought to us. The last thing that I want to see is that the mechanism which has so united us as a community becomes riven by the partisan ideological divide that has rendered Congress impotent and hollowed out the political center of our nation. I hope that my fellow members join me in keeping our forum local and amiable.

UFO sighted over Smugglers’ Notch

Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 by 5 comments

After midnight last night, I observed a very large bright red light in the sky traveling north away from Smugglers’ Notch ski area. It appeared to be quite high in the sky, above the mountains and traveling slow. It was not a plane. There was no sound. I ran outside and watched as it traveled over my house. It appeared to go higher as it continued, in straight line path in the sky. I watched until it disappeared over the mountain behind us. I was hoping someone else observed this unusual phenomenon. I would also appreciate any reasonable explanation as to what this could have been.

Posted by Karen on the Cambridge Front Porch Forumtoday!

FOLLOW UP POSTINGS…

  • I am very intrigued by your sighting… I’ve visited the crop circles in England and I do think that we have neighbors… Thank you for sharing your experience.
  • It was most likely a Flying Sky Lantern.  We have sent those into the sky many times and had neighbors comment on seeing a UFO.
  • What you saw may have been a satellite.  I’ve watched them in the past.  Check out the web site stellarium.org for real time satellite and star locations, it’s an amazing site!
  • I don’t know how bright or how fast your object was but Mars is a very bright red right now and would be about where you described it at midnight. Planets, especially Mars and Venus are often mistaken for UFOs, especially if scudding clouds give them a sense of greater movement in the sky.  By the way there is a spectacular dance going on between the crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter in the western sky right now during the evening and early night hours. Here’s some info.
  • I live just down the road from Smuggler’s View, and although I did not see the large, bright, red light, we now live in unusual times.  With last week’s unseasonable heat wave and the strange behavior of my two pups, I feel inclined to paraphrase Carl Sagan’s epitaph to astronomer Johannes Kepler: I prefer the hard truth to my dearest illusions.  Go with your gut on this one.
  • The UFO sighting thread included a comment by a neighbor about sending “flying sky lanterns” “into the sky many times” which were mistaken for UFOs. Please reassure me than nobody would release a balloon or other device with an open flame, combustible materials, or any other hazard that could cause a fire. We’ve just had a period of high risk of brush fires due to dry weather. I’d like to think that everyone who lives in this area is aware of the danger and would not send anything “into the sky” without considering the potential for setting fire to the woods.  Probably unnecessary to point out the obvious, but the concept of a “flying sky lantern” caught my eye. Hopefully this was just a joke, a bit early for April Fools. If I saw my neighbor releasing a balloon-borne candle or such, I’d certainly have a discussion with them, but not about UFOs!
IN CONCLUSION from Karen in Cambridge…
  • I want to thank all of my Front Porch Forum neighbors for all of the emails and posts, in their efforts to solve my UFO mystery! I now believe it was indeed a sky lantern. After doing some research and checking out some images on Google, it seems to match what I saw. My guess is the lantern was launched at Smuggs.  Looking forward to a special occasion to launch one myself some night!

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Posted on Monday, March 19, 2012 by No comments yet

#VT – Should political discussion be allowed on the Jericho FPF?  Neighbor Christina posted just now…

Here! Here! Yes–HERE!

Remember those bygone days when we didn’t have computers? When neighbors used to stop by to talk about ALL kinds of things… the condition of roads, Does anybody know of a good babysitter?, Did you here that Mrs. So & So was away and we should watch out for anything amiss… oh and yes—Politics.

Think of the VERY name “Front Porch Forum

To me the name evokes a time when neighbors actually stopped by and chatted with each other in parlors, around the kitchen table & on the front porch. I can not remember a time when my grandparents or parents closed the door on somebody and said— “I don’t like your opinion, so don’t voice it near me.” IF one had a differing opinion—they talked about it or discretely found a way to avoid being drawing into a conversation not to their taste.

In our VERY hectic lives forums like this one are sometimes the only way we get to know our neighbors and share the news of the day. Sometimes I don’t agree with what is said–or sometimes think it’s downright silly. However, I ABSOLUTELY respect the fact that folks are communicating, sharing, seeking & dispensing advice, etc…

Today it’s SO easy—just scroll down past anything you don’t wish to read about—much less respond to.

My vote is to keep the political discussion—I trust nobody will be offended if not all of us respond to every message 🙂