THURSDAY'S HUM (1-17-08)

REPORTER, INDEED!
When school shooter Christopher Williams rejected his guilty plea deal yesterday, we were shocked. When the Essex Reporter hit the newsstands later in the day, we were shocked again.
There, on the front page in glorious color, just a few hours after the hearing, was the complete story, along with 3 photos and a headline telling us that the trial will take place in July.
It's as quick of a turnaround as we've seen recently in the world of print; granted it was helped along by the fortuitous coupling of the hearing's timeline and the Reporter's deadline. But good stuff just the same.
Many weeklies have beefed up their news coverage - The Essex Reporter and the Williston Observer come to mind as two of the best.

NEW WASHINGTON, ER, NEW YORK, ER, VERMONT POL BLOG SURFACES
Considerable Hum in the blogosphere thanks to an article written by Kevin Kelley in the January 9 edition of Seven Days entitled 'Who's Writing Vermont's Newest Political Blog? Anonymous'.
It seems PolitickerVt.com has less connection with Vt and more with NY and DC. The site is produced by the Observer Media Group, which also pubs The New York Observer.
Kelley's excellent article points out:

-The new blog entry "...is riddled with typos and malapropisms."; Kelley gets to throw a few '[sics]' at us, which is always fun.

-The site commentator goes under the pseudonym 'Wally Edge'. Kelley hilariously adds, "He or she did not respond to repeated requests for an interview." Wally Edge does live in Vermont, though.

-"And Wally Edge's Vermont commentaries are not exactly drawing a crowd. In the blogosphere, comment quantity is one measure of success. So far Politickervt.com has elicited a whopping "zero."

FIVE CORNERS UPDATE
Short light today at the Essex Junction Five Corners.
Just as I snuggled across the front seat of my Century with Tom Slayton's new book, "Searching For Thoreau", the damn light changed. I was incensed.
Slayton's work has become the literary talk of the town; it's a 240 page analysis of Thoreau's journals, combined with accounts of Tom's visits to the places HDT wrote about.
Oh well, maybe I'll get to it next light.