Like a person, a web site must take a day every now and then to establish its procedures, clarify some confusions, and take note of new information which might confirm (or refute) earlier statements.

This is one of those days.

Last week the News Guy gratefully received a generous donation from an out-of-state political advocacy organization.

And reluctantly returned it.

The alternative was to keep it, but then, when dealing with the subject of this particular group’s interest, insert a parenthetical, “full disclosure” statement.

Nah! That’s no good, and not only because it’s awkward. You either take the money or you don’t.

The News Guy does not. At least not from: elected officials; senior appointed officials (as in, direct appointees of the governor); anyone running for office now (donations from former candidates gladly accepted, even those pondering another run sometimes in the future); political parties; interest groups.

As for individuals who work for political parties and interest groups, let’s use common sense. On the one hand, the News Guy is not about to research every contributor to see where he or she is employed. But then, he doesn’t have to do that with the chairs of Vermont’s three political parties. They should not donate.

If you do not fall into one of those categories, however, and have not sent a donation, you are encouraged to do so. Simply look under “Pages” (in the top right quarter of the page), click “donate,” and contribute as little (or, better yet, as much) as you wish. More revenue does not enrich the News Guy as much as it makes it possible to cover more stories, better.

If and when the site seeks advertisements, ads from any legal entity will be accepted: candidates, causes, defense contractors, tobacco companies, subversive organizations, escaped convicts. Whatever.

Two big differences between donations and advertisements. First, the ads are out there in plain site for all the world to see. Second, the revenue from each one is infinitesimal. In fact, the revenue is zero unless someone clicks on the ad. In that case the revenue is pennies. The News Guy can be bought, because anyone can be bought. But not for pennies.

Similarly, though it doesn’t really do any harm, all Facebook “Friends” (the quotation marks are needed because most of these “friends” remain complete strangers) might save their energies by not inviting the News Guy to be a “fan” or otherwise support (or attend the event of) a political cause, or for that matter a commercial enterprise.

Reporters are not fans, at least not of anything but sports teams, musicians, and actors. Yes, technically, the Facebook page under discussion here is personal, but it is effectively the News Guy web site’s page. As such, there is no point in urging him to become a friend of any business, or a fan of “Let’s Close Vermont Yankee,” VPIRG, the Champlain Housing Trust, “Fight Animal Cruelty.” Or Radio Free Vermont.

Since the December 28 post, “Population Balm” two pieces of information have generally confirmed the point of that post that Vermont’s stable population is a result of who Vermonters are rather than what they, or their state government, does.

One was a new Census Bureau report showing that Vermont was one of several states in which there were fewer young people (under 18) last year than in 2000.

Then there was a report by the Southern Education Fund revealing that a majority of students in public schools in the Southern states were both low-income and minority.

Not, the report said, because of the “white flight” of earlier decades, or because so many whites go to private schools; the South has the smallest percentage of private school students in the country. Instead, black, Hispanic, American Indian and others now comprise more than 50 percent of the Southern public school students partly because of increased Hispanic immigration. But also, according to the report, “Higher rates of birth among the South’s Hispanic and African American populations in recent years explain a significant part of the increase in school enrollment.”

The report does not quite say that whites, and especially affluent, educated, whites, are simply not having as many children as other groups, or as many as they used to. But it suggests that conclusion, which is also found worldwide in other population statistics.

It is one reason Vermont’s under-18 population has declined by 14 percent, faster than any other state’s, though the decline in Maine, Michigan, and North Dakota was also ten percent or higher.

Michigan, which is losing total population, is a special case these days because of the decline of the auto industry. Maine is almost as white as Vermont, but North Dakota is not, and neither is as affluent nor as well-educated.

Whether the drop in the under-18 population is a problem or an opportunity, it is undoubtedly a factor. It’s happening, and therefore should be discussed in connection with whether state policy can, or should, try to: (a) reverse: or (b) encourage and exploit the trend.

And finally today, reluctant though the News Guy is to pick on the poor, pitiful, Burlington Free Press yet again, a blunder in Saturday’s paper can not go unremarked. In a straightforward story with no byline, the Freeps informed us all that the speaker at Burlington’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. remembrance next Sunday would be law Professor Anita Hill, who “earned notoriety during the 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”

Not exactly wrong. At the time, Hill earned notoriety – that is: infamy, dishonor, ill repute – because at the time most people didn’t believe her allegations of misconduct against Thomas. Later, thanks to new information that backed up her contentions, public opinion turned more in her favor.

But the point here is not to relive the squabbles of 1991. The problem is that like many people these days, the writers and editors at the Free Press seem to think that “notoriety” means “fame.”

Minimally defensible. “Known widely” is the start of the Dictionary definition of “notorious,” but the words immediately following are “and usually unfavorably.”

A great language, English, because it allows nuance and precision. One of the great examples is the distinction among “fame,” “celebrity,” and “notoriety.” Newspapers oughtn’t muck them up.

Not that everything is peachy keen in Vermont, but relatively speaking, they aren’t that bad, either.

From the ever-useful Rural Blog comes word that reporter Bill Bishop of Daily Yonder has performed the valuable service of doing a county-by-county check of the recent growth of poverty in America.

It was disproportionately rural.

Using U.S. Census bureau statistics, Bishop found that while last year’s 13.2 percent nationwide poverty rate was the highest since 1997, it was higher yet – 16.3 percent – in the nation’s rural counties.

“The increase in the number of poor Americans was heavily weighted in rural communities,” Bishop wrote. “Rural counties were home to just over 16% of the nation’s population in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But 33% of the increase in the number of poor Americans from ’03 to ‘08 — more than one million people — was found in rural counties.

As a result, the gap between the poverty rates in urban and rural America widened, doubling between 2003 and 2008.”

During the 1990s, Bishop found, the rural-urban poverty gap actually declined, thanks largely to a growing nationwide economy. The weaker economy of this decade, though, apparently hits rural areas the hardest. There are 50 rural counties where more than 32 percent of the people live under the poverty line.

How many of those counties are in Vermont?

None. In fact, no Vermont county has a poverty rate as high as that 16.3 percent of all rural counties. Essex County in the Northeast Kingdom comes closest with a 14.8 percent poverty rate, closely followed by neighboring Orleans County, at 14.3 percent.

(In case anyone is wondering, Chittenden is Vermont’s only urban country. Franklin and Grand Isle are considered exurban. All the others are designated rural).

On the other hand, no Vermont County was among the least impoverished rural counties, either. And in all of them, the poverty rate was higher than it was in 2003, when the rate in Essex County was 12.3 percent, and 13.1 percent in Orleans.

Here are the poverty rates for the other counties: Addison—9.5 percent up from 8.7 percent in 2003; Bennington–12.2, up from 10; Caledonia–11.8 , up minimally from 11.3; Chittenden—9.6 from 7.6; Franklin—9.9 up from 9.5; Grand Isle—8.4, up from 7.3; Lamoille—10.1 from 8.8; Orange—10.9 from 9.2; Rutland—11.6, up from 10.3; Washington—9.7 up from 8.4; Windham—9.8, just up from 9.7; Windsor—9.3 up from 8.7.

It’s possible that Vermont’s rural counties are lucky in being, in a sense, less rural than the rural counties of many other states. Down South and especially out West, some rural counties take up as much space as four or five of Vermont’s, and are much farther from the nearest town of any size, where most of the good jobs are these days.

What with poverty going up, it’s no surprise that so is reliance on food stamps. Last Sunday’s New York Times reported that one in eight Americans – and one in four children – use food stamps to keep themselves nourished. So widespread is the use of food stamps, the Times reported, that much of the stigma is gone from a program “once scorned as a failed welfare scheme.”

Using both U.S. Agriculture Department and Census Bureau statistics, the Times also provided, on line, a county-by-county breakdown which showed that in Vermont, as in almost every other state, use of food stamps has grown everywhere, especially in some of the more affluent areas.

Chittenden County, for instance, had Vermont’s lowest percentage of food stamp users in June of this year – nine percent. But the growth since June of 2007 was 43 percent, higher than the 33 percent growth in less affluent Essex County, where 17 percent of the residents use food stamps.

The same pattern holds in many other states, at least suggesting that the current recession is plunging into poverty many households and individuals who until recently could be classified as middle-income. Not only are some of those people unemployed, but even more are working fewer hours.

Here are the results for the other Vermont counties, with the percentage on food stamps first, followed by the two-year percentage increase: Addison—9. 61; Bennington—16. 51; Caledonia—16. 41; Franklin—15. 46; Grand Isle—11.52; Lamoille—13. 47; Orange—12. 13; Orleans—20. 42; Rutland—15. 45; Washington—11. 45; Windham—15. 54; Windsor—11. 47

And speaking of statistics, and reluctant though the News Guy is to beat up on the Burlington Free Press yet again, there was a certain amount of innumeracy in its account last week of Fletcher Allen Health Care’s dissent from the recent federal task force recommendation that all women under 50 did not need to get annual mammograms.

“During the last fiscal year,” the paper reported, “the hospital screened about 7,000 women ages 40 to 49…79 women in that age group were diagnosed with cancer.”

But “those diagnoses were not necessarily made through the annual screening process.”

Meaning those figures provide no evidence of the efficacy of the annual mammograms for those women. Neither does the fact that women in their forties “had the second largest tally of breast cancer diagnoses,” after women in their fifties.

They would, wouldn’t they? The disease is less prevalent among both younger and older women.

Reached in Chicago, where she is attending a medical conference, Dr. Sally Herschorn, Fletcher Allen’s attending radiologist, acknowledged that the figures were “not germane” to the factual debate over the recommendations. But Dr. Herschorn said she thought the task force’s study was “flawed,” and that annual screenings by women in their forties could save lives.

She may be right. But the numbers cited by the Freep as evidence for her position, while interesting, were not evidence for anything.

It’s a little early to pronounce State Auditor Tom Salmon politically cooked and ready to have the loser’s fork stuck into his carcass.

But just a little.

Salmon, of course, is the elected Democrat who took the political risk earlier this year of becoming a Republican in a state where that is generally not considered a shrewd career move.

Last week he made the personal and political mistake of driving his car after he’d had too much to drink.

Monday he went on the radio to talk about it and botched things up totally.

Asked the obvious question by Jane Lindholm on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition, Salmon refused to say how much he’d had to drink before a Montpelier cop pulled him over Friday evening. The question, he said, was not “germane.”

This dictionary (American Heritage Second College Edition) defines “germane” as “having a significant bearing upon a point at hand; pertinent.”

Under that definition, what could possibly be more germane than asking an elected official who has had too much to drink just what he had been drinking, and how much?

Especially considering that he had earlier said he’d been drinking red wine.

Asserting that his goal was maximum “candor,” Salmon practiced maximum evasiveness. He wouldn’t say forthrightly that he planned to plead guilty when his case comes to court next month, leaving the impression that he was hoping for some other outcome.

To top it all off, before the brief (maybe five minute) interview ended, Salmon got potty-mouthed. If he thought the vulgarity would mark him as a regular guy, he was wrong. It marked him as vulgar. It also raised the question of…well, to come right to the point…of whether he’s something of a dope.

Maybe he’s the brightest guy around. But the context here is politics, in which appearance often outstrips reality. A candidate who comes across as kind of dense risks getting the reputation as a candidate who’s kind of dense. Once acquired, this reputation is hard to shake.

To be fair to Salmon, he does not appear to have been falling-down drunk. His breathalyzer test measured a blood alcohol content of .086, not far above the .08 legal limit.

Still, above the limit is above the limit. It doesn’t look good.

For two reasons, Salmon could still get re-elected next year. First, it’s early. Assuming there is no repeat performance, voters could forgive even if they don’t forget. A candidate who gets the vote of everyone who has ever driven after a drink too many would probably win in a landslide.

Second, one can never underestimate the facility of Vermont Democrats to nominate a turkey to run against Salmon. The Democratic leadership is no doubt trying to recruit a good candidate. But that leadership has limited power to control events. Anybody can enter the primary, meaning anybody can win it, including a turkey.

Right now, though, the Auditor’s re-election prospects seem bleak.

Oh, the other guy who wasn’t exactly impressive in handling this kerfuffle was Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate-designate Brian Dubie, who had nothing but praise for Salmon at Saturday’s Republican convention. Not a hint that he disapproved of what Salmon had done.

The appropriate response in the family, the fraternity house, maybe the Elks Club. Not in politics.

Enough of that. Now let’s turn to that other kerfuffle, the one about that letter to the editor of the Burlington Free Press, the existence of which the Freep is trying to deny.

The letter, by Ethan A. Sims (apparently the highly respected, much-honored professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Vermont, though the News Guy was unable to reach him for confirmation) which appeared to suggest that, while hunters were out trying to shoot a moose, anti-hunters might want to shoot the moose-hunters.

At least that’s how a great many hunters understood it. Preferring to be predators rather than prey, these hunters and their organizations not unreasonably became upset, deluging the newspaper with so many angry letters to the editor that the editors surrendered.

Abjectly. Not because they apologized, which was defensible if perhaps not necessary. But because they removed the letter from the newspaper’s web site archives.

It became, then, an un-letter, rather the way some one-time associates of Stalin who fell out of favor (and soon thereafter of sight) had their names and photographs purged from the history books, becoming un-persons.

Because no one here was killed, tortured, or exiled, the editors hardly sink to Stalinism, or other aspects of Bolshevism except in their obvious toadiness. Theirs is the spirit not of the independent journalist but of the ever-obsequious courtier.

Besides, this not being Soviet Russia, suppression doesn’t work. Anyone with a desire to see the letter and an Internet connection can find it. Here it is:

On this beautiful day we learn that about 1,251 hunters are taking to the woods with legal permits to “pursue prized quarry.” Certainly the members of various humane organizations do not approve. I suggest that before the next annual killing season, other residents be awarded legal permits to kill hunters who will be out to kill these beautiful, non-destructive animals. Or the government could just rule out all this primitive killing.
ETHAN A.H. SIMS
Shelburne

As another letter-writer noted last Sunday (a letter the Free Press editors, to their credit, printed), Sims obviously didn’t really want anyone to shoot a moose hunter. His letter was Swiftian satire, modeled on Jonathan Swift’s famous Modest Proposal (1729) suggesting Ireland’s poor ease their penury by selling their children to be eaten.

Not that hunters should be blamed for insufficient attention to Dr. Sims’ literary playfulness, which would have alerted them to his motivation. Hunters feel put upon these days because everybody does. It’s the American way to think everybody’s out to get us, whoever “us” may be. In fact, a very small percentage of the American people actively oppose hunting, and they have not been taken seriously by most of the rest of us (the News Guy is a very pro-hunting non-hunter) at least since the anti-hunting group PETA called for New Yorkers to change the name of the Fishkill River, apparently unaware that “kill” is Dutch for “river,” and so the name is not evidence of anti-piscatorialism (though perhaps of redundancy).

The editors could have explained that Sims was not in fact urging the murder of anyone, simply expressing his own anti-hunting views in a sardonic manner and with some literary flourish. Such a rational response, however, does not come easily to courtiers. Instead, the paper apologized for running a letter “advocating for violence against hunters,” which the letter does not do.

(OK, since this site is beating up on the Free Press again, this is a good place to note that Sunday’s package on the Lake Champlain Bridge, with stories by Terri Hallenbeck and Matt Sutkoski, was first class journalism.)