About Vermont Watch

*Updated 6x*

Having been keenly interested in both local as well as statewide politics and news since I first moved to Vermont in the Spring of 1988 and also finally trying my hand at blogging back in October of 2002, for several years I entertained thoughts about setting up a blog regarding politics and news within the state.

Although there are plenty of blogs covering politics and news within the state, there is certainly room enough for more.

While I cannot promise how often or much this blog will be posted to or updated, attempts will be made to post to it whenever possible.

About the Banner:

The photo used for the blog banner is drawn from one taken by yours truly a few years ago or so and then cropped, modified and enhanced using Paint.net program recently downloaded for such purposes.

During the process of creating a banner using the same photo yet different styles, I came up with the version I selected to use (and shortly afterward a tweaked version of the same) as well as the other versions posted below (click onto each banner photo to view enlargement, since the smaller versions posted doesn't do them justice).

Please feel free to post a comment to this particular blog post in order to let me know which of these gets your vote as well as why.

*Update 4*: Current Version (slightly tweaked as well as cropped and also height shortened from the original version):

*Update 5*: Forthcoming Banner (i.e., once the first snow flies as well as then lays around long enough anyway):

*Update 1*: Previous Version (i.e., D-2a; slightly tweaked original version; August 5, 2008):


Original Banner (i.e., D; posted August 5, 2008):


Other Versions of the Banner:

C:

E:

F:

G:

H:

I:
*Update 2*: About the Founding Blogger:

The founding blogger, Morgan W. Brown, is not employed by any candidate or political party and is an Independent voter with old fashioned New England Republican family roots and an underlying Libertarian streak, yet also with what could potentially be loosely termed as a form of the Scandinavian social(ism) model, whose personal political views are actually all over the map, however not rising to an ideological or dogmatic level.

When I first registered to vote it was for the 1976 Presidential elections and my state of residence at the time was in Pennsylvania where I was attending a small Bible College at the time, although I was leaning toward doing so as an Independent, I ended up registering as a Republican. Yet shortly afterwards switched to the Independent status I have maintained ever since, although I had at times voted in primaries in those states I resided which -- like Vermont -- allow Independents to do so without declaring or establishing a political party status. The year former Senator Paul Tsongas ran for President (1992), I came very close to switching to become a Democrat as I was impressed with the party at the local and state level at the time and actually was picked as one of the Tsongas delegates from Montpelier to attend the state party convention even though I was still an Independent. That was until I was convinced out of doing so by a political speech given at the Democratic state convention by a top member of the party who referred to those like myself as not being real Democrats (and maybe they were correct, even though I was on a path to become one before then, though never again thanks to that person and their mass of followers). Thus in 1992 I became convinced it was in my best interest to remain an Independent voter and I no longer held either a desire or a need to join any political party whosoever, particularly any that would have me as a member.

Three words easily define what this blogger strongly believes in and they are found in the Vermont State Motto: i.e., Freedom and Unity.

*Update 3*: After the 2008 general election, this blog might eventually evolve to become a Vermont political as well as news watch blog monitoring statewide politics and news from a citizen perspective: aka Vermont Watch blog.

*Update 6*: With the 2008 general election now a part of history, I have just made changes to the blog so that it now reflects the general nature and purpose of the blog, which is to focus on statewide/local politics as well as news/journalism within the state blogged from a concerned citizen perspective.


*Note*: posted 2 different updates; then later put update 2 down below the earlier posted section that it had initially been placed above; added a third update to post a paragraph formerly found within the blog description in order to help shorten that area of the right-hand sidebar up a little bit; posted new version of banner as current version (i.e., update 4); posted a forthcoming banner; changed blog to reflect its more general focus and purpose; last updated on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 1:19 PM (EDT).

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