 Hi, this is All Things LGBTQ, our interview show. We'd like to acknowledge that we're taping in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unseeded indigenous land. And I'd like to welcome you to the show. If you have any suggestions about who you'd like to see interviewed here, please let us know and we'd be glad to check it out. Thanks for coming and I hope you enjoy the show. I am joined by someone that Ann and Linda met last year at the Out in the Open World Summit. This is Ann's role, who is an author, organizational consultant, and probably most importantly, a beekeeper. So welcome. Thank you. I've been hearing your name for the past year. So it's an absolute delight to actually have a face to put to it. Yay. And to talk to you about the work you're doing. On your website, there is a statement that most decidedly got my attention. And it was reimagining organizational cultures based on models of cooperative power inspired by nature. And I'm making the leap of faith that this is what the bees have taught you. Could you talk a bit about how you came to develop a relationship with the bees, what you have learned, and how that's informed the rest of your work? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I love that you said, and most importantly, a beekeeper or a bee tender. I came to the work that I do with organizations sort of at the same time that I came to the work that I do with two honeybees. I got my start beekeeping, like really got my start in Boston. I moved there about a decade ago and I moved there to work in an AmeriCorps program and then ultimately ended up going back to grad school using that funding to put me through grad school. And at the time that I moved there, I was really jazzed and fed by the urban ag movement. I'd been involved in that in New Orleans and in Miami where I have some young adult roots. And so I was able to plug in with some folks, one of whom was this gentleman named Jean-Claude Barout who was a beekeeper and an organic farmer. And I was like, I'm into this, I wanna try this. So he takes me to pick up this whiskey barrel, like one of those, you know, gosh, I don't even know how many gallons. It looks like a 55 gallon drum. So that size, we go pick up this whiskey barrel south of Boston from a gentleman who I guess had, a swarm had moved into it, which means like a half of bees had moved into this barrel and was living in it. And the gentleman had just kind of let that go for quite a few years, but then he had sort of toddler age grandchildren about. So he asked us to remove it. So my first task was loading this whiskey barrel full of bees onto a pickup truck and moving it from one part of town to the other part and then helping Jean-Claude sort of carefully cut each frame out and press it into the frames of like a hive, which what is called a Langstroth hive. That's like the standard like white boxes you probably imagine when you imagine a bee hive. Yeah, and I just remember being in this cloud of honeybees flying all over with my, you know, my fully suited up with my rubber bands around all my, it wrists and ankles and just being like, yeah, this is it. This is the thing that I wanna do. And of course I've had a parallel career at the same time, but I just remember that moment so clearly that I was just like, yep, this is the thing. This is the thing that my soul feels called to. So at the same time, I was going to school and studying social justice education and I went to Wheelock College, which is a part of Boston University and I studied at a sort of radical project-based learning school called Mission Hill School. And I looked at all the ways that we learn, how we learn cooperatively, how we learn through self-guided and project-based learning and sort of examine to the ways that people cooperated to build understanding in a classroom that was what my master's was in, looking at that in a classroom context, but over the years it's expanded to looking at that in organizations, dominantly like nonprofit institutions trying to tackle issues of how do we create more equity? How do we create more cooperation amongst our employees? How do our employees or our workers have a share of the business so that they feel empowered to be involved in making something grow? And so yeah, a lot of what I am influenced by is the Honey Bee Hive. I think about Hive as a fem run cooperative, as I like to say. They make all their decisions democratically. They communicate constantly and are constantly looking for effective ways to communicate so that they can gather food, gather water, gather resources, take care of each other and their young. And so they really have these very effective systems for cooperation that I think we can learn a lot about. And that said, at the same time, I think there are a lot of ways we are not like bees that we have to tackle and push against. We as humans in the United States in a culture that has a very dark history of colonialism and slavery and incarceration, we need to be looking at the systems that we've designed and working to dismantle them at the same time that we are learning to cooperate and be more effective learners and movement builders together. On your website, there is a bit of a narrative that talks about how most people have a perception of is the queen bee who directs totally what happens in the hive. And listening to what it is you're saying, that's a misconception. That's trying to take a natural process or a natural and nature-based relationship and superimpose a patriarchal model upon it. Which is not what you learn by working with the bees. You learn by working with the bees. Also on your website, there is a reference to a trait within your family having intuitive senses. How has that enhanced your awareness of what the bees are teaching you and then what you're able to incorporate into the work you're doing on organizational structure? That's a good question. I think honestly that all of us have intuition or intuitive capacity, but it's sort of squelched by the society, the white cis-het patriarchal society that we live in. It sort of works against intuition. And so I think it's there for all of us. I think for my family in particular, there have been several generations of the women that have come through my family have these premonition style dreams. And there is a lot of practice across the world in beekeeping of dreams, like patterns of dreaming with bees and listening to bees as sort of a dream guide. And so I think that that's an interesting intersection for me. I think intuitively, if you can enter into a beehive, so when you enter into a beehive, it's this complete sensory experience, right? It's an olfactory experience. You need to smell what's going on. You need to see to some degree. I mean, there are several very famous blind beekeepers, actually, but they had someone who was their eyes. So you need to be able to see, you need to be able to smell, you need to be able to listen to the sounds because the pitches and the tones of the bees change depending on what's going on, what time of year it is, how much food is in the hive, what the state of the brood is, et cetera. And you need to be able to feel, and that is, you feel when the bees are agitated or defensive because they sting you, but you also need to be able to feel the difference between that and like bees landing on you so that you're not sort of constantly in the state of disarray. So you need to be able to embody a lot of intuition to connect to them, I think, you know? Otherwise you're sort of in this, for a lot of humans, you're in this fear space with bees all the time. Oh, they're gonna sting me. Oh, they're gonna, they're gonna, this one's on my leg, that one's in my shirt, you know? But if you can drop below that, it's sort of like a meditative state, right? It's like, okay, my senses are in tune to this thing, this, not thing, but this creature really. And I'm paying attention to it in all of the ways that I have the capacity, which takes an enormous amount of concentration, but it's not like an intellectual concentration, it's an embodied concentration. And I think it took me a long time to get there as a beekeeper, right? Like when I started beekeeping, I was like, these creatures are incredible, but I was raised in an apartment in Queens, like I definitely grew up scared of insects and like screaming when a bug would land on me, you know? So there was a lot of unlearning that had to happen for me to be able to sit in that space of like, intuiting what's going on and a lot of practice. So I don't wanna discount that, but the intuition and the embodiment, I think is for me deeply connected to how we cooperate, how we share power, how we really get into a space where we can be vulnerable with each other. The only way that we can do that is if we're willing to drop into our bodies and out of our intellects and out of that sort of cognitive dissonance space of feeling like we wanna connect to someone but we're nervous and we're not quite sure and like, should we share this or should we share that? I think if we as humans could work to be more effectively embodied, we could operate from an intuitive place more successfully. So these are all of the things that you're going to use to how organizations evaluate, reestablish their relationships within their organization. And this might also be some of the things that we would read in your book, Radicalizing the High. Yeah, yeah, so I put together this book. I work in partnership with the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and a couple of years ago, I was teaching a course there and I got a small grant to put together this book that initially was supposed to be like a supplementary text for my students because there's this problem in sort of learning about beekeeping that it's hard to know who to learn from and who is out there. And then there's also a lack of representation. When you look at a beekeeping community, you will often find that it is dominantly white males over 60 that are running beekeeping operations. And so it was important to me that my young students who are in the 20s and teens had access to a diverse perspective on beekeeping. And so I gather stories from beekeepers all over North America. My students helped me. We interviewed folks from New Mexico and Washington and Canada and talked dominantly with folks who were women led, queer led, or black and indigenous people of color led organizations, beekeeping organizations. We talked about what they were doing, what they thought they were doing differently than the industry, what made their practice unique and then what about their practice was community centered because a lot of these folks have these practices that are really rooted in community and education in cooperation too. So they're sort of building on these ideas that I'm talking about when I'm talking about humans cooperating and they're using bees as the channel to teach other folks. So I put that together and then on top of that, I had been doing my own writing about the industry and where the beekeeping industry was at, as well as jotting down all these notes and ideas about the things we could learn from bees. And so what I ended up with was this three part book. The first part is sort of the story of my perspective on beekeeping and where the industry is and where we could stand to go as we bring new and young folks into the industry and introduce it to a wider audience. And then also a little bit about what I think we can learn from bees and tools that we can use to start some of those cooperative practices. And then of course these stories from all these different beekeepers across North America. So really breaking it down into these three sort of buckets of information for students. And then UMass agreed to publish it as an e-book for that people could access completely for free. So I was able to then create this document that was educational and told a lot of different stories and has real resources in it and share it with a wider audience for free. So that was an excellent opportunity. So you can download it on, if you go to my website theykeepbees.com, you can download a copy of the book. You enter your email and then I send you an email that's got a downloadable link. And you can also read it online through something called press books. It's an open source book. And so you get it in your browser and then you can go through the content which is sort of in the sidebar and you can read it just in your browser or download the whole thing or download sections of it. And it's meant to be this open source tool which means that people can use it. They can adapt it. They can use it to teach other people or they can share some of the stories that are in it. So again, creating this thing that isn't isn't hidden away by power structures or is accessible to people who are interested in a practice of beekeeping. So with that, I need to say thank you. If people are interested in bringing you into their organization to try and look at change, they can also access the other website which we will make sure that Zach puts up and it's prominently displayed. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I look forward to your next publication so we get to bring you back. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Take care, Keith. You too. I'd like to introduce Kay Acker to all things LGBTQ. Hi Kay, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm doing pretty well, thank you. I'm gonna start with reading a little bit about who you are. I'm looking into a little more of that later but it says here that you grew up in Northern Alabama and you now live in Southern Vermont. She and her wife played table top games with friends and enjoy the daily antics of two cats. Her first novel, Leaving's Not the Only Way to Go will be released by Bella Books in 2001. So that's very exciting. I mean, I imagine you probably are really excited to have this happen. Yeah, I'm thrilled. March, 2021 is about six months away and it feels a long way and also very close. And maybe you will be either have a vaccination or be over this pandemic and you can go far and wide reading and getting your book out there. But we're certainly gonna help you here if we can. So, and I'm just gonna read a paragraph about the book, about your book and then we'll go from there. So, Leaving's Not the Only Way to Go. Disatisfied computer program Lauren Ashburn left a promising job to help her family in Vermont take care of her dying father. Now that he's gone, Lauren has every intention of returning to her old life, the vibrant, successful one her father had always expected her to have. But she feels adrift without his strict guidance. Georgia Solomon designed homes for others but as a bisexual, autistic woman, she really feels at home herself. When her best friend died suddenly, leaving her alone with her young daughter, her little slice of happiness vanishes and Georgia finds herself struggling to navigate a world that doesn't understand her. Lauren and Georgia clash at a disastrous work meeting but Georgia's daughter Hannah pulls them together despite themselves as they discover new possibilities and priorities for the future. Can they make room for love or will they have to leave each other behind in order to move forward? Sounds really good. Thank you. So I noticed that you wrote about, you have an autistic character here. What made you decide to have an autistic character in your book? Well, I myself have ADHD and I have several friends who are autistic and in talking with them, sharing experiences, there are a lot of things that sort of overlap with autism and ADHD and a lot of things that none of us had ever really seen in media, particularly in romance novels. And it's nice to have more out there. Helen Wong wrote a wonderful couple of books about characters with autism and I wanted to add to that there are a lot of books that don't have great representation and I was excited to sort of make something for myself and my friends that was more like our reality. Yeah, it's true. You don't really see much about autism. I read a book and I can't remember the name you might remember about a woman who became an English professor or something who was autistic, but anyway, that's the only book that I remember ever hearing or reading about that the character was autistic. So that's really gonna be informative too. And also you have a fictional town here. And so I was wondering if it is Bennington or someplace else or a combination of things? It is and it isn't Bennington. There's a fountain mentioned in the book that is actually a fountain that's right outside my front door here. And the art store that Lauren's family owns is based on that later versions of it are based on the art store here in Bennington called Jays, which I went to a couple of times and actually interviewed the owner to say, how did you decide to set things up this way? And his enthusiasm for how he made the decisions and how people move through his space really inspired not only the store itself but the characters within the store and how they move through it. And I also one day took a very long trip down to Pownall to see exactly what that road looks like because there's a very significant drive down that highway. Okay, thank you. So what brought you to Vermont from, is it Alabama? Yes. Yes. So I had a doctor who was from Maine and when I started looking at colleges, she said, have you considered Bennington? It's this small college that you make up your own major and I looked into it and it really seems like the perfect fit because I didn't know at that point what I wanted to do and Bennington was a place to explore and figure that out. And so you just stayed after college? Yes. I met my current, my now life there and so I stayed when she was a year behind me and then she got a job and I got a job and we've just, we've been here for 10 years now. So you must like it. I love it. Good. And do you have any writers that have influenced you that you really liked or are a mentor or somebody who guided you or helped you or were you an English major or a writing major in college or? I went to an arts high school. I didn't study a lot of writing in college but I did read a lot and as far as for this book in particular, as I mentioned, Helen Wong, The Kiss Quotient is her first book, was a wonderful influence. I also really love a novella by Alyssa Cole called Once Ghosted, Twice Shy. A delightful little book and I went to the Golden Crown Literary Society Conference last year and met a lot of really wonderful people in person who took the time to talk about publishing with me and figure out where it was that I wanted to go and Paul Robinson who has one book out with Bella Books was wonderful and my current editor is Ann Roberts and she was a wonderful, wonderful mentor in helping me figure out how to make this book as strong as it possibly could be. And how long did it take you to write it? From the very, very beginning until I was ready to submit it to Bella was two and a half years. I'm hoping that my next book won't take quite that long because I learned so much about how to do it. But on the other hand, I've heard people say that once you've written a novel you've learned how to write that novel and the next one's different. So we'll see. And have you already have ideas and you're already willing forward with the new book? Yes, absolutely. Great and you have a publisher so that should really help you out too, you know, like get out there. What's your writing schedule like? Do you write at any times or mornings, nights, whatever you feel inspired? Oh, well with the ADHD, you can only schedule so much. But I try to balance the strictness of if this is something I want to do then I need to do it and put energy into it with the gentleness of making sure that everything counts. If I've done some research today that counts. If I've thought about it and sort of made these scenes in my mind that counts, that's still working. And I need those softer steps in order to make the hard work of actually putting words on the page happen. Now I know as a poet and I haven't written fiction but I hate revision. How do you feel about, I mean, I like the creative aspects and I like thinking and you know, but when it comes to editing, how do you feel about having to sit down and edit? I love editing. I'm a little torn because it might just be because that's where I am in this book is doing the last final edits and that's very exciting but right now I feel like it's my favorite part because it's the interactive part where I show what I have to others and they tell me what they think and I get to learn from people and make it better. And I have particularly with the opening of this book I wrote and rewrote about five times. And it was so exciting to sift through and uncover the exact right moment. And Anne Roberts again was wonderful with that and she was very helpful with hands-on advice. She said, you know, I think these first six chapters have what you need but if you sit down and she actually told me to print the pages out and cut them up with scissors to rearrange them and I found the right moment that way by taking the moments I had and rearranging them. Interesting. So are these characters a combination of people you know and fantasy people or I mean I know you take a lot from yourself and from just people in general but and is this a love story basically or a, well I know it's probably more nuanced than that but could you tell us a little bit about because I'm gonna have you read in a few minutes from your book. So you know what is the underlying synopsis of your book? Is it a love story? Is it a story of autism, a combination of things? I, it's a love story about grief and change and I didn't set out necessarily to write a book about autism that I don't think you could but it worked very well in that one of the things that is difficult for autistic people and also for people with ADHD and similar neurotypes change is hard and finding the right people who understand you and love you without thinking that you should be different is hard and Georgia as a person who had all of that and then lost it and isn't sure she's going to find it again and Lauren is a person who has spent so much time trying to figure out who her dad wants her to be that she doesn't know who she is and when her father dies, she has, it's suddenly time to figure that out. I'm really looking forward to reading it. It sounds really just wonderful. Thanks for writing it. Okay, so we're gonna have you read for our audience a couple of minutes of your book if you don't mind and then we'll kind of wrap up. Sorry, go right. So this is just a short passage from the first chapter. The book is in a dual point of view in alternating chapters. So you hear from Lauren and Georgia. This is Lauren's perspective as she's heading into the disastrous work meeting that is described in the summary you read. Lauren scraped her boots off on the mat in front of Prizliak and associates and entered at 920 sharp, 10 minutes early. The restored colonial house the architects worked in was almost blindingly bright, all clean white paint and hardwood flooring. Receptionist behind the wide front desk signaled for Lauren to wait a moment while she wrapped up a phone call. Hello, someone else called. Are you one of the trainers? A tall woman with waves of honey blonde hair descended the stairs. The way her skirt swished allowed a glimpse of the pink bandaid on her knee before Lauren averted her eyes. The woman didn't smile or extend her hand but her voice was cheerful when she said, I'm Georgia Solomon, one of the architects, welcome. Lauren Ashburn, my co-worker's not here yet. The disgust in her voice was audible but Georgia was apparently polite enough to ignore what Lauren was too burnt out to contain. It'll take a few minutes for everyone to disengage from their work anyway, no need to worry. Georgia said with clipped but musical diction, formal word choice too. May I show you to the conference room? Lauren pointed to the clearly marked double doors just past the receptionist's desk. That conference room? Yes, Georgia said. She headed in that direction, nodding when the receptionist waved gratefully. Her stride was long, her shoulders and hips were broad and she didn't try to reduce the amount of space she took up. Lauren kicked herself for not being more professional in front of a woman with such poise. Dad always said she made the worst first impressions. The conference room was paneled with natural cuts of wood and the wide gaps were filled with chunks of white marble. Lauren instantly labeled it strange, but Georgia said, most of the materials we use are reclaimed or recycled and I love the effect of the broken pieces in here. It looks like a snowy forest. Lauren gave the design a second look while she hung her coat on a stand by the door. She decided it was nice after all. Georgia pointed out a series of frames on the wall. These photos are from some of our previous projects. The pride she felt in her work shown in her eyes and the way her fingers fluttered at her sides. So Lauren looked at the photos closely. She was surprised to spot a building she recognized. You renovated first Congo, she said, tapping on the framed picture of the first congregational church. My parents got married there and my dad threw a fit when you gutted it. He came around when he saw the arched doorways though. Lauren realized too late that she'd revealed her lack of knowledge about the company's work. Again, Georgia didn't seem to notice or at least she didn't mind. I do make a good arch, she said. Then she latched on to another detail Lauren hadn't meant to admit. So you grew up in holderness? Lauren nodded and moved on to the next photo without looking at Georgia. She got enough unimpressed looks from the locals who knew her. She didn't need judgment or pity from a stranger about being stuck in her hometown. Is this the crew I'm gonna be working with? She asked, pointing at a group of photo. She could see Georgia among the people gathered around a solar panel array. For the most part, Georgia said, Bev, the interior designer is new and Kyle is not here. He got a new job, he died. That drew Lauren's eyes back to Georgia. The woman's face was blank but her fingers had strayed to the ends of her hair twirling and tugging. Lauren knew you were supposed to say something in these situations, but the usual platitudes made her roll her eyes on the best days. After a month of gritting her teeth through people's banal condolences for the recent death of her dad, she might actually gag on any kind words she tried to say now. Georgia spared her the effort by muttering. I probably shouldn't have brought that up. Lauren shrugged. I've said less appropriate things at work. At first, she thought it was the wrong thing to say because Georgia still didn't smile but her hands relaxed and drifted back to her sides. She met Lauren's eyes briefly. They stood together for a long, lovely moment. It was a damn shame because this woman was going to hate Lauren within the hour. Thank you. That was Kay Acker reading from her book. It was lovely. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing your book with us. We'll all look forward to seeing it. And when it comes out, we can have you on again and talk about your book some more. And thank you so much, Kay, for coming. We really appreciate it. And we will see you soon. Yes, thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful. And I'm happy to come back and talk more about it any time. Thank you. Thank you, Kay. Hi, everybody. I'm here with Taylor Small, who is with us for the second interview of the political season. As we all know, as the audience knows, I imagine, Taylor is the candidate for state rep from Chittenden 6-7. Welcome back. Thank you so much, Anne. I'm happy to be here. And congratulations on your primary win. Well, thank you so much. I think it may have, maybe those wonderful shirts did me a little boost there. Well, as the audience knows, if your regular viewers, Keith and I, wear them on a regular news show at every opportunity elsewhere, too. You know, before you won the primary, I thought, well, I'll wear it maybe once, but now I can wear it. And they're very attractive. I love that they're so comfortable. That's why I wear mine all the time. I know. And they're nicely fitted. You know, they don't grab your, you know, parts of your body, like some of them. Let's review a little of your bio, if we could. Viewers probably know all this at this point, but you work as the director of health and wellness at the Pride Center of Vermont. And before that, you worked at the Howard Center and Northwest Counseling. You're on the board of outright Vermont. Your family moved here from Canada in the 1960s and you were raised in LaMoyle County. So, right so far? Right so far. You went to Colchester High School and Burlington Technical Center, and then finally got a BS from the University of Vermont in 2016. In human development and family studies with a minor in sexuality and gender identity studies. Your activism takes many forms, as you say in your bio, including occupying your drag persona with your partner, your Niki Champlain Champagne, and your partner is Emoji Nightmare. So shout out to Emoji if she's watching. You've been as part of this incarnation, you've been doing the drag queen story hour for many years across the state, promoting local libraries and youth literacy. I was able to attend one of those events who was jumping. Those kids were all excited. It was great. And then just to round out with some personal information, you live on the north end of the city with your partner Carson and your dogs, Thea Brahma and Charlie. Thea Brahma? Yeah, Thea Brahma, Theo for short. Okay, and you look forward to meeting all of us. How's it going? How's campaigning in the pandemic? What's that like? Yeah, I think it's a blessing being a first time candidate doing this because everyone is building the plane while they're flying it. And so it's a very level playing field on how we do campaigning. And it has been a rollercoaster, but I think what I love most is being able to find these creative ways of connecting with folks, whether it's doing backyard meetings, so having a socially distanced at a picnic table coming together and talking about the issues that impact folks, having Zoom calls just like this or the old fashioned pick up the phone and talk to folks that way. One thing that I really loved about the campaign was for our lit drop. So the lit drop being giving information to folks and that's the synced way. We did these beautiful neighbor envelopes that had information about me as well as a personalized note, just encouraging folks to reach out, understanding that everyone is carrying so much right now that I don't wanna add anything to their plate, but instead know what's on it and be involved in that conversation. Tell me, how has everything changed since you won the primary? It's a whole lot of press. Yeah, it's a whole lot of press now, which is amazing. I think one of the big pieces there is really holding true to focusing on the issues. Everyone is really focused on identity and I think, of course, that is an important aspect of all of this because it is a historic run. This is history making here in the state of Vermont and also recognizing that I am not the only one making history this year. Keisha Rahm is also running for state senate and if she wins her bid, we'll be the first woman of color in our senate here in the state of Vermont. Here, here. Right, there's so much magic that is happening right now and I think building those connections in the state house is really important and one of my priorities as well as continuing to reach out to my neighbors. One thing that stands out to me is I had a beautiful conversation yesterday with one of the students leading the charge at the Winooski public schools and making sure that they are tackling anti-racism and making sure that there are concrete steps that are taken to make sure that all students are supported in that school and it just really underscores the piece of youth activism in our communities and how important it is to uplift those young voices. And it's really an exciting time in many ways. Yeah, absolutely. So much change. There's so much potential for change as well as active change that's happening. Everything has kicked up since you won the primary, I'm sure. Tell us what your average day is. Oh, an average day. So still working full-time over at Pride Center Vermont which involves working with the Department of Health and navigating LGBTQ health disparities as well as doing trainings in the community. So making sure that human and healthcare providers are getting the best knowledge and supporting LGBTQ folks. But I also think that the trainings are just cultural competency overall and really respecting and honoring the ways that identities show up in places like healthcare or in accessing any of the human services available. So that's at the forefront. I'm still doing all that work. And then adding on top of it is a lot of meetings. I think I have one pretty much every night. And then also trying to get involved in more press. I guess people really wanna talk to me. And luckily I have a whole lot of things to say. So I never turn that one down. Well, you have a national profile now. I mentioned on your Facebook that several national outlets have mentioned your candidacy with great excitement. Yes. And I think it again really highlights the piece that even nationally I have the potential of being the fifth out trans legislator in the United States. I also again wanna highlight that there is Ember Quinn who's running as a trans candidate here in the state of Vermont. So both of us could be serving and that there are trans women who are running in various parts of the state and thinking over in Kansas. Stephanie Byers is having an opportunity to win. And yes, going back to that potential for change it is amazing to see these voices that are typically left out of these conversations or not heard in these spaces. Stepping up and not just testifying for bills but actually helping in the creation of those bills. Having a seat at the table is really crucial. As it should be. And I think if not that making sure that you're bringing in a folding chair as Chisholm said. Mm-hmm. When you came on last time you talked about three of your signature issues. Housing, health care and minimum wage, sorry. No, you're fine. So let's talk about the three more if we could protecting our planet and our future defunding and reforming law enforcement and mental health and addiction if you could. So let's start with the environment. Absolutely. I think we're all recognizing the impacts of climate change. Vermont has always had weird weather but it is getting even weirder. And also thinking about the impact of a runoff that is happening. So with these extreme storms that are happening in the Burlington area we have all of this rain coming down that overwhelms our sewage systems. And we have just this antiquated system in place that combines both runoff from the streets as well as thinking that it's our actual sewage waste water that is in there as well. Which when these storms happen just dumps and overflows right into our water right in Lake Champlain which we use of course for swimming and recreation but also so many Vermonters are using that for drinking water as well. And to think that that has the potential of poisoning such water is terrible. So moving in a direction of really having climate change at the forefront but also understanding that climate change is such an intersectional issue when we think of the impact on people of color or people who hold marginalized identities or even healthcare and the health impacts that come along with having negative climate change it's so important. And again, connecting it back to the healthcare piece one thing that's really concerning that's coming up are these ideas of eco-fascism. So this notion that we as the human race are the virus that is plaguing the earth and not the actual impacts from corporations or from years of just not caring for our land that are truly what's holding us back and what's not allowing us to move forward and make the climate change that we need instead of the negative climate change that's currently happening. You are so right. I grew up in Buffalo, New York when in the era of Love Canal remember that all the people in Niagara Falls had asthma because of the corporate pollution and I was in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina too another catastrophic effect of climate change but let's move on to law enforcement and it's a reformation it's been a heartbreaking week, hasn't it? It's been a heartbreaking week it's been a heartbreaking year and I think COVID has allowed the spotlight to stay on the Black Lives Matter movement and the impact that it directly has to people of color and more specifically Black and Indigenous folks and so when we look at our policing systems they're acting in this way of exactly that and acting laws, laws that have been historically set up against people of color or people who are impoverished and really criminalizing activities that folks are doing in order to maintain their livelihood and so when we're looking at policing I think first and foremost is getting into that education realm making sure that our police are fully educated and that training is much longer than it is right now as it currently stands it takes more hours for someone to become a hairdresser than it does for them to become an active police officer You're kidding No, and it's wild that is such a wild concept to think about the person that cuts my hair has more training than the person who is driving around with a gun and actively causing harm in the community and so when we look at that piece there's one the other is again how we hold police accountable as it currently stands police accountability is done within the network it is other police officers saying whether or not a police officer's actions were just and so in that we're not allowing for trial and jury that we typically see for every other citizen in the United States who has to go through with this when they commit an illegal act like murder they are going through trial and yet with police officers they are having this trial and jury amongst their peers which is just ineffective and typically involves police officers moving from precinct to precinct and not ever having that accountability in place You are so you can see this playing out in the national stage every day Absolutely Yes and so when we talk about defunding we're really thinking about where we can reappropriate those funds so that we're actually finding solutions to the issues rather than policing the issues so moving into the mental health and addiction how are we supporting folks who are in recovery are we just throwing them in a jail cell as it currently happens or are we moving to support our mental health programs to be able to be in there with evidence-based interventions around how we can support folks and moving in a direction away from substances and understanding that there are some basic needs that are not being met for that person and that is why they are engaging in such behavior and that is the biggest piece when we're looking at police reform it's not replacing police with social workers it's rethinking the system and moving towards transformative justice ways that we can look at the harm that is caused in community and support all who are involved because we know that the people who cause harm have also been harmed themselves it's just a vicious cycle that we're getting ourselves caught into and I think it takes creative thinking like this to move in a new direction and understand that if we want our communities to be thriving that we need to be moving away from police systems Makes sense to me in the minute we have left can you talk a little about voting? Absolutely so for the November 3rd election all voting will be mail-in ballots so you will be getting that right in your mailbox and luckily it's less confusing this time with the primaries you get so many different papers that you may or may not have to fill out and this time it's gonna be one ballot that you fill out and submit back to your town clerk a couple of notes there we had so many people turn out for the primary elections and had defective ballots so their votes weren't counted so I recommend being very careful reading the directions making sure you're signing where you need to and placing all the documents in the envelopes that need to happen and if there is anything tripping you up if you're feeling like it's a difficult process you can always bring your ballot into your town or city clerk to walk through that process with them or if you make a mistake as long as you have all the components that are in that envelope the town clerk can issue you a new ballot it's only if you mail it in with incorrect information that your ballot will not be cast you said that there were some ballots that were rejected in the primary 6,000, 6,000 ballots were rejected so 6,000 people who voted in the primary election did not have their voice heard oh my gosh that's appalling yeah well and it's so Vermont that a majority of them were because of recycling the extra papers that were in the envelopes when you have to send all of the material back to the town clerk so really great intent but the impact meant that their voice wasn't heard and that is so devastating to hear I know so it's a useful warning yes yes be mindful and definitely ask for help if you need it wonderful well Taylor thank you so much for coming in if any audience members are in Chittenden 6,7 we encourage you I'm a shameless supporter we I wish I could vote for you but if you live in Taylor's district please vote for her and we'll look for we'll be watching the results and we'll look forward to having you on again it's looking promising and we have our fingers crossed same here thank you so much Ann for having me again I you know I'm officially the number one guest who's been on if I win again then I'm really setting the record high that's right it's been four times in two of your incarnations so please come again and good luck thank you so that was our show for this week thank you for joining us and Linda and as our weekly reminder do not forget