2008 Woodie Awards
op-ed: Trustee takes on local establish'mint'
Ward Wolff
Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: Opinions
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On a late October afternoon, Becky Dayton, owner of the Vermont Book Shop on Main St., received a phone call regarding mints on display near the register. The enormously popular mints, a product of the ever-clever Unemployed Philosopher's Guild, come in a small tin box of many varieties - indictmints, impeachmints, embarrassmints, all adorned with a humorous caricature of President Bush. The caller was Frederick Fritz '68, chair of the College Board of Trustees, and he was not amused.
According to Becky, Mr. Fritz claimed that bookstores are held to higher standards, that they are a higher class of retailer that promotes the free exchange of ideas. In short, an independent bookstore is no place for a political statement (even if in a box of mints). Flawed logic aside, he spoke in such a way as if he were entitled to dictate what she or any town merchant should be able to sell. Becky spent the rest of the day deeply shaken.
With a College administration that is always looking for new opportunities to improve day-to-day town and College relations, Mr. Fritz's actions are unacceptable, and the symbolic weight of this event is striking.
The bookshop is a shining example of a space ripe for College and town interaction. Everyone is invited to explore the shelves filled with local flavor, to sit on the couch and browse through books by College faculty and other Vermont authors and spend money as they wish. What is first so disheartening about Mr. Fritz's actions is that, despite his position as one of the most powerful members of the College administration, he has a fundamentally skewed notion of what role an independent bookshop such as this plays in the community. As is the case with most local, independent ventures, the beauty of the independent bookstore is that store inventory is highly responsive to local character, interest and demand. The shop carries Vermont hiking books, local history books, books on environmental issues, contemporary fiction and more because that is what the people who come in are seeking and what they will probably buy.
According to Becky, Mr. Fritz claimed that bookstores are held to higher standards, that they are a higher class of retailer that promotes the free exchange of ideas. In short, an independent bookstore is no place for a political statement (even if in a box of mints). Flawed logic aside, he spoke in such a way as if he were entitled to dictate what she or any town merchant should be able to sell. Becky spent the rest of the day deeply shaken.
With a College administration that is always looking for new opportunities to improve day-to-day town and College relations, Mr. Fritz's actions are unacceptable, and the symbolic weight of this event is striking.
The bookshop is a shining example of a space ripe for College and town interaction. Everyone is invited to explore the shelves filled with local flavor, to sit on the couch and browse through books by College faculty and other Vermont authors and spend money as they wish. What is first so disheartening about Mr. Fritz's actions is that, despite his position as one of the most powerful members of the College administration, he has a fundamentally skewed notion of what role an independent bookshop such as this plays in the community. As is the case with most local, independent ventures, the beauty of the independent bookstore is that store inventory is highly responsive to local character, interest and demand. The shop carries Vermont hiking books, local history books, books on environmental issues, contemporary fiction and more because that is what the people who come in are seeking and what they will probably buy.
Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 10
Pat Miller
posted 11/08/07 @ 3:12 PM EST
What a wining, cry baby, typical Leftist emotional reactionary op-ed. Oh yea, I think the intent and fall-out of the phone call will lead to the pulling of ". (Continued…)
anonymous
posted 11/08/07 @ 4:00 PM EST
Wow. If the piece was reactionary, I wonder what this response is. Please avoid the confrontational rhetoric and let's try to have a real debate here. (Continued…)
Proof Rock
posted 11/08/07 @ 4:43 PM EST
Hey, Pat!
You missed the point of the article entirely. Good job, bro!
What Mr. Wolff suggests in his article, among other important points, is that Mr. (Continued…)
Pat Miller
posted 11/08/07 @ 8:08 PM EST
You Liberals are a bunch a cry babies.
Wa wa wa.... Mommy, the man said something that is ...mean. Wa wa wa ... he doesn't like my mints; ....Then the poor victim, the store owner who was selling the questionable mints, trembled for hours on end worrying what to do next. (Continued…)
Mr. Apathetic
posted 11/09/07 @ 10:44 AM EST
I'm awake now, Mr. Miller, but you still look like an idiot.
Anonymous
posted 11/09/07 @ 2:39 PM EST
A response from an anonymous Midd staff member:
"It would be interesting to know the exact basis for Mr. Fritz's outrage. Is it a matter of principle, so he would be equally offended to find next to the bookstore's cash register some trifle lampooning Hillary Clinton or John Edwards, for example? Or is it more a case of anger at seeing his own ox (Bush) gored ?"
Molley Kaiyoorawongs
posted 11/10/07 @ 2:21 PM EST
[QUOTE id="0f88443a-a34d-4981-9675-eb59cfb60241"]A response from an anonymous Midd staff member:
"It would be interesting to know the exact basis for Mr. (Continued…)
John Colton
posted 11/19/07 @ 9:15 AM EST
This editorial is why so many of you bed-wetting lefty Middlebury students will soon end up either unemployed or doing something useless like running a bookstore or working for a mint company. (Continued…)
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