By Guy Page
Tom Evslin of Stowe continues to hit it out of the park with his AI-generated window into the Vermont State House, goldendomevt.com.
As of yesterday, viewers of this free, user-friendly online service may click on ALL Vermont House and Senate floor and committee meetings and quickly find the:
- Summary of the meeting
- Transcript of the meeting
- Video of the meeting
The summary is Evslin’s latest addition to this invaluable tool. For example, see the summary of the Tuesday, March 18 meeting of the full House. Go to House/Floor/March 18 – takes five seconds.
Then to break it down further, check out the neat, readable, searchable transcriptof the same gathering, which opens with Speaker Jill Krowinski announcing the daily devotional:
“The devotional today will be led by Cameron Ainsworth, who is a pastor at the Rock of Greater Burlington Church.
‘[Pastor Cameron Ainsworth]: Thank you. Father God, I ask your blessings and your mercies upon those legislators here assembled in Montpelier, in the capital of this beautiful and historic Green Mountain State. Let them be equipped with every good thing, sanctified, and held upright as they labor tirelessly to assist the people of Vermont. Let them serve and lead even as your son came to serve and to lead with mercy, with justice, with compassion, and with resolve. Uplift them through all hardship, through all snares of dissension and difference, that they may be worthy of the mighty trust imparted upon them by the citizens of this state.
“Sanctify them, oh Lord, and strengthen their hands as they go about fulfilling this sacred trust. For indeed, it is a sacred trust, As you have declared in your holy word, there is no authority except from you, and all the authorities that exist are appointed by you. As you have also said, rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. May the people of Vermont be blessed by the holy work done here today. May they have cause to rejoice in their quality of life.
“Though Vermont is a small and sparsely populated state, may it be a mighty exemplar of justice, of peace, and of prosperity. We pray for those Vermonters still struggling with the repercussions of recent floods and other natural disasters. May they be comforted, may they be delivered from their pain and sorrow, and may they have justified confidence in this august body to lead, to guide, and to protect them. As your son Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. May that truly be said of each one of us here today.”
And then for good measure, you can highlight any section of the transcript you want and then immediately watch and share the video of just that section. For example, See and hear Krowinski’s intro and Rev. Ainsworth’s devotional as it happened.
But the real payoff of Goldendomevt.com isn’t the enhanced House and Senate floor coverage, which is fairly accessible through the legislative website’s calendars, journals, and video. No, the real payoff is the enhanced coverage of committees.
Until now, unless you had an hour or two to spare for each of the 25 daily, standing committees, you’re effectively in the dark. And by ‘you’ I include the State House press.
Evslin provides a wise warning that AI summaries are not infallible. Not unlike human scribes, they get important details wrong. It’s incumbent on the reader, and especially on the reporter/editor, to separate human fact from AI fiction. Caveat lector – Let the Reader Beware.
But still. For the first time ever, any Vermonter with a computer and Internet can now quickly see and hear the doings of heretofore murky House and Senate committee meetings AND – this is huge – read a quick summary of the often long, tortuous discussions and inconclusive endings.
Amen to that!