Lifestyle
Sugarbush Reporter Was Not Fired for Viral JD Vance-Related Snow Update
A flare of protest against the Trump administration erupted last weekend from the most unexpected of places: a snow report.
The setting was the powder-packed peaks of the Sugarbush ski resort in the Green Mountains of Vermont, where Vice President JD Vance had retreated on Saturday for a day of skiing with his family. Before Mr. Vance arrived, a lengthy post appeared on the Sugarbush website, meant to be an early morning rundown of the current slope conditions.
As it turned out, it was more of a report of the current conditions of our nation, as perceived by Lucy Welch, the resort’s “snow reporter.”
“Right now, National Forest lands and National Parks are under direct attack by the current Administration,” Ms. Welch wrote, after praising the natural beauty of the place. “This Administration also neglects to address the danger, or even the existence of, climate change, the biggest threat to the future of our industry, and the skiing we all so much enjoy here.”
Ms. Welch, 25, was not finished, noting the staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — “a resource I use every day for snow reporting,” she said — and praising the diversity of people, including veterans, immigrants and members of L.B.G.T.Q. communities, who both work and play at Sugarbush.
“ALL of these groups are being targeted, undervalued, and disrespected by the current Administration,” she wrote, adding, “We are living in a really scary and really serious time.”
Finally, she suggested that she might lose her job for posting her opinions, but that she felt it was worth it.
“This whole shpiel probably won’t change a whole lot, and I can only assume that I will be fired,” she wrote, “but at least this will do even just a smidge more than just shutting up and being a sheep.”
The post, which went live at 6:49 a.m. and also provided a full rundown on new snow, open trails and gusty winds, was removed later that day. But it was almost immediately shared online by fellow skiers and Vermonters, with many casting Ms. Welch as a brave, new member of the Resistance, as President Trump’s opponents are sometimes known. “I Love Lucy” T-shirts were mocked up, as were depictions of Ms. Welch on social media in which she was shown standing up to a hulking snow-slope groomer, Tiananmen Square-style.
Others posted messages like “I Ski With Lucy Welch,” while Bill McKibben, the author and climate activist, called Ms. Welch “a hero for the moment.”
“If a 25-year-old can risk her job to — quite politely — speak truth to power, the rest of us can figure out some things to do as well,” Mr. McKibben wrote in a Substack post in which he likened her to Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary War rebel. “We need more of them to take on King Donald, and I’d follow Lucy Welch in a heartbeat.”
Mr. Vance’s trip to Vermont, one of the nation’s most liberal states, drew crowds of protesters on Saturday, just a day after the vice president had clashed with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in the Oval Office. Demonstrators lined local roads and protested around Sugarbush, holding signs calling Mr. Vance a traitor and suggesting he “go ski in Russia.” Mr. Vance’s ski skills and possible attire were also mocked by some locals. (“Vance skis in jeans,” read one sign, highlighting a major ski faux pas, though Mr. Vance’s use of jeans could not be confirmed.)
Even before the vice president arrived, officials at Sugarbush had tried to prepare staff for “a high-profile guest” — they did not name Mr. Vance — and noted that his choice of slopes did not necessarily represent an endorsement. “Our view is that everyone should feel included in the celebration of the outdoors and the joy it offers,” the memo read.
And despite Ms. Welch’s fears that her snow report might lead to her firing, John Bleh, a spokesman for Sugarbush, said on Wednesday that she “remains a member of the team,” though he confirmed that her post had been removed after being up “for a bit.”
“We respect the voice and opinion of all our employees,” Mr. Bleh said, “but determined that the snow report was not the appropriate medium to share.”
For his part, Mr. Vance said in a posting on X on Tuesday that he and his family “had a great time” in Vermont and “barely noticed the protesters.”
“Almost everyone we met was kind and generous,” he added, after chiding an online commenter as idiotic and before disputing a report in The New York Post that he’d had to move to an “undisclosed location” because of security concerns.
Ms. Welch could not be reached for comment, but in a biography posted on SugarBlog, she described herself as a recent graduate of the University of Vermont whose love of skiing had blossomed only in the last few years. “I am my happiest, most vibrant self when I am on the hill,” she wrote.
She said her job as snow reporter consisted of “waking up at 4:30 a.m. 4 days a week and spending my waking hours looking at snow, thinking about snow, talking about snow, writing about snow, and of course, skiing on snow.”
On Saturday, of course, her writing interests veered into more political terrain, as she worried she would “never be able to afford a good life for a child anyway, and snow will be a thing of Vermont history.”
“So please, for the sake of our future shredders,” she concluded, “Be Better Here.”
Taylor Swift
Sorry Haters, I’m Not Leaving the Spotlight
…And Shout Out to Travis for Being my Rock!
Published
Taylor Swift‘s got some practice shaking off the haters … and now, she’s got a simple response for critics who want her to “go away.”
Check out her Wednesday appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” — she claps back at naysayers who plead with her to exit the spotlight, bluntly arguing … “I don’t want to!” Case closed.
Nearly in the same breath, the “Opalite” hitmaker shouts out her fiancé Travis Kelce as being one of her 3 favorite people to turn to for life and career advice, enthusiastically noting … “I can talk to him about any of this.”
Travis was included alongside Fleetwood Mac icon Stevie Nicks and her frequent studio collaborator Max Martin as 2 other people who she can go to with anything, from industry questions to how to navigate animosity. Complimenting them further, she said one of the things she idolizes in people the most is career longevity — and of course, they’ve all had incredibly successful careers in their respective fieds.
But she’s not just about career talk. She told Colbert she’s also dazzled by longevity in friendships and relationships.
Taylor also spoke about the seismic impact of her Eras Tour as she prepares to drop the first 2 episodes of her “The End of an Era” docuseries, which falls on her 36th birthday.
In a sneak preview “Good Morning America” dropped earlier Wednesday, Taylor became emotional as she spoke about the complications that come with putting on such a massive event. Fans, of course, are also looking forward to getting a glimpse of her blossoming relationship with Travis in the docuseries.
From the studio to the stage and beyond, it seems like Tay is surrounded with plenty of support — and has no plans on slowing down!
Rhea Seehorn plays a misanthropic romance writer in the Apple TV series Pluribus.
Apple TV
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Apple TV
Rhea Seehorn says she’s on “Team Carol.”
In the Apple TV series Pluribus, actor Rhea Seehorn stars as Carol, a bestselling romance author who suddenly finds herself living in a world where everyone around her is bound together by a “psychic glue.” They share memories and knowledge and they are happy and peaceful. The only problem: Carol’s not interested in joining them — especially if it means losing her own sense of self.
“I would absolutely be Team Carol as far as arguing the necessity and the positives of individual thinking,” Seehorn says. If the world were taken over by group think, she explains, “There’s never going to be a joke that you haven’t heard. There’s never going to be a surprise behavior that makes you laugh. And that’s just such a source of joy for me that I just can’t imagine that contentment is the same as happiness.”
Seehorn previously played Kim Wexler in AMC’s Better Call Saul, co-created by Vince Gilligan. He is also the creator of Pluribus. Seehorn says Carol’s character was originally imagined as a male protagonist, but was rewritten for her to take the starring role. Gilligan “wanted to play with tone and take wild swings as far as [the series] could be darkly comedic, or it could be darkly psychological … and he was impressed at my ability to do those things,” Seehorn says. “I’m certainly very thankful for it.”
Interview highlights
On playing angry characters in Pluribus and in Better Call Saul
There’s this idea [that] anger can be a miasma almost, that can spread. And we’ve all seen horrible things can happen when you just are riling people up. … But at the same time, it is a necessary emotion, which, I think, is one of the arguments in the show that I side with — the idea that all of the emotions are important, not just happiness. …
Because I’m a woman playing the role … it felt as though I was taught that anger was unpalatable, specifically from females, and that I should find a way to make it palatable. … When I was much younger, I would scream. As a teenager, you know, screaming, yelling, like the typical arguments you have over hairspray and idiotic things as a teenager. … My parents were divorced, and so it was a household of three women, my mom, and my sister and I. … But, you know, you kind of grow out of this. …
I don’t think it’s OK to scream and yell in someone’s face, but I think I have become conflict avoidant in the suppression of that anger to a degree that’s not healthy. I will stand up for somebody else, though, in a heartbeat. If somebody else is being mistreated next to me, I’m in there. I’ll take you to the mat. But if it’s at me, I tend to swallow it and try to figure out how I can make it better.
On how she prepared to play the role of a romance novelist
I went to The Ripped Bodice, which is an amazing romance novel store. … And I just slipped in and looked around. And I have to tell you, one of the first things that struck me is the amount of sub-genres and the specificity of these sub-genres. … I watched a couple of people do readings from their books, and I was really surprised at the breadth of people, of fans, listening. There was a lot of people dressed like early Stevie Nicks, in a beautiful way. But then there was also … [a] couple that looked like they came straight from a corporate job. … People younger than me, people older than me. It definitely widened me to how huge this genre is and how much it encapsulates all the different novels it has.
On changing her name from Deborah, which was her first name, to Rhea, which was her middle name
I got a little chunky in puberty, and kids started yelling at me, “Hey, fat Debbie, do you want some more Little Debbie’s?” (which are snack cakes.) … I was just like … I just need a fresh start. And I think I identify more with my middle name. And weirdly, there was no issue with kids that had known me forever. Everybody just sort of was like, “Yeah, that makes sense.”
On her father being a counterintelligence agent
I knew he was investigating things and I knew that they were secretive, but I didn’t have a lot more details than that. And I am loathe to say that my head was too far up my butt as a teenager to actually be interested in what my parents actually do. And then he died when I was 18, so I didn’t get to ask a lot of the questions that I wish I had asked. …
My Dad’s favorite answer to everything was, “What are you, writing a book?” If you even just said, like, “Where are you going?” … And I thought I was so brilliant when I was 15 that I finally had a comeback. And I said, “Yeah, I am.” And he said, “Well, then leave this chapter out.”
On her father’s drinking
Apparently he was a heavy drinker for most of his adult life, but it just didn’t get labeled as alcoholism, you know? And my dad was the life of the party and very, very smart, very, very funny, with a super dry wit. … The idea that he was in the Tet Offensive and, as far as I know, never talked to anybody about it, and that you would have a life built of a lot of secrets. … I don’t remember him ever saying that he had anybody to talk to about it. So I just bring that up because I think self-medicating was going on for quite a while before it physically became a full-blown issue and then full-blown disease.
On how she became an actor
I was obsessed with television, film, and as a kid in the suburbs in Virginia, I’d never known anybody that had even the loosest association with the entertainment business and thought it was just an impossible dream. And then, in my first year at George Mason University, you had to take an elective in the arts that was not your major, and my major was fine arts. And so I took an acting class. … It was not an emotional, ooey-gooey class — I took plenty of those later — but this was a hardcore, do-your-homework, script-analysis class using practical aesthetics that was developed out of the Atlantic Theater. And I just was in love with the fact that if you work really hard and study, you can incrementally get closer and closer to being good at this and hopefully one day great at this. …
And then I started going to D.C. theater, which I think is some of the world’s best theater … and [I] was just like: Immediately, I have to do this for my life. I don’t know how many day jobs I’m going to have to have. It was not about being famous. I knew that I had to be an actor and I’d support myself, however I had to.
Lauren Krenzel and Nico Wisler produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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