Burton Founders Defend Their Boards

Published November 26, 2008 at 7:06 a.m.

Ken Picard sat down for an interview with Jake Burton Carpenter and Donna Carpenter at the Burton HQ in Burlington this week to talk about the controversy over their "Love" and "Primo" boards. We've published his extensive Q&A this week, and put it on the cover of the paper .

Here it is online. An excerpt:

SD: Why go public now?
DONNA: Because I think the boards were distorted and misrepresented. When you hear this statement that "Burton promotes self-mutilation and pornography," maybe you don't read the whole article. Maybe you're only catching it here and there, and you think, "Wow! This Vermont company is throwing X-rated images and teaching kids how to cut themselves." That's awful.

JAKE: I don't want to get personal with you, but I presumed the Vermont media would lose interest. And they didn't.

SD: Because we're still getting letters from readers expressing very strong emotions.
DONNA: We also realized . . . that all of a sudden, anybody who ever had a grudge against snowboarders . . . or against Burton or was upset about what kids are exposed to today, all of a sudden they had a way to vent . . . But I really felt like their anger is misdirected.

Since we don't have comments enabled on our stories, you can use this blog post to share any thoughts you might not already have shared about this issue, and this week's interview...

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About The Author

Cathy Resmer

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goodcitizenvt.com

Bio:
Deputy publisher Cathy Resmer is an organizer of the Vermont Tech Jam. She also oversees Seven Days' parenting publication, Kids VT, and created the Good Citizen Challenge, a youth civics initiative. Resmer began her career at Seven Days as a freelance writer in 2001. Hired as a staff writer in 2005, she became the publication's first online editor in 2007.

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