Many of us have read the recent scientific report on climate change that stresses the time constraints on the world’s response to such a dire situation.

We need the press to do its job and both fact check and hold accountable those in positions of power and authority when they make misleading statements intended to confuse the public and when they lie — blatantly lie — to the people. They have the bully pulpit and exert inordinate power. Ord…

Last month, Eluid Kipchoge set the world speed record for running 26.2 miles, winning the Berlin Marathon with a time of 2:01:39. This Sunday, I, too, ran a marathon. My event was in Syracuse, New York, and I have no doubt people will be watching the race closely, comparing our performances.…

Back in January, I sat proudly listening as my husband, Brad Peacock, announced his candidacy as an Independent for the U.S. Senate. Brad has worked as a farmer in our hometown of Shaftsbury for more than a dozen years and does not have the connections, wealth or power most politicians seek …

Like many local businesses trying to minimize environmental impact, our co-op works to reduce waste and recycle as much as we can. With recent changes in the world of recycling, I thought it was a good time to assess what’s going on in terms of our community’s waste and resource streams. I c…

Why are so many people from Central America trying to get into this country? Why don’t they change their own country rather than coming into ours illegally?

Your Sept. 27 editorial and this week’s Vermont Council on Rural Development conference at Castleton University, featuring a panel discussion on Rutland’s ongoing revitalization, were wonderful reminders of the importance of celebrating victories along the way. Rutland has a lot to celebrate.

It’s ironic that Mr. Veritas sees only a fallacious version of the Kavanaugh farce. He is so concerned by defamation of Mr. Kavanaugh’s character that he is quite willing to defame the character of his accuser, a woman of impeccable reputation who came forth motivated by conscience despite d…

When I initially heard about this summer’s proliferation of mice, I dismissed it as old news, figuring the reference was to cowering Republicans bartering their collective soul to Donald Trump, ignoring his daily assault on the presidency in exchange for tax cuts benefiting their friends in …

It is my experience that the best places to learn history have been in schools, libraries and museums. Mr. Pace seems to think that statues are a source of history. I believe statues are for honor.

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I love it, but it hates me.

Recently, I attended, for a second time, a postcard-writing marathon in Plainfield Village: The postcards we wrote out by hand, all embroiled in the fine details of the coming November elections.

Revisionism in history is nothing new. Groups often tend to rewrite history to reflect their own goals and beliefs. But in their efforts to reframe the historic “facts” of previous governments, societies or trends, they tend to reconstruct events and personalities by augmenting or changing a…

Revisionism in history is nothing new. Groups often tend to rewrite history to reflect their own goals and beliefs. But in their efforts to reframe the historic “facts” of previous governments, societies or trends, they tend to reconstruct events and personalities by augmenting or changing a…

As our foundering ship of state looks ever more likely to slip under relentless waves of growing resistance, the captain wonders why the crew seems intent on tossing a life preserver to everyone else. What about him? Based on past performance, we can envision him pushing to the front of the …

What can I say? I love voting. Joining with our neighbors at the polls to decide local issues, from wastewater bonds to school budgets, and to vote on who we want to represent us locally, statewide and nationally is the beating heart at the core of our democracy.

There is no end, no bottom to the heap of issues that preoccupy public schools. We’re three weeks past Labor Day now, and teachers are engaged and absorbed in learning about their students, fine-tuning their plans based on who those students are turning out to be, and putting those plans int…

I do not seek donations for they erode integrity of leadership. I am what the press often terms a "perennial candidate" or a "fringe candidate." I am perennial because in each election cycle, coverage is next to nonexistent. The debates and forums of primaries are closed to legally balloted …

I’ve been asked several times during the campaign about the dispute between the governor and the Legislature over using one-time money to reduce the non-residential property tax rate. I offer the following explanation of the issue and the role of the Legislature in setting the residential pr…

For those of us who do not believe there is much racism in Vermont schools, allow my witness. As an educator in Vermont for 35 years, working in many schools, some rural, some urban, I have eye-opening stories to share.

A powerful myth exists among the citizenry of Vermont. The myth is that the Vermont Republican Party is the party of the rich and powerful and the Vermont Democrat Party is the party of the poor and downtrodden. Real statistics compiled by the watchdog organization OpenSecrets.org debunk thi…

This article was originally published as an editorial in the Brattleboro Reformer and Bennington Banner.

Four of us are in the Lighthouse Restaurant, a street corner diner with Formica table tops and leatherette booths. It’s early-'60s, Bayonne, New Jersey, and we’re doing the previously unthinkable: ditching Sunday Mass and spending our collection money on breakfast. There’s liberation wrapped…

Since the November 2016 announcement that NorthStar intended to buy and decommission Vermont Yankee, Windham County community members have expressed their understandable concern how this accelerated decommissioning will affect the community. Many of these questions regard NorthStar’s capabil…

Lyme disease has spread at an alarming rate in Vermont and continues to grow. Last year, according to the CDC, Vermont was listed #1 in the country for confirmed cases of Lyme disease and is designated as an "endemic state." In addition, a study done by Dr. Marie J. George of the Infectious …

Youthful Poor Elijah read big books on the beach, including "On the Beach," which wasn’t especially big but was about nuclear war, which is a big, weighty topic, especially when you’re 12. His biggest summer book ever was "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." He found its 1,200 pages weigh…

Here are 16 incisive questions that people might want to pose to candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and the Legislature, as Election Day 2018 approaches: 1. School spending control: Do you believe the state should take control of all K-12 public education, reorganize school distric…

Recently, I have had conversations with people who have very different, though equally strong, objection to athletes "taking a knee." One believed it was disrespecting those who have died fighting for this country. The other stated that the athletes are making so much money and the courts ha…

Vermonters have a choice to make about the direction of our state this November. Will we allow ourselves to be taxed to death, or not? Here, very bluntly, is what’s at stake. Since the last election in 2016, Vermont Democrats/Progressives (they are now, for all intents and purposes, the same…

I was the last sitting probate judge in the Fair Haven Probate District, as the court was closed effective 2012. I worked alongside Judge Kevin Candon, who served the eastern half of the county. Judge Candon recently announced his retirement, but the results of the recent primary leads me to…

Years ago, a columnist from the Boston Globe wrote an article about Rutland. Not the drug problem/anti-immigrants notoriety we've gotten, but just his impressions of the city itself. Alas, it seemed that he hadn't gotten much further than the strip development of Rutland Town south on Route …

The ongoing campaign of racial hate directed at Kiah Morris and her family resulted in her deciding to withdraw her candidacy for House of Representatives last week. Racial hatred remains an issue in Vermont and across the nation. As ridiculous and unfortunate as this situation is, at least …

A recent letter to the editor (Yankee sale bad precedent, Aug. 29) suggests that the Vermont Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has treated its review of the sale of Vermont Yankee to NorthStar as a done deal without input from concerned Vermonters. The writer also asserts that Entergy will h…

When I was growing up, my mother always wanted to be sure I learned from my mistakes. She would tell me not to do something several times, and then when I went ahead and did it anyway and got hurt, she would point out — even before the blood started to clot — that she had told me not to do i…

Recently, hundreds of news publications around the country, including several here in Vermont, participated in a coordinated editorial campaign decrying criticism aimed against the media. Their general complaint is over the president accusing them repeatedly of being “fake news” and an “enem…

All my life, I have been taught to respect our commander-in-chief. I have also been taught some basic principles of ethics, morality and human decency. No president has ever made reconciling these concepts more challenging than Donald Trump. Although we do not empower our presidents with as …

If I could name only one thing that girls learn when they’re involved with Girl Scouts, it’s that they become capable of tackling pretty much anything. They build robotic hands, change New Hampshire’s child marriage laws, and create libraries that teach immigrants to read English. Our Girl S…

The Whitcomb Building in Springfield was hit by flash flooding on July 27. As a result of this storm, seven apartments on the first floor had water damage. The power was knocked out to the whole building. The rest of the 72 apartments also were also evacuated. On Aug. 9, most of us came home…

I would like to comment on Tom Haley’s article concerning the use of the Brakely Formula for soccer. While I enjoy Tom’s articles and comments, I could not disagree more with his suggestion for using the Brakely Formula or any other formula to compensate larger schools who do not have succes…

Trapping has been a method used by humans to capture animals for hundreds of years and the traps used today are not dissimilar to those used back in the 1700s. With modernization and the growing concern for animal ethics, the practice of trapping animals is largely viewed as outdated and is …

Every August teachers across the country get “welcome back” letters from their principals, brimming with cutting-edge jargon and positive thinking. Unfortunately, the bright ideas hatched in July rarely work in September. The inservice expert presentations teachers endure on opening day comm…

Several of us, here in Vermont, had the amazing privilege to join other families from across the country to attend a weeklong family camp at the Stoweflake Resort in Stowe. This is an extraordinary camp that serves adopted children of color and their families and has been in existence for mo…

The Vermont branches of the NAACP respond to acts of hate in the Brattleboro and Bennington areas. A new friend recently shared sage advice from his father. The saying goes, “There’s a difference between standing up for yourself and sticking your neck out. You need to know the difference and…

We are longtime residents of Lake Ninevah. Paul served for many years as chair of the town’s Select Board, and Judy is a former third-grade teacher in the Mount Holly School. We have been involved with the work of the Ninevah Foundation (and its predecessor, the Wilderness Corporation) for a…

Thanks to The Times-Argus and Rutland Herald for joining (Aug. 16) the chorus of 300+ newspapers across the country in responding to President Donald Trump’s attacks on newspapers as “enemies of the people.” The founders of our country recognized the necessity of a news media independent of …

The Rutland NAACP is right to say the Confederate flag is a racist symbol but wrong to try and ban it. I’m somewhat of an expert on the Confederate flag. My master’s thesis, which proved that Confederate symbolism at the University of Mississippi was directly tied to segregationist politics,…

President Trump's routine assaults on the media, calling them the "enemy of the people," is one of his worst actions since he took office. Newspapers play a vital role informing the public about many social injustices, including silent emergencies like global hunger. It’s not easy getting at…

Nostalgia — that sentimental emotion that often sends us down YouTube rehashing our youth is fun, but can be a trap. If you’re not careful, you can get stuck reminiscing instead of moving forward.Some obvious dangers with nostalgia exist, namely, in waxing poetic through rose-tinted glasses …

Born and raised in Vermont, we have owned a small plot on Lake Ninevah for 60 years. Vince Blakely, owner, was beloved by both adults and children. There was not a better place for children to spend their childhood. The Webbs, Echo Lake, recruited a group to purchase land when Vince left. Th…