Prevailing post-adjournment reports have sidelined the praise the Legislature and the administration deserve for their contributions to Vermont’s economy. While it is tempting to continue debating the 2019 political turmoil, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce instead chooses to celebrate some o…
If we want a Vermont that works for everyone in every part of the state, we need to do better getting high-speed internet access to every corner of the state. It wasn’t so long ago that access to high-speed internet service was considered a convenience, even an extravagance. No more. Today, …
Summer solstice seemed to arrive suddenly today, most likely because up until very recently — yesterday perhaps — it didn’t seem like Vermont’s brief and getting briefer respite from winter was anywhere close to being just around the next bend. Many of us had measurable snow in mid-May; rive…
So what is the real state of our state?
I’ve been wrestling with a sentence that typifies the mission of our times, and have come to this: “We need to end the fundamental threat that climate change presents to our ability to provide for our children.”
The Long Range Transportation Plan of 1995 reaffirmed as the highest priority the maintenance and improvement of Vermont’s highways and bridges. Hardly anyone disagreed. But beginning in earnest in 2006, climate-change activists have succeeded in progressively shifting the emphasis of transp…
I’m a regular reader of The Guardian newspaper out of England and on June 13 a piece appeared by Oscar Schwartz, “What does it mean to be genetically Jewish.” That is a provocative and perhaps even disturbing title, and it needs to be stated that Mr. Schwartz is “genetically Jewish” himself,…
The Trump administration has a uniquely cruel solution for our many neighbors who struggle with poverty: just declare that they are not poor and strip them of essential services.
Although “As Alabama Goes, so Goes the Nation” has never been a thing, nor should it be, it turns out that it’s precisely what will happen if Christian conservatives have their way, and at this point, it seems as though they very well might. The state’s recent criminalizing of abortion, whic…
Two months ago, I told Vermont legislators the story of how I lost my job, my life savings and my apartment after I lost access to child care.
An expert in farming has put forth a bold idea to save the dairy industry: Get out of it.
The following address was delivered at Georgetown University on Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders:
This spring, a settlement was reached between the state of Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources, Vermont’s Toxics Action Center office, and the Brandon-Leicester-Salisbury-Goshen-Pittsford Insect Control District, where I live.
The “Peacham carve-out” in the state’s budget (it’s Sec. E. 505 of the 117-page bill) is a telling insight on the wind-down of the state’s effort to consolidate Vermont’s schools. The town name “Peacham” is nowhere to be found in what legislators term “the Big Bill,” but the carve-out is all…
The election season of 2020, already starting, is going to bring a number of vexing issues to the surface in the not-so-united United States. One of these issues will definitely be the separation of church and state. The proverbial writing is on the wall. The religious extreme right, many of…
We’ve talked about the polluting effects of too much CO2 in the atmosphere since the mid 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson was president. Bill McKibben, in 1989, introduced us to the “End of Nature.” And the IPCC, in 2019, gave us a decade to stop burning fossil fuel, or else … Or else we will have…
Vermont has an opportunity to be the first in the nation to enact a constitutional amendment that will enshrine in our constitution equal educational opportunity for Vermont’s kids. The Vermont General Assembly this year has passed a constitutional amendment which provides a model for the Ki…
It is thought-provoking when, in the course of offering advice to graduates, speakers have to continually add tolerance and civility to the list.
Summer is a magical season for kids — a time when they finally get to make many of their own decisions. Except when it comes to reading. This summer, millions of children will be slogging through a school-assigned reading list. And that may not be such a good thing.
It’s a safe bet that no matter where one finds themselves in Vermont, they’re not too far away from a Vermont food co-op. Boasting the highest number of stores per capita, Vermont’s 15 food co-ops have established themselves as pillars of their communities, along with being drivers of the st…
My son, Will, and I were rolling north on an Arkansas highway in his silver Silverado. “Wow!” I said. “Look how black the sky is up ahead there.”
In 2013, Jack Gierzynski wrote a book that looked at the effect the Millennial Generation (1982-2002) had on the 2008 election. The University of Vermont political science professor looked at how the Harry Potter series impacted political views and thinking.
We often recall where we were when significant, or simply memorable, events occurred: for baby boomers, for example, the John F. Kennedy assassination (high school math class, interrupted, politely but insistently, by the school principal, a German Holocaust refugee who fully comprehended th…
The Department of Defense’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review contained a message of enormous significance for Vermonters. It designated the F-35 as a part of its strategic nuclear bomber force. This is the first time a fighter has been so designated. That makes the F-35 completely different from …
An old man stands at the sink in his kitchen, mixing a batch of pudding to be poured over some banana slices in a graham cracker crust and stuck into the refrigerator for an hour. His little dog, ever alert for a bit of good fortune, sits attentively at his left knee. For these 5 minutes or …
Late snowmelt delayed the transition to spring after a long winter. The six months from November to April were very wet across the Northeast. For Vermont, this was the fourth-wettest April on record, and we have had another 5 inches of rain in May. The leaf-out of maples was delayed a week o…
A month or so ago, several national media outlets covered a study about spiking teen suicide rates. And not just suicide:
On Sunday, May 19, I attended a tragic-happy event: the graduation of my grandson from Vermont’s Green Mountain College that, after 185 years, was closing its doors — his being the last graduating class. It seemed incomprehensible that an established institution in a generally progressive st…
While national studies suggest Vermont is among the healthiest states in the nation, there are still some areas where improvement is necessary. Mental health is top among them.
Tariffs aren’t the most riveting topic we discuss in history class. They lack the drama and moment of Lexington and Concord, they don’t measure up to the Declaration of Independence in reasoning or soaring rhetoric, and the tariff stories I tell my students pale in comparison to the sacrific…
Like many other northern New England cities, Montpelier has a river running through it. The Winooski was once a wild phenomenon of nature. It was cherished by the indigenous Native Americans and respected for its life-giving waters. Montpelier underwent earlier levels of development and occu…
The decision to have a safe and legal abortion is under threat. Recently, the state of Alabama ruled to outlaw almost all abortions — including in cases of rape or incest. It is one of the chilling indicators of Roe v. Wade’s fragility.
Now that the final season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” has ended, I imagine most fans were harboring hopes that things would turn out well for the remaining heroes in Westeros.
In The Times of Israel on Sunday, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was quoted as saying, “We do not seek war. But Iran’s 40 years of killing American soldiers, attacking American facilities, and taking American hostages is a constant reminder that we must defend ourselves.”
Over the last couple of weeks, two disturbing things happened that might not, at first glance, seem to be related but, unfortunately, they are. They were separated by 6,500 miles but, nonetheless, they are closely entwined. That mileage is the distance between Jerusalem and the Christian Ret…
My very good friend, John M. Mitchell, died at 80 on March 28 in Rutland. He was the CEO of Swiss-owned Omya’s North American operations, managed from Proctor, until his retirement in 2000, and a founding director of the Ethan Allen Institute in 1993.
May 20 marks National Older Adult Mental Health Awareness Day, creating an opportunity to raise recognition in our communities around the importance of supporting older Vermonters in maintaining good mental health.
We live in challenging and divisive times. We are witnessing a seismic shift in the social and political landscape of our nation — poising us for a debate that will test principles and tear at the fabric of rights.
Farmers are always facing change. Change is challenging. From wild weather swings to global market forces, farmers are always riding stormy seas.
Twenty-four growers from around Vermont were interviewed in January 2017 as part of Salvation Farms’ research. The goal was to better understand growers’ perspectives and insights into how best to reduce food loss on Vermont farms. A report detailing these perspectives has recently been rele…
Paraphrasing Shakespeare’s The Tempest, “politics makes strange bedfellows” has become the go-to personification of the irony where illogical partners, even adversaries, find themselves working together. That decades of tantalizing Republican foreplay, laser focused on acquiring and retainin…
Vermont has a valuable asset when it comes to tackling the climate crisis: energy efficiency. For decades, Vermont has been a leader on efficiency. We were one of the first states to fully incorporate energy efficiency into our planning and energy decisions, and to ensure everyone in the sta…
In the last few weeks, as measles outbreaks have been reported around the nation, a small band of Vermonters opposed to immunizations has been frequently quoted or has submitted commentaries to news organizations around the state.
As a student of environmental law and policy at Vermont Law School, I come from a background of running a small business with my husband’s family. This semester, as a legislative intern for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, I have had the pleasure (and sometimes frustration) of sitting …
I’ve never hidden from my students that they’re at the heart of why I’ve enjoyed being a teacher. I’ve plainly enjoyed their company, and I’ve told them so. I’ve shared stories and ideas that were mine and passed along stories and ideas that were handed down to me. I’ve laughed with them, la…
