By the time this essay is published, the current confrontation with Iran may well have escalated even further. But as of this writing there is one troubling development among many that stands out: the report that hundreds of Iranian-Americans were detained, some for ten hours, at the United …
The Senate soon must perform one of its most solemn responsibilities: conducting the trial of an impeached president. When President Trump’s trial begins in the Senate, all 100 senators will consider the two articles of impeachment approved by the House of Representatives. One alleges that t…
Mitzi Johnson, meet Theodore Roosevelt. You two have something in common.
The turn of the new year always shines bright with new opportunities. It’s a chance to reflect on where we’ve been and look ahead to where we need to go. When it comes to climate action from this past year, I’m inspired by a young woman from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, and by the tremendous oppo…
My mother, Alice Cobb, died on July 4, 2012. She died in her sleep in her three-room apartment at the Parker House on Church Street in Rutland. She was 98. The home health aide for Rutland Visiting Nurse Association found her in her bed. The on-call nurse for the VNA called me that morning.
Mark Galli, the editor-in-chief of “Christianity Today,” penned a courageous piece titled “Trump Should be Removed from Office” in the Dec. 19 issue of his magazine. This must have caused an earthquake in the White House, since “Christianity Today” is America’s foremost evangelical Protestan…
When New York Yankees RHP Don Larsen — who passed away recently at age 90 — pitched the only perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956, I was in elementary school and a huge fan. But our teachers, sadistic old nuns for whom baseball meant nothing, had pitched …
After a decade of federal and state health-care reform efforts, each with its own catch phrase, acronyms and political perspective, there is one area of remarkable agreement. Any approach to increasing quality and decreasing cost is built on a strong foundation of primary care.
The Vermont Legislature will reconvene on Tuesday for the second half of the 2019-2020 biennium, and hand-wringing will recommence over whether we dare, in Vermont, raise additional revenue for necessary funding programs by increasing taxes on the wealthy.
As former President George Bush might say, the first two decades of the 21st century are “past history,” presumably meaning that the next 80 years are future history, with none any more important than the one that just began — although a thing or two will certainly pop up down the road. This…
I’m writing this just hours before digging out my green canvas duffle bag and performing my usual magic trick of packing light for a week away. You’re reading this just after I’ve gotten back — weather gods and American Airlines permitting. I have my ticket, passport and Mjölnir cradled in m…
It was the turn of the millennium and that particular Y2K New Year’s Eve, we’d been warned all the planet’s computers were likely to curl up and die. Assuming you’re old enough to remember 2000, what did you figure would happen when the ball dropped in Times Square? In case you’d like to rel…
We have said thanks. We have shared gifts. Now we must resolve.
The temptation with bad news, like that of the closing of Green Mountain College, is to sit on one’s hands, paralyzed by structural change beyond immediate local control. The alternative is to come together, line up strategies and do what is in your power to move your community forward. That…
Are you a woman?
On a long-ago suburban New Jersey winter night, a kid stares out the Buick’s back window at a repetitive landscape of modest single-family homes, many strung with Christmas lights, most of which would be wound into wire wreaths and put away for another year by this time tomorrow. The year, t…
As long as the United States shuns public financing of our presidential elections, there will be billionaires using the advantages of their wealth and connections to outspend their rivals — chiefly in the party primaries — to try to win for themselves the plum of the U.S. presidency.
Poor Elijah’s been complaining about Christmas shopping since August. He blames retail executives. He’s convinced they all suffer from a calendar disability. According to his records, retail Halloween officially begins on Labor Day, a development that makes perfect sense now that back-to-sch…
Enid Reiman recently wrote a commentary titled “Medicare for All not the solution.”
As we look back on the year’s news, alarm bells ring for biodiversity and species loss. The decade ahead demands a new vision, one that will turn the tide on our environmental impacts and fully address our way of living on this planet.
On Dec. 8, the Washington Post ran a story about something that happened in Duque de Caxias (near Rio) in Brazil. A gang calling itself Soldiers of Jesus arrived at the home of Marcos Figueiredo and threatened him with guns, firing them into the air. Marcos, like many thousands of descendant…
When I moved my family to Vermont 43 years ago to practice pediatrics in Randolph, the local elementary school needed major upgrades. We were assured a new school would be built and open by the time our children reached first grade. It was a significant factor for us in making our decision t…
While global cultures celebrate the return of light around the winter solstice with a multitude of metaphorical and symbolic festivities, the Republican Party, like bats and vampires, joyously seeks out darkness in an ongoing effort to protect Donald Trump, retain their hold on power and con…
Given the climate inaction among national governments — from America and Australia to Brazil and Britain — there’s been a big focus on actions individuals can take — in Vermont and beyond. This pivot is helpful because it does, in fact, take a village to tackle climate change. It takes a sha…
The promise of Career and Technical Education in our state is that we will train high school students for success in high-wage, high-skill, high-demand careers. The McLure Foundation projects 18,600 such jobs, which are attainable by CTE grads, will become available in Vermont in the next 10…
Vermonters are struggling to make ends meet. Buying winter tires, paying for the first fuel delivery before winter, coming up with money for property taxes and the thought of buying Christmas gifts for kids in the weeks ahead, all add to an unbearable level of stress for many.
During a prolonged and intense campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, candidates like Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have targeted industries dominated by a small number of powerful corporations that hold outsized influenc…
It is time to assess the career and life of former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin.
There can be no debate: Accessing health care services can be difficult at times, navigating our complex system can be confusing, and we all know health care costs too much for far too many families.
Here we are again in the season of miracles, when we celebrate the virgin birth, the eight days of light from one day of fuel, the return of the sun! Miracles can be especially dramatic when they begin as looming catastrophes and then suddenly turn for the good. More importantly, miracles ne…
It’s extremely winter-like, considering the temperature is barely below freezing and there’s only a couple of inches of snow covering the ground in most places. It’s early afternoon, and a biting wind, gusting in the 30 to 40 mph range, churns foamy whitecaps across the surface of the lake, …
Noted naturalist David Attenborough recently addressed the UN Climate Change Summit in Poland warning the world that, “Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. ... If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civ…
Editor’s note: Vermont By Degrees is a series of weekly columns written by representatives of colleges and universities from around the state about the challenges facing higher education at this time.
Air Force One was all gassed up and ready to go. And it was easy to understand why: The personal transport vehicle that ferries the president of the United States was parked in enemy territory, having borne the commander in chief to a vipers’ nest filled with mortal enemies. A quick getaway …
Editor’s note: Vermont By Degrees is a series of weekly columns written by representatives of colleges and universities from around the state about the challenges facing higher education at this time.
Ron Powers’ commentary (“Measuring the rights of the mentally ill”) harkens back to that period in this nation’s history when white men denied African slaves personhood and treated them as property, a status the United States Supreme Court codified in its infamous Dred Scott decision. Mr. Po…
About a week ago, preacher Franklin Graham and U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry dropped bombshells that are causing me to write about something I would have never dreamed needed to be addressed in this country.
Well, it’s that magical time of year again, the slog between Thanksgiving and Christmas where people — particularly baby boomers — wonder why everything seems so ridiculous when it’s supposed to be either festive fun or mystically religious.
Every holiday season, I’m reminded of a “graduation” speech that was given to the eighth-graders at the Main Street Middle School many years ago. As I recall, Eli Rosenberg, the teacher who was chosen by the students to give the address, spoke about the need to live more lightly on the plane…
Poor Elijah’s niece drops by periodically to discuss education issues. The only thing they agree about is they both teach for a living. As far as she’s concerned, he’s a relic of the pedagogical Jurassic Age. He regards her as a visitor from a brave new education world that’s rarely brave or new.
This weekend, Killington Resort will once again host the Audi FIS Ski Women’s World Cup. And, once again, it promises to be a memorable event.
There are many areas where rapid change is needed to confront and deal with climate change and ecosystem degradation. But our societies mostly refuse to face and discuss these issues.
As the beginning of the 2020 legislative session approaches, Vermonters should be aware a carbon tax is being revived — again. This isn’t hype or hysteria about the prospect of something that may be proposed. Rather, this is actively being pushed and pursued by Vermont elected officials and …
Almost lost amid the mind-boggling shuffle of Executive Branch malfeasance recently was the exposure of senior presidential adviser and prince of Trumpian darkness, Stephen Miller, as pretty much everything we ever thought he was, right from the beginning of the reign of terror that continue…
Editor’s note: Vermont By Degrees is a series of weekly columns written by representatives of colleges and universities from around the state about the challenges facing higher education at this time.
Loyalty and self-interest are powerful motivating forces.
David Emmons handed me a stack of photographs: snapshots of smiling boaters, water skiers, people diving off their docks, and fishing. Our boat was floating in the middle of Little Lake St. Catherine, a lobe off the southern end of the much larger and deeper Lake St. Catherine. With us was W…
A popular commitment among candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president is a declaration of the year in which the United States must be made to achieve “net-zero carbon dioxide emissions.” Joe Biden vowed to get us there by 2050. Andrew Yang bid 2049, and Corey Booker offered 2…
Several years ago — 10 or 12 years would be about right — a central Vermont journalist was returning home after working late on a bitterly, jarringly cold winter night. It was a little past midnight when he drove through Barre and saw, in the lighted, recessed doorway of a downtown store, a …
Last week when the president made his trip to Dayton, Ohio in the wake of the mass shooting there, he was met by chanting protesters. Their demands that he “Do Something” are a cry for real change, for concrete steps to stop the killing beyond sending thoughts and prayers.
