Kicking cans…

Licensed iStock Vermont struggles with a lack of leadership or, at best, a confusion about what leadership is. The fundamentals of leadership are straightforward: A leader listens, elicits diverse opinions… Read More

Questions for our “nonprofit” healthcare system governing boards.

  As healthcare costs in Vermont gobble up more and more expendable resources needed for housing, education, property tax abatement etc. it’s time to ask hard questions and hold providers… Read More

Government isn’t the problem; it’s the solution… if we support and use it responsibly.

          There’s been a lot of blither written on both ends of the political spectrum about how government is not the answer to our accelerating challenges.… Read More

UVM Health Network Board Accountability – Facing Facts

Photo courtesy UVM Medical Center Vermont’s VTHC911 coalition is exploring the drivers behind Vermont’s soaring healthcare costs. Newsletters to date have focused on the high operating costs of the University… Read More

Open our governance doors to young people

  Public domain image “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And… Read More

My New Year’s Wish List for Vermont

I take my inspiration for our future from Vermont’s sage motto, “Freedom & Unity,” expressing the balance between what I must do for myself and my family and what I… Read More

The Three Hs: housing, hunger and healthcare

  Photo courtesy VTDigger A basic goal of civil government is that its citizens should have a secure place protected from the elements in which to live and perhaps raise… Read More

We need to rethink our systems of governing

  Vermont State House   On Election Day, as I confronted my voting ballot in the Hinesburg Town Hall, I was daunted to find that for the first time there… Read More

Real leaders don’t amplify differences, they bridge them.

Vermont State Capital Governor Phil Scott pulled off a trifecta win in the latest election. The “most popular” governor in the country, a non-MAGA, conservative Republican in a liberal state,… Read More

Preventing chronic toxic stress in our communities

Life is stressful. No amount of wealth or privilege protects us from stress. In fact, there’s reason to believe that privilege, insofar as it isolates us from a shared humanity,… Read More

Book bans, censorship… what’s next?

Courtesy Morrisville Centennial Library I oppose book bans. Having said that, I don’t believe freedom is an absolute. History has taught us that we need commonly agreed upon limits to… Read More

Rural Free Delivery (RFD)… Rest in Peace (RIP)?

Shutterstock I think the heat-drunk garter snake living in our mailbox is an omen. As I lower the dented cover and reach gingerly inside to get our mail, I wonder… Read More