Archive
Besides his books, Bill has written a variety of poems, short stories, opinion pieces, and more.
Volleyball anyone?
On VPR’s Vermont Edition show Friday, January 31st, Governor Scott, responding to a barrage of listener and interviewer questions about how he will address Vermont’s challenges, kept answering with “show...
Economic Growth or Strong families and Communities?
Economic Growth or Strong families and Communities? Robert Kennedy said in a 1968 speech at the University of Kansas: “Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health...
Does the First Amendment Allow Racist and Personal Threats of Violence?
It’s time for a statute prohibiting hate-speech, online bullying, and threats of physical violence. Five years ago, then Representative Kiah Morris (D-Bennington) resigned from the Vermont Legislature, where she had...
Equal Reproductive Rights (VT Prop 5) matters to all Vermonters
The Vermont State Constitution, dating from 1793, has been the basis of several pioneering events in Vermont history, The Marriage Equality Act and the Equal Educational Opportunity Act (Brigham Decision). Article 7 of our Constitution (the...
Brave New World?
The pandemic foreplay we’re muddling through confronts each of us with life-threatening risk and prospective opportunities for renewal. Anyone not rethinking their own life, human life in general, a rationale...
Lest We Forget: The Economic Engine is Powered by People
It’s a bizarre dichotomy in current national politics that pits the health of Americans against the health of the economy, as if the two were wholly separate entities. Many local...
Free Speech: From Core Values to Current Debates by UVM’s Tom Sullivan and Leslie Niehoff
I’m reading former UVM President Thomas Sullivan’s new book, Free Speech: From Core Values to Current Debates, written in collaboration with Leonard Niehoff of University of Michigan Law School. Apart from being a well-researched...
“The Affordability Agenda”
On its surface, the term “affordability agenda,” often used by our Governor and legislators, makes sense… but it’s important to dig in and examine the politics behind it. A recent feature...
An Ethical Vermont Addiction Policy
Photo by Nancy Stevens A measure of the Vermont legislature’s commitment to Vermonters’ well-being is the extent to which it commits the money earned from licensing and taxing addictive substances...
Less Government, More Government, or More Effective Government?
Photo courtesy State of Vermont I regularly read True North Reports (TNR), billed as “the other side of Vermont news.” I’m troubled by TNR’s cutline as it refers to “news” when it’s...
We are letting our children down.
Photo courtesy Adam Swancor We are letting our children down. They’re our future and they may be the parents of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, if we’re lucky. Signs of...
Current Legislative Compensation Favors Privilege
Two weeks ago I wrote about extending gubernatorial and legislative terms from two-year to four-year terms. Since then, good friend and revered former State Archivist Gregory Sanford sent me a history...
