Archive
Besides his books, Bill has written a variety of poems, short stories, opinion pieces, and more.
The Attraction & Failure of Absolutism
Social conservatives like to use the phrase “moral relativism” to describe their liberal counterparts, perhaps because absolutes are simple and easy to remember, if not to live by. Our judicial...
No Easy Answers
Life is a balancing act. Complex truths are easily overwhelmed by simplistic ideologies and yes-no answers. The currently popular debate that pits free-market capitalism against shared responsibility for our community’s...
The Tyranny of the NRA
I have no aspirations for political office, so free speech comes quite easily. The massacre in Arizona ought to have raised the volume on our hushed national discussions about gun...
How Government, Business, & the Non-profit Sector Could Work Together
Recently, the Vermont Community Foundation published a status report on Vermont’s non-profit sector. In a straightforward, data-driven report, it dispelled certain myths and quantified how significant the sector is in...
Government Cuts
Capitals around the country are rife with facile rants about cutting government, when the real task is balancing budgets. Will leaders do the hard work of applying shared principles to...
Why Taxpayers Should Support a National Broadcast System
The current political rhetoric surrounding the bill to muffle NPR and to limit the ability of its affiliate network to survive, much less prosper, misses the important philosophical question of...
At Home with Corruption
For generations, the organizing principles of tribal and melting pot societies have been religion, commerce, and government. Each has occasioned both great human advancement and incalculable human suffering. They are,...
Just Let the Non-profits Take Care of It.
As a society, we’ve committed to certain government roles and responsibilities like national defense, tax collection, business regulation, and administration of justice. Our commitments, however, to a postal system, transportation...
Talk or Action?
Most politicians would rather take refuge in the comfort of big ideas than risk voter retribution by trying to solve specific problems. It’s both easier and more comfortable to stick...
A Peaceful Revolution ?
Extremes of wealth and poverty have often led to revolution. Our own founding revolution was but one example in the historical continuum. Oxfam has declared without challenge that 85 people...
Contraindications
We have two criminal justice systems. One under-incarcerates white, wealthy males and sports heroes who steal, cheat or take drugs. Some are never arraigned, nor convicted, or spend easy time...
Bullying and the NRA
Earlier this summer, Americans reacted with outrage to a video of bullying on a school bus in which several teens unleashed a barrage of invective against the older woman serving...
