Vermont’s Remote Worker Grant Program

The Vermont State Auditor’s recent report entitled “Structural Weaknesses and Questionable Gains by Vermont’s Remote Worker Grant Program” not only raises questions about the design and efficacy of the executive… Read More

Vermont’s Comfort Commission

In a time of widespread citizen mistrust of their government institutions, what could be more important than re-building that trust? The recent reversal from VT’s largely symbolic Ethics Commission (VEC)… Read More

Vermont Can Make a Difference on Mass Shootings

Since the national opinion writers have thoroughly covered the President’s role in stoking the violence we experienced this weekend we can agree that the next election offers us all the… Read More

Guns and Suicide

VTDigger column May 29,2019 S.169, mandates a 24-hour waiting period for the purchase of a handgun in Vermont It’s sitting on the Governor’s desk awaiting his signature… or not. The… Read More

Aging with Grace

Astonishing what we learn from others when we listen… I was talking with a friend only a few years younger who offered a suggestion that in my self-absorption had never… Read More

Children and Families

The nation was appalled by televised scenes on America’s southern border of ICE forcibly separating children from their parents after a Justice Department ruling that to do so was legal… Read More

Getting to Know You….

Thanks to the VT Council on World Affairs and the Open World Leadership Program, we just hosted two young women who are journalists in Yaroslava, Russia. And I’m struck by how similar the… Read More

The Dignity of All Work

Neighbors in an upscale condo development were speculating about what the guy in the end-unit must do for a living to afford a sailboat, motorcycle, and camper. Curious, one strolled… Read More

Who Really Made America Great?

An epiphany is a spontaneous event that inexplicably alters one’s life, a​ manifestation​ of some force in the universe greater than oneself. ​ My wife and I both experienced this… Read More

Language, Fear, & Leadership

Without notice or comment, The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS) recently removed from its mission statement a century-old introductory phrase… “America’s promise as a nation of immigrants…” At the… Read More

Identity Politics

I’ve recently learned I’m a “privileged, cisgendered, white male.” This feels somewhat alien to me still – but it’s new so I’m willing to try it on and figure out… Read More

Death for All Drug Dealers?

While most of the civilized world has abandoned execution for moral as well as practical reasons, President Trump is now proposing an expanded application of the death penalty – traditionally… Read More