Archive
Besides his books, Bill has written a variety of poems, short stories, opinion pieces, and more.
A Goal to End Mission?
Conservatives want to reduce government services that alleviate the effects of poverty, addiction, crime, illiteracy, and disease. Liberals want to increase them. But what if both were wrong and our...
Can We Legislate Morality?
We pride ourselves on being a nation of laws, perhaps too many laws. Much as we try, we can never translate moral obligations or prohibitions into legal ones. Moral codes...
VT Design Technology Educators Assoc. comments 5/8/15 VT Tech
Comments: VT Design Technology Educators Assoc. May 8, 2015 at VT Tech – Randolph The challenge for those of us who teach or, in my case, taught, is to maintain...
An Ethical Epiphany in the Legislature ?
I just searched Senator John Campbell’s official State website and typed in “ethics.” The site yielded “no results” and urged me to check my spelling. Campbell has been an outspoken...
Banking with Felons?
The news was stunning. Barclays, Citibank, J.P. Morgan – Chase, RBS, Bank of America – Merrill Lynch, and UBS, all pled guilty to illegal currency and LIBOR rate manipulation and...
Economic Development?
I no longer believe in economic development. There, I said it. Now, let me clarify. I believe the best business development strategy is being a great place to live, educate,...
Phinxter
I’m not obsessive about pet names. I usually leave them to the kids, perhaps with a little parental guidance, like avoiding undistinguished names like Fluffy or Spot, or ambiguous names like Pussy, or aggressive...
Castleton University?
I’m not one to spoil a party but I remain puzzled by Castleton’s decision to become a university. It’s a fine school and President Wolk deserves kudos for making it so, but...
A Tolerant Future?
We look at a stranger and subconsciously register gender, race and perhaps class markers. These reflexive cognitive observations reveal nothing about the person yet often carry heavy judgmental baggage. In...
De facto Monopolies and Customers
Antitrust prosecutors recently issued subpoenas to major airlines to explore possible collusion – but all they had to do was ask air travelers. Anti-trust law is complicated. The price-fixing portion...
Comments to Business & Non-profit Leaders at Lake Champlain Chamber
I’ll start with a question: How is it that a small state with a $5B budget, half of which is for the social safety net, a philanthropic community that contributes $275M...
Comments to VT Comm. Loan Fund Annual Board Retreat 9/23/2015
Many thanks for inviting me to this important discussion. My goal in a few minutes will be to look at our state in broad strokes so as to add some...
