Archive
Besides his books, Bill has written a variety of poems, short stories, opinion pieces, and 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...
Stepping Outside this Insular Nation
We are outside security. Through thick glass, we watch our son hoist his backpack into the X-ray machine and wait to be summoned by the TSA agent through the metal...
Healthcare and the Role of Vermont Hospitals
As a grateful user of Vermont’s healthcare system (UVM hip replacement last year), an observer of its growth (the house I grew up in in Morrisville was next to a...
The 2020 Vermont Media Landscape
In the Morrisville of the 1950s where I grew up, we had limited but vibrant media access. Clyde Limoge’s News and Citizen came into our home weekly, purveying all the local joys...
In our name: The Justice Department has killed three men in one week.
Under the aegis of U.S. Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump, three men have been killed and Barr has celebrated the killings in our name even though 60% of...
Ethics and Wealth
On Tuesday, the 21st. The Guardian newspaper reported that Jeff Bezos’s wealth increased on the prior day by some $13B. … twice Vermont’s budget. His net worth now is some $189B. Bezos...
December Newsletter
Stories and News From Magic Hill December 2018 Vol.1, Issue 9 December Will the premature arrival of snow this fall teach me anything? Yet again, I’m annoyed by the snowfall’s...
The Coming College Storm
My private college tuition in 1968 was $2,800, 50 years later it’s $50,000. Meanwhile, state support for public colleges has diminished and educational value has changed both for better and...
Town Meeting: It’s Time to Ban Plastic Bags
All of the plastic manufactured since Bakelite debuted during the Depression still litters the earth. The world is choking on an invention that’s barely a century old. Today, shoppers worldwide...
Vermont: The Forest for the Trees
As one who’s never served in political office, I often remind myself how easy it is to opine with impunity about what’s right and wrong with our state and national...
Economic Development: We can do better.
In a recent VTDigger piece, Secretary of Commerce and Community Development, Mike Schirling, highlighted actions his agency has taken to make a positive impact on Vermont’s previously lackluster economic development program: “focusing...
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...
