Archive
Besides his books, Bill has written a variety of poems, short stories, opinion pieces, and more.
Political Pledges and Hucksters
Question… should political candidates take ideological pledges? If they do, don’t they then compromise their future leadership options? Leadership, after all, is about the agility of decision-making in real time...
Flirting
At a dinner party several years ago, a woman of a certain age introduced herself to me and initiated an artful flirtation that eventuated in a warm friendship, not just...
Love’s Labor Lost?
Labor Day is the last, long weekend of summer and a signal that it’s time to get back to work….that is if one has work, which takes us to the...
American Autumn, Arab Spring?
I recently read an editorial juxtaposing two disparate yet related visions that have haunted me, as any good op-ed should. The writer alluded to the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square...
The Power of Making
We recently visited London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to see a show called “The Power of Making.” The show begins with this eloquent statement by its curator, Daniel Charny: “Making...
“Job Creators?”
I was what conservative business interests would have you believe is a “job creator.” I, and several very smart managers ran, and some still do, a company that worked with...
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...
Balancing Self-interest and Community Interest
All tax codes have winners and losers. Overtime, different classes of taxpayers advocate steadily for self-serving changes that eventually complicate and corrode the tax system. Legislators call these various deductions...
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...
