Hunger

He’s thin now, down to seventeen pounds. In the prowess of his youth, he weighed almost twenty-four pounds, not big, but he was born small. He’s a decade old now… Read More

Short Story Collection: “Fat People”

Fat People: fiction about people who live to eat Fat People is an entirely unique fictional look at the emotions and experiences of those who live to eat: the estrangement,… Read More

The Blame Game

There’s a lot to be saddened about in the BP disaster. The damage to the gulf and shoreline may take a generation to recover, the economic loss to the region,… Read More

Stasis or Change?

Much of what I hear these days is, “I’m gonna vote for balance. If the legislature’s gonna be Democratic, I’ll vote for a Republican governor to keep them in check.”… Read More

Talk to me…..

When I was a cub scout in Morrisville in 1953, one of my merit badge projects was to learn Morse code. Another was talking into orange juice cans connected by… Read More

Ah, Mother

It’s time to think about Mother again. And then will come Father’s Day.  For many of us, it’s bittersweet to revisit our mothers and fathers, either in person or in… Read More

Our Schools, Ourselves

We are in a six-passenger compartment on the eight-hour train ride from Marrakesh to Fez. It is like a small ensemble theater company that will change characters as we move… Read More

The Courage of the Nuns

Well, the bishops have their vestments in a twist again, as if they hadn’t created enough problems for themselves, swearing the victims of their colleagues’ sexual predations to secrecy. In… Read More

A New Town Center for Vermont’s Small Towns

At least for the time being, we must all get smaller. By “smaller,” I mean our government, town, school, non-profit, business, and household budgets. Though we may feel like victims… Read More

Another Chance to Lead: Humane Slaughter

Bad incidents can teach us good things… if we’re willing to learn from them. We may believe that the horrific video of animal abuse shot undercover at the Bushway facility… Read More

The Future of Vermont’s Working Landscape is Up to Us

I often write about how we, as a civilized society, need to keep striving towards equilibrium.  As in many times in our history, we live in a highly polarized world… Read More

“The Centre cannot hold…” Yeats

In these opening days of the new decade, I am haunted by Yeats’ ominous stanza in his poem The Second Coming: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy… Read More