Archive

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

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

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

If you go to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s website and click on “Reports” and type in the word “outcomes,” you’ll get a free copy of a report entitled “Reframing… Read More

The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College is the formal name of UVM. It has served Vermonters for two centuries and now faces difficult choices. The strategic ambiguity of… Read More

Vermont’s last Republican Century ended in 1962 when Phil Hoff became the first democratic governor in a blue dog’s age. The Republican Party then bore little or no resemblance to… Read More

It’s 1956 and we’re bouncing along route 15 in our ‘54 Ford wagon headed to Aunt Rose and Uncle Alcide’s farm in St Johnsbury for a late afternoon Thanksgiving feast.… Read More

Just as Vermont farms are under threat from forces outside their control, so too are many of our sacred cows. Among them are post-employment benefits for teachers and state employees,… Read More

I learned with sadness this week that my former employer, Dike Blair, had died. I had visited him on his 90th birthday several months earlier at his home in Middlebury… Read More

I’d like to talk with you today about the new reality of economic development in Vermont. Historically, I don’t believe we’ve been very strategic in our business development initiatives, choosing… Read More

I’m having breakfast with a friend who has just returned from yet another country where he routinely explains to presidents and kings how to establish functioning telecommunications networks, or to… Read More

To talk or to listen, that is the question. The shrill chaos of a million tweets, blogs and call-in cable and radio shows has entranced us with the sounds of… Read More