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Policy & Politics
Vermont: Reactive or Reactionary?
To our detriment, we’re largely a reactive state. Our ship of state is captained from the stern. We scan our wake for bad signs. A corpse floats by… we need… Read More
Arts and Humanities
Do You Have a Book in You?
Apart from speaking and drawing, writing is one of humankind’s earliest forms of communication. The first written words emerged as cuneiform writing in 3200 BC in Mesopotamia – present day… Read More
Education
Vermont State College System and the Headwinds of Privilege
Change is relentless. Humanity’s efforts to understand, accommodate, and survive it are invariably buffeted by the headwinds stirred up by those whose privilege may be curtailed by that change. Reversing… Read More
Education
Draft Vision for a Unified VT State College System 102220
Problem Statement: As is, the current constellation of Vermont’s four State Colleges(VSC) is financially, pedagogically, and demographically unsustainable. What has changed? The sheer financial burden of tenured and administrative personnel… Read More
Health Care
Healthcare: A Lucrative Business or a Definable Right?
In healthcare, as in hunger and housing, we face a moral choice. Is Mammon or caritas – profit or wellbeing – the best driver of community health initiatives? In his… Read More
Policy & Politics
Social Media, Free Speech, & The Right to Bear Arms
The term “social media” has never made linguistic sense to me. It seems like an oxymoron. To me “social” implies my predigital childhood, where people I knew walked and talked… Read More
Arts and Humanities
Hi, Bill: Rep. Kathleen James here (Bennington-4). Read with great interest your essay this morning on reinventing our schools as community hubs and thought you might be interested in a… Read More
Education
An Open or Shut Case? Our Community Schools
Photo courtesy of Nancy Stevens Many Vermont towns are torn between the financial imperative to consolidate their shrinking student populations into larger nearby educational facilities and their deep desire… Read More
Arts and Humanities
I chair the Events Committee at Ohavi Zedek Synagogue in Burlington. We feature an hour-long program once a month on the third Thursday called Lunch & Learn. (Of course, we’re… Read More
Arts and Humanities
Hello Bill, Sarah McClain here. I have been meaning to write to you since we met in August at the Vermont Leadership Institute “Innovation and Transformational Leadership” final session. As… Read More
Humor & Satire
When is a tool an object and when is it a consumer?
I love to work with my hands. I love tools – the simpler the better. The ratio of a tool’s utility to its simplicity defines a tool’s excellence for me.… Read More
Policy & Politics
Christmas Wish List or New Year's Resolutions?
It’s the end of what has been for many a devastating year. 2020 has magnified and amplified the damaging toll that our persistent socio-economic and environmental inequities have exacted on… Read More
Arts and Humanities
hi bill, my name is mark shanahan and i’m a writer at the boston globe. we’re interested in doing a piece on the media scene in vermont, about which i… Read More
