Yearly Archives: 2008

Run for the Border

8/28/2008 – 9:11 am

I live 40 miles from the Canadian border. If I’m given the right incentive, I can walk from my house to Canada. But what’s sufficient incentive? What if a hike to the border could save my life and the lives of my friends and family? That would be sufficient incentive. Let’s raise the stakes. Let’s […]

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General Wheeler’s War

8/14/2008 – 10:45 am

On the morning of June 24, 1898, American forces advanced toward Las Guasimas, Cuba under the command of Brigadier General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler. The aged general was a cavalry commander who’d fought for the Confederates in the Civil War. Heavy fire from Spanish troops halted the advance and battle ensued. Gen. Wheeler called for […]

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The Least We Can Do

7/31/2008 – 12:08 pm

Summers are short in Vermont. You can feel this one beginning to slip away already with the recent chill in the evening air. It seems, however, that from the minute the snow melts until it falls again, someone is running a gas-powered engine within one hundred yards of my house. Power mowers, weed whackers, leaf […]

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… And I Can’t Shut Up

7/24/2008 – 9:35 am

Remember those commercials from 20 years ago with senior citizens using their electronic buzzers to summon help? “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” was the tag line. A friend of mine used to parody that commercial at parties. “I’m talking and I can’t shut up,” she’d say. My friend has more self-awareness than many […]

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Get Used To It

7/17/2008 – 2:59 pm

A reader said to me the other day, “You’re stuff’s getting dark lately.” She was right; it has. I don’t know what to do about that, given I define the mission of this site as calling it as I see it. Right now, it looks dark. If it’s any consolation, it’s worse if you live […]

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In the Good (?) New Summertime

7/10/2008 – 9:29 am

It’s hot in Vermont. It’s been in the 90s and humid for weeks. This is great for cherries and plums, grapes and apples. My neighbor’s been making cherry jam for days (add a hot stove to the equation) and she’s had to prop up the boughs of her plum tree, so heavy are they with […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Economy, Electoral Politics, Energy, Global Warming | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Like a Motherless Child

7/3/2008 – 10:27 am

Vermont had its first AMBER alert last week. (AMBER is an acronym for America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response, a cumbersome tribute to Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered in Texas in 1996.) Twelve-year-old Brooke Bennett disappeared on the 25th of June. Stories soon circulated that she had lied to her mother about where she […]

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