Yearly Archives: 2009

Did You Ever Go Clear?

12/31/2009 – 11:31 am

It’s ten in the morning, the end of December. I’m writing you now to see if you’re better. Vermont is cold but I like where I’m living. There’s silence on Howard Street all through the evening. It’s New Year’s Eve morning; I’m listening to Leonard Cohen through the computer. The sky outside is a gray […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Two Priests Walk Into….

12/24/2009 – 10:59 am

A chain store? A casino? Two stories in Wednesday’s Washington Post: The first was about Father Tim Jones, an Anglican priest at the parish of St. Lawrence in York, England. From the pulpit last Sunday, Fr. Tim said shoplifting is not a sin, if the act was caused by need instead of greed. He encouraged […]

By floegel | Posted in Catholicism, Civil Liberty, Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Stockholm Syndrome in Copenhagen

12/17/2009 – 8:32 am

It’s cold in Vermont. Our long autumn has given way to the winter weather that always beats the calendar winter by a few weeks here. Frank Capra snowflakes fall past my window as I type. On Saturday evening, in the company of a 14-year-old girl, I walked to a park in the south end of […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Global Warming | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

The Audacity

12/10/2009 – 10:14 am

The need to address the co-option of Newsweek and the Washington Post was so strong last week that I left hanging President Obama’s decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize today, Mr. Obama spent a good portion of his speech addressing war in general and the Afghan war specifically. So, […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Iraq Invasion | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

The Wrong Direction

12/3/2009 – 10:26 am

I’m back in Washington, DC this week; Tuesday evening I flipped on the radio to listen to President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan. Clearly, there are no good options available, but the choice Mr. Obama’s made seems worse than it needs to be. The Afghan war is an oil war. The connection is not as clear […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary, Economy, Energy, Global Warming | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Home for the Holiday

11/26/2009 – 9:14 am

For some reason, all the bills came due this week. There were the usual end-of-the-month debts. Then there was the cost of the new heater, which is supposed to save money and give us a smaller carbon footprint in the long run, but has to be paid for up front. A day later, six month’s […]

By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | Comments (0)

On New Hampshire

11/19/2009 – 8:18 am

I’m in Washington, DC this week. It’s warmer here than in Vermont, I feel overdressed. It’s autumnal, but in a mid-Atlantic kind of way. Monday evening I walked northwest on New Hampshire Avenue. The evening was balmy; the leaves were piled thick and dry along the gutters and across the sidewalks. The air was rich […]

By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Economy | Tagged , , | Comments (0)