Yearly Archives: 2009

Four and Counting

4/9/2009 – 10:44 am

Tuesday, Vermont became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage and the first to do so via legislative, rather than judicial, action. Big deal? Big deal. Civil unions, the not-quite legal equivalent of same-sex marriage, have been legal in Vermont since 2000. Since that happened, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa (just this week!) legalized same-sex marriage. […]

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

Who’s Anti-War Now?

4/2/2009 – 1:49 pm

I am. Principles aren’t principles unless they’re consistent. Now that the White House and Congress have changed hands since 2006, it’s interesting to see politicians and pundits on both sides of the ledger flipping and flopping. Still, the world is not two-dimensional and those who pretend it is do an injustice to reality. I’m willing […]

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

I Want More

3/26/2009 – 12:48 pm

The day after Christmas, the New York Times published a column by Judith Warner in which she discusses the ethics of using cognition-enhancing drugs beyond the boundaries of their prescriptions. The drugs in question – Ritalin, Adderall and Provigil – are prescribed for attention-deficit disorder (the first two) or narcolepsy (the third). People unafflicted, however, […]

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The Value of an Anniversary

3/19/2009 – 8:06 pm

Thirty years ago today was a Monday. After track practice, Dan O’ Hara and I went to Al Oliver’s house to help kill what was left of a keg of Molson’s Golden Ale from Al’s St. Patrick’s Day party the previous Saturday. It was warm, flat and skunky, but we pushed through, as returning a […]

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

One Other Thing…

3/13/2009 – 2:54 pm

Like many others, I think the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer colloquy on The Daily Show was a great, straightforward explication of some of the issues that have caused the recent financial havoc in the financial markets and more important, how the screaming heads on tee vee threw fuel (by which I mean, our retirement funds) on […]

By floegel | Posted in Asides, Economy | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Law and Order

3/12/2009 – 8:51 am

Another too-warm Vermont winter sputters to an end. My backyard, bereft of snow, is a mottled greenish-brown. Over in Montpelier, America’s smallest state capital, legislators – about to return after town meeting recess – are bogged down (as are their counterparts across the nation) trying to cut spending quickly enough to keep pace with the […]

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

News to Me

3/5/2009 – 12:06 pm

All politics is local. So is news. The news need not be geographically local, but if the events have a direct effect on my life, then I consider them to be newsworthy. For months, we’ve read about the economic crisis and how Wall Street money masters screwed everything to a fair-thee-well, then took taxpayer money, […]

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