Author Archives: floegel

The Weeks of Winter

2/2/2012 – 3:15 pm

Happy Groundhog’s Day.  The news reports that the various prognosticating groundhogs cannot agree on whether winter has or has not ended.  Maybe they can’t agree on whether it’s started.  I’m not sure human-groundhog communication is all that sophisticated.
Yesterday was the Imbolc, the Celtic feast of pregnant ewes, a harbinger of spring soon to come.  There [...]

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For the Record

1/26/2012 – 1:05 pm

Late in the day last Thursday, federal Judge J. Garvan Murtha ruled the Vermont legislature cannot intervene in the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
In his 102-page ruling, Judge Murtha closely tracks the arguments made by attorneys for Entergy, the owner of Vermont Yankee.  Entergy argued and the judge agreed that while the [...]

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(Un)Free for All

1/19/2012 – 3:56 pm

I’m on Rick Santorum’s side – in a narrow, limited sense.  The former senator from Pennsylvania is not my kind of politician.  There may be a few issues on which we agree, but I’m not inclined to seek them out.
That said, Mr. Santorum meets the qualifications to run for president of the United States.  He’s [...]

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Screaming to Get Out

1/12/2012 – 4:36 pm

I’m starting to believe there’s a decent man inside Mitt Romney, screaming to get out.  To my mind that’s the most logical explanation for Tuesday’s famous gaffe and several others.
In a speech Tuesday, Mr. Romney said, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”  The context, which is important, was health [...]

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To the Window

1/5/2012 – 3:33 pm

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to pay closer attention to the weather.  Not the climate, the weather and not for professional or environmental or scientific reasons, but for the pleasure of it, for the purpose of rooting myself in this particular place I’ve chosen as my home.
I’ve paid enough attention to the weather [...]

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To Appease the Gods

12/29/2011 – 11:25 am

So the last Americans pulled out of Iraq, eight and a half years later, leaving an uncertain nation with an even more uncertain future.
As I watched the video of the last trucks crossing the Kuwait border, all I could see were the black hulls of the Greek ships sailing away, gray smoke still hanging in [...]

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The Christmas You Get

12/22/2011 – 12:00 pm

Last weekend I realized I’m heading into my 51st Christmas.  Not that I don’t have 50 of every other day of the year under my belt, but we tend to remember holidays in ways the third Thursday of April can’t match.
As I began remembering Christmases, I wondered how many years could I pin to a [...]

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