Author Archives: floegel

As High As The Sky

7/20/2006 – 10:48 am

Three months ago, I predicted airlines would feel the first pinch of peak oil. They’re pinched and passengers are screaming. My ears are full of complaints from friends who’ve been traveling in the past month. I’ve got to fly in 10 days; I’m not looking forward to it. The price of oil is creeping toward […]

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The Sacred City

7/13/2006 – 9:56 am

If you walk down Church Street, Burlington’s downtown retail/pedestrian mall, you can see scribed in stone, the names of cities and towns around the world with which Burlington has a relationship. Some are “sister cities,” including Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. It’s nice to walk down Church Street on a summer evening with the vending carts out, […]

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Fading Away

7/6/2006 – 10:33 am

As this year turned, the People’s Republic of China was busy persecuting journalists and democracy activists with the assistance of American internet service providers like Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google and Cisco. Spokespeople for the corporations pleaded that their companies need to “operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based.” […]

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The Street Where You Live

6/29/2006 – 3:49 pm

I was driving through a small town near Burlington yesterday when I passed a stenciled sign nailed to a utility pole: “Main Street Closed for Parade, July 4, 10:30 a.m.” All over America, volunteer firefighters are polishing their trucks and pulling their visored caps and white gloves from the closet shelf. Children will weave red, […]

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My Neighbor’s Keeper

6/22/2006 – 7:16 am

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus Christ knew what he was talking about. He once said, “The poor will be with you always,” and, yes, there are poor people everywhere and their lives become more desperate every month. But are they “with us”? I’m in Washington, DC this week; poor people are everywhere, performing menial labor […]

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Talking Real Money

6/15/2006 – 10:10 am

In the produce section at the grocery store the other day, I was pleased to see cherries are in season. I wasn’t pleased to see they cost nine dollars a pound. These were not organic cherries but conventional, pesticide-sprayed fruit. What makes them expensive is that they were trucked in from Michigan or Washington State […]

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Murder in the Echo Chamber

6/8/2006 – 11:32 am

Evidence continues to grow that U.S. marines murdered non-combatants in the Iraqi town of Haditha last November. It remains to be seen whether anything more than Abu Ghraib wrist slaps are dispensed and whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continues to refuse to resign even as he racks another war crime. The arc of the story […]

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