A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Vermont legislature’s struggle with finding a path toward universal health care in this year’s session. In other states, the lawmakers must have more time on their hands than they do here in the Green Mountain State. In Wisconsin’s legislative session, an effort to allow citizens to kill […]

The national news media has not paid attention to it, but the Vermont Legislature has spent the winter and spring debating the merits of universal health care. It’s a debate worth having. Vermonters spend $3.5 billion on health care each year, about $5,700 for every man, woman and child, sick or healthy. Those costs are […]

April is usually an unpleasant month in Vermont – cold, gray, muddy. This year (so far) it has been anomalously warm, sunny and dry. I took advantage of the weather to bicycle along the lakeshore Sunday afternoon, slowly picking my way along the crowded recreation path. Frisbees and soccer balls flew through the air; children […]

There’s an old joke about a mountain guide who tells his climbing party: “Watch your step on this ledge, if you slip you’ll fall 400 feet. If you do slip, however, look to your right, you’ll never see a view like that again in your life.” We are all of us stepping along a ledge […]