Author Archives: floegel

A Piece of My Mine

1/31/2013 – 8:25 pm

A colleague, an attorney, began her career in the Monroe County, New York Public Defender’s Office.  I’m from Monroe County.  I told her the name of my town. “Hmm,” she said. “We didn’t work by town, we worked by zip.  What was your zip?” “One four six one seven,” I said. “Oh yeah, I know […]

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A Bit of Everything

1/24/2013 – 7:42 pm

I spent a good portion of last weekend happily skating on the Pine Street Barge Canal near my house.  It was perfect winter exercise and recreation, just what I needed to bring a healthy glow to my cheeks.  (I’m a crappy skater, but I enjoy it.)  Gliding over the rough patches near the beaver lodge, […]

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Gas Attack

1/17/2013 – 2:01 pm

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Shell oil rig Kulluk, which was then beached on an uninhabited island off Alaska’s south coast.  Shell has since refloated the rig and it’s now in a sheltered harbor being inspected.  This is not the end of Shell’s troubles. Shell’s incompetence with equipment (see here for a longer, […]

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Where the Mental Health Thing Comes In

1/10/2013 – 5:35 pm

James Yeager, the CEO of Tactical Response, a Tennessee company that specializes in firearms training, posted – and then unposted – a 32-second video of himself swearing into the camera (swearing in both the sense of cursing and making a promise) that if guns are regulated, he will start killing people. I hardly know where […]

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Empty Shell

1/3/2013 – 8:00 pm

Happy New Year.  The snow here is two feet deep and the temperature is in single digits, sometimes above and sometimes below zero.  Winter in Vermont as it should be and as it too rarely seems to be anymore. Global warming is the cause, of course, and while we seem to be enjoying a respite […]

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Status Report

12/27/2012 – 4:53 pm

I’ve shoveled three times today, so far.  Big flakes are supposed to keep falling from the sky for the next two days.  I checked my neighbors’ house – they’re out of state for the holidays and now trapped in the Midwest – to make sure their pipes don’t freeze.  So far, so good.  So far […]

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Christmas in Prison

12/20/2012 – 4:01 pm

I suppose you want to hear a Christmas story.  “It was Christmas in prison and the food was real good, we had turkey and pistols carved out of wood… ”  That John Prine song will be 40 in the New Year. Twenty years ago this month I wandered through parts of the Midwest humming that […]

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