Category Archives: Commentary

In the Good (?) New Summertime

7/10/2008 – 9:29 am

It’s hot in Vermont. It’s been in the 90s and humid for weeks. This is great for cherries and plums, grapes and apples. My neighbor’s been making cherry jam for days (add a hot stove to the equation) and she’s had to prop up the boughs of her plum tree, so heavy are they with […]

By floegel | Also posted in Economy, Electoral Politics, Energy, Global Warming | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Like a Motherless Child

7/3/2008 – 10:27 am

Vermont had its first AMBER alert last week. (AMBER is an acronym for America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response, a cumbersome tribute to Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered in Texas in 1996.) Twelve-year-old Brooke Bennett disappeared on the 25th of June. Stories soon circulated that she had lied to her mother about where she […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, Economy, Global Warming | Tagged | Comments (0)

Back to the Garden

6/26/2008 – 10:03 am

There are a number of opinions about the Bible and, as is too often the case, they tend to divide, rather than unite us. Some people think the Bible is the unerring word of God, each and every verse. Others think it’s “divinely inspired,” but perhaps not absolutely correct in every respect. Other people – […]

By floegel | Also posted in Economy | Comments (1)

Learning to Pay Attention

6/19/2008 – 4:17 pm

The walls are closing in or, if not the walls, then the groundwood sheets of newsprint, the pixilated screens of the news that never stops. Maybe this is the way we should feel at the end of eight years of presidency/puberty. It’s bad enough having teenagers in the house, but when the house is the […]

By floegel | Also posted in Economy, Electoral Politics | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

What They Say About Paybacks

6/12/2008 – 10:21 am

“Well, you know what they say about paybacks….” That’s not the kind of payback I have in mind, the payback that line refers to is more appropriately called revenge and is a dish best served cold. I’ve been thinking about other paybacks this week. Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have taken away […]

By floegel | Also posted in Economy, Energy, Global Warming, Oil | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Ghost Town

6/5/2008 – 10:20 am

There’s a difference, some parapsychologists say, between ghosts and spirits. Ghosts are the incorporeal essence of people who either don’t know they’re dead (which is why they often seem irritable) or who do know they’re dead, but cannot rest (perhaps due to some promise unfulfilled during life or because their bodies have not been properly […]

By floegel | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

The State of the Police State

5/29/2008 – 10:04 am

Tuesday’s New York Times reported an outbreak of corruption among border guards along the U.S.-Mexican border. Although most of the corruption reported involves the smuggling of illegal aliens, similar corruption could introduce drugs, weapons and/or terrorists to the U.S. In short, the corrupt border agents do the opposite of what they were hired to do. […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty | Tagged , , | Comments (0)