Tag Archives: Greenpeace

Damned (Vermont) Yankee

In yet another blow to the mythical “nuclear renaissance,” (unicorns, anyone?) Entergy Corporation announced Tuesday that Vermont Yankee, its troubled Fukushima-like nuclear plant on the bank of the Connecticut River in Vernon, Vermont will close in late 2014. This is a victory for activists who mounted a four-decade campaign of resistance to the plant, since […]

Render Unto Caesar

I’ve been watching with great interest the unfolding controversy over whether the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) singled out “tea party” groups for special scrutiny.  It’s good to see Attorney General Eric Holder take this issue seriously enough to open an investigation although such an investigation need not be limited to these narrow circumstances. While anyone […]

Gratitude for Here and Now

Happy Thanksgiving.  It’s a bright sunny morning in northwest Vermont and if we had huge balloons shaped like cartoon characters, we would absolutely have them inflated and crashing into trees and traffic lights, so I’m grateful for my municipality’s modesty. I’m grateful my state was prepared for this year’s big storm and even more grateful […]

“Pre-Positioned Weapons of Mass Destruction”

The tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks is a bit more than two weeks away.  People in DC and New York were viscerally reminded of this when an earthquake – unusually strong for the east coast – rattled them Tuesday.  Although human-induced climate change may affect hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and blizzards, earthquakes remain an […]

Romantic Poetry

BILOXI, MS – It’s five in the morning, St. Patrick’s Day 2011; I’m in a cheap motel 75 yards from the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve opened the door to let in cool pre-dawn air. I hoped to hear the surf but it’s drowned out by the hum of electric lights outside and the traffic on […]

The Five-Percent Solution

Happy Armistice Day, as we used to call it. I had a great uncle in the American trenches at 11:11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. (Although, I wouldn’t “have” him as an uncle for another 42 and a half years.) That was the “war to end all war” and/or “keep the world safe for democracy.” […]

Where’s Whitey?

So I’m working Monday afternoon, busy and a Skype message from one of Greenpeace’s media officers pops up on my screen and – God bless them, they’re wonderful – but it’s never good news. A Dallas tee vee station was calling her about a report just released by the Department of Justice that detailed the […]