The recent conflict over the Brattleboro Union High School team names is a healthy one, and the WSESD board's decision to change the image is necessary and proper given society's evolving concepts of equality. Removing the blinders of white privilege benefits us all.
Here's a recommendation that came from a venerable colleague many years ago, when the issue first emerged.
Gary Blomgren, chair of the art department, presented the faculty with a sculpture - a golden ear of corn - as our new logo.
He said we could designate it the “Kernels.”...
1 ‘A supremely political court’ Thomas Jefferson called the United States Supreme Court the “despotic branch.” Historically the least democratic of the three branches, this tribunal — unelected to life terms with no codified ethical standards — has overwhelmingly served elite political and corporate interests over citizen rights. What...
Our town is about to lose a cherished family business: Hotel Pharmacy will close its doors after four decades. It is really impossible to measure the loss until it happens. While never taken for granted, they — like a good family member — have always been here when you...
David Zuckerman has been a leading home- grown Vermont Progressive for 22 years, first as a legislator and then as lieutenant governor. An organic farmer by trade, his work in Vermont is not done. He is running for his former position. Social, economic, and environmental justice has been his platform throughout his political life. Racial equality, reproductive rights, equal marriage, workers' rights to unionize, paid family leave, livable wages, and defending the environment are the values that have sustained him...
The vicious seven-year war on Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is an ongoing humanitarian crisis aided and abetted by the United States. The media and the U.S. Congress decry Russia's imperial destruction of Ukraine. Yes - but what about the atrocities in Yemen? The U.S. supplies the majority of weapons that kill the children, women, and men of Yemen. The military-industrial-media complex is thriving under Biden and the Democratic congressional leadership. Hypocrisy is also thriving. According...
What should one make of a recent commentary in the Reformer, “War is the answer”? Here are a couple of possible reactions: It's either a monumental Machiavellian act of cynicism or a ploy by a newspaper owner to gin up sales. Either way, it presents a cogent critique of capitalism.
Whoever painted this graffiti on a rock in the West River estuary, please desist. Haven't we already done enough to the Abenaki lands?
As we've moved past yet another grim milestone - 500,000 pandemic deaths - the comparisons to wars in U.S. history reveal another horrific reality. In World Wars I and II, the entire society organized to protect this country. Where is the mobilization today? On the home front, citizens volunteered, funded war bonds, rationed fuel, etc. They planted victory gardens, a symbol of the country's commitment to persevere. Today, we have a coterie of pandemic deniers who regard masking as an...