Michael Bosworth
In today’s Middle East, echoes of our region’s history
My knowledge of the Israel/Hamas situation is superficial at best. While I know some about the history and some about the current situation, I have never studied it in any depth.
My own DNA has no Jewish or Palestinian percentages. Over 18 years ago I did marry into a secular Jewish family, and I have certainly come to know their stories of escape from Nazi Germany and Nazi Austria in the late 1930s.
'I see a lot of good being done. I don't see a lot of restraint in making choices, in prioritizing.'
I left Brattleboro's Representative Town Meeting on March 25 perturbed. A lot of good was voted for. Not much restraint was in evidence. I was also unsettled because I think a lot of District 1 (now District 7) residents would not agree with all the spending that was approved,
Charter amendment is not a good fit or fix for Brattleboro
I have been following the letters and public hearings and coverage regarding the proposed amendment to the Brattleboro Town Charter relating to evictions of housing tenants. What BSAG Realty has done to tenants at Westbrook Court is, I believe, an example of why some persons and entities choose to...
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A sense of the battle
The monument in West Kingston, Rhode Island to the Great Swamp Fight of Dec. 19, 1675 commemorates the vicious clash between colonial militia (and some of their Native American allies) and the Narragansett people. I can trace the portion of me who is a Bosworth back to one of the colonists who fought that day, John Bosworth. While I was growing up, my family was proud that my father's paternal line, though not among the 1620 Pilgrims, had immigrated to...
Broad-brush remark only further divides our politics
Jim Dandeneau, executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party, has said, “We know the Vermont Republican Party is filthy with insurrectionist sympathizers.” What possible general good was Dandeneau thinking would come from this broad-brush remark? Is the thought of Vermonters becoming ever more divided, ever more uncivil to one another (as use of the word “filthy” certainly helps to further), a strategy Dandeneau is pursuing? It certainly seems so. While as a rule I vote for (and sometimes contribute to)
Family values
I was raised a Catholic, as was my father before me and I believe his father before him. While I did not attend parochial elementary or high schools, I did matriculate at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. I have not, though, been a practicing Catholic since the age of 25, more than four and a half decades ago. One of the primary reasons I left the Church was because of its paternalistic nature. There are still...
Who is making the policy?
Leading up to Brattleboro's March 20–21 Annual Representative Town Meeting (ARTM), the one issue I was cogitating most extensively about was the relationship between the body's Human Services budget and the Community Safety Review Team's report (CSRTR). The intersection of these two topics, however, did not fit squarely into any article on the warning, and so it never actually came up. I would, however, like to raise this publicly now in the hopes that it will generate a useful exchange...
Kudos for safety report, but it needs a better summary
At over 200 pages, the “Final Report on the Community Safety Review Process” for Brattleboro is now out and it is massive to get one's arms and thoughts around. I have not read it all by any means, though I have read some sections in detail. I did (via Zoom) sit in on the Jan. 5 Selectboard meeting where co-coordinators Shea Witzberger and Emily Megas-Russell presented the report for two hours, which was followed by another hour of initial discussion.