Nicholas Boke is a freelance writer and international educational consultant.
CHESTER-It all started when a community-action organization emailed concerns in advance of the Liberty Food Fest, which took place at the Bellows Falls Opera House in mid-December.
Nicholas Boke is a freelance writer and international educational consultant who lives in Chester. CHESTER-I stood at the polls in Chester on Election Day, as I've stood at polls in various locations over the years, and as a Springfield friend has done. I've always enjoyed greeting the people who...
CHESTER-I first saw Heather Chase in action when she was a member of the Chester Selectboard, on a night when they were dealing with a very complicated issue. I was immediately impressed by the depth and breadth of her thinking, her ability to understand a variety of points of...
I hadn't realized how frightened I'd been about the debt-ceiling situation until I found myself sleeping well the night after the House approved the deal struck between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. I wasn't sure the Senate would pass it, but this was a good sign. In the broadest sense, the really good sign was that the United States wouldn't default on its obligations and, thus, that the world's economic and political underpinnings would not - at...
All that state Rep. Seth Bongartz (D-Manchester) and his colleagues are doing is facing the fact that lovely Vermont just isn’t what it thinks it is anymore. The bill they’re proposing to enable housing development by banning single-family zoning and allowing duplexes and even three-and-four-unit homes in some municipalities just makes sense. A couple of decades ago I began to understand what Vermont had become. Driving from our Weathersfield house to a friend’s place a few miles down the Center...
I figured that if somebody was handing out glossy anti-Article 22 fliers at the Chester Town Office on primary election day, there'd be lots of somebodies handing out glossy anti-Article 22 fliers at other voting stations. I was right. The overstated hypotheticals provided in that flier are just the tack that Vermont pro-lifers had told us a few months ago that they were going to use to oppose the reproductive rights amendment to the state constitution. The amendment (“Proposal 5”)
I just don't know what to do. Political commentaries these days often run something like, “There seems to be a good chance that democracy is in danger.” Those are the optimistic ones. Many - from both the right and the left - run more along the lines of “Buckle up! You ain't seen nothin' yet.” If the polls are correct, a lot of Republicans and many independents are pretty sure that the illegitimate Biden administration is looking at the world...