Allen: Keeping land in farming has big rewards
Do we conserve farms and forests for the value of only the scenery, the picture postcard bucolic view of Vermont? Or do we invest in a future where keeping and enhancing these rural skills and values becomes an integral part of our own state government?
Hallquist: Adoption of renewable energy requires realistic timeline
A very real issue is that the grid is not designed to handle large amounts of wind and solar without cost-effective battery storage to address the intermittent nature of these resources.
Deen: Where did it all come from?
For all the importance of water to all species, we do not know where it came from nor how there came to be so much of it, to the point where oceans covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface.
Perry: Cuts to senior services unwise
However, where the spreadsheet hits the reality of the lives of Vermonters, it isn’t a formula any more. It isn’t a quick calculation in the care for our seniors.
Brigham: Level funding of school budgets harmful
As a school board member, I have grown a thick skin, broad shoulders and a long neck.
McClaughry: The evil school-choice plot
Without this common education requirement, Mathis believes, parents will too often make ill-informed educational choices that appear to them better for their children, with no concern for the democratic ideal.
Dunsmore: Avoiding an Iran-Israel war
For the most part, there has been little debate in this country over the need and/or the wisdom of bombing Iran to prevent it from going nuclear.
DeWalt: Why civil disobedience?
We are no longer a fully functioning republic, the three branches of government, while still separate from each other, have all been co-opted by the powerful monied interests, and serve now to see that those interests are tended to, while the rest of us be damned.
Thomson: Shumlin plan for state hospital inadequate on many levels
VSH had 54 beds, and was often filled for weeks or months at a time, even though Vermont hospitalizes its citizens at half the rate of most states.
Killacky: Seeing anew
My panel duty did not ignite a travel-lust of my own for Antarctica; instead I have been inspired by these artists to pay more attention to my own home environment.
