Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Earlier this month, Oregon senator Jeff Merkley visited the Texas-Mexico border. It is difficult to minimize the horror of what he witnessed. Outside a dead Super Walmart, he was escorted by the police away from the facility without being able to witness the conditions inside. We know there are thousands of children being held in prison camps such as this facility. These children range in age from babies to teens. If a sitting senator is not permitted to see the conditions in this facility, what are they trying to hide?
Senator Merkley also witnessed children in dog kennels, with nothing but space blankets - no beds, no cots, no mattresses, no books, no toys. Nothing.
This is part of a falsely labeled “zero tolerance” policy on the part of trump and his cronies. The words zero tolerance imply an illegal act - the reality is that many of these families have come to the United States for a legal reason: seeking asylum. This is a human right under international convention - people who are living in fear for their lives. Many who enter at the southern border come from countries with horrible human rights records such as Honduras. Every one of these people should be given the right to plead their cases in front of an immigration judge. This is not happening.
Children are being ripped from their parents and held in cages, unregulated foster homes, Walmart-like facilities, and military bases in order to force their parents to give up the legal right to asylum. To quote one of the ACLU attorneys representing some of these families, “Our clients did everything by the book and still had their children taken away from them."...
Earlier this month, Oregon senator Jeff Merkley visited the Texas-Mexico border. It is difficult to minimize the horror of what he witnessed. Outside a dead Walmart Supercenter, Merkley was escorted by the police away from the facility without being able to witness the conditions inside. We know thousands of...
I have been back from northern Europe for two weeks. I spent the month of April traveling, and had the great fortune to have friends or contacts in the countries I visited. I know many people cannot travel, but I wish more Americans could experience the deep chasm between...
Recently, I attended a “high-level nuclear waste summit” in Chicago. The purpose of this gathering was to lay out the various possible options for keeping the most toxic waste in the world isolated from humans and other species for up to a million years. The conference was comprised of people who feel strongly that creation of this waste is immoral and needs to stop - the sooner the better. Those of us living in Windham County are a short distance...
March 14 was one of the most heartening days since election day 2016. We, the caring and thoughtful people of this country, are under assault by a federal government that has been taken over by a criminal cartel with exactly two interests in mind: money and power. This has been clearly and repeatedly dramatized by the unqualified and poorly performing appointments to key jobs, the few bills passed, including a tax bill (disastrous if your last name is not Bezos,
March 11, 2018 was the seventh anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that started the terrible meltdowns of the nuclear reactors at Fukushima, in northern Japan. The consequences of this disaster have been many: tens of thousands of citizens have been forced to leave their ancestral homes, some forever. After seven years, the reactors are still highly radioactive, and at this time, the technology does not exist to clean up this site. The owners have tried to create...
I am writing this after a drab, gray, and very unsettling spell of February weather, including a 70-degree day - part of a disturbing trend toward perpetual weather weirdness. Six towns in Windham County will be considering a town meeting resolution sponsored by 350 Vermont, making it clear that our communities want to become part of the work to improve our chances of leaving our grandchildren a livable world. Town Meeting resolutions propose to support our state in moving toward...
Since the terrible disaster of the 2016 election, like so many others, I have been in a quandary about my level of engagement with the Democratic party. Well, the recent complete cave-in to the forces of evil have renewed my strong feelings about not ever being a Democrat. The Democrats gave away the store to the Trump administration, selling out 800,000 young people who have been busy making this a better country. These Democrats have proved that they are a...
