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.
Is the Supreme Court, like the pope, infallible?
Like the pope, the justices are appointed for life. If a bad and dangerous decision is handed down, we are stuck with it unless it is subsequently overturned.
Considering the history of corporate personhood encroachment since before the Lincoln administration, it seems unlikely that “we the people” will ever be the same again.
Moreover, the recent Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision means that “political speech does not lose First Amendment protection simply because its source is a corporation.”...
Emily Peyton, the self-styled “public-servant gubernatorial candidate,” uses an Albert Einstein quote to support her “less is more” political outlook [Candidate Corner, July 18]. She prefaces the quote by saying that Einstein was a “former neighbor of mine.” Considering that Einstein died in 1955, I guess Ms. Peyton is...
Can lawmakers do more harm than good? I am troubled by lawmakers who cannot or will not see that the criminal justice system can actually do more harm than good. Too many legislators are in denial about that. If we must have government studies for anything, we certainly should...
Two of the most dangerous trends in our nation are also related. Big Pharma is stalking medical marijuana, and privatized prisons are stalking Americans. Both possess a voracious and inexorable thirst for profits. If they don't make a profit, they would not stay in business. If they stay in business, then they want you. Is it possible that there is indeed a collusion of interests to keep marijuana illegal or to channel it exclusively through prescriptions? Think of the scale...
Holidays are lethal. The undue stress of celebrating holidays wrecks the health of our little golden biosphere. Since the turn of the 20th century, when southern soft drink brands started using Santa Claus as an advertising ploy to increase soda sales in the northern winter markets, the lethal nature of holidays has been tearing earth's resources asunder. Oscar Wilde said, “Give me the luxuries, anyone can have the necessaries.” Even Oscar Wilde would agree today that consumer-carnage holidays are a...
Kudos to the Brattleboro Fire Department. During the power outage I attempted to take my refrigerated insulin to the BMH Emergency Room to ask if they could keep it in their backup fridge. The Whetstone flooding blocked the roads so I stopped at the BFD on the chance they might help me. Lt. Dave Emery Jr. and his fellow firemen were rightfully uncertain about the protocol of storing my insulin. The firemen in the station were on alert and facing...
I attended my first drug-reform conference in Washington, D.C. in 1987. I am a bit ashamed that I started so late in life. Since then, it seems that my (and our) efforts did very little to help. Today, the U.S. incarcerates more of its young people than any other country, much of the time for drug-related crimes. The proportion of our non-white prison population incarcerated for drug-related offenses is off the scale. Our total prison population per capita is unmatched...
What makes a town tick with the peaceful regularity of a living room chime? Safety. Everyone wants to feel safe in his or her daily activities. While small towns are not immune from crime, racism, disaster, and disturbances, our town of Brattleboro benefits from having a friendly and responsive fire department, and a police department whose officers treat our community with courtesy, professionalism, and respect. In urban areas, a higher percentage of inner city tensions can disrupt the peaceful relationship...
