The reasons justifying the American presence in Afghanistan and their strategy change from day to day. Neither the lunatics running this misguided affair nor their media experts can adequately explain why we are there.
According to British General Richard Dannatt, it is nation building. How do you build a nation, which has a foreign culture that you know nothing about? The notion is an absurd idea of an arrogant imperial mind. How many times have the Brits tried this and failed?
The American imperialists are treading the same path. Other great reasons propounded by the experts are that we are there to stamp out corruption, destroy the drug trade, teach them all about democracy (a little patronizing, when our democracy is so threadbare).
And perhaps lurking in the background is our old favorite, Unocal (now Chevron), and its planned pipeline across Afghanistan, or some other variation on that theme.
With the realization of what coal and fossil fuels are doing to the environment, the United States and the rest of the world need to find a way to slow down the production of greenhouse gases. The governments of many countries throughout the world understand that nuclear technology is...
It was called the Spanish flu, but few realized that the strain didn't actualize in the country of its namesake. Spain simply didn't use wartime censors in its newspapers as other countries did during The Great War (later known as World War I), making reports from Spain more reliable...
Dover and Wilmington took another step up the economic trail in October by endorsing a 15-year economic plan that calls for high-speed Internet, a livable wage for workers, reducing the cost of doing business, and a number of other priorities. Members of the Tri-Town Economic Development Committee recently approved Mullin Associates Inc.'s working draft addressing nine goals and objectives for economic development in the Deerfield Valley. On Nov. 21, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Deerfield Valley Elementary School...
It’s 7 a.m., and Lonie Lisai walks the aisles of Lisai’s Chester Market inspecting the stock, a routine he calls “walking the gauntlet.” He is pleased; the night staff did a good job. The coolers of milk, soda, yogurt, and produce lining the store’s circumference are filled and neat. Items on the inner shelves like soup, salad dressing, cake mixes and bread are lined up and waiting their colorful labels like a gathering of high school marching bands. Open since...
This summer, I went back to visit friends from high school, whom I hadn't seen in about 14 years, in the town I haven't visited much since then. It was one of the strongest experiences of sense-memory - the kind that allows somnambulists to drive themselves to work in the unconscious middle of the night. My body knew where it was going: watching the curve of the off-ramp come into view; feeling the curve in the tilt of my car;
I gave my husband the swine flu. I don't know who gave it to me. I could have caught it at the local high school, when I gave a guest lecture, or from my students at the library, the senior center, or the prison. I could have caught it from one of my kids or their friends. Or I could have caught it at the grocery store, the gas pump, or the post office. I'll never know. At first, I...
“Everyone down to the basement,” Emily King, principal of Oak Grove Elementary School, said over the intercom. Class by class, the 100 or so students took their cue. Quickly and calmly, they walked past the library to the below-ground area near the boiler. Children were encouraged to take as little space as possible. The principal told everyone to be silent as the final members of her staff squeezed in the front of the children, sat down, and waited. Nancy Goldsmith,
With the U.S. Supreme Court having seated a new justice, the stakes could not be higher for women. The court, notably conservative during the Bush administration with predictable 5–4 votes, now sees its first Hispanic and only its third woman on the bench. (Liberal Ruth Bader Ginsberg is still there; moderate Sandra Day O'Connor retired.) President Obama's choice to fill the seat of retired Justice David Souter, Sonia Sotomayor, worked as assistant district attorney in New York City, where, in...
Since its opening, Brattleboro's newest music school, the Open Music Collective, has generated support from those seeking musical instruction, musical awareness, and a musical community. “I believe music connects us on a primal level and the more we listen to each other, the more involved in and open to life we are,” said Kate Parsons, one of the founders of the all-volunteer organization. Her partner, bassist Jamie MacDonald, agrees. “I think music can teach trust and bring people together who...
Recent commentary in the local media suggests that four ladies walking through an open gate at Vermont Yankee is a threat to public safety. A closer look shows that it just isn't so. The four elderly ladies, members of a group that have staged several protests at the Vermont Yankee facility over the past several years, did get a few feet past the perimeter gate. But what the writer doesn't mention - and what people who have never visited the...
What is the sound of a paradigm shifting? To Matt Nadeau of Rock Art Brewery in Morrisville, Vt., it sounds like a rising collective voice that gives Power to the People in the struggle against Corporate America. And if that sounds a little like an editorial cartoon, it's only because the situation Nadeau found himself in after Sept. 14 was cartoonish, in a noir sort of way. That was the day he received a cease-and-desist letter from the Hansen Natural...
I have been listening to the back-and-forth about Vermont Yankee and nuclear power in general and want to try and inject some basic facts into the discussion. First, let me start by saying for 17-plus years I have worked in the power industry; for eight of those years I worked as the northeast power team leader of GE's water and process technologies division. I currently work at Vermont Yankee. In my past I have worked in all aspects and types...
It was a beautiful summer afternoon, and the young college student, recently arrived from his native France and preparing for his studies at the University of Massachusetts, decided to take a walk in the woods outside Amherst. He had heard about a beautiful path along the railroad tracks that went through some especially breathtaking countryside. He found the tracks without much trouble, and started walking. The only problem with this story is that a train – Amtrak's daily Vermonter, heading...
According to Reuters News Service, President Obama at a public meeting in New Orleans “spoke about the need to rely more heavily on nuclear energy as the United States looks for ways to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming." Our president - and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize - believes that the United States needs “to rely more heavily on nuclear energy.” Listen up, Vermont legislators: if President Obama wants more reliance on nuclear energy, help him out...
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the New England Center for Circus Arts, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks and appreciation for all the help, hard work and donations we received towards our fundraiser at the Vermont Welcome Center on Sept. 17. So many of our staff, students, parents, and friends contributed delicious baked goods and hours of prep work and staffing time. In addition, many local businesses also generously made donations, including Side Hill Farms...
One important aspect has been overlooked in the reporting of the recent protest at Vermont Yankee. These protestors have willingly broken laws. Protesters have broken state laws and have harassed personnel at their place of work. Those same personnel protect the public from any threat against the plant. Therefore, these protesters are, by definition, posing a threat to the public. Trespassing onto nuclear power plant property is a serious crime. Unsurprisingly, the security forces at Vermont Yankee responded to these...
It is an honor to have a United States president awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It has occurred rarely in history. It is important to remember in the discussion of the control or abolition of nuclear weapons, though, that nuclear plants play a critical role in providing materials necessary for the production of nuclear weapons. Nuclear plants, such as Vermont Yankee, need to be shut down, not only for the ongoing present and future danger they present to the natural...
“Save Magic,” reads the banner draped over the welcome sign to Magic Mountain Ski Area - a reminder that when the ski area opens this season, it may do so for the last time. “It's a do-or-die year for us,” says Greg Williams, a volunteer and new Magic Mountain shareholder. Williams, a resident of Connecticut, is preparing to spend his 30th winter skiing Magic, and his first as a potential owner of the area. Magic Partnership LLC is creating a...
An upcoming forum will address transportation needs and remedies in southeastern Vermont as part of a statewide study on the issue - for those who can get there to attend. State Representative Mollie Burke (P-Brattleboro), a member of the House Transportation Committee, and Matt Mann, transportation planner for the Windham Regional Commission, will discuss schedules, ride-sharing, energy efficiency and cleanliness, and the special needs of the elderly, the disabled, homeowners who live in rural areas, job commuters, and school-age youngsters.
I am a criminal dairyman here in Wisconsin who has dared to share raw milk with people. We here are so envious of you in Vermont, but I can see from your article [“Notes from the raw milk tour,” October] who the heroes and villians are, same as here. Your health department - of all the people you interviewed, happy, working hard, helping people - is in one sour mood and angry for sure, and all they have to say...
Law often has very little to do with common sense, and often small businesses find themselves trapped in a costly hell where logic and reason have little if anything to do with the situation. Rock Art Brewery, a small Vermont family business built on the backbreaking work of its husband-and-wife founders, which manufactures a beer it called “Vermonster,” found itself staring down billion-dollar Hansen corporation. An attorney for the manufacturer of energy drinks demanded that Rock Art immediately halt production...
Charred beams outline an empty window frame. Sheet metal peels backwards into the Sacketts Brook. Wind twists strips of police tape and carries the bitter smell of smoke over the team of inspectors sorting through debris to the stunned crowd huddled along Kimball Hill. Over 200 years of Putney community memories and hopes for the future of its village through a rebuilt Putney General Store burned to rubble within minutes in the late-night hours of Nov. 1. The fast moving...
The biggest casualty of the late-night fire in Putney was not the 200-year-old general store building that burned to the ground in minutes, although that was the most tangible consequence of the rapid inferno. Rather, it was the loss of the time, energy, love, and money that members of the Putney Historical Society - and the whole community - invested in the renovation to the building that had housed the oldest general store in the state. The building that was...
“We are the bridge,” says Rob Levine, regional executive of the Vermont and New Hampshire Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross. To respect the confidentiality of the tenants of 10 Kimball Hill left homeless by the Putney General Store fire, Levine spoke generally about the American Red Cross' role during emergencies. Volunteers from the Green Mountain Chapter of the American Red Cross train and work all year preparing for emergencies. A call can come any time day or night,