Opinion
Column: Is anyone truly a native of anywhere?
By MICKI COLBECK
Last month I wrote a piece for the Valley News called “Snow labors; or, becoming a Vermonter.” Not surprisingly, a few emails arrived attempting to educate me about who can be called a Vermonter. All good-natured, they were written by people who had...
Editorial: The lingering damage of an old criminal record
Before he became a country music superstar, singer and songwriter Chris Stapleton was in a bluegrass band called The SteelDrivers. Several songs on their first two albums involved young men interacting, not happily, with the criminal justice system....
Column: The Men Killed on a Single, Bloody Day in Vietnam, and the Haunting Wall That Memorializes Them
Joel Achenbach
John H. Anderson Jr. had just turned 20 years old when he arrived in Vietnam on the last day of April in 1968. Like so many of the 500,000 Americans who served in Vietnam in 1968, he’d been drafted.The young soldier, who lived in Wellsville,...
Column: The Rise of Fascism in 1930s America
Seva Gunitsky
The violent white nationalist rally in Virginia has reawakened simmering fears of American fascism. But the roots of these feelings — and the militant organizations that promoted them — did not begin with the election of President Trump. The last time...
Column: American Patriotism: It Really Is Pretty Special
Mark Lilienthal
Admit it: You’re pretty jazzed to be in America at this time of year. Strawberries from farms around the Upper Valley are red all the way through. White daisies are as ubiquitous as daylight. Blue swimming pools in Hanover, Bethel and Woodstock are...
Column: Are Flowers Better Than Bullets?
Paul Keane
Who cares — who even realizes — that a Russian poet died at age 83 last week? We are much more caught up in Russian hacking than Russian poetry. Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote a poem about a girl I saw at breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day in 1969 and...
Column: Drinking Age and Drinking Culture Are Relaxed in Chile
Katrina Wheelan
I am 18 years old, but when I order wine in South America, the waiter asks only one question: “Red or white?” If I bought alcohol in the United States, it would be a criminal offense. In America I can legally vote, buy a gun, serve in the Army, and...
Willem Lange: After Cancer Finding, Holding on to Hope
Willem Lange
MontpelierA few years ago, when I signed up with a new personal care provider in central Vermont, she asked, “What are your goals for your health care in the coming years?” She didn’t say it, but I knew what she meant, which was “in the few short...
Column: Tending Wilder’s Grave, and His Memory
Paul Keane
What The Thornton Wilder Society recently did would have been unthinkable many years ago. It announced that Wilder, who died in 1975 as America’s most honored writer (three Pulitzers and a National Book Award) had lived his life as a “deeply closeted”...
Column: At Long Last Andrew Jackson Gets Liberated
Stephen Mihm
Column: At Long Last Andrew Jackson Gets Liberated- The announcement by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that Harriet Tubman will take the place of Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill has caused some grumbling. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who like Jackson is from Tennessee, expressed grave misgivings...
