A friend who lives in another part of the country told me that shortly after the last election she overheard a group of teenage girls at a swimming pool, and one was saying, “At least now we can get rid of the Jews.”

The face of homelessness has changed, but our government policies have not. Today, about a quarter of the homeless in Vermont and across the country are children. According to a recent article in The New York Times , the number of children living on the streets or in temporary housing in New York City, and trying to go to school, has ballooned to 114 thousand.

Like any profession, education has its rock stars: Piaget, Montessori, Vygotsky ... and John Dewey, who was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont. Dewey’s dad was a green grocer and wanted his son to become a mechanic, but instead, young Dewey went to UVM, worked as a teacher, and eventually became one of the greatest social philosophers of the modern age.

Vermonter Bill McKibben has received death threats for his work to stop pipeline expansion and clean up the environment. In an on-line forum his address was posted along with a not-so-veiled threat to get him to shut up. Taking pen to paper, Mckibben described the incident. Disagreement is one thing, he wrote, but let’s at least agree not to kill each other.

It was a tough year for apples on this side of the hill, but a banner year for squirrels.

Well, it’s two weeks before the midterm election, and some of our yard signs have disappeared. Again.

Vermont State Forester Nancy Patch didn’t realize she was starting an art collection when she purchased a painting 30 years ago. She liked a friend’s artwork enough to purchase a painting from him and hang it in her home. Now thirty years later, more than 100 pieces from her vast collection of primarily Vermont art are installed at the Montgomery Center for the Arts in a fall foliage exhibition entitled For the Love of Art.

The EB-5 scandal in the Northeast Kingdom has posed an interesting dilemma.

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its special report detailing massive action will be needed if we’re to prevent catastrophic climate change as early as 2040, I wasn’t shocked.

One question I have for the big shot men who've been accused of abusive behavior toward women is this: Don’t you see what losers you are if you have to use your power or celebrity to force yourself on women?