When there’s political or social unrest, people take to the streets and protest. Recent examples include the Women’s March, the People’s Climate March, and the March for Science. There’ve also been marches in many cities around the country in response to shootings of African American men by police. There’ve been marches for many causes throughout American history, but marches for the civil rights of African Americans are comparatively new. They may have begun one hundred years ago tomorrow.

Many Americans were surprised that some of the most militant responses to the proposed Republican health care plan came from disability activists – who staged a “die-in” outside the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that resulted in a woman being removed from her wheelchair as she was arrested. But in fact, the disability rights movement has for decades employed a battery of tactics, including mass protest and civil disobedience.

Sitting on my desk at home is a small vial of alcohol containing three pickled, blacklegged tick nymphs, each no bigger than the period at the end of a typed sentence… three tiny alarming arachnids.

Congressman William Meyer represented Vermont in 1959 and 1960. He was the only member of the US House to vote against one of the earliest appropriations to send military aid to South Vietnam, which he saw as a step toward active US military involvement. Senator George McGovern once called him "the conscience of the House."

Visiting a retrospective exhibition of the art and film of Robin Lloyd and Doreen Kraft reminded me of how many arts administrators are also artists in our community. I found this collaborative installation especially interesting because it affords a glimpse of the artistic side of Doreen Kraft, who most of us know as the director of Burlington City Arts.

We recently harvested our first-ever crop of sour cherries, which I figure took about ten years and four hours to produce. We planted and nurtured the tree for a decade, and this was the first time there were enough cherries to pick. With ladders and buckets, it took us most of an hour to pluck the cherries by ones and twos.

Now that many in the federal government have become engaged in climate change denial, real climate leadership will have to come from somewhere else - like the courts, non-violent direct action, and strong political will at state and local levels.

I wonder what would happen if all Vermont schools, churches, and businesses planted a portion of their property with pollinator-friendly plants for a butterfly garden or a bee habitat.

It’s obvious that Calvin Coolidge loved his hometown, the tiny village of Plymouth Notch. Even after he was President, he returned there whenever he could, went fishing as any country lad might, and did farm chores wearing his grandfather’s coarse homespun farmer’s smock.

When I first heard that Senator John McCain had undergone emergency surgery for a blood clot in his brain, I was really worried for him and his family. Those are not simple operations, no matter what the cause or prognosis.