The United States Constitution was back at work last week in California where a Federal Court issued yet another restraining order against the President of the United States. This time, the restraining order focused on the President’s recent executive action instructing the Attorney General to ensure that any community refusing to enforce the President’s immigration directives loses eligibility to receive federal grants.

I used to like Green-Up Day, when I gladly pitched in to pick up roadside trash in my neighborhood. It was like a community game of I Spy , scouring the leaf litter for brown bottles, the glint of an aluminum can, or hitting a jackpot of a six-pack jettisoned at chugged intervals. In the early years, we’d find parts of cars that looked as if they’d been assembled by Henry Ford himself.

This year I made a bet with a friend about when we’d first hear spring peepers in our respective valleys.

My mother turned 100 years old recently, though we weren’t sure whether she was aware of it. She’s comfortable and well taken care of, but each new day is a kind of surprise. That she's still here allows us to consider the century she has lived through, which goes back to the day Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. That’s the day she was born. She passed her girlhood in small town America during the peaceful 1920s, and then lived through the Great Depression

Like most Americans, I take it for granted that I won’t be poisoned when I brush my teeth. When I walk the dog, I don’t worry about breathing polluted air. When I eat my lunch I feel confident that I’m not being poisoned by the packaging, or by pesticides on my apple. When I go to bed at night, I don’t worry about the next storm, like Irene, because I know our communities have the information they need to plan and respond effectively.

Vermonters sometimes take for granted our state’s cachet as a hub of enlightened rural living.

My town school teaches the basics well, but it doesn’t have a lot of extras. Plainfield Elementary School’s gym doubles as an auditorium. Thanks to money raised privately, we’ll finally get a new playground this summer to replace one that’s thirty years old and falling apart.

Bill O’Reilly was pulled off his pedestal at Fox News by the Rupert Murdoch family, but only after so many women exercised their outrage against sexual harassment. The tall statue of “the iconic most powerful name in news” was given a shove by women whose spontaneous anger gave corporate America the jitters.

The Fleming Museum’s new Asian Art gallery invites the viewer to explore not one Far Eastern culture, but several. Wandering among ancient Chinese funerary sculptures, 18th century Japanese samurai armor, Thai and Burmese Buddhist statuary, Indian paintings and more, the incredible richness of Asian art is powerfully evident. And one realizes that Asian art is no more monolithic than western art.

When I was a kid, I learned in school that the United States was the best country in the world because we were a melting pot. No matter where you came from, no matter your color, creed, or bank account, you could come here, learn English, work hard, and become an American.