National funding for the arts, humanities, and public broadcast media are once again on the chopping block in Washington. And Vermont has much to lose.

They came to Vermont in the thousands and tens of thousands, in cold weather and hot. Not speaking the language, often relegated to the hardest and most difficult work, they were treated as second class citizens. At the time, one Vermont scholar wrote that they were “an abominable crew of vagabonds, robust, lazy men and boys, slatternly women with litters of filthy brats….The character of these people is not such to as to inspire the highest hope for the future of Vermont,” he concluded, “if

I’ve been researching media portrayals of minorities with students at Middlebury College for four years, now. We’ve focused on how national and international media depict Muslims compared to how they discuss other religious groups.

News from Washington is coming in waves, as each new appointment, executive order, and White House action washes over and obscures the last. So it would have been easy to miss one action that barely caused a ripple but could have alarming implications for news itself in the U.S.

There I was, among a dozen people invited last week to attend a national security presentation by a group preparing to brief security officials in Washington DC. We’d been invited to the presentation to ask questions, offer guidance on the content and style of the briefing prior to their Washington appearance.

A recent web headline read, ‘Trump sacking acting Attorney General raises new questions about his respect for the rule of law.’ And while most people might be most interested in the politics behind the headline, my attention went straight to the last three words: Rule of Law - an intrinsically moral notion and legal concept thought to symbolize an enlightened, civilized and stable society.

The world premiere coming into its final weekend at Northern Stage , in White River Junction, is called Trick or Treat , and it’s an emotional roller coaster ride. Playwright Jack Neary gives us a working class family trying to hold itself together in Lowell, Massachusetts. For years, they’ve been keeping dark secrets from each other, and from the rest of the town.

I like to take in the news with a critical eye, and can understand why some people don’t trust the media. After all, these days the news is less Walter Cronkite and more Bill O’Reilly than it used to be - with more variety and partisanship in news reporting than ever before.

I’ve attended a number of events recently dealing with Vermont business or entrepreneurship or growth. Governor Scott, like most governors before him, sees economic development as his critical issue. But time and again, we seem to have trouble moving the needle forward in a meaningful way. So I’ve been thinking about what our unique differentiator is when it comes to business, and life, here in Vermont.

I like to take in the news with a critical eye, and can understand why some people don’t trust the media. After all, these days the news is less Walter Cronkite and more Bill O’Reilly than it used to be - with more variety and partisanship in news reporting than ever before.