I got to my tree stand 50 minutes before dawn, 20 before the legal start of the hunting day. I climbed up the tree, clipped my safety harness, pulled my rifle up, and sat down to wait and enjoy the woods in the predawn and dawn hours.
Four weeks after a hard-fought election, Governor-elect Peter Shumlin continues to surprise and impress with his choice of department heads and the speed with which he is assembling a very capable cabinet.
The recent appointment of political rival Doug Racine, a state senator in Chittenden County for 14 years (along with six years as lieutenant governor) who lost the gubernatorial primary race to Shumlin by a razor-thin 203 votes, not only demonstrates Shumlin’s willingness to mend fences but also to reach out to the best leaders available.
After wringing much of the goodness out of my old vehicle over the course of seven-plus years, we recently invested in a new set of wheels. My wish-list going into the substantial purchase: that it be an American vehicle with a good Consumer Reports ranking and safety record; have enough cargo space for dump/recycling runs; and that it be capable of towing my late father’s small, barely seaworthy boat that I refuse to junk and use occasionally for fishing jaunts on Bristol Pond.
This is the eighth in a second series of essays and reflections about politics and the moral life. The themes of the essays are drawn from Plato’s ‘Laws.’ his last and longest philosophical dialogue written shortly before his death in 347 bce. Laws is a fictional account of a conversation involving three old men with long experience in politics: Cleinias, from the Cretan city of Cnossos, Megillus, from Sparta, and an Athenian stranger who is not named, but who may be Plato himself. This essay treats the important theme of education.
