Category: Opinion

The Outside Story: For the pussy willow, spring is it’s time to shine

Posted on May 13, 2013 |

• Opinion
• Op-ed
• The Outside Story
• Vermont

By Virginia Barlow

Last fall, I went to a nearby wetland with a pair of clippers and cut twigs from one willow shrub after another. It wasn’t hard to tell the willows from the non-willows because willows are the only woody plants in this area whose buds are covered by a single bud scale. These cute, pointy caps are very different from the overlapping scales that protect most buds through the winter. And the few woody plants with no protective scales are easily recognizable: their naked, embryonic leaves rely on a coating of woolliness to keep them from desiccating or freezing.

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Jessie Raymond: Redialing opinion on smartphone

Posted on May 9, 2013 |

• Opinion
• Jessie Raymond
• Op-ed

By Jessie Raymond

As a person who considers herself (a) frugal and (b) skeptical of new technology, I have a confession to make.

I want a smartphone. Desperately.

This admission gets two reactions. The first, from people who sometimes don’t even look up from their own phones as they respond, is, “Well, duh.” The other, the one that echoed my own sentiments until a few weeks ago, is, “Ugh, no. Why would anyone spend that kind of money every month on a stupid phone whose use is causing the rapid meltdown of society as we know it?”

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Opinion: Pick up after your pets

Posted on May 6, 2013 |

• Opinion
• community forum
• Op-ed

By Lisa Liotta

This week’s writer is Lisa Liotta, park ranger at Niquette Bay State Park in Colchester.

The Scoop on Poop

As a seasonal park ranger at the only Vermont State Park that allows dogs off-leash in a designated area, I pick up a tremendous amount of doggie doo. Recently, I began thinking seriously about the impact of pet waste on our environment, and started doing some research. 

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Eric Davis: Congres is weighing e-commerce tax

Posted on May 2, 2013 |

• Opinion
• Politically Speaking

By Eric Davis

In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not collect sales taxes from businesses that do not have physical locations within state borders. With the explosion of e-commerce since 1992, the National Governors Association claims that more than $20 billion in sales tax revenue is going uncollected each year because of tax-free Internet sales. The U.S. Senate is moving toward passage of legislation that would overturn the 1992 Supreme Court ruling, but whether this bill will actually pass both houses of Congress is very much an open question.

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