Letter to the editor: The ‘arc of the moral universe’ is longer than ideal

The arc of history and all,/ you know, bending toward justice./ We seem to be somewhere/ along the upper reaches/ of that arc, where the air is thin.

I enjoyed the essay by John Mayer titled “Quantum Engines” in the Aug. 22 Addison Independent. Like him I am not a physicist, and like him I have followed the developments and ideas of physics as closely as a nontechnical reader may.

As our historic election approaches many of us want to do something to advance voter participation, especially in critical states and districts.

When I knock my knuckle on this table it feels solid. Yet, I know that it is almost completely empty spaces with tiny atoms and their electron clouds.

I’ve spent my professional life as a primary care pediatrician, mostly in Vermont. Now I’m retired and the beneficiary of Medicare. 

When Jack Mayer is walking alone on the Long Trail, he carries a small notebook — a place to jot down whatever comes to his mind.

I want to encourage people to vote in the upcoming midterm elections.

Downy Woodpecker, a small guy,/ pecks at big wood./ A storm is brewing/ and I’m still half a mile from Minerva Hinchey.

I was very disappointed that at their last two meetings the Middlebury selectboard declined to issue a mask mandate (instead of merely a recommendation) for indoor public spaces in Middlebury.

One hundred years ago, March 1920, several thousand right-wing, self-appointed, thugs marched on Berlin under the direction of Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz. They seized Berlin and overthrew Germany’s Weimar democracy for four days — the Kapp Put … (read more)

Living here in Addison County, it’s a fair guess that most of us like nature; many of us might even say we “love it.” Whatever it is, we’re all certainly thankful for it. And during this time of year, it seems fitting to recognize the things we cherish — … (read more)

A modest pandemic proposal: Governor Scott, and other governors, might issue an order to lower all flags to half-staff for the duration of the pandemic to 1. commemorate the dead and 2. remind the living of our public health responsibilities to ourselves, … (read more)

(Trail Around Middlebury (TAM) – Chipman Hill – 4/7/20)   I sing these trails of my homeland, with elegiac footfalls  on layers of fallen foliage. A green-yellow striped garden snake  slithers and crinkles over dried leaves then freezes in camouflage.  We … (read more)

I am a Vermont primary care pediatrician with a background in public health. The U.S. public health response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has been a slow-motion train wreck that highlights the fragility of public health networks. It’s what happe … (read more)

From 1987–1991 I was a National Cancer Institute Epidemiology Fellow at Columbia University School of Public Health in a research group that is now the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, studying how air pollutants cause cancer. Our rese … (read more)