Editorials
Biking: A Joyful Imperative
Here, now and in the immediate future – the current wave of enthusiasm for bicycles and bike transportation has all the feeling of something increasingly solid and enduring. Bikes for recreational pleasure have been with us for a long time, as in bikes for kids, bikes for athletes and competitive racing. None of that pleasure [...]
Editorial 5.2.13
An Answer to Confusion Turn on the radio, watch TV, read a newspaper, go online. Sometimes it almost looks like the world-at-large and America itself is coming apart, imploding from the weapons and wars we can’t seem to get away from—from gun running, gun violence, human trafficking, hunger and famine to the Boston marathon bombings [...]
EDITORIAL: Montpelier’s April Celebration of Poetry
From day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute, spring in our mountains can raise our spirits or almost break our hearts. Or as T. S. Eliot advises us in his memorable 1922 poem “The Waste Land”: April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, [...]
EDITORIAL: Our Community Dinner and Afterward
If you announce a community dinner for Thursday evening, April 11, and bring in food, and if the food is good and there’s enough of it, and if you lay the tables for 80 people and 80 people turn out, and if the farewells are tender and sweet, and if the speeches are short and [...]
Editorial Note: Annual Campaign Update: Again, Thanks
As this issue of The Bridge goes to press, recent contributions to the paper’s annual campaign take us to a current campaign total of $14,033 toward a campaign goal of $15,000. Writing on behalf of everyone at the paper—writers, editors, graphic designers, our very effective bookkeeper and the team of people who deliver the paper—please [...]
EDITORIAL: Grappling with Glut
First, I feel the need to establish my sustainability cred. I’ve long been a dropout from the system. As a teenager I was inspired and enamored by Walt Whitman, Thoreau and Helen and Scott Nearing. At 15, living in the Northeast Kingdom, my personal utopian vision was to build a house in the middle of [...]
EDITORIAL: Annual Campaign Update
As we go to press, recent contributions have taken our annual campaign to $13,548. Our campaign goal is $15,000. This means that $1,452 separate us from completing the campaign successfully. To everyone who contributes to The Bridge—and people contribute to The Bridge in many ways—please accept our sincere thanks for your generosity. If you would [...]
OPINION: Level the Playing Field: Support Election Reform
by Emily Peyton We need reform of the election process. Elections are public affairs, yet today, our election process has been privatized. Private organizations and corporations assert an ill-founded claim to present the status party candidates and discriminate against any others, despite the signatures that validate those others for presence on the ballot. Our Vermont [...]
Editorial Note: Join Us at a Community Dinner
The Bridge invites you to join us at what more and more looks like an awesome community dinner with great food, live music by Nancy and Lily Smith and a chance to meet almost everyone who works at The Bridge, including writers, editors and the people who deliver the paper. Part of our hope for [...]
Editorial Note: Second Community Meeting on Sabin’s Pasture
The Montpelier Planning Commission will be holding the second of its current round of community meetings to share the commission’s proposed Sabin’s Pasture map and zoning ordinances and to invite public discussion and comment. That second meeting will be held on Monday evening, March 25, at 7 p.m., in the College Hall Chapel on the [...]