Ah, Vermont, where one is rarely far from nature and its wildlife: the hermit thrush and the brook trout, the moose and the mink, the wild pig and the white-tailed deer, the…

Wait a minute.

Wild pig? As in boars?

Yup, they’re here. Not many of them, not everywhere, and not a breeding population. Not yet.... Read more

Behold the truck. As if you have a choice. Behind an 18-wheeler struggling uphill on a country two-lane, or in front of one barreling down the Interstate, you will behold it, like it or not.

In 2002, there were 1.28 million trucks with at least five-axles and 18 wheels in the United States, and they logged more than 82.3 billion miles. About $10 billion of the estimated $13.2 billion of consumer and manufacturing goods on sale in America — everything in every store and warehouse — reached its destination by truck.... Read more

You’ve no doubt noticed how awful life is here in Vermont. Awful and getting worse, what with wages so low and prices so high — especially the sale price of a nice house, or the rent on a decent apartment.

You’ve noticed because the newspapers and the radio and television keep telling you. Across the political spectrum, important people keep proclaiming our woes, especially Gov. James Douglas, who has made “affordability,” or lack thereof, the dominant theme of his tenure.... Read more

Amost peculiar affair is this 2008 campaign for governor of Vermont. It has not yet begun. But it is over. The winner is Gov. James Douglas.

Here the usual “barring unforeseeable events” caveat is required. Something bizarre might happen. Like any other mortal, Douglas could die or suffer a debilitating illness between now and Election Day, November 4 (but let’s hope not). Or some juicy scandal could erupt — a Capital City call girl? — exposing his administration as corrupt and decadent.

Yeah, right.... Read more

This morning, as on every weekday morning, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of men and women get into their electric, hybrid or bio-fueled cars, head to their downtown offices, sit at their computers, and start to trade. For information about just what to trade and at what price, they phone or email fellow Vermonters, consultants working out of their homes or small offices scattered around the state.... Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C. - For almost three decades, thousands of ailing and aching folks in the Northeast Kingdom, many of them without health insurance, have had their throats checked, their prescriptions filled, their broken legs set and their teeth fixed thanks to an idea - or an obsession - that David Reynolds developed in the 1970s.

Now Reynolds has a new assignment: Do the same thing for the whole country.... Read more

Ah, the sounds of autumn in Vermont. The honk of migrating geese, the thunk of a teenager's foot against a soccer ball, the crunch of leaves underfoot. And soon, starting on the first Saturday in November, the whine of the big-game hunter: "Where the bleep are all the deer?"... Read more

The first question came from Stan, and it was as clear as it was disturbing: Can American reporters write as they please, even if it does not please the government?

"We have constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press," was the reply.

Stan - officially Stanislav Kholkin, a 30-year-old television newsman from Ekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains -- knew just enough English to understand the answer, and had enough experience as a Russian journalist not to be impressed.

"Yes," he said. "We have the same."... Read more

Room 11 of the Statehouse, on the first floor and just across the corridor from the public coatroom, is big, maybe 50 feet by 25. Its high walls are adorned with somber portraits of former governors, the floor covered by a dark carpet with copper swirls vaguely resembling lily leaves. On a damp, cold, early spring morning, nine state senators sit around three mahogany desks set up horseshoe-style against the far wall. Roughly 80 wooden chairs take up much of the rest of the room, 34 of them occupied. The occupiers are of both genders, and range in age from mid-forties to mid-sixties.... Read more

How fortunate are Vermonters. Who else gets their own television series that's short and to the point, and for their eyes only? You can see it -- you can hardly avoid seeing it -- almost every evening on most Vermont stations, particularly just before the local news.... Read more