Column: Paying tribute to a Dartmouth legend

By ROBERT SULLIVAN

This is a tale of two fellows, a college student and his math professor. The kid in our story graduated from Dartmouth back in 1969 and still lives nearby with his wife. He’s 77 now — an older “kid” — and continues to toil in a home studio and out back at his forge. He is, in his seniority, an artist of considerable renown, a sculptor who for decades has specialized in heavy-metal fine art installations and smaller pieces. His work has graced private households and public spaces from Opryland to Oz.

Column: I object to troops on America’s streets

By BOB CIERNIA

As a veteran, I want to express the opinion that the D.C. parade on Saturday (supposedly honoring the U.S. Army, not the current commander-in-chief) is not only a complete waste of $40 million, it looks like something Stalin or Putin or Kim Jong Un would do. Americans celebrate the end of wars but we don’t put on parades during peacetime. There has only been one military parade since the end of WWII and that was in 1991, celebrating the return of Americans from Iraq after pushing Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

Forum for June 16, 2025: A housing celebration

Housing First of the Upper Valley is a collaboration of human services, housing and health care providers, faith-based groups, municipal leaders, legislators and concerned citizens.

Forum for June 14, 2025: School funding

Tucked into HB2, the state budget trailer bill, is Section 426 — a provision that threatens both our public schools and our state Constitution. Section 426 is a “Legislative Declaration of Authority” that challenges decades of New Hampshire Supreme Court rulings, including Claremont I and II, which affirmed that the state — not local property taxpayers — is responsible for funding an adequate education. These rulings are essential for towns like Newport, Claremont and so many others, where low property values lead to high tax rates and under-resourced schools.

Forum for June 13, 2025: WRVSU board erred

I am extremely disappointed in the White River Valley Supervisory Union Board’s (WRSUB) decision to drop membership in the Vermont School Board Association (VSBA)(“Schools quit lobbying group”; June 9). In a year in which big change is happening across the education system, the WRSUB has dropped out of an organization with one of the most powerful voices in the Statehouse. They naïvely think that joining a new startup group will offer them a continued presence in Montpelier. But, no matter how well meaning that new organization is, it does not have the experience and influence of the VSBA.

Forum for June 12, 2025: Carbon dioxide

I am writing to clear up confusion or misconceptions that could arise from a recent Forum letter (“Carbon is good for you”; June 2). The point of Priestley’s bell jar experiment was to identify the gas that supports fire and animal life: oxygen. The leaves in the bell jar absorbed carbon dioxide exhaled by the mouse and generated oxygen by the process of photosynthesis. It was already well known that carbon dioxide extinguishes a flame and can suffocate animals. In our own time, the Apollo 13 astronauts would have perished if their exhaled carbon dioxide was not removed from the air they were breathing. The same problem needs to be addressed in nuclear submarines.

A Yankee Notebook: We give back what our leaders give off

By WILLEM LANGE

On Sunday mornings of the weekends when Bea drives up from Nahant, if the weather is warm and pleasant, we put the top down on the roadster, assure Kiki we won’t be gone long, and tool leisurely downstream along the Winooski River to Middlesex for coffee and a pastry at Red Hen Bakery. It’s a clean, well-lighted place, usually pretty busy on Sunday mornings with a mixture of locals, tourists and transplants like me. The signs on the chalkboards and over the doors and windows, as well as the posted instructions for proper disposal of cups, dishes, and trash, signal clearly that if the bakery were larger and better known, it would be a prime target for the Trump administration. It pretty much defines “woke.”

Column: Montpelier is missing the mark on education reform

By JACK HOFFMAN

If and when the governor and Legislature agree on something they call “transformational educational reform,” it’s unlikely to be what most people expected or wanted. Vermonters won’t see the property tax relief they were hoping for because changes to the funding system will be a few years off. Instead, the first signs of reform will be reorganization of their school districts, which they didn’t ask for. On top of that, democratic decision-making on school budgets will be a thing of the past.

Forum for June 9, 2025: NH public education

As a single mom and a homeowner, I feel the weight of New Hampshire’s broken school funding system every day. The state continues to underfund public education, leaving local taxpayers like me — and many of my neighbors, including elderly residents on fixed incomes — to shoulder the burden.

Column: Dartmouth, India and post-China America

By NARAIN BATRA

Recently, I had a wonderful intellectual encounter with a group of bright people at the Dartmouth Osher Institute for a Great Decisions seminar, “India: Between China, the West, and the Global South.” I was a guest speaker for a course led by Jim Wooster, a US Navy veteran, and John Sanders, a Dartmouth emeritus professor of surgery.

Column: A less drastic education reform for Vermont

By BRYCE SAMMEL

Vermonters are rightly worried about taxes. With rising costs across the board, including property taxes, health care and energy bills, many residents, especially those without school-aged children, are asking a fair question: Why are we spending so much on education, and are we getting our money’s worth?

Forum for June 7, 2025: Hanover Council resolution

On May 15, Hanover High School Council passed a Student Affirmation Resolution. Council is one of the governing bodies of our democratic school.

Editorial: New Hampshire sign case shows the Constitution’s flexibility

We are hardly the first to observe that the genius of the U.S. Constitution lies in large measure in the adaptability of its guarantees to novel circumstances. Take, for example, the recent vindication of the First Amendment right of a bakery owner in Conway, N.H., to display at his store a mural — or sign — that was painted by high school students.

Forum for June 5, 2025: Hartford PCBs

I was quoted in a recent article (“Hartford likely to demolish large portions of high school because of PCB contamination”; May 5) as discouraging the Hartford School Board from using part of the proceeds of the recent $21 million bond issue to fund the initial costs of developing a plan to remediate the presence of PCBs at Hartford High School. The quote is accurate but does not fully convey the advice I was giving the board.

A Yankee Notebook: Novelty and change are coming for us

By WILLEM LANGE

My kid was mountain biking on a hill near his home in Arkansas and realized he’d lost his cell phone out of his pocket somewhere along the trail. Without his phone, he was incommunicado, but another rider lent him his. He called home, his wife hit “Find Will’s phone” on her phone, and she was able to send him a map showing the exact spot in the woods where the mislaid phone lay.

Forum for June 4, 2025: Women’s health

The Valley News disappointed me with a recent headline (“Family planning program faces budget ax”; May 6). The headline should read “Another blatant attack on women’s health care.” I have been a school nurse and family nurse practitioner for 38 years and taken care of more sexually assaulted girls, young women and women than I can count. From 7-year-olds on stretchers, to young women and former soldiers in my exam rooms, to girls coming into my nurse’s office. All needed health care. Poor or not, political affiliation or not, these girls and women were in need of care. Women have uteruses and have babies. Men do not. Women do not need to be attacked physically, yet one in four are. Political and physical attacks on women are not new. It would just be so refreshing if girls and women could receive the health care they require.

Forum for June 3, 2025: Digital literacy

In the 1800s, patent medicine was all the rage. Salesmen used to push toxic “miracle cures” — made of mostly alcohol and narcotics — through colorful advertisements and trade cards. There’s a wonderful collection of these ads in the Rauner Special Collections Library in Hanover if your curiosity is piqued.

Forum for June 2, 2025: Leading and following

I am 75 and when I was a young man I and my friends smoked a lot of dope, cooked peyote, took mescaline and LSD, and on occasion, did some coke, speed and nitrous oxide. We went to festivals and demonstrations with 2,3,4 hundred thousand people (No, I didn’t go to Woodstock. I was in northern Jersey, only 35 miles away but heard there was a lot of walking, so I rolled a fatty, put Hendrix on the box and zaahed out). At those events we all shared what we had of food, water dope and, of course, love. We were there with one common goal: to love one another.

Editorial: Dairy farms feel regime's whiplash

Dairy farming in Vermont is undeniably a difficult proposition. Volatile milk prices, high costs, a shortage of labor, a dearth of large-animal veterinarians and climate change in the form of flooding are just some of the challenges. So it is astonishing to learn that some farmers in the state welcomed policies that threaten to compound their existing problems.