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Jen Berger has an ear for heart-wrenching tales. As director of the Burlington Peace & Justice Center’s 4-year-old “Recruiting for Peace” campaign, the 36-year-old activist travels to high schools around Vermont telling teens what recruiters won’t: that war is not nearly as fun as glossy Army press materials would have them think. While educating students about their right to “opt out” of school-sanctioned recruiter databases, Berger relays real-life stories from modern-day soldiers.... Read more

It’s been said that bad officials are elected by good people who do not vote. That’s exactly what graduate students in the St. Michael’s College Art in Education Program are hoping to get across with a summer mural project. In an important election year, these future teachers are thinking politics, and using an activist-art medium to present the results. Hey, it’s more fun than simply becoming notaries public.... Read more

When Thomas Hermann stepped up to the podium in Barre’s Old Labor Hall last week to announce his candidacy for Vermont’s lone congressional seat, the event didn’t just mark the 29-year-old’s first foray into electoral politics. It was, according to an aide, his first public speech ever.... Read more

Last week, shortly after he was released from military duty on June 6, Eli Wright came to Burlington to visit friends and “decompress.” After six-and-a-half years in the U.S. Army, including a one-year tour in Iraq, the Colorado native was in Vermont less than 24 hours when he awoke in the middle of the night with an “excruciating toothache.”... Read more

Vermont State Auditor Tom Salmon, who is up for re-election this year, is likely to be deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Navy, possibly by the end of the month.

Salmon, a reservist in the Seabees, the Navy’s construction force, can’t say for sure how long he would be gone, although Seabee deployments typically last no more than six months. “Deployments are sensitive,” Salmon noted, “but they’re also unreliable.”... Read more

The Shelburne Museum opens for the season this weekend with an olfactory rush: “Lilac Sunday” is nearly as renowned as the museum’s vast cache of folk art and artifacts. But the glory of spring blossoms is brief, while the new exhibits, along with the permanent collections, will be on view through October 26. That’s a generous expanse of time in which visitors can — and should — see what the Shelburne is up to now.... Read more

It’s Tax Day, and a gorgeous spring morning in the nation’s capital. The tulips and cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and suit-and-tied lobbyists are sharing the sidewalks with schoolchildren ambling along like ducklings.... Read more

Last Thursday, as Pope Benedict XVI addressed a few hundred Catholic educators in Washington, D.C., a Marine Corps recruiter in full dress uniform set up shop outside the St. Michael’s College cafeteria.

For a couple of hours the recruiter, an officer named Will Morgan, shook hands and took down the names of a few interested students, then packed up his pamphlets and headed for the door. “Not bad,” he said on his way out.... Read more

If you think you hold current and former high-ranking Bush administration weasels such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales in low esteem right now, just wait until you've learned the role they played in institutionalizing torture since 9/11. When you buy your ticket for Taxi to the Dark Side, you may think them liars and bumblers, but you're likely to leave the Cineplex with little doubt that they're also war criminals.... Read more

One summer day about 30 years ago, Janet Hicks was putting up tomato sauce in her kitchen when she heard a knock at the door. Outside stood a man wearing black shoes and an ID badge.

“He said, ‘Are you Janet Hicks?’ “she recalls. “I said, ‘Yes.’ He said he was from the IRS.

“And I said, ‘Oh, I’ve been expecting you for a few years. Come on in.’”... Read more