Ben Doyle
CommentatorBen Doyle is a Community and Economic Development Specialist for USDA Rural Development. A former English teacher and arts administrator, Ben lives in Montpelier with his wife, Angela, and two children, Salvador and Rosemary.
-
About a decade ago, an English teacher friend of mine ruined the 4th of July for me. At the end of the school year, my first as a teacher, I'd expressed…
-
Almost 400 years ago, after nearly dying from typhus, the great English poet John Donne wrote that:"...all mankind is of one author, and is one volume;…
-
I’m a proud graduate of the Sutton Graded School in Sutton, Vermont. Relatively speaking, there aren’t that many of us. In 1990, I was one of 8 graduates.… -
When I was a sophomore in high school, I stole a canoe paddle from another kid’s locker. I don’t know why - I didn’t even have a canoe. It was just one of…
-
One of my favorite books is very short, but it’s about another book that is quite long. Isaiah Berlin’s The Hedgehog and the Fox is a brief study of Leo…
-
In 1967, exactly one year to the day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King gave a speech entitled “Beyond Vietnam.” In it, King said that “we…
-
Recently, employees of a large internet retailer specializing in books filed a class action lawsuit against the company for unfair compensation practices.…
-
When I worked as a high school English teacher, a favorite poem to share with students was “Among School Children,” by William Butler Yeats. It’s complex,…
-
Vermont’s new universal recycling law, the first phase of which went into effect this past summer, says that by the year 2020, anything we throw away that…
-
This summer I plan to finish painting my house and it won’t be a moment too soon. When I started scraping, it was just Angela and me and our dog Sammy.…
