Words of Wellness: Gratitude, kindness and saving your soul
November 12, 2014
When this column comes out we’ll be two weeks away from Thanksgiving. A holiday with both light and shadow in the United States, given our history – a past that is what it is. We can, however, as enlightened beings, make better of our present and thus our recent past as we go forward. Whether overcoming...
Words of Wellness: The Fall of Autumn
October 30, 2014
“In the beginning there was nothing. God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.” - Ellen DeGeneres “An age is called ‘dark’ not because the light fails to shine but because people refuse to see it.” - James...
Words of Wellness: Why Is Alcohol Binging Such A Big Deal?
October 19, 2014
In honor of Alcohol Awareness week and inspired by the Vermont Conference on Addictive Disorders that I recently attended, I thought I’d take a closer look at Alcohol Issues, particularly for those typical of College and High School Students who are under 25 and for those who drink heavily, when they...
Editorial
September 24, 2014
Special mention of the article at the top of page 12, about a JSC student fighting leukemia. The student’s name is Scott Prescott. His family has created a fundraising page at gofundme.com. It’d be wonderful if you’d donate whatever you can, 25 cents, $1, $10. Anything helps. Here in the northeast,...
In defense of identity
September 24, 2014
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually heard a character on TV or in a movie refer to themselves as bisexual. A huge stigma in the media exists when it comes to using that word -- probably because bisexual people are still seen as being “greedy” or unable to make...
Putting the “Green” back into “Green Mountains”
September 24, 2014
Recycling is easy enough to do when it comes to aluminum cans, plastic bottles or yesterday's newspaper, but how can you properly dispose of hazardous waste? That's where the Lamoille Regional Solid Waste Management District or the LRSWMD comes in. For the past several years the LRSWMD runs collection...
Words of Wellness: Procrastination
September 24, 2014
Procrastination is one of the most stressful maladaptive strategies in life. Yes, we need to stay on top of our readings and assignments, work, friends, families, laundry and lives, but sometimes it all just can’t get done. If we “all or nothing” ourselves into dysfunction, we procrastinate on...
Time for a carbon tax!
September 18, 2014
The following is an excerpt. The scientific community is clear: Global warming is real and it is caused by human activity. In terms of droughts, heat waves, floods, forest fires, disease, rising sea levels and extreme weather disturbances, global warming is already causing devastating problems. The simp...
Words of Wellness: Is change good?
By Cynthia Hennard, JSC Counseling Center Director
September 18, 2014
These first few weeks on campus are sure to be interesting times. They might be the best ever or just OK or no big deal and for others it may be feeling unsettling, daunting or like a huge adjustment to have to deal with. All of which is normal. So we wanted to share some ideas and resources about making...
Thank you, Kind Sir
May 8, 2014
I fell into love with a man a few nights ago and got a chocolate bar out of it –53% cocoa with pistachios and hot peppers, wrapped with a picture of Grace Potter. While I am neither a fan of chocolate nor the singer, the bar, more than half eaten, lays on the front passenger seat in my car as though...
Editorial
May 8, 2014
This is the end. End of the semester. The psychotically erratic weather helped masked its end, but it’s over. End of my tenure as Basement Medicine editor. Thanks for reading. End of the college swimming pool. End of workable budgets. End of faculty and staff. BM rep...
A Note Before the Trustee Vote
Tom Benton, Editor-in-Chief
February 20, 2014
Depending on when you read this, the Board of Trustees will vote or voted on a tuition increase for the Vermont State Colleges on Feb. 20. A trustees’ committee recommended that tuition stay the same on Feb. 13 in Montpelier. They voted the entire student body of the Vermont State Colleges into a hunger...
Boffo Internet
Tom Benton, Editor-in-Chief
February 6, 2014
What a surprise that the Bible was correct in its fingering Y2K as the End. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have indeed been riding, although not as much as they once did, since they’re in their seventies, and I think it’s harsh to consider Fred Koch as destructive as his brothers. Judgment...
A Band-Aid on a gaping wound
February 6, 2014
Editor’s note: The following commentary was originally published in Vt. Digger on Jan. 21. It’s been reprinted here due to its relevance, despite the protests of its author, stemming from his active involvement with Basement Medicine. Relevance is relevance. Gov. Shumlin’s latest budget is by ma...
Words of Wellness: If your body could talk…
December 10, 2013
We’ve all heard the old adage ‘you are what you eat’, but have you ever stopped to think exactly how true that is? Put simply, healthy eating is the key to wellbeing. We all have up to 100 trillion cells in our bodies, each one demanding a constant supply of daily nutrients in order to function...
Editorial: GNH
Tom Benton, Editor-in-Chief
November 14, 2013
I just read a scary thing. At this rate, the number of Americans out of work will surpass the number of employed Americans in four years. Four years. Our labor-force participation rate is 62.8 per cent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the lowest it’s been since 19...
Words of Wellness: Focusing on the body to manage stress
Cynthia Hennard, Counseling Center Director
November 14, 2013
Most of you probably already know that some stress is good. We need to activate some alertness and vigilance to function at our best. Stress activates the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). What we want is a nice fluctuation between sympathetic and par...
Words of Wellness: Constructive living
Cynthia Hennard, Counseling Center Director
October 17, 2013
Constructive Living Quotes: You don't need to fight your fears or discover hidden ones. Fear of flying is no reason to avoid air travel. For all your dreams you are what you do. Feelings fade over time unless re-stimulated by complaining or other circumstances. You can't build a life on ...
Editorial: regarding the government shutdown
Tom Benton, Editor-in-Chief
October 17, 2013
I’ve heard a lot about how the government shutdown could have been avoided if Republicans just accepted that Obamacare’s here, it’s too late, and I’ve heard the Republicans say that if the Democrats hadn’t approved Obamacare, Satan’s doorway into the United States, this wouldn’t have been...
Editorial
September 25, 2013
First I’d like to say you’re a beautiful audience, you three who read my editorials. This may be my last. I’m afraid I’ll be assassinated over my obnoxiously and gracelessly satiric VSO critique, which, I hope is clear, is more of a critique of classical music than of the VSO. If I see a well-...
Stay Healthy as the Weather Changes
September 25, 2013
In Vermont, we are so lucky to have extremely vibrant seasons. Fall turns out to be one of my favorites. I love all the beautiful harvest colors and the specific fragrant smells that it brings. Fall, of course, is really like an appetizer to the longer main course of the Vermont winter, which typica...
Editorial
September 11, 2013
The legendary pool shark Don Eaton pointed out to me that the Associated Press has been running stories regarding a potential U.S. military strike on Syria with headlines like "U.S. Faces Opposition in Congress on Syria Strike." Such a headline sets off my bullshit detector--and I bet, when you look at it, ...
Words of Wellness
Cynthia Hennard, JSC counseling center director
September 11, 2013
These first few weeks on campus are sure to be interesting times. They might be the best ever or just OK or no big deal. Other weeks maybe unsettling, daunting or just feel like a big adjustment to deal with. All of which is normal. So we wanted to share some ideas and resources about making the best of thi...
Editorial
May 3, 2013
A quick note on the passing of Karleigh Baumann. I wasn’t close with Karleigh. She was a friend of my friends. She was around, I was around. We drank and laughed in the same company. She was quiet and polite, but she had a pulsing personality. I saw her take crap from people with grace and poise,...
A straight look at TILT
May 3, 2013
The Texas Information Literacy Tutorial, or TILT, is a general education requirement at Johnson State College that happens to be the absolute last thing on the average student’s mind. “It’s on my list of things to figure out what it is and take,” says Childhood Education major Galloway Morris. He...
You have the right to remain silent – right?
May 3, 2013
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at the government’s expense. Boston...
April Showers Bring May Flowers: A rhyme by T. F. Benton
April 18, 2013
April has the highest suicide rate Of any month in this state. It’s hard to imagine anything being great After six months bleak as slate. Then there were the bombs in Boston Which were so awful I won’t make it rhyme. But the temperature, a.k.a. the eternal freeze Has climbed outta the...
Yoga: Fight stress and find serenity
April 18, 2013
Your mobile phone is ringing, you have a paper due and a test to study for, you feel deprived of sleep, your neck and back are aching from long hours spent in classes and studying, you have the "sniffles" and a nagging cough and you have to work your weekend shift in order to pay your bills. Sound all...
Is It OK to Cry?
Cynthia Hennard, JSC Counseling Center director
April 18, 2013
It’s not just men that get the message that it is weak to cry. Plenty of women are stoics as well. There are plenty of situations when we’d really rather not burst into tears. It seems out of control – and it may be. The self-talk I hear frequently about one’s crying is that you feel: "you’re ...
Editorial
March 28, 2013
, too late. There’s a theory that no one reads these editorials. (It’s mine.) Maybe it’s because many of them are haphazard word floods undammed by deadline. Too little, too late.T Maybe no one cares. Note that I’m not clutching my tear-soaked hanky as I write this. Just wondering. Well, if my surreal ...
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