The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman
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The Vermont Conversation is a VTDigger podcast hosted by award-winning journalist David Goodman. It features in-depth interviews about local and national topics with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and ordinary citizens. The Vermont Conversation is also an hour-long weekly radio program that can be heard on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. on WDEV/Radio Vermont.
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The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman
May 24, 2023
The radical act of hanging out
The U.S. Surgeon General warned earlier this month that “there is an epidemic of loneliness and isolation."
Champlain College professor Sheila Liming has a cure for this social disease. In “Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time,” Liming writes that the simple act of hanging out offers connection, intimacy and meaning. It is an act of resistance, she said, against the relentless pull of consumerism, individualism and the encroachment of digital culture in every aspect of our lives.
Hanging out with others does not just make you feel good. It can save your life.
The surgeon general warned that loneliness can increase your risk of premature death to levels comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It increases your risk of dementia by 50%.
Sheila Liming is an associate professor of professional writing at Champlain College. She previously taught at the University of North Dakota. She is the author of three books, and her essays have appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s and other publications.
Liming described loneliness as “a quiet crisis.”
“It's one that's difficult to diagnose and to see and sometimes even to notice in our own society … (the) things that are sometimes preventing us from just hanging out and making social relationships and building connections with each other that strengthen ourselves in our community," she said.
Liming defined “hanging out” as “daring to do very little and daring to do it in the company of others.”
The “radical” part of killing time, Liming said, is that “you have to say no to something that already exists on your calendar that would be standing in the way of you and this casual social connection. ... Saying no to some things means saying yes to hanging out and spending time with each other."
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The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman
May 10, 2023
‘I'm not giving up’: Voices from Vermont's housing crisis
Vermont is experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis. Vermont has among the lowest rental vacancy rates in the country and among the highest rates of homelessness. Gov. Phil Schott has announced that he will not extend the pandemic-era emergency hotel housing program now that federal funds for it have run out, and state lawmakers are currently wrestling over its fate. The emergency housing program could end as soon as June, pushing out several thousand people from the hotels and leaving them at high risk of being homeless.
On this Vermont Conversation, we hear from people at the center of the housing crisis.
“What's going to happen right now is we're going to have a catastrophic fallout that's going to be …a humanitarian crisis,” asserted Brenda Siegel, a housing advocate and former gubernatorial candidate. “We're expecting our small communities, who do not have the resources, to pick up all these pieces.”
“People think homeless people don't work, and it's not true. They work so hard,” said Brittany Plucas, 29, who spoke to me at the Hilltop Inn in Berlin. Plucas works two jobs, but lost her housing in April. She is frantically looking for affordable housing but has discovered that waiting lists are months and even years long.
“The housing crisis is so bad. There are families here that have lost housing and they are working to provide for the children and for themselves. They're working to keep their kids safe. People just aren't understanding it. Right now, it’s a hard time for everyone.”
Gary Winslett is an assistant professor of political science at Middlebury College. His own challenge in buying a home motivated him to investigate and write about the roots of Vermont’s housing crisis. Vermont “spent a long time just kind of not building any new housing,” he said. He argues that Act 250, Vermont’s land use and development law passed in 1970, has had the unintended consequence of blocking affordable housing and must be significantly reformed.
“In the Vermont context, the pro-environment thing to do is to build housing near where jobs are so that people can drive less. It's to build those new homes with modern insulation, so that they're using far less greenhouse gases when they heat their home in Vermont winters. The environmentalism that we need today is not about blocking everything in sight. The environmentalism that we need today is about building things,” he insisted.
Brittany Plucas is now confronting homelessness if the emergency hotel housing is not extended past June. Being homeless “terrifies me. I didn't think it was something that was possible,” she said, choking up. “Because I've worked so hard in my life to try to provide for myself and make myself something. I've worked since I graduated high school. I've tried to keep a roof over my head for years. And I failed. I feel like the state failed me [and] the government failed.”
“I'm not giving up,” she said through tears. “I'm still gonna try my best at making my life better.”
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Vermont Conversation
Vermont Conversation
Nov 5, 2020
Historic: Breaking down 2020 election with Stuart Stevens of Lincoln Project & VTDigger
The 2020 election was historic. Voter turnout records were smashed: Some 160 million Americans voted — the largest number ever, comprising 67% of eligible voters, the highest turnout rate in 120 years. In Vermont, over 360,000 voters turned out, exceeding the … Continue reading →
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The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman
May 17, 2023
In war on doctors, Vermont OB-GYNs strive to be 'a beacon of light and hope'
A war on doctors is underway in Republican-led states, and numerous physicians are fleeing for safer ground.
Thirteen states have criminalized all abortion care. Over 500 bills have been proposed targeting LGBTQ+ care, including many that criminalize gender affirming care. Obstetricians and gynecologists, or OB-GYNs, who routinely perform abortions and provide health care to LGBTQ+ people, have been a particular target of these laws and bills.
Idaho is a case in point. Soon after the US Supreme Court passed the Dobbs decision that ended the constitutional right to an abortion, Idaho passed a law allowing family members of a patient to sue providers who perform an abortion for at least $20,000. Doctors also face suspension of their medical license, felony charges, and prison.
The fallout has been swift: five of the nine maternal fetal medicine specialists in Idaho who deal with high risk pregnancies will leave the state by the end of 2023, several hospitals have closed their labor and delivery units, and 40 percents of Idaho’s OB-GYNs said in a recent survey that they were considering leaving the state.
As doctors leave, maternity care deserts are expanding. According to the March of Dimes, nearly 7 million people who can become pregnant who are of childbearing age now live in a county with either no maternity care services or with limited services. One-third of US counties qualify as a maternity care desert, more than half of them classified as rural, including parts of Vermont.
On this Vermont Conversation, we speak with physicians on the front lines of providing abortions and gender affirming care. In the first part of our program, we talk with three physicians at the UVM Medical Center who are midway through their four-year OB-GYN residency. Along with caring for patients, Drs. Mackenzie Delzer, Gnendy Indig, and Sarah McShane have already been to the Vermont State House to testify in defense of reproductive rights.
In the second part of the program we speak with Dr. Lauren MacAfee, associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Complex Family Planning at University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine and the UVM Medical Center. She has been an outspoken advocate for reproductive rights.
For young physicians who are deciding where they will practice medicine after completing their residency, they must each decide whether they are willing to go to states with abortion bans. “I feel the pull of patients in those areas and the huge deficits and care that are going to be created,” said Dr. Sarah McShane, who attended medical school in North Carolina, which this week banned abortion after 12 weeks. “Part of the moral pull is to also be a part of still fulfilling care, even despite this horrible legislation.”
Dr. Gnendy Indig plans to specialize in health care for LGBTQ+ people. “My mentors in very progressive liberal institutions and cities have been dealing with death threats and doxing to the point where some of them have had to hire full time security to protect them,” she said. “Watching their bravery and watching them use that fear as a motivating factor and …keep pushing on, and still saying I will treat a population that needs me … is what keeps me on the path.”
“We all are trying to do everything we can …in a safe state like Vermont to be a beacon of light and hope for other states,” said Dr. Lauren MacAfee.
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Vermont Conversation
Vermont Conversation
Oct 31, 2020
“Extreme majority:” Impact of the most conservative Supreme Court in a century
“We have a far-right extreme majority on the Supreme Court,” asserts James Lyall, executive director of the Vermont ACLU. “At no point in our lifetime has the Supreme Court been so far out of step with where most of the … Continue reading →
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