And it has nothing to do with maple syrup.

Or ice cream.

We’re curious, rather, about that state’s attempt to show that universal health care is attainable in the U.S.

A group visited Baker City last week to promote Vermont’s first-of-its-kind program.

Their enthusiasm, though palpable, doesn’t answer the key question: How to pay for supplying health insurance to people who don’t have it now?

Apparently Vermont is still working on its answer.

Second American Revolution begins

To the editor:

We are presently in the early days of the Second American Revolution. Thinking people among us have long been aware of the corporate takeover of the federal government, and the effectual displacement of the majority class from significant participation in it. The latest phase of this takeover, dating from the Supreme Court’s theft of the 2000 presidential election, has been an uninterrupted series of outrageous assaults on the majority class’ constitutional rights, liberties, sovereignty and well-being so encompassing as to constitute an irreversible single coup against them. But this was not, as some may have thought, a revolution. It has been, rather, a treasonous usurpation, willingly conspired and collaborated in and delivered by antidemocratic politicians of both parties, the Supreme Court, and others within the government and without.

Lean times, these past few years.

But not for everyone.

Oregon state government, for instance, in what seems to us a contradiction of its incessant claims of financial trouble, barely trimmed its spending in areas that could hardly be described as essential.

Unless, of course, you consider it essential that the state pay for employees to attend meetings and conferences in places such as Salishan, Sunriver and, in one case, Gibraltar.

I’ll bet you could make a pile by reviving those do-it-yourself, nuke-proof bunkers that were briefly popular early in the Cold War.

There is, it seems, much to fear these days, and myriad reasons for citizens to construct stout shelter.

It is the fashion to alert your ill-informed fellow citizens regarding certain of their sacred rights which are soon to be wrest from their apathetic hands.

You can detect in these warnings the low rumble of distant jackboots, glimpse the flash of brown shirts through a keyhole.

I’m intrigued by this propaganda campaign — not least because the purveyors seem to me to be distributed fairly equally across the political spectrum.

The case of Baker City’s newest cell phone tower raises an interesting conundrum for City Hall.

But the episode also gives the city a chance to possibly mend fences with some residents, and avoid controversies.

Last winter T-Mobile applied for a conditional-use permit to install a 50-foot tower and a 220-square-foot building on Spring Garden Hill.

The only trouble with a bequeathed gift is that you can’t personally thank the giver.

A pity, because we’d like to shake Anthony Silvers’ hand and tell him how much we appreciate what he’s done for Baker City.

My son Max has reached that stage when his mother and I dearly wish everything were made of foam.

I suppose we could lay in a goodly supply of Nerf footballs.

But those things are the very devil to stack.

And Max, though he stands barely two feet tall, has a considerable reach.

But stand he does.

Which is a problem.