Author Archives: George Putnam

Local Governance in the News

Posted on October 2, 2017 by George Putnam

The Community Engagement Team (CET) in my town of Cambridge was featured on the front page of the local newspaper the News & Citizen on 9/28/17: Cambridge looks to boost turnout for town meeting CET Chair Tyler Machia was quoted … Continue reading →

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Thoughts about the Farm Credit System

Posted on September 16, 2017 by George Putnam

One of the themes of this blog is that I sometimes think about public life in terms of three sectors: Government For-profit Not-for-profit I worked for the Farm Credit System for 32 years, retiring at the end of 2016. How … Continue reading →

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Questions about domain names

Posted on August 23, 2017 by George Putnam

In my earlier post titled Town website addresses, I wrote about three top-level Internet domains: .com, .org, and .gov. That corresponds to the three sectors of public life that I think about: for-profit, not-for-profit, and government. There is another paradigm … Continue reading →

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Democracy in America

Posted on August 10, 2017 by George Putnam

I recently purchased, and am reading, the book Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. I will refer to this book from time to time on the blog. In this post, I discuss some background about the book. Alexis de … Continue reading →

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Town website addresses

Posted on August 6, 2017 by George Putnam

As discussed here and here, I sometimes think about public life in terms of three sectors: Government For-profit Not-for-profit These three sectors align nicely with Internet top-level domains: Government = .gov For-profit = .com Not-for-profit = .org I live in … Continue reading →

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Cloverdale Presentation

Posted on August 4, 2017 by George Putnam

Cloverdale was a distinct, close-knit community mostly in Westford, Vermont, but also including the Putnam Farm in the adjacent town of Cambridge. It lasted for more than 150 years, from 1804 until the 1950s and 1960s when my siblings and … Continue reading →

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Cloverdale Book

Posted on July 20, 2017 by George Putnam

Cloverdale was a distinct, close-knit community mostly in Westford, Vermont, but also including the Putnam Farm in the adjacent town of Cambridge. It lasted for more than 150 years, from 1804 until the 1950s and 1960s when my siblings and … Continue reading →

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Mansplaining

Posted on July 1, 2017 by George Putnam

Recently I was in the awkward position of explaining to a woman the concept of mansplaining. What is mansplaining? This clip from the television series Silicon Valley explains: Ouch. What can we men do to improve our communication skills? This … Continue reading →

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Quantum Birthday Thought

Posted on June 30, 2017 by George Putnam

The image to the left is a birthday card. Inside the card it says: Don’t worry… It will make more sense after you start drinking. I am reminded of something Richard Feynman said. Richard Feynman (1918-1988) won a Nobel prize … Continue reading →

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Quilt square by Anne Standish

Posted on June 3, 2017 by George Putnam

Anne Standish of Cambridge has contributed a beautiful quilt square on behalf of the town to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns for their Local Government Quilt Project: VLCT launched its Local Government Quilt Project in 2005 to celebrate … Continue reading →

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