Diner Days

[Re “Diner Times: With Burl’s Downtown Kitchenette, a Burlington Diner Is a Diner Once Again,” July 29]: Having grown up in New Jersey, I’m always happy to hear about a new diner opening — especially one with that time-honored diner staple “old-school grapefruit brûlée” on the menu. My grandparents, John and Fannie Marchitti, ran the Hyway Diner in the Garden State. I used to work the counter there on Saturdays. How well I remember Grandpa calling Grandma in the kitchen, “Hey Fan, we got any more of that grapefruit brûlée? The truck drivers can’t get enough of it.”

Health Care Is ‘Eroding’

While Seven Days very briefly touched on the reduction of frontline staff at University of Vermont Health in [“UVM Health Cuts 142 Positions Amid Ongoing Restructuring,” June 9, online], so much remains unsaid about the way that quality is eroding from heath care in our state. A reduction in frontline staff, like nurses in our primary care practices or LNAs in our nursing homes, will directly affect the already strained care that remaining staff will be able to provide. The effects of Vermonters receiving less attentive care from their primary care providers will spill over into more expensive care in our emergency rooms; our increasingly large population of vulnerable, elderly Vermonters without proper care in nursing home or rehab facilities will end up needing more expensive care in limited hospital beds. 

Additionally, the increased difficulty in accessing quality health care of their own due to insurance coverage changes, including the recent decision to abruptly discontinue coverage for GLP-1s, places further strain on UVM Health employees. Will money saved now by reducing access to care or medication that is making a significant number of employees healthier offset the cost of future care that these employees will need for exacerbated conditions they can no longer afford to treat?

The shortsighted strategy being applied by UVM Health is penny-wise, pound-foolish. The network should consult less with expensive consultant firms and more with techs, nurses, LNAs, physician assistants, midwives and numerous other staff with firsthand experience of the challenges facing heath care in our state.

Publisher Erred

[Re “Drawing Comparisons: A Biographer Claims That Vermont Cartoonist Tillie Walden Borrowed Too Much in Her New Graphic Novel, Charity & Sylvia. Others Disagree,” July 22]: While it seems like a dynamic situation, the story of two Charity & Sylvias boils down to a simple fact: They share the same title and strikingly similar cover art.

Content notwithstanding, acknowledgement of Rachel Hope Cleves’ work means Tillie Walden and her publisher were completely aware of both the title of Cleves’ book and the cover artwork. As an artist, why wouldn’t Walden strive to uniquely name her book and provide cover artwork that wasn’t so referential to Cleves’ cover? I don’t think it was an intentional rip-off, but I think artists should take more care in maintaining the integrity of one another’s works — especially now, with AI running rampant in the arts community.

Perhaps most telling, when I tried to search for Cleves’ book by title, the search results only returned links to Walden’s book. I believe Cleves makes a solid point that search engines, algorithms and perhaps even retail sellers will “bury” her book. The publisher should have known and done better. Hopefully our local booksellers will display both works for equal exposure.

Too Many Drownings

Every summer we see the same grim news: Drownings occur in our natural bodies of water and pools in Vermont. An accidental death has a ripple effect — to the larger community and the family, the parks system, and the public safety teams involved. You cannot deny the reality of these news stories: The victims are usually of color. “Pinky,” an eighth-grade African American Vermonter, drowned one year ago at Windsor’s Kennedy Pond. And now we have Yazmin and Sandro, who won’t make it to old age after drowning in the Lamoille River [“Always Together: Cambridge Mourns Ecuadorian Siblings Yazmin Yupangui and Sandro Lala, Whose Bond Defined Their Lives Until the Very End,” July 15]. I served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Ecuador, and most citizens there never learn to swim or enter deep water.

Most drownings are among non-white people. As a pediatrician, for me this grim statistic represents the nail in the coffin for inequity in health and injury prevention. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black children ages 10 to 14 are 3.6 times more likely to drown compared to their white counterparts, and those 5 to 9 years old are 2.6 times more likely. We also see many near-drowning-related preventable emergency department visits, driving up health care costs.

Teaching 5- to 7-year-olds — and older Vermonters who don’t know how — to swim through schools and community recreation pools is a worthy public health action. It connects educational centers, the private sector, nonprofits, and community-based pools and gyms. There is a major return on investment.

Burlington Overly ‘Permissive’

While I agree that homelessness and drug abuse are difficult problems to solve, I believe that Burlington is being too permissive when it comes to criminal behavior such as drug dealing, open-air use, public intoxication and defecation [“Burlington Dems Push Through Public Safety Resolution Despite Criticism,” August 4, online].

This permissiveness certainly is widely known throughout the region and, I would argue, the country, which is attracting more homeless people. We need to stop enabling people who come from far away to be homeless here and taking away resources from native unhoused.

Keep ‘Modern World’

[Re Feedback: “Enough ‘Modern World,’” August 5; “Nix ‘Modern World,’” July 15]: In lieu of recent criticism of the political cartoon “This Modern World,” I would wholeheartedly counter that it is, indeed, quite funny and one of my favorite pieces each week. Its take on the bigotry, wealth elitism, corruption, macho warmongering and misogyny embodied by our current government administration is spot-on and a refreshing read of the news of the day. Mainstream media could learn a valuable lesson from Tom Tomorrow and crew — who tell it like it is — and that makes me laugh out loud!

I love it!

Please keep the “Modern World” cartoon. As political satire, it is not intended to be funny. Since I cannot tolerate regular news, “Modern World” is one of my few sources for keeping up-to-date with what is happening out there. Thanks for keeping it.

This article appears in August 12 • 2026.