Post Oil Solutions, in partnership with the Arts Council of Windham County, seeks 20 artists to create paintings that explore climate change, for which they will receive $175.
“The Art of Climate Change” is an exhibition of artwork exploring this planetary crisis - what it is, how it affects us physically and psychologically, and how some are working to adapt to it or help stop it.
Post Oil Solutions says in a press release that this project is one way it works to engage the community in creative and imaginative ways on a subject that many people might prefer to avoid.
According to Tim Stevenson, Post Oil's founding director, although opinion polls show a growing awareness and acceptance of climate change, “most Americans rank it near the bottom of their concerns, perhaps even more than the melting of the Arctic ice and the phenomenon of climate lag.”...
Estey Organ Museum sponsors a tour of Brattleboro Estey pipe organs on Saturday, May 17. Area organists will demonstrate each playable organ and explain each instrument's distinctive features. The tour starts at 1 p.m. at First United Methodist Church on Putney Road. From there stops include: • 1:25 p.m.,
I, for one, am proud and happy that our legislature saw fit to require labeling of GMO foods for the good of the public. I love the leadership of our state. Many of the details of this science of genetic engineering are not yet adequately tested for impact on...
The United Way of Windham County held its first annual Handbags for HOPE event on April 24. The event honored the role of women in philanthropy in Windham County and celebrated April as the Month of the Young Child, raising what it said was more than $10,000 for United Way's Fund for Quality Early Education. Through that fund, United Way provides grants to early childhood educators and caregivers for professional development, program improvement, and program enrichment. Handbags for HOPE featured...
Drop In Center, Morningside Shelter need tents, sleeping bags BRATTLEBORO – The Brattleboro Area Drop In Center and Morningside Shelter are conducting a tent and sleeping bag drive in response to the closing of the winter Overflow Shelter at the First Baptist Church. The Overflow Shelter closed for the season on the morning of May 1 after its longest season yet – the shelter opened on Nov. 1, nearly one month earlier than in years past. With Morningside Shelter operating...
If you want to deal with cannabis use as a health issue -and as this article stands, the author must also acknowledge the numerous studies and anecdotal evidence that cannabinoid products have medicinal use as well as “negative mental health” impacts - than from an intellectual void comes the call to keep it criminalized rather than engage it as a public-health issue. It's how we deal with alcohol. It's how we deal with tobacco. It should be how we deal...
College news • Rebecca Ames of Putney has been accepted to Cornell College, a private liberal arts college located in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Ames was also awarded the Trustee PTK Scholarship. • Alexandria Adams of Newfane was awarded a Merit Scholarship award for $15,000 from The University of Findlay (Ohio) for the 2014-15 academic year. Merit Scholarship awards are based on a student's final, cumulative high school grade point average and ACT/SAT scores. Scholarships are awarded beginning with the freshman...
An open letter to the Rockingham Free Public Library: This latest round of deconstruction by the Personnel Committee of the work done by the previous RPFL board, as orchestrated by the four “trustees you can trust” (TYCT), is just one more piece of the mission to reinstate the terminated director. Every effort is being made to dumb down the job description to fit the former director's insufficient skill set. This is a deliberate diminution of the intellectual level of education...
Who has been disrespectful in the nuclear debate? Is it the people who shout out at public meetings and use up the time for those of differing opinions to speak? Is it the ones who teach their children to tell other children that their parents are baby killers because of where they work? Who would want to come to a county and start a business with people like that not being corralled by their neighbors and the law?
Next Stage Arts Project kicks off its new literary series, Next Stage Speaks, on Thursday, May 15, at 7 p.m. with renowned author Jay Parini. Host is the poet Chard DeNiord. Parini is a poet, novelist, biographer, and critic. His five books of poetry include The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems (George Braziller, 2005). He also has written eight novels, including Benjamin's Crossing (Henry Holt & Co., 1997), The Apprentice Lover (Harper Perennial, 2003), and The Passages of...
Haunting, high-mountain vocal harmonies will intertwine with the hard-driven, flat-picked guitars of visiting West Virginia-based folklorists Michael and Carrie Kline when they join Brattleboro's own blues guitarist and old-time fiddle and banjo player Scott Ainslie. The three present what organizers promise is a tour-de-force of Southern-style music and stories in a Friday-night concert at Next Stage Arts on May 9, and Saturday morning workshops at Putney Cares in Putney on Mother's Day weekend. The concert and workshops focus on a...
Robust yellow trout lilies greeted my mother and me as we hiked in Nebraska Notch in northern Vermont on a recent Mother's Day. We'd never seen so many lilies bursting completely into perfect bloom all at once. They towered like protectors over the ground-hugging yellow violets that nestled snugly into many of the trout-lily patches. Delicate spring beauties carpeted the ground at the foot of tall beeches. Look! Dutchman's Breeches. Even more of them with lacy dark green leaves over...
The Windham County Heat Fund has completed its ninth year of funneling money from very generous Windham County residents to local people in need of an emergency Band-Aid of fuel assistance. Donors, including 110 individuals, 15 businesses, grant funders, and those participating in one public event, raised a record $50,326 for the fund. The fund helped approximately 100 families, paying for $47,318 in fuel. Some of those 100 families were helped twice because of unusual circumstances. We all know that...
The Brattleboro Concert Choir, directed by Susan Dedell, present Paul Winter's “Missa Gaia/Earth Mass” on Saturday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m., and on Sunday, May 18, at 4 p.m. Both concerts, at Centre Congregational Church in downtown Brattleboro, are layered with the recorded voices of wolves, loons, whales, and harp seals in interconnected harmony in this joyful, rhythmic, and contemporary mass for the Earth. Dedell writes that “Missa Gaia” originated when the dean of the Cathedral of St. John the...
I live in Putney. I work in Brattleboro. I like commuting on the Current's Bellows Falls–Brattleboro bus. I like the bus because it gives me a true break, a time when I don't have to do anything. Some people say their car commute is downtime or a break. But one is still trying to safely navigate a multi-ton vehicle at high speeds. A lot of one's brain is engaged, even if not consciously. On the bus I can listen to...
Getting kids ready for school means more than teaching them the alphabet, filling their backpacks, and getting them to the bus on time. It begins on the day they are born and continues through every experience they have. Science tells us that 80 percent of a child's brain is developed by age 3. For healthy brain development, children need a stimulating and healthy environment, responsive and supportive relationships, and freedom from persistent stress. The foundation built during this time sets...
Company of Muses and Brattleboro School of Dance present “Passage,” which brings together students, staff, and alumni in a program of 14 pieces choreographed by Brattleboro School of Dance faculty, for two weekends in May at New England Youth Theatre. Performances are Fridays, May 9 and 16, and Saturdays, May 10 and 17, at 7:30 p.m., with Sunday matinees May 11 and 18 at 4 p.m. As has become a spring tradition, the performance showcases the variety of disciplines the...
On Friday, May 9, the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center and Morningside Shelter host the second annual Camp for a Common Cause on the Brattleboro Common. The event, aimed at raising funds and awareness to combat homelessness here, was a great success last year, organizers said, with roughly $10,000 raised and evenly divided to foster each group's mission. Both the Drop In Center and Morningside Shelter work to alleviate homelessness in the greater Brattleboro area. Most importantly, organizers said, last...
The brief story on National Prescription Take-Back Day left out a crucial piece of information. Potential for abuse is only one reason to responsibly dispose of extra or no-longer-needed medications. Another reason, perhaps even more important, is to keep these substances out of the water supply by treating them as hazardous waste. It should be common sense anyway, but the Environmental Protection Agency strongly recommends that people refrain from flushing drugs down the toilet or washing them down the drain.
Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, president of Marlboro College since 2004, announced on April 30 that she intends to step down from that post in June 2015. Confirming what she earlier had told the college's trustees, McCulloch-Lovell made the following statement to the college community: “This is a difficult decision to make, as I love Marlboro, its intensive teaching and learning, its mission, the value of our work here, the college community, and my relationship with the dedicated trustees, donors, and friends of...
The 18th annual spring concerts of the Brattleboro Women's Chorus, “Spring Jubilee,” feature American folk songs - both familiar and some lesser-known. Sixty women and girls will sing under the direction of Becky Graber, accompanied by singer/songwriter Lisa McCormick on guitar and banjo. Additionally, for the first time, members of the chorus accompany several songs on various instruments. As usual, there will be a Mother's Day concert at the First Baptist Church, this year May 11 at 4 p.m. For...
An evening of community contra and square dances is set for Broad Brook Grange in Guilford Center on Saturday, May 10, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Calling the dance is Andy Davis of Brattleboro, joined by the band Continuum, an extraordinary family band from Amherst, Mass. The band includes Emma Snope on fiddle, Linda Henry on piano, and Bob Snope on concertina, banjo, and euphonium. A maypole dance is included in the program to welcome spring. A traditional folktale and...
A member of the Brattleboro Fire Department was honored on April 29 by the American Red Cross of Vermont & the New Hampshire Upper Valley at its inaugural Heroes Breakfast. Lt. Marty Rancourt was presented with the Adult Good Samaritan Hero award for saving the life of his friend, hunting guide Troy Young, after a hunting accident last year in Ohio. Rancourt was one of nine people honored by the local Red Cross chapter for their acts of courage and...
Each year for 27 years, the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont has held a Walk for Life to honor the community's efforts in supporting those living with HIV/AIDS and reducing the risk of HIV transmission. This year's Walk for Life is Saturday, May 17, from 10 a.m. to noon. Walkers will gather at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden on Main Street for a brief period of remembrance, a symbolic walk on Main Street, and a program of speakers, music,
My husband Tom had a small surgery that has landed him for a few weeks in the hospital, which took me on a 25-mile journey over the muddy mountain to see him each day. In spring, we all look for the sunny corners, and in this case mine was a gift of fiddleheads. Tom has a roommate who is an old backwoods Vermonter, his conversation all f-k, shit, forest-lore, trout fishin', and tobacco. He has lost a leg to what...
The third time was a charm for the Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School budget. After being narrowly rejected twice, a budget weighing in at $6.95 million was approved by voters in the district's five towns April 29. The final tally: 393-290. The vote was close the first time out, Feb. 5, but failed by 10 ballots. The second attempt, April 2, saw the budget fail by a single vote, 300-299. Once again, a majority of Townshend voters...
A record-setting field of 16 schools participated in the 57th annual Fenn Relays last Friday at Natowich Field. This biggest event of the track season in Brattleboro packed the grandstand and delivered outstanding performances. As the dust settled, the Monadnock girls and the Mount Anthony boys were the 2014 team champions. The Bellows Falls girls came in sixth while the boys were fifth. Brattleboro's girls were eighth and the boys' were 10th. Three records were set: Starting the fireworks, the...
World Learning/School for International Training hosts the display of an “Inevitability of Peace” sculpture and related banners translating a poem, “100 Flowers of Peace,” from May 13 to June 6. The work is by artist-poet T. Namaya and the B4 Peace Team. A public opening ceremony for the works is set for May 13 at noon at the graduate building at the SIT campus on Black Mountain Road. “Inevitability of Peace” is described as a steel pyramid 9 feet tall...
Three new exhibits featuring sculpture, painting, and video open at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Friday, May 9. “Cloaked and Revealed: Sculptural Paintings by Marela Zacarias,” “Opposing Forces: New Paintings by John Gibson,” and “All the Days of the Year,” a video installation by Walter Ungerer will be on view through June 22 - along with the continuing “Flora: A Celebration of Flowers in Contemporary Art.” A free, public opening reception for the new exhibits is set...
There are three Civil War battlefields where monuments have been erected to honor the courage of the First Vermont Brigade. Two of them, Antietam in Maryland, and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, are well-known in the history books, but are battles in which the First saw limited action. The third, the Battle of the Wilderness, is not as well-known to those with a casual interest in the Civil War. But in that battle, the First suffered more casualties than did any other...
I am strongly concerned that it would be a serious mistake to cut library or parks and recreation services from the town budget. It would be a false economy, rendering Brattleboro far less attractive to both existing and potential homeowners, at a time when we do not want to see our grand list shrinking. Police and fire facilities and well-maintained roads are crucial town services. A library, a parks and recreation department, good public education, and other quality-of-life expenditures are...
If you delight in fiddleheads, those delectable greens whose seasonal debut denotes the first true burst of spring to its many fans here, then you'll be among friends on Memorial Day Weekend at the Mount Snow Valley Chamber of Commerce's Vermont Fiddlehead Festival. The event is brought to southern Vermont May 23-24 by the producers of the Vermont Wine and Harvest Festival. In addition to a merchants' row, guests will enjoy live entertainment, bounce houses, a fiddlehead cooking contest with...
Some Vermonters still participate in the act of hunting and gathering to fill their larders. The “gathering” part is difficult when snow covers most of the ground, but once spring arrives, many edibles begin to pop up in the woods, alongside rivers, and even on lawns. And foragers soon follow. Not all foragers keep their bounties to themselves. Some share with friends, and others forage for ingredients for their own restaurants, as does Michael Fuller, chef and owner of T.J.
Humorist Mark Twain was among the first to call the years bookmarking the turn of the 19th century the “Gilded Age.” Struck by the results of rapid industrialization, rampant greed, political corruption, and the growing divide between the Haves and Have-Nots, Twain drew attention to the United States' growing social issues by writing revealing satires about a society whose problems spelled trouble for most people. Novelists Henry James and Edith Wharton painted literary pictures of what it was like to...
Cheese is a food that has very few components, at least in its natural state. Provided you are not eating something like “processed cheese food product,” your cheese should contain only milk, rennet, cultures, and salt. It's safe to assume most people old enough to choose their own food know what milk and salt are, and “cultures” refer to beneficial bacteria used in the first step of cheesemaking (converting lactose to lactic acid). But what of this mystery ingredient, rennet?
I don't live in Brattleboro, I don't vote in Brattleboro, I don't pay taxes in Brattleboro - but I spend a lot of time and money there. So I attended the recent Selectboard meeting about reducing the budget that was passed at Representative Town Meeting and then defeated by a subsequent referendum. In response, the Selectboard has placed every sacred cow on the sacrificial block, including much-needed upgrades to the town's two fire stations and the Municipal Center as well...
In the climax of D. W. Griffith's 1920 silent melodrama Way Down East, the film's heroine is trapped on an ice floe rushing toward a waterfall. The frozen river that served as the stage for her peril, and subsequent dramatic rescue, was constructed in the editing room from footage of the White and Connecticut rivers. The climactic scene was filmed at the meeting of these two rivers near White River Junction, making Way Down East Vermont's first feature film appearance.
The known: Town Meeting members will vote on the town budget at a Special Representative Town Meeting on June 2. The unknown: the fiscal year 2015 town budget. The Selectboard heard comments from the public and town employees during a three-hour board meeting at Brattleboro Area Middle School on May 1. The meeting was held at the school after about 200 people jammed into the municipal center for the Selectboard's meeting on April 29, forcing the board to postpone the...
The day started out chilly and gray, but by noon, when the sun started peeking out behind the clouds, things looked much greener in and around Windham County. The green many locals and visitors saw last Saturday came in the form of big trash bags, sprouting up on the side of nearly every town road in the state. Approximately 20,000 Vermonters scatter every year on the first Saturday in May to collect more than 40,000 bags of trash from the...
Spring is interesting. Most people think about it as the beginning of life and renewal, but it comes with a shadow side. Spring is also the death of dying. Transitioning from death to life is quite the endeavor. Winter-to-spring takes more energy than any other seasonal conversion. It is a tumultuous, transformative time, akin to the phoenix rising. Mountains of snow melt, the ground heaves and buckles, animals reanimate, and flora awakens. Then, it rains. The rain I don't mind.
I would like to applaud and thank Joëlle Montagnino and Aaron Goodier for their piece, which showed not only thoughtfulness but courage in a state where anti-GMO often seems to be the default opinion. As with many public debates, the conversation around genetically modified organisms (GMO) lacks nuance. Not all GMOs are created equal. Making corn resistant to pesticides, for example, is a vastly different project from adding Vitamin A to rice to provide better nutrition in impoverished parts of...
Combine in food processor: ¶2 cups tightly packed ramps (wild leeks)-greens and bulbs ¶{1/4} cup pine nuts or cashews ¶{1/2} cup shredded Parmesan cheese ¶Salt to taste ¶Pepper to taste Pulse until coarsely chopped. Add: ¶{2/3} cup olive oil Blend until smooth. No need for garlic in this recipe, as the ramps already have a very strong flavor. -Lucas Tomolonis, Putney...
The Townshend Dam Road will be closed for electric pole and transformer replacement by Green Mountain Power on Monday, May 19, through Wednesday, May 21. State Forest Road should be used as a detour for residents and visitors. The Townshend Lake recreation area can be accessed by State Forest Road, said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a press release.
The town will be losing its full-time police department on July 1, but it won't be losing full-time police protection. That was the result of Monday's Special Town Meeting at Vernon Elementary School, where voters decided to shut down its police department and direct the Selectboard to sign a one-year contract with the Windham County Sheriff's Department for its police services. The vote, taken by Australian ballot, was 244 to 181. According to Town Moderator Tim Arsenault, it was one...
Rockingham Free Public Library trustees voted Tuesday night to reinstate Célina Houlné as library director, the position from which she was fired in 2013. The 6–2 vote rehired Houlné under the terms of mediation held as part of the wrongful termination suit that she filed against the board and the Town of Rockingham. Houlné will return to work in the newly renovated library once a new contract is created. Youth Librarian Samantha Maskell and Reference and Historical Collections Librarian Emily...
Vermont's bloated education governance system does not provide equal opportunities to students and needs streamlining, say supporters behind legislation to expand the state's school districts. But the opponents of the education-reform bill ask: would it do more harm than good? The questions raised by the legislation, however, might point to a larger question: how does Vermont provide equal educational opportunities, both in the realms of curriculum and funding? As this session winds down in Montpelier, whether education-reform legislation will reach...