Sixty percent of all gun deaths in the United States are suicides. In Vermont, 100 people a year - mostly males and mostly impulsively - kill themselves, two per week, week after week.
They typically use the most lethal weapon, a handgun, which provides them with barely a chance of survival.
Governor Phil Scott recently signed into law some meaningful additions to gun legislation, enhanced background checks, banning bump stocks and large-capacity magazines, and raising the purchase age for lethal weapons to 21.
All these interventions might help decrease mass shootings, which is a good thing, but they will have little to no impact on suicides.
I now live in Guilford, but I grew up in Germany with universal health care. I miss the German system: after you pay your monthly contributions (based on income), you are covered for anything medical that might come up (dental included), with no copays or deductibles! For six years,
The vicious lunatic who killed 10 people by driving a van down a busy street in Toronto recently fancied himself a member of the so-called “incel” movement. Short for “involuntarily celibate,” the implications of this bizarre, pathological self-identity are mind boggling. I had never heard of this sad phenomenon.
We are approaching 70 years of the Israeli occupation of Palestine - an event that was, for Israel, a celebration, and for Palestinians was Nakba, the catastrophe that forcibly uprooted 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and their land. It continues today. We are human beings who have the capacity to take care of one another. We have the responsibility like any other human beings to make sure that all people have food, clothing, shelter, and dignity. Criticism of the state...
In the aftermath of two catastrophic fires at the Putney General Store, the devastation of Tropical Storm Irene, and the economic recession, Maria Basescu said she saw “an amazing community of people” come together to support the village. Residents helped the Putney Historical Society rebuild the General Store - and renovate the United Church of Putney building when the congregation disbanded and the Historical Society purchased it. At that time, Basescu served on the Board of Directors of Next Stage...
In the middle of March, Next Stage Arts purchased the building on Kimball Hill that houses their offices and performance and programming space. They bought it from the Putney Historical Society. The purchase price, according to Next Stage Executive Director Maria Basescu: “No cost. Just a dollar. It went from one nonprofit to another." “This was always part of the plan,” Basescu said. In the middle of the last decade, the historical society bought the circa-1841 church, located at 15...
Ten artists from the SouthEast Regional Hub of the Vermont Pastel Society are showing selected original pastels at The Gleanery restaurant in Putney. The show will be up from now through August. The artists are Carol Corliss, Monica Hastings, Lesley Heathcote, Deedee Jones, Pat McPike, Matthew Peake, Gill Truslow, Rodrica Tilley, Maggie Smith, and Carol Stephens. All are experienced artists who enjoy working in pastel, a medium that consists of pure pigment mixed with enough binder to form a stick.
A former sawmill and lumber yard on Birge Street is one of six sites in Vermont that will receive funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for brownfield site revitalization efforts. According to a news release, Vermont River Conservancy is getting a $200,000 grant for clean-up work at 250 Birge St. The conservancy is among 221 grantees nationwide that shared in a total of $54.3 million in funding to provide communities with the resources to assess, clean up, and redevelop...
Marlboro College presents a reading of the play Salmon is Everything, directed by theater professor Jean O'Hara and followed by a community discussion led by writer Shaunna Oteka McCovey, a member of the Yurok Nation. The dramatic reading and discussion is presented in collaboration with the Vermont Performance Lab as part of their weeks-long Confluence Project. The event will take place Friday, May 11, at 7 p.m., in Marlboro College's Whittemore Theater, and is free and open to the public.
The Vermont Film Institute - a new, nonprofit trade school based in Brattleboro - is launching with a free workshop to be held Saturday, May 12. The Crew Up! Workshop is especially targeted to young people 15-25 years of age interested in film production or new to the workforce and considering career paths. In this immersive, one-day workshop, participants work on a live film set in the camera, grip, electric, sound, art and production departments. The crew will set up,
Marlboro College's 71st commencement will take place on the morning of May 13, marking the third year that both undergraduate and graduate students will be celebrated together. A highlight of the event will be the comments of two leaders in their respective fields: poet, writer, and tribal sovereignty and self-governance advocate Shaunna Oteka McCovey; and Vermont Performance Lab director and alumna Sara Coffey '90. “Shaunna and Sara have each worked to improve social, economic, and environmental justice through art and...
Elena Georgiou - fiction writer, poet, and director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at Goddard College - will read from her recently published book of short stories, The Immigrant's Refrigerator on Saturday, May 5, in Grafton. The reading will be followed by a discussion. There are approximately 65 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people around the world. What does it mean to search for a future that will not only be a place of refuge, but also...
This spring, the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation's INSTIG8 program is offering several workshops to help small businesses. INSTIG8 is partnering with local experts specializing in management, leadership, technology, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, and workplace efficiency. Registration and additional information are available at www.brattleborodevelopment.com. On May 3, INSTIG8 will host an information session for a two-part, hands-on workshop with Jeff Lewis and R.T. Brown. The workshop, “What is SWOT - Refine and Define Your Small Business,” involves a structured...
This summer, Strolling of the Heifers will offer its annual Farm-to-Table Culinary Apprenticeship program, in which up to 12 people will receive training that can lead to permanent food-preparation positions at restaurants and institutional kitchens, as well as other culinary careers. The program is free to participants who meet income and employment-status qualifications, including veterans. It includes classroom time, as well as on-the-job experience at restaurants and institutional kitchens, for which participants will be paid. The program is supported by...
Thank you to The Commons, Diana Whitney, and everyone brave enough to step out of the mold of silence. Windham County wants to be a safe house of progressives' social responsibility, and when a challenge to these ideals move from being abstract to trampling our backyards, we find ourselves in a certain kind of slippery messiness. It is almost impossible to look at abuse in your family, relationship, classroom, or community and not flinch. But what Diana and other advocates...
Skatepark nears goal BRATTLEBORO - The skatepark planned for Living Memorial Park has almost met its fundraising goal, and a new funding source could help them get there. Jeff Clark, president of Brattleboro Skatepark is Coming, appeared at the April 17 regular Selectboard meeting to provide an update on the group's progress. Clark first thanked the community for their support, and he mentioned the unexpected extra funding from Representative Town Meeting. According to information BASIC received from the Tony Hawk...
Brattleboro Rotary paints exterior of Turning Point BRATTLEBORO - Members of the Brattleboro Rotary Club recently donated paint and volunteer time to spruce up the exterior of Turning Point of Windham County. “Most of the refurbished building is covered in vinyl siding, but the rest was given a perfunctory coat of paint at the end of the restoration two years ago and is in dire need of a proper paint job,” Suzie Walker, executive director of Turning Point, said in...
It's been a few weeks since more than one million students across the nation, including at Brattleboro Union High School, walked out of their schools to show that they would no longer tolerate gun violence. The protests on March 14 demanded changes to the system of laws in place that make it easy for dangerous people to get access to assault weapons. The event that inspired the protests was the Feb. 14 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,
Jazz-trained guitarist Jesse Peters is available for private instruction and also plans to start Village Guitar sessions beginning in May in Chester and Saxtons River. Village Guitar is a jam-based guitar learning system, led by Peters. Sessions will begin in mid-late May, and guitar students from beginner to intermediate are encouraged to attend, according to a news release. Each session will feature one or more popular songs along with written solos for each, from simple to more challenging. Three such...
The Brattleboro Music Center presents a faculty recital on Sunday, May 6, featuring a program of vocal music by British and American composers. Featured performers will be soprano Margery McCrum and tenor Walter Cramer, with Hugh Keelan at the piano. The concert will be held at 4 p.m. in the BMC Auditorium. Tickets are $30 for patrons, $20 general admission, and $10 for students, with BMC students under 18 admitted free. Works to be performed are mostly from the 20th...
Ruggles & Hunt, located in Brattleboro, and Walpole, announced their 2018 pre-Mother's Day spring fashion show, which will benefit the Cocoa Farming Future Initiative and be held at the Walpole Inn on Monday, May 7, from 6 to 8 p.m. Ruggles & Hunt and the Walpole community have been proud supporters of the Cocoa Farming Future Initiative since it was started in 2011. The Initiative is a nonprofit dedicated to the cocoa farmers on the island of Grenada and was...
Main Street Arts is offering four unique camps in June and August, including printmaking, puppetry, theater for teens, and its popular arts exploratory camp. Printmaking with professional printer Clare Adams for ages 6 through 9 will meet Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, June 20, 21, and 22 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Adams will teach the basics of mono-printing using stencils and layering with nontoxic, water-based inks. Students will collaborate on a group wall hanging and take home individual creations. The...
With the snowpack finally fully receded and the cold weather slowly releasing its grip on Windham County, the farmers at local CSAs find themselves preparing for the peak growing season. Jesse Kayan of Wild Carrot Farm in Brattleboro is optimistic. “It's a little early to tell,” Kayan said when asked how the season is going. “It's been a late spring, but there is still time for it to catch up and be an early summer.” Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is an...
When Gov. Phil Scott woke at the state capital Monday to an unwelcome spring blanket of snow, he figured a scheduled trip south to Brattleboro would bring a warmer climate. Then he arrived to a pair of protesters in his reserved parking space. “My guns are innocent,” said one of their signs. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” read the other. Scott, accompanied by an aide and state trooper, listened as the...
After centuries of living under repressive patriarchal systems, women in advanced nations have achieved important rights to life, liberty and self-determination. But in conflict regions, refugee camps, and repressive societies, the story is quite different. Each year, millions of woman are beaten, raped, jailed, kidnapped, and sold into slavery. And this is why I'm uneasy about The Commons' four-page expose about a local yoga teacher accused of inappropriately touching his students and causing physical harm to several. There's no minimizing...
It starts with educating ourselves, becoming literate in the disease, and using best practices to end it. We are raising a generation of kids for whom it is normal to lose people to overdose - so normal that they have rituals for when their friends die. A generation of parents are losing their children. We have a responsibility to act. In Vermont, we have the opportunity to implement model policies that will increase awareness about the need to fund harm-reduction...
The woman who wrote about how she had been robbed? She was writing about my son. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry her feeling of peace was taken from her. To be victimized like that in your home is incredibly destabilizing and traumatic. I don't know if it was my son who did what she described. I do know that my son robbed and stole from people for drug money. He stole from the people he loved most, over and over...
Good day to you, southern Vermonters! Well, some of us got stung by one last whip of winter's tail as it lifted out a couple of days ago. I had proclaimed that winter was over, which was wishful thinking on my part! Some areas got several inches of snow in western Windham County Sunday night into Monday morning as a lobe of cold air nosed south enough into our neck of the woods to produce snow. As for the coming...
The last time The Commons spoke to the Chesterfield Historical Society, the organization had reached crunch-time, with just a few days before a March 31 deadline to raise $250,000 to purchase the town's historic Stone House Tavern. They are now happy to report that, with the help of community members and local organizations, the fundraising was a success. “We closed on the property on April 24, thanks to the numerous donations received,” said Board President Cornelia Jenness. “We are extremely...
Kaya Siegel died on March 8, 2018 of a heroin overdose at the age of 25, becoming a statistic in an epidemic tearing through our youth. These statistics are children, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, and friends. Born on March 22, 1992 at home in Brattleboro, his parents, Johnathon and Ea, were in love with their new baby. His smile was contagious and his personality joyful. He was the first baby of the next generation in our family. His mom was a...
Guilford Center Stage opens its fourth year with Spoon River May 4-6 at the Broad Brook Community Center on Guilford Center Road. The modern American classic will be performed in a new adaptation for the stage by Guilford playwright Michael Nethercott, who directs the play. Performances are Friday and Saturday evenings, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. The original book of epitaph-monologues, Spoon River Anthology by Chicago lawyer Edgar Lee Masters, created a sensation when first published...
By this fall, the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust expects to begin construction on a new, 23-unit apartment building on Flat Street, next to the Boys & Girls Club. This is the first time in nearly a century downtown Brattleboro has seen a completely new structure dedicated almost exclusively to living space. Although the first floor will have space for offices, a community room, and a retail shop, the building is primarily residential. The building will house eight studio apartments,
For a recording project to take place in Italy, Italian pianist Enrico Elisi is preparing the Partitas of Bach while in residency at Yellow Barn in Putney. Created in 2008 by Artistic Director Seth Knopp, Yellow Barn's Artist Residencies program is the first retreat in the U.S. created specifically for professional performing musicians. As a culmination of his residency, Elisi will present on this Saturday, May 5, at Next Stage in Putney an evening of Bach, exploring the last of...
Like the essential product, the business of brewing is a fluid situation. Brews and breweries come and go as ownerships move around like chess pieces, but for the imbibing public, it's usually what's in the glass that counts. And at festivals, there are plenty of chances to fill glasses with different products. The seventh Brattleboro Brewers Festival begins at noon on Saturday, May 26, running to 4 p.m. in a single session at the Vermont Agricultural Business Education Center on...
Brattleboro's publishing and printing companies have been recognized internationally for the high quality of their work. In the 1950s and 1960s, about 10 percent of the town's population was employed in that industry, the highest per capita rate in the nation. A new exhibit illuminates this history; “Brattleboro's Printing and Publishing Heyday - 1900-1970” opens on Wednesday, May 9, at 7 p.m., at Brooks Memorial Library in downtown Brattleboro with a Q&A and refreshments. The exhibit, which features rare images,
The daffodils are out, and you've finally begun to emerge from your cabin-fevered cloister. Hibernation time is over. If you come downtown in search of food, you may notice the landscape looks quite different. In the span of barely a month, some restaurants have closed, other restaurants have opened, and some are even going where no restaurant has gone before. Hummus happy hour The storefront at 80 Main St., just south of Mocha Joe's Café, once housed a clothing store,
If you've ever wondered why most high school and college softball pitchers now wear protective masks, ask Brattleboro varsity softball pitcher Hailey Derosia. The junior took a line drive to the face during the third inning of the visiting Colonels' 12-1 victory over Hartford on April 26. Instead being of taken to the hospital, the mask saved her from serious injury and gave her a chance to finish one of her best all-around games of the season. Derosia went 4-for-4...
Just about the time you can't face cooking another root vegetable, the beautiful green spears of asparagus start peeking out of the newly warmed soil. On a warm day, you can almost watch them grow. It's just about time! We know we will have them only for a short time, so we eat our fill while we can. I resist buying anything but local. The intense flavor of this fresh vegetable is vastly superior to anything trucked in from other...