When my roommate, Frank Parker, was stopped by the doorman in the fancy lobby, it could only have been racism.
My therapist's office was on the fifth floor; I had invited Frank to attend a session. We were in our early 20s. Frank always dressed well and was impeccably groomed. In those days, I was perennially scruffy, yet I always walked past the doorman, apparently unnoticed.
By his skin color and features, Frank was identifiably “black.” Regardless of my ancestry and DNA, people tend to identify me as “white.”
(I put those terms in quotes because I see “race” as a myth. In my world, we are all human individuals. Nonetheless, it is not possible to discuss racism without utilizing the racist lexicon.)...
This Special Focus was reported and written by MacLean Gander, with minor additional reporting by Jeff Potter, who edited and designed this section. Gander has worked for more than three decades at Landmark College, where as a professor he teaches courses in journalism, creative writing, education, and leadership studies.
MacLean Gander of The Commons interviewed Will Wootton on Dec. 28 to discuss the challenge he posed to the Marlboro College board and administration - to open the college's internal financial records to inspection to get a second opinion about whether the plan to incorporate Marlboro's students, faculty, and...
Marlboro College was incorporated in 1946 and opened the next year on a hillside farm in southern Vermont, with a couple of farm buildings for classes and residences for its 56 students, more than half of whom were veterans studying under the GI Bill. They lived at first in army tents borrowed from the National Guard while waiting for dormitories to be completed. The current chapter of that college on that hillside effectively ended 73 years later, on Dec. 16,
A proposal was announced on Jan. 2 for a way to interrupt the chain of command for illegal orders to start a war against Iran. It was widely predicted that Donald Trump would start a new war in order to distract people from his impeachment trial. Now, two days later, he has started the war by assassinating a general in Iran. This is a flagrant act of war and a violation of international law and U.S. law. Though not in...
Town Clerk Hilary Francis says that petitions are now available for town officers, school district officers, and Town Meeting members. Town elections take place Tuesday, March 3, at American Legion Post 5 on Linden Street. Voting in Vermont's presidential primary also takes place that day. The Annual Representative Town Meeting takes place Saturday, March 21 at Brattleboro Area Middle School. Petitions for town and town school district officers must contain at least 30 valid signatures of registered Brattleboro voters and...
2020 dog licenses are now available BRATTLEBORO - Brattleboro dog and wolf-hybrid licenses are available for the 2020 licensing period. Vermont dogs and wolf-hybrids 6 months and older must be licensed on or before April 1. Renewal licenses may be obtained in person at the Town Clerk's office, through the mail, or online at www.brattleboro.org. Dogs licensed in Brattleboro for the first time may be licensed in person or through the mail by printing the license form from that website.
There will be an electronic music performance series celebrating synthesizers, circuit-bending, and sound manipulation on the second Saturdays of each month from January through April at Stage 33 Live in Bellows Falls. Each session hosts up to five acts for individual performances followed by a collective improvisation. Players will be in the center of the room, with the audience in the round. The music is expected to range from cinematic and lush to computer-esque and urgent. The series dates are...
Obituraries • Michael J. “Mike” Como, 78, of West Chesterfield, N.H. Died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family, on Dec. 24, 2019, following an extended period of declining health. Mike was born in East Liverpool, Ohio on April 29, 1941 the son of John and Edna (Clendenning) Como. He was raised and educated in East Liverpool and was a graduate of East Liverpool High School, Class of 1960. A proud veteran, Mike served in the Navy (1960-1964) on board...
The Northeast Fiddlers Association is offering a full scholarship for a 2020 week-long fiddle camp to be awarded to a Vermont fiddler for a camp of his or her choice. The NEFA's mission is “To preserve and promote the art of old time fiddling,” which is also the mission of these summer camps for fiddlers of all ages: the Northeast Heritage Music Camp; The Maine Music Camp; Ashokan Fiddle and Dance; and the Acadia Trad School; and for younger fiddlers,
Epsilon Spires, 190 Main St., will present the closing ceremony for Lauren Pakradooni's multimedia exhibition, “Describing a Sunset to a Robocaller,” on Saturday, Jan. 11. Pakradooni describes the work in her show as an exploration of the concept of “scanning,” which she explains as “a place of actively charged looking, in which searching for rhythm and repetition is interrupted by objects and images that do not behave in turn.” The evening will feature a live performance by Pakradooni - playing...
Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains and Girl Scouts of the USA have launched the 2020 Girl Scout Cookie season, where Girl Scouts across the U.S. become entrepreneurs and earn money to power their own leadership opportunities and adventures. This season, GSUSA announces two sweet new ways to celebrate young female leaders: refreshed packaging reflecting the amazing experiences cookie earnings make possible for girls, and a new lemon cookie available in select areas. The Girl Scout Cookie Program...
The Broad Brook Community Center says it is taking big strides toward the finish line of its capital campaign. Since starting fundraising in 2016, the BBCC board says it has raised more than $1 million from foundations, state and federal grant and tax credit programs, and individuals to renovate Guilford's historic grange hall and operate it as Guilford's community center for this and future generations. Now Broad Brook Community Center says it is getting even closer to its $1.35 million...
Vermont Academy will hold its seventh annual 24-Hour Play Festival on Sunday, Jan. 12. This year, the independent school is opening up casting to include middle- and high-school students from other schools. The 24 Hour Plays started in New York in 1995 as a way to bring together a community of creative artists in a time-limited experiment. Writers, directors, technicians, and actors gathered together to create and perform plays from scratch within 24 hours, start-to-finish. While the project was intended...
Village Square Booksellers will host a 2nd Saturday Poetry Open Mic on Saturday, Jan. 11, at 1 p.m., assisted by New Hampshire author and poet Jim Fowler. The event will feature local poets Tim Mayo and Charles Butterfield, who will have books available for sale. Tim Mayo's poems and reviews have appeared in many journals, and his poems have received seven Pushcart Prize nominations. His first full length collection, The Kingdom of Possibilities (Mayapple Press, 2009), was a finalist for...
Following from Toni Powling's assumption in her Jan. 1 Reformer letter that impeachment proceedings ought to follow traditional due process procedures such as having a “speedy trial,” then those procedures also need to include a “fair trial.” Impartial jurors - Sens. McConnell and Graham, for example - should not be aligning themselves with one side or the other. And if discovery occurred in the House, leading up to the articles of impeachment, then a full trial - one that would...
With an agreement for a sale in hand, two companies await state approval for the sale of a small independent cable company to an international telecommunications juggernaut with multiple franchises in the state. Pennsylvania-based Comcast and Southern Vermont Cable, headquartered in Bondsville, have filed joint paperwork with the state Public Utility Commission (PUC), which, as part of the state's regulatory process, must approve the sale and amend Comcast's state-issued Certificate of Public Good (CPG). Next, Southern Vermont Cable must obtain...
The American Red Cross currently has a critical need for blood donors of all blood types - especially type O - and platelet donors to make an appointment now to give and help replenish the blood supply after the holiday weeks. Right now, the Red Cross says it has less than a three-day supply of type O blood. During the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, about 500 fewer blood drives were hosted nationwide by volunteer sponsor groups than required...
Vermont's economy is telling two stories. One story tells the tale of economic gains and increased personal income. The other tells the tale of economic struggle and poverty. Both are true. The Public Assets Institute (PAI), a Montpelier-based economic analysis nonprofit, released State of Working Vermont 2019 last month. PAI compiles the annual report in conjunction with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., a non-profit think tank that studies the economy and effects of economic policy. The report included...
In its State of Working Vermont Report 2019, the Public Assets Institute (PAI) in Montpelier released data related to the health of the Vermont economy - data that tell some complex stories. Workforce shortages and a declining student population have been at the center of the Scott Administration's concerns about affordability in the state. Last year, the Vermont Department of Labor held a series of meetings in communities around the state. At a Brattleboro gathering, organizers asked business owners about...
Hello and good day to you, residents of the peaceful and picturesque windy hamlets of southeastern Vermont! We have so many changes on the way, I'm just going to jump right in. For Wednesday, a storm system responsible for a few morning flurries pulls away which will lead to scattered afternoon and evening snow showers and squalls. Windy and cold conditions follow at night into the morning, which will lead to a beautiful, but cold Thursday. Snow and ice on...
A full financial accounting of what happened to bring Marlboro to this inflection point will await a deeper analysis than is possible in the midst of things. But the broad brushstrokes are visible. The challenge of Marlboro College's viability extends back to its founding, and mirrors the same sort of challenges for small colleges across the nation, many of which have folded or have merged with other schools over the past decades. The wonder may not be that Marlboro is...
On Jan. 18, at 3 p.m., the Estey Organ Museum, dedicated to the history and heritage of the Estey Organ Company, will present Gavin Klein, self-proclaimed “teenager by day and musician by night” playing the historic Estey Organ at Epsilon Spires, 190 Main St. The program features works by J.S. Bach including chorale preludes In Dulci Jubilo BWV 729, and Herzlich thut mich Verlangen BWV 727, plus Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565; excerpts from Suite Gothique Op.
The Vermont Jazz Center presents pianist/vocalist Champian Fulton on Saturday, Jan. 18, at 8 p.m. Fulton, a DownBeat magazine Rising Star, was recently lauded as 2019 Female Vocalist of the Year and 2019 Pianist of the Year by Hot House Magazine/Jazzmobile. She will perform with her working quartet of over a decade including her father, Stephen Fulton, on flugelhorn, Hide Tanaka on bass, and Fuku Tainaka on drums. Champian Fulton swings hard - she's a top-shelf pianist and vocalist with...
Vocal music will rattle the rafters of Brattleboro's Latchis Theatre at the 17th Annual Collegiate A Cappella Concert, a benefit for the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center on Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $10 and are available at brattleboromuseum.org or 802-257-0124, ext. 101. This year's lineup includes several newcomers to the annual concert: Northeastern University's Nor'easters, 2017 winners of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella; the Vocal Suspects of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
The artwork of Mindy Fisher is on display at Main Street Arts through Feb. 5 in a show she has titled “Ornaglyphology.” An artist reception will be held Thursday, Jan. 16, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Fisher describes her paintings as ornaglyphs, each a spontaneous experiment, with color and shapes colliding. Her surreal, gouache paintings feature a crazy cast of bird-like characters and a hieroglyphic language that is open to interpretation. “The paintings started off as comic panels,” she explained...
Artist Doug Trump will discuss his work in a free talk at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center on Thursday, Jan. 16, at 7 p.m. “Doug Trump: By Rail” is a suite of twelve intimately scaled abstract paintings, on view at BMAC through Feb. 9. Trump repurposed window trim and sash boards from a studio improvement project as his painting ground. He covered the narrow boards with old Polaroid photographs, then layered a full range of energetic mark making, flowing...
It is rare when a team clicks immediately. More often than not, it takes some time for the pieces to fit together. For the Brattleboro Colonels girls' hockey team, they lost four of their first five games. Since then, the Colonels have won three straight games and improved to 4-4 in Division III. On Jan. 2, the Colonels played a nearly flawless game in shutting out the South Burlington Wolves, 3-0, at Withington Rink. For Colonels head coach Eugene Frost,
Following futile proposals for further state funding and a public rebuke by a state official holding the pursestrings, the Brattleboro Retreat's board of trustees has voted to begin the process of closing or selling the psychiatric hospital that has been part of the region's landscape since 1834. Louis Josephson, the Retreat's president and CEO, called the scenario “the last and worst option.” Despite a letter to Secretary of Human Services Mike Smith that presented the decision as a fait accompli,
Emma Thacker 'I came to Marlboro College because I thought it was beautiful' Emma Thacker gave Marlboro College's commencement speech in 2014. She worked with Kate Ratcliff, Gloria Biamonte, and Geraldine Pittman de Batlle in American Studies and Literature. Her Plan was “an exploration of the charged intersections of memory, commemoration, race, and history in the United States, with a focus on selected novels by Faulkner and Morrison and media representations of the Civil Rights Movement.” * * * We...