Any war is a tragedy, especially for civilians.
Since February, the bitter war in Ukraine has diverted attention from the past seven-plus years during which the United States has facilitated war and supplied blockades in Yemen. The long-term virtual famine of Yemeni civilians is one result. Ignoring our country's involvement doesn't make it go away.
Since 2018 there has been bipartisan congressional consensus to end U.S. complicity in Yemen. Now we have a president who has stated his desire to do the same.
The 2022 Yemen War Powers Resolution is the best path to that end. It was introduced in the House, then joined by a companion bill in the Senate. Vermont's own senators, Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, led the effort in that chamber; Rep. Peter Welch was a co-signer on the House's version. They and others have built wide support for the War Powers Resolution.
On Sept. 17, the Brattleboro Rotary Club hosted its annual car and bike show, Brattleboro on Wheels, at the Retreat Farm. The beautiful setting and weather provided a perfect day to display and appreciate these classic vehicles. The proceeds from the event benefited the Retreat Farm's current fundraising efforts...
Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) offers a variety of services and supports for eligible Windham and Windsor County residents. The state also offers a Seasonal Fuel Assistance program. This benefit is issued once a year in November, and households can access it by applying online or in-person at their...
Silent auction benefits NewBrook Fire and Rescue NEWFANE - The 20th annual NewBrook Fire Department Silent Auction is live and continues through Monday, Dec. 5. The all volunteer department, which serves the towns of Newfane and Brookline, receives only a portion of its operating budget from the two towns. The remainder is raised through year-round fundraising, such as weekly bingo, the summer barbecue, fall gun raffle, and this holiday season auction. The auction currently has more than 250 items listed,
In the coming months, the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) will present several events in connection with “The Space Between Memory and Expectation,” an exhibit of large-format photographs by Renate Aller of mountains, glaciers, trees, the ocean, and other natural landscapes, paired with a site-specific installation of a moss-covered stone from the West Brattleboro home of the late artists Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason. On Saturday, Dec. 3, at 5 p.m., Aller and Arezoo Moseni will discuss Aller's work...
Canal Street Art Gallery, 23 Canal Street, presents the Art For All Seasonal group show, sharing the gifts from the many artists of this region and celebrating the start of the gallery's sixth year. The show is on view through Jan. 7. All are invited to join the gallery on 3rd Friday Gallery Night, Dec. 16. Gallery events are free and open to the public. This year's Art For All Seasonal group show presents a collection of artworks by Clare...
A visit with Santa, lights on a tree, a model train, a singalong, cookies, cocoa, crafts, and a Yule log will bring the holidays to life in Saxtons River on Sunday, Dec. 4. The village is pulling out all the stops with a Yulefest to gather the community and celebrate the season after two years of making do while the Grinch lurked. “When local crafters suggested a holiday market at Main Street Arts, the enthusiasm began to snowball,” MSA Board...
Thank you for the incredible community support and the opportunity to serve our corner of Brattleboro for another two years. These last few years have changed us, and it is up to us to let those changes be towards progress. The pandemic taught us the power of effective government, the power of saying no, the power of sending resources directly to the people who need it. I'm committed to remembering these lessons as we enter the next biennium. Freedom is...
We went to see Wild Goose Players' production of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music this month at Next Stage Arts in Putney and were completely blown away by this production. David Stern's direction, along with musical direction by Mary Westbrook-Geha, was flawless, and the actor/singer/dancers were, without exception, incredibly talented and convincing. We are so fortunate to have Broadway-level theater right here at Putney's wonderful Next Stage Arts.
The Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) invites the community to a celebratory potluck and presentation on Sunday, Dec. 11, from 3 to 6 p.m., at the Putney Friends Meeting House. A federal judge recently blocked Title 42, a policy upheld by the Biden Administration, which CASP members say has had devastating effects for people trying to legally claim asylum in the United States. Now that it's currently blocked, attendees “will learn about what lies ahead in our fight to support...
Obituaries • Sonia (Lannie) Alexander, 81, of Wilmington. Died peacefully, with her daughter, Janna DeLury, and son-in-law, Gilbert Seaman, at her side, on Nov. 14, 2022, from complications of Alzheimer's disease. Born on Dec. 17, 1940, in Mobile, Alabama, Sonia was the beloved daughter of Ordie and Mary Lannie. She attended Alba High School in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, where she was voted Homecoming Queen by her classmates. After graduation, she worked at First Federal Bank in Mobile. She later...
Jesse Lepkoff's musical path is rich and peripatetic. From performing with the Boston Camerata to writing and performing bossa nova, Marlboro's own music man is now headed to Memphis to compete in The Blues Foundation's 2023 International Blues Challenge (IBC) on Jan. 24-28. No minor deal, Lepkoff recently earned this ticket at a competition of the Vermont Blues Society (VBS) in Montpelier. Having landed at the top of the solo performers' competition there, he's moving on to the next level...
To honor the memory of Tony Barrand in the first Christmas without him, the remaining members of Nowell Sing We Clear -John Roberts, Andy Davis, and Fred Breunig - will host a community celebration: Sing Nowell: Songs & Carols for Midwinter & Christmastide. On Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m., they will welcome to the Latchis Theatre stage the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Windborne (Lauren Breunig, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Lynn Rowan, and Will Rowan) as well as Keith Murphy, Arthur Davis,
Susan B. Anthony gave her whole life to the work of voting rights for women. Her whole life. Then she died on the eve of its inevitability. The work is about making progress, fighting for us to have safer and stronger communities. We all need to become brave enough to lose. All of us. Those were the words that I spoke on election night. That is what I had to be, to run this race. To try to win. I...
Nancy Braus writes that the Republican solution to crime is to “lock away all Black men,” which seems to imply she thinks only Black men commit crimes and that skin color matters when police try to stop crime. She also says that arrest and prison, as well as “catch and release,” do not stop crime. She proposes having a private security service -unarmed - to walk downtown at night. Who does she think would want that responsibility and the risk?
It was with great interest that I read this piece by independent bookseller Nancy Braus. While crime is, like so many other issues, a national one, it is more effectively dealt with on a local level. Our future as a state is not dependent on who did and does occupy the White House, it is dependent on what we initially do city by city, town by town. Our state representatives and senators come from our cities and towns with a...
On behalf of the Putney Big Tree Quest planning committee, we extend a huge thank you to all who made the Quest possible. These people include the community members who enthusiastically submitted 106 Big Tree entries, Julia Von Ranson and the Putney Public Library for being home base, Amber Paris for her Big Tree artwork, Ruby McAdoo and Sam Quintal for graphics, Ines Zeller Bass for the art making event, Josh Fields, Ann Kerry, Gino Palmeri, Tom Hinkley, Dawn Zweig,
Vermont's Act 250 showed up at the same time I showed up in Dummerston. Vermont is my dream location for many reasons. At the top of my list is that you can personally meet the governor, unlike living in New York. Thanks to the small-town aspect of living in Vermont, where I may have a voice, I became fixated with unintended consequences - when I or others make decisions that affect my neighbors - and I have identified three outcomes...
When Mark Ebenhoch heard the news of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, he knew what he had to do. The retired Marine and part-time Brattleboro area resident began working the phones and social media from his winter home in Key West, Florida, connecting with his network of friends and associates who by and large are LGBTQ people - who Ebenhoch simply calls “the community.” Within a day, Ebenhoch had made arrangements for Section 93...
Should health-care professionals be required to get vaccinated against Covid? Hospitals have - for decades - required their staff to get vaccinated against dangerous, epidemic-inducing infections such as measles, flu, and hepatitis. So, then, the question is not whether they should be required to get vaccinated, but whether health-care professionals should be required to get vaccinated against Covid specifically. The Covid pandemic has caused international, national, and local havoc. It is in the public interest that the continuing risk of...
Petition forms are available from the office of Town Clerk Hilary Francis for those who wish to run for town offices, the Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) board, and Representative Town Meeting. All positions will be decided on the ballot for the Annual Town Election, which will take place Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at American Legion Post 5, at 32 Linden St. Petitions for all new office seekers are due to the Town Clerk's office by 5 p.m. Monday, Jan.
A Colorado government employee with a long resume of municipal management will begin work on Dec. 30 as the new town manager. In a news release from the Selectboard, which announced the hiring on Tuesday, John R. Potter said that he looks forward “to earning the trust of the town.” As deputy director of the Open Space and Mountain Parks Department in Boulder since 2016, Potter oversees a division of 50 staff members and managing a budget of between $4...
Musical duo Sharon & Daniel (Sharon Leslie and Daniel Kasnitz) will present a free sneak preview of the Latchis Pub on Friday, Dec. 2 during Gallery Walk in Brattleboro. They will be joined by special guest cellist Sabine Rhyne. This holiday-themed show will be the first public event for the new venue on Flat Street in the Latchis Hotel complex, most recently the Flat Street Brew Pub. Doors open at 5 p.m., and music starts at 6 p.m. Call or...
The Bellows Falls Garage Housing Project is ready for winter and on schedule to be completed in 2023. The wood-and-concrete block structure just north of The Square at 115 Rockingham St., is fully framed. The roof is finished, the exterior is sheathed, and the windows have been installed. Buttoned up and ready for the cold and snow, the winter months will be used to finish the building's interior. “Work is going as scheduled,” said Elizabeth Bridgewater, executive director of the...
After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Red Clover Rovers annual Jerry Gagliardi Memorial Turkey Trot 3-Miler returned on Nov. 24 with a field of 187 runners who were out not just for a pre-Thankgiving run, but to also raise money for Groundworks Collaborative and the Vermont Foodbank. Peyton Joslyn, 15, of Swanzey, New Hampshire, and Sarah Lange, 31, of Lyme, New Hampshire. were the overall winners. Joslyn, a freshman at Monadnock Regional High School in Swanzey,
After months of closure, the Arch Bridge is now open to traffic. The $4.6 million replacement for the historic concrete bridge on Depot Road that spans the Rock River was officially opened on Nov. 23 with a ribbon cutting ceremony led by town officials. According to a news release from the Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT), while the reopened bridge has been paved and striped, and guardrails have been installed, “drivers are advised to travel with caution while crews clean...
The Commons spoke by phone recently with Jack Betzen of the Wolfman Jack band, which will perform at the Stone Church on Saturday, Dec. 3 [story, this issue]. In our conversation, Betzen discussed the band's lead guitar player and dear friend Jason Ferguson, who died suddenly at age 56 at his home in Willow, New York on Nov. 14. In addition to making music with Wolfman Jack, Ferguson played lead guitar, bass, and vocals with other bands, including Rainbow Full...
Wolfman Jack Band leader and drummer Jack Betzen of Alstead, New Hampshire, just returned from playing a week of shows in Florida with The Garcia Project. “We had a string of great shows in Florida; it was warm for almost all of them,” Betzen said. “We kept on rockin' out, even though the last show was outdoors and a bit on the cool side so they had a heater on stage for us, which is admirable,” he says. On Dec.
Nearly a year of frustration and uncertainty, plus a pandemic, mixed with a huge dollop of hope - and all of it is my own fault. I had not gotten an eye exam in six years, and over a year ago, my wife, Sue, began noticing that I was getting less than attentive behind the wheel. Nighttime driving was becoming a problem, and at her insistence I scheduled an appointment with the eye doctor. The ongoing pandemic made the initial...
St. Mary's in the Mountains, 13 East Main Street, welcomes one and all to its seventh annual Red Door Community Carol Sing. On the afternoon of Saturday, Dec. 10, the entire community is invited to celebrate the season, to sing traditional carols and seasonal favorites, to enjoy musical performances by Deerfield Valley musicians, and to sample tasty treats. The Red Doors open at 3:15 p.m. Beginning at 3:30 p.m., guests will be entertained during what organizers call a “Musical Appetizer,”