BRATTLEBORO-A reminder to readers that The Commons will not publish an issue on Wednesday, July 3.
In 2023, the board of directors of Vermont Independent Media, the nonprofit that publishes the newspaper, voted to suspend publication the week of Independence Day to give the newspaper's staff an additional week off.
The Commons also pauses for one week at the end of each year, a tradition that dates back to its first year of weekly publication in 2010.
Time-sensitive news, commentary, and advertising that cover the July 4 week should be submitted by Friday, June 21 to be published in the issue dated Wednesday, June 26.
PUTNEY-In 2019, Putney Public Library began to assemble a chapbook of poetry by writers with creative ties to Vermont. While the project was unexpectedly delayed by Covid, the chapbook is now complete and ready to be released into the world. The book, Time Capsule, was hand bound in community...
WESTMINSTER WEST-By Ugandan law, LGBTQ Ugandans face 20 years in prison. The "crime" of homosexuality is punishable by death. Ugandan organizations that work with the LGBTQ community risk huge fines and can have their operating licenses revoked. In the face of these threats, many Ugandan LGBTQ activists and others...
GUILFORD-Guilford's artists and poets are coming together to present "Our World in Words & Pictures," a group art show at Broad Brook Community Center that will open its doors to the public on Friday, June 14, at 6:30 pm. "Our World in Words & Pictures" is "more than just an exhibition; it's a celebration of the beauty that surrounds us," organizers write in a news release. "Through the lenses of visual artists and the pens of poets, this show captures...
BRATTLEBORO-Vermont Jazz Center (VJC) director and pianist Eugene Uman will close out the Vermont Jazz Center's season of concerts with a new version of the Convergence Project, a group he put together 15 years ago to perform his original compositions. For their performance Saturday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m., Uman will present a sextet with Haneef Nelson (trumpet), Jason Robinson (saxophone), Cameron Brown (acoustic bass), Brian Shankar Adler (drums), and Joel "Pibo" Márquez (percussion). Uman says the Convergence Project is...
BRATTLEBORO-"Innerstate Vol. 1," a show in two volumes by Julia Sorensen and Nicholas Cain that features both new work by each artist and collaborative paintings in an everchanging display experience, is on exhibit through Wednesday, July 3, at Harmony Collective on Elliot Street. "Abstract art at its best reveals something about both the painter and the viewer," the gallery wrote in a news release. "It connects us to feeling, to the unconscious, and to ourselves. It pushes the boundaries of...
College news • The following local students at the Community College of Vermont earned associate degrees at CCV's 2024 Commencement on Saturday, June 1: Laurel Es Salter-Dimma of Bellows Falls; Makayla Mae Aldrich, Joey Dwyer, Robert Lee Dykes, Emma Rose Ethier, Zebulon William Forchion, Brandon Christopher Gilbert, Colin Grube, Chelsea B. Lawson, Alexandra Janelle McLaughlin, Noah Morgan, Brooke Paquette, Jason Daniel Shatney, and Kiran Catelin Tyler of Brattleboro; Meghan M. Cole and Amy L. Wetzel of Londonderry; Roxanne M. Woodard...
BRATTLEBORO-Epsilon Spires, 190 Main St., continues its silent film and pipe organ series, now in its third year, with a screening of the 1926 silver-screen-sizzler, Flesh and the Devil (director Clarence Brown, 112 minutes), with organist and silent film improviser Peter Krasinski. This immersive cinema experience will take place on Saturday, June 15, at 8 p.m., in the sanctuary at Epsilon Spires, activating its historic Estey Organ with a dynamic live soundtrack. Flesh and the Devil was the pre-Hays Code...
Brooks Memorial Library hosts work by artists in incarceration BRATTLEBORO - Brooks Memorial Library is the site for "Finding Hope Within," an exhibit featuring art that has emerged through the carceral system in Vermont. The exhibition includes drawing, mixed media, needlework, and poetry and narrative writing by incarcerated artists at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington. In her book, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Nicole Fleetwood writes, "Prison art is part of the long...
MONTPELIER-The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved Vermont's Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (SEBT) plan to help feed eligible school-aged children during the summer vacation months. Vermont is among the first states to launch the new permanent SEBT program. This benefit provides $120 per child, which families can use to purchase groceries. Some Vermont families will automatically qualify based on existing benefits, which will start being distributed on July 15. Other families who do not automatically qualify may still be...
VERNON-At a Special Town Meeting on June 4, Vernon residents decided against building a transfer station on town property and to dissolve the Pay as You Throw fund. This decision means residential trash and recycling pick up will end for residents at the end of September. At March's Annual Town Meeting, the town's current agreement with Casella Waste Systems was extended, and the Selectboard's solid waste subcommittee reviewed the options. The board decided not to place a new contract from...
BRATTLEBORO-The town welcomes the community to participate in an interactive session to review the conceptual design options for the proposed improvements to the pool and aquatics facilities at Living Memorial Park, and share input on those options, at the park's current pool on Thursday, June 25, from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. with a rain date of June 26. "It will provide the opportunity to review the results and outcomes of prior public input sessions held during the summer and fall...
-The buzz among the Brattleboro boys' tennis team before their opening Division I playoff match against the Essex Hornets on June 7 at the BUHS courts was the Boston Celtics' dominating win over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. It was fitting, because there are a lot of similarities between the Celtics and the Brattleboro boys' tennis team. Both were the top teams in the regular season as they were rarely tested by opponents. And both...
BRATTLEBORO-This summer's Democratic primary race in District 7 may be more than just a standard clash of personalities. It may be a sign of a class struggle, as well as a battleground for hearts and minds. District 7, which includes much of West Brattleboro, has been represented in the state Legislature for the past three terms by Emilie Kornheiser. Challenging her for the party's nomination on the ballot for the election on Tuesday, Aug. 13, is Amanda Ellis-Thurber, who co-owns...
Nancy Braus, until recently an independent bookseller, is a longtime activist who contributes often to these pages. GUILFORD-It is becoming very, very clear that the Supreme Court has no hidden agenda. The Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, and the rest of the criminal enterprise that has bought and paid for the majority of the "justices" on the Supreme Court aren't even being coy any more. They are coming after women. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v.
BRATTLEBORO-Always a special home-team event at the Vermont Jazz Center (VJC), this year's performance of the Eugene Uman Convergence Project on June 15 [story, this issue] will be even more so. On that night, Eugene Uman, VJC musical and artistic director, and Elsa Borrero, operations manager, graphic designer, and consultant in multimedia production, will be granted a 2024 Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) Jazz Heroes Award. Among a class of 33 "activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz" (jjajazzawards.org) that...
BRATTLEBORO-After a varied teaching career of 33 years, Alice Charkes, language teacher, is retiring on June 14. Since 2007 she has taught French to all grades at Green Street School. "It's important to understand the pulse of whom you're teaching," she said. "You have to know who the American kid is in the 2020s. My approach is to teach kids stuff that they can access and use, or that relates to them. It has to be interesting and immediate and...
BELLOWS FALLS-Punk icon Jon Langford and his new band The Bright Shiners will be playing at Ciao Popolo in Bellows Falls on Friday, June 14. Langford said he's looking forward to being back in Bellows Falls, where he made a strong connection to the village a year ago. He came to Bellows Falls during Pride Month to spotlight a special showing of the 2014 British film Pride, based on the 1984 Welsh coal miners' strike. The film tells the story...
BELLOWS FALLS-It has taken two years since researchers first began accumulating evidence, but on June 7, scientists announced that shortnose sturgeon are living in the Connecticut River as far north as the hydroelectric dam in Bellows Falls. Sturgeon exist in the fossil record going back 250 million years and, for thousands of years, have been native species in the Connecticut River. But this is the first time that sturgeon, which can grow up to 4.5 feet in length and live...
BRATTLEBORO-Changes about how folks pay for parking downtown are in the works after the Selectboard agreed on June 4 to transition to an all-kiosk, pay-by-plate system. "This is a significant body of work; it's really important," said Selectboard chair Daniel Quipp of the recommendations presented by Assistant Town Administrator Patrick Moreland, which followed a May 29 staff review of the fiscal year 2025 parking fund budget. Moreland said the total parking system improvement budget - including the removal of meters,
LONDONDERRY-Following a row, a resignation, and a passel of accusations, the Selectboard will host a public hearing on Monday, June 17, at 5 p.m. to take public comments about the proposed revision of the town's zoning bylaw to establish Unified Development Regulations (UDRs), including a zoning map. Proposed changes in the 218-page document would affect all properties in town. The Planning Commission has prepared a report, also available on the website, that summarizes the proposed bylaw changes. Residents and property...
Rhonda Wainshilbaum is an artisan and a civic volunteer, living and working in Massachusetts, just over the Vermont line. LEYDEN, MASS.-Jews used to be called "Christ-killers." The notion that all Jews collectively bared the responsibility for the death God's son stained Jews with lasting, incomparable guilt. Some used it as an excuse to murder Jews (even if Christ's death happened centuries before their births). As a child I wondered: "How can God be killed?" and "Wasn't Jesus Jewish?" I now...
Jewish Voice for Peace's Vermont/New Hampshire chapter submitted this piece. Those signing this contribution: Robin Morgan, Ali Jacobs, Matt Dricker, Naomi Ullian, Leo Moskowitz, Rebecca Speisman, Abby Mnookin, Ruth Shafer, Alex Fischer, Jane Katz Field, John Field, and Maya Shulman-Ment. BRATTLEBORO-As Jews who have a deep belief in justice and safety for all people, we are opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Like many of the Jewish people protesting the Israeli siege on Gaza, both here in Brattleboro and...
BRATTLEBORO-On a wet and gray June 9, amid a range of Pride Month celebrations and activities throughout the region, a diverse array of people of all ages congregated in the High-Grove parking lot to prepare for a Liberation March in support of the people of Palestine. The march was organized by Out in the Open, with the LGBTQ+ nonprofit encouraging participants to make themselves visible. Raven Rae, of Brattleboro, gave voice to the spirit of the march in simple terms:
Editorials represent the collective voice of The Commons and are written by any or all of the editors or, occasionally, by members of the Vermont Independent Media board of directors. We present our point of view not to have the last word, but the first: We heartily encourage letters from readers, and we love spirited dialogue even if - especially if - you disagree with us. Send your responses to [email protected]. Since October, barely a week has passed without a...