The Commons

Brattleboro, Vt. 

Brattleboro, Vol. IV No. Vt. 2 

February Vol. III No. 2009 6 

February • 2009 

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Witnesses to 

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JEFF POTTER/THE COMMONS 

Progressive/Democrat Mollie Burke, who represents Brattleboro’s second district, in 

front of the State House in Montpelier. 

The road to Montpelier 

A new state representative settles in 

to work in ‘the people’s house’ 

By Jeff Potter 

The Commons 

MONTPELIER—On this bitterly cold January 

morning, just a few days after the start of the 

2009–2010 legislative session, Mollie S. Burke 

moves briskly through the grand and opulent 

halls of the Vermont State House with a combination 

of confidence and humility. 

As one of the newest members of the House 

of Representatives, Burke has been assigned 

to serve on the House Transportation Committee. 

This morning, she and her fellow committee 

members will join their counterparts on the 

Senate Transportation Committee to hear the 

testimony of Robert Ide, rail program manager 

for the Vermont Agency of Transportation, describing 

a highly controversial plan to replace 

Amtrak train service with bus transportation to 

Bring the Ruckus 

“Dr.Caucasian” and “Scribe1,” the duo that comprises Saxtons 

River–based Rhythm Ruckus. 

a train station in New York state. 

With the hearing just a few minutes from beginning, 

politicians, press, and members of the 

public file briskly into the room with coffee, 

cell phones, and other accoutrements of modern 

politics. 

Burke walks up to an attorney from the Legislative 

Council, which provides legal, policy, 

and research support for the legislature, and 

introduces herself. “I’m the new representative 

from Brattleboro’s second district,” she says as 

she flashes a smile and a focused gaze of piercing 

intensity. 

The hearing starts, and Ide begins his testimony, 

which, like everything in Montpelier 

these days, focuses on budget shortfalls and 

options that range from shake-up to fiscal catastrophe. 

Ide describes his plan of replacing rail 

n see NEW state rep, page 2 

Critically acclaimed rappers bust rural rhymes 

By Evan Johnson 


SAXTONS RIVER—The Valley 

Advocate refers to “deft rhymes,” 

“solid grooves,” and “‘70s soul 

with plentiful bass lines that do 

a lot more than rattle the windows.” 

Selfportrait.net says the 

music “ranges from playful to 

extremely dark pseudo-gangster 

rap, with lyrics that seem to 

come together serendipitously, 

but brilliantly,” with influences 

of an “eclectic mix of gangster 

rap, punk and indie rock.” 

You would never guess in a million 

years that these accolades 

reference a hip-hop group hailing 

n see RHYTHM RUCKUS, page 19 

Towns 

try to get 

trucks on 

highway 

Federal weight limits 

force heavy trucks 

onto local roads 

By Sarah Buckingham 


BRATTLEBORO—Windham 

County towns have begun joining 

a statewide coalition of towns 

and cities to get heavy vehicles 

off local roads. 

When trucks exceed the federal 

weight limit of 80,000 pounds 

on the Interstate, those trucks 

must then travel on — and damage 

— secondary roads. 

“Those limits currently force 

many large semi-trucks on to 

our local state highways — such 

as Route 5 through our downtown 

— increasing the wear and 

tear on town roads,” Brattleboro 

Town Manager Barbara Sondag 

wrote in a memo last August 

prior to a Selectboard vote to 

“support a federal waiver of the 

Federal Interstate Weight Limits 

By Julie Thomson 


n see TRUCKS, page 5 

Talking 

trash 

Opponents want 

to discard Brattleboro 

pay-as-you-throw plan 

BRATTLEBORO—The recent 

4-to-1 vote of the Brattleboro 

Selectboard to implement payas-you-throw 

(PAYT) rubbish 

disposal, pending the approval 

of a Town Meeting in March, 

has sparked an uproarious war of 

words and speculations about the 

scheme’s potential impact. 

The decision came as a surprise 

to some since the Selectboard 

voted against PAYT last 

November and opposition to the 

idea expressed in letters to The 

Reformer and blog threads on 

iBrattleboro.com continues. 

Proponents argue that the 

change will both reduce the town 

budget and provide an incentive 

to recycle and reduce waste, 

while detractors point to the increased 

cost to residents, particularly 

low-income families, and the 

possibility of widespread illegal 

n see PAY AS YOU THROW, page 6

2 The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 NEWS 3 

n New state rep from page 1 

service from Rutland to Burlington 

with bus service in response 

to a projected $253 million budget 

deficit. 

As time passes, most members 

of the two legislative committees 

start showing signs of weariness. 

Some slouch in their seats, and 

one stares blankly into space, 

propping his sagging face with 

his thumb and index finger. 

Burke, on the other hand, has 

not been on the job long enough 

to become jaded. She sits directly 

in front of the witness, maintaining 

complete focus and piercing 

eye contact with Ide as she takes 

page after page of notes throughout 

the hour-long testimony, with 

the intensity of someone obligated 

to becoming an expert in 

all aspects of transportation policy 

in the state. 

The road to the 

State House 

Burke, 61, a painter and visual 

artist who has worked as an art 

teacher at the Hilltop Montessori 

School for more than 20 

years, had only recently earned 

a master’s of fine art from Goddard 

College in Plainfield when 

her state representative, Daryl 

Pillsbury, announced that he 

was stepping down from the 

Windham-3-2 seat he had held 

since 2001. 

“I didn’t think anything of it,” 

she recalls. But soon Sara Edwards, 

who represents the adjacent 

district, tapped her as a 

Progressive Party candidate. 

Offering: 

802.257.9411 

888.828.8575 

www.tui.edu 

BrattleboroCenter@tui.edu 

Burke, a Brattleboro town 

meeting representative for 19 

years, says she considered running 

for state representative an 

“interesting proposition,” especially 

given her undergraduate 

degree in political science. Burke 

also pursued graduate studies at 

the London School of Economics 

before shifting gears to the 

visual arts. 

A lifelong Democrat, Burke 

says she “really went back and 

forth” on whether to run on the 

Progressive ticket. In the end, a 

combination of the shared political 

ideals and her “respect for 

Sara” helped influence her decision, 

she says. 

But as it happened, Burke also 

received a majority of the 61 

write-in votes in the Democratic 

primary election to become the 

de-facto nominee of that party. 

Although she ended up as 

the only contestant for the seat, 

Burke still campaigned for the 

job, engaging in debates and 

knocking on “about 90 percent” 

of the doors in the district. (She 

would have completed the task 

were it not for her sister’s wedding, 

she notes.) Her 4,041 constituents 

include some of the 

most economically disadvantaged 

and citizens of Brattleboro, 

including those from the 

Clark-Canal Street area where 

she once led a neighborhood art 

program. 

Burke says she told herself to 

“remember to keep this visceral 

image of these neighborhoods, 

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Representative Mollie Burke, left, on the floor of Representative Hall. On the right is Megan 

Smith, a Democrat from Rutland, another first-term legislator. Burke, Smith, and 30 other 

new representatives began their legislative careers in January. 

that it’s not just you in this privileged 

place.” She vowed to retain 

“a certain kind of humility,” 

she says. 

The committee room 

The State House stands majestically 

and incongruously in 

Montpelier, an otherwise-typical 

Vermont small town of 8,000, its 

gold dome glinting in the intense 

winter sun. When this Vermont 

UI&U: 

Brattleboro’s 

Best Kept 

Secret! 

State House was built in 1859, the 

country’s taste in art and architecture 

was neoclassical, turning 

to influences in the ancient societies 

of Greece and Rome. A 

young United States looked back 

in time, cherry-picking formal elements 

that together created an 

environment and context for the 

nation’s laws and civil society. 

That historic lushness of the 

place — painstakingly renovated 

and restored in the early 

1980s — comes across in the 

public corridors and spaces of 

the building. Yet little comes between 

the public and their access 

to the building, often referred 

to as “the people’s house.” The 

result: a hands-on, practical access 

to the formal environment, 

a place where legislators dress 

their best out of respect for the 

heritage of the building yet still 

feel comfortable wearing their 

snow boots. 

“Talk about the accessibility 

of state government,” Burke 

says with a smile describing her 

chance encounter with Governor 

Jim Douglas in the cloakroom. 

“You have the ability to have a 

cordial greeting whether you 

agree or not.” 

After the joint hearing and a 

brief interlude into a modern 

annex to a cafeteria ser ving 

food products made in the state, 

Burke (already on a first-name 

basis with the cashier) takes her 

tea to the Room 43, where she 

spends most of her time working 

with 10 other representatives 

on the House Committee 

on Transportation. 

If the lower floors of the State 

House architecturally represent 

the formal, lofty, and ceremonial 

ideals of government, these 

committee rooms represent the 

cramped place where the handson, 

darkly practical lawmaking 

take place. 

In Room 43, no oil paintings 

hang on the walls — only an 

odd assortment of photographs, 

news clippings, maps, and random 

graphs from transportationrelated 

presentations. Scraps of 

paper with titles of active legislation 

are taped to the wall. 

The representatives seat themselves 

at their cheap office tables, 

all clustered into an island in the 

center of the room; the makeshift 

island holds the legislators’ belongings 

and other papers, reports, 

baskets of binder clips, 

a dour piggy bank, toy wooden 

trucks, and a miniature Bozo the 

Clown figurine. 

Two representatives from 

the Lake Champlain Regional 

Chamber of Commerce sit in 

mismatched chairs at the edge of 

the tiny and cluttered room waiting 

to testify about an economic 

study. Someone inquires about 

Cambridge representative Rich 

Westman, the Republican committee 

chair who when last seen 

was fighting the flu. Westman, lying 

on the floor, dryly confirms 

his presence, stands, and takes 

a large swig of orange daytime 

cough syrup straight from the 

bottle. Ranking member Albert 

“Sonny” Audette, a Democrat 

from Burlington, enters, larger 

than life both physically and in 

personality, and takes his seat at 

the end of the makeshift conference 

table. 

It can take up to a full year before 

new House members fully 

get the proceedings and the politics 

behind the life and work of 

a legislative committee, says Audette, 

who came to the House 

in 2000 with some background 

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in transportation issues, having 

managed public works for 

the city of South Burlington for 

30 years. 

By 10:30 a.m., the rest of the 

representatives have assembled, 

and the testimony begins, 

with Westman holding court and 

Burke taking meticulous notes 

about the Chamber’s strategies 

for transportation issues in anticipation 

of declining revenue. 

With the guests excused, Westman 

tells the committee members 

that they’re free to go for 

the afternoon “unless I decide 

to call you back.” 

H o w w i l l t h e y f i n d o u t 

officially? 

“I don’t really know that yet,” 

Burke says with a smile and a 

shrug. So far, word of mouth for 

changes of schedule has worked 

just fine. 

On the floor, but 

not speaking 

On Jan. 14, after attending a 

lunch at the nearby Capitol Plaza 

Hotel with the Vermont Commission 

on Women — “very often, 

there are luncheons, and you 

want to go,” she says — Burke 

returned to the State House and 

took her assigned seat in Representatives 

Hall as the House of 

Representatives reconvened. 

After Rep. William Aswad of 

Burlington (one of Burke’s colleagues 

on the Transportation 

Committee) delivered an invocation 

that harkened back to the 

Great Depression and quoted the 

song of the era “Brother, Can You 

Spare a Dime?” House Speaker 

Shap Smith moved a blur of nine 

new bills and several joint resolutions 

to standing committees. 

Twenty minutes later, Smith 

rapped his gavel, adjourning the 

proceedings until the next day. 

Legislative proceedings take 

place in their own language and 

with their own protocol, and it’s 

impossible for a newcomer to 

jump in without at least some degree 

of a learning curve. 

Late last year after the election, 

the newly elected legislators 

— 32 representatives and three 

senators — received a 2½-day 

orientation from the Vermont 

Legislative Joint Fiscal Office, 

The Legislative Council, and the 

Snelling Center for Government 

that introduced them to ongoing 

legislative issues and the sometimes-unwritten 

rules of decorum 

that govern the lawmaking 

process in Montpelier. 

For instance, “you don’t really 

speak on the floor of the House 

your first year,” Burke says. “It’s 

assumed you are there to watch 

and listen.” 

Burke has also been warned 

“never to promise your vote and 

then change it,” an act of betrayal 

that would demolish standing 

and reputation. “Your word is 

your bond,” she says. 

The orientation also gave 

Burke and her other incoming 

colleagues some reassurance — 

that “you’re not expected to know 

everything about everything,” 

she says. The newcomers help 

one another, and veteran legislators 

offer advice unstintingly. 

Burke and representative Diane 

Lanpher, a Democrat from 

Vergennes, both find themselves 

new to the State House and serve 

on the Transportation Committee. 

“We definitely enjoy each 

other’s company,” Burke says. 

“We’re learning together every 

day here, every moment.” 

While Burke was well prepared 

on any number of levels for 

the job, “the pace and intensity 

— that’s been a surprise,” she 

says. 

Burke moves around the floor 

networking, taking as much time 

to leave the rotunda as the duration 

of the session itself. So do 

the other representatives. It’s 

part of the process. 

Keeping life in balance 

Legislators meet in Montpelier 

Tuesdays through Fridays from 

January through late spring or 

early summer, depending on how 

the budget process goes. This 

year, of course, with cuts to the 

current year’s spending interrupting 

the normal process of 

creating the 2009–2010 budget, 

all bets are off. 

The structure of Vermont’s 

“citizen legislature” cuts two 

ways. In theory, the schedule 

keeps working in the legislature 

from becoming a full-time 

job. “There are obviously professional 

politicians, but there 

are more citizens doing public 

service,” Burke says. 

But in reality, “you’re retired, 

you’re independently wealthy, or 

you’re lucky enough to have a job 

that’s flexible enough” to accommodate 

the legislative schedule, 

says Burke. “You can’t live on a 

legislative salary.” That salary 

now stands at $600 per week 

while the legislature is in session, 

plus a stipend for food and 

lodging for members of the legislature 

who live farther than 70 

miles from Montpelier. 

“I’m lucky in that I’m a parttime 

teacher, and I’m lucky 

enough to have a flexible job 

and employer,” Burke says of 

the Hilltop school. “I told them, 

‘I don’t know what this means 

for the job,’ and my employer 

— wonderfully — said, ‘We’ll 

just give you your contract, and 

we’ll work it out.’ That took a big 

weight off me.” 

With three children grown and 

living their own lives, and her 

husband, Peter Gould, involved 

in a flexible schedule of his own 

that involves teaching a college 

class in the Boston area, Burke 

now finds herself free to make 

sense of a schedule that threatens 

to fill every waking minute of 

her day and overwhelm her day 

planner, clearly not designed to 

accommodate the depth of legislative 

commitments. (“Already I 

think I didn’t get the right size,” 

Burke says ruefully.) 

“The other surprise is the transition 

back home,” she says of 

the multitasking required of family 

life. In Montpelier, “this is all 

I have to focus on.” 

Burke carpools to and from the 

capitol with fellow representative 

Edwards. During the week, she 

rents a room with a separate entrance 

and bath that’s a 12-minute 

walk from the State House, 

a living arrangement similar to 

that of many representatives 

from the farther reaches of the 

state. When she is not socializing 

with other legislators, she 

spends evenings going through 

and organizing her notes, trying 

to make sense of what has happened 

during the day. 

Making sense of the job 

The next day, the Transportation 

Committee has just received 

state treasurer Jeb Spaulding into 

Room 43 to testify. With that out 

of the way, Burke quickly drops 

by the Capital Plaza Hotel to appear 

at a luncheon of Vermont 


Mollie Burke pores through a report in anticipation of a meeting of the House Transportation 

Committee on which she serves. To her right: Bill Aswad of Burlington and Timothy R. 

Corcoran II of Bennington. 

State Firefighters’ Association. 

She’s not sure she’s going to stay, 

but she wants to see if anyone 

from Brattleboro, any of her constituents, 

had made the drive. 

“I don’t think so,” a firefighter 

at the door said, double checking 

the list of those seated at the 

tables. She looks in and sees Peter 

Shumlin, who represents her 

district in the State Senate, at the 

dais addressing the group. She 

decides that Windham County is 

well represented. 

Burke moves to the hotel lobby 

for a few minutes to reflect on her 

first few days in her new job. As 

she talks, she smiles and gives 

a cordial wave to the governor, 

who is leaving the event. 

Burke says she finds herself 

straddling the line between 

starry-eyed excitement about 

working in this new environment 

and sober concern about 

the grim realities of the problems 

facing the state. 

“Every day is different,” Burke 

says. “Every day unfolds and reveals 

the process of what we’re 

facing.” 

Clearly, that involves upcoming 

legislative decisions that involve 

difficult, painful choices. 

“In some ways, it does present 

a good opportunity, in the sense 

that everyone is in the same 

boat,” Burke says. She points 

out that some traditional political 

posturing will undoubtedly 

be replaced by a bipartisan effort 

to figure out “how to do the 

least amount of damage” given 

devastating budget cuts. 

“We have to take things one 

step at a time. There are so many 

moving parts,” Burke says. 

“My goal is when we’re at 

the end of this session, I’ll have 

stayed true to my values, yet I’ve 

worked within the realities of the 

situation,” Burke says. “Basically, 

that’s what you hope to do 

in life, too.” 

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n SEE PUBliC aCCEss, PAGE 6 

4 The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 NEWS 5 

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max Breiteneicher 

We are 

terry Gross: 

interviewing technique 

and reflection 

Monday, March 2 • 7pM 

Brooks memorial library 

224 main st., Brattleboro 

An introduction to the art of interviewing: 

technique, suggestions, practicum and 

discussion of the science and art to help wade 

through the platitudes and fi nd authenticity 

from yourself and from others. 

Open to the public — no previous writing or journalism 

experience or class attendance is required. Participants are invited 

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MEDIA MENTORING WORKSHOPS 

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lead. Workshops also address general 

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The board of Vermont Independent 

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and the Media Mentoring Project 

committee are excited about plans to 

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partnerships with our libraries and 

schools. 

The adult program now meets 

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workshop, which includes the option of 

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To register, contact Betsy Arney at (802) 246-6397. 

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VOICES 

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nEWS 

Brattleboro 

librarian 

honored as 

best in state 

page 8 

LIFE & WORK 

In Putney, 

dinner for 

hundreds 

pages 14–15 

Racist acts grip region 

Guilford teen charged under hate-crime laws 

as threat of violence looms over youth of color 

By Jeff Potter 


BRATTLEBORO—The recent 

emergence of a group of Brattleboro 

Union High School students 

calling themselves the Nigger 

Hanging Redneck Association 

has brought longstanding racial 

tensions to the surface of a community 

struggling to understand 

how to respond appropriately 

and completely to such overt expressions 

of hate. 

Amid community efforts to 

come together and roundly condemn 

racial hatred — and the 

assertions of some citizens of 

color that official responses to 

racist tensions from the school 

and the police have been insufficient 

— racial tensions have 

spilled beyond the halls of the 

school into the community at 

large. 

A 17-year-old Guilford youth, 

named in court documents as 

a member of the NHRA, faces 

criminal charges as an adult for 

a June 18 confrontation wherein 

he allegedly threatened a group 

of minors with a gun. 

A bicyclist discovered plywood 

signs spray-painted with racial 

epithets near nine plastic milk 

jugs filled with urine on a remote 

dirt road in Vernon. 

And Curtiss Reed Jr., executive 

director of the ALANA Community 

Organization, said that the 

NHRA has “put the word out 

twice,” challenging students of 

color through the rumor mill 

to meet at specified places and 

times to fight. 

“We’re trying to avert an 

all-out war,” said Reed, whose 

With Home Depot gone, 

what tenant will follow? 

The quest to fill the largest retail space 

in Brattleboro could prove a challenge 

By Michael Wilmeth 

In its 2006 report, the Brattleboro 

Planning Commission 


subcommittee investigating store 

BRATTLEBORO—The closing 

of the Home Depot on June tion of a big box store poses a 

size caps warned that “construc- 

15 could be seen as a victory for serious long-term risk of blight 

those who opposed its opening and unusable space.” 

in the first place, and local businesses 

that might otherwise have empty stores are commonplace, 

Indeed, around the U.S., vast, 

been threatened by the chain left behind when a retailer fails or 

have cause for celebration. simply decides to build an even 

But Home Depot’s departure bigger store nearby. 

leaves the town’s largest retail Will Home Depot #4552 on Putney 

Road become an abandoned 

space empty — a 61,000-squarefoot 

“ghost box.” 

a bicyclist riding down Broad Brook Road in Vernon June 16 took photos of this sign, one 

of two found off the road near the river. 

organization consults on issues 

of diversity training and 

awareness, and advocates for 

citizens of color in discrimination 

issues. 

Uncovering the racism 

According to David V. Dunn, 

Brattleboro representative and 

chair of BUHS District #6 School 

Board, three students identified 

as the ringleaders of the 

NHRA have been disciplined, 

and the district is cooperating 

fully with the Brattleboro Police 

Department in a criminal 

investigation. 

Mike anderson edits just-filmed footage of Krazy George 

& the Wannabes at Falls area Community Television, the 

public access station for the Bellows Falls cable system. 

Putting pictures 

in public hands 

At public access television stations, 

new technology helps the process 

By Christopher Parker 


Cheaper digital technology 

is enhancing the local role 

played by community access 

cable television stations in 

Windham County, and bringing 

new outlets for video from 

the high schools to YouTube 

and elsewhere online. 

Better and cheaper cameras 

and editing software make it 

easier for citizens to buy their 

own equipment, say organizers 

and staff of Brattleboro Community 

Television (BCTV) and 

• Silver Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 

• Swirl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 

• The Grammar School . . . . . . . . . . . .14 

• Trust Company of Vermont . . . . . . . .7 

• Turn It Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 

• Union Institute and University . . . . . .2 

• Verde. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 

• Vermont Academy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 

• Vermont Digital Productions . . . . . . .3 

• Village Square Booksellers . . . . . . . .15 

• Wells Builders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 

n Trucks from page 1 

on Interstates 91 and 89 in the 

State of Vermont.” 

Other Windham County towns 

to take similar measures include 

Dummerston and Westminster, 

and they join approximately 50 

cities and towns statewide calling 

for a change in the federal 

regulations. 

Over the summer Maine senators 

proposed a bill to increase 

weight limitations on their Interstate 

highways, and a campaign 

for similar action is well under 

way in Vermont. 

Maine’s pilot program bill died 

after gas prices plummeted, but 

New Hampshire, New York, and 

Massachusetts have been successful 

in raising the maximum 

gross vehicle weight (GVW) 

from 80,000 to 99,000 pounds on 

some roads in their states. 

States push back 

John Zicconi, a spokesman for 

the Vermont Agency of Transportation, 

said his agency supports 

increasing Interstate weight limits 

because “it’s safer, its good 

for the environment, and its also 

good for the economy.” 

However, Zicconi said, Vermont 

differs from some other 

states in that its Interstate highways, 

91 and 89, are completely 

subject to federal regulations. 

“When you have a toll road, 

you don’t have to abide by the 

same rules and regulations,” he 

said, “Toll roads like I-90 through 

Massachusetts generate revenue 

to support construction and reconstruction 

projects, and since 

the money isn’t coming from the 

federal level, it does not have the 

same strings attached.” 

Laws pertaining to Interstate 

weight limits are technically state 

laws, but states that do not adopt 

federal weight laws stand to lose 

federal highway funds. 

Currently, according to Zicconi, 

between 80-90 percent of 

Vermont’s Interstate funding 

comes from the federal government, 

depending on the 

project. 

New Hampshire’s attempts to 

allow heavier vehicles on their 

Interstate were successful only 

after a last-minute insertion of a 

provision allowing GVWs of up to 

99,000 pounds on I-89 and I-93 in 

New Hampshire into an omnibus 

appropriations bill. 

Heavy traffic in 

Brattleboro 

Brattleboro Selectboard Chair 

Richard DeGray said, “The main 

issue for Brattleboro is that we 

have all this heavy traffic that 

goes through the Main Street, 

primarily logging trucks.” 

“It’s pollution; it’s wear and tear 

on roads,” DeGray commented, 

“The truth of the matter is they 

cost us money because they beat 

up our roads much more than a 

regular vehicle.” 

Zicconi agreed. “It’s better for 

our highway and bridge infrastructure. 

[Heavy traffic] takes 

its toll on infrastructure. Bridges 

on the Interstate are designed 

to handle much heavier loads. 

They’re constructed differently 

and they’re constructed to take 

the pounding better. It is costing 

us to maintain the infrastructure, 

and it [an Interstate weight limit 

increase] will save money from a 

maintenance standpoint.” 

“If they were able to travel on 

the Interstate, we would be able 

to keep them out of the downtown 

proper,” DeGray said, citing 

the noise and vibration caused by 

such UPCOMING vehicles, and in MEDIA particular MENTORING WORKSHOPS 

their emissions, “especially while 

idling on the main street and 

waiting for lights to change.” 

Roughly 46 pecent of carbon 

emissions in Vermont are transportation 

based, according to 

Zicconi, who echoed DeGray’s 

concern. 

“If we want to seriously reduce 

our carbon footprint, allowing 

heavier trucks and therefore creating 

fewer trucks is one way to 

do it,” Zicconi said. 

VLCT resolution 

The Brattleboro Selectboard 

took the issue up again in November, 

this time voting to sign 

on to a resolution drafted by the 

Vermont League of Cities and 

Trucks make their way down Route 5 through the center of Brattleboro. 

Towns (VLCT), a nonprofit, nonpartisan 

organization that serves 

Vermont’s municipal officials. 

Westminster followed suit 

with a unanimous motion, and 

only days after the Westminster 

vote, Dummerston’s Selectboard 

also voted 4-0 in favor of signing 

VLCT’s resolution calling upon 

the United States Congress to increase 

weight limits on Interstate 

highways in Vermont. 

VLCT began working to organize 

communities concerned 

with this issue last summer with 

a July 9 letter to U.S. Representative 

Peter Welch, urging the 

congressman to “seek weight 

limit increases on Interstate highways 

2008 that New will England help protect Press our Association 

and downtown Better Newspaper villages buildings 

and infrastructure as well as the 

aesthetics Contest of Awards these exceptional 

places.” 

Zicconi said the Agency of 

Transportation has been very 

involved in this issue for many 

years, but he’s seen it gain new 

momentum recently. The Vermont 

Agencies of Natural Resources, 

Transportation, and 

Agriculture, Food and Markets 

sent a joint letter to Congressman 

Welch and Senators Patrick 

Leahy and Bernie Sanders 

in February 2008; and the campaign 

has been gaining steam 

ever since. 

DeGray said there had been 

conversations about this issue in 

the past, “but nothing as strong 

as this.” 

Trucks through villages 

Trevor Lashua, a senior associate 

for advocacy and information 

at VLCT, said a lot of energy has 

been coming from the Northeast 

Kingdom, particularly in St. 

Johnsbury, where U.S. Route 5 

passes through the campus of 

St. Johnsbury Academy and citizens 

are concerned about pedestrians’ 

safety. 

“It’s good for everybody,” 

Lashua said of keeping semitrucks 

on the Interstate, “the 

truckers don’t want to face those 

dangers either.” 

“With us,” Zicconi said of Vermont, 

“having to run heavier 

trucks off the Interstate means 

they’re on state roads, rumbling 

through villages, rumbling past 

schools, and rumbling past pedestrians 

and shopping centers. 

We don’t believe that is the safest 

place for those trucks to be. 

We believe the safest place is on 

the Interstate.” 

The same day VLCT contacted 

Welch, a U.S. House 

subcommittee on highways and 

transit heard testimony from 

Maine’s Department of Transportation 

Commissioner David 

Cole, who argued a federal 

weight and size increase would 

improve road safety and reduce 

local infrastructure costs as well 

as environmental impacts. 

Cole said his department conducted 

a study showing a weight 

increase would reduce the state’s 

crash rate by keeping heavy traffic 

on safer roads. VLCT also 

cited the fact that the Interstate 

highway system is built to the 

highest safety standards of any 

road in the country. 

The case for the 

weight limits 

Safety is the main point of contention 

at the congressional level. 

The US Congress is feeling the 

push for an increase from states 

across the nation, and organizations 

such as The American 

Trucking Association, the National 

Private Truck Council, the 

Coalition Against Bigger Trucks, 

Advocates for Highway and Auto 

Safety, and the Truck Safety Coalition 

are pushing back. 

Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minnesota), 

who testified at the 

same hearing as Cole, argues 

that heavier trucks would make 

roads more dangerous; accidents 

would be far worse, even if they 

occurred less often, and heavier 

trucks would speed deterioration 

of the Interstate infrastructure. 

Oberstar cited a University of 

Michigan study that found that 

heavy trucks cause more fatal 

accidents. 

“Heavier tractor-trailers raise 

the center of gravity of the vehicle 

and its load, increasing rollovers. 

Heavier vehicles mean 

increasing speed differentials 

with other traffic. Increasing 

truck weights results in greater 

brake maintenance problems. 

Brakes are out of adjustment, 

trucks take longer to stop. It 

is just that simple,” he told the 

subcommittee. 

“[Vermont’s] Governor is in favor, 

we are in favor, most towns 

are in favor...the obstacle is Congress,” 

Zicconi said, “They don’t 

like the idea. The safety lobby 

DAVID SHAW/THE COMMONS 


lobbies hard, saying it is a safety 

problem; we don’t agree.” 

Lashua said the Vermont Truck 

and Bus Association brought up 

the possibility of an alternative 

course of action to a Senate transportation 

committee. Currently 

single-trip permits allow overweight 

vehicles to travel on the 

Interstate, and a movement is 

afoot for the federal government 

to allow annual permits. 

“There might be other ways 

but you need federal approval 

and that traditionally has been 

the stumbling block,” Lashua 

said. 

“Within Vermont there’s a 

pretty broad array of folks who 

are, at least conceptually, in support,” 

Lashua said. “There is 

broad agreement to get trucks 

out of downtowns.” 

Photos in this newspaper marked with 

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immediately available for anyone’s use, 

subject to certain restrictions. 

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6 NEWS The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 NEWS 7 

n Pay as you throwfrom page 1 

dumping. 

With PAYT, also known as 

“unit-based pricing,” residents 

are charged individually, based 

on the amount of trash they 

throw away, instead of uniformly 

subsidizing the rubbish pickup 

and disposal process through 

their property taxes. 

Under the proposed scheme, 

Brattleboro residents would pay 

a fixed rate for special trash bags, 

which would be available at the 

town’s major grocery stores. The 

actual retail price for each bag is 

not yet fixed and must be decided 

by the Selectboard if the plan 

goes ahead, at an estimated $2 

per 30-gallon bag. 

Currently, Brattleboro is one 

of only three municipalities in 

Vermont, along with Westminster 

and Vernon, whose residents 

benefit from curbside 

trash pickup. Even Burlington 

offers curbside pickup only for 

recyclables. In other towns, residents 

pay haulers directly or haul 

their own rubbish to a transfer 

station. 

Last year, the Westminster selectboard 

also discussed transitioning 

to a PAYT system. 

“It’s not the most green system,” 

said Brattleboro’s Public 

Works Director, Steve Barrett, 

who has served on the town’s 

Solid Waste Study Committee 

since 2006. Jane Southworth 

chairs the committee. 

Other members include Paul 

Pay-as-you-throw 

advantages 

• Equity – Customers who 

use more service pay more. 

• Economic signal – Behavior 

affects the bill so there is a 

recurring economic signal to 

modify behavior. 

• Lack of restrictions – Does 

not restrict customer choice. 

• Efficiency – Variable rate 

programs are generally inexpensive 

to implement. 

• Waste reduction – PAYT 

rewards all behaviors that reduce 

the amount of garbage 

thrown away. 

• Speed of implementation – 

PAYT programs can be quickly 

put into place. 

• Flexibility – PAYT programs 

can be implemented with 

a range of arrangements. 

• Environmental benefits 

Cameron, director of Brattleboro 

Climate Protection; Harold 

Dompier, a former member of 

the Selectboard; Brenda Emery, 

who coordinates accounts payable 

in the town finance department, 

and John Fay, a program 

director with the Windham Solid 

Waste Management District, a 

cooperative program to manage 

recycling and hazardous waste 

collection programs in the county 

and to manage the now-closed regional 

landfill. 

“Basically we’re chucking everything 

away, and we have a really 

low recycle rate” — between 

16-19 percent, Barrett said. 

Costs and benefits 

The PAYT subject was most 

recently broached during the 

Selectboard’s examination of the 

town’s budget, as board members 

looked for ways to keep 

costs down. The annual cost for 

curbside pickup of trash and recyclables 

is $962,000. 

PAYT would save approximately 

$300,000 annually, proponents 

say, preventing a predicted 

3.4-percent increase. 

The town stands to see savings 

in the form of reduced tipping 

fees, but in more prosperous 

times, the recyclable materials 

diverted from the waste stream 

could have been sold as well. 

However, because of the everlooming 

economic recession, 

the recycling industry at large 

– PAYT programs are beneficial 

to the environment. 

Pay-as-you-throw 

concerns 

• Illegal dumping – Research 

shows illegal dumping is a bigger 

fear than reality, and is a 

problem in about 20 percent 

of communities — a problem 

that lasts about three months 

or less. Composition of illegally 

dumped material finds 

only about 15 percent is household 

and the largest household 

component is bulky items or 

appliances. 

• Concerns about large families 

or low income – Large families 

pay more for groceries, 

water and other services. PAYT 

extends this to trash. For lowincome, 

in some cases, communities 

provide discounts for 

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AND PRIME RIB 

Trash awaits pickup in Brattleboro in January. 

is at risk. The price of recyclables 

continues to drop because 

of the declining demand at home 

and abroad. 

With food waste constituting 

21 percent of all residential 

waste, according to a 2007 report 

on Vermont Waste Prevention by 

DSM Environmental Services, 

Cameron encourages residents 

to compost more. 

“You can bring your compost 

to Windham Solid Waste now,” 

said Cameron, “I certainly support 

people having composters 

essential services like energy 

and telephone. These types of 

discounts could be extended to 

garbage fees. 

• Revenue uncertainties – 

the number of bags or containers 

set out decreases with PAYT 

so communities need to adjust 

rates accordingly. 

• Administrative burdens – 

Workloads during implementation 

will be increased. 

• Multi-family buildings – 

PAYT is most tested in single 

family situations, up to perhaps 

8-unit complexes. Multi-family 

buildings serviced by dumpsters 

receive a better volumebased 

building-wide incentive 

for recycling than single family 

households. 

From the Brattleboro Solid 

Waste Committee. 

in their backyard; those can be 

purchased through Windham 

Solid Waste.” 

But for renters in Brattleboro 

who cannot compost because of a 

lack of space or permission from 

building owners to do so, the 

time, energy and money spent 

disposing of their food wastes at 

Windham Solid Waste could end 

up being just as costly to them as 

throwing the food waste away. 

‘Everything was 

on the table’ 

Selectman Rich Garant originally 

voted in favor of PAYT back 

in November. “When it was first 

voted on, I voted yes because 

there was such an emphasis on 

recycling.” But Garant became 

the only board member to vote 

against the new scheme in January, 

questioning whether this 

leveling of the budget was necessary 

at all. 

“It was never explained why an 

increase of 3.4 percent was unacceptable,” 

Garant said. “It’s not a 

problem with funds. The board 

only did it to make the budget 

look good. That was the driving 

factor.” 

The board also briefly considered 

other options, including doing 

away with curbside pickup 

altogether. 

“Everything was on the table,” 

said Dick DeGray, Selectboard 

chairman. “But that would have 

been too much of a pill for people 

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‘ 

to swallow.” 

The town’s Solid Waste Committee 

lent its expertise to the 

decisionmaking process and 

advised the board with a presentation 

of relevant options. 

Committee volunteers research 

waste-management issues and 

offer recommendations to the 

Selectboard. 

Eventually, PAYT was deemed 

the best option, primarily because 

of the 

projected 

reduction 

in the town 

budget, 

but also 

because of 

sustainability 

and environmental 

benefits. 

“We currently 

pay 


Garant 

$85 dollars for every ton of rubbish 

that goes out of town,” Barrett 

said. “PAYT offsets that 

tipping fee.” 

In theory, it also creates a 

fairer system in which residents 

who recycle and produce less 

waste will no longer subsidize 

the behavior of their less conscientious 

neighbors. 

As of January, Brattleboro’s 

recycling rate stood at 17 percent, 

leaving ample room for 

improvement. 

The Solid Waste Committee 

also referenced a national study 

on PAYT by Duke University, 

which found an average 14-to-27- 

percent reduction in waste and a 

recycling increase from 32 to 59 

percent in towns that had implemented 

the scheme. 

The committee also looked at 

precedents from nearby towns 

that use PAYT, including Greenfield, 

Mass. and Hinsdale, N.H. 

With the amount residents pay 

for trash disposal depending directly 

on quantity, the committee 

says statistics show that the 

financial incentive spurs recycling 

rates. 

“It’s working out really well” 

for Greenfield, Southwor th 

said. “They’re up to 41 percent 

recycling.” 

DeGray said the Selectboard 

put “$5,000 in the budget for [recycling] 

education,” before PAYT 

was voted in. As of now, curbside 

recycling pickup is still bi-weekly, 

when asked about changing to a 

weekly curbside pickup system 

DeGray hesitated, “there’s a 

significant cost increase there.” 

Burden on lowerincome 

residents 

With fewer bottles, cans, paper 

and cardboard in each trash 

bag, Brattleboro’s cumulative 

trash volume will drop and less 

money will be consumed by the 

town’s refuse collection fees to 

New Hampshire–based Waste 

Management, which manages 

the curbside pickup and contracts 

for the tipping of 3,667 tons 

(7,335,294 pounds) of trash. 

The town paid approximately 

$311,000 

per year in 

tipping fees 

each of the 

past three 

years, an 

a m o u n t 

that could 

be reduced 

by more 

DeGray 

aggressive 

recycling. 

A number 

of citizens have voiced their 

concerns since the policy was 

first proposed last fall, in the 

pages of the Reformer, on iBrattleboro.com, 

and at a Selectboard 

meeting in January. 

Many opponents have advocated 

on behalf of lower-income 

individuals, whose bag costs 

could create an untenable increase 

in their annual budget. 

Under PAYT, in residences 

with four or fewer units, the cost 

of waste disposal is passed from 

landlord to tenant, leaving tenants 

to absorb the cost. 

Garant — the only renter on 

the Selectboard — voiced the single 

“nay” in the January vote. 

“I don’t think it’s a responsible 

thing to shift the cost so clearly to 

the individual taxpayer and make 

no benefit to the community at 

large,” Garant said.” 

“I will be unable to afford the 

bags,” declared resident Theresa 

Toney at the Selectboard 

meeting. 

“I certainly understand peoples’ 

concerns,” said DeGray. 

“There is going to be a cost 

shift.” 

Indeed, the reduction in taxes 

offered by PAYT will be exceeded 

by the annual cost of bags. 

“It’s actually going to cost 

people more money,” Barrett 

corroborated. 

However, in some instances, 

poorer families may not be required 

to pay for their own 

bags. 

“If you’re living in a dwelling 

with five families or more in it,” 

said DeGray, ”your landlord is 

supposed to be providing your 

trash pickup anyway.” 

The Solid Waste Committee 

has also been looking into obtaining 

vouchers for lower-income 

people, but ultimately the 

Selectboard will decide whether 

to offer them. 

Illegal dumping may also increase 

under the new system, 

opponents say. The Duke University 

study reveals that 19 percent 

of towns experienced a ‘slight increase’ 

in dumping. 

Alternatives weighed 

A number of alternatives and 

additions to PAYT have been 

suggested. Most prominently, 

Rich Garant, Jane Southworth, 

and Steve Barrett have all voiced 

their support for a renewed recycling 

program and an increase in 

recycling education. 

“Recycling has gone down 

since the program started in 

the mid-90s,” said Southworth. 

“It has to do with the fact that 

the town had a paid part-time 

coordinator.” 

“We even had group leaders 

in all the neighborhoods,” said 

Mr. Barrett. “What happened 

was that, over the years, there 

was no money put in there for 

education.” 

A final decision will be made 

on PAYT at the town meeting 

this March. Although town representatives 

do not legally have 

the power to overrule the Selectboard’s 

decision, they do effectively 

hold the fiscal purse 

strings and can recommend that 

the $300,000 be reinserted into 

the budget. 

Although the Selectboard has 

the power to disregard the recommendation, 

“if they do put 

money back in, the Selectboard 

usually follows that request,” 

said DeGray. 

“I’m certainly willing to abide 

by what the town meeting reps 

want to do,” DeGray said. “But 

as I always say, let’s try this and 

see how it goes.” 

“If they want to go back to 

trash pickup, that’s what I’ll do,” 

he said. 

With additional reporting by 

Dane Kingsbury. 


Trash in Brattleboro, one of only three towns in the state of 

Vermont that offer their residents curbside pickup of refuse 

and recyclables.

8 NEWS The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 NEWS 9 

Voters in 45 towns statewide to discuss 

Vermont Yankee decommissioning 

Town meetings will consider 

nonbinding question as 

message to legislature 

By Clara Rose Thornton 


VERNON—As Entergy Nuclear 

Vermont Yankee, the state’s 

only nuclear power plant, faces 

an upcoming decision from the 

state legislature whether to grant 

its expiring license another 20 

years of operation, at least 45 

towns statewide will weigh in on 

the issue in nonbinding referendum 

questions at Town Meetings 

March 3. 

In Brattleboro, the question 

will appear on the ballot at the 

annual town election the same 

day. Other towns in Windham 

County include Newfane, Halifax, 

Brookline, Windham, Townshend, 

Wardsboro, Dummerston, 

Putney, and Westminster. Other 

counties with towns that have 

also approved the question on 

their town meeting warnings include 

Orleans, Caledonia, Chittenden, 

Washington, Orange, 

Windsor, Rutland, and Addison. 

The existing license for the 

plant expires in 2012. Yankee officials 

and utility companies that 

buy electricity from the plant 

have pushed for a relicensing 

decision in 2009. 

“Everyone would benefit from 

more certainty in future power 

supplies. From our standpoint, it 

is reasonable that the legislature 

could vote in 2009, because they 

have been taking information 

on the plant’s future operation 

through this legislative session,” 

Vermont Yankee spokesperson 

Rob Williams explained. 

“We look forward to a decision 

so that we can have a better planning 

process for our upcoming 

refueling outages, which include 

projects that would support and 

improve our operation under an 

extended license beyond 2012,” 

Williams added. 

Vermont is the only state in the 

country to grant its legislature 

the authority to approve or deny 

a nuclear power plant’s ongoing 

operation. The Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission is the deciding 

body for relicensing, while 

the state’s Public Service Board 

can then grant the Vernon-based 

plant a certificate of public good, 

with legislative permission. 

Because of the fact that Vermont 

governing bodies make the 

final decision on the plant’s operation, 

many citizens have leveraged 

politics at the local level to 

influence state decisions. 

VY question gains steam 

A large movement that has 

gained considerable steam in 

Vermont communities calls for 

warnings against continued operation 

past 2012 to be added to 

town meeting resolutions. 

South Newfane resident and 

longtime activist Dan DeWalt 

spearheads a movement called 

the Town Meeting Campaign to 

Replace Vermont Yankee, with 

an aim to put health risks and 

other negative factors related to 

the plant’s operation in citizens’ 

minds as they vote on issues at 

2009’s upcoming meetings. Official 

resolutions would be sent to 

Montpelier as a reflection of public 

sentiment at the local level. 

“I’m part of an ad hoc association, 

essentially,” said DeWalt, a 

former selectman who works in 

conjunction with the Vermont 

Public Interest Research Group 

(VPIRG), Citizen’s Awareness 

Nicole Riccio/SpecIal to the Commons 

Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, on the shores of the Connecticut River. 

Network, and Vermont Yankee 

Decommissioning Alliance. 

“Someone I know in Burlington 

asked me if I’d work on this 

because a couple of years ago I 

drafted [a George W. Bush] impeachment 

resolution and got 

40 Vermont towns to vote for impeachment,” 

DeWalt said. 

Many Vermont citizens have 

long been active in pushing decommissioning 

and opposing 

relicensing of the facility, in operation 

since 1973, in favor of 

other types of power such as hydroelectric 

or wind. 

“I live 15 or so miles from 

Vermont Yankee,” said DeWalt. 

“Week after week, month after 

month, I read about radioactive 

spilled water. A cooling tower 

collapsed. Radioactive elements 

shipped on an open flatbread 

truck to Pennsylvania. A load 

of spent fuel rods attempted to 

be picked up with a crane but 

the crane didn’t have the right 

capacity and dropped the spent 

fuel rods. A guy discharged his 

gun on the premises. There was 

a fire in the control room. 

“These are the kinds of things 

that don’t give you much faith 

that your local nuclear power 

plant is going to do anything but 

continue to pollute and poison 

you and your neighbors,” De- 

Walt said. 

“The children in Windham 

County have a higher cancer 

rate than children in any other 

part of the state of Vermont,” 

argued DeWalt, citing statistics 

The petition text 

Following is the text of the petition that voters will consider 

March 3: 

• 

“We the undersigned registered voters of the town of 

____________________Vermont, petition the selectboard to 

add the following resolution to the warning for town meeting, 

March 3, 2009. 

“‘Shall the voters of the town of ___________request the Vermont 

legislature to: 

“1. Recognize that the 2 percent of our New England region’s 

power grid supply that is provided by Vermont Yankee 

Nuclear Power Plant can be replaced with a combination of local, 

renewable electricity and efficiency measures, along with 

the purchase of hydro generated electricity, and excess power 

already in the New England electricity market; 

“2. Given the viable alternatives and the risks posed by continued 

operation, ensure that Vermont Yankee will cease operation 

in March 2012, after having completed its 40-year design 

life, by not granting approval for operation of the plant after 

that date and by not determining that further operation will 

promote the general welfare; 

“3. Hold the Entergy Corporation, which purchased Vermont 

Yankee in 2002, responsible to fully fund the plant’s cleanup and 

decommissioning when the reactor closes, as the corporation 

pledged to do when it purchased Vermont Yankee.” 

from the Radiation and Public 

Health Project (www.radiation. 

org), International Physicians for 

the Prevention of Nuclear War 

(www.ippnw.org). 

When asked what aspects of 

the plant’s operations endanger 

people living in proximity, Williams 

said, “Nothing that would 

put them at risk.” 

“It’s part of the current design 

of the plant and how these plants 

were originally designed,” Williams 

said. “The industry was 

developed around a very stable 

reactor design, with what’s called 

‘containment’ around the reactor. 

Those things combined make 

this industry very safe.” 

Opponents also cite the plant’s 

advanced age, calling it too feeble 

to safely continue operation. 

The partial collapse in 2007 of 

a cooling tower with its resultant 

reactor scram, or emergency 

shutdown of the nuclear reactor, 

was traced to shortcomings in 

the maintenance of equipment. 

Williams maintains that the 

plant has been updated since its 

opening in 1973, and stresses the 

2009 vote so that proper upgrades 

and work can be planned as soon 

as possible, presuming the legislature 

gives its approval. 

Economics and 

alternatives 

Nuclear power proponents describe 

the plant as a non-emission 

source of power and as such 

greatly benefits the environment, 

as opposed to fossil-fired sources 

such as coal. 

Coal plants burn approximately 

2.5 tons of coal per minute, 

contributing greatly to carbon 

emissions and the increasing 

greenhouse gas effect. Nuclear 

power, in contrast, splits uranium 

atoms to produce heat which, in 

the case of VY, is used to boil 

water, producing steam whose 

force spins a turbine generator 

to produce electricity. 

“Other power sources use 

the heat of burning coal to produce 

steam or oil that burns to 

produce steam,” says Williams. 

“Others produce it by using wind 

— spinning the blades of a very 

large windmill. Hydroelectric 

sources use the force of water… 

I think there are a lot of people 

competing for what source the 

state would use in the future.” 

Williams says that at Vermont 

Yankee, “we see the issue 

as this plant being here to produce 

base-load electricity. That 

means we’re generating electricity 

around the clock — basically 

every day — while other 

sources, such as wind, can fill in 

where it’s needed, when the wind 

is blowing. We can definitely use 

that, but both of those sources 

— wind and nuclear — are usable 

in preventing the burning 

of fossil fuels.” 

There are other energy market 

factors at play. 

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative 

(REGGI) is a coalition of 

ten Northeast and Mid-Atlantic 

states that have put forth regional 

laws regulating greenhouse gas 

emissions, namely carbon dioxide. 

States pay REGGI to cap and 

regulate emissions within their 

borders. It is the first mandatory, 

market-based carbon reduction 

program in the country. 

Vermont is a member of 

REGGI, and, with Yankee operation 

under debate, the state 

could stand to become a formidable 

REGGI market if it chose 

to sustain nuclear power over the 

alternatives. 

Although the nuclear power 

process produces no carbon 

emissions — a fact hotly contested 

by nuclear opponents, 

who say the industry fails to take 

the environmental costs of uranium 

mining into account — it 

leaves highly radioactive waste 

in the form of spent fuel rods. 

The storage of nuclear waste remains 

one of the debate’s biggest 

concerns. 

“The most intractable, unsolvable, 

and expensive aspect of this 

whole operation is what we are 

going to do with waste which 

stays deadly poisonous for tens 

of thousands of years,” said De- 

Walt. “[Yankee] stores it right 

on the premises. They have it in 

a pool of water in Vernon that is 

not under some sort of hardened 

concrete or anything else — it’s 

simply in a pool of water 30 feet 

deep.” 

Williams similarly described 

Yankee’s nuclear waste policy. 

“We store it in the plant in 

what’s called a ‘spent fuel pool’,” 

Williams said. “We also store it 

out in dry casks that use air to 

provide the cooling. Additionally, 

we store low-level radioactive 

waste here on site. 

“That is eventually shipped off 

for disposal out West. We ship 

it to a processor for disposal in 

Clive, Utah. It’s buried in an area 

where groundwater and rain are 

prevented from coming into contact 

with that waste.” 

Nuclear waste storage calls for 

areas either above-ground or underground 

to contain radioactive 

material for generations. There is 

no real solution to nuclear waste, 

and it is devastatingly volatile to 

the environment, water sources 

and human health if exposed or 

leaked. 

The voice of the people? 

With all of this in perspective, 

the question of whether local 

politics could affect such a 

far-reaching issue emerges as 

a concern. 

“Town meetings can do a lot 

of things,” observed Meg Mott, 

professor of political theory at 

Marlboro College. “They can 

vote for the town’s budgets or 

decide whether to pave roads 

or not, etc. 

“That’s in a town’s jurisdiction, 

but I think it’s interesting when 

towns decide to pass resolutions, 

whether they’re about the impeachment 

process of Bush and 

Cheney, or appealing to the state 

legislature that it should reconsider 

the relicensing proposal.” 

Mott describes such referendum 

questions as “a good way 

for small communities to articulate 

a position, demonstrate that 

there’s political will behind that 

position, and that democratically 

elected officials up in Montpelier, 

or even Washington, should pay 

attention. They have to pay attention, 

even if [citizens] don’t 

have specific jurisdiction over 

that issue.” 

“Yet I think there’s a reason 

to be cautious about exactly 

what town meetings can accomplish,” 

Mott continued. “Especially 

given the fact that they only 

happen once a year, on Tuesdays 

during working hours, and a lot 

of people can’t make it. 

“I wouldn’t want to romanticize 

what town meetings can 

do because in some places they 

are fairly well attended, while in 

places like Putney, up until recently, 

attendance was very low 

— I think even under 20 percent. 

So to make some sort of claim 

that town meetings are the voice 

of the people is misleading.” 

And Lynette Rummel, professor 

of political science at Marlboro 

College, added, “I do think 

local, public input is crucial in 

democracies, however difficult, 

ugly and problematic.” 

A forum on the issues will take 

place Feb. 19 at the River Garden 

on Main Street in Brattleboro. 

Disclosure: Dan DeWalt 

also serves on the board of directors 

of Vermont Independent 

Media, the nonprofit organization 

that publishes The Commons. 

This space 

for rent 

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County’s best advertising value. 

To promote your business in 

the next issue of The Commons, 

call Ellen at (802) 

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commonsnews.org. 

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10 The Commons • February 2009 

The Commons • February 2009 LIFE & WORK 11 

Life & Work 

Five meals in five days 

Finding value in the incredible, edible, expensive (but not overpriced) egg 

Brattleboro 

Like many Vermonters, 

I find myself with a sudden 

interest in not spending 

money. People have told 

me this is actually bad for the 

economy, that instead I should 

be buying a new kitchen range. 

But I continue to feel frugal and 

confess I haven’t a real clue as 

to what is going on in our national 

finances, except that it 

makes me extremely nervous. I 

traditionally spend more money 

on food than on other items, 

so it seems logical that I begin 

this new personal thrift in the 

kitchen. 

I decide to begin my quest for 

prudence with an inventory of 

the food I have on hand, starting 

in the refrigerator. 

The first item I see is a carton 

of eggs — $4-a-dozen organic 

eggs. Why did I buy organic 

eggs, I ask myself? What was I 

thinking — $4 for 12 eggs? 

I grab the carton as if it were a 

pink slip, and as I move it aside 

to find the next horrifying excess, 

I remember Mr. Tenney’s 

eggs from my childhood in East 

Bethel. Our house sat directly 

next to his sheep-and-chicken 

farm on Vermont Route 14. Mr. 

Tenney had been crippled by 

polio when young, and I remember 

his hands as being soft, awkward, 

and misshapen. 

The Tenneys raised eggs as 

well as beautiful and tasty lambs. 

I would go and fetch eggs from 

their barn, which smelled of hay 

and animals and slightly sour 

milk. Mr. Tenney, with great 

trouble from his hands, would 

look inside the egg carton and 

then hold out his damaged palm 

for my money. Making change 

took a long time. He always 

smiled. 

The eggs were tremendous 

and usually had at least two 

yolks and even the occasional 

three or four. The huge, pumpkin-yellow 

yolks sometimes 

developed into little chick embryos, 

which we hastily discarded 

into the kitchen trash. 

My family ate fried eggs, 

sunny-side up, with white-bread 

toast, margarine, and undercooked 

bacon for Sunday breakfast. 

I enjoyed breaking the eggs 

and watching the yolk and the 

firm, translucent white fall into 

the bowl. The yolk would be 

cheering and plump as it sat up 

on its clear platform of albumen. 

If you put the whole in your 

palm, the white would eventually 

disappear between your fingers, 

leaving the glistening orange sac 

in its perfect skin. To this day I 

separate them in my hand and 

roll the yolk around a bit in my 

palm, marveling at its ordinary 

perfection. 

But right now I am in front of 

an open refrigerator door looking 

at my contemporary and 

The World on 

My Plate 

CHRISTOPHER 

EMILY COUTANT 

costly eggs. It occurs to me that 

there is a big difference between 

food that is overpriced and food 

that is expensive. I decide to find 

out which applies to a 33-cent 

egg. 

Eggs are a culinary marvel. 

They are one of the few foods 

we eat that are, by their very nature, 

“food.” An egg is perfectly 

designed to feed some species 

of young, whether it be a robin 

in the nest or an iguana in the 

desert. 

Eggs contain everything a 

growing embryo could ask for. 

An egg is composed of a yolk, 

which provides nutrients for the 

embryo within, and a translucent 

white, which suspends and 

protects the yolk, both resting 

inside an even more protective 

shell. Those little weird clotted 

pieces of white you always find 

inside an egg that cling to the 

yolk are called chalaza. Their 

purpose is to secure the yolk inside 

the shell and center it for 

the best shelter against damage. 

In addition, eggs possess an 

almost magical and unique food 

chemistry, which can bring 

about coagulation, foaming, 

emulsification, and browning in 

a tremendous range of foods: 

omelets, soufflés, custards, 

cakes, meringues, mayonnaise, 

and on and on. 

Please keep your eggs in the 

refrigerator. Their freshness deteriorates 

rapidly if left at room 

temperature. 

I decide that I will use these 

12 “expensive” 

eggs as the basis 

of my week’s cuisine 

for as long as 

they last, supplemented 

by the 

random vegetables, 

cheese, and 

grains I find in the 

recesses of my 

cupboards and refrigerator 

drawers. 

Twelve eggs, two 

people, five days 

of dinners; is that 

possible? Let’s 

find out. 

Day one: The frittata. Every 

cuisine has a method to use 

up leftovers. Italy gives us the 

frittata. 

Beat three eggs in a bowl, add 

½ cup cooked potato, rice, or 

pasta, sauté an onion and ½ cup 

of whatever other vegetables 

you have around — peppers, 

kale, spinach, anything — then 

add that, maybe a handful of 

some old, dry, grated cheese 

that has been lingering in the 

back shelves for too many 

weeks, any herbs you might 

have, salt, and pepper. 

There are two ways to cook a 

frittata. 

Way One: Heat a tablespoon of 

butter or olive oil in a frying pan 

on medium heat, add the egg 

The first item I 

see is a carton of 

eggs — $4-a-dozen 

organic eggs. Why 

did I buy organic 

eggs, I ask myself? 

What was I thinking 

— $4 for 12 eggs? 

mixture, and cook for about four 

or five minutes, stirring it occasionally 

with a rubber spatula. 

When almost set, put under the 

broiler for a few minutes to finish 

the top. 

Way Two: Preheat oven to 425 

F, oil a pie plate or any shape pan 

you can put in the oven. Pour 

in the egg mixture and bake for 

15 to 20 minutes until the center 

has risen and the top is a bit 

brown. Serve with a green salad. 

Day two: The soufflé. This is 

simple and utterly terrific. Heat 

your oven to 375 F. Butter two little 

8-ounce ramekins. In a small 

saucepan, over medium heat, 

melt 2 tablespoons of butter until 

bubbly. Add 2 tablespoons of 

regular flour, lower heat, and 

stir with a wooden spoon until 

smooth. Cook for 1 minute, always 

stirring. 

Whisk in ½ cup of milk and 

bring to a soft boil, then cook, 

stirring constantly, for 1 minute. 

Remove from heat and stir 

in ½ cup of whatever cheese you 

have around until the cheese is 

all melted into the mixture. Add 

some herbs if you want and salt 

and pepper to taste. If the mixture 

is lumpy, whisk it. 

Separate two eggs (this is the 

exciting part) and whisk the two 

yolks into the warm flour mixture 

one at a time. Set aside. 

Then in a clean bowl, beat 

the egg whites until they form 

peaks. Using the spatula, fold 

a bit of the whites into the yolk 

mixture, then gently mix in the 

rest. Spoon into the two ramekins. 

Cook for 20 minutes. 

The soufflés will be puffed 

and golden and marvelous. Eat 

immediately. You will feel like a 

queen of the kitchen. This goes 

very well with a green leafy vegetable. 

I also highly recommend 

a glass of wine. 

Day three: Baked eggs. We 

have seven eggs left! 

Preheat oven to 375 F. Take 

those same ramekins from the 

soufflé and butter them. Cook 

two pieces of bacon in a frying 

pan, or chop up an equal amount 

of salami, leftover sausage, 

chicken, shrimp, or fish. 

Chop up a tomato or an equivalent 

amount of whatever vegetable 

you have around. Put 

this stuff in the ramekins. Add 

a sprinkle of cheese and herbs. 

Break an egg on top of this. Add 

1-2 tablespoons of butter to each 

dish. Add a few tablespoons of 

cream, sour cream, or yogurt. 

Put the ramekins in a pie plate 

or a cake pan and pour some 

hot water around them until it 

reaches about halfway up the 

sides. Cook for 15-20 minutes 

until the egg whites are “white” 

and set. Needs nothing but great 

whole-wheat toast or something 

like cooked lentils. 

Day four: Shrimp deviled 

eggs. One of the other things I 

found in my food inventory was 

half a bag of frozen raw shrimp. 

Boil some water in a small 

pan. Add one tablespoon salt 

and ¼ pound of shrimp. Cook 

for two minutes. When cool, 

shell and chop into bowl. Add 2 

eggs in their shell to the same 

pot of boiling water, cover, turn 

off the heat, and let the eggs sit 

in the water for 9 minutes. 

Remove eggs and run under 

cold water until you can handle 

them to peel. Peel and halve. Put 

yolks in a bowl and add chopped 

shrimp, 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 

some chopped pickles 

or olives, some chopped parsley 

or basil, Worcestershire sauce if 

you like it, a little Dijon mustard, 

salt and pepper, maybe some 

chopped red pepper. 

Mound this mixture over the 

cooked whites. Eat with some 

potato cakes made from leftovers, 

or a can of white beans 

heated up with some onion and 

olive oil, and a vegetable salad. 

Day five: Fried rice. Three 

eggs left! Simple. 

Start with a few cups of leftover 

rice, or cook some up, but 

day-old works better. Fry up 

some onions, whatever greens 

are still lingering in the refrigerator, 

that old half bag of frozen 

peas, leftover meat, chicken, 

fish, some fresh ginger and garlic. 

Cook this all up until soft, 

then transfer to a bowl. 

Add some more oil to the 

pan, beat up the eggs, then 

cook them like scrambled eggs. 

When done, remove them and 

put in the bowl with the vegetables. 

Add some more oil to the 

pan, then add the leftover rice. 

Stir until hot and crispy, then 

add back the vegetables and the 

egg. Add soy sauce, fish sauce, 

oyster sauce, or even catsup if 

you find that appealing. Maybe 

only use two eggs and make 

some scallion pancakes with the 

third. 

Mix one egg, ¾ cup water, 1 

cup flour, ¼ cup chopped scallions, 

and a bit of cilantro, some 

sesame seeds if you have them. 

Mix all in a blender until creamy. 

Fry in a skillet on medium heat 

like breakfast pancakes. Cut 

into wedges and serve with soy 

sauce mixed with minced fresh 

ginger and hot chili paste. 

The eggs are gone. At 33 

cents per local organic egg, they 

produced exceedingly thrifty 

meals. Our diet would have 

been better with the egg dishes 

stretched out over a few weeks 

with some variety in between, 

but our five days of eggs resulted 

in meals that were really 

very economical and very tasty. 

“Opulent austerity” is not an 

oxymoron but a motto for the 

kitchen wall. 

We here in Brattleboro can 

purchase our “expensive but not 

overpriced” eggs from any number 

of neighborhood farms or at 

a local food co-op. The Brattleboro 

Food Co-op sells Pete and 

Gerry’s organic eggs from Monroe, 

N.H. The co-op sells three 

or four kinds of organic eggs 

from regional producers. n 

Christopher Emily Coutant 

(christopher@commonsnews. 

org) writes regularly about food 

for The Commons. “If you are 

interested in the food chemistry 

of eggs or would like to share 

your own ideas for economic 

cooking, please send me an e- 

mail,” she writes. 

Strategies for coping with financial stress 

Dummerston 

You are much more 

likely these days to 

suffer through hard, 

hard things like losing a lot of 

your retirement fund (or even 

all of it), your home, or your 

job. Every day we hear of more 

and more people being laid off, 

businesses shutting down, and 

people losing their homes. 

This month, instead of answering 

specific questions, I will 

address the issue of the financial 

stress of these hard times and 

its effect on relationships. 

These are hard times for everyone. 

We don’t just experience 

these hard times alone. We experience 

them in the context of 

our relationships with our partners, 

family member, friends, 

and co-workers. It is common 

during hard times like these for 

financial stress to make relationships 

difficult and break down. 

And that makes things even 

worse. 

When my spouse and I have 

a lot of stress in our lives, we 

have found, over time, that we 

get through these times more 

quickly and successfully when 

we resist giving in to a tendency 

to pull away from each other. 

There are many practical 

things that can be done to support 

that sense of “moving toward” 

each other. 

As you become aware that 

things are getting more difficult, 

be proactive and set up a 

meeting with those people with 

whom you want to maintain a 

strong and positive relationship. 

Talking about it and getting it 

out in the open so that everyone 

is aware of your concerns 

is a definite first step. It can be 

with just your partner, or it can 

include other family members, 

friends, and others. You will 

know what feels right to you. 

Begin by giving all involved a 

chance to talk without interruption 

about how they feel. When 

everyone has had a chance to 

share his or her feelings, propose 

and write down possible 

solutions. When everyone has 

finished sharing his or her ideas, 

each one can be discussed. 

Those that are agreed upon 

can be implemented. Many will 

probably be discarded. 

You may even want to set up 

a plan for how you are going to 

move forward and “toward each 

other.” This is a process called 

the Wellness Recovery Action 

Plan, which I have taught over 

the years. 

To begin this process, have a 

discussion about signs that your 

relationship is going well. Your 

list might look something like 

this: 

• everyone feels comfortable 

in the relationship 

• no one feels left out 

• there is a sense of “being in 

this together” 

• everyone is friendly and mutually 

supportive 

• there is a lack of bickering, 

and people pitch in and help 

each other. 

Write them down. This list will 

define your goal. 

Then make a list of all the 

possible things you can do 

to help to keep your relationship 

strong and to heal it when 

things are not going so well. 

mary 

ellen 

copeland 

Commonsense 

They might include taking time 

out to talk to each other, listening 

to each other, spending time 

alone, doing some activity you 

enjoy together, exercising together, 

eating together, watching 

a movie together, and doing 

chores together. 

Next, make a list of all the 

things you need to do each day 

to keep your relationships with 

each other as strong as possible. 

Ideas would include: 

• eating at least one meal 

together. 

• having a daily check-in time. 

• taking responsibility for certain 

chores. 

Then list possible “triggers” 

that might make things more 

difficult for everyone — things 

like losing a job or a job being in 

jeopardy, having difficulty paying 

bills, being threatened with 

foreclosure, losing your living 

space, or changes in your situation 

at work. 

Then list actions you can take 

together if this trigger happens. 

Such a list might include: 

• spending more time 

together. 

• listening to each other. 

• seeing a personal, job, or financial 

counselor or coach. 

• talking to the bank. 

• arranging alternative living 

situations. 

• doing something fun 

together. 

The next step is to make 

a list of indicators, with all that 

is going on, and maybe even 

in the absence of triggers, that 

your relationship is not going 

well. These indicators might be 

things like: 

• more bickering. 

• increased irritability. 

• avoiding each other. 

• not talking to each other. 

• not listening to each other. 

Again, plan what you will 

do if you notice these signs 

that your relationship is struggling. 

Whether you are creating 

the list as a couple or a larger 

group, first on the list might be 

to meet and talk about what is 

happening. 

Then make a list of possible 

actions you could take. They 

may be some of the things that 

are on your list of things to do if 

you are “triggered.” Examples 

might include: 

• eating together several 

times each day. 

• doing special things for 

each other. 

• taking time away from each 

other. 

• taking over responsibilities 

that might be difficult for one 

person. 

All this thinking about possibilities 

and actions is good 

preparation and should prepare 

you for handling things if they 

get much worse. While it is not 

advisable to spend a lot of time 

thinking about the worst-case 

scenario, a bit of advance planning 

can ease the situation a lot 

if something bad happens. 

Again, as a group, make a list 

of possibilities. List possibilities, 

then strategize. What will you — 

as a group of people in relationship 

to one another, people who 

care about each other — do if 

something really bad happens? 

The list might include: 

• possible alternate living 

situations. 

• places where you can get 

free or low-cost food. 

• other ways to get income. 

• how you will have fun together 

if you have limited 

income. 

Developing a Wellness Recovery 

Action Plan is hard work. 

But people all over the world are 

using a basic planning system 

like this to deal with all kinds of 

 

FOR 

physical, mental health, and life 

challenges. It could be just the 

thing to help you get through 

these hard days. 

Finally, I will also pass along 

a few specific ideas that have 

been shared with me. 

• If you really need something, 

could you borrow it from 

someone else instead of buying 

it? Perhaps you might be able 

to lend some of your items to 

family members, friends, and 

neighbors. Lately I’ve lent my 

snowshoes a couple of times. 

• If you have to cut back on 

food costs, eliminate the snacks 

and junk food rather than the 

healthy stuff like fresh fruit, vegetables, 

and whole grains. 

• If you live outside of town, 

combine your trips to town so 

you can go less often. Ride with 

each other. Offer your neighbor 

rides. 

• If you have to cut down on 

or cut out the movies, try playing 

games. (I mean the oldfashioned 

kind, not computer 

games.) Games build togetherness 

— and they’re free. n 

Mary Ellen Copeland, a national 

mental health educator 

and author of mental health 

recovery resources, will answer 

questions through this 

column. Responses are not a 

substitute for treatment, professional 

consultation, exceptional 

self-care, and support 

from family and friends. Address 

questions to Common- 

Sense, c/o The Commons, P.O. 

Box 1212, Brattleboro, VT 

05302. E-mail questions to 

info@commonsnews.org. 

ADULTS, TEENS AND CHILDREN 

Studio Classes , Life Drawing and Painting, 

Independent Study, Art and Meditation, 

Sculpture, Illustration Techniques, 

Printmaking and Collage, 

Teen Portfolio class, 

Homeschooler and 

Tots classes. 

Saturday classes and 

Weekend Workshops 

 

 

 

 

32 Main St. Brattleboro 

rgsart @ sover.net www.rivergalleryschool.org


The Commons • February 2009 VOICES 13 

Voices 

VIEWPOINTS, ESSAYS, AND PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES 

BY, FOR, AND ABOUT THE CITIZENS OF WINDHAM COUNTY 

Bellows Falls 

It was a moment we did 

not think we’d live to see: 

America, the most powerful 

nation in the world, elected an 

African-American as president, 

a mere 40-odd years after our 

people struggled just to get to 

voting booths unscathed or be 

able to drink from the same water 

fountains as other citizens. 

Riding the coattails of an apartheid 

that still exists, here was 

Barack Hussein Obama, an elegant 

family man whose little 

black girls were going to grow 

up in the White House playing 

dolls. 

“Well, well. It’s a new day,” 

a measured, tearful voice pronounced 

as my mother, originally 

a Southerner from Suffolk, 

Va. and the daughter of a black 

Baptist preacher, called to tell 

me that Obama had won the 

Presidency. 

It took a second for it to register 

that, somewhere in the 11 

o’clock hour on Nov. 4, Obama 

had won. 

Then the other calls started 

pouring in: A college friend 

now stationed in the Army in 

Germany. A high school friend 

watching people pour out of 

their houses in Chicago. My 

elderly great-aunt, almost too 

dumbstruck to speak. My grandfather, 

singing spirituals from 

his favorite living room chair. 

Clara Rose 

Thornton 

(www.clararosethornton.com) 

works as a writer, editor, and 

arts critic for local, national, 

and international magazines 

and newspapers. Hailing from 

Chicago, she now lives in an 

artists’ colony in Windham 

County. 

As I watched the acceptance 

speech happening in my hometown 

of Chicago that night from 

a computer screen in Bellows 

Falls, I experienced an acute 

— an immediately warming 

— realization. 

Here was a campaign that 

had inspired such a diverse 

cross-section of the populace, a 

campaign about so much more 

than race. It had not been a symbolic 

run like that of Jesse Jackson 

or Al Sharpton. Actually, 

race had not been a factor in the 

campaign at all, aside from last 

year’s puerile jabs at Obama’s 

church minister, Jeremiah 

Wright. 

While Obama comes to the 

fore as a “rescuing” liberal force 

after severe conservative tumult, 

that role pales in comparison to 

the intensity of his image as one 

who is closer to normal American 

citizens than any president 

in modern memory. 

Obama comes from a modest 

LETTER HOME 

When the masses 

come to call 

Seeing a new day in the streets at 

Barack Obama’s inauguration 

CLARA ROSE THORNTON/THE COMMONS 

immigrant family, breaking barriers 

through the sweat of his 

own brow and determined intelligence, 

initially by becoming 

the first black president of the 

Harvard Law Review in 1990, 

and now, of course, making history 

books again. His rise is the 

stuff of dreams, and American 

citizens see him as the man with 

a real ear to the ground who will 

look at the people’s side of crises, 

as opposed to the side of 

capital, and act accordingly. 

The ideal resonates with people, 

including unprecedented 

numbers of traditionally conservative 

voters who flocked to the 

polls. Imagine tried-and-true rural 

Vermonters (or Missourians 

or Montanans or Oregonians 

or others) who never thought 

they’d vote Democratic, let alone 

for a young black Democrat, 

enthusiastically declaring that 

“Obama is the obvious choice.” 

For a glimmer of time, race 

and ethnic disparity — the tumultuous 

foundations of this 

country — truly did not matter. 

A man with the middle 

name “Hussein” could become 

president despite the climate 

of hatred for anything 

Arabic predicated by the Bush 

administration. 

A man who had only served 

one term as senator could become 

president. A man who 

does not have both feet in trustfund 

privilege could become 

president. 

The prospect of the inauguration 

loomed large, and I decided 

to investigate. 

When attempting to arrange 

passage to Washington 

in early January, I realized that 

nearly everyone else in the 

country who’d been shocked 

with similar sentimental realizations 

on victory night had already 

made plans to attend. 

Amtrak trains from Vermont 

and surrounding areas were 

booked solid, three days before 

and two days after Jan. 20. Ten 

thousand charter buses from 

Chicago, California, Arkansas, 

Colorado, Florida, and from origins 

all over the Northeast had 

filled. 

Not a single hotel or hostel 

room was available anywhere 

near D.C., for miles into Virginia 

and Maryland. Even on Nov. 

12, a mere eight days after the 



election, the Miami Herald reported 

that most of the 90,000 

hotel rooms in the Washington 

area had been booked for the 

event. 

Upwards of 2 million people 

were to descend upon the capital 

that day; 400,000 showed up for 

Bush in 2005. 

Greyhound remained an option, 

and I was off on a 12.5-hour 

trek to the capitol to celebrate 

alongside the faithful, not knowing 

what I’d encounter. I felt 

selfishly profound, congratulating 

myself for the personally enriching 

choice to participate in 

something defining my country. 

This event distinctly outshined 

the two anti-Iraq-War marches 

on Washington I’d attended 

in 2002 and 2003, which drew 

200,000 and 500,000 citizens respectively, 

and until recently had 

been the most amazing political 

experiences of my life. 

Those events banded citizens 

together in protest, which is a 

very powerful force, though divisive. 

The inauguration of Barack 

Obama banded people together 

in common joy. To put it in perspective, 

no one paid $20,000 for 

normally free tickets from blackmarket 

brokers for the anti-Iraq 

War marches. 

I heard similar sentiments 

from friends. 

One 27-year-old white female 

remarked, “This is the first time 

I feel truly ‘American,’ in the archetypal 

sense.” A 28-year-old 

black male joked that he wasn’t 

going to the inauguration because 

it would be “the Trillion 

Man March,” referring to the 

famed Million Man March for 

African-American quality of life 

in 1995, and he couldn’t conceive 

of that many people in one 

space. 

During the ride from Vermont 

to New York City for a 

layover, I could hear people on 

their cell phones animatedly 

discussing the inauguration. 

Elderly men, each with a lone 

ancient suitcase and an Obama 

button, each looking as if this 

was the first road trip of his life, 

appeared both stoic and regal 

as they stared ahead with quiet 

determination. One man with 

a jheri curl hairstyle and 1980s 

Michael-Jackson-esque leather 

jacket, who looked like a reject 

from the “Bad” video, kept singing 

softly to himself, “Obama… 

Obama…I’m coming, Obama.” 

The energy hit a palpable buzz 

at Port Authority in New York 

City. The lines for D.C.-bound 

buses looked akin to bread 

lines in photos I’ve seen from 

the Great Depression, and bus 

companies had upped their D.C. 

schedules to every half hour. 

My smiling driver prefaced his 

departure rules-and-regulations 

speech with, “We’re going to try 

to get in on time, people. But I 

can’t predict the traffic. Everybody’s 

heading in to see some 

guy, some character…. I don’t 

know.” This met with an uproar 

of laughter, and no one had to 

speak any names. 

The next day, the 20th, hundreds 

of thousands of people 

waited in line at the National 

Mall at 4 a.m. in frigid temps 

(the high teens) prepared to 

wait eight hours for the noon 

ceremony. By 6 a.m., another 

mammoth wave of millions had 

assembled. By 10:30, the city of 

Washington had to close streets 

to pedestrians heading anywhere 

near the Capitol building, 

fearing uncontrollability of 

crowds. 

In fact, security stopped letting 

even ticketholders in, and 

several thousand people were 

turned away. This formed a bit 

of a blockage in the streets, with 

would-be urban revolutionaries 

plotting how to get closer to 

the Capitol, resulting in stories 

of hopefuls walking for hours in 

the cold and ultimately failing. 

Yet people’s spirit would 

not be diminished. As they lined 

the way to the street barricades, 

groups huddled around television 

sets and waved American 

flags. People gathered on 

building terraces and balconies, 

shouting encouragement 

to those on the street. Shoulderto-shoulder 

late arrivals surged 

against the barricades, hoping to 

catch a glimpse of fanfare. 

It seemed that every aspiring 

entrepreneur in the country 

had set up makeshift booths to 

sell Obama trinkets and memorabilia, 

spanning nail clippers to 

condoms (“the REAL stimulus 

package”). His face was plastered 

everywhere in D.C., which 

The Brattleboro Union High School Colonels play at the presidential inauguration Jan. 20. 

Tired, cold, and waiting — happily 

A view of the inauguration from the Brattleboro band 

Brattleboro 

Anyone who has 

asked those of us 

who are members of 

the Brattleboro Union High 

School band about our trip 

to play at Barack Obama’s inaugural 

in Washington D.C. 

probably knows that it was 

cold and that we waited for 

hours and hours and that we 

went to bed tired every night. 

And it’s true. It was unbelievably 

cold; without the hills 

and mountains of Vermont to 

slow the wind, we were chilled 

through our coats and uniforms 

like nothing we’d ever 

expected. 

We did wait for hours; everywhere 

we went there were 

lines of people: waiting to be 

served at restaurants, waiting 

to be admitted into museums, 

waiting to get through 

security. 

And the days in D.C. did tire 

us completely; we dozed on 

the bus as we returned to the 

hotel every day. But although 

we spent long, freezing days 

in long, freezing lines, we 

had become an Obama carnival. 

And there was not a single arrest 

that entire day. 

Beyond the first audience area 

within security limits, not much 

was visible of the actual podium. 

Jumbotron screens were set up 

down the Mall, but for the millions 

huddling together, the real 

action during the ceremony took 

place all around them. 

Women wept. Small children 

sat atop their fathers’ shoulders, 

showing expressions of 

acute understanding of magic, 

as only children can. Entire families 

stood holding hands and 

swaying. And though the action 

onstage may not have been consistently 

visible or audible, collective 

reactions certainly were. 

When George W. Bush 

stepped to the podium to pass 

the proverbial torch, a thundering 

“Boo!” erupted from the 

crowd. People sang “Na na na 

na, hey hey, goodbye!” for a 

solid minute. It was a surreal, 

Shannon D. Ward, 

who plays saxophone, wrote 

this with the collaboration of 

Riley S. Goodemote, trombone 

player. 

spent those days among people 

who had all come together 

for the same reason. 

As a band and as a nation 

we’d gathered in the millions 

to celebrate a beautiful day in 

our collective history. And in 

that spirit, we dealt with the 

weather and other millions 

of people with the highest of 

spirits. 

While we waited on Constitution 

Avenue for the parade 

to begin, we huddled together 

like emperor penguins to 

keep warm; when we waited 

in the line at Mount Vernon, 

we joked and we sang; and in 

front of the thousands of spectators 

on the parade route, 

we played and marched the 

best we could even though we 

were bone-tired. 

When people ask me what 

it felt like to be there, I always 

tell them about how my 

unifying experience — a collective 

outpouring of the country’s 

sentiments, however much in 

bad form it may have been — 

and Bush actually looked embarrassed 

and teary from the 

Jumbotron. 

I believe that was the essence 

of Obama’s day: people no longer 

felt silenced. 

Amid the amiable chaos of 

D.C. streets between the swearing-in 

ceremony and the presidential 

parade, I spoke with 

several people about what 

Obama means to them. 

A black man in his fifties from 

Jacksonville, Fla., remarked, “I 

can remember the times when 

things were not equal in any 

sense. I can remember the ‘colored’ 

drinking fountains. My 

kids can’t even fathom something 

like that. And here we 

have the brightest, most wonderful 

symbol of that change 

right here — Obama.” 

camera ran out of batteries 

on the day before the parade. 

I was upset, because no one 

had extras, and I knew that 

I would not get the chance 

to buy new ones. But then, a 

woman I had never met who 

was passing me on the sidewalk 

reached into her purse, 

pulled out two AA batteries, 

and handed them to me without 

thinking twice. 

As she stood with me on a 

planter to get a better view of 

the parade, a twentysomething 

Asian woman from New York 

City said, “Energy and environmental 

policy are the biggest 

points of concern to me. 

Obama is definitely on the right 

track with that.” This woman 

later suggested that she and 

I scream, “We ‘heart’ you Barack,” 

as he passed a few yards 

in front of us in the cavalcade. 

In front of a café teeming with 

people escaping the weather for 

a few moments, a twentysomething 

white man from Philadelphia 

mused, “He’s the best 

choice we’ve seen in a long time. 

He really does have that sense 

of being more connected to the 

common man. He’s not a rich 

idiot. Some of the things he says 

are among the most intelligent 

I’ve heard from politicians.” 

Alongside more practical and 

grounded sentiments, there 

were, of course, the purely 

LETTER HOME 

cnabbrian jackson 


The band performs for their community in Brattleboro 

Jan. 24. 

It was then that I really got 

the sense of the magic that 

was in D.C. that week. There 

were no strangers. We were 

all united. 

The memories and experiences 

that we shared there 

are ones that I will never forget. 

I am so proud of our band, 

and honored to have been a 

part of a truly historic and unforgettable 

experience. n 

emotional. 

A white Baltimore woman in 

her forties looked at me with an 

intense sincerity and responded 

to my question with, “He’s going 

to save humanity.” 

A conversation with a fortysomething 

black woman from 

Washington went as such: 

“Why is Obama important to 

you?” 

“Because I love him.” 

“Why do you love him?” 

“Because he’s Obama.” 

“Why does that make a 

difference?” 

“I am a very spiritual person, 

and I can feel that man’s spirit.” 

Perhaps the most poignant 

and representative response I received 

came from a young black 

father in his twenties with a baby 

carrier on his back. 

When I asked him, “Why is 

Obama important to you?” he 

simply pointed to his son — 

and smiled. 

n

14 VOICES The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 VOICES 15 

LETTERS FROM READERS 

Whom are you protecting 

by withholding name? 

You write: “Although The 

Commons maintains a policy 

of publishing commentary under 

a contributor’s real name, we 

make an exception here to give 

readers a glimpse of this difficult 

job and the variety of people who 

undertake it.” 

“On the night shift” [The Commons, 

Jan. 2009] is not commentary; 

it is investigative reporting. 

Who or what was protected by 

the reporter’s anonymity? 

The Commons has taken anonymity, 

which leading newspapers 

now limit strictly due to 

infamous abuses, to the opposite 

extreme, setting a precedent for 

further anonymous reporting. 

Our freedoms of speech and of 

the press entail taking personal 

responsibility for our words, 

which anonymity shirks. Credibility 

becomes an act of faith. 

How can an anonymous reporter 

be held responsible? An 

editor who claims to have taken 

care of this has arrogated power 

that belongs to citizens in a free 

society. The Commons is neither 

an arbiter nor an exemplar. It is 

just a newspaper that is held to 

the same standards of transparency 

as any other. 

Howard Fairman 

Vernon 

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Ouch 

said “ouch” when I read 

I Jim Austin’s piece [“A 

contagion on our land,” The 

Commons, January]. His 

mention of Sarah Palin thinking 

Africa was a country and 

not a continent was discredited, 

and it is widely known 

that she actually didn’t say 

that. 

That should not have been 

allowed to print. 

Sara Longsmith 

Brattleboro 

Gaza mercies 

Reading the terror of every parent in a photo 

New York 

For the past few 

days, I have been thinking 

about the short lives 

of three children I saw in a 

photo from Gaza published in 

The New York Times. In this 

picture, the three babies are 

laid out on the cold floor of a 

morgue, on what looks to be a 

plastic floor mat for a car. All 

three look peaceful, like my 

own babies looked when I used 

to tiptoe into their rooms at random 

times during the night to 

make sure they were breathing. 

On those nights, I would 

stand by the crib, marveling at 

the small person I had helped 

to bring into this world, the 

perfection of her tiny features, 

small dimpled hands, miniature 

muscles in her tiny legs -- and I 

would let myself run wild with 

all the potential of the life before 

her. 

Sometimes, standing there so 

stricken with love for my own 

child, the fear would come -- that 

frigid reality of knowing that my 

life was inextricably bound up 

in hers and that I could never 

survive in this world without 

her. As a new parent, the implications 

of such a bond were so 

overwhelming to contemplate 

that I would quickly tuck the soft 

blankets around her small back 

and retreat, finding solace in 

the mundane world of computer 

screens and washing machine 

cycles. 

The father in the photo of 

which I write is now living the 

hell of my fears. The caption 

tells us that two of those nameless 

babies were his sons, and 

the third was his nephew. Two 

men in the picture are holding 

up the anguished father as 

he collapses, wearing on his 

face the terror of every parent’s 

worst fears. 

I constantly return to 

thoughts of what that father is 

doing now, some days after the 

click of a shutter made me a voyeur 

in his personal hell. 

I wonder how he emerges 

Proposed preservation 

budget cuts shortsighted 

Governor Douglas’s 2009 

budget proposes to eliminate 

land conservation funding 

entirely. The governor proposes 

a 70-percent reduction to the Vermont 

Housing and Conservation 

Budget (VHCB) on top of a series 

of cuts over the past seven years 

that had already meant a more 

than $30 million loss. Eliminating 

VHCB conservation investments 

means a loss of about 

$5.4 million in federal funds and 

the elimination of the Farm Viability 

Program. More info is at 

www.vlt.org. 

Please contact your state 

Kathryn Casa, former managing editor of the Brattleboro 

Reformer and interim managing editor of The Commons, 

works as senior writer at the American Civil Liberties Union. She 

previously served as assistant director of development at Lebanese 

American University. To see the photo to which Casa refers, visit 

www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/world/middleeast/06scene.html. 

each morning from a new fog 

of grief; where he finds the will 

to live when, every day, fresh 

death slaps him with the sharp 

contrast of the new lives in his 

meager home just a few years 

before. 

Does he comb through those 

memories, picking at the saplings 

of his babies’ 

lives for 

some fragile bud 

to carry with him? 

How does he withstand 

the knowledge 

of their 

final days and 

hours -- the heavy 

weight of knowing 

how their 

tiny track suits 

became soaked 

with blood, why 

the smallest one’s 

head is wrapped 

with a fresh white 

bandage, so new it 

was not yet dirty, 

a marker of the 

child’s suffering 

before he died. 

Rewind that man’s life just a 

few hours or days, past the bubbles 

of those babies’ laughter, 

their new words, their bright 

eyes that morning, their small 

hands holding the flat brown 

bread of a meal no one knew 

would be their last. If those simple 

images come so readily to 

me, how they must buoy that father, 

or drown him? 

Maybe there is a blessing in 

the brevity of those babies’ time 

on this brutal planet — a limitation 

that mercifully cups the 

memories like parentheses. 

After all, that father will not 

have to bear the recollection of 

their first days of school when, 

scrubbed, combed, and dressed 

legislators and ask them to increase 

funding for open space 

protection. Vermont’s farm and 

forest land is what makes our 

state special. Land conservation 

creates jobs in logging and farming; 

reduces global warming pollution 

by causing new homes to 

be built close to existing downtowns; 

and lowers property taxes, 

according to “The Land Use — 

Property Tax Connection,” a 

study by the Vermont League of 

Cities and Towns. 

Eesha Williams 

Dummerston 

ESSAY 

The father in the photo 

of which I write is now 

living the hell of my 

fears. Two men in the 

picture are holding up 

this anguished father as 

he collapses, wearing on 

his face the terror of every 

parent’s worst fears. 

in blue uniforms, with oversized 

backpacks and lunch pails filled 

with cheese and hard-boiled 

eggs, they would have set out 

on their own individual odysseys. 

He will be spared his sons’ 

confusion as the reality of life 

in Gaza dawned on them, as innocence 

gave way to understanding, 

laughter to anger; as 

a child’s-sized world began to 

push against the boundaries of 

that small, overcrowded, lockeddown 

strip of land. 

He will avoid the embarrassment 

of telling a hopeful son that 

there is no money for a dowry 

to marry the dark-haired beauty 

that caught his eye. He will not 

have to watch his sons growing 

into idle, angry men with 

no work and no future, wondering 

about the foreign worlds of 

Jerusalem and Cairo, just a few 

hours’ drive away. 

Yes, that father had to watch 

his babies die so very young, but 

he has been spared the agony 

of watching a lifetime of their 

hopes die slowly. In that, at least, 

there is one small grace. n 

The marriage bed 

Williamsville 

My husband and I 

bought our first bed 

before we bought our 

first house, which we lived in 

for a year before we were married. 

The house was an antique 

cape, and we moved in before 

renovations were complete, 

which is how we first started 

eating dinner in bed. For about 

a month, our bedroom was the 

only place clean enough to eat, 

so we carried our dinner to bed 

and ate there. 

Shortly after our marriage, we 

had three children in quick succession. 

Exhaustion only begins 

to explain our chronic fatigue. 

Like most other young couples 

with kids, we still wanted 

to go out once in a while, to 

Putney 

As I write this on 

Martin Luther King 

Day, I am elated that a 

black American is about to be 

inaugurated as my President. 

Obama’s approval ratings have 

skyrocketed due to the appalling 

mess left behind by the 

Bush administration. That said, 

it is a testament to Americans 

that they can look past color 

and vote for the man. Martin 

Luther King Jr. would have 

been pleased that we indeed 

voted for the content of his 

character rather than the color 

of his skin. 

I hope that President Obama 

will turn his attention to another 

great injustice that is occurring 

under our government’s 

auspices. 

Our great Middle Eastern 

ally Israel has struck another 

in a series of ruthless blows 

against the people of Palestine. 

That country has methodically 

crushed the Palestinian people 

under an iron boot. 

Roadblocks make travel and 

work impossible for most Palestinians. 

Tolerance of lunatic settlers 

on Palestinian territory is 

reminiscent of our own shame 

at sending settlers onto Native 

American land and then, when 

indigenous people tried to defend 

their territory, using the 

military to slaughter them. 

The following is an excerpt 

from a speech in the British 

House of Lords by Sir Gerald 

Kaufman. 

“My parents came to Britain 

as refugees from Poland. Most 

of their families were subsequently 

murdered by the Nazis 

in the Holocaust. My grandmother 

was ill in bed when the 

Nazis came to her hometown of 

Staszow. A German soldier shot 

her dead in her bed. 

“My grandmother did not die 

to provide cover for Israeli soldiers 

murdering Palestinian 

grandmothers in Gaza. The current 

Israeli government ruthlessly 

and cynically exploit the 

continuing guilt among Gentiles 

over the slaughter of Jews 

DEBORAH 

LEE 

LUSKIN 

remember why we liked each 

other, to rediscover a little romance 

in our lives. But when we 

planned for such a night out, we 

either couldn’t find a reliable sitter 

or we were just too tired to 

go. That’s when we started dating 

in bed. 

We’d have a romp with the 

kids, give them baths, read 

books, tell stories, and sing 

them to sleep. With the three of 

them tucked in, we’d pull out a 

Deploring the Zionazis 

JIM 

AUSTIN 

in the Holocaust as justification 

for their murder of Palestinians. 

The implication is that Jewish 

lives are precious, but the lives 

of Palestinians do not count. 

“On Sky News, the spokeswoman 

for the Israeli army, Major 

Leibovich, was asked about 

the Israeli killing of, at that 

time, 800 Palestinians — the total 

is now 1,000. She replied instantly 

that “500 of them were 

militants.” 

“That was the reply of a Nazi. 

I suppose that the Jews fighting 

for their lives in the Warsaw 

ghetto could have been dismissed 

as militants. 

“However many Palestinians 

the Israelis murder in Gaza, 

they cannot solve this existential 

problem by military means. 

Whenever and however the 

fighting ends, 1.5 million Palestinians 

will remain in Gaza and 

2.5 million more on the West 

Bank. 

“These Palestinians are 

treated like dirt by the Israelis, 

with hundreds of roadblocks 

and with the ghastly denizens of 

the illegal Jewish settlements harassing 

them as well. The time 

will come, not so long from now, 

when they will outnumber the 

Jewish population in Israel. 

“It is time for our government 

to make clear to the Israeli government 

that their conduct and 

policies are unacceptable, and to 

impose a total arms ban on Israel. 

It is time for peace, but real 

peace, not the solution by conquest 

which is the Israelis’ real 

goal but which it is impossible 

for them to achieve. They are 

not simply war criminals; they 

are fools.” 

Sir Gerald is a Jew. 

Israel makes life intolerable 

for Palestinians, and when 

they fire their unguided missiles 

into Israel in a pathetic attempt 

platter of cheese and paté, uncork 

a bottle of wine, put on our 

best pajamas, and climb into 

bed. 

One memorable New Year’s 

Eve, one of our kids woke up 

sick and vomited all over our 

silk pajamas, so we changed into 

our everyday flannels. When 

she threw up on those, we were 

naked. I was glad we were home 

for our baby that night, and we’d 

been planning to take off our 

clothes anyway; we just hadn’t 

anticipated so much laundry. 

At first, it was just the two of 

us in bed, but when the babies 

came, they’d join me to nurse, 

and their dad for a burp. Once 

they could climb out of their 

cribs, they’d come to us in the 

to fight back they are invaded 

and civilians are targeted. 

Despite all the protestations 

by Israel and despite their closing 

off Gaza to international reporting 

they couldn’t stop all 

their atrocities from leaking out. 

U.N. warehouses and vocational 

schools, where refugees were 

hiding, have been hit multiple 

times. 

Homes are leveled, including 

one belonging to a Palestinian 

doctor named Ezzeldeen Abu 

al-Aish. This Hebrew-speaking, 

Israeli-trained doctor has been 

a vocal arbiter for peace. Three 

of his daughters and one of his 

nieces were killed when their 

home was blasted to rubble by 

an Israeli tank. Two other children 

were injured. There were 

no Hamas fighters in his home, 

he said. 

This kind of outrage has been 

going on for the past few weeks 

as the civilian death toll rises 

past 800, including more than 

200 children. 

We hold the purse strings 

for the Israeli government. We 

can impose our will on the country 

and its leaders by withholding 

funds. We could dictate 

reasonable terms to both sides 

in an effort to bring the killing to 

a close. 

On this Martin Luther King 

Day I don’t feel guilty about slavery 

because I have never owned 

a slave and I have never condoned 

the practice. I don’t feel 

guilty about the Holocaust because 

I wasn’t born when it occurred 

but I cried at Schindler’s 

List and felt great sorrow for the 

descendents of the murdered 

Jews. 

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your first book purchase! 

morning; we’d make one great 

big pig pile and snuggle. Even 

now, in their late teens and early 

twenties, one or the other of 

them will come in while we’re 

reading and flop down between 

us, just to talk. 

I wish I could say we’ve followed 

that good advice, never 

to let the sun set on our anger, 

but my husband and I have gone 

to bed angry. It makes for poor 

sleep. But our marriage bed 

also makes such anger hard to 

sustain as we burrow under the 

covers in our cold room. The 

comfort and reassurance of our 

mammal warmth forces us to 

drop the grudge, to start talking 

it out, even if it’s only in a 

whisper at first. As life races by, 

we hardly have enough time for 

Sir Gerald Kaufman. 

I do feel guilty that the government 

that represents me is 

complicit in the genocide that 

is taking place in Gaza. We protected 

Muslims in Bosnia in 

the ‘90s. Why can’t we do the 

same now? 

n 

Jim Austin (jim_austin@commonsnews.org) 

contributes regularly 

to The Commons. 

Full service 

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Special areas: Children's, 

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event info & book suggestions! 

sleep; we can’t afford to stay angry 

for long. 

We bought our first mattress 

set 25 years ago. We’re now on 

our third. At first, the box spring 

sat on the floor, then on a metal 

frame. Now we have a handmade 

cherry bed and one of 

those new, memory-foam mattresses. 

It’s a great place for love 

and repose. 

So for Valentine’s Day, forget 

the chocolate and roses. Just 

give me clean sheets, unplug the 

phone — and early to bed! n 

Deborah Lee Luskin (deb_ 

luskin@commonsnews.org) contributes 

regularly to The Commons. 

p Martin Rathfelder

16 VOICES The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 VOICES 17 

Saxtons River 

When Debbie 

Smith was raped 

in 1989 in Virginia, 

her attacker’s DNA went un- 

for six years. She fought 

Y 

Ytested 

for justice and quickly became 

a symbol as an advocate for 

eliminating backlogs of untested 

rape kits that provide 

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physical evidence from sexual 

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assault. The Debbie Smith Act, 

m 

Enjoy the River View from our Café 

2004 federal legislation that 

Monday–Saturday 8 a.m.–6 p.m. 

mandated funds for the Justice 

Sunday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. 

Department to eliminate such 

backlogs, was named for her. 

113 Main Street, Brattleboro Y( (802) 251-1071 

Z 

m 

Now California is in the forefront 

of a scandal as Justice Department 

funds allocated to 

states to clean up their backlogs 

are being cut in the face 

of slow responses among local 

lawmakers. 

Last year, according to a recent 

report in the Los Angeles 

Times, the Los Angeles Police 

Department was awarded half 

its expected $1 million federal 

grant money. The funds, to help 

cover the cost of analyzing DNA 

evidence in rape cases and other 

violent crimes, were cut because 

the department was too slow to 

spend the money in prior years. 

EWALD TILE AND TILEWORKS The news came as city auditors 

revealed that more than 7,000 

QUALITY CRAFTMANSHIP SINCE 1925 rape kits, the largest known 

Kitchen and Baths 

backlog in the country, still 

awaited analysis. 

Shower and Steam Rooms 

Advocates were outraged. 

Fireplace and Stove Surrounds 

Patti Giggans, executive director 

of Peace Over Violence, a 

Ceramic Stone Glass 

California advocacy group for 

LOCATED IN DOWNTOWN WESTMINSTER WEST rape victims, told her local paper, 

“The most important thing 

802 387 6661 

for rape survivors is the evidence 

that is literally taken off 

their bodies will be treated as it’s 

supposed to — to identify, locate 

and apprehend the rapists.” 

Tim Rutten, a Los Angeles 

Times columnist, said, “We now 

Celebrating 60 years of independent 

bookselling to the Brattleboro 

community. 

25 Elliot Street, 

Brattleboro 

802-254-8160 

www.everyonesbks.com 

120 Main St. • Brattleboro • 254-6810 

www.bookcellarvt.com • Open 7 days 

EVERYONE’S 

BOOKS 

for Social Justice & The Earth 

books 

tapes/cds 

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t-shirts 

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Tues: 9:30 – 6 

Wed: 9:30 – 6 

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Fri: 9:30 – 8 

Sat: 9:30 – 7 

Sun: 11 – 5 

Thousands of rape kits go 

unexamined in scandal 

ELAYNE 

CLIFT 

know that the Los Angeles Police 

Department’s crime lab is a 

virtually perfect engine of injustice.” 

Gail Abarbanel, director 

of the Rape Treatment Center 

at Santa Monica UCLA Medical 

Center, added, “Every unopened 

rape kit means there may be a 

dangerous offender loose on the 

street.” 

Human Rights Watch, 

which has been monitoring the 

issue, says that throwing money 

at the problem isn’t enough. 

“The rape kit backlog is not 

simply a crime lab capacity problem,” 

spokesperson Sarah Tofte 

says. “[Los Angeles] needs a 

plan to improve the entire process 

of investigating and prosecuting 

rape cases. That’s what 

will be meaningful to victims.” 

A comprehensive plan advocated 

by Human Rights Watch 

includes a commitment to 

prompt testing of rape kit evidence 

and to new lab positions 

being used to eliminate the 

backlog. It also includes a process 

to ensure that test results 

are turned into investigative 

leads for detectives, prosecutors, 

and other relevant law enforcement 

agents, as well as a 

commitment and process for 

notifying rape victims about the 

results of their rape-kit test. Jurisdictions 

that have tried to 

eliminate their backlogs without 

such a long-term plan have 

failed to improve their records 

on rape cases even when funds 

have been sufficient. 

As bad as the problem is in 

Los Angeles, it’s not unique. 

This year the Justice Department 

cut backlog funding to 

crime labs in 17 states for failure 

to spend their federal grants dating 

as far back as 2004. These 

cuts come as the national backlog 

soars, according to Pro- 

Publica, an online investigative 

journalism site. 

Human Rights Watch puts the 

estimated backlog of rape cases 

at 400,000. That number includes 

small jurisdictions as well 

as large ones like Los Angeles. 

In Erie County, N.Y., for example, 

the year-to-year backlog increased 

from 620 in 2006 to 920 

in 2007. 

In addition to queries about 

how crime labs are operating, 

ProPublica has questioned how 

well the Justice Department 

supervises its backlog reduction 

program. Much of the oversight 

work has been outsourced to a 

company in Florida, and at least 

$55 million of the department’s 

DNA money is unaccounted 

for, according to government 

records. 

In November, Rep. Carolyn 

Maloney (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter 

to then–Attorney General Michael 

Mukasey expressing her 

“strong concerns” about how 

the money was being spent. “It 

would be outrageous if the backlogs 

are the result of the Department 

of Justice’s negligent 

administration,” she said. 

Despite the $474 million Congress 

gave to the Justice Department 

in 2004 to help crime 

labs reduce their backlogs, it 

remains unclear why so many 

labs have not used all their grant 

money to test samples. 

Progress reports filed with 

the department early in 2008 revealed 

that 26 labs hadn’t fully 

used their 2006 DNA money. 

(One lab in Pennsylvania hadn’t 

used its entire 2004 grant.) 

Sarah Tofte says the fact that 

so many labs have been allowed 

to keep unused funds suggests 

the Justice Department is not 

adequately supervising the program. 

“The federal government 

is part of the problem,” she 

says. “There’s no accountability. 

None.” This despite the fact that 

the department paid the Florida 

company $6 million in 2007 for 

services, including oversight of 

the DNA program. 

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles 

the city council has announced 

that it will hire 16 new DNA analysts 

and will begin paying private 

labs for more testing. 

“The plan calls for the addition 

of ten criminalists every six 

months until the LAPD Crime 

Lab is fully staffed and an increase 

in funding for outsourcing,” 

a November press release 

from the mayor’s office said. 

“These two actions will allow 

LAPD to clear the backlog of 

approximately 7,000 untested 

rape kits in 30 months and to 

test DNA evidence from new 

crimes.” That’s good news for 

victims whose rape kits are approaching 

the ten year statute of 

limitations. 

Perhaps, as Sarah Tofte says, 

the time has come “to treat 

rape as seriously as other violent 

crimes.” 

n 

Elayne Clift (www.elayneclift. 

com) contributes regularly to 

The Commons. 

The 

C ommons 

An independent, nonprofit newspaper providing news and views 

for, by, and about Windham County, Vermont 

Jeff Potter, Editor and Graphic Designer 

Kristen Woetzel, Intern 

Barbara S. Evans, Vincent Panella, Dan DeWalt, Editorial Committee 

Ellen Kaye, Henry Zacchini, Advertising Sales 

Vermont Independent Media, Inc. Board of Directors, Publisher 

No good choices 

Vermont, like 43 other 

states in the union, faces a 

crushing budget shortfall. 

The legislature and the 

Douglas administration face 

an agonizing task of cutting 

hundreds of state jobs and 

dozens of essential state 

programs. 

In the months to come, 

state officials and the general 

assembly will hear from 

citizens representing needy 

populations and worthy programs. 

They will be offered 

graphic and sobering illustrations 

of why certain programs 

should be exempt from the 

budget knife. 

The trouble is, so much will 

have to be cut. So much is important 

that no matter what 

program the folks in Montpelier 

try to save, it would come 

at the expense of another worthy 

program. 

Put another way, program 

after program — each essential, 

each worthy — will suffer 

setbacks. 

We face an economy that 

is contracting at an alarming 

rate. The old argument 

of “how can we afford not to” 

Food and 

shelter 

In the middle of a very 

snowy and brutally cold winter, 

in a time when even the 

most fortunate of us re-evaluate 

the most casual spending, 

we must not forget the 

least fortunate among us — 

those who have no place to 

call home or who battle the 

pain of hunger. 

As we have done throughout 

the winter months, we offer 

this list as a resource. If 

you are hungry or need shelter, 

we hope you use it to find 

the help you need. 

And if you have time or 

funds or other resources 

to give, we hope you will 

offer what you can to help 

your neighbors who make 

it their mission to keep 

Windham County warm and 

nourished. 

We look forward to lighter 

and warmer days ahead for 

us all. 

EDITORIALS 

will be answered succinctly: 

“because we don’t have any 

money.” 

As we envision a future 

where Dr. Dynasaur arm 

wrestles rail transit afficinados 

for scarce state funds, 

we hope all people involved 

will abandon political posturing 

and instead strengthen a 

state economy that can generate 

jobs, knowing full well that 

the best arguments will be unconvincing. 

The money’s just 

not there. 

A new vision 

As we do most every 

month, we take a moment 

to consider those who have 

sacrified their lives in Iraq: 

4,553 from the U.S. military, 

according to icasualties.org, 

and 43,993 wounded. At least 

51,490 Iraqis have been killed 

since 2005. 

Today, we put politics aside 

and simply offer our deepest 

hope hope that a new administration 

can provide a path and 

a plan for peace and stability 

in the Middle East. 

This issue of The Commons is brought to you by the hard work and generosity of: 

Director of photography: David Shaw 

Comics editor: Jade Harmon 

Editorial and proofreading support: Vincent Panella, Lee Stookey, 

Bethany Knowles, Kim Noble, Nancy Crompton, Bob Rottenberg. 

Technical/logistical support: Simi Berman, Trevor Snorek‐Yates, 

Chris Wesolowski, Diana Bingham, Jim Maxwell, Bill Pearson, 

Shana Frank, Roberta Martin, Janet Schwarz, Bill Lax, Doug 

Grob, Mary Rothschild, Susan Odegard, Menda Waters, 

Richard Davis, Mamadou Sesi, Lynn Barrett. 

Puzzlemaster: Connie Evans 

Published by 

Vermont Independent Media, Inc. 

139 Main St., P.O. Box 1212 


(802) 246-NEWS 


Without the support of all our 

volunteers, this paper would still 

live only in our imaginations. 

the drawing board 

Lee Sanderson (www.leesanderson.com), a freelance cartoonist, regularly contributes to 

the Brattleboro Reformer and a number of other newspaper editorial pages throughout northern 

New England. 

COMMUNITY MEALS/FOOD SHELVES 

Location Address Phone Day & Time 

Brattleboro Drop In Center 60 South Main St., Brattleboro 802-257-5415 Monday–Friday, 8:30 

a.m.–5 p.m. 

Putney Community Suppers Hill Road, Putney 802-387-4102 Second Friday evening of 

month 

Brattleboro Senior Meals 

Gibson-Aiken Ctr., 207 Main St., 

Brattleboro 

802-257-1236 Monday–Friday, 

noon 

Immanuel Episcopal Church 

Kitchen & Drop-In Center 

SHELTER 

Location Address Phone Day & Time 

Morningside Shelter 81 Morningside Drive, Brattleboro 802-257-0066 24 hours a day 

First Baptist Church Overflow Shelter 190 Main St., Brattleboro 802-257-5415 7 p.m.–7 a.m., when 

Morningside is full 

4 Island St., Bellows Falls 802-463-3100 Monday–Friday, 

9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Community 

Supper Monday, 5 p.m. 

Agape Christian Fellowship 30 Canal St., Brattleboro 802-257-4069 Saturday, 1:30–3 p.m. 

Centre Congregational — Loaves and 

Fishes 

193 Main St., Brattleboro 802-254-4730 Tuesday and Friday, 

noon–1 p.m. (except Friday 

after Thanksgiving) 

First Baptist Church — Grace’s Kitchen 190 Main St., Brattleboro 802-254-9566 Wednesday, 5:30-6:30 p.m. 

Brigid’s Kitchen 38 Walnut St., Brattleboro 802-254-6800 Monday, Wednesday, 

Thursday, Saturday, 

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. 

Second Congregational Church UCC 2051 Main St., Londonderry 802-824-6453 Third Friday, 1–4 p.m. 

Genesis Church of the Brethren Kimball Hill Rd., Putney 802-387-5948 Wednesday, 6 p.m., Friday, 

9 a.m. 

Jamaica/Wardsboro Community Food 

Pantry 

Methodist Church, Wardsboro 802-896-6544 Last Wednesday of the 

month, 6:30-8 p.m. 

Deerfield Valley Food Pantry 11 Church St., Wilmington 802-464-9675 Third Saturday, 

10 a.m.–noon


The Commons • February 2009 THE ARTS 19 

The Arts 

Brattleboro musicians play the blues 

Scott Ainslie’s CD 

Thunder’s Mouth 

provides a gateway 

to a musical culture 

Rappers Dr. Caucasian 

and Scribe1 perform at 

the Weathervane. 

By Thomas Anderson 

Bookwalter 


BRATTLEBORO—On his latest 

CD, Thunder’s Mouth, Scott 

Ainslie combines a vast knowledge 

of musical history and culture 

with a playful and powerful 

intellect to create new musical 

approaches which he then infuses 

with soul. 

Ainslie, of Brattleboro, graduated 

magna cum laude from 

Washington and Lee University 

in Lexington, Va., with a bachelor’s 

of arts in music theory and 

composition in 1974. According 

to his Web site, “he spent his 

week days composing atonal 

chamber music and his weekends 

studying traditional fiddle 

and banjo music with old-time 

musicians up in the high country 

of West Virginia.” 

As he tunes his banjo to play “If 

Anybody Asks You About Me,” 

one of the tracks on Thunder’s 

Mouth, Ainslie remembers how 

he learned that tuning from folk 

musician Sherman Hammons. 

“A dear friend, Odell McGuire, 

carried me up there when I was 

19 years old to visit Sherman, 

who was 76. He was born in the 

mid-1890s in the high country 

in West Virginia, and he played 

in this banjo tuning, which is a 

strange tuning,” Ainslie recalls. 

“It winds up being a minor pentatonic 

tuning, which is the scale 

that comes out of Africa that 

makes blues sound like blues 

and old sprituals sound like they 

do,” Ainslie continues. “It’s the 

collision of that five-note scale 

with the seven-note scale out of 

Europe that makes American 

music what it is. It’s this powerful 

hybrid.” 

Musical mission 

Ainslie, grateful for his initiation 

into the world of African- 

American music, now has a 

musical mission of sorts. 

“It’s a great honor to have 

been allowed into a culture that 

I wasn’t born into, which is the 

African-American culture,” he 

says. “And part of my responsibility 

then is to know that somehow. 

And I have to do a lot more work 

than somebody that was born in 

it would do in order to be a carrier 

of that tradition, so I’m in the 

midst of doing that work.” 

Part of the work Ainslie is doing 

is teaching. “I do programs 

on the African roots of American 

music in schools and colleges 

and graduate schools,” he says. 

“As a guest artist lecturer, I do 

teaching concerts.” 

Ainslie has worked on the road 

about half a year. “So I’ve lived 

in Brattleboro for six years now 

but I’ve been gone for three,” he 

notes. “Can’t make a living staying 

at home.” 

But Brattleboro has been a 

good place for Scott Ainslie, who 

lives with his wife, Barb, in an 

area of town which he calls the 

“music ghetto.” In his recording 

studio there, he has collaborated 

with many local talents to create 

Thunder’s Mouth. 

West Brattleboro Cellist Eugene 

Friesen of the Paul Winter 

Consort is hailed by Ainslie 

as a “great composer, arranger 

and astonishing player.” T-Bone 

Wolk, also of Brattleboro, a former 

bassist for Hall and Oates 

and the Saturday Night Live 

house band, also contributed to 

the album. Ainslie calls Wolk a 

“sweet cat” and a “good producer, 

good bass player, good side man 

in every way.” 

The album, recorded mostly 

in Ainslie’s studio, was mixed 

and mastered by Corin Nelson 

at Imaginary Road Studios in 

Dummerston. 

Another contributor to Thunder’s 

Mouth was Sam Broussard, 

from Lafayette, La., a “great songwriter 

and an astonishing guitarist” 

who Ainslie describes as “sort 

of a cajun Richard Thompson.” 

To record Broussard, Ainslie 

went down to Louisiana. “This is 

the space age — I flew down with 

a recording studio in a gym bag: 

a laptop and a good preamp and 

a couple of mics. Sam had some 

mics, and we cut what we needed 

from him down there.” 

Ainslie actually gives the government 

some credit for the 

technology that made the remote 

recording session possible. 

“We have to thank NASA 

and goverment-funded basic reseach 

for that, because if they 

hadn’t been trying to make stuff 

small to get it up into space we 

wouldn’t have any of the technology 

that’s changed our lives 

over the last ten years. So thank 

you, NASA.” 

Traditional instruments 

Part of the tradition that Ainslie 

observes is reflected in the 

instruments he uses. 

Ainslie displays the handmade 

banjo that he played on “If Anybody 

Asks You About Me.” 

“This is a little fretless gourd 

banjo,” he explains. “The body of 

the instrument was made out of 

a gourd that was grown in a garden 

in Georgia two years ago. It 

was grown to become a banjo. It 

has a piece of skin glued on the 

side of it. 

“You just cut off the top of 

the gourd and throw the handle 

away, basically, and then glue a 

Above: Brattleboro blues 

musician and historian 

Scott Ainslie in Huntingdon, 

Penn., in 2007 with his 

1931 resonator guitar. 

Right: Ainslie’s new album, 

which features work from 

cellist Eugene Friesen and 

bassist T-Bone Wolk. 

piece of skin on it to make a drum 

and then put a fretless banjo neck 

on it,” Ainslie continues. 

“These are the American ancestors 

of an African instrument 

that we’ve just stumbled 

on. It’s been there for centuries, 

of course, if not thousands of 

years. It’s called the akonting. 

The Jola people in Ghana play 

a clawhammer version of it the 

way we play clawhammer banjo 

in the Appalachians.” 

Combining influences 

In writing “If Anybody Asks 

You About Me,” Ainslie starts 

with this traditional instrument, 

and combines influences to create 

something new. 

“I decided to try to get it to 

sound like a kora [a 21-stringed 

African instrument] to push this 

African scale into these rhythms 

that come from West Africa,” he 

says. “And, after a couple weeks, 

I came up with this and wrote 

some words to an old spiritual 

melody to see how close we 

could get these two traditions 

and how easy it would be to 

dovetail them together.” 

Scott Ainslie also combined influences 

with years of knowledge 

and technique to create “I Should 

Get Over This,” another original 

tune on Thunder’s Mouth. 

“For the last couple years I’ve 

been listening to West African 

guitar styles and trying to get 

those rhythms into my hands 

and body, figuring that that’s one 

of the source cultures and one of 

the source sounds of the blues 

that I love,” he says. 

When Ainslie had those 

rhythms down, he used them 

to breathe new life into a blues 

song he had written a while 

back which was used in a short 

film by Bill Forchion called Trial 

by Fire. 

Rachel Cybart 

“The d minor blues and the 

words — they seemed to be too 

close together,” he says. “There 

wasn’t enough contrast to make 

it interesting.” 

The contrast came in the form 

of a danceable rhythm. “So many 

of these African songs are these 

heartbreaking tunes that just 

lope along with this survival 

dance instinct to them,” Ainslie 

says. “I just really love the 

contrast.” 

Thomas Anderson Bookwalter 

hosts “Microphone On” on 

WTSA, where he interviewed 

Scott Ainslie. For more information 

about Thunder’s 

Mouth and Ainslie, visit 

www.thundersmouthcd.com. 

n Rhythm Ruckus from page 1 

from the Green Mountain State 

with all of its quaint villages, picturesque 

foliage scenes, Cabot 

cheese, and maple syrup. 

The funny thing is…they do. 

Nestled in the green hills of 

Vermont, two men, Sam Neill 

and Keith Mackler, who go only 

by “Scribe1” and “Dr. Caucasian,” 

respectively, have been 

creating a variety of hip-hop that 

they characterize as “Vermont 

homegrown.” 

As Rhythm Ruckus, Scribe1 

and Dr. Caucasian have been 

creating, polishing, and producing 

their craft for quite some time 

— approximately 12 years. 

“Since we were at least ten 

years old, we were always making 

music,” says Dr. Caucasian. 

The two group members met 

while at school in Putney, often 

collaborating on mix tapes and 

composing covers of their favorite 

songs. After much experimentation, 

Scribe1 and Dr. Caucasian 

found a common musical interest: 

rap. 

Individual styles, 

common ground 

“We each have our own styles, 

but rap is what we have in common 

the most,” says Scribe1. 

The two members each have 

his own style when creating 

rhymes. 

Dr. Caucasian’s lyrics are clear 

and fast, featuring shorter syllables 

with a staccato-quick attack. 

Scribe1’s own lyrics are still fast 

and equally intricate; however, he 

takes his time with his rhymes, 

blending syllables and creating 

a smoother delivery. The two 

styles, while sometimes opposing, 

complement each other, and 

the two trade verses in fluid, effortless 

transitions, making it 

easy to see the common ground 

upon which they work with each 

other. 

When producing music together, 

doing things “naturally” 

is paramount to making the “raw, 

gritty experimental music” that 

MSNBC’s Current Magazine refers 

to as “a re-emergence of raw, 

socially conscious hip-hop.” 

“Off of the feeling of a beat, we 

can both tell immediately how we 

want the song,” claims Scribe1. 

“It comes from making music 

together forever and it happens 

naturally.” 

That same natural style has 

earned Rhythm Ruckus some 

serious recognition as well. The 

duo has opened for rap big-leaguers 

such as Jedi Mind Tricks, Immortal 

Technique, and Ol’ Dirty 

Bastard, as well as various other 

lesser-known artists. 

The group has performed 

at many venues, including colleges 

and universities such as 

Marymount Manhattan College, 

Hampshire College, and Tufts 

University, as well as local venues 

at The Putney School, The Tinderbox, 

The Weathervane, The 

Iron Horse, and most recently, 

Latchis 4 this past September. 

Dr. Caucasian shares a secret 

to being put on the marquee for 

shows. 

“If you come in with a sick 

product and say ‘put me on,’ they 

very well might,” he says. 

Bucking the mainstream 

The group is currently signed 

under Cartoon Cartel, an independent 

label. Despite kind 

words from critics and a growing 

fan base, the group remains 

decisively independent. 

“It’s never been about getting 

accolades,” says Scribe1. “Sure, 

it’s cool to have the recognition 

by MTV and MSNBC, but it’s not 

about that. The real artists we 

look up to stay independent and 

have a larger role in their music.” 

The two intend to keep this 

ideal, not matter what degree of 

success they encounter. 

“If the mainstream latches onto 

it… it could happen,” insists Dr. 

Caucasian. “As long as we’re not 

tailoring it to anything.” 

The two also insist that the 

mainstream no longer represents 

what they consider to be quality 

hip-hop and that people need to 

seek it out for themselves. 

“The days where good hiphop 

was being handed to you 

are gone. Today, [mainstream] 

hip-hop is a ringtone on your cell 

phone. If you want anything good, 

you need to go underground.” 


point toa strong work ethic as a 

reason for their success. 

“If you wake up every morning 

and the one thing on your mind is 

making music with your friends, 

doors open,” says Scribe1. 

New album due in 2009 

Rhythm Ruckus has described 

its next album, Backyard Farmacology, 

due in 2009, as “a 

sprawling meditation on rural 

existence, confusion, rebellion, 

depravity, joy, and ruin.” 


have spent the past two years 

working on the album; both are 

very pleased with the final product 

as well as the work that has 

gone into producing it. 

“It’s such a huge volume of produced 

material,” says Dr. Caucasian. 

“It’s got some real ‘poppy’ 

stuff and some real gutter [trash] 

as well. Right now it’s all editing, 

marketing, and distribution.” 

In the future, the two plan to 

be making their music as long 

as possible. 

“It’s a part-time job with a fulltime 

work schedule,” jokes Dr. 

Caucasian. 

Whatever that “part-time job” 

produces will undoubtedly be in 

the tradition they have created. 

Vermont homegrown is back. 

But this time, it’s louder than 

ever. 

For more information, visit 

www.ruckusnet.com. 

Allison Dean 869-2137 

Frank Newton 380-4755 

Jamie Clark 365-7077 

Roni Byrne 257-0516 

Lee Brown 824-4133 

Holiday Eames 380-2591 

Oona Madden 463-1595 

Janet Lucier 365-4567 

Meg Anderson 348-7227 

Michael Granger Broker 

ARTISTIC CABIN Privately set in evergreens and minutes to skiing, 

this 4-bedroom, 3-bath log home has pretty yellow pine floors, contemporary is extremely private yet minutes to downtown. 

6.4 ACRES OF COUNTRY This sweet, 2-bedroom, Brattleboro 

pine walls, a 22’ living room with brick fireplace, bay window dining, The main living space is open and light-filled featuring pine 

a redwood hot tub in its own cathedral room, a finished walk-out flooring, skylight, cathedral ceiling, loft and sliders to large 

basement with exercise room and a den. Upstairs cathedral ceilings back deck. The lower walkout level includes a large entry foyer 

and skylights add to the sense of space and warmth. 

and a finished family room/study. It has a wonderful sunny yard. 

Exclusive. $300,000. 


COUNTRY GETAWAY In the heart of snow country on a quiet NEWFANE CAPE This 3-bedroom, 1-1/2-bath, bright cape has an 

country road, this 2,500 sq. ft. home is ready-made for winter fun. open concept floor plan, beautiful wood flooring, skylights, a 21’ 

With 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a 24’ great room, 29’ family room, a 16’ sunroom and a cheerful kitchen with slate floors. There’s also an 

loft and bunkroom, there’s plenty of space for family and friends. attached, oversized 2-car garage with good storage above. The 

The heated drive-thru garage is designed for snowmobiles and grounds couldn’t be prettier with a large yard, woods and a private 

holds up to 10 sleds. It has direct access to the VAST state trails. yet accessible setting midway between town and the mountains. 


Exclusive. $235,000.

20 The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 CALENDAR 21 

Calendar 

Friday, February 6 

ART PROJECT Kick-off for Art Fits 

Vermont. This year’s statewide community 

arts project presented by the 

Vermont Arts Council and its partners. 

With 60,000 puzzle pieces distributed 

statewide, each puzzle piece becomes 

an individual work of art that can potentially 

connect to other pieces of the 

puzzle from one end of the state to the 

other. Lasts through July 2009. The 

River Garden on Main Street will be 

Puzzle Central, with an artist reception 

and exhibit of student work from Brattleboro 

Union High School, Brattleboro 

Area Middle School, Leland and 

Gray Union Middle and High School, 

and the Grammar School in Putney. In 

addition, other area artists and community 

members will have puzzle 

pieces on display. Continuing through 

the month is the Art Fits Scavenger 

Hunt. The public is invited to match 

the business with the correct puzzle 

piece. Forms can be picked up and returned 

to the Brattleboro Museum and 

Art Center or the River Garden. Prizes 

will be awarded at the end of the month 

for three of the correct submissions. 

There’s room for many more pieces 

of puzzle art at Puzzle Central. Painting, 

sculpture, found objects, anything 

that will fit on a 15”x15” puzzle piece 

can take part. Blank wooden puzzle 

pieces are still available at Vermont 

Artisan Designs and Brattleboro Arts 

Initiative, Rm 112 at the Latchis. Information: 

Linda Whelihan, l.whelihan@ 

comcast.net. 

OPENING RECEPTION Ruth Garbus, 

Sam Phillips, and Luke Thomas. 

Two-dimensional works by three 

unique artists of Brattleboro. Opening 

will be held 5:30 - 9:30 p.m. Through 

 

 

the Music Gallery and Studio, 2 Elliot 

St, Brattleboro. 

EXHIBITION Windham Art Gallery 

Paints Door Panels for Dementia 

Unit of Vermont Veterans’ Home. 

The 25 painted panels will be on display 

at the WAG through March 1. At 

the exhibition’s end, the door panels 

will be permanently installed in the 

Dementia Unit of the VVH in Bennington. 

Participating artists are gallery 

members: Tim Allen, Jill Auerbach, 

Amy Boemig, Carolyn DiNicola- 

Fawley, Stuart Copans, Trudi Crites, 

Ralph DeAnna, Judy Hawkins, Lesley 

Heathcote, Meredith Ingersoll, Steven 

Meyer, Petria Mitchell, Carolyn Nelson, 

Scott Nelson, Marlene O’Connor, 

Matthew J. Peake, Leonard Ragouzeos, 

Marjorie Sayer, Lori Schreiner, Robin 

T. Stronk, Susie Ulfelder, Lynn Van- 

Natta and Susan Wadsworth as well as 

invited artists Jason Alden and Caryn 

King. Reception, 5-8 p.m. 69 Main St, 

Brattleboro. Gallery hours are Thursday 

through Sunday from 12-5 p.m. 

and other times by appointment. Information: 

(802) 257-1881; www.windhamartgallery.com. 

THEATER The TRUE Story of Pinocchio. 

Adapted from Carlo Collodi’s 

original 1883 Italian story. Darker 

than the popular cartoon version, Collodi’s 

Pinocchio cannot develop his 

physical humanity until he has found 

the humanity of love and kindness. 

Until then, he is, essentially, a block 

of wood. There is no Monstro the 

Whale, but there is a giant shark; no 

Jiminy Cricket, but a nagging cricket 

conscience who suffers from Pinocchio’s 

tantrums. Pinocchio remains 

one of the great stories of growing up 

and of finding that love comes with a 

responsibility to oneself and others. 

This production will use a company of 

 

 

 

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actors from age 12 and older, and an 

extensive use of shadows and silhouettes. 

Performs through Feb 15. $11.50; 

students and seniors, $9.50. 7:30 – 9:30 

p.m. New England Youth Theatre, 100 

Flat St., Brattleboro 

MUSIC High School A Cappella 

“Warm-Up” Concert. The night before 

the college kids take the stage, 

several local high school groups give 

a “warm-up” concert of their own at 

BMAC, with proceeds to benefit the In- 

Sight Photography Project. 8-10 p.m. 

Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, 10 

Vernon St, Brattleboro. 

Saturday, 

February 7 

ICE FISHING 25th Annual Harriman 

Reservoir Ice Fishing Derby. 

Sponsored By DVSC and Subaru of 

Keene. Through Feb 8. Unsafe ice 

dates: Feb 21 and 22. Many prizes, 

including YAMAHA 4WD ATV (retail 

value $5000), Gas-Powered Auger 

(retail value $250), and cash prizes 

for tagged and heaviest fishes. 50/50 

Raffle tickets available at Headquarters 

to benefit the Truman Green Scholarship 

Award. Youth Prizes and trophies 

as well. All awards will be announced 

at 4pm on Sunday! Spring Water Bait 

selling bait at Derby headquarters. 

Please read the article about restrictions 

on bait use and be sure to have your receipt 

ready. $20; $5, 14 and younger. 

Each adult derby ticket is good for one 

raffle entry. Additional tickets available 

for $5 with a valid derby ticket at headquarters. 

Time not available at press 

time. Harriman Reservoir. Information: 

(802) 464-6283. 

THEATER “Even we here...”. Abraham 

Lincoln in Brattleboro--A oneman, 

two-act play based on Lincoln’s 

own words, to celebrate the 200th 

anniversary of our 16th president’s 

birth Feb. 12. Michael Fox Kennedy, 

who has written several plays, one of 

which was produced on National Public 

Radio, assembled this play from 

Lincoln’s personal letters, recorded 

 

 

 

5 

 

 

 

 

remarks, speeches, wartime messages, 

and other sources. Thomas Griffin directed. 

Also presented on Feb 14. $10. 

7:30 p.m. Hooker-Dunham Theater 

and Gallery, 139 Main St, Brattleboro. 

Ticket Reservations and information: 

(802) 254-9276; www.hookerdunham. 

org; Michael Kennedy, (802) 579-1492, 

mfkennedy@comcast.net. 

WINTER FARMER’S MARKET Post 

Oil Solutions. Featuring farm-fresh 

produce, meats, local wine, preserves 

and baked goods, as well as a variety 

of local crafts, jewelry, lunch foods 

prepared by local chefs, and music 

provided by area musicians. EBT and 

debit cards accepted. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. 

Robert H. Gibson River Garden, 153 

Main St, Brattleboro. Information: 

www.postoilsolutions.org. 


See Feb. 6 listing for details. 

$11.50; 9.50, Students and 

seniors. 3-5 p.m. and 7:30-9:30 pm. 

New England Youth Theatre, 100 Flat 

St, Brattleboro. 

WINE AND BEER TASTING Turn to 

the Dark Side: Dark Beers for Cold 

Nights. An octet of dark beauties, from 

schwartzbiers to barleywines brewed 

in Germany, England, and the U.S. 

Sampling led by award-winning beer 

writer Tom Bedell. $20 plus tax. 4-6 

p.m. Windham Wine Gallery, 30-36 

Main St, Brattleboro. Information and 

Reservations: (802) 246-0877; www. 

windhamwines.com. 

MUSIC Sixth Annual Collegiate A 

Cappella Concert. Benefit concert 

that always sells out. All groups feature 

local high school alumni. $28, front orchestra; 

$20, rear orchestra; $14, balcony. 

7:30 - 9:30 p.m. Latchis Theatre, 

50 Main St, Brattleboro. 

Sunday, 

February 8 

WORKSHOP and CELEBRATION 

Brighid Unthaws the Winter - An 

Imbolc Gathering. Annual mid–New 

England gathering for Imbolc, the ancient 

Irish, Scottish and old Welsh 

community ceremony to mark the beginning 

of the winter thaw. Brighid, the 

feminine warmth of life energy and fire, 

moves within the earth and frees seeds 

and sap to move toward springtime 

growth. A full moon fire ceremony by 

a local waterfall led by Michael Cerulli 

Billingsley and Heather Taylor, creating 

gifts as offerings. During the day, 

learn about Brighid, hear songs and 

stories, meditate, sing, talk and move 

together. Billingsley has led research 

and ritual trips to Ireland for Working 

Pilgrimages and the Irish Spiritual 

Heritage Association at Béltaine every 

year since 2003. Taylor is a long-experienced 

practitioner of movement and 

ritual arts in southern Vermont. Snacks 

and beverages provided. Registration 

required. $15. 1 p.m. Solar Hill, 299 

Western Ave, Brattleboro. Information 

and registration: michael@irishspiritualheritage.org; 

(802) 254-3975. Details 

will be given about what to bring and 

how to prepare. 

WORKSHOP Post Oil Solutions: 

Henry Homeyer 9 x 12 Garden 

Workshop. Homeyer will introduce 

his 9 x 12 garden plan for people new 

to gardening, one that is intended to 

maximize a beginner’s success. Registration 

and payment are required; 

$5/$10 sliding scale fee (no one refused 

for lack of funds). 1-3 p.m. Brattleboro 

Savings and Loan Community Room 

(please enter from rear) 221 Main 

St, Brattleboro. Information: (802) 

869-2141. 



$11.50; Students and seniors, $9.50. 

3-5 p.m. New England Youth Theatre, 

100 Flat St, Brattleboro. 

Monday, 

February 9 

LECTURE Prevention of Memory 

Loss and Healthy Aging. Many of 

the strategies to maintain a healthy 

memory and brain function are similar 

to those of maintaining a healthy 

aging focus. At this free seminar, Dr. 

Richard Orlan will discuss the physiologic 

changes of aging briefly and 

focus on the aging brain. Dr. Orlan is 

a new physician on the BMH medical 

staff with a specialty in geriatrics – the 

practice which studies the aging process 

in humans. Dr. Orlan will offer 

short introductions to memory loss 

in general, cognitive impairment, dementia, 

and Alzheimer’s disease. Treatments 

of memory loss, including both 

traditional and non-traditional, will be 

discussed. In conclusion, a review of 

strategies for prevention will be offered 

after which an open forum will be 

available for mutual sharing. 7-9 p.m. 

17 Belmont Ave, Brattleboro Memorial 

Hospital, Brew Barry Conference 

Center, Brattleboro. Information and 

Registration: (802) 257-8877. 

Tuesday, 

February 10 

PROGRAM Local resources for 

women. Representatives from local 

agencies and services, including New 

Beginnings, the Woman’s Crisis Center 

and Making the Most of I, will be here 

to answer your questions and give you 

specifics on: support groups, employment, 

education, money management, 

medical needs, parenting, legal and 

welfare advocacy, domestic violence, 

and other related issues. Casual program 

with plenty of time for discussion 

and Q&A. This program is part 

of “Resource Central,” a monthly series 

that highlights local organizations, 

services, and advocacy programs that 

provide free assistance in the Rockingham 

community. Each month will focus 

on resources for a specific audience. 

Programs are open to and appropriate 

for individuals, families, caregivers and 

professionals. Free. 5 p.m. Rockingham 

Free Public Library, 65 Westminster St, 

Bellows Falls. Information: (802) 463- 

4270; www.rockingham.lib.vt.us. 

CLASS. “Knit Wits.” Knitters and 

crochet enthusiasts of all ages and 

abilities meet on Tuesday evenings 

for the library’s newest social knitting 

group. Bring a project and enjoy coffee 

and conversation with other knitters. 

Once each month, Knit Wits will 

offer an instructional knitting class. 

This month learn how to knit a Beginner’s 

Hat. Participants should bring 

with them approximately 200 yards 

of a worsted weight yarn (any color), 

16” circular needles (size US7 or US8), 

and a set of double-pointed needles of 

the same size. The library will provide 

the pattern and the instruction. Perfect 

for those with beginner-level knitting 

skills. Limited space available so signup 

in advance to guarantee a spot. 5 

p.m. Rockingham Free Public Library, 

65 Westminster Street, Bellows Falls. Information: 

(802) 463-4270; bfyouth@ 

sover.net. 

Wednesday, 

February 11 

CONFERENCE Celebrated homebuilder, 

developer, and author 

Fernando Pagés will make keynote 

address, “Practical Ecology: 

High-Quality, Low-Cost, Green-Built 

Homes.” Pagés will discuss how to 

build high-quality homes with less 

environmental impact and more affordable 

price tags by incorporating 

energy efficiency. Interactive learning 

about building, durability, and value, 

with workshops, an exhibit hall trade 

show, and the winning designs from 

this year’s conference design competitions. 

Features more than 50 exhibitors 

and 30 workshops. More than 

1,000 building designers and construction 

professionals are expected to attend 

from throughout the Northeast. 

Through Feb 12. Keynote address to take 

place at 8:45 a.m. Book signing to follow 

at 10 a.m. Sheraton Conference Center, 

870 Williston Rd., Burlington. Information 

and registration: www.efficiencyvermont.com/conference; 

(802) 860-4095 

x1091, sbay@veic.org; (802) 862-8261 

x2861, mray@ksvc.com. 

INFORMATION SESSION Union Institute 

and University. Earn your 

bachelor’s degree one weekend a 

month. 5-7 p.m. Union Institute and 

University Brattleboro Academic Center, 

3 University Way, Suite 3, Brattleboro. 

Information: (802) 236-9411 x8902. 

Thursday, 

February 12 

LECTURE Anne Monahan slide-lecture 

on Chuck Close’s self-portrait/ 

scribble/etching portfolio. Since the 

late 1960s, Chuck Close has focused 

exclusively on translating the information 

in photographic portraits to paintings, 

drawings, and prints, and other 

media. His self-portrait/scribble/etching 

portfolios document the incremental 

steps required to achieve his goals. 

This talk by Marlboro College Visiting 

Professor of Art History Anne Monahan 

focuses on how Close’s attention 

to the laborious processes of making 

art—as evident in these etchings, in 

particular—informs his oeuvre. 6 - 8:30 

p.m. Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, 

10 Vernon St, Brattleboro. 






Friday, 

February 13 

POTLUCK Artists and friends. The 

second Friday of each month offers 

a forum for artists and friends to get 

together in an unstructured, informal 

setting to talk and eat! Learn about 

what your colleagues are up to and 

share your own ideas. Bring a main 

dish; drinks, desserts, and a setting 

supplied. 6–8:30 p.m. Brattleboro Museum 

and Art Center, 10 Vernon St., 

Brattleboro. 



$11.50; Students and Seniors, $9.50. 

7:30 – 9:30 p.m. New England Youth 

Theatre, 100 Flat St., Brattleboro. 

PERFORMANCE The Love Show: A 

Circus and Vaudeville Exploration 

of Silly and Serious Relationships. 

The Nimble Arts’ presentation of its 

internationally renowned theatrical 

circus show. A family-friendly combination 

of aerial, acrobatic and fire juggling 

performance by entertainers who 

have toured with top circuses, including 

Cirque du Soleil, Ringling Bros. 

and Barnum and Bailey, and the Pickle 

Family Circus. $15; $12, children 

under 12; free for under 2. 8-10 p.m. 

New England Center for Circus Arts 

76 Cotton Mill Hill, #300, 

Brattleboro. 

Saturday, 

February 14 

MUSIC Kevin Parry plays Apres Ski 

music. Free. 4-7 p.m. West Dover Inn, 

Route 100, West Dover. Information: 

(802) 464-5207. 

MUSIC George Crowley and Kevin 

Parry. An evening of love songs 

for Valentine’s Day. Free. 7:30 -11 

p.m. Adagio Trattoria, 132 Main St, 

Brattleboro. Information: (802) 254- 

6046. 

COMPETITION 85th Harris Hill Ski 

Jumping Competition starts at noon 

each day. See top ski jumpers from the 

U.S. and Europe compete at the grand 

re-opening of the 85th Harris Hill Ski 

Jumping Competition on a brand new 

rebuilt 90-meter jump. Olympic sport 

referred to as “The Original Extreme 

Sport”, spectators can watch the jumpers 

up close as they launch from the 

top of the jump and take off and soar 

more than 300 feet at speeds of 60 mph 

before they land. Food, music, and 

drink. Two-day event. 12 p.m. Harris 

Hill, Cedar Street off Route 30, Exit 2 

off I-91, Brattleboro. 


See Feb.6 listing for details. 


3–5 p.m. and 7:30 – 9:30 pm. New 

England Youth Theatre, 100 Flat St., 

Brattleboro. 

THEATER “Even we here...”. See 

Feb. 7 listing for details. $10. 7:30 p.m. 

Hooker-Dunham Theater and Gallery, 

139 Main St, Brattleboro. Ticket Reservations 

and information: (802) 254- 

9276; www.hookerdunham.org; Michael 

Kennedy, (802) 579-1492, mfkennedy@ 

comcast.net. 

LIVE PERFORMANCE “Be Our Valentine.” 

Classic regional cuisine and 

the classic jazz stylings of vocalist Leah 

Randazzo and pianist Jeff D’Antona. 

Leah, 24, has appeared at New York 

City’s famed Blue Note Café. Jeff 

D’Antona, 25, is a gifted pianist, composer 

and arranger from Amherst. 

They will perform the best of the 

Great American Songbook.. The Putney 

Inn, Putney. Information and Reservations: 

Randi Ziter, randi@putneyinn. 

com; Steve Jones, sales@putneyinn. 

com, (800) 653-5517; www.putneyinn.com; 

(802) 387-5517. Information 

on musicians: http://profile.myspace. 

com/jeffdantona; www.myspace.com/ 

leahrandazzogroup. 

BENEFIT Giving From The Heart 

Gala. Your support of this Valentine’s 

Day event will support the work of the 

BMH Comprehensive Breast Care 

Program, designed to help patients 

navigate their way through the process 

of breast cancer diagnosis, when 

necessary coordinate treatment of the 

disease, and assure quality of the care 

provided. Enjoy food from the Vermont 

Country Deli; dance to the sounds of 

Samirah Evans and Company. 6:30 p.m. 

Riverside Hotel, 20 Riverside Dr, West 

Chesterfield, NH. Information: Brattleboro 

Memorial Hospital Development 

Office, (802) 257-8314. 

Sunday, 

February 15 

WORKSHOP Post Oil Solutions 

Garden Mapping Workshop #2. Intended 

for the intermediate gardener, 

who has been doing some gardening 

in the past, and would like assistance in 

planning this season’s garden. Participants 

are advised to come with ideas of 

what they would like to grow and, on 

the basis of these, will receive advice 

on such matters as spacing, soil content 

and preparation, complimentary 

plants, raised beds vs. rows, sun and 

shade needs of different vegetables, as 

well as other concerns. Robert King, 

Post Oil Solutions garden consultant, 

will lead this workshop. Light refreshments 

will be available. Space is limited. 

$5/$10, with no one refused. Pre-registration 

and payment required. 1-3 p.m. 

Brattleboro Savings and Loan community 

room (please enter from the rear), 

221 Main St, Brattleboro. Information: 

(802) 869-2141. 






MUSIC Pianist Anna Polonsky made 

her solo piano debut at the age of seven 

at the Special Central Music School in 

Moscow, Russia. After immigrating to 

the United States in 1990, she studied 

with Peter Serkin at the Curtis Institute, 

and earned her Master’s Degree 

from the Juilliard School. In the spring 

of 2007, she performed a Carnegie Hall 

solo recital inaugurating the Emerson 

Quartet’s Perspectives Series. $30, 

$20, $10. 4-6 p.m. Centre Congregational 

Church, Main St, Brattleboro. Information 

and Tickets: The Brattleboro 

Music Center, (802) 257-4523; www. 

brattleborotix.org; www.bmcvt.org. 

WORKSHOP Sequencing is an approach 

to painting developed by Ric 

Campman at the River Gallery School. 

The intent is to keep the connection 

between the eye, the hand and the 

painting as direct and non-intellectual 

as possible. This workshop is recommended 

for both novice and experienced 

art-makers. Lydia Thomson is 

an artist and teacher at River Gallery 

School. Ask about scholarship opportunities. 

$65. 12 - 3:30 p.m. River Gallery 

School, 32 Main St, Brattleboro. Information: 

(802) 257-1577; rgsart@sover. 

net; www.rivergalleryschool.org. 

Monday, 

February 16 

FORUM Sexuality in Youth – A Forum 

for Parents offers parents an opportunity 

to become more comfortable 

educating their children and teenagers 

about sexuality. Dr. Tasha Farrar, 

outpatient psychiatrist and medical 

director of outpatient services at the 

Brattleboro Retreat, will offer information 

about sexual development and 

discuss approaches to talking to your 

kids about sexuality: body image, puberty, 

gender identity, relationships, 

and sexual health and reproductive issues. 

Questions and varying perspectives 

welcomed. Adults only, please. 

Free. 7-9 p.m. Brattleboro Memorial 

Hospital, Brew Barry Conference Center, 

17 Belmont Ave., Brattleboro. Information 

and reservations (requested): 

(802) 257-8877. 

TELECONFERENCE Irvin Yalom. Acclaimed 

psychiatrist Dr. Irvin Yalom, 

Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at 

Stanford University School of Medicine 

is offering a teleconference with 

Putney Family Services. Break-out 

Groups: Anxiety, God, Religion, Death; 

Anxiety as a Confrontation with Existential 

Loneliness; Dr. Yalom’s Contributions; 

The Therapist, the Client, the 

Relationship; Core Existential Issues 

for Clients, Helpers. This event is a 

fundraiser for Putney Family Services. 

8 a.m.–4 p.m. Vermont Agricultural 

Business Education Center, 8 University 

Way, Brattleboro. Information and 

registration: www.vabec.com. 

DANCE Luminz Dance Theater Debut 

At NEYT. The performance opens 

with an original work inspired by the 

myth of Orpheus, danced by the entire 

thirteen-member company with choreography 

by Aurora Corsano, live music 

by Todd Roach and Derrik Jordan, 

voice by Molly Melloan. Also presenting 

a new work choreographed by Meg 

Van Dyck for six company members 

with music by the Jones Trio. Dances 

also by Leah Mutz, Christie Clovis, 

and Cyndal Ellis, involving jazz, tribal 

fusion, etc. Friday night’s gala will include 

a food and drink reception following 

the show with an opportunity 

to meet and talk with the company 

members. $25 for the gala performance. 

$12; $8, kids; for the matinee and premier 

performances. 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. 

Performances also on Feb 21 at 2 p.m. 

and 7:30 p.m. New England Youth Theatre, 

100 Flat St, Brattleboro. Information: 

Special arrangements are offered 

and encouraged for students by contacting 

LDT. Purchase tickets in advance 

at Brattleboro Books, Verde, online at 

www.luminzstudio.com or call (802) 

254 - 9200. 

MUSEUM BMAC After Hours. Drop 

by the Museum and check out the exhibits, 

edibles, and live entertainment. 

8-11 p.m. Brattleboro Museum and Art 

Center, 10 Vernon St, Brattleboro. 

Saturday, 

February 21 

DANCE Luminz Dance Theater Debut 

At NEYT. See Feb 20 listing for details. 

$12; $8, kids. 2-4 p.m. and 7:30 

– 9:30 p.m. New England Youth Theatre, 

100 Flat St, Brattleboro. Information: 

Special arrangements are offered 

and encouraged for students by contacting 

LDT. Purchase tickets in advance 

at Brattleboro Books, Verde, online at 

www.luminzstudio.com or call (802) 

254 - 9200. 

WINTER FARMER’S MARKET Post 

Oil Solutions. Featuring farm-fresh 

produce, meats, local wine, preserves 

and baked goods, as well as a variety 

of local crafts, jewelry, lunch foods prepared 

by local chefs, and music provided 

by area musicians. EBT and debit 

cards accepted. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Robert 

H. Gibson River Garden, 153 Main St, 

Brattleboro. Information: www.postoilsolutions.org. 

FORUM “Food Justice: The Connection 

between Racism and the Food 

System.” Members of Post Oil Solutions 

Food Security Project will explore 

the concept of Food Justice. Through 

a mixture of discussion and activities, 

we will bring key concepts and ideas to 

light, connect these to our own experiences 

and to the local area, as well as 

develop ways in which we can all work 

together towards developing a just food 

system. Light refreshments will be available. 

Free. 7-9 p.m. Rm 2 East, Marlboro 

College Grad Center, 28 Vernon St, 

Brattleboro. Information: (802) 869- 

2141; www.postoilsolutions.org. 

Sunday, 

February 22 

WORKSHOP Post Oil Solutions 9 x 

12 Garden Workshop (II). Post Oil’s 

gardening expert, Robert King, will offer 

this second workshop on the 9 x 12 

garden, for those who missed the earlier 

one. Based on Henry Homeyer’s inspiration 

for people new to gardening, 

the 9 x 12 garden is intended to maximize 

a beginner’s success. $5/$10 sliding 

scale fee (no one refused for lack of 

funds). Pre-registration and payment 

required. 1-3 p.m. Brattleboro Savings 

and Loan community room (please enter 

from the rear) 221 Main St, Brattleboro. 

Information: (802) 869-2141. 

Monday, 

February 23 

WORKSHOP Mothering Preschoolers: 

Feeling Overwhelmed? Presented 

by Elizabeth M. Wilkins-McKee 

and Laura Kelloway, both licensed 

social workers from the Brattleboro 

Retreat. In today’s culture, women 

are attempting to balance many roles 

such as parent, partner, family member, 

friend, professional, workforce 

and community member. Such a juggling 

act often encompasses unrealistic 

and unattainable goals, with women’s 

health and self-care often taking a compromised 

position. This presentation 

will focus on the phase of a woman’s 

life where parenting is a primary focus, 

exploring the idea and wisdom inherent 

in a “good enough” perspective. 

Data regarding what children require 

CORRECTION 


In the January issue, we misidentified a photograph of 

Karen Hesse, a writer of books for young readers, and 

published it with a story that had nothing to do with a 

profile of Hesse elsewhere in the issue. The Commons 

regrets the error. 

for healthy development, what is really 

“good enough,” and useful self-care 

coping strategies to manage the natural 

ups and downs of family life will be explored. 

Free. 7-9 p.m. 17 Belmont Ave, 

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, Brew 

Barry Conference Center. Information 

and Registration: (802) 257-8877. 

Wednesday, 

February 25 

CLASS Safe Sitter Babysitting 

Class. Presented by Department of 

Community Health and Hospital Education. 

Safe Sitter classes have helped 

thousands of adolescents across the 

country to learn basic lifesaving and 

safety techniques. BMH is offering the 

Safe Sitter course for boys and girls, 

ages 11 to 13. These classes will help 

young people become more confident 

caregivers and acquire important life 

skills. Class size is limited to 8 students. 

$45. 9 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. 17 Belmont Ave, 

Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, Brew 

Barry Conference Center. Information: 

(802) 257-8325. 

Friday, 

February 27 

DOMINO EXHIBIT Domino Toppling 

II: Brattleboogaloo. The Super 

Perrucci Bros. are back. Expect 

thousands more homemade dominoes, 

brand new stunts, and 100% 

unobstructed views. Correctly guess 

how many dominoes are set up and 

you could start the entire chain reaction! 

5:30 – 7 p.m. Brattleboro Museum 

and Art Center, 10 Vernon St, 

Brattleboro. 

Think Outside The Bank 

Can I join the 

Credit Union? 

All you have to do is live or work 

in Windham, Windsor, Sullivan 

or Cheshire counties to join. 

The Credit Union you 

stick with...for life! 

Yes 

Springfield • Putney • Townshend • Bellows Falls • Brattleboro 

254-4800 • Toll Free: (800)-728-5871 • www.rivercu.com • Member N.C.U.A. 

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22 The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 COMICS 23 

FREE 

Classifieds 

COMMUNITY 

Send your ad to 

classifieds@commonsnews.org 

SpInnInG WORLd By Colin Tedford dRIFTWOOd By Morgan Pielli 

Help wanted 

NEwspaper delivery volunteers: 

The Commons seeks kind, hearty souls 

willing to drop newspapers at places 

in your Windham County town; 

commitment is once a month, an 

hour or less, depending on number of 

sites. Please contact Betsy at info@ 

commonsnews.org, or call 246-6397 

for details. 

For sale 

Vintage wooden doors, mostly 

4-panel; vintage knobs & hinges available. 

Pella insulated sliding glass door in 74” 

x 83” frame; includes stationary door 

& sliding screen; insulated Andersen 

picture window 38.5” x 51.5”; old 

wooden shutters. No reasonable offers 

refused. jboard@svcable.net. 

Plow truck. 1996 Dodge Ram Heavy 

half ton. 8 foot minute mount plow. 

Studded snow tires. New transmission. 

Low miles. Needs minor work. $2800 

obo. call 387-4347 (work) and leave 

message. 

Drawer tracks: 8 pairs Grant 30” 

full extension, 50 Lb. load capacity- 

$15. a pr. 7 pairs Accuride 22” full 

extension, 100 Lb. load capacity- $10 

a pr. Still in their original boxes. Call 

802-464-3260. 

STAY HEALTHY: with local,organic 

herbal medicine. Buy directly from 

local herbalist and save.$6 per ounce. 

Custom formulas also available Amy 

802-579-9511. 

Sign up now and get fresh, local 

veggies, May - Nov. New Leaf CSA. 

Five minutes from exit 3 in Brattleboro. 

(802) 254-2531 www.geocities.com/ 

newleafcsa. 

4 rims/tires R185/80 R14 Off 1991 

Volvo good tread $80 802-258-4841 

TOO MANY TOMATOES? Never! 

Charming short story includes fabulous 

recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce. 

Send $2 plus stamped, self-addressed 

envelope to: Colleen’s Collectible 

Recipes, 23 South Main St., #111, 

Brattleboro, VT 05301. 

Hospital bed in good working 

condition. Need the space. $65.00 

Contact: 802-254-6819. 

Toyota Pick-up Truck V6 with 

Extra Cab, 1995, 4 wheel drive, ladder 

rack, 4 extra studded snow tires, new 

clutch, ball joints, rear end, recent 

shocks and radiator. asking $4995 

obo. please call 802-387-4347 leave 

message. 

Futon Mattress, new. 36” X 70” 

White cotton cover. $45. Call Joan at 

254-1246. 

1968 12” Japanese Geisha doll 

for sale. In perfect condition, kept in 

storage in original plastic case since it 

was given to me as a gift. I can email a 

photo if interested. $150. Call Paula 

at 464-5179 or email pj.sage@yahoo. 

com. 

garrett metal detector. Model 

ACO 250. Six months old, used three 

times. Paid $350; $200 or best offer. 

Chet, 254-8638. 

Local organic, pasture-raised 

chicken and pork. Call Elizabeth at 

254-2531 

FOR RENT 

SHARE A COTTAGE in Marlboro 

with one other person (neat, healthoriented). 

One or two rooms of your 

own ($300-$450). Includes heat and 

electricity. Lovely surroundings with 

large yard and fields, woods, trails. Call 

254-2406. Available 12/22/08. 

PUZZLE solution 

FOR RENT 

COME FARM OUR LAND: Want to 

farm or homestead but don’t have 

land? We have a small homestead on 

a lot of land 12 miles from Brattleboro 

and would like to collaborate with you. 

Rolling landscape with potential for 

vegetables, pasture, sugaring, and/or 

other enterprises. Contact Small Hands 

Farm, P.O. Box 6183, Brattleboro, VT 

05302, or tdr3k@yahoo.com. 

Room in farmhousE at working farm 

in Guilford. Rent includes all utilities and 

wi-fi, two shared kitchens, two baths, 

garden space, too much to list. Porches, 

hammock, cows and forest. Miles of 

hiking trails, heavenly setting and laidback 

atmosphere. No pets. vttimber@ 

sover.net for details. $475/mo. 

HOUSE FOR RENT — PUTNEY: New 

2 bedroom, 1½ baths single home 

with large living room, many windows 

throughout, garage with storage space, 

and a five-star energy-efficiency rating. 

Minimum one-year lease. Part of Putney 

Commons, a six-home community, 

located off Main Street, Putney. $1,300/ 

month plus heat and electricity. Joan 

Benneyan, 254-1246. 

Are you a single mother looking 

to get a start in the right 

direction? The Life Skills Program 

helps stabilize and provide you with the 

opportunity to maintain a successful and 

independent life. The program helps 

you focus on education, employment, 

parenting, and housing to change the 

lives of you and your children. There are 

vacancies in our beautifully renovated 

Life Skills Program House. The program 

includes a two-bedroom apartment for 

$416 a month, including heat, hot water, 

rubbish removal, and snow removal, 

laundry facilities, limited off-street 

parking, and a fenced-in play yard for 

children. For further information, please 

contact Lucy Tell, program coordinator, 

254-4604, ext. 115 

FOR KIDS 

Music Together — music and 

movement classes. Ages birth – 4 

years. Rhythmic games, chants, tonal 

exploration, vocal play, instrument play, 

large and small movement activities, 

with special jam session each week. 

Help your child grow musically in these 

opportune years! Demo a free class 

anytime. Info: (802) 275-7478. 

STORYTIME For toddlers and preschool 

age. Moore Free Library, 23 West 

Street, Newfane. Thursdays, 10:30 a.m. 

Information: (802) 365-7369. 

FREE 

Two Yorkshire TerriEr puppies 

re homing: ACK home raised vaccine 

and health guarantee. If interested 

kindly contact me on revtonybrown@ 

gmail.com. 

INSTRUCTION 

PIANO LESSONS: Also acoustic guitar 

and 5-string banjo lessons. Adults and 

children; beginning and intermediate. 

Taught in the West Dummerston 

Community Center. Please call to 

arrange for one free trial lesson. 802- 

258-2454. 

DRUM LESSONS available: focusing 

on correct posture, rudiments, 

rhythmic structure, tuning, and most 

importantly — having fun! All levels and 

styles. For more info Benjamin Carr, 

802.258.2671. 

The following is a list of fairly common words using these letters. 

There are additional words that meet the rules but are more obscure 

or technical. 

detection, noticed, enticed, dinette, codeine, tinted, tented, notice, 

netted, entice, encode, docent, detent, detect, denote, decent, 

deceit, coined, coedit, toted, toned, tined, tenet, octet, noted, niece, 

edict, donee, deice (de-ice), coned, cited, tote, tone, toed, tine, tied, 

tide, tent, tend, teen, teed, once, note, node, nice, need, iced, edit, 

dote, done, dine, diet, dice, dent, dene, deet, deco, cote, cone, coed, 

code, cite, cine, cent, cede. 

INSTRUCTION 

BREAK THROUGH ACTION BLOCKS: 

Get out of stuck patterns; discover a 

new way to deal with the challenges 

of relationship through Experiential 

Focusing. Special offer: Series of 

three guided sessions at $40/session. 

Facilitated by a Focusing trainer certified 

in 1998 by The Focusing Institute in 

New York. Call 802-257-3099 or e-mail 

genovefa@sover.net. 

Drum LessoNs for All Ages: Teacher 

with over 25 years of experience 

now accepting new students. Learn 

rock, latin and jazz in a fun, relaxed 

environment. Will teach at my home 

or yours. First lesson is free! Call Henry 

@ 257-4185. 

Kripalu YogaDance (KYD) 

returns to Brattleboro! Fridays 

at 10:30 am, 1/9-2/13/09. Register at the 

Gibson-Aiken Center. 6 week Session 

$50; Drop-in $12; Non-Resident 

fees apply. For more info, contact the 

Brat. Rec. Dept at 254-5808 or www. 

brattleboro.org.Kelly Salasin at 254- 

7724, kel@sover.net, www.kellysalasin. 

blogspot.com. 

The Third Road with Kelly 

Salasin. Utilizing the coaching 

approach to empower individuals, 

families & businesses. Rates $125-175 for 

a three-step package or $75 for a onetime 

session. Call for a complimentary 

consultation 802-254-7724 kel@sover. 

net. 

Day-Long Writing Retreat with 

Deborah Lee Luskin. Sunday, February 

15, from 10 am to 3 pm. Join eight 

others for a day of intensive writing 

in a supportive atmosphere. Deborah 

Lee Luskin has been teaching writing 

for more than twenty years to students 

as varied as Ivy League Freshmen to 

convicted criminals in prison. In addition 

to teaching, Luskin has many writing 

credits to her name, most recently 

in Dartmouth Medicine Magazine, the 

Rutland Herald environmental page, 

The Commons and Vermont Public 

Radio. Cost: $50. To sign up or for 

more information: deborahleeluskin@ 

yahoo.com 

REAL ESTATE 

SPECIAL HOUSE at 42 North St., 

Brattleboro. Part 1800, part 1900. 

Totally reconstructed/renovated in 

1985. 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths (one 

of each on first floor). 2 living rooms, 

dining room, study and nice kitchen. A 

one-bedroom apartment comes with 

marvelous tenant. New, efficient boiler 

and W/D. Spacious two-car garage 

with skylighted attic. 3 porches -- one 

screened -- and a deck. Immaculately 

maintained. Large fenced rear yard, nice 

neighborhood and neighbors. $495,000. 

Lee or Byron Stookey, 257-4691 day 

or evening. 

resources 

Northern New England Poison 

Center is available 24 hours a day, 

7 days a week at 1-800-222-1222 to 

answer poison prevention questions or 

poison emergency questions. 

services 

AVAILABLE TO CARE for pets, children, 

elderly. Days, overnight, weekends. 

All requests considered. Mature, 

experienced. References. 802-463-2132. 

Please leave message for Mirror. 

MATH TUTOR: Algebra, geometry, 

middle school, college lessons for 

homeschoolers and students who need 

support. Experienced, compassionate 

teacher. Reasonable rates, flexible times. 

Info: Shana Frank, 802-722-4359. 

Are You Hungry?: Let me make 

your workshop, seminar, camp or 

retreat a delicious one! On-site catering 

for groups large and small. I cook a 

wide array of diverse and delectable 

whole foods, using fresh local produce 

whenever possible. Experienced in 

meeting a wide range of dietary needs 

and making the most of your budget, I 

will work with you to meet the unique 

needs of your group. Glowing references 

available on request. Contact me via 

email, at daliashevin@hotmail.com. 

Environmentally friendly house 

and business cleaning. Bellows Falls, 

Westminster West, Saxtons River, 

Putney, Brattleboro. Contact Emily 

Boslun (802) 463- 3111 

PAINTING: interior/exterior, 

restorations and revitalizing, best price, 

reliable, Miles Levesque, 802-869-4222, 

Rockingham/Walpole area. 

Stud For Hire: AKC Registered - 

Yellow Labrador - OFA - Woodys 

Haven Kennels. 254-2455. 

FULL SERVICE TREE CARE: Call All 

Seasons Tree Service at 802-722-3008 

for free estimates for tree removals, 

pruning and a full range of tree care 

service. 30 years of experience. 

MAGICAL ENTERTAINMENT: The Great 

Scot, Bardic Magician, will make your party, 

festival, organization or special occasion 

unique and fun. Will travel, testimonials 

available. Info: 802-463-1954, greatscot@ 

greatscotmagic.com, www.greatscotmagic. 

com. 

RENAISSANCE artist: veda Crewe 

Joseph, calligraphy, illumination, 

illustration, graphic artist, historical 

costumes, custom sewing and design. 

Samples, pictures, testimonials available. 

Info: 802-463-2054, veda@renaissanceartist.com, 

www.renaissance-artist. 

com. 

Tarot Card and Astrology 

Readings for women. The readings 

promote increased clarity, selfawareness, 

and empowerment and 

offer positive, practical advice. $30 for a 

20-minute reading. Phone consultations 

available MC/VISA. www.ameliashea. 

com 603-924-0056. 

Wellness Consultations — 

healing through the use of foods, herbal 

remedies, nutritional supplements and 

lifestyle approaches to improve energy, 

restful sleep and overall health while 

reducing pain and chronic dis-ease. 

For more information or to schedule 

an appointment, please visit www. 

wisdomofhealing.com or call Cindy at 

(603) 997-2222. 

CALLIGRAPHY — Yes, there are 

thousands of computer-generated fonts 

and logos, but nothing compares with the 

unique and timeless beauty, the artistic 

symmetry achieved through handrendered, 

custom calligraphy. Anything 

from invitations, announcements, and 

stationery to ads, flyers, and posters: 

give them that personal touch at 

reasonable rates. (802) 275-7572 for 

info or to make an appointment, and 

ask for Colleen. 

APPLE COMPUTER TUTOR: A l l 

things Macintosh/applications and 

troubleshooting. Patient educator. 

Sliding scale — you decide hourly rate. 

John @ 802-3800-2663. 

USE YOUR WORDS 

Use the letters in the grid to make as many words as you can. 

Each word must be at least four letters long and must contain 

the center letter — in this case E. You cannot use proper 

nouns, foreign words or plural words. You can use past tense 

words. Can you find the 9-letter word? 

Score: Excellent,. Can 45 you +. find Good, the 9-letter 35–44. word? Average: 25–34. Build 

Your Vocabulary: < 25. —Connie Evans 

Use the letters in the grid to make as many words as you can. Each word must be at least 

4 letters long and must contain the center letter -- in this case E. You cannot use proper 

nouns, foreign words or plural words. You can use past tense words. 

Excellent 45 + Good 35 Average 25 Build Your Vocabulary < 15 

services 

O N C 

T E I 

D T E 

services 

CHAIR CANING (WEAVING) SERVICE. 

Restore your woven furniture to its 

original beauty and durability! All 

projects and patterns considered. 

Seat, Canoe and Chair-back reweaving 

available with traditional hand cane, 

prefabricated cane, woven rush, and 

splint. Pick-up and delivery possible 

in the greater Brattleboro area. Email 

Juniper.vt@gmail.com with the type 

and size of your project and I will get 

back to you promptly with pricing and 

a time-frame. 

volunteers needed 

Volunteers needed for store help 

and weekly recycling runs (must have 

pick-up and be physically strong) at 

Experienced Goods Thrift Shop for 

Brattleboro Area Hospice. Hours: 

Monday - Thursday & Saturday 10-5, 

Fridays 10-7. Donations Monday- 

Saturday; no donations on Wednesdays. 

Contact Dana at 254-5200 x105. 

WANTED 

WANTED: African drummers interested 

in collaborating with me to hold a 

Sanskrit chanting class. The yoga of 

devotion. Please call Amy at 579-9511 

to discuss possibilities.Namaste. 

35MM Cameras: If you have come 

to rely on your digital camera and 

don’t know what to do with your 

perfectly good 35mm, The In-Sight 

Photography Project would love to have 

it. Insight teaches kids new perspectives 

through the lens of a camera, teaching 

communication skills and building selfesteem. 

Visit www.insight-photography. 

org, then contact Program Director Eric 

Maxen, In-Sight Photography Project, 

Inc., 45 Flat Street Suite 1, Brattleboro 

VT 05301. 

Antique / Vintage Bicycles. 

Single speed. Schwinn, Elgin, Dayton, 

Colson, etc. 1890’s thru 1950’s Balloon 

Tire Bikes. Any condition. Make room 

in your barn or basement. Top dollar 

paid!!! Please Call J.C. or Jackie 802- 

365-4297. 

Old guitars, amps, mandolins, 

basses, hi-fi stuff wanted. Also looking 

for tube powered hifi equipment. Call 

802-257-5835. 

HOST FAMILIES SOUGHT FOR 

EXCHANGE STUDENTS: Open your 

home and heart to a teenager from 

another country and expand your 

family’s horizons. Students share 

household responsibilities and have 

spending money and medical insurance. 

Single parents, families with young 

children, and empty-nesters encouraged. 

For more info email annN@pax.org or 

call 802-257-4710. 

mImI’S dOnuTS 

nORTHmInSTER nORTH 

BuTTERCup FESTIVAL 

www.colintedford.com 

By Marek Bennett 

www.marekbennett.com 

By Jade Harmon 

jadecrystal.livejournal.com 

By David Troupes 

www.buttercupfestival.com 

VERmOnT CHEddAR 

By Silvio Graci 

vtcheddar@gmail.com

24 The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • A 

PAID advertisement 

The Brattleboro Food Co-op’s 

OF 

THE 

Stonewood Farm Orwell, Vermont 

Meet the folks from 

Stonewood Farm 

at the Co-op on 

Saturday, February 14 

10–2 pm 

The beauty of raising natural specialty poultry, 

for Paul and his family, is being directly 

compensated for quality and labor by the 

relationships they develop with their customers. 

Below, the Stone family, starting with back row: Peter, Sean, Paul, 

Matthew, Sarah, Jesse, Daniel, middle row: Siegrid, Nancy, Frances, 

Emily, front row: Chloe, Nathan, Michael, Patrick, Moira. 

There is nothing more quintessentially American than succulent roast turkey. Probably more space has 

been devoted to recipes to make sure it’s delicious and juicy for the holidays than any other roast meat but 

really the most essential ingredient to the perfect moist and flavorful roast turkey is to start with the best 

bird. That’s exactly what you’re doing when you get a Stonewood Farm turkey for the holidays. Stonewood 

Farm turkeys are naturally raised with access to plenty of fresh air and sunshine, and a natural additive-free 

vegetable diet, and then allowed to reach maturity in their own natural time. Furthermore Stonewood Farm 

is located in Orwell, Vermont and is a family farm run by three generations of the Stone family. 

Paul and Frances Stone bought and founded the farm in 1976 as a dairy farm, but in 1987 they switched 

to raising quality turkey after trying out 300 poults. Someday soon son Peter, who lives and works full time 

on the farm with his wife Siegrid and sons Nathan and Patrick, will be taking over the family business, making 

it a second-generation farm. Paul didn’t start life on the farm growing up in Arlington, Virginia, but since he 

was 12 years old dreamed of being a farmer. 

The beauty of raising natural specialty poultry, for Paul and his family, is being 

directly compensated for quality and labor by the relationships they develop with their 

customers. The Stones are particularly grateful to work with food cooperatives as some 

of their best customers year after year. Stonewood Farm frozen turkey products are 

available all year round in the meat department, as well as their seasonal fresh turkeys 

and you find Stonewood Farm online at www.stonewoodfarm.com. 

And which cooking method does the Stone Family recommend for the juiciest most 

flavorful roast turkey? 

“We recommend cooking breast in a covered roasting pan at 325 degrees and checking with a meat 

thermometer, deep in the breast, to 180 degrees. The cover can be removed the last quarter of roasting to 

brown the turkey. Our turkeys are self-basting and need no basting.” 

co-opcalendar February 2009 

YOGA 

Every Wednesday, 12-1 p.m. $3 

Prakriti Yoga Studio, 139 Main St., #701 

Yoga with Dante 

Free to Co-op members 

Every Wednesday 5:30–7p.m. 

Prakriti Yoga Studio, 139 Main St., #701 

Meet & Greet 

Saturday, February 14, 10-2pm 

Meet Paul & Frances Stone from Stonewood 

Farms in Orwell, Vermont who provide the Co-op 

with Turkey products. 

Fair Trade Sampling 

Thursday, February 12, 4-7pm 

at the Co-op’s Demo Counter 

Happy Hearts Fair 

Saturday, February 14, 10-4 pm at the Co-op 

Meet the folks who raise our Stonewood Farm 

Turkeys, listen to live music, get your blood pressure 

taken for free and sample heart–healthy 

foods. 

Kids’ Can Cook 

February Vacation Week 

Monday, Feb. 23 through Friday, Feb. 27 

Co-op Community Room from 12-1:30 

Open to school-age children in grades 2nd though 

6th grades. No Cost 

Cooking Classes will be geared towards kids who 

are interested in trying new and exciting dishes as 

well as trusted favorites. Meals will feature food 

from the co-op and highlight local and organic 

ingredients. Classes can be taken separately or as 

a week-long series. Children will participate in all 

aspects of food preparation and take home “kidfriendly” 

recipes to share with family members! 

Story & Snack—Story Time at the Co-op 

Who: Open to children birth to five and 

their caregivers 

When: Fridays 10:30-11 am 

Where: The Kids’ Room at the Co-op 

Nutrition and Detoxification 

for the Autism Spectrum 

Tuesday, February 17, 6-8 pm 

Co-op Community Room. No Charge 

Nutrition and detoxification have been shown 

to be helpful for a wide variety of conditions. 

Children and adults with the autism spectrum 

have been helped through the use of diet, supplementation, 

and cleansing of the organs and 

cells. This class covers the use of foods, gentle 

herbal teas, and safe nutritional supplements 

to support the dietary needs of a person with 

immense sensitivities, over-stimulation, toxin 

overload and communication challenges. 

Monday–Saturday 8-9 • Sunday 9-9 • 2 Main St., Brattleboro, Vermont • 802 257-0236 • www.brattleborofoodcoop.com

The Commons

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