The Landmark College Spring 2018 Academic Speaker Series continues with a presentation by Dr. Sanjukta Ghosh entitled, “Pop Goes History: What Coca-Cola Tells Us About American History,” on Monday, Feb. 26, at 7 p.m., in the Brooks M. O'Brien auditorium, located in the East Academic Building.
Ghosh will explore three major themes in this multimedia talk: the use of images of women in Coke advertising; Coke's role in shaping America's involvement in World War II and the subsequent global economy; and Coke's entanglement in imperial movements around the world.
Ghosh is professor of media studies and of women's and gender studies at Castleton University.
A former journalist in her native India, she joined the university's communications department in 1991 after earning a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Her dissertation focused on representations of women in Bollywood films.
My daughter, 3 years old at the time, ran over to the display. “Strawberries! I want strawberries!” she said as she grabbed a container of bright red berries, then turned to put them in our cart. I looked at the price: $4.99 for a quart. “Not today, sweetie,” I...
Our government won't seriously address gun control or climate control, or ever reliably serve the common good, so long as it's accepted that Congress is for sale. And it will continue to be for sale until campaigns are publicly funded and acceptance of any private money or benefit outlawed,
Karen Astley, the town's administrative assistant, will soon move to a new room in the Town Offices. At the Jan. 31 regular Selectboard meeting, the Board appointed Astley to the town manager position, effective March 14. She replaces Chip Stearns, who took the job as interim town manager in early August and recently announced his contract with the town will end in mid-March. Taking the administrative assistant position in October was a strategic move, Astley told The Commons. This past...
Several years ago, as I sat in the dark, huddled in a sleeping bag next to the wood stove in the middle of the night in the middle of a blizzard, power long gone, I was once more contemplating giving in and spending a fortune on a generator. I was arguing with myself about whether it would be worth the expense and bother. The cold and dark had drained any energy and motivation I would have needed to even make...
Living with AIDS in this country, writes AIDS activist and author Vito Russo, “is like living through a war which is happening only for those people who happen to be in the trenches. Every time a shell explodes, you look around and you discover that you've lost more of your friends, but nobody else notices. It isn't happening to them.” Russo made that statement about the HIV/AIDS epidemic that began in the 1980s long after the Stonewall uprising in 1969...
SEVCA offers free tax preparation WESTMINSTER - Income-eligible Windsor and Windham county residents can now schedule an appointment for free tax preparation assistance through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, offered by Southeastern Vermont Community Action in collaboration with Granite United Way. SEVCA has experienced, IRS-certified volunteers trained and ready to help area residents with household income up to $54,000 file their tax returns. Appointments are available every Tuesday, from 8:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the SEVCA Office at...
College news • Freesia Capy-Goldfarb of Guilford was named to the Dean's List for the fall 2017 semester at Ithaca (N.Y.) College. • Tyler Clement, an electrical engineering major from Vernon, was named to the President's List at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass., for the fall 2017 semester. Transitions • Amelia W.L. Darrow became a partner at the law firm of Corum Mabie Cook Prodan Angell Secrest & Darrow, PLC. Darrow is a graduate of Vermont Law School,
All Souls Church, 29 South St., will continue its film series “Looking Inward at White Power and Privilege” with a screening of Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible on Sunday, Feb. 25, at noon, proceeded by a simple lunch. The film, produced by World Trust, is the third in the continuing series and will be followed by a discussion. There is no admission charge for the film or for the light lunch that precedes it. According to a World Trust...
Danaysa Vargas was recently named the Boys & Girls Club of Brattleboro's 2018 Youth of the Year, and Matthew Gordon-Macey was honored as the Club's Junior Youth of the Year. Gordon-Macey is in the seventh grade at Brattleboro Area Middle School. A confident public speaker, he credits The Club with helping him come out of his shell and feeling comfortable talking to all kinds of people. In April, Gordon-Macey will accompany Vargas to Montpelier, get a tour of the capital,
The Arts Council of Windham County is celebrating 38 years of Student Arts Month, which takes place in March. Throughout the years, the Council has celebrated blossoming young artists in Windham County while recognizing the teachers and school infrastructures that help these students to flourish. The council has partnered with venues, schools, and teachers to arrange activities featuring the work of young artists throughout Windham County. Several area high schools participate in Student Art Month, as well as many elementary...
Absentee ballots for Brattleboro's town election on Tuesday, March 6, are available at the Town Clerk's Office and may be requested until 5 p.m. on Monday, March 5. Sample ballots can also be found at www.brattleboro.org. The polling place for all three districts in Brattleboro is the Selectboard Meeting Room on the second floor of the Municipal Center, 230 Main Street, Room 212, from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. The entire back parking lot at the Municipal Center will be...
New England Center for Circus Arts in Brattleboro and Yellow Barn in Putney were two of seven Vermont arts organizations that were recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts' first round of grant funding for fiscal year 2018. NECCA will receive $12,000 to support artist residencies for circus arts performers, while Yellow Barn will receive $10,000 for the Yellow Barn Program and Artist Residencies, a professional artistic development project. “I'm proud that Vermont received seven grants in this round...
The Brattleboro Music Center's Chamber Series welcomes cellist Sophie Shao, winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions. Shao is a versatile and passionate artist whose performances The New York Times has described as “eloquent, powerful” and the Washington Post called “deeply satisfying,” according to a news release. Her “Sophie Shao and Friends” performance on Friday, Feb. 23, at 7:30 p.m., highlights important works for piano and string quartet. Joining her...
The Windham Regional Commission, through the Windham County Renewable Energy Program, recently announced the funding of five new renewable-energy installation projects for 2018. According to the Commission, the application process was competitive in this second round of funding, with more than $700,000 in available funding. The projects that received funding are: • Windham County Integrated Resource Recycling Center Anaerobic Digester: a 300 kW food-waste anaerobic digester facility to supplement the declining biogas production at the existing landfill gas-to-energy site on...
The first thing that Robert Fritz, an accomplished author, scriptwriter, filmmaker, and musician from Newfane, will tell you is that I Used to Have This Cat “is such a great play.” The bold confidence inspires an obvious first question for Fritz, who wrote and directed the play for Rock River Players, a community theater group in the West River Valley: So what makes it great? “Let's begin with the actors,” Fritz said of the two women in the show, which...
After reading this piece, I felt compelled to speak for myself as to why I've grown tired of the negative, nasty message of some left-leaning individuals in our country. As a white woman who primarily votes Republican and Libertarian, it is presumed that I am just about every kind of -phobe and -ist, and that I am guilty of every -ism there is. These accusations are hurled by people who have never even met me (or the millions of other...
To those unfamiliar with the concept, the term “microaggression” can seem confusing. If an affront is so small to be labeled “micro,” is it really such a big deal? What differentiates it from outright racial slurs, misogyny, or other forms of bigotry? And is it happening here, in Vermont, where some claim “hatred doesn't grow well” in our rocky soil? The organizers of the photo and story project, “I am Vermont Too,” held an event at The Root Social Justice...
“Are we all in over our heads?” This is the question asked by Derek Parker, Landmark College's Assistant Professor of Art and Design, in his site specific installation at the Fine Arts Gallery of Landmark College. According to a news release, “the installation leverages our familiarity and comfort with our own spaces, routines, and possessions, against the real and ever-increasing possibility of having it all disappear.” Through community involvement and audience interaction, Parker incorporates the voices and ideas of the...
Today, I was informed that you were upset about the sexual assault theme in the play Man of La Mancha. I understand it's your job to have a positive influence on middle school students, and what you say matters. I understand that it is upsetting, but I'm pretty sure that most middle school students can tell what's real and what's a show. I don't think that a story or a play has to only have heroes. But you want to...
Another heartbreaking day in the United States of America. Another victory for the NRA and gun lobby. More than 95 percent of Americans want background checks. More than 70 percent of Americans want an assault weapons ban. But we have Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who refuse to have legislation come to the floors of Congress. And we have Donald Trump who, if something were passed, promised the NRA that he wouldn't sign it. There is always the big switch:
Every day, I am honored to call rural Vermont my home. Our rugged mountains and vast forests are home to some 600,000 hardy Vermonters. Politically, we are the most leftist state in the nation; all of our children have universal health care, our minimum wage is $10.50 an hour (with a serious movement toward achieving a $15-an-hour livable wage), our unemployment rate is 2.8 percent. We practice a form of direct democracy at the local level (Town Meeting) whereby every...
Good day to you, denizen of the windy hamlet in southeastern Vermont! We have an unseasonably warm Wednesday to enjoy before a cold front sweeps the region, and sets us up for up to three storm systems, all of which could bring a mix of snow, ice and rain to the region. Early next week looks calmer and drier. However, there are impressive signals that indicate we could see a large high pressure system set up over Greenland and then...
After conducting a public hearing on the proposed updates to the Town Plan, the Selectboard unanimously approved the document at their Feb. 14 regular meeting. Selectboard Chair Zeke Goodband opened the public hearing by reminding attendees that collecting their comments is part of the adoption process. He noted there are no big changes from the last plan, but state statutes require an update every eight years. The eight-member Planning Commission, the entity responsible for revising the Town Plan, was represented...
As a boy growing up in the late 1950s, Putney artist Art Costa started building toys and tree houses from found materials on his family's California dairy farm. He earned an art degree at California State University at Stanislaus in 1976 and then, in 2000, had a flash of inspiration that Balinese dance masks reminded him of his dad's old 1950s Buicks. A grant by the Vermont Arts Council propelled him through a year of focused whimsy, resulting in the...
On their home course on a perfect Valentine's Day afternoon, the Brattleboro Colonels nordic ski teams swept the Marble Valley League freestyle championships. It was a shirtsleeves day for the racers, as the course at the Brattleboro Country Club was sun-softened by temperatures in the mid-40s. The Colonels had no problems as the boys' and girls' teams both beat runner-up Mount Anthony. In the girls race, Woodstock's Olivia Brooks was the individual winner in 20 minutes, 13 seconds. But the...
Combining local myth with a spooky storyline, the producers of Strange Events At Vilas Bridge have created a new television series they're calling a “supernatural thriller.” But in their efforts to tell a scary tale, are they misrepresenting local history and culture? Falls Area Community Television in Bellows Falls covers local municipal meetings and provides television training, equipment, and studio access to the public. Their federally-mandated funding comes from cable companies serving the Rockingham area. Late last year, FACT Executive...
The earliest known photographs of Brattleboro are now available for viewing on the Internet (digitalvermont.org). The Vermont Historical Society has generously digitized and web-published its collection of eight early photographs by Thomas M. Easterly of Guilford and Brattleboro, including a remarkable view of Brattleboro circa 1848. This view, “Brattleboro, Vt., from Chesterfield Mountain, N.H.,” is not found in Before Our Time: A Pictorial Memoir of Brattleboro because it wasn't uncovered until 1984, 10 years after that very thorough book was...
The final installment of this season's Journalism Film Series is Spotlight, the 2015 film about the story of the clash between two powerful New England institutions: the Catholic Church and The Boston Globe. Spotlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016. It will be shown for free at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 25, at the Latchis Theatre. A discussion led by Randy Holhut of The Commons will follow. Donations are welcome. The Globe wasn't the first to...
A few years ago, musician Travis Laplante had a strange and unsettling dream. “In my sleep, I heard a sound that seemed to come from a saxophone, but I couldn't tell that it actually did, since I could not see the instrument,” Laplante says. “Whatever it was, it made a single sound. And here's the unusual part: to me it seemed as if the entire universe was contained in this one sound.” Since Laplante believes that in dreams we sometimes...
Vermonter Tara Geraghty-Moats, who fractured her elbow last fall, just missed making the 2018 U.S. Olympic ski jumping team. But that didn't stop the 24-year-old from doing the next best thing: Performing before a home-state crowd of thousands over the weekend at the annual Harris Hill tournament. “This has been a nice consolation prize,” the West Fairlee native said of the two-day Brattleboro event. “It's not beneficial to compete when you're injured, but I really love jumping with my friends...
My friend Stephanie recently took a photo of the truck in front of her. Its rear window decals included “Trump,” “Brothers in Arms,” a graphic of an AR-15 rifle, and the message “White, Straight, Armed, and Pissed.” That was her view during her commute as she listened to radio coverage with interviews of students who survived the latest mass school shooting in our fair land, and stories of those who didn't. My first reaction to seeing her Facebook post was...