Thanks to Linda Hay for echoing my sentiments about the state retirement board's Aug. 2 announcement that teachers will be automatically switched from original Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan effective January 1.
It is a bad development for all the reasons Hay mentions. But Hay suggests that all we need, if we opt out of Advantage, is Plan D for prescription drugs and Medicare B (which costs us $158 monthly and typically comes out of our Social Security checks).
We must have a supplemental plan to cover the 20 percent that Medicare doesn't cover. Currently, Medigap F with no deductibles and no copays, offered by BlueCross BlueShield of Vermont, is the best supplemental coverage at $185 a month.
Premiums: $158, Medicare; $185, Medigap; $51, prescription drugs (my plan). That's nearly $400 a month. Awfully expensive, but no retiree should be without all three.
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) presents a book reading by Sandgate author Brad Kessler followed by a discussion about refugees on Thursday, Nov. 18, at 5:30 p.m. Kessler will read from North, his new novel about the intertwined lives of a Vermont monk, a Somali refugee, and...
Canal Street Art Gallery (CSAG), 23 Canal St., presents its annual Art for All seasonal group show, sharing the gifts from the many artists of this region and marking the gallery's fifth year. The show opens Friday, Nov. 19 and is on view to the public through Saturday, Jan.
I thank you for bringing to my attention the anti-Semitic action of Ben & Jerry's. This product will no longer be allowed in my house. This sort of surprised me, as your paper is usually not very revealing of anti-Jewish actions.
AARP Foundation has kicked off volunteer recruitment for its Tax-Aide program, the nation's largest volunteer-based tax preparation service. In addition to tax preparers, whom the program will train, Tax-Aide needs people who can provide technical and communications assistance, interpreters, and program leaders. Volunteers come from a variety of industries and range from retirees to university students. All levels and types of experience are welcome, and they may sign up to assist taxpayers either in person or virtually. Tax-Aide offers free...
Next Stage Arts and the Vermont Comedy All Stars have partnered for a night of live stand-up comedy, to take place on Friday, Nov. 12, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Featured performers will include several contest-winning and touring comedians most often seen in the Burlington area. While Next Stage has hosted many national and international music acts, this will be the arts venue's first foray into live comedy at its refurbished theater. “For too long, Burlington has been a lone...
Though most of Martin Cohn's response to my Viewpoint on Ben & Jerry's decision to stop selling its ice cream in the occupied territories [“For now, two cheers for Ben & Jerry's,” Oct. 20] recycles well-known Israeli talking points, he deviates from the party line by implying that Israel's presence in the West Bank and other areas does, indeed, represent an occupation - albeit an occupation he considers to be justified. The authorized Zionist nomenclature for these territories is “disputed,”
Between the furniture, getaways, jewelry, art, china, and the many other “treasured goods” donated, Brattleboro Area Hospice (BAH) has raised approximately $25,000 at the Treasured Goods Auction. The organization offers its thanks “to so many in the community who donated items, worked as volunteers on the auction committee, and bid on items that day,” organizers write in a news release. “Keep BAH in mind as you continue to clean your basements, attics, garages and sheds. We're planning on doing this...
I was surprised to receive an email recently from the Task Force on the Implementation of the Pupil Weighting Factors Report announcing a delay in releasing their proposal and data to back it up. This came as a surprise because, for the better part of two years, it was known that the simulator provided to the Agency of Education as part of the report would need to be updated with the final Act 46 merged districts and FY2019–2021 data. No...
The Brattleboro Music Center presents pianist Michael Arnowitt as part of its 2021–22 Season Guest Series. The concert, scheduled for Friday, Nov. 12, at 7:30 p.m., at the BMC, will include works by Bach, Brahms, Ligeti, and Ginastera. Arnowitt describes himself in his publicity materials as a “creative and imaginative musician” who is “best known for his beautiful and sensitive touch at the keyboard, for the clarity and elegance of his musical ideas, for his abilities to find new articulations...
Veterans Day closings in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - In observance of Veterans Day, all town offices will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 11, with the exception of emergency services. Parking is free at all metered spaces and in the pay-and-display lots that day. All other violations will be enforced. Brooks Memorial Library will be closed all day, but all Recreation & Parks programs after 1:30 p.m. will occur as planned. Trash, recycling, and composting will not be affected by the holiday.
Obituaries • Elke Greta Augliano, 84, of Vernon. Died Oct. 31, 2021 at Vernon Green Nursing Home. Elke was born in Kiel, Germany on Oct. 12, 1937, the daughter of Albert Magnus and Magda Lena (Dreher) Goelling. She was raised and educated in Kiel and came to the United States in 1952, settling in Newport, N.H., where she graduated from Towle High School, Class of 1956. For several years she worked in the offices of the former Arnold Ware Company,
On Saturday, Nov. 13, Epsilon Spires will host an evening of Indian film, food, and crafts downtown, featuring a screening of the epic Bollywood classic Sholay, with an introduction by Vidhi Salla of the radio show Vidhi's Bollywood Jukebox. Filmed in rural Bangalore in the 1970s, Sholay combines the aesthetic of “spaghetti westerns” of the period with inspiration from films like Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai to create one of the most popular action-adventure musicals that the world has ever seen.
Joe Fiedler, Emmy Award–nominated music director and staff arranger for the famed children's show Sesame Street, will perform at Next Stage Arts on Friday, Nov. 19 with his project Open Sesame. The sextet will perform music from the group's two releases, which explore diverse arrangements of classic Sesame Street songs. “The musical director of Sesame Street performing at Next Stage!” Keith Marks, executive director of Next Stage Arts, said in a news release. “We are continuing to reach out and...
Windham World Affairs Council presents Ian Diamondstone in a free talk, “Building Alliances: 20 Years of Tales From the Spice Trade,” on Thursday, Nov. 11, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at 118 Elliot, 118 Elliot St. Featuring Mexican vanilla, Indonesian turmeric, and Guatemalan cardamom, this talk will give listeners a chance to taste, smell, and experience the complex world of small farmers and global trade. You will learn why vanilla prices have skyrocketed since 2020, how the turmeric craze affects...
The Putney Mountain Association (PMA) announces the official opening of its newest hiking trail, extending 5 miles through ridge-top hardwood and hemlock forest from Vermont's third largest ash tree near the Putney town line south to Prospect Hill. Since 1991, PMA has been working to connect its extensive trail network to the Prospect Hill trails in Dummerston, and this new trail - the Missing Links Trail Project - represents one of the final pieces of that puzzle. The project has...
For the past few months, students from Thomas Aquinas College have been driving up from Northfield, Mass., to downtown Brattleboro to protest our local Planned Parenthood. On Tuesday afternoons, as many as 60 protesters arrive with anti-abortion signs, chalking the sidewalks with judgment, making High Street a hostile place for any person seeking health care at the clinic. Planned Parenthood offers a wide range of health care services - from well-person visits and cancer screenings to birth control consultations and...
Twenty-two homes in the Bellows Falls/Rockingham area will be warmer this winter because of a joint project by the Rockingham Energy Committee and Window Dressers, a nonprofit organization from Maine. The staff of Window Dressers supplies, trains, and supports local teams of community volunteers as they put together affordable interior storm windows at a community build event. Recent events have been held in Brattleboro, and in the West River and Deerfield River valleys, with help from local energy committees. The...
I couldn't read about Ben Coplan's passing without saying at least this: While at the Vermont Association of Business Industry and Rehabilitation (VABIR), Ben helped countless people, including myself, find meaningful employment because he understood people and deeply understood our community. He helped me find work twice. The second time, I was a very discouraged single dad with two children, out of work again and feeling worthless. Ben sat down with me and started making phone calls one afternoon. He...
I'm writing to invite everyone in on a little ongoing ritual that feminists in our community have been engaging in. Each Tuesday, or whenever a group of people show up at Pliny Park in Brattleboro to protest Planned Parenthood, we make extra donations to the organization. Then we spread the word on social media about what we're doing and why, so that more people get motivated to do the same. It's such a positive thing to do in the face...
Few everyday words carry such a sinister secondary meaning as the term “grooming,” a predatory process used to gain the trust of a potential victim. Moreover, few terms capture as clearly the premeditated and opportunistic nature of sexual violence, though we may all get glimpses of offender tactics in daily life. That's both the grim news and the basis of our collective power, though. We each have considerable potential to actually help shift outcomes of such dynamics and to protect...
On Wednesday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m., in the Brattleboro Union High School Auditorium, something will happen for the first time in 20 months: The music department ensembles will perform for a live audience. To keep the students and audience members safe, admission will be strictly limited to those holding tickets. Each performer will receive two tickets they may distribute to family or friends. No public tickets will be made available, an announcement that a news release for the event...
The Windham Philharmonic, led by Music Director Hugh Keelan, presents its first indoor concert on Monday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m., at the Latchis Theatre. The program, “Early Mozart–Late Beethoven,” will last approximately an hour. It includes Mozart's Symphony No. 14 in A major K. 114, written when he was 15, his Masonic Funeral Music K. 477, and Beethoven's Bagatelles Opus 126, arranged for orchestra by Keelan. The orchestra invites “all vaccinated, masked listeners to come revel in the joyful...
It wasn't on the docket, but Mindy Haskins Rogers brought it up, reading a statement into Windham Southeast Supervisory School board meeting on Nov. 9 in which she noted how “deeply disturbed” she is that the investigation into abuse at Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS) “has dropped completely off” the board's agenda. In response, and after interrupting her to tell her to stop naming people, Chair David Schoales made a brief statement of his own, saying one should not “be...
The Brattleboro Parking Department notes that the municipal winter parking ban will begin on Nov. 15. Here are the main things to remember: • Overnight parking is forbidden on all streets in the town. Vehicles parked for longer than one hour between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. may be ticketed and towed at the owner's expense. • The town's flashing light system and sign-board program alerts citizens when plowing will take place. A flashing amber light designates the need to...
Turning Point of Windham County is making a significant turn itself, as 13-year Executive Director Susan “Suzie” Walker leaves that leadership role. Not all at once, however. Walker's leaving will be a transition process, as she is at the heart of Turning Point, to ensure continuity and community. The job will be advertised in the next several weeks, and her role is expected to be filled in early 2022. “I've decided to step away from my director role and resume...
By a margin of just three votes in a revote, Windham Elementary School will remain open for at least one year, but the controversy and disagreement continues. On Nov. 2, voters went to the polls and voted 142–139 to keep the school open. This action comes two months after voters chose to close the 16-student elementary school by two votes, 137–135, on Sept. 7. However, confusion about the vote - some, apparently, thinking they had voted to close it when,
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present Julie Ness, Dave Wysocki, and Tristan Bellerive performing Joni Mitchell's legendary album Blue at Next Stage on Saturday, Nov. 13, at 7:30 pm. As described in a news release, the trio will celebrate the 50-year anniversary “of this groundbreaking album that defined a generation with a 10-song cycle, weaving a journey of hope, yearning, love, loss, and heartbreak.” A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory with a background in concert and operatic work, Ness...
The Rich Earth Institute, an environmental nonprofit organization, hosted its seventh annual Summit last week on reclaiming urine as a resource. The Summit is an event that brings together researchers, practitioners, and enthusiasts to share what they have been learning in the movement to advance circular sanitation systems, with an emphasis on urine, which contains vital plant nutrients. As the Institute has demonstrated in southern Vermont, urine-derived fertilizer can be used to support local farms, rather than having those nutrients...
A new exhibit at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) takes its inspiration from objects created centuries ago and originating from dozens of cultures across the globe. “Vermont Glass Guild: Inspired by the Past” features work by 13 glass artists, each of whom selected an item from BMAC's Study Collection of Ancient Objects to inform and inspire their work. BMAC uses that collection of 314 items, spanning 4,000 years of history, as an educational resource, allowing contemporary makers to...
The Vermont Jazz Center will present its fourth annual Emerging Artist Festival on Saturday, Nov. 13. The event promotes new ideas and individuals affecting the future of jazz, a music that encourages creativity and lauds game-changing artists. This year, we will partner with the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice and will feature one of their instructors, Haitian turntablist Val Jeanty (Val-Inc). On Wikipedia, Jeanty is identified as an “afrofuturist” who incorporates “Haitian Vodou rhythms with electronic instruments.” She...
In a week of most strange political events, the Friday night vote in Congress for the “hard” infrastructure bill was an inadvertent celebration and demonstration of the possibility that our republic has some life in it yet. Six Democratic U.S. representatives chose to vote their beliefs about what is good for their constituents by not voting with their party, and 13 Republican members left the ideological boundaries of their party to vote for the best interests of the people they...
I had assumed that if I got to Vietnam as an intelligence officer with the ability to speak and write Vietnamese, I would be assigned some peaceful work at the army headquarters in Saigon, a city still reflecting the Indochinese culture, the residual French colonial influence, the colorful and attractive Vietnamese civilians, women in áo dàis floating by on bicycles, favoring me with a smile. I thought that the language and the rank would afford me far more interesting jobs...
It was Championship Saturday for Vermont high school soccer and field hockey. Windham County's two finalists - the Bellows Falls field hockey team and the Leland & Gray girls' soccer team - both fell just short of a state title in their respective games on Nov. 6, but not before giving their fans plenty of thrills through the season. But there is one team left standing to try for a championship - the Bellows Falls football team. After taking care...
It's the end of show three of seven in the Rock River Players' (RRP) run of The Front Page. I'm queued up for curtain call - for my turn to bow - as Mrs. Grant. Scanning the row of characters in front of and behind me, I feel how lovely it is to be part of a cast again, to be a thread in the weave of a play's story. I'm smiling big, fully sated on community goodness. In the...