Rolf Parker-Houghton
Ambassador of art, love, and fun
When I met Jonas Fricke more than 20 years ago, I was in deep need of some joy.
I had seen a drunken man attack another man on Elliot Street, late at night after a bar closed, and the violence was haunting me. When I saw the poster advertising the “Pillow Fight in the Harmony Parking Lot!” I knew I had to go.
Man with a mission
Anti-Chinese sentiments caught fire in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One Brattleboro man made it his mission to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act — as a federal district attorney, as a federal judge, and even as a vigilante on a train in Vernon.
In February of this year, Gov. Phil Scott nominated Nancy Waples to a seat on Vermont's Supreme Court, and she was unanimously confirmed by the Vermont Senate in late March. Judge Waples' ascendance could never have happened if ethnic quotas that limited the number of Asian people who could...
The case for expert opinion
Ideally in a democracy, all citizens have an equal right to speak on a topic, to express their opinions. But with matters of scientific consequence, are we qualified?
On April 16, 1862, men from Brattleboro may have been trying not to panic, or at least not get killed, as they crossed the Warwick River near Lee's Mill, Va. The confederates were not waiting for the their enemies; they were firing explosive shells at them. Some men were...