Stephen Minkin

Evans-Frantz: a lifetime commitment to betterment of community

BRATTLEBORO-I am personally asking every Brattleboro voter I know to step forward and support Isaac Evans-Frantz for a one-year seat on the Brattleboro Selectboard.

Isaac is a wonderfully committed individual who thinks globally and acts locally. As director of Action Corps, a nonpartisan advocacy organization that grew out of his work with Oxfam America, he had been a campaigner to protect democracy in the U.S. and save lives around the world.

Born and raised in Brattleboro, Isaac has a lifetime commitment to the betterment of our community. He is a skilled community organizer and coalition builder with a passion for public policy and human rights.

Issac is a planner and a consensus builder who holds a master's degree in public administration.

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Who bears responsibility for the atrocities of war?

BRATTLEBORO-A recent photograph in The New York Times shows President Biden warmly greeting the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A few days earlier, on Sept. 18, Nicholas Kristof's article, "I Just Went to Darfur. Here's What Shattered Me," appeared in the newspaper. In it, he documents massacres...

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What the people in Honduras are trying to escape

Americans need to know the roles of the U.S. in fueling the violence, corruption, and abject poverty that created the so-called Caravan

Traveling in the searing sun and suffering from blistering feet, sickness, dehydration, and fatigue, the refugees coming from Honduras on the so-called Caravan are not the “real bad people” Trump describes. Rather, they are the victims of successive U.S. administrations that put power in the hands of really bad...

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Ownership of efficient killing machines should be a myth, not a right

Can anyone tell me why people need semi-automatic assault weapons, except to kill others and create mayhem? Can anyone tell me why the Second Amendment, which few people realize was historically connected to the right of settlers to kill Native Americans and take their lands, has anything to do with the assault rifles? The madman in the synagogue in October, the madmen shooting parishioners in churches, the madmen in schools blasting rapid-fire bursts tearing children apart - all were enabled...

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Drug dealing in apartments creates environment of stress

I have been told by people residing at the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust apartments over the Brattleboro Food Co-op that they feel victimized by the rampant drug dealing in the building. Some of the complaints include urination in the hallways, the smell of smoking, and a broken security system at the entrance, as well as loud shouting of profanities and banging on doors past 2 a.m. The traffic and behavior of drug seekers in the building makes the residents...

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Helping Bangladesh battle an epidemic of rickets

More than half a million children in Bangladesh are suffering from a crippling form of malnutrition linked to a man-made environmental disaster. In severe cases, their legs buckle at the knees or bow out because mineral-deficient soft bones cannot support their growing bodies when they stand up and walk. If uncorrected, children with rickets will be harmed for life. Rickets is most commonly associated with vitamin D deficiencies mostly caused by insufficient sunlight exposure. But scientific studies in sunny Bangladesh...

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An $85 billion bribe for new arms treaty

Recently, more than 100 concerned Vermont citizens co-signed a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders, asking him to lead the Senate in cutting $85 billion that the Obama administration promised to spend, over the next 10 years, on “modernizing” our thermonuclear weapons arsenal. The $85 billion was a bribe the President agreed to pay in exchange for Republican votes required to pass the New START treaty with Russia. The letter to Sanders noted that “we support the treaty's verification provisions. We...

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What will the new board bring to Brattleboro?

Town Manager Barbara Sondag estimated that the town paid $5,000 in dealing with the repercussions of the special article calling for the indictment of Bush and Cheney. While not a trivial sum, the real cost of the elections to the town could be far greater. Three new Selectboard members have joined Dick DeGray, a most conservative member on past boards. Can we expect them to move the board beyond the narrow range of predicable positions DeGray stood for in the...

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