Feb 20-26, 2019
Hooked: How So Many Vermonters Got Addicted to Opioids; Burlington Residents Wary of E-Bikes and Scooters; Ceres Greens Is Farming in a Former Barre Granite Shed
Cover Story
Hooked: How So Many Vermonters Got Addicted to Opioids
“Why are so many people addicted to heroin in Vermont?” The man who asked me this question was middle-aged, with a shaved head and eyes whose earnestness matched his query. We were in the produce department of a grocery store, each with a mostly empty basket slung over an arm. He’d seen my photo when…
Obituary: Linus Hanratty, 1974-2019
It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of sweet Linus Grant Hanratty, our son, our brother, our beloved friend. Linus was born in Carmel, NY, on June 13, 1974 and died at his home in Hardwick, VT, on January 31, 2019. From childhood, Linus was eager to participate in and embrace the…
The Parmelee Post: Critics: Aging Sanders Lacks the Necessary Drive to be President
Just days after announcing his second second presidential bid, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been accused of being too elderly to rise to the unique challenges of the nation’s highest office. “By the time he was sworn in, Bernie would already be 79-years-old,” said addition and Gregorian calendar expert Tally Counts. “He may speak of…
Obituary: Tim Whiteford, 1946-2019
Timothy James Whiteford, PhD, of Richmond, Vt., passed away peacefully in the early morning of Monday, February 11, in his home, leaving his legacy of passion and kindness with all who knew and loved him. He was 72. Tim was born in London, England, on December 19, 1946, to Patricia Nardi and Frederick Montague Whiteford.…
Obituary: Elizabeth A. McMullen, 1944-2019
Elizabeth A. (Terpening) McMullen passed away on February 11, 2019, after a long illness. Daughter of Max and Anne Terpening, she was born in March 1944 in Schenectady, N.Y. She resided in Jericho, Vt., since 1975. She was a graduate of Duanesburg High School, American University and Albany Medical Center School of Nursing. She was…
The Cannabis Catch-Up: High in the Hollywood Hills
Hey! It’s the Friday before the Academy Awards. As is tradition, reporters have gone through the swag bag that each Oscar attendee receives so us peons can drool over all the high-end stuff. And since the awards extravaganza is held in California, where recreational cannabis was legalized in January 2018, this year’s goodies include some…
Obituary: Elizabeth “Bette” O’Donnell, 1928-2019
Elizabeth “Bette” O’Donnell passed away peacefully surrounded by family and friends in her Burlington home on February 9, 2019, one day after her 91st birthday. Bette was a “grand” lady who was loved by her family and many friends everywhere she lived. Bette was born Elizabeth Constance Coleman in Shamokin, Pa., on February 8, 1928,…
Evolution of an Epidemic: A Timeline of the Vermont Opioid Crisis
Hundreds of Vermonters have died from opioid overdoses in the past quarter century. More than 8,000 are currently in treatment for opioid-use disorder. Countless others live every day with the despair of this disease. How did we get here? No single event sparked Vermont’s current emergency, but its momentum was building for more than a…
Architect on National African American Museum Works With Clemmons Family Farm
More than five million people have visited the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, D.C., since it opened in September 2016, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s visitor stats. Whether or not you’re one of them, you can catch a film about the evolution of its award-winning design this Wednesday, February 20,…
Free Will Astrology (2/20/19)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Cartographers of Old Europe sometimes drew pictures of strange beasts in the uncharted regions of their maps. These were warnings to travelers that such areas might harbor unknown risks, like dangerous animals. One famous map of the Indian Ocean shows an image of a sea monster lurking, as if waiting to…
Donovan’s Dilemma: Free Speech vs. Hate Speech in Bennington
T.J. Donovan is getting the first big political test of his tenure as Vermont attorney general as he faces criticism over his handling of the Kiah Morris case, a touchy blend of racism, free speech and the state’s reputation for tolerance. Donovan is a rising star in Democratic politics, almost universally seen as a future…
Meet Julia DiFerdinando, Vermont Comedy Club’s New Creative Director
Julia DiFerdinando first realized she was funny at age 7 when someone asked her the following: “What’s the hardest thing you’ve had to accomplish?” She didn’t answer with learning how to ride a bike, tread water or do a cartwheel. The young South Burlingtonian’s toughest challenge? Learning how to draw a frog. The query was…
Burlington YMCA Members Unhappy New Facility Won’t Have Steam Rooms
The steel frame of the new 50,000-square-foot Greater Burlington YMCA is rising on College Street, but some regulars say important amenities will be left out of the $28 million structure set to open next year. They’re steamed, specifically, that it won’t include a steam room — or, for that matter, hot tubs. The current facility…
Letters to the Editor (2/20/19)
Stop Stereotyping [Re “UVM’s Kake Walk Featured Blackface Performers for Decades,” February 13]: If nothing else good comes out of the debacles in Virginia, I think the practice, history and pain of blackface has surfaced, and that will not be as easy to ignore and laugh off. In all the coverage of the Virginia governor…
‘Rutland’ Filmmaker Viktor Witkowski Examines Syrian Refugee Debate
In September 2016, Viktor Witkowski began filming a documentary about then-mayor Chris Louras’ plan to resettle 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Rutland. Witkowski’s film, as he envisioned it, would have documented the refugees’ acclimation to a new life far from their war-torn homelands. Then, the unexpected happened. In November, Donald Trump was elected the…
Album Review: John Fusco, ‘John Fusco and the X-Road Riders’
(Checkerboard Lounge Records, CD, digital) Ralph Macchio is best known as Daniel LaRusso, the title character from The Karate Kid. But before the actor donned Daniel-san’s signature white headband for that film’s 1986 sequel, The Karate Kid Part II, he appeared in Vermont-based screenwriter/musician John Fusco’s breakout debut feature, Crossroads. The coming-of-age drama chronicles a…
Album Review: Dana and Susan Robinson, ‘The Town That Music Saved’
(Threshold Music, CD, digital) In 2010, Cabot author Ben Hewitt penned a book titled The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food. In it, he chronicled how a collection of so-called “agripreneurs” — farmers, restaurateurs and other food-focused small business owners — rescued the neighboring town of Hardwick from economic…
Scarlett Letters: I Want to Share ‘Bi’ Experiences With a Woman, With No Luck
Dear Scarlett, I prefer having sex with women, but about 10 years ago or more I discovered that I get off on giving head to men. My fantasy is to share this experience with a woman, but the few girlfriends I have talked with about this were not into it at all. Recently I went…
Malletts Bay Sewer Proposal Hits Choppy Waters
The snow piled along Colchester’s Malletts Bay last week made it hard to imagine that speedboats, sailing vessels and swimmers will soon ply the waterway. That’s not all the warm weather will bring: Each summer, water tests turn up pollutants, including traces of human waste from failing private septic systems. Town Manager Aaron Frank cautions…
One Dish: Digging Into the ChickPea Fritters at the Great Northern
The bar and fireplace beckoned me to the Great Northern on the 12-degree night when our furnace broke. I was certain that from behind that mahogany bar, the one transported from a Seattle barroom where Jimi Hendrix once played guitar, a bartender would beam me up with a drink that would wash away my 24-hour…
Vermont Senate Seeks to Tear Down Employment Barriers for New Americans
Gov. Phil Scott’s plan to reimburse remote workers up to $10,000 to move to Vermont generated plenty of publicity last year, sending the message far and wide that the state is eager to attract new residents. Now state legislators are considering ways to make Vermont more attractive to another group of workers: immigrants. Senate President…
Art Review: ‘Johnny Swing: Design Sense,’ Shelburne Museum
Johnny Swing made his first chair in 1987. The dramatic “Tack Chair” looks like a pile of oversize nails, perhaps a vague relation to the iconic seat featured in HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Never mind its prickly exterior, sitting on it is a different story: The saucer-size rounds of steel are as comfortable as can…
Eat This Week, February 20 to 26, 2019: Restaurant Playground
Chefs Jaclyn Major and Jordan Ware of Butch + Babe’s and Hen of the Wood, respectively, team up with cooks from throughout the Burlington School District for a night of foodie fun for kids of all ages. With plastic trays in hand, guests will file through for portions of Major’s spaghetti and meatballs and more…
Two Vermont Movie Theaters to Provide Open-Caption Screenings
When Charlotte resident John Quinney began to lose his hearing, going to the movies became an unpleasant affair. Beyond the obvious frustration with not being able to understand dialogue, he found that the ADA accommodations offered in most theaters actually made the experience worse. “The assisted-listening devices are headsets that amplify sound without enhancing the…
Theater Review: ‘The Clean House,’ BarnArts Center for the Arts
In her 2005 play The Clean House, Sarah Ruhl delivers a romantic fantasy about love and death in earnest deadpan, combining solid comedy with metaphysical flights of fancy. It’s funny, yet viewers aren’t always sure when to laugh because any emotion raised to hyperbole looks a lot like delirium. Ruhl’s relentlessly oddball story poses a…
In Burlington’s Old North End, Cuban Kitchen Reopens for Takeout
In Burlington, the Old North End’s food options continue to diversify. When Yuris Mora opens the Cuban Kitchen from her home at 260 North Street on Thursday, February 28, she’ll add traditional Caribbean fare to the neighborhood’s takeout menu. The business represents Mora’s second go-round in the Chittenden County food game. In 2012, she dished…
Soundbites: New Waking Windows Art Showcase; Morning Music
Art Imitating Art As the Waking Windows music and arts festival has progressed in its nine years of existence, more and more nonmusic events and showcases have become part of its lineup. From the Page Burner spoken-word series to Annie Russell’s No Chill Comedy Showcase, such presentations make the three-day Winooski hubbub much more than…
Residents Wary as Burlington Rolls Out E-Bikes and E-Scooters
Three Chittenden County towns want to replace their current bike-share program with one that would roll out 400 electric bikes and scooters before summer. The latest local effort to cut back on carbon emissions and promote alternative forms of transportation would fix at least one of the problems that doomed its pedal-powered predecessor: People don’t…
Hackie: What to Pray For
Google Maps is helpful but far from foolproof. When I checked the alternative routes from Burlington to Manchester, Vt., it listed Route 7 and Route 22A/Route 30 as a wash, with nearly identical mileage and time estimates. Well, that’s just flat-out wrong, I concluded, closing my laptop. I’m sure the distances are accurate, but 22A…
Movie Review: ‘Isn’t It Romantic’ Sends Up Rom Com Cliches About a Decade Too Late
The time when the world needed a scathing satire of romantic comedies has passed. In the century’s first decade, when movies such as 27 Dresses and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days were as plentiful as roses in a Valentine’s Day bouquet, Isn’t It Romantic might have seemed like a bold corrective. Today,…
Movie Review: There’s Nothing New Under the Dystopian Steampunk Sun in ‘Alita: Battle Angel’
“The future isn’t what it used to be.” When French philosopher Paul Valéry wrote that in 1937, he wasn’t bemoaning a lack of imagination in bloated dystopian tentpoles. He was expressing the pessimism prevalent among European intellectuals following World War I. The more things change, though, the more they stay the same. His words might…
In Barre, Farm Greens Grow in a Former Granite Shed
Greg Kelly and Jake Isham have come a long way together since they met in 2016. At the time, Kelly, 61, was trying to grow lettuce in the basement of a mutual friend of his and Isham’s — and it was not going well. “I was using LED lights, but I didn’t realize they wouldn’t…
Healthy Living Plans Yet Another New Store, in Williston
The groundhog called it: Spring is just around the corner. And South Burlington’s Healthy Living Market & Café is gearing up for the 2019 growing season with … plans to open yet another new store. Even as the natural grocery retailer awaits a Town Meeting Day vote that will shape its upcoming Shelburne expansion, it’s…
Eden Specialty Ciders to Close Winooski Taproom
The Winooski traffic circle is no Garden of Eden. After six months in business, Eden Specialty Ciders is uprooting its Onion City boutique taproom and cheese counter this Sunday, February 24. “Despite overwhelmingly positive feedback from taproom visitors, we’ve struggled with the challenges of the location and with our limited food program,” Eden co-owner Eleanor…
Opioid Addiction: A Glossary of Common Terms
This abridged Addictionary™ was adapted and used with permission from the Research Recovery Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. The nonprofit research group is dedicated to the advancement of addiction treatment and recovery. A Abstinence The absence of substance use. Although there are many different types of abstinence, the term…
