Brother’s Keeper: Why ordinary Vermonters should watch over their prisons
Jail Break This weekend, prisoner advocates, ex-prisoners, sympathetic citizens and some state lawmakers will gather in Burlington for a conference called “It’s About ‘Time.’” Subtitled “Bringing Justice to Vermont Prisons,” the conference is aimed at promoting alternatives to incarceration, better reintegration of prisoners and recognizing the humanity of those behind bars. The events begin with…
The Hole Story: The Vagina Monologues speak up for women’s rights at four local colleges
locations: The UVM Women’s Center and ALANA Student Center will present The Vagina Monologues Thursday through Saturday, February 14-16, at 7:30 p.m. in Ira Allen Chapel. Tickets are $8, $5 for seniors and students. Info, 656-4637. >Middlebury College will present its fourth annual production of The Vagina Monologues on Thursday, February 14, at 7 and…
The Right Stuffing: Two lady taxidermists share an inside view of the animal world
Like many Vermonters, Joyce Wark and Teresa Smith consider hunting sacrosanct. From families that deemed the sport an honorable tradition, they were each nurtured by mothers who thought nothing of trekking through the woods with a gun every autumn in pursuit of deer or other game. In fact, Wark and Smith are among the state’s…
A Bug’s Life: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa
It’s tempting to say something catchy about Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, like “Franz Kafka meets Zelig meets Forrest Gump in this picaresque novel about what really happened at the end of Kafka’s infamous short story, ‘The Metamorphosis.’” But first-time Burlington author Marc Estrin’s novel is much more ambitious. Estrin has written…
Last in the Class: Why Vermont scores lowest in the nation for funding higher ed
Vermont takes justifiable pride in its reputation for progressive social policies, despite being a lightly populated state of modest means. But in one aspect of the common weal, Vermont provides measly assistance, lagging shamelessly behind historically impoverished, even reactionary, states such as Mississippi and New Hampshire. >> By several measurements, Vermont ranks dead last, or…
Yankee Doodle Dando: The former Lemonheads leader tests new tunes in Vermont
In the early ’90s, Boston’s Lemonheads and their enigmatic leader Evan Dando were at the top of the alternative rock heap. Cultivating an image that mixed Merry Pranksters-esque excess and pretty-boy pin-up status, The Lemonheads filled a strange niche between the bubble-gum sass of modern pop radio and the DIY ethos of the emerging grunge…
Lame Duck In Flight
Governor Howard Dean is far, far away from the Green Mountains this week. Around the Statehouse, his increasingly frequent out-of-state travels are being noticed more and more. As reported in an Associated Press exclusive last week, Ho-Ho is off to Laos this week in hopes of locating the remains of his brother, Charles Dean, who…
Norse Course: A Viking exhibit in Montreal suggests America was “discovered” a long time before Columbus
Mathematician John Nash reckoned, “You need just one good idea.” The subject of A Beautiful Mind suggested that exposing people to one original notion can change the way they look at the world. That’s exactly what happened when I dragged my spouse and a friend to the Vikings exhibit at the McCord Museum in Montréal…
Flick Chick
On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down four unarmed people at Kent State University during a demonstration against the Vietnam War — in particular against President Richard Nixon’s decision a few days earlier to widen the conflict by invading Cambodia. As outrage spread across the nation, many colleges simply shut down for…
