Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2011
Is South Burlington Failing its Special-education Students?; Can Michael Jaques Get a Fair Trial in Vermont;
Will Vermont Get Its Own Currency?
Ed. note: Freelance writer Kevin J. Kelley contributed this blog post. The benefits of buying locally would be multiplied if done with money that’s minted locally. That’s the thinking behind a growing number of “community currency” experiments in Vermont and elsewhere. Their names are as varied as their mechanics: there’s Middlebury Money, Bristol Bucks, the…
Nuclear Energy’s Money Pit: An Energy Sinkhole?
A new report by the New England Center for Investigative Journalism and the Connecticut Hearst Media Group finds that New England ratepayers have pumped $1 billion into a federal waste fund for the past three decades, honoring their end of a 1982 bargain with the government to finance the permanent storage of thousands of tons…
VT Dept. of Education Issues New Seclusion and Restraint Rules
Ed. note: Ken Picard provides a follow-up to this week’s cover story on special education. To what extent are Vermont teachers and other school staff allowed to use seclusion or physical restraints on students who act out, throw tantrums, destroy school property or pose an imminent and serious threat to themselves or others? That question…
Lockheed Martin to Buy Burlington Telecom for $65 Million
* update * At a news conference scheduled for later today, Mayor Bob Kiss and Lockheed Martin CEO Stephan James will announce that the global weapons maker has offered $65 million to become owners and operators of Burlington Telecom, the city utility that is more than $50 million in debt. “BT has tremendous potential,” said…
Entergy: No Sale of Vermont Yankee
At the close of business yesterday Entergy issued a press release straight out of “Deal or No Deal.” The deal? The company announced that it had completed contract talks with Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC), the state’s third largest utility, on a two-year agreement to sell power. The no deal? That it had failed to find…
Dean on Government Shutdown: If DNC Chair, ‘I’d Be Quietly Rooting for it’
Former Democratic Gov. Howard Dean is garnering some national attention for doing what he does best — shoot from the lip. In today’s installment of “Did Howard Dean Really Say That?”, the former blunt-speaking presidential aspirant and chairman of the Democratic National Committee said he if were at the helm of the DNC he’d be…
The Sounds of Silence
A writer considers suicide, privacy and the public’s “need” to know
A Frog Hollow Exhibition-in-Progress Conveys the Horror of and Healing From Sexual Abuse
Frog Hollow gallery director Rob Hunter didn’t know artists Carol MacDonald and Erik Rehman were both survivors of sexual abuse when he asked them to participate in a collaboration with Burlington’s Women’s Rape Crisis Center. He knew their work — MacDonald’s evocative prints and knitted works; Rehman’s sensual clay figures, often just faces and hands…
WTF: What’s that space-age, sombrero-like structure on Dorset Street?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: We just had to ask…
Artist George Tooker, 1920-2011
Artist George Tooker of Hartland, Vermont, died Sunday at his home. He was 90. The Burlington Free Press noted his passing in a front-page story this morning. Writer Kevin J. Kelley profiled Tooker for Seven Days in 2009, after a career retrospective revived the painter’s reputation. Wrote Kelley, “Hailing Tooker’s ‘visionary imagination,’ the New York…
Nature Lovers
Art Review: Susan Wahlrab and Mariella Bisson, West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park
“Friending” Mother
What happens when an adopted child, or a parent, finds birth relatives on Facebook?
News Quirks
Curses, Foiled Again Police arrested Michael Trias, 20, after they said he broke into a home in Mesa, Ariz., and became stuck in a clothes hamper underneath the window he climbed through. The homeowner, who heard Trias trying to untangle himself from the clothes, restrained him and called police. (Mesa’s East Valley Tribune) Returning to…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): This is an excellent time to study the book Assholeology: The Science Behind Getting Your Way — and Getting Away With It. In fact, the cosmos would not only look the other way if you acted on the principles described therein; the cosmos is actively encouraging you to be a successful…
Cow to Table?
Its politics may be messy, but in the kitchen, raw milk proves deliciously productive
![Matsuri ’11, A Japanese Festival [217]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/episode217.webp?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
Matsuri ’11, A Japanese Festival [217]
3/27/11: Over 1,500 people attended Matsuri ’11, A Japanese Festival at St Michael’s College in Colchester Vermont. This is a biennial event cosponsored by The Japan-America Society of Vermont (J-ASV) and Saint Michael’s College. Attendees enjoyed varied performances of traditional Japanese music and dance as well as modern pop music, taiko drumming, aikido, and calligraphy.…
Letters to the Editor
Under Vermont’s Skin I am curious as to why Seven Days dubbed Tata Harper Skincare “Vermont’s only luxe cosmetics company” [“Getting the Glow,” March 16]. Lunaroma has been in business in Burlington for 11 years, selling very similar products, and has also been featured in your paper [“Odor Readers,” September 15, 2004]. It seems like…
Investigative Series Finds New England Nukes Packed with Spent Fuel
On the heels of Japan’s nuclear bad news comes this, closer to home. Vermont Yankee and several other New England nuclear power plants are packed with up to five times more spent fuel than the storage pools were originally designed to hold. This discovery was made by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting and…
Brunoise This!: Jr. Iron Cheftestants Serve It Up
Over the weekend I had the great good fortune of serving as one of 12 judges for the Vermont Jr. Iron Chef high school cooking competition, a collaborative project organized by Vermont Food Education Every Day and the Burlington School Food Project. I was asked to be a judge most likely because Tom Messner, weatherman to the stars,…
