The Winter Preview Issue 2011
Donna Weinbrecht Coaches at Killington; Vermonters Build a Backcountry Board; Hardy Cyclists Praise Winter Biking
Fired Conductor Ronald Braunstein and VYOA Reach Settlement
Nearly a year after the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association fired Ronald Braunstein — and seven months since the former conductor-director sued the nonprofit — the parties have reached a settlement. You’re probably wondering, for how much? So did I. But today the VYOA issued a not-very-informative statement that basically suggests the opponents have kissed —…
Champlain College’s Center For Digital Investigation Opens for Business
Let the digital sleuthing begin! The Champlain College Center for Digital Investigation just opened shop two weeks ago in Burlington’s South End and already it’s providing an invaluable service to Vermont companies, government agencies and state and local law enforcement. Housed in the college’s new Miller Center at Lakeside Campus, “C3DI” gives students an opportunity to…
Top Economists to Advise Sanders on Federal Reserve Reforms
What do a Nobel Prize-winning economist and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have in common? They both want to reform the Federal Reserve. Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and an economics professor at Columbia University, is one of nearly 20 of the nation’s leading progressive economists and economic analysts…
“Occupy Burlington” Plans to Truly Occupy Burlington
Now in its fifth week, the Occupy Wall Street solidarity protesters in Burlington are beginning to channel their energy into more direct action. Demonstrators plan to stage an actual occupation — of City Hall Park — starting this Friday. On Sunday, about 150 people gathered in City Hall Park and marched up and down Church…
Albany Woman Launches Hunger Strike to Protest Lowell Mountain Wind Project
UPDATED BELOW A 71-year-old Albany woman has entered the second week of a hunger strike launched to protest what she calls the permanent destruction of the Lowell Mountain range in the name of industrial wind development. Carol Irons, a retired mental health case worker whose home faces Lowell Mountain, began her hunger strike on October…
Movies You Missed 9: Red State
This week in movies you missed: Kevin Smith takes on the Westboro Baptist Church by making it the horror in a horror movie. What You Missed Somewhere in redneck America, three teens (Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner and Nicholas Braun) are trying to get laid. They connect online with a much older woman (Oscar winner Melissa…
Local Health-Care Providers Urge McDonald’s to Quit Marketing to Children
The booths at the South Burlington McDonald’s earlier today were filled with a typical smattering of lunch customers: two businesswomen, a pair of teenagers, a soldier and a few families. In their midst was a toddler in a high chair, her tiny hands manuevering a hamburger and picking at some French fries. There was nothing…
GOP Mayoral Candidate’s Bold Plan for Burlington: Sell! Sell! Sell!
* Updated below: BED’s true debt load, plus Kurt Wright responds to the claim his math is wrong. * Republican mayoral candidate Kurt Wright promised he would unveil a “bold plan” with “bold solutions” to address the serious fiscal challenges facing the city of Burlington — and on Wednesday, he delivered. At a city hall…
![Matthew Thorsen & “Sound Proof” [243]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/episode243.webp?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
Matthew Thorsen & “Sound Proof” [243]
10/15/11: This weekend, photographer Matthew Thorsen’s traveling, multimedia exhibit “Sound Proof,” presented by Big Heavy World, opened at the Magic Hat Artifactory. In the 1990s, the prolific Thorsen documented the vibrant Burlington music scene through the lens of his camera. “Sound Proof” includes an audio component so you can hear the actual story behind the…
Occupy Lowell Mountain Launches Blog From The Blasting Zone
Talk about your daily blasts: Protesters making a last-ditch effort to halt construction of Green Mountain Power’s Kingdom Community Wind Project on Lowell Mountain have launched a daily blog, called “Mountain Talk,” to spread the word about their ongoing “tent-in” and invite newcomers to join them. As reported in my story this week, “Occupy Lowell Mountain? Despite…
Gorillas, Ghosts and Greed
Is the cozy relationship between the administration of Gov. Peter Shumlin and Green Mountain Power just a little too cozy? State Sen. Vince Illuzzi (R-Essex/Orleans) thinks so. On Monday, Illuzzi delivered a petition signed by 30 Vermonters to the Vermont Public Service Board, the quasi-judicial body that regulates state utilities, asking it to appoint a…
News Quirks
Curses, Foiled Again Juan Aguirre, 21, broke into Cirilla’s sex shop in Salina, Kan., and made off with six X-rated DVDs — or so he believed. Police who stopped him for questioning said his backpack contained a sledgehammer head attached to a rope that he used to shatter Cirilla’s door glass. The six DVD cases…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): If you have been resisting the command to go deeper, now is the time to surrender. If you have been hoping that the pesky little voice in your head will shut up and stop bugging you to get more involved, you’d better stop hoping. If you’ve been fantasizing about how to…
Letters to the Editor
Tony’s Town Glad to hear that Mary Powell is getting a nod from Seven Days [“Green Mountain Powell,” October 12], as well as Rep. Tony Klein, who is from East Montpelier, not Montpelier, as stated twice in the print version. Different town, different zip code! Kenric Kite Montpelier Editor’s note: Our copy editor made that…
Did Occupy Vermont Suppress Free Speech in Goldman Sachs Protest Controversy?
Jeff Ares, a University of Vermont alumnus who now works for Goldman Sachs, was scheduled to speak to business students at the school on Friday. Given Goldman Sachs’s sizable role in the financial meltdown, this didn’t make Vermont’s contingent of Occupy Wall Street supporters too happy. Occupy Vermont participants planned a “showdown” at the talk…
