Living story sections
Early Friday, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for parts of New England. Tropical Storm Henri will likely develop into a hurricane before making landfall on the northeastern U.S. coast this weekend, bringing strong winds and heavy rain.
SHOPPING ONLY DAY at Swap Shop at WSWMD on Old Ferry Road, Brattleboro on Saturday, August 21, 8:30 am to noon. We are overflowing with donated items and must make room for more! A few of the many items available are dressers, chairs, lamps, kitchenware, puzzles, outdoor furniture, DVDs, books, file cabinets-2 drawer & 4 drawer….ALL ITEMS ARE FREE
SCHEDULE & HOURS:
Shopping Days- 1st & 3rd Saturdays of the month
Donation Days- 2nd & 4th Saturdays of the month
If a month contains 5 weeks, the Swap will be closed
Shock. Sadness. Anger. Those were some of the emotions that grabbed me as I read the account by Mindy Haskins Rogers in the August 11 issue of The Commons of Brattleboro. She told the story of alleged sexual abuse by a former Brattleboro Union High School English teacher, Zeke Hecker, and the years-long cover up of his behavior.
We hear about sexual abuse nearly every day and we have come to realize that not enough abusers are ever brought to justice. You only have to look as far as a former president to understand that the deck is stacked against the abused.
Silence is one of the best weapons that abusers have. Sadly, there are too many examples of child sexual abuse, including that of the Catholic church.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MENU
August 16 Caesar Salad w/Chicken
Pasta Salad w/Broccoli & Pesto
Garlic Bread
Cream Puff
Update to the Community from Brattleboro Town Manager Peter Elwell:
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) has reclassified Windham County from an area of “moderate public transmission” of COVID-19 to an area of “substantial public transmission” of the virus.
All Town of Brattleboro government facilities remain open to the public at this time, but we have reinstituted the requirement that anyone inside Town buildings must be wearing a face covering. This applies equally to employees and to visitors. It applies equally to vaccinated people and to unvaccinated people. The CDC guidance on this matter is clear: all “people [should] wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission.”
The weather forecast for the remainder of this week includes dangerously high heat and humidity. Town of Brattleboro urges everyone to drink plenty of water, wear light clothing, and stay out of the heat as much as possible.
People who need some cool air can visit the Senior Center at the Gibson Aiken Center (207 Main Street), Brooks Memorial Library (224 Main Street), the Central Fire Station (103 Elliot Street), or the West Brattleboro Fire Station (16 South Street).
Unless you’ve really been living in deep media seclusion, you probably already know the planet is in big trouble. The planet’s troubles, expressed as record heat waves, epic wildfires, prolonged droughts, biblical rainstorms, and erratic weather patterns, have led to all kinds of disruption here below. Mother Nature isn’t just angry — she’s in crisis. Which isn’t surprising since humans have been systematically trying to kill her off pretty much since the dawn of mankind. Clearly she can’t take it anymore.
But elaborate metaphors aside, I’ve been worrying more than usual about the state of the environment and the decline of the natural realm, from the changing climate to the alarming loss of wildlife around the world. Although it’s easy to forget these things living in Vermont, we do not live in a bubble.
When the world is too much with us I turn to the birds. Most of us have been in need of some sort of refuge these past few years and I have found the observation of the bird population to be an activity that has helped to clear my head and get a better perspective on the world.
I am not what might be called a birder. I do not count species and I do not make birding treks to look for rare species. Quite simply, I have put up a suet feeder and a hummingbird feeder in my yard so that I can watch the activity from my deck.
At first I wondered if feeding birds year round was a bad thing for birds. My research has shown me that there are pro’s and con’s but that, overall, birds are not usually harmed by having a handout on a regular basis.
Here’s a new interactive climate map from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch
They describe it as” A novel tool for flexible spatial and temporal analyses of much of the observed and projected climate change information underpinning the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, including regional synthesis for Climatic Impact-Drivers (CIDs).”
IMPORTANT INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MENU
August 9 Quiche Lorraine (Veggie Available)
Sweet Potatoes
Zucchini
Plums
We’re looking for shoppers (past and present!) and stakeholders from Foodworks, Retreat Farm, and Edible Brattleboro. We’d love to hear your thoughts about visiting these three places. If you’re interested, you can continue the conversation in an interview about your experiences. This is a chance to partner with the collaborative as we create a 5-year vision for an equitable, resilient, food system in Brattleboro. We’re hoping to build a broad coalition and welcome you to join us!
I superficially looked at the CDC site, and learned 2 things about delta:
1. CDC sayszz the Delta Variant is one and a half times as contagious as Alpha (which I understand is the first new iteration after original Covid-19. What they mean is that if a person infected with Alpha would (under a particular set of circumstances) infect 2 additional persons; then a person infected with Delta, under the same set of circumstances, would infect 3 people. (Of course a major epidemic management goal would be to get the that number down to .9 or less.).
Some news from the Windham County Humane Society:
” Many of us in Windham County know the awesome work done by local wildlife rehabilitator, Patti Smith. Patti has worked for decades with Dr. Ron Svec (WCHS’s newest board member!) of the VT-NH Veterinary Clinic when wildlife needed medical care. When Dr. Svec recently retired, Patti called up the shelter with what she thought was a big ask – would we be willing to allow vets to use our surgery space for wildlife?
The answer was a resounding YES! Former board member and veterinarian Dr. Susan Kelly was also up for the challenge. So when an opossum was injured by a dog, Dr. Kelly gave us a call. Momma possum had four joeys in her pouch. The babies were healthy but mom had a nasty injury 2/3 of the way down her tail. Baby possums need the entire tail because they sometimes hang by their tail. Adults use their tail to gather brush but don’t hang by their tails.
Why don’t we task the U.S. Navy with cleaning up the oceans?
The program is paid for, they have boats and people, and they are out in the oceans of the world all the time.
Okay, so you want some naval defense. Fine. If not 100%, why not 50%, or 10% of their assignment be ocean clean-up?
According to the CDC’s website, 64.4% of the total population of Windham County has had at least one does of a COVID vaccine. 55.8% are fully vaccinated.
Keep this in mind as we crow about Vermont’s high vaccination rates. We haven’t hit 70% in Windham County yet. We’re much closer to “half way there” than the “almost 100%” people like to assume.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THE MENU
August 2 Baked Chicken
Roasted Potato
Broccoli
Watermelon
It’s August 2021, in case you’ve forgotten. We continue daily/limited-weekend COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro. We’ve also added weekly Delta variant updates. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.
Beginning Monday, August 2nd,the Brattleboro Senior Congregate Meal program will be operating five days a week (Monday – Friday).
Please note that there will be a limited capacity and reservations will be required. To make a reservation please call Cynthia at 802-267-1236. No later than 10 am.
If you are choosing to not get the COVID vaccine then you need to accept complete responsibility for your behavior. That means acknowledging the fact that you may be responsible for the suffering and death of others. It means that you should make an effort to keep away from other people while you wear a mask. But your selfish behavior has made it clear you will not make the effort to protect others.
American society is putting a lot of effort and money into trying to convince the unvaccinated to get the shot, but those efforts are resulting in less than adequate outcomes. The time has come to give up on the unvaccinated and start punishing them for putting the rest of us in danger.
It’s an ill wind that blows no good… Just kidding. As most of us are probably aware, there’s been a lot of smoke in the air recently, although what zephyr it blew in on I have no idea. We noticed it last night around sunset, and by the time we went to bed, we could see this strange fog enveloping the area, detectable even in the dark. The trees seemed really distant, we could only see one star, and when a car drove by, there was complete white-out and all the trees disappeared. Although the National Weather Service forecast was calling it “haze,” it seemed pretty smoky to me.
This morning, it cleared off, but after noon, it rolled back in like gangbusters. I was surprised to discover that not only can you see the smoke, you can smell and taste it too. I even noticed my eyes burning which is normal if you’re in a smoky environment, but frankly, you just don’t expect to be in a smoky environment as a result of a fire 2500 miles away.
Cutting to the chase, it’s worth noting that for this afternoon at least, out air quality puts us in an Orange zone as indicated on the EPA air quality web page; this means “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. If you cross the river to NH or drive over to NY, the adjacent areas there are Red zones — which is simply “unheathy air.” You can see the regions highlighted on the map at the link below.
