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Kitchen Table Conversation on Act 39 (Medical Aid in Dying)

by BrattleboroHospice | Health

Please join us for an informal yet informative discussion on the changes to Act 39, Medical Aid in Dying. With passage of H. 190, removing the residency requirement from Act 39 on May 2, 2023, qualifying non-Vermont residents gained access to Medical Aid in Dying in Vermont. We will have the opportunity to discuss this change and the special challenges it may create, as well as talk about Act 39 in general.

What is a Kitchen Table Conversation? When you think about some of your most engaging and interesting conversations, didn’t many of them happen around a kitchen table? Staff and volunteers with knowledge and experience on this subject will be sitting around the table with you, and together we will talk in a supportive and congenial atmosphere.

False Hope

by RDavis | Health

People who have to deal with the burden of an incurable disease often hold out hope that there will be a cure before the disease takes their lives. Diseases such as ALS, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Type 1 diabetes and many types of cancer as well as a host of other diseases may have treatments to alleviate symptoms but the disease still moves in often relentless and unpredictable ways.

Hoping for a cure borders on delusional thinking partly because of the time it takes to develop treatments and also because of the cost of any curative regimen. A recent news item about sickle cell anemia drives this point home all too clearly.

A few years ago Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier received the Nobel prize for their work with the gene editing technology called CRISPR. CRISPR is an acronym for clustered regularly interspersed palindromic repeats. It is a process that allows scientists to change the structure of genes.

Brattleboro and VT COVID-19 Regional Dashboard Summary – November 2023

by cgrotke | Health

Here’s the November 2023 dashboard summary. We continue semi-regular COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro, as long as they continue providing them. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.

VT, NH and MA seem to be doing weekly updates, near the end of the week. All three have changed their dashboards since the start, so it is now tough to easily compare where we stand. Variant updates are every two weeks.

GunSenseVT Candlelight Vigil Nov 2 Pliny Park Brattleboro

by LSBS | Activism

GunSense VT is holding a candlelight vigil in Brattleboro this Thursday, November 2nd at Pliny Park, 5 p.m. in support of the people of Lewiston, Maine, banning assault weapons, and passing common sense legislation to save innocent lives. It is one of several that are planned for the same day around the State.
 
As GunSense VT board member Laura Subin, whose daughter was in lockdown at Bates College in Lewiston last week, said, “The chilling proximity of the tragedy in Maine shatters any illusion of safety we might have previously felt here in Vermont. It is a harrowing reminder that no community is immune to this sort of heartache.”

The Yearly Medicare Advantage Media Blitz

by RDavis | Health

The annual fall Medicare Advantage media blitz is in full swing. Private insurance companies are raking in billions of dollars on the backs of unwitting seniors who think they are getting a good deal but in fact are being robbed of not only benefits but money.

Here’s the quick rundown. In 2003 it was decided that the private insurance industry should share in the profits of the government’s Medicare program. It was a calculated political move to privatize Medicare and eventually turn it into an entirely private insurance product.

Keep in mind that Medicare’s administrative expenses run at about 2 percent while private insurance company administrative costs run as high as 20 percent or more.

The Windham County Heat Fund – The Need Continues After 19 Years

by RDavis | Activism

If you live in the Northeast chances are pretty good you have been using oil, propane or wood to heat your home for a few weeks. There are some people that set a date for turning on their furnace and they suffer through until then, partly as a matter of principle and partly because of the cost of fuel.

Then there are those among us, a growing number, who struggle to heat their homes. They rely on federal and state fuel assistance programs which do not start until late November. The politics of that have always troubled me and politicians say they understand the timing is not realistic, but the allocation doesn’t happen until well after the need for heat starts.

This is where the Windham County Heat Fund comes in. We try to have a reserve of funds at the start of the heating season so we can fill that gap for people who rely on government fuel assistance to keep warm. Our busiest times are now until late November and near the end of the heating season when people have used up their fuel assistance allocations.

Crime Research Group Study

by Not Signed In | Activism

Are you one of the 902?

We are working with Crime Research Group (CRG) on a study funded by the National Institute of Justice to help find people willing to participate in a study about the experiences of defendants of color in Southern Vermont criminal courts. Researchers are looking to speak with people over the age of 18 who have at least one closed criminal case since 2019 that was handled in Bennington, Rutland, Windham, and/or Windsor County. Participants will be interviewed about their experience before, during, and after court.

Poverty Row

by SK-B | Living

Poverty Row got its name as the historic location of the town’s poorhouse. But now it is a rather nice section with a number of private vacation homes.

In the mid 1980s we lived in a cabin without utilities, wore used clothing, and spend money freely only on wholesome, organic food. Before our son was born, I took whatever low-paying job I could get.

Sometimes a low-paying job brings you in contact with wealthy people.

A Broad Reach

by AnneODyne | Living

I don’t know what possessed me. But I can tell you it wasn’t just one thing. Recent events that led to the epiphany, if you can call it that, were set in motion by the massive Nor’Easter this past winter. We had a lot of trees come down on the property, big ones too. When spring came around I saw the damage done to the trampoline- wrecked- as well the old wooden wheel-barrow my partner inherited from her grandfather. Amazingly, the little pram that sat by the edge of the lawn was untouched, yet fallen timber was splayed all around it. That boxy boat hadn’t sailed in ages, I figured it’d make a good sandbox for the grandkids someday. “Shoebox is more like it,” partner posited. I offered no rejoinder.

Maybe it was all the screens. Or the news. Or the rampant selfishness, greed, stupidity, privilege… that seemed on the rise everywhere. Maybe I was tired of carrying the burden of disappointment on top of so much hyper-mediated inundation. In any case, the idea to time-travel a bit on my own terms was hatched, eccentric and odd yes, yet strangely edifying too. My partner knew it was better to let a notion like this run its course rather than trying to talk sense into me. And in fact the idea of restoring the wooden boat with salvaged natural elements from the storm, making spars and oars from tree limbs, using the intact canvas as a sail, and fashioning wheelbarrow handles and its smashed sides into a rudder- Yeah it was kooky I’ll admit- but I had the tools and time, and it’s a fact, a bit of ingenuity and effort mixed with fun can keep the wolf from the door- psychologically speaking.

Brattleboro Senior Meals – October 9 thru October 13

by KTurnas | Food

Oct. 9             CLOSED FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S DAY

Oct. 10          Teriyaki Pork Loin

                       Brown Rice w/Green Beans & Onion

                       Beets

                        Tropical Fruit

Brattleboro and VT COVID-19 Regional Dashboard Summary – October 2023

by cgrotke | Health

Here’s the October 2023 dashboard summary. We continue semi-regular COVID-19 dashboard numbers from the Vermont Department of Health, and MA and NH counties that surround Brattleboro, as long as they continue providing them. Scroll down the new comments for the latest.

VT, NH and MA seem to be doing weekly updates, near the end of the week. All three have changed their dashboards since the start, so it is now tough to easily compare where we stand. Variant updates are every two weeks.

How Old is Too Old?

by RDavis | Activism

Our society needs to have a broad-ranging and serious discussion about the issue of when a person might be too old to take on specific responsibilities. We have been tinkering around the edges and the topic comes up more frequently now that the media has started to recognize the fact that the average age of U.S. senators is 65 and that of representatives 58.

Perhaps the most talked about age issue is that relating to President Biden who is 80 and would be 86 at the end of his next term in office. Leading candidate Trump is 77. Most of the leadership in the Senate is well over the 65 average and the infirmity of some members has been noted recently.

Some people might be inclined to rush to judgment when it comes to age and say that there should be absolute age limits for certain public offices. Other people argue that term limits would solve the problem without having to discriminate against people because of their age.

The Magic of Pyrgi, Greece

by RDavis | Travel

On the island of Chios, Greece- Travel, on any level and in any place, can often be a life-altering experience. Merely breaking your daily routine and seeing unfamiliar people and vegetation can freshen the mind better than most forms of therapy.

Once you allow yourself to cast aside as much baggage as you can, you move into new places where you have the potential to become a new person, either for a moment or forever. All of this is a preface to a description of what happened to me and my wife Roberta when we visited the town of Pyrgi on the Greek island of Chios.

There are rare moments during travel when something magical and mystical happens. I think a person would be lucky to have two or three of these moments during a lifetime of travel. When Roberta and I entered the town of Pyrgi we were immediately immersed into a world where children of all ages play unattended in the streets, running with more joy than will ever be experienced by any American child in a lifetime.

Lunar New Year of China, Vietnam, and Korea

by ACCVT | Family

Asian Cultural Center of Vermont (ACCVT) presents the 23nd annual Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (Zhongqiu Jie) which is celebrated in China, Korea, Vietnam and other places around the world. Celebrate the Autumn Moon Festival with crafts, songs, food, taiji, paper lanterns, Chinese exercises, the Korean rope tug and more. Hear the story of The Goddess of the Moon, Chang’e; the great archer Hou-Yi; and the Elixir of Immortality. Then watch the harvest moon rise. The celebration will start with a pot-luck (bring a dish to share).