Shortly after reading ["Born for Broadway: Waitsfield's Shaina Taub Arrives in a Big Way, Starring in Her Own Musical, Suffs," April 17], I was invited to New York for a birthday weekend to see Wicked. Always willing to support one of our own, I also got tickets to Suffs.
I was not prepared for the absolute brilliance of this play! The music, the lyrics, the staging, the energy — Suffs is so much more than a theatrical experience, a musical, a history lesson; it is for anyone who has ever believed in anything. And it was fun!
Just back from Hiroshima and devastated over what humans can do to each other, I also loved this play for giving me the faith to keep working for what is most dear to me. I even bought the T-shirt, which I never, ever do!
Walk, run, drive, fly or train to New York and see this play before it closes — bring anyone, especially young women. It changes all of us. For good.
Rhonda B. Freed
South Burlington
The summer-in-Québec pullout listed a few of the province's major music festivals ["Ticket North," May 22]. However, it missed the Festival Chants de Vielles (chantsdevielles.com/en). It's a four-day immersion in traditional music, mostly Québécois, with a generous sprinkling of other international musicians, including Vermonters like Ian Drury with Young Tradition and the group Va-et-Vient. The venue is a picturesque village with the main stage right on the historic Richelieu River.
Jessica Noyes
Marshfield
Despite the peace sign on the sleeve of the older man in Tim Newcomb's cartoon about student encampments in support of Palestinians [Newcomb, May 8], the man isn't the aged anti-Vietnam War activist he (or Mr. Newcomb) would want us to think he is. If he were, he would honor the fact that students are protesting the genocide without the direct threat of being drafted into it, not respond to the students with derisive sarcasm.
With no self-interest involved, today's students' pro-Palestinian protests are more purely principled than the anti-war protests of the late '60s/early '70s, when students feared the draft.
There is also a historic mistake in the 'toon when one young student says: "It's Biden's war now — he's the new Nixon!"
No, he isn't! Biden is the new Lyndon Baines Johnson! Johnson was facing reelection from fall 1967 to spring 1968 when he stepped down, well before the Democratic convention.
That's the parallel! Same timeline — October to spring of an election year. Same situation — a sitting president up for reelection. Same timing of college and university protests — end of semester and graduation time prior to a November presidential election.
Kit Andrews
Burlington
Left in the disastrous wake of the 2023 floods are beacons of hope ["Mud, Sweat and Peers: Youth Conservation Crews Head Out to Repair Damage From 2023 Floods," May 22]. Young people have taken it upon themselves to dedicate time to rebuild and support affected communities. What should be taken away from the article, for adults, is an understanding that further action is our responsibility. Local environmental political action is an example of how every Vermonter can help protect our beautiful state from further ecological damage. This environmental catastrophe can be mitigated and better dealt with, but it is our responsibility to do so. No one in our community should have to experience the impacts of environmental disasters, let alone the next generation.
Alexandra Brkic
Bennington
I was distressed to read the article about saddle-seat show horses with no mention of the methods employed by some trainers to achieve the desired presentation ["Reining Champions: This Manchester Center Family Is a National Show Horse Powerhouse," April 24].
To force a horse's head higher than is natural, a strong bit is required so that he raises his head and tucks his chin, trying to escape the bit. In saddle-seat riding, the bits may be twisted wire or metal chain.
To make the horse's tail stand up, it is "set" whereby a crupper goes under the tail and is tightened to stretch the ventral tail muscles and raise the tail straight up. Many horses live in these harnesses 24-7. If setting is ineffective, surgery may be performed to make an incision through a muscle on the ventral side of the tail. Some trainers use ginger paste or similar irritants to inflame the rectum of the horse, causing him to hold his tail up.
Forcing the head and tail unnaturally high puts pressure on the entire spine, increasing the potential for stress, pain and spinal damage.
I grew up with horses and have been around them on and off most of my life. I am not saying the trainers profiled in this story use these methods, as I don't know that. But they are common practice in the saddle-seat show world. In an issue dedicated to animals, a more rigorous investigation into the topic would have revealed the underside of this discipline.
Margaret Grant
East Montpelier
I do not agree with Robert Pearo of Rutland, who compares wake boating to snowboarding meeting resistance from ski areas in the early years of the sport ["Making Waves: For Wake Boat Opponents, New Rules Mean New Battles," May 22]. Snowboarding was eventually accepted, Pearo noted, adding: "Every time someone finds another way to enjoy something, someone has to say, 'You're ruining it for everybody else.'" Snowboarding does not degrade the mountains on which it is practiced. I may conjecture that the majority of snowboarders are good stewards of the mountains and trails they use.
I would offer an analogy that is more logically sound. Let's say Pearo owns property in the countryside outside Rutland. How would he react if powerful motocross motorcycles roared up and down just outside only one of his property lines, ripping up and gouging the earth? I live on Lake Dunmore and am a member of the Lake Dunmore Fern Lake Association, whose members are dedicated to the stewardship of the lake and its shoreline. The current dangers to the lake include phosphorus leaching, the spread of milfoil and erosion of the shoreline.
In closing, I would like to add that snowboarding is a sport open to all, the cost of which is attainable to most everyone. Wake boats are not as affordable to people on the same scale that snowboards are.
Robert Cappio
Leicester
[Re "The 'Out' Crowd: At a Burlington Nature Celebration, Citizen Scientists Connect With — and Count — the City's Nonhuman Residents," April 24]: Burlington citizen scientists connect with the city's nonhuman residents. Everyone can do the same: Meet your invertebrate neighbors as close as in your backyard. I have observed 98 native bee species and well over 1,000 insect species in our 1.3-acre Jericho backyard and posted photos on iNaturalist. There are over 350 native bee species in Vermont.
Observing the behavior and the life cycle of insects is like getting to know someone as an individual versus knowing them by name and infrequent contact only. Both tiny ephemerals and insects offer minute details that, when observed closely, freeze all outward distractions, suspending you in time and place.
Looking at invertebrates — what I call "inverting" — is the new birding! Both are as rewarding as a treasure hunt.
Bernie Paquette
Jericho
[Re "Aggressive Behavior, Increased Drug Use at Burlington's Downtown Library Prompt Calls for Help," May 1]: The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide if being unsheltered is a crime. In a 1962 case, Robinson v. California, the court ruled that government could not make drug addiction a crime. The court recognized the moral imperative not to criminalize a status for which persons have little control.
The present court is packed with conservatives peddling revisionist history. These "history" lessons are anything but accurate (e.g., restricting guns or deference to women's choices over pregnancy). Another misrepresentation of our past humanity is likely.
For example, few people know the full story of being "warned out of town." Before Vermont statehood, towns could criminalize the unhoused (e.g., "Leave or go to jail"). At the same time, municipalities had a duty to care for "their" poor. This included housing. "Poorhouses" and "poor farms" existed here into the 1960s. At the crux was a belief that family, community and the town that you were raised in had a primary duty of care for your welfare. Other towns could reject responsibility for transients, but not the town of origin. The "warning" was essentially to return to your hometown for welfare services. It was not uncommon for towns to provide one night of shelter with the expectation that afterward, the person left town.
A Burlington-size municipality with no shelters and approximately 600 unhoused persons wants the court to sustain the scheme to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road. It wants to harm these individuals so they are forced to migrate to Burlington or elsewhere. This will not solve the national crisis in affordable housing. It is self-evidently cruel and historically unusual punishment. It violates international treaties.
Mark Flynn
Williston
Your article "State Shutters Temporary Homeless Shelter in Burlington" [March 26] is making me wonder what will happen if we continue to provide homeless people places to stay. People who experience homelessness and those vulnerably housed have disproportionately high rates of drug use and associated harms. I think there should be rehabilitation centers around the most homeless-populated cities.
I have sympathy for the people who try to get better and turn their lives around so they can work, make money and be happy again. If they actually show up and want to get help, I feel like they deserve to get aid for the effort of trying to make a change. On the other hand, people who don't show up don't get aid, because it looks like they don't care that they're homeless and can deal with it.
I understand that some people can't control losing their homes from catastrophes or illness — and especially affordability. It's the reasons after they lose their homes that make me feel the way I do. From personal experiences, I have seen some beg for money and food, but later on when I see them, they have alcohol in their hands. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 38 percent of homeless people abused alcohol, while 26 percent abused other drugs.
I think everyone deserves a chance to go to rehabilitation, but the most important thing is who will actually take the opportunity to change their life around and have a good future.
Matthew Plucin
Rutland