Making Life With Cancer “A Little Bit Easier”
We would like to give a special thanks to the Valley Advocate, Chief Soundworks and Maximum Capacity for sponsoring the Sy’s Fund First Annual Music Benefit this past June. We would also like to thank the many wonderful bands who donated their time, as well as the participants, directors and volunteers who made this event both memorable and successful.
It is through the generosity of each and every one of you that we are able to continue to grow and achieve our goal of making the lives of young adults with cancer a bit easier through funding meaningful gifts and integrative therapies. For more information on Sy’s Fund, visit our website at sysfund.org. We are currently looking for volunteers and board members and are always interested in new fundraising ideas! Please contact us at sysfund@gmail.com or call (413) 512-9177 for more information.
Lorraine Kerz
Executive Director, Sy’s Fund
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Readers on Redistricting
Excellent article (“Mapped Out,” July 21, 2011)—the best yet that I’ve seen on redistricting in Massachusetts.
Even though I was born and raised in Boston, I’ve spent a lot of time in Western Mass. Graduated from Northfield Mt. Hermon School in Northfield and spent eight wonderful summers at Camp Becket. Always stay at the Hotel Northampton when I’m in the area (I love the Calvin Coolidge memorial).
That being said, it all comes down to math—and given the mathematical constraints, there’s just no way that Western Mass. can keep two seats this go-around. We have to drop to nine seats and Western Mass. has lost population, whereas eastern Mass. has gained population—especially Boston and Cambridge. Given that, how can people like Registrar [Andrea] Nuciforo continue to plead for “two districts headquartered in Western Mass.” That’s what makes no sense!
We at www.fairdistrictsmass.org have submitted our proposals for both congressional and legislative redistricting. Now let’s see what the Legislature comes up with!
I hope everyone enjoys their summer (I will when I get to Cranwell and Tanglewood) and I look forward to the upcoming legal battle on redistricting in the fall.
Jack E. Robinson
via Web
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Western Massachusetts already has lost two congressional districts. The boundaries of the First and Second congressional districts go way into central Massachusetts. We are being told that [U.S. Rep. John] Olver and [U.S. Rep. Richard] Neal are so wonderful that we should convince the rest of the state to submit to gerrymandering so that they can keep their seats, even through they live a stone’s throw away from one another. I think it will be a hard sell.
Neal “brings home the bacon.” What does that mean? It means he gets money into the district that might go elsewhere. So we have a new U.S. District courthouse to enforce the losing war on drugs, or attempt to, anyway. Any Democrat or Republican in Congress will support the exportation of jobs from the U.S.A., and more wars. Olver is 75; he has had a heart attack. I wish him well, but saving “his” district may not be saving him.
For all of their faults, they keep getting re-elected because the Republicans always run someone even worse. That will most likely not change in the foreseeable future. This is not the House of Lords; these were never meant to be lifetime appointments.
The shape of the districts now would put Eldridge Gerry to shame. The U.S .congressional seats are allocated by population and the population has shifted; there is no fighting that. But most of the problems we have are everywhere: the exportation of jobs, expensive wars, the futile war on drugs, health care, Social Security. They are national problems and do not exist solely in Western Massachusetts.
Robert Underwood
via We
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If you are interested in redistricting in Massachusetts, check out Common Cause Massachusetts’ Redistricting Olympics! Common Cause Massachusetts is giving citizens a chance to weigh in on the redistricting debate by drawing the maps for themselves. Great way to actively participate in our democracy and possibly win some cash while doing so.
Check it out: commoncause.org/ma/redistrictingolympics.
Tyler Creighton
via Web
