News
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 5, 2017 | Articles, News
Despite unanimous approval at the Springfield School Committee’s May 18 meeting for a revised memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Springfield Public Schools and the Springfield Police Department, advocacy group Neighbor to Neighbor thinks the new document does...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 5, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
Sticky Green Thumbs A few responses to the May 25-31, 2017 O, Cannabis column: “Growing Your Own Weed In Massachusetts: A How-To Guide” Editor’s Note: Marty Klein was quoted in the article for his growing expertise. A slight clarification re: number of plants allowed....
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 5, 2017 | Articles, News
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker just announced a low-income, free-tuition program for the city of Boston that sounds like it came from the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Four years of college education in Massachusetts public colleges without tuition or...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jun 2, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. Donald Trump ran a campaign based on denying climate science, so his Thursday announcement that he would be pulling out of the international climate agreement represents a promise fulfilled. But the advantage of having a...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 30, 2017 | Articles, News
It looks like a normal courtroom, but once a week, Courtroom 10 in Hampden District Court hosts a legal session that is anything but typical. Rather than be shamed from the bench for crimes committed, a group of recovering addicts speaks to a judge eye-to-eye and...
by Chuck Shepherd | May 30, 2017 | Articles, News of the Weird, Newsletter
Goldman Sachs analyst Noah Poponak’s 98-page paper (leaked to Business Insider in April) touted the wealth obtainable by capturing the platinum reputed to be in asteroids. The costs to mine the stone (rockets, launch expenses, etc.) might have dropped recently to...
by Laurie Loisel | May 30, 2017 | Articles, News, Wellness
Jill Panto knows Narcan. She’s been trained in how to administer it. She has organized Narcan trainings for her community in Belchertown. By now, she could probably teach people herself how to use the life-saving opiate overdose reversal drug, a key weapon in the...
by Compiled And Illustrated By Kristin Palpini | May 30, 2017 | Articles, Missed Connections, News, Newsletter
The Missed Connections forum on Craigslist is a wasteland of terrible poetry, dick pics, and whining, but among the detritus are some truly fascinating, funny, and occasionally sweet entries. The following are highlights from the Western Mass Missed Connections forum,...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 30, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
Well, it has happened again. Another person who appears to be a sociopath caught in an act of hatred has been elevated to a position of power in our government. And this despite what we must call an alleged (though it was caught on tape and corroborated at the scene)...
by Chris Tucker, Of Holyoke | May 30, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
I started talking with a customer the other day at work. He was looking for something in the store, not sure if we had it, he may have got something else. I was in the middle of something, not in the mood to make small talk. But we started to chat. We kind of butted...
by Kristin Palpini | May 22, 2017 | Articles, News, O Cannabis!
With Memorial Day weekend on the horizon, many people with green thumbs are preparing to put their saplings and seeds into the ground — the beginnings of this season’s garden. It’s usually the same old stuff: tomatoes, green beans, peppers, berries, carrots. But this...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 22, 2017 | Articles, Arts, News
Liza King, 66, and Rick Neumann, 71, of Brattleboro, are about to fulfill what has felt like their lifelong ambition. On June 1, after nearly 20 years, they will move into their church sanctuary. “Their” church, by the way, doesn’t mean the church to which they...
by Chris Goudreau | May 22, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News
Last week I interviewed an organizer with the “I’ll Go With You” campaign, which sells buttons trans allies can wear to show they are willing to go into a public restroom with a trans man or woman to help keep them safe. That may seem like an extraordinary step to...
by Chris Goudreau | May 22, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
It’s surprising what you can create from seemingly broken or time weathered objects. From Brattleboro to Palmer artisans are doing just that whether it’s creating human-shaped sculptures from colored pencils wired together or a Victorian inspired lamp made from a...
by Advocate Staff | May 22, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
Why I Marched for Science In 1970, we celebrated the first Earth Day. I remember it vividly as a college student at the University of Michigan. The energy of the first Earth Day, focused on the alarming rate of deterioration of our environment, helped lead to landmark...
by Chuck Shepherd | May 22, 2017 | Articles, News of the Weird, Newsletter
Officials in charge of a Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal heritage site recently installed “speed bumps,” similar to those familiar to Americans driving residential streets — but on a pedestrian walkway, with row upon row of risers to resemble a washboard. A Western...
by Advocate Staff | May 18, 2017 | Advocate Chat, Articles, News
The Advocate Chat is a recurring series in which staff members tackle a topic in the news or otherwise of interest. The text below has been lightly edited. dave.eisen (Managing Editor Dave Eisenstadter): It’s the return of the AdvoChat!!! kristinpalpini...
by Kristin Palpini | May 15, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the proper date of the remembrance ceremony: Saturday; and provide more info on where the event will take place. The Great Falls Massacre One of the bloodiest battles during the viscous King Philips War — a...
by Chris Goudreau | May 15, 2017 | Articles, News
Protecting children from Al Qaeda and Houthi militias. Persuading boys against joining militant groups. Aiding children traumatized by violence, abduction, and rape. These are some of the things accomplished by 30-year-old Fadia Najib Thabet of Yemen while working as...
by Chuck Shepherd | May 15, 2017 | Articles, News of the Weird
The word “Isis” arrived in Western dialogue only after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as an acronym for the Islamic State, and the Swahili word “Harambe” was known to almost no one until May 2016 when the gorilla “Harambe” (named via a local contest) was put down by a...
by For the Valley Advocate | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News, Wellness
An unprecedented cluster of drug overdoses in Northampton late last month tested the city’s first responders. Their preparation — including training in the use of Narcan — helped prevent any fatalities. As the abuse of prescription and illegal opioids continues to...
by Chris Goudreau | May 15, 2017 | Articles, News
New Englanders are trained from a young age to expect the unexpected when it comes to weather, but according to a new UMass study, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Flooding, extreme heat, and unusually warm winter weather — all effects of climate change — are anticipated to...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 15, 2017 | Articles, News
Climate change is a worldwide problem, and we often hear of how it is affecting low-lying countries in Asia and the melting polar ice caps, but local climate data shows us how things are changing right here in the Pioneer Valley. And changing they are. The National...
by Kristin Palpini, compiled and illustrated | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
The Missed Connections forum on Craigslist is a wasteland of terrible poetry, dick pics, and whining, but among the detritus are some truly fascinating, funny, and occasionally sweet entries. The following are highlights from the Western Mass Missed Connections forum,...
by Advocate Staff | May 15, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News, Newsletter
Hope for Better Health Care Thank you for your piece in the Advocate (“Between the Lines: With Obamacare Under Fire, Massachusetts Must Lead on Health Care — Again,” May 11-17, 2017). However, it seems from it that you may not be familiar with House Bill 2987 and...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 15, 2017 | Featured, News, Stage
In a staggering blow to anyone looking for a weird experience on a Monday evening, tonight’s air sex tournament (think air guitar, but with sex) has been mysteriously cancelled. The event was going to take place at 7 p.m. at the Iron Horse, but a message on the...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 12, 2017 | Featured, News
Protesters looking to use climate change as a legal defense of their actions to try to stop a natural gas pipeline expansion project through Otis State Forest in Sandisfield won’t need to bother. Charges against them, which included trespassing and disorderly conduct,...
by Jack Brown | May 8, 2017 | Arts, Cinemadope, Columns, Featured, Film, News, Newsletter
For such a rich subject, films about art and the people that make it all too often feel either forced and flat or ridiculously over the top. Better, usually, to take the documentary route, and let the art speak for itself. That’s the course taken by directors Timothy...
by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Arts, Featured, Music, News, Newsletter
Got that Galaxy Grass A Kitchen Dwellers show is a true Montana bluegrass experience … that’s been strapped to a rocket, shot into space, and looped around Saturn a few times. Dubbed “galaxy grass,” the band’s sound is high-energy and exploratory jamming with...
by Will Meyer and Nellie Prior | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Basemental, Columns, News, Newsletter
You may know Amber Wolfe. She fronted the “speakeasy, post-apocalyptic band,” O You Villain, books shows at Amherst Coffee, and is a veteran of the Institute for Musical Arts, where she found “some of the foremothers of local music.” Despite strong roots here in the...
by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter, Stage
That’s Not an Air Guitar The national Air Sex Tournament is coming to Northampton Monday night and for anyone who thinks they’ve got the pantomime moves to beat the competition, it’s not too late to enter the foray. A fun, and funny, sex-positive show, performers get...
by Photo Illustration by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
The Missed Connections forum on Craigslist is a wasteland of terrible poetry, dick pics, and whining, but among the detritus are some truly fascinating, funny, and occasionally sweet entries. The following are highlights from the Western Mass Missed Connections forum,...
by Kristin Palpini | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, News, Newsletter
Occupy. A joint art show by Eric Mandeville and McKenzie Stuetzel makes a powerful statement, but only for a short time — so be sure to see it. By utilizing imagery from street art in contrasting colors, their show explores the idea of living in society, but outside...
by Advocate Staff | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News, Newsletter
One of the proudest moments that Madeleine Charney has shared with her son, Eli, is when she got to hold up the front page of the newspaper on Nov. 7, 2015, and show him that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline had been struck down by President Obama. Charney,...
by Chris Goudreau | May 10, 2017 | Articles, News
Local activist groups are staging an emergency rally calling for an independent investigation and for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russia. The planned peaceful demonstration will take place May 10...
by Chris Goudreau | May 5, 2017 | Featured, Get Out With Staff Picks, Music, News, Newsletter
David Crosby — the founding member of legendary 1960s and 1970s rock groups such as the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, & Nash — is coming to Northampton’s Academy of Music Theatre on May 19 for a show with his electric backing band. The two-time Rock n’ Roll Hall of...
by Advocate Staff | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News
Just a list of stuff any mother could love: An opportunity to finish a book … in less than six months. A box of tissues for those inevitable moments of disappointment in you (plus it’s allergy season). Michelle Obama merch (“When they go low, we go high” tote...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Between the Lines, News, Newsletter
The Republicans did it. They cobbled together an Obamacare replacement bill so bad that they got the most conservative members of the House to vote for it — people like Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks, who implied the majority of people with pre-existing conditions have...
by Chris Goudreau | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
LATEST UPDATE: Twenty-four protesters affiliated with The Sugar Shack Alliance, a Northeast coalition that aims to disrupt the fossil fuel industry, have been arrested thus far at Otis State Forest in Sandisfield. Charges stem from allegations that protesters blocked...
by Naila Moreira | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Down to Earth, News, Newsletter
The very schools we depend on to educate our children could be making them less smart. Drinking water in schools across Massachusetts, including here in the Pioneer Valley, has been found to contain lead significantly exceeding safety standards. Lead exposure,...
by Chuck Shepherd | May 8, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
Russian artist Mariana Shumkova is certainly doing her part for oral hygiene, publicly unveiling her St. Petersburg statuette of a frightening, malformed head displaying actual extracted human teeth, misaligned and populating holes in the face that represent the mouth...
by Advocate Staff | May 8, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
Stop Sending Weapons to Syria At a presentation given by the Northampton Committee to Stop Wars, I asked two Syrian speakers whether Syrians predominantly support President Assad or the rebels. They both said that the country is extremely divided and that their...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 6, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
The rain made way for the rainbows, as it always does. Not half-an-hour after the thousands of rainbow shirts, flags, balloons, and all manner of rainbow apparel hit the streets to begin the Northampton Pride Parade on Saturday, the morning’s rain was a memory...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 5, 2017 | Articles, Get Out With Staff Picks, Leisure, News
The bloom is on the branch and spring has sprung. And even in my short commute to work, I pass about a dozen varieties of flowering trees and bushes. It occurred to me that I haven’t the slightest idea what most of them are called. So I took out my phone and...
by Kristin Palpini | May 2, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
In the last several years, Northampton Pride has been a blowout celebration of all people, places, and things LGBTQI, but this year the event is leaning more toward its political roots. They’re putting the march back into the parade, so to speak. Northampton Pride...
by Advocate Staff | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News, Newsletter
The Missed Connections forum on Craigslist is a wasteland of terrible poetry, dick pics, and whining, but among the detritus are some truly fascinating, funny, and occasionally sweet entries. The following are highlights from the Western Mass Missed Connections forum,...
by Chuck Shepherd | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News, News of the Weird
Mother of Invention Robotic models of living organisms are useful to scientists, who can study the effects of stimuli without risk to actual people. Northwestern University researchers announced in March that its laboratory model of the “female reproductive system”...
by Chris Goudreau | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Featured, News
Eighteen protesters were detained at Berkshire County Jail on May 2 after blocking access roads to the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company’s easement where construction of a $93 million 3.8-mile Connecticut expansion gas pipeline project at Otis State Forest in Sandisfield...
by Kristin Palpini | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Letters from our Readers, News
Splitting Radiation Hairs Radiation exposure at 10 mrem? 15? 25? Small fractions of what everyone gets from natural background? These being hypothetical exposures (outlined in “Nuclear Activists Raise Concern Over Vermont Yankee Quick Fix,” April 27-May 3,...
by Lena Wilson | May 1, 2017 | Articles, Columns, News, Stream Queen
It’s nearly time to kick off Pride season with Noho Pride (see the Advocate’s Guide to Pride), where LGBT Valley citizens will be able to celebrate our identities and our history as we process down Main Street in a sea of rainbow. The parade, which will take...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News
I can’t say I was surprised when I read over the weekend that President Donald Trump had invited Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte – who has advocated extrajudicial killings of drug users in his home country – to the White House. But I was deeply disturbed....
by Chance Viles | Apr 30, 2017 | Articles, News, Scene Here
At one point gathering in crowds and smoking weed was a radical thing. Extravaganja participants would congregate in groups to sit and watch bands play in the unforgiving sun, dust kicked up by the constant flow of excited stoners ready to revel in their forbidden...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 1, 2017 | Articles, News, Wellness
Each week on Thursday afternoons is a Beyond Birth group in the little yellow house by Cooley-Dickinson Hospital. While my wife and I were on leave following the birth of our son, we tried to attend this group as often as we could. The group welcomes parents of babies...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 28, 2017 | Articles, News
Aditya Shastry of India had two years of statistics experience in the finance field, the start of what would have seemed a lucrative career. But he found his work limiting; he wanted to work on his own project. He applied to the University of Massachusetts Amherst...
by Kristin Palpini | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Arts, News, Newsletter
For writer Elinam Agbo, words are like air.“If I go too long without expressing my thoughts in one way or another, I begin to feel suffocated and distant from my memories as well as my lived moments,” said Agbo, this year’s winner of the Valley Advocate’s Juniper...
by Kristin Palpini and Chris Goudreau | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, News
On a hill of gravelly mud in Kendrick Park — that little strip of grass in downtown Amherst flanked by Triangle and Pleasant streets — a family of protesters are passing around plastic instruments and bird masks in preparation for the March for Science.“Everyone got...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, News
Over the last few months, a proposal to sell the now-closed Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant to a company called NorthStar has gotten some attention. Vermont Yankee shut down in 2014 and is in Vernon, a town at the southeastern corner of Vermont. Most of Franklin County...
by Connolly Ryan | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, Arts, News, Newsletter
Earth First & LastLike children in summertime, our planet thrives on vivid evidence that there is always something to be. Unlike fools who amass acres by way of massacres, nature plants herself in one area and creates worlds around her. Earth itself...
by Chuck Shepherd | Apr 24, 2017 | Articles, News of the Weird
A June 2016 police raid on David Jessen’s Fresno County (California) farmhouse caused a $150,000 mess when sheriff’s deputies and Clovis Police Department officers “rescued” it from a trespassing homeless man — with the massive destruction leading to Jessen’s lawsuit...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 25, 2017 | Articles, News
This spring, voters in eight towns in Western Massachusetts may pass resolutions requiring fossil fuel companies to pay fees to its citizens. The resolutions are non-binding, so the votes will be more about sending a message than actually leveraging the fees,...
