by Chris Goudreau | Jun 6, 2019 | Articles, Featured, News
Activists, elected officials, and concerned residents packed a June 5 Department of Energy Resources (DOER) hearing in Springfield on a state plan to open up state renewable energy subsidies to plants that burn biomass — mostly wood chips, wood pellets, and other wood...
by Hunter Styles | Jun 5, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Food Booze and Beyond, News, The Beerhunter
In the Advocate’s monthly craft beer column The Beerhunter, I keep my finger on the pulse of local craft beer business. The column began in 2014. From day one, I had plenty of little dramas and lucky breaks to cover, from small-business zoning woes to creative...
by Dave Eisenstadter and Chris Goudreau | Jun 5, 2019 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured, News
Swooping to the rescue The robot-controlled cameras that film us at all times waiting for us to mess up so we can be fined or arrested have spawned a new genre of Bizarro Brief: the bird photobomb as savior. One such 1984-like surveillance device in western Germany...
by Chris Goudreau | Jun 4, 2019 | Articles, Featured, News
Around 2009, Palmer Renewable Energy planned to create a $150 million 42-megawatt biomass energy plant in East Springfield at 1000 Page Blvd., a project that local environmental activists thought was scrapped two years ago. Now, a decade since the plant was proposed,...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 3, 2019 | Articles, Featured, News, Podcast
We’re relaunching the Valley Advocate Podcast! Last year, we had a good run partnering with Amherst Media to produce video podcasts. Now we’re back both with audio-only and video versions! Up first is guest Maureen O’Reilly, who talks about her...
by Advocate Readers | May 31, 2019 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
Abortion Should Not Be Law of the Land In response to “If It’s Not Your Body, It’s Not Your Business,” published May 23-29, 2019. I have never responded to any of the numerous far left pieces I read in the Advocate but this one demands a rebuttal. Ms. Levesque states...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 30, 2019 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
Honestly, I was not among those who thought the Mueller report would ignite impeachment proceedings to remove Donald Trump from the presidency. I did follow along with sickening dismay at news reports of Trump’s efforts to obstruct the investigation, but I doubted...
by Maureen O’Reilly | May 29, 2019 | Articles, Featured, News
Julisa DeLeón, 26, has a love of learning and a long-term goal of becoming a therapist, but she’s faced obstacles. A lifelong Holyoke resident, she graduated Holyoke High School in the spring of 2010 and later that fall began as a 17-year-old freshman at Newbury...
by Dave Eisenstadter | May 29, 2019 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
Last week an item in the Advocate’s calendar was a “climate crisis grief-sharing gathering” in Northampton. The description read as follows: “Home gathering to share grief, fear, anxiety, despair, and anger about the climate crisis.” Participants were encouraged to...
by Chris Goudreau | May 29, 2019 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured, News
Woody, is That You? The New York City Police Department recently used a photo of actor Woody Harrelson (Zombieland, HBO’s first season of True Detectives, Natural Born Killers) to catch a beer thief who happened to look a lot like the well-known actor. The police...
