News
by From Our Readers | Jul 12, 2007 | News
Paul-derol..I found it really strange and a little disturbing to read your gushing enthusiasm for Ron Paul ["The Book on Paul," June 28, 2007].Yes, he's anti-war. But he's also anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-gun control. If he could, he...
by Joshua Micah Marshall | Jul 19, 2007 | News
A recent CNN poll had a lot of eye-popping numbers. But one was particularly striking: 38 percent. That's the number of self-identified Republicans who now put themselves down as against the Iraq war. This all sums up in stark terms the anxiety now causing...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 19, 2007 | News
Christopher Hitchens, the bilious Brit, has bagged a bestseller. Give Chris a big hand and a mug o' Guinness. Good show, old sport! His latest vowel movement is called God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. It has everyone's knickers in a twist....
by Terry Allen | Jul 19, 2007 | News
The health care industry is having palpitations over SiCKO. "I don't think Michael Moore set out to make a balanced movie," said Karen Ignagni, president of the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, regurgitating the industry's key...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 19, 2007 | News
Sell, Springfield, Sell <br><br>I grow weary listening to Springfield bellyaching about its financial woes. Springfield does not have a financial crisis. It has a crisis of management which fails to make bold, necessary decisions to solve the problems. For...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 19, 2007 | News
Karen Powell has little use for the unwritten rules that govern "acceptable" political behavior.Take, for instance, the time in 1998 when she and her husband, Bob, tried to launch a recall election to unseat then-Springfield Mayor Mike Albano. The Powells...
by Natalia Muñoz | Jul 19, 2007 | News
Holyoke Police Chief Anthony Scott recently launched an APB on milk and apple crates and beverage cases cluttering city sidewalks and streets. The chief said he is attempting to clear pathways for pedestrians and vehicles and at the same time help keep the city...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 19, 2007 | News
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are the lunatic fringe now. The only people who will still stand in the same room with them are Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose reelection in 2006 was the worst mistake Connecticut voters have ever made, and the Beltway pundits. This latter...
by Maia Szalavitz | Jul 23, 2007 | News
When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he'd support doubling the size of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, he was trying to show voters that he'd be tough on terror. Two of his top fundraisers, however, have long supported using coercive tactics...
by Kendra Thurlow | Jul 26, 2007 | News
On August 31, an era is coming to an end at Smith College in Northampton. The college has opted not to renew its Coca-Cola contract, severing ties with the company after a 50-plus-year relationship. President Carol Christ, in a letter to Coca-Cola on May 25, cited...
by Valley Editorial | Jul 26, 2007 | News
While the issue of immigration, focused on people who come to the U.S. for manual work in agriculture and construction or low-paying sales jobs, has been tearing the country apart, a completely different issue involving immigrants is becoming a problem. Because not...
by Kendra Thurlow | Jul 26, 2007 | News
On August 31, an era is coming to an end at Smith College in Northampton. The college has opted not to renew its Coca-Cola contract, severing ties with the company after a 50-plus-year relationship. President Carol Christ, in a letter to Coca-Cola on May 25, cited...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 26, 2007 | News
Hitchens Was RightChristopher Hitchens is a bit of a boob, but he's right about religion ["Hitchens Is Not Great," July 19, 2007]. At least he pays taxes on the money he makes. If churches were properly taxed, many snake oil salesmen would go out of...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 27, 2007 | News
When George W. Bush went in for his colonoscopy on Saturday—insert joke about brains, head, ass here—Richard "Lon" Cheney was king for a day. He got to wear the crown, sit on the throne, bounce the beach ball with the globe on it up and down,...
by Salim Muwakkil | Aug 2, 2007 | News
I have known Barack Obama since the early '90s. My conversations with him had convinced me he was an unwavering progressive. I celebrated his first election to the Illinois state senate, and he compiled a strikingly progressive legislative record during his...
by Alan Bisbort | Aug 2, 2007 | News
You could put what I know about high finance in a thimble and still have room for a side order of fries. Nonetheless, occasionally some news sifts up from the Wall Street babble that makes me prick up my ears. For instance, this week I heard that the stock market...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 2, 2007 | News
At the moment, the world—including Americans, the world's heaviest users of fossil fuels—have what may turn out to be one of the most important, and shortest, windows of opportunity in history. For a time that may be all too brief, the urgent need of...
by Natalia Muñoz | Aug 2, 2007 | News
One of Springfield's most sought-after high schools is in danger of losing accreditation because its class sizes are too large, it lacks a sufficient number of guidance counselors and its technology is outdated. The New England Association of Schools and Colleges...
by Valley Editorial | Aug 2, 2007 | News
Bush and Cheney and their ilk derive their power from us. At least they used to. But now they are declaring themselves independent of the people of the United States, and independent of even the legislative branch,which exists to oversee the executive precisely in...
by Jennifer Abel | Aug 8, 2007 | News
A man walked into the room where I stood, and we chanced to make eye contact. I smiled. His eyes widened in shock and he hurriedly averted them, as though he'd seen something shameful. From his perspective, maybe he had — I stood alone with uncovered head,...
by Daryl LaFleur | Aug 8, 2007 | News
Editor’s note: Prior to their meeting, LaFleur provided the mayor with a set of questions. Where appropriate, these questions are inserted in brackets [ ]. [Question One: If former Academy of Music employee Mr. Robinson is collecting unemployment and therefore...
by Valley Editorial | Aug 9, 2007 | News
“We have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you’re an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account.” That was our President speaking when he wanted to sound tough on...
by Daryl LaFleur | Aug 9, 2007 | News
This is continued from part one of LaFleur's interview with Mayor Higgins… […] D: Well, $90,000 is a lot of money, it is. M: So, remember that GASB 45 requires us to quantify… D: I’ll look that up. M: Well, you should think about that...
by Daryl LaFleur | Aug 9, 2007 | News
This is a continuation from part two of this interview… D: And it would be helpful going ahead to have the letter that was sent out to everyone, to have a copy of the legal opinion which states… I think what you said is that you must treat everyone the...
by James Heflin | Aug 9, 2007 | News
George W. Bush, armed with his halting, homespun testiness, last week referred to the Director of National Intelligence, a full-grown adult named Mike McConnell, as "Mr. DNI."If Bush's plummeting poll numbers are any indication, most of the country feels...
by Kendra Thurlow | Aug 9, 2007 | News
Idon't suffer from hoplophobia (a slang term for an irrational and morbid fear of guns). In fact, for purposes of full disclosure, I'll admit that I quite like using guns. I'm a member at the Smith and Wesson Shooting Sports Center in Springfield. I...
by Jason Horowitz | Aug 9, 2007 | News
John Edwards may not be leading in the polls. But, he would like to stress, he is leading on the issues. "I don't need to read a poll, I don't need to see a focus group and I don't need to see what the other candidates are saying," said Edwards,...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 9, 2007 | News
If you follow Springfield news and politics with more than a passing interest, you probably know who Michaelann Bewsee is, at least as she's represented in the sound bites of the evening news and the newspaper. Bewsee is the public face of Arise for Social...
by Gary Carra | Aug 9, 2007 | News
They had been selected from a field of thousands, then whisked away with nine other acts for a weeks-long battle of the bands series with scheduled stops (and subsequent contests) the country over as the reality TV cameras rolled. But at this instant,...
by Alan Bisbort | Aug 15, 2007 | News
It's a cliché often spouted by real estate agents: "Land…they ain't making any more of it."When a real estate agent says we're running out of land, he/she has a different reaction from the 99% of us not involved in real estate....
by Advocate Staff | Aug 9, 2007 | News
Touching DeathI'll bet you get some flak for running the story about the ashes of a local woman's remains ending up in pottery glaze. No matter. It was a beautiful and well-written story. I applaud anything that urges people to take another look at attitudes...
by Advocate staff | Aug 15, 2007 | News
It seems to induce only yawns or indifference, but the Bush family has some substantial skeletons in the closet. The latest chapter revealed in the Bush saga has to do with George W’s grandfather Prescott Bush, already implicated in trading with the enemy during...
by Daryl Lafleur | Aug 9, 2007 | News
This is a continuation from part three of this interview M: Well, even if that was the case, even if someone stayed an extra two years because they had heard this rumor, then they go to HR at the tenth year and say, “You know, I stayed for the health...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 16, 2007 | News
Melissa Tracy was shopping an iParty store in the eastern Massachusetts town of South Weymouth one day last spring when her infant son began crying. The baby was hungry, so Tracy settled down on the sales floor and began nursing him—only to be chastised by a...
by Alan Bisbort | Aug 16, 2007 | News
Despite all the outrage that preceded it, Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal was inevitable. After all, he's a "media czar" and czars don't take "no" for an answer. Indeed, if one studies the behavior of successful...
by From Our Readers | Aug 16, 2007 | News
Food SecurityI applaud the message in your article "Buy a Pound, Save 13" [Aug. 1, 2007] about buying local to reduce carbon emissions. I would like to add that by buying local, you're doing more than simply helping to "preserve the planet."...
by Andrew Potter | Aug 16, 2007 | News
Not long ago, six Muslim immigrants to the United States, including three Albanian brothers named Duka, were charged in New Jersey with plotting to attack Fort Dix with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. A relative of the brothers, Murat Duka, lamented...
by Heather Brandon | Aug 16, 2007 | News
The Springfield mayor’s office announced last week, regarding the new trash fee, “The End is Nigh.” Actually, the release stated, “End of trash service nears for non-responders.” If you haven’t already paid the trash fee, whether...
by Norman Solomon | Aug 22, 2007 | News
The problem with letting history judge is that so many officials get away with murder in the meantime—while precious few choose to face protracted vilification for pursuing truth and peace. A grand total of two people in the entire Congress were able to resist a...
by Alan Bisbort | Aug 23, 2007 | News
At the risk of putting too grandiose a spin on it, I have some information that might save the life of your high-school-aged child. Actually, it comes courtesy of the American Friends Service Committee, and it consists of two words: Opt out. This simple concept gives...
by Niall Stanage | Aug 23, 2007 | News
How far can candor and substance take a politician? People claim to crave these virtues. Mourning their absence from civic life has become routine on both sides of the Atlantic. The battle for the Democratic party's presidential nomination suggests the picture is...
by Natalia Muñoz | Aug 23, 2007 | News
Domenic J. Sarno wears his heart on his sleeve and carries photographs of both his daughters, Cassandra, nine, and Chiarina, seven, in his breast pocket. He is a dapper dresser, a man who values courtesy and remembers people's names. He works long hours on behalf...
by our readers | Aug 23, 2007 | News
Yale, Too?When Andrew Potter points a finger at others (“No Golden Mean,” Aug. 16), three fingers are pointing back at him. I refer to his comments that “religious belief of just about any sort is intellectually lazy…“ and that...
by Ted Rall | Aug 29, 2007 | News
Zhang Shuhong was a nice boss to the end. On the last day of his life, the 50ish entrepreneur greeted his employees as they arrived at his factory and wished them a good shift. Then he went to the company warehouse and hanged himself. Zhang was co-owner of the Lee Der...
by Susan J. Douglas | Aug 30, 2007 | News
With the passing of Lady Bird Johnson, we are reminded that First Ladies used to stand for something. In the mid-1960s with the war in Vietnam escalating, beautifying America's highways may have seemed a trivial goal. It wasn't. Lady Bird Johnson—a...
by Robert B. Reich | Aug 30, 2007 | News
The Federal Reserve Board, acting as America's central bank, recently sliced half a percentage point off the discount rate it charges banks for loans. Its primary purpose was to lift the confidence of investors and consumers in the United States and around the...
by Alan Bisbort | Aug 30, 2007 | News
George W. Bush is afraid of his own shadow. No president, it seems, has ever been this terrified of the American people, this hidden away or secretive, this evasive in speech and behavior. Not even Nixon, who at least faced the cameras, the reporters and the people...
by Lewis M. Steel | Sep 5, 2007 | News
On June 28, three years after the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court subverted Brown's meaning to block public school integration plans. As a result, boards of education across the country, which have used racial criteria to...
by our readers | Sep 5, 2007 | News
Whiplash for BushPresident Bush has got to be suffering from whiplash. First he gave Iraqi’s leader Nouri al-Maliki “lukewarm” support, then, the next day, he strongly supported him as a “good guy, man.” But the strongest U-turn has to be...
by Valley Editorial | Sep 5, 2007 | News
This picture was taken by an anonymous photographer on or after August 21, when this cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant near Brattleboro collapsed, spewing water that was supposed to cool the plant’s reactor.Days later, on Friday, August 30,...
by Valley Editorial | Sep 6, 2007 | News
God, it hurt to find out that CNBC’s Erin Burnett has a degree in political economy from Williams College. It hurt because not long ago Burnett showed such abysmal naivete about the economy—about the evolution of American manufacturing in relation to...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 6, 2007 | News
After five years and more than $26 million—and despite countless protests and petition signatures—the new women's jail in Chicopee officially opens for business this month.The minimum- and medium-security facility will house more than 200 women from...
by Norman Solomon | Sep 6, 2007 | News
The U.S.A.'s military spending is now close to $2 billion a day. The country is beginning its seventh year of continuous war, with no end in sight. On the horizon is the very real threat of a massive air assault on Iran. Few in Congress seem willing or able to...
by Alan Bisbort | Sep 12, 2007 | News
Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says that impeachment is not off the table. That's a nice sound-bite, Congressman, almost as nice as Sen. Larry Craig's insistence that he has never had sex with a man. We all know it's a crock,...
by Valley Editorial | Sep 12, 2007 | News
Last week the Advocate published this photo of the cooling tower at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vt. after it partially caved in August 21. The disintegration of the tower was followed August 30 by an automatic shutdown that took plant technicians...
by Valley Editorial | Sep 12, 2007 | News
The Bush administration has proposed new rules that sanction the ongoing destruction of the landscapes of Appalachia and other coal-rich parts of the country. Rather than reining in the devastation, the rules, presented as “clarifications” of the Surface...
by Alan Bisbort | Sep 13, 2007 | News
For a century that began with such promise—with widespread talk of "bridges" and "a new millennium"—things sure deteriorated in a hurry, didn't they?In 1999 the U.S. was prosperous, not involved, at least not neck-deep, in foreign...
by From our readers... | Sep 13, 2007 | News
Kucinich "Right On"I resonated fully with Pat Turner's letter ("What's Next?", Aug. 30, 2007), lamenting that only one of over two dozen presidential hopefuls is pursuing impeachment proceedings to hold the current administration...
by Natalia Muñoz | Sep 13, 2007 | News
Typically, considering his disregard for truth, former (finally!) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned on Aug. 27 with a speech seeking to prove how far he's come in life, saying that even his worst days were better than his father's best days. His...
by Valley Editorial | Sep 13, 2007 | News
Here’s something you don’t see every day: a Washington lobbying group is so gung-ho for Massachusetts to accept federal money that it’s launching a $75,000 media campaign to pressure Gov. Deval Patrick to take it.Why such interest in fattening up...
