News
by Stephanie Kraft | May 15, 2008 | News
Town after town in Franklin County within 20 miles of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is passing a resolution demanding that the plant close in March, 2012, the end of its originally projected life cyle. The plant's operators, Entergy of Mississippi, have...
by Alan Bisbort | May 15, 2008 | News
A Mickey Mouse war policy begets Mickey Mouse results. On that note, the perfect coda to the five-year-old disaster that is John McCain's favorite war just arrived. The company that built Disneyland, Los Angeles-based C3, is now designing a multi-million dollar...
by Alan Bisbort | May 22, 2008 | News
For those who don't harbor burning ambitions or insatiable acquisitive streaks, money is the root of all evil. Money, these people will tell you, can't buy happiness. While most Americans would probably agree with this sentiment—if only as a holdover...
by our readers | May 22, 2008 | News
World War II Losers Passing the U.S.So much talk recently about the cost of diesel fuel, the increasing costs of trucking, plus the increased inconvenience and cost of air travel, and gas tax holidays. How about a truly radical idea, a win-win deal that can help...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 22, 2008 | News
Two-thirds of the oil used in the United States goes to power our transportation. The end products—greenhouse gases—are changing the climate in ways that are threatening agriculture, weather patterns and even human life. With the world warming and oil...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 22, 2008 | News
Let's step back from the Democratic presidential primary and have a think about superdelegates, why the Democrats have them and what good they are (or aren't). Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean gave a lot of people a jolt when he said late in...
by Maureen Turner | May 29, 2008 | News
Just a few weeks ago, Pat Markey sounded optimistic about the first big proposal he'd be bringing forward as a freshman Springfield city councilor: a detailed ordinance, co-sponsored by colleague Bruce Stebbins, that would hold city officials to public disclosure...
by Maureen Turner | May 29, 2008 | News
I call Dick Evans to interview him. But he has his own question—or, more specifically, an assignment—for me: "I challenge you to find anyone who believes adults who choose to use marijuana responsibly deserve to be arrested, prosecuted and locked...
by James Heflin | May 29, 2008 | News
Back in civics class, things like congressional "holds" and the details of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act seemed dry as cold British toast. But it is in such poorly illuminated corners of congressional procedure that the real drama of lawmaking...
by Tom Devine | May 29, 2008 | News
I guess I'm sort of a poster boy for the "war on drugs." When critics of getting high talk about how bad drugs are, they usually refer to someone like me—a former crackhead who lost everything to addiction, narrowly escaped death and ended up in...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 29, 2008 | News
Speaking to Israel's Knesset on that nation's 60th anniversary, President Bush referred to World War II to excoriate the folly of the "appeasement" mentality. But his attempt to blandish Israel by indirectly damning Hitler's genocidal...
by Alan Bisbort | May 29, 2008 | News
In the past three years, my born-again right-wing neighbor has gotten married and had two kids, a boy and a girl. He has a cozy little house on a quiet cul-de-sac, a meek, stay-at-home mom for his kids, a well-paying job and his health. Still, he is not happy. My...
by Stan Cox | Jun 5, 2008 | News
I'd never had to show my driver's license to speak at a conference before, but not being the type to seek out trouble—especially at this conference—I obediently handed the card over to the woman at the registration desk. She ran it through a...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 5, 2008 | News
"I am the decision maker," Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters two weeks ago when asked whether his actions were dictated by the White House.But in refusing to let California waive federal auto emission standards and...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 5, 2008 | News
Tradition holds that newly elected politicians be evaluated after 100 days in office. It's an arbitrary time period, but as good as any to take a look at how the newbie is doing: whether the transition to a new administration has been bumpy or smooth; whether the...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 5, 2008 | News
There's a time and place for all styles in politics. Take Bob Edgar. A former U.S. Congressman (1974-1986)—the first Democrat elected from his arch-conservative Pennsylvania district since 1868—and current president of the nonpartisan watchdog group...
by our readers | Jun 5, 2008 | News
SUV Lust Dies HardJim Motavalli's recent column about auto buyers eschewing SUVs as gas prices have risen [Wheels: "Small Is Beautiful," May 15, 2008] was encouraging, but we shouldn't read too much optimism into this trend. There's no...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 12, 2008 | News
In late January, 1993, my future wife and I attended a performance of Phantom of the Opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Unknown to us beforehand, this was the "coming out" party for the new president and first lady, Bill and Hillary Clinton,...
by James Heflin | Jun 12, 2008 | News
The primary season is over. Still, one gets the uncomfortable feeling that, come next January, if Barack Obama lifts his right hand to take the oath of presidential office, Hillary Clinton will suddenly somersault onto the podium a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 12, 2008 | News
Somebody ring the Liberty Bell. An African-American whose middle name is Hussein, no less, is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States.For those of us old enough to remember unapologetic segregation at every level, from elementary school...
by Melissa DaPonte Katz | Jun 12, 2008 | News
In the Department of Social Services' (DSS) early days, the role of state custody was easy to grasp, even if it wasn't always easy to carry out. Today it's neither. The needs of abused or neglected children in state care—whether in foster homes,...
by our readers | Jun 12, 2008 | News
Viva VipassanaThank you for the positive review of the film The Dhamma Brothers by Jack Brown [Cinema Dope, May 29, 2008]. The Vipassana program has been taken as part of treatment within this department. So far, over 150 inmates have gone through the program. The...
by our readers | Jun 12, 2008 | News
Hillary Plays DirtyI used to think that I would be equally happy with either [Democratic presidential] candidate, but the things Hillary has done to try and stay in the race have pissed me off. Pushing to get the Michigan and Florida delegates seated? What a load of...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 19, 2008 | News
Ex-White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, is not only interesting in its own right, but because of a footnote it sparked when new author McClellan was...
by Hayley Wood | Jun 19, 2008 | News
It's been 15 years since anyone else has taken Total Loss Farm: A Year in the Life by Raymond Mungo out of the Forbes Public Library. The cover has a trippy line drawing of a branched tree with a yellow and green sunburst background. Raymond, on the back cover,...
by Natalia Munoz | Jun 19, 2008 | News
With a landslide 68 percent of the vote in Puerto Rico's primary on June 1, Sen. Hillary Clinton became the first presidential candidate in history to bring together two very historically antagonistic segments of the electorate: the pro-statehood and...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 19, 2008 | News
Tim Rooke breaks off in mid-sentence to offer an aside—"And let me also say: I have no interest in running for mayor"—before returning to the topic of the Springfield Police Department budget.Rooke's comment is not the non sequitur it might...
by our readers | Jun 19, 2008 | News
Parrying McClellan Condoleeza Rice couldn't let Scott McClellan's new revelations about White House impeachable offenses pass without advancing a fresh lie of her own. She offers the whopper that Bush and Cheney were somehow deceived into thinking Saddam...
by Mark Roessler | Jun 19, 2008 | News
With apologies to John Lennon, development in Northampton is what happens after city officials have announced other plans.On Thursday, May 22, 2008, the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) met in City Council chambers to discuss "amending" previous zoning to...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 19, 2008 | News
Sometimes it's easy to think, as per Bob Dylan's "Not Dark Yet," "My sense of humanity has gone down the drain." Enough man-made negativity circles the globe at any give time to make us wonder if our species is doomed to self-destruct and...
by our readers | Jun 26, 2008 | News
In principle, I agree with Mark Roessler's point in "No 'Village' at Hospital Hill" (June 12, 2008) that it is unfortunate that the primary commercial occupant of the site will be a defense contractor moving from elsewhere in town. As a member of...
by Markos Moulitsas | Jun 26, 2008 | News
At a time when the Republican Party can't raise money or attract top-tier recruits to run for office, the failure to attract minority candidates may seem a trivial concern. But the lack of diversity in current candidate ranks points to a dim future, as the party...
by Mark Roessler | Jun 26, 2008 | News
First and foremost, Dorothea Dix considered herself a teacher. Born in Maine, she moved to Boston, and while still in her teens, she opened a school for young children. Settling in Worcester, she became a devout Unitarian and wrote books for young readers. These days,...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 26, 2008 | News
It was more than a bit of a surprise when presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, who went to bat against torture in American military prisons, came out against new education benefits for soldiers. The bill mandating the benefits, which passed the Senate in spite of...
by Chase Scheinbaum | Jun 26, 2008 | News
John Clapp and his wife Dee (Diana) Boyle-Clapp live in Florence on the Clapp family farmstead, where five generations of John's ancestors lived before him. The dairy cows that were his family's livelihood in times past are now gone, but many things...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 26, 2008 | News
In one of the first columns that ran in this space ("Puritan, My Ass," Jan. 3, 2002), I wrote, "Without New England, this nation would be up the creek without a paddle. If you took away the moderating influence of the Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode...
by Mark Roessler | Jun 26, 2008 | News
When I first heard of the decision to welcome a local military contractor, Kollmorgen Electro-Optical, to relocate to the heart of the new development on Northampton's Hospital Hill, I vented some of my frustration to a friend. I wondered how the Citizens'...
by Mark Roessler | Jul 3, 2008 | News
"It is the function of marketing to deal with the identity of a place. We have had potential clients that turned away because of the bad energy of the mental hospital association. This name change reflects the sensible concept of integrating clients into the...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 3, 2008 | News
America is collectively standing at the mountaintop that Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about on the night before his murder 40 years ago. He told a room full of striking Memphis sanitation workers that God had "allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 3, 2008 | News
In spite of a National Intelligence Estimate from last December that found that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Congress may soon give President Bush a weapon to use to strike at Iran—and claim that he is simply enforcing the wishes of...
by Eesha Williams | Jul 3, 2008 | News
Four years ago, Home Depot opened a store in Brattleboro directly across the street from a locally owned hardware store. A citizens' group called BrattPower quickly formed to call for a boycott of the giant corporate chain. Members of the group stood outside the...
by our readers | Jul 3, 2008 | News
Down With SuperdelegatesThis is to applaud "A Little More Equal" [May 15, 2008]. Is your vote delegatable? Are you willing to give your proxy vote to either party or candidate? Who are those partisans who presume to appoint "super" delegates to...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 3, 2008 | News
When he didn't respond to a phone message or two back in the fall, I didn't think much of it. After all, I knew he was focused on getting a new job, his dream job, and that was probably taking up all of his time and energy.By January, he'd landed the job....
by Clive Thompson | Jul 10, 2008 | News
Late last year, Australia suffered through its worst dry spell in a millennium. The outback turned into a dust bowl, crops died off at fantastic rates, cities had to ration water, coral reefs died off, and the agricultural base evaporated. But what really intrigued...
by our readers | Jul 10, 2008 | News
It Takes More Than A VillageMark Roessler and the Valley Advocate deserve thanks for this series on Hospital Hill. But I also agree with Professor Platt's response that Village Hill would not be a village. It was a "Village" for marketing. What is more...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 10, 2008 | News
Christopher Hitchens was voluntarily waterboarded recently. No, this wasn't an episode of Circus of the Neocons. As a fan of the Iraq carnage and supporter of all violations of the Constitution and international law falling under the Global War on Terror umbrella,...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 10, 2008 | News
"Mr. Blair, we still make things." That's what German Chancellor Angela Merkel said when Tony Blair, then British prime minister, asked her how Germany was managing to pull out record trade surpluses. "We still make things:" it was a quip the...
by Joshua Micah Marshall | Jul 10, 2008 | News
You probably heard about that fusillade from the McCain campaign, when his surrogates recently used a press conference to call Obama "na?ve" and "delusional" on terrorism. Let's take a moment to look at the names of those leveling these...
by Mark Roessler | Jul 17, 2008 | News
Joel Russell and the newly formed Northampton Design Forum are having a party downtown in September, and everyone's invited!Ever have a notion of how to redraw the map and improve Northampton? Put in a playground, remove a road, fix King Street, save Hospital...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 17, 2008 | News
We're told to never speak ill of the dead, but I'll make an exception for Jesse Helms. My exposure to Helms began in college, at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, when he was a Raleigh TV station executive. In his regular on-air...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 17, 2008 | News
Melinda Pellerin-Duck was getting ready for a Christmas party when she got some unwelcome news via a message left on her cell phone by a reporter: She was out of a job.If Pellerin-Duck was a bit unnerved by the way she got the news, she wasn't surprised by it....
by Mark Roessler | Jul 17, 2008 | News
Before the city and developers demolished it early last year, there's no doubt that after decades of neglect and decay the Northampton State Hospital had become a creepy place. Downright scary, even.Vast stretches of the rambling brick walls were covered in vines....
by our readers | Jul 17, 2008 | News
More War in Our Name?Our thanks to Stephanie Kraft for alerting Advocate readers to the Bush administration's renewed efforts to initiate military action against Iran. Her article "Another War?" [July 3, 2008] is the most sober and succinct assessment of...
by James Heflin | Jul 17, 2008 | News
Last spring, the Democratic majority finally did the sort of thing congressional majorities usually do: it stood up to the president's demands to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to include retroactive immunity for the communications companies who...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 23, 2008 | News
The controversy over the extension of the Northampton landfill is historic—an historic collision between the garbage and water, probably the most dramatic collision of that kind that the Valley has seen. It comes very close to embracing all the Valley, because...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 24, 2008 | News
At the time, it might have seemed a King Solomon-like solution to the ever-contentious problem of Springfield's municipal towing contract: in April, 2007 then-Mayor Charlie Ryan decided that rather than select one of the two companies vying for the contract,...
by Chase Scheinbaum | Jul 24, 2008 | News
Berkshire Community College is among a growing group of colleges—mainly community and junior colleges—to whom major lenders have cut loans. The lenders, including such heavyweights as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Citizens Bank, have in some cases...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 24, 2008 | News
Four years ago, I placed a bumper sticker on my car emblazoned "Howard Dean for America." It is still there. Other stickers have come and gone since then, but the Howard Dean for America sticker remains. I received the sticker after making a donation to...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 24, 2008 | News
This isn't the first time Bobby Jones, president of the Springfield Towing Alliance, has turned up in the middle of a controversy. Over the years, his name has been linked to a number of controversies in the city.In 1989, Jones sold three adjacent parcels of land...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 24, 2008 | News
As the high price of oil gives us the prod we need to get into buses, trains or carpools—or just to walk—it's worth a look at what Hampshire College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies Michael Klare has to say about how the Bush...
