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Brattleboro: Lessons in Cooperation
Food co-ops keep consumers' money in the local community, unlike chain supermarkets like Stop and Shop or Price Chopper. The Greenfield food co-op, now Greenfields Market, opened in 1980; the Brattleboro Food Co-op has also been in business for decades, and is the...Between the Lines: The Green in Green
As Gov. Deval Patrick watches his poll numbers tank, he may be counting on at least one major constituency to stand by him. Environmental groups, including the Conservation Law Foundation, Mass Audubon and the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters, have cheered...Letters: What Do You Think?
Kids as Market Fodder Your article "Pitching to the Cradle" [March 26, 2009] does an effective job of explaining the process and some of the negative implications of marketing to kids. Should we be surprised, though, that the marketing industry is...Imperium Watch: Down on the Farm
Some 10 percent of greenhouse gases generated in America come from agriculture; about 65 percent of that 10 percent, primarily in the form of methane and nitrous oxide, come from large animal farms. Yet in the last days of the Bush administration, the Environmental...The World This Week: Night vs. Day
Poor George W., sitting in his huge instant megamansion in Dallas like Gatsby gazing forlornly across the waters at Daisy Buchanan's East Egg dock. No green light will beckon him. Nobody, including Daisy, wants anything to do with him. As George W. gazes across...
News Flash: Bardsley Announces Run for Mayor
Thursday, April 2, 2009Today at 3 p.m., after serving for 16 years as a Northampton City Councilor, Michael Bardsley took out candidacy papers and declared his intention to run for mayor against incumbent, Mary Clare Higgins.“I believe the city needs a different...
A Plea for People Power
As the world progresses and population increases, any and all finite natural resources will inevitably be depleted and thus should be considered non-renewable—not long-term solutions to our ongoing energy needs. Despite this discouraging fact, there is one...News Flash: Northampton BID Opponents File Lawsuit
On Monday, April 13, three plaintiffs–downtown property owners Alan Scheinman, David Pesuit, and Eric Suher, filed suit against the City of Northampton in Hampshire Superior Court, seeking declaration that the Northampton Business Improvement District (BID) was...Without a Net: What You Can Do to Help
GENERAL:Write to your state representatives, express your distress at the decision to slash funding for health and human services, and encourage the Legislature not to cut more deeply:Arc of MassachusettsA direct link to a letter to email your legislators:...A Victory for Nursing Moms and Babies
In principle, public breastfeeding wasn't illegal in Massachusetts; rather, it wasn't legally protected, meaning a mother could be charged with indecent exposure or lewdness if someone objected to her nursing her baby in a public place. In reality, hordes of...Farm Shares in Vermont
In response to the overview we ran two weeks ago of what's sprouting in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms across the Pioneer Valley, we were reminded by readers that there are many farms with shares available in southern Vermont and New Hampshire as...Letters: What Do You Think?
Cooperation, Please!Eesha Williams' "Lessons in Cooperation" [April 9, 2009] gave a perspective on the Brattleboro Food Coop which rarely if ever gets discussed on the official BFC venues. The responses quoted in Williams' report to legitimate...Labor Events Promote EFCA
Congress will vote soon on the Employee Free Choice Act, federal legislation designed to give workers a fair, direct path to forming unions.Studies show that unionized workers get better pay and benefits than their non-unionized counterparts. If you care about the gap...Between the Lines: Overrun by Overrides
I don't know exactly what I think about the prospect of an override battle in Northampton, but this much is clear: whatever city officials have or have not done to contribute to Northampton's fiscal woes, the need for an override is first and foremost a...The World This Week: American Terrorists
Terrorism begins at home. Long before 9/11 occurred, America was rocked by the occasional wave of domestic terrorist violence, from Columbine High School to the Oklahoma City bombing. Our history—like that of all countries—is littered with the bodies of...
Buy Smart, Buy Solar
First-time homebuyers with low or moderate incomes have an opportunity now to buy homes that generate nearly all their own electricity. Applications are being taken until May 1 for a lottery that will choose owners for 10 newly built homes in the Wisdom Way Solar...
Obama, Where Art Thou?
When November 5, 2008 dawned and Barack Obama had gained the title "president-elect," a fascinating new feeling arrived. Finally, the horrid excesses of the Bush years could be laid to rest in the trash heap along with so many other high points of American...ImperiumWatch: Sanders–No More Usury
Once again we're tuning in to the voice of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent who is less cozy with the financial service industry than most people in a Congress that garners big donations from that industry. Sanders is pushing legislation that...
Northampton Landfill Cuts Back
Northampton runs its regional landfill as a business—and that business is showing signs of trouble, trouble that may have implications for dozens of communities and businesses in the Valley. Since April 6, the landfill has eliminated its Saturday hours and cut...
Without A Net
Western Massachusetts may be facing the worst collapse of its health and human services sector in a generation. 2008 has been a year of economic turmoil for every facet of the economy, public or private, and slowly but tangibly, nonprofits in the Valley are seeing...New Hope for Needle Exchange
Tim Purington got some bad news last week: the needle exchange program he runs for Tapestry Health in Northampton saw its state funding cut by $12,500 for the remainder of the fiscal year. And given the sorry state of the commonwealth's finances, he wouldn't...Letters: What Do You Think?
They're All War CriminalsShame on Alan Bisbort for lecturing us (once again) about what a bad president George W. Bush was while our new war-criminal-in-chief oversees the continued slaughter overseas and even promises to ramp up the killing in Afghanistan [The...
Amherst Housing: Four and No More
Amherst's longstanding and controversial bylaw prohibiting more than four unrelated people from living in one house—a bylaw most often invoked against students—is back in the news after it was used to evict a young woman from a house on East Pleasant...The World This Week: Brew Ha Ha
Nobody loves a protest as much as I do, but could someone please tell me what this tea bag brew-ha-ha was all about? I've read as many accounts as I can of protests around the state and country—most of which were peaceful, commendably—and I'm still...Between the Lines: Grinning and Bearing It on the MassPike
Neither side wanted to budge. Both sides sincerely wanted to come together, but thoughts of horrible past experiences gradually weakened their mutual resolve. In the end, we had a stalemate on our hands.That was fine by me. The last thing I wanted to do on Easter was...Imperium Watch: Guantanamo Was a Sham
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.), former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, recently took to the Web to speak his mind about Guantanamo and the war on terror. In eye-opening remarks posted on Washington Note, Wilkerson excoriatied "the utter...Northampton BID: Opt Outs List
Below is a list of the downtown properties that have opted out of the Northampton Business Improvement District (NBID) as of Friday, April 17, at 4:00. The deadline for property owners to file opt-out forms was Tuesday, April 21 at 4:30.City clerk Wendy Mazza showed...
Northampton BID: In or Out?
The excitement was palpable in the parking lot after the March 6 City Council meeting in Northampton. Following the Council's final approval of the formation of a downtown Business Improvement District, members of the Chamber of Commerce's BID committee...
Score One for Bloggers
In the wake of the Obama administration's release of Bush-era torture memos, a curious thing happened. The mainstream media missed some truly damning information that was readily available in the memos.Former Valley resident Marcy Wheeler—a.k.a. the blogger...Police Review Board Releases Thin Report
The release last week of the 2008 annual report of Springfield's Community Complaint Review Board was long overdue, and not particularly illuminating. While the 15-page report listed various actions the group took over the year—mailing out brochures, meeting...
Twice as Long, Twice as Good?
This year's election season promises to be a lively one, even by Springfield standards. First-term mayor Domenic Sarno—whose upset victory over predecessor Charlie Ryan has been followed by 16 rocky months, punctuated by political disputes, drastic...More Mayor? Asking the Right Question
About 10 miles from Springfield City Hall, Mike Sullivan is in his fifth, and final, two-year term as mayor of Holyoke. He used to wish the city had four-year mayoral terms, which, he said, would give the officeholder more time to implement his or her agenda and...May Day, Two Ways
When you hear "May Day," do you think: pagan homage to the long-awaited arrival of the warm seasons? Then get thee to the Hartsbrook School's annual May Day celebration, on Friday, May 1, from 1-3 p.m. at 193 Bay Rd. in Hadley. Veterans of...Letters: What Do You Think?
Of Tea and TaxesAlan Bisbort was on target in last week's column ("Brew Ha Ha," April 23.) His points resonate deeply when we understand that the 1773 mob action was not about tax burdens, but was all about who was in control of taxation. "No...Between the Lines: A Starker Truth
An April 27 Boston Globe editorial, "A budget's stark truths," argues that the state's $3.6 billion shortfall is not a "gap" that can be closed by rooting out "waste, fraud, and abuse" alone; rather, it is a chasm that requires a...They Should Have Done It Years Ago
Would you believe that officials in Massachusetts who have failed to win re-election have been able to claim a "termination allowance" that raises their pensions? Or that they could add another year of so-called "service" to their tally of time...The World This Week: The Pig in the Garden
In their April 21, 2008 issue, The New Yorker published an article by professor and bestselling author Jared "Gun, Germs and Steel" Diamond titled, "Vengeance Is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?"The article was...Imperium Watch: We Forget, Iran Remembers
Americans have developed a habit of thinking of Iran as though it were a nation of fanatics with a purely irrational hatred for the U.S. Many people's sense of Iran starts with the hostage crisis of 1979, as though nothing had happened earlier to provoke that...Mellow About Pot
Despite efforts by the Attorney General, it looks like most Massachusetts towns and cities are not freaking out about the new marijuana decriminalization law—or at least, not yet.According to MassCann—the state chapter of the National Organization for the...The World This Week: A Pandemic of Punditry
While I still possess health insurance, I decided to take advantage of one of the few things for which I'm covered (with a $30 co-pay, of course). That is, I went for my annual physical exam last week. I got up on the scale and the nurse yelled to colleagues,...Between the Lines: The Deval You Know
Driving home from Boston last week, I heard Gov. Deval Patrick on the radio. I wasn't exactly a willing audience. I'd been trying to listen to the epic three-overtime Game Six between the Celtics and the Chicago Bulls. My radio signal crapped out somewhere in...
Travelling Between Springfield and Amherst
Not having known of Dana Roscoe or the possible eminent success of his lofty rail transit goals, I recently took an overnight journey by train from Amherst to Brattleboro with my four-year-old son. (The heartwarming narrative of our mini-adventure can be found in this...
Train Departing Amherst Station
Long before Interstate 91 tore its way through farms, homes and downtowns along the banks of the Connecticut River, providing a multi-lane ribbon of auto traffic between New Haven and northern Vermont, there were thousands of miles of rail, both steam and electric,...Letters: What Do You Think?
Art Won't Stop WarI was truly disappointed in "The Emotional Awareness of War" (April 23) because I think it misses a critically important point here. Do we really need more dialogue about the horrors of war from Americans who have participated in them?...
Vermont State House Rally
On April 29, hundreds of activitsts rallied outside the Vermont statehouse urging the Legislature to vote to close the Yankee Vermont nuclear plant in 2012 rather than allow the company that owns the plant, Entergy Corp. of Louisiana, to extend its life to 2032.This...Imperium Watch: Raising the Rake
Complaints about high rates of credit card interest, payday loans and other types of predatory lending are usually framed in terms of their effects on the borrower, which are bad enough. But in "Infinite Debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the...Springfield: Budget Blues
Experienced sources insist to the Advocate that kidney stones are a terribly painful matter, comparable to the pain of childbirth. The Advocate will respectfully point out that we’ve never heard of anyone passing an eight-pound, 12-ounce kidney stone. Still, it...Letters: What Do You Think?
Biomass' Double WhammyProposals for numerous large-scale wood-burning electrical plants in western Massachusetts are alarming to those of us who are concerned about climate change. These are what you would build if you wanted to do everything possible to increase...Imperium Watch: Text and Subtext of Tax Law
In the mid-1950s, the U.S. government taxed the pants off the rich—and no one called it socialism, even though the Red Scare was at its height in those days. The government taxed the rich hard because it knew very well that, with a few exceptions, most people...
Amherst: A Station's Steam Past
Making good on a promise mentioned in last week's story, "Train Departing Amherst Station," Sam Bartlett, the manager of the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum, emailed the Valley Advocate several images his father had taken of trains on the route described...
Going Baby-Friendly
When Victoria Munroe first heard that Northampton's Cooley Dickinson Hospital had eliminated its regular drop-in clinic for breastfeeding moms, her first instinct was to get upset. "Of course I was outraged. How can they cut the breastfeeding clinic?...Between the Lines: True to Your School
In an effort to inoculate myself against withering criticism from one of two raging factions, I'd like to make something clear at the outset: I love teachers. My dear old dad was a teacher. Some of my best friends are teachers. As a parent, I rejoice at seeing my...Stebbins Opts Out
This fall’s Springfield mayor’s race just became a lot less intriguing, with the recent news that City Councilor Bruce Stebbins has decided not to run for the seat.News of Stebbins’ decision was broken by The Springfield Intruder blog...
The World This Week: Afghanistan Without Tears
Gen. David Petraeus, chief of U.S. Central Command, was on CNN Sunday, putting a happy face on events in Afghanistan. The confident and, by all appearances, competent Petraeus is good at this, frighteningly good; even as he spoke, two suicide bombs went off in...
The Next Phase of Feminism
The efforts of the folks at Hallmark notwithstanding, Mother's Day has deeply political, even radical, roots. The holiday was established in the U.S. in the aftermath of the Civil War by Julia Ward Howe, the 19th-century social activist who worked for abolition,...Town Meetings Chip Away at Pot Reform
Town Meeting season has not been good to marijuana reform advocates, who are watching as the victory of last fall's Question 2 is being chipped away by community after community. Question 2—approved by 65 percent of voters on last November's...
The Bing Hangs Out a Shingle
Brian Hale, vice president of Springfield's X Main Street Corporation, the organization engaged in turning Springfield's old Bing Theater into a new entity, the Bing Arts Center, delivers some good news and some bad: "Unfortunately, we haven't made...Between the Lines: Intolerant of Dissent
Those who charge that modern-day liberalism has become fundamentally illiberal toward speech and ideas that challenge its own dogma could ask for no better illustration than recent events at UMass-Amherst. On March 11, the Republican Club at UMass hosted Don Feder, a...The World This Week: A Specter Haunts Us
A specter is haunting the Democratic Party—the specter called Arlen. All the powers of the grassroots have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: popular blogs like Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and Liberal Oasis, activists from all points of...E-Edition
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