News
by Stephanie Kraft | Mar 17, 2009 | News
The table may tilt so that public money slides into the hands of private interests yet again as Massachusetts opens its purse to receive stimulus funds for "shovel-ready" projects.Whose shovel? This money may wind up in the hands of private developers whose...
by Stephanie Kraft | Mar 24, 2009 | News
Not just a moral imperative, but an economic imperative; that's what President Barack Obama said about health care reform at the national summit on health care March 5. After that conference, the next step was to be a set of regional forums on health care in...
by Maureen Turner | Mar 24, 2009 | News
Conventional wisdom holds that if someone's seriously considering a shot for elected office in Springfield, this is the time he or she needs to stop considering and start doing some real work. And so with Election Day still more than seven months away, the gossip...
by Our Readers | Mar 26, 2009 | News
Art Scene "Burgeoning"A recent column [Art in Paradise, Feb. 26, 2009] and a somewhat uninformed and dismissive letter to the editor may have left the casual reader with the sense that the Northampton Arts Council (NAC) and the local art scene in general are...
by Mary Serreze | Mar 26, 2009 | News
Last Thursday evening's vote by the Northampton City Council to approve the creation of a Business Improvement District (BID) within downtown Northampton capped a three-month period that featured a protracted public hearing, ongoing media coverage and street...
by Stephanie Kraft | Mar 26, 2009 | News
Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist U.S. senator from up the way in Vermont, has a refreshing way of talking turkey to and about the big banks. Sanders recently had a set-to with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke because Bernanke wouldn't tell Congress...
by Tom Vannah | Mar 26, 2009 | News
As Gov. Deval Patrick pursues what he undoubtedly views as a meaningful agenda—rebuilding the state's transportation infrastructure, restructuring the state's pension system, closing a $1 billion-plus state budget deficit—he's feeling pestered...
by Maureen Turner | Mar 26, 2009 | News
Midway through the new documentary film, Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood, Michael Brody, a child psychiatrist from the University of Maryland, offers a startling comparison: in one important way, marketers who target children are akin to sexual...
by Alan Bisbort | Mar 26, 2009 | News
It seems much longer ago than eight years that Dick Cheney was scolding his fellow Americans for demanding higher conservation standards and more alternative and sustainable energy sources. Conservation, the Vice President imperiously told us, was merely "a sign...
by Mark Roessler | Mar 26, 2009 | News
It's damn near impossible to drive through downtown Northampton without having to slow down for some delinquents who simply can't contain themselves within the limits of the sidewalks and clearly marked crossings. A hundred times a day, somewhere along Main...
by Frank Dodge | Mar 26, 2009 | News
Dear Will Kussell, President of Dunkin’ Donuts:It says here in this cease and desist order that I & Jake & Cpt Slow & Oola etc can not run our community business anymore. Well, I just want you to know we were only trying to help President Obama by...
by Stephanie Kraft | Mar 31, 2009 | News
A storm of public opinion against extending the operating license of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vt., near Brattleboro, is gathering, intensified by new revelations last week of poor maintenance practices on the part of the plant's owner.On...
by Gail Kielson and La Wanza Lett-Brewington | Mar 31, 2009 | News
Tom Vannah expressed concerns that Mayor Clare Higgins' endorsement of the Safe Passage Hot Chocolate Run "smacks of shameless self-promotion by the mayor." He also suggested that the mayor, "who is listed on the race website as 'title...
by Tom Vannah | Apr 2, 2009 | News
Thank you, Hillary Clinton! I don't exactly know where the Secretary of State expects to go with her analysis of the drug violence exploding in Mexico, but I appreciate her framing the issue. The violence in Mexico, Clinton said last week, is the result of high...
by Mary Nelen and Mark Roessler | Apr 2, 2009 | News
Here comes spring, a manifest destiny of nature. If your manifest destiny is to eat local without growing an entire season of food in your yard, check out a farm share. In the Happy Valley are no less than 15 stewards of the land who offer access to their barns once a...
by Tom Vannah | Apr 2, 2009 | News
If you want to know one of the reasons why some people in the Northampton area objected so strenuously to a proposal by a few local businesspeople to create a Business Improvement District in Northampton, you might start by reading Matt Taibbi's latest piece for...
by Beatriz Bianco (BB Sunshine) | Apr 2, 2009 | News
On Friday, March 13th, approximately 50 people gathered in front of City Hall on Main Street in Northampton to protest the Business Improvement District [which the City Council approved two weeks ago]. The BID is a consumerism-based rather than community-based piece...
by Tom Vannah | Apr 2, 2009 | News
Four activists were arrested Monday in Brattleboro for holding signs during a speech by Vermont Governor Jim Douglas and U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy about the federal economic stimulus program. The signs said, "Veto Nuclear Jim in Nov. 2010." Douglas is up...
by Alan Bisbort | Apr 2, 2009 | News
If Dave Eggers hadn't already used the title, the story of John Cheever's life could have been called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. This occurred to me while reading Blake Bailey's magnificent Cheever: A Life (Knopf), one of the most (yes)...
by Kanshe Mahkit | Apr 2, 2009 | News
April 1: The Advocate has learned that, in an unprecedented federal, state and local partnership, the town of Amherst has been given the go-ahead to send its solid waste into orbit. On April 2, Amherst's coffee grounds, battered sneakers and greasy pizza boxes...
by Mark Roessler | Apr 9, 2009 | News
Northampton City Councilor Michael Bardsley hopes that, come Election Day, local voters will see him as the candidate of positive change and will elect him mayor. Even if the climb to the top seat in city hall proves to be too steep for Bardsley, the city will...
by Eesha Williams | Apr 9, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Vannah | Apr 9, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Apr 9, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Apr 9, 2009 | News
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...
by Alan Bisbort | Apr 9, 2009 | News
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...
by Mark Roessler | Apr 9, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Sturm | Apr 13, 2009 | News
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...
by Mary Serreze | Apr 14, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Sturm | Apr 14, 2009 | News
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:...
by Maureen Turner | Apr 14, 2009 | News
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...
by Mark Roessler | Apr 15, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Eesha Williams | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Vannah | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Alan Bisbort | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by James Heflin | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Mary Serreze | Apr 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Sturm | Apr 21, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Apr 22, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Apr 23, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Apr 23, 2009 | News
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...
by Alan Bisbort | Apr 23, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Vannah | Apr 23, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Apr 23, 2009 | News
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...
by Mary Serreze | Apr 23, 2009 | News
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...
by Mary Serreze | Apr 28, 2009 | News
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...
by James Heflin | Apr 28, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Apr 28, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Apr 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Apr 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Apr 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Apr 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Mark Roessler | Apr 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Apr 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Alan Bisbort | Apr 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 5, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | May 6, 2009 | News
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...
