News
The Louis Jiles Story
Last summer, on the evening of July 5, an 18-year-old Springfield driver named Louis Jiles was pulled over by two city police officers. Within a few minutes, what had begun as a seemingly routine traffic stop ended with one officer firing three shots, at least one of...Letters: What Do You Think?
Obama's OpportunityStephanie Kraft's exploration of the American obsession with Iran ("We Forget, Iran Remembers," April 30) begs comment. Our government is responsible for a half-century history of imperial meddling in Iran's affairs and...Scuderi Group Unveils Prototype Engine
When I last wrote about West Springfield's Scuderi Group ("Strokes of Genius," March 9, 2006), the family business's patriarch and principal inventor of the Scuderi split-cycle engine, Carmelo Scuderi, had recently passed away. At that time, the...ImperiumWatch: The Frayed White Collar
A sidelight on hard times not often mentioned is the situation of those still at work.Of course, they (we) are thankful to have jobs at all. But rather than a nation divided between the anxious, broke unemployed (or underemployed) and the comfortable, successful...
Kollmorgen Preview
On Wednesday, May 20, Northampton residents who live near Hospital Hill were offered a preview of the plans for offices and a new manufacturing facility to be built by Kollmorgen Electro-Optical where once the state hospital’s south campus stood. The plans are...Building New Isn't Building Green
As a teenager, whenever I was faced with a long stretch of nothing to do (road trips, insomnia, school), I would spend my time constructing my dream house in my head. The mansion that slowly grew in my imagination was a mish-mash of Victorian-era styles I...The World This Week: No Going Back
No question about it, India has accomplished great things. This is not like saying Iceland or Ireland has accomplished great things. Small, compact nations with relatively manageable populations can turn things around pretty quickly. India, on the other hand, juts...
Photovoltaics: The Dollars and Sense
Solar electricity—it's the coolest thing going. Science! Technology! Freedom from fossil fuels! A peaceful and productive future! Whether your motivation is political, ecological, or gadget-driven, photovoltaics, or "PV," appeals. Historically, the...
Push Lawn Mowers: The Reel Deal
A couple of seasons ago, I researched alternatives to gasoline-powered mowers ("A Kinder Cut," August 10, 2006). That effort ended with my becoming the proud owner of a Scotts Classic reel mower, a new version of those gnarly old-fashioned hand mowers that...
Blowing the Wind In
When I was a kid in Texas, my grandmother lived for a while in a house equipped with a house fan. The thing was quite a novelty—central air is required for life to continue in that molten state of the Union. That anyone lived there before air conditioning is a...
The Great American Lawn
We've all seen it, in our visits to friends and relatives who live in the 'burbs. Astro-turfish lawns consisting of millions of soldier-straight, identical blades. Stern injunctions to the children and teenagers: no frisbee, no football, please. ChemLawn...PV Tax and Rebate Guide
Federal Residential Renewable Energy Tax CreditTaxpayers may claim a credit of 30 percent of net qualified expenditures, after state rebates, for residential solar, wind, geothermal or fuel-cell-based systems. Systems put on line before January, 2009, are subject to a...Hard (on) Labor
Fewer than 13 percent of workers in the U.S. today belong to a labor union, a statistic that anti-union forces will point to as evidence that unions are relics of the past, and no longer appeal to most Americans.But a new report from Cornell University suggests...
Practically Organic
My wife and I have nearly gone organic. Our gardens have remained largely free of commercial fertilizers and insecticides. Our lawn has never, in the years we've been caring for it, tasted weed killer or turf builder. The water we use for irrigation, drawn from an...
It's In the Water
One of the main places homeowners can get significant reductions in both their utility bills and their carbon footprint is in the way they heat their water. Tankless electric water heaters save the cost of keeping a large amount of water hot by employing a system that...ImperiumWatch: Someday Your Prince Will Come
Former FBI chief Louis Freeh now works for Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, one of the suavest diplomats in the world. This is the prince known as Bandar Bush because of his close relations with the Bush family—the prince with whom President G.W. Bush...Letters: What Do You Think?
Moms RespondHaving given birth twice at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in the past two years, I applaud their ongoing responsiveness to community input—in this case, by seeking certification as a Baby-Friendly hospital ("Going Baby-Friendly," May 14). But...
Springfield: Bud's Worrisome Buddy
Who wants to see Bud Williams elected the next mayor of Springfield? Mike Albano, for one. You remember Mike Albano. He's the four-term Springfield mayor who left the city with a debilitating fiscal deficit when he finally left office in 2003—a deficit that,...
Palmer: The Town of Seven Railroads
Originally, a confluence of railroads put the town of Palmer on the map. The town is made up of four villages: the area right by the tracks is known as Depot Village. Palmer calls itself "the Town of Seven Railroads" in honor of the many train services that...Letters: What Do You Think?
Roessler Wrong on BardsleyI read the recent article by Mark Roessler ("Northampton: Spector vs. Bardsley," May 21, 2009) with amazement and dismay. I have rarely encountered such a twisted version of reality in our Valley press. Not only does it border on...Imperium Watch: Blowing in the Wind
Talk about a "not-in-my-back-yard" issue. It turns out that today, in the land of the free, more than half the approximately 300,000 homeowners' associations that set the rules for condo developments, subdivisions and other residential clusters don't...
Between the Lines: Sense and Sustainability
In Greenfield's recent history, there has been great tension between proponents of economic development in the form of big box stores and proponents of protecting the environment against development. That tension, no doubt, will color the June 9 election of a new...
The Case Against The Knowledge Corridor Rail System
In response to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission's (PVPC) "Knowledge Corridor" study, which advocates re-routing Amtrak's Vermonter rail service via the Massachusetts towns along the Connecticut River to increase its speed and number of...Springfield: The Politics of Funding
For 12 years, Springfield's Solid Rock Church of God in Christ has run an AIDS prevention program aimed at young people. The project trains teenagers to serve as peer leaders, who talk to other teens about avoiding risky behavior. Over the years, the program's...
Puffer's Pond, Amherst: Toward Wider Water
Maybe it was growing up in a windswept coastal town in Florida. Maybe it was being born an Aquarian. Whatever made me this way, I love water. Not just swimming, which I do in a rather lazy, not particularly athletic way, but being in water, feeling it swirl around and...The World This Week: Boob Jobs
Sonia Sotomayor saved baseball. So we were reminded last week after she was nominated to the Supreme Court. Before the 1995 baseball season began—the year after the players' strike—Judge Sotomayor issued a temporary injunction to get the season...
Summer Solstice: The Longest Day
I am not a religious person, never have been. My lapsed Catholic mom and my atheist dad agreed to have me baptized a Catholic, but I don't remember going to mass except on Christmas Eve. When I was about seven, mom briefly joined an Episcopalian church, where I...Between the Lines: Keillor on Torture
Garrison Keillor claims to be a liberal. He—and we—should know better. Keillor has just joined the already large and ever-growing list of allegedly liberal media figures who either advocate or apologize for torture. In a recent column, the National Public...
Yankee Nuke Bill Vetoed
Vermont Governor Jim Douglas on May 22 vetoed a bill that would have required Entergy Corporation of Louisiana to pay for decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.James Moore of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) told the Rutland Herald...The Great Book Migration
Amherst's National Yiddish Book Center is gearing up to celebrate the opening of its new secure, fireproof and climate-controlled "deposit library" in its nearly-completed Kaplen Family Building. Immediately thereafter begins what President Aaron Lansky...
The Latchis: Artfully Sustained
Consider this for a long-term, sustainable business model: build an all-in-one entertainment complex in a single, centrally located building. Hotel, restaurant, bar, movies, music, theater and shopping all under one roof, each business feeding the other. Don't...Valley Rail: Route Dispute
The current cheerleading contest about whether Amherst should hang onto the Amtrak train from Washington to Vermont or whether the train should revert to an older route through Northampton gives everyone a chance to shout for their side, which is always a lot of fun....Imperium Watch: Neal Mum on Medicare for All
Single-payer health care advocates in the Valley are not amused by U.S. Rep. Richard Neal's way of parrying questions about why he has not supported HR 676, the Improved Medicare for All Act—a bill to reform health insurance by instituting a single-payer...Springfield: Labor Takes On the Chamber
When members of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield show up for their annual meeting in Springfield this week, they’ll find some surprise visitors waiting for them: local labor activists and their supporters.The activists will be there to...Letters: What Do You Think?
Doing Spector ProudAs an avid reader of the Advocate and a critic of the choices Paul Spector has made as a Northampton city councilor, I was interested to see what other avid readers could offer as support for the councilor. Peter Hirschman and Phoebe Sheldon, in...The World This Week: Selling America by the Pound
Don't look now, fellow GM owners, but we may be able to get out of this economic mess more easily than any of the so-called experts predicted. Mine eyes beheld a miracle this past week: General Motors sold its Hummer brand to a Chinese manufacturer, Sichuan...Between the Lines: Whaddaya Know?
Turns out, I have something in common with General Motors' new CEO: neither of us knows much about cars.Funny, I don't think I even made the short list when President Obama was looking for an industry outsider to bring new leadership to the troubled automaker....
Springfield Industry: A Long, Slow Death
Metal Fatigue: American Bosch and the Demise of Metalworking in the Connecticut River Valley. By Robert Forrant (Baywood Publishing, 2009)Robert Forrant was braced for a rough day on Feb. 4, 1986. That day, he and a group of fellow members of the International Union...
Holyoke's Famous Rail Station
A recent Valley Advocate story on Palmer's Union Station ("The Town of Seven Railroads," June 4, 2009), prematurely declared the demise of the Connecticut River Railroad Station in Holyoke. A number of readers pointed out that the 1883 passenger depot...The World This Week: TV or Not TV
We knew it was coming. Even so, we were shocked when it actually happened to us. That is, we turned on our TV set this week only to learn that the shows had all disappeared, swallowed by the broadcasting black hole known as digitization. On June 12, as everyone in...Letters: What Do You Think?
Hotbed of SustainabilityI was excited to see the cover "Shades of Green: Alternative Ideas About Homes and Gardens"[May 28, 2009] on the Advocate. Sadly, I found the focus on lawns, organic ornamental gardens and photovoltaics a disappointment; it barely...ImperiumWatch: Moving Day at Newtok
Climate change refugees aren't characters in a novel about the future. They're here. They're on islands facing inundation within the next few years, like Tuvalu, the Maldives and the Carterets. And they're in the U.S. itself. The Government Accounting...Not Your Ordinary Fundraiser
Did you know that many states force pregnant women prisoners to be shackled when they are in labor? And that some states only allow pregnant prisoners minimal, if any, additional nutrition? (The Massachusetts Department of Correction informed the Advocate through...
Post-Election: Morning in Greenfield
Greenfield has just wrapped up one of the strangest mayoral elections in Pioneer Valley history. Town councilor Bill Martin, initiating an aggressive write-in campaign only 16 days before an April 21 four-way primary, garnered enough votes to take second place,...The World This Week: Bomb Culture
On September 26, 1983, the world came close to nuclear annihilation. On that date, Col. Stanislav Petrov was the ranking officer at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow, a facility housing the command center for the Soviet Early Warning System.Petrov's job was to...
The Stay-At-Home Circus
It used to be that joining a circus meant sneaking out of your bedroom window late at night, making your way to the fields at the edge of town, and hitching a ride with the roustabouts who had just finished packing up the big-top tent. After a few years of cleaning up...Letters: What Do You Think?
Don't Dis LEED HomesThe author of "Building New Isn't Building Green" (May 28, 2009) rants about Frank Geary's mess at MIT, and slides that into a dismissal of new design and construction as tinkering with a bad model. He then condemns the...Springfield: Whose Rent Is It, Anyway?
In 2005, a worrisome problem was uncovered at Springfield's South End Community Center: for years, pigeons had been invading the top floor of the center's Howard Street building, leaving an unhealthy mess of droppings and dead birds. While that floor of the...Imperium Watch: Five of the Best
Reports of torture at Guantanamo and the political posturing on the issue in Washington left us wondering how people in responsible positions at the prison felt about what was happening there. From Common Cause comes a list—a partial list—of heroes who...Between the Lines: What Now?
Odd as it is to see voters cheering en masse an increase in their tax bills, I was hardly surprised that the supporters of a $2 million Proposition 2 1/2 tax override in Northampton were celebrating last week. The Vote Yes! Northampton campaign came away from a June...Williams Counting on the Trash Vote
Springfield City Councilor Bud Williams hopes to unseat Mayor Domenic Sarno this fall—and apparently, he hopes to do it by exploiting an issue that served Sarno well in the 2007 election: the city trash fee.At last week's Council meeting, Williams introduced...Biomass or Biomess?
Private developers have their eyes on four Western Massachusetts communities—Russell, Springfield, Pittsfield, and Greenfield—for large-scale wood-burning electrical plants. If brought on line, the plants would add another 175 megawatts of energy...Springfield: Farewell, Control Board; Hello, Uncertain Future
Next week marks the departure of Springfield's Finance Control Board, which has overseen financial matters in the city for the past five years. And while, in theory, it's good news that local control will finally return to city government, it's hard not to...Letters: What Do You Think?
Don't Bash State WorkersWhy is it that when the mainstream media in Massachusetts is allergic to heavy lifting, it trots out union- and state employee-bashing? Unions are the last line preventing the American people from becoming a nation of wage/debt slaves. In...The World This Week: Columbine Revisited
On the last day of classes this year at Crosby High School in economically hard-bitten Waterbury, Conn., a fight broke out that spilled onto the street. Police responded with pepper spray, and six students were arrested. Tragedy was averted—for now. Who knows if...Springfield: Budget Politics
After five years of overseeing the city's finances, Springfield's Finance Control Board has packed up and moved out this week—leaving behind a politically charged atmosphere that will only intensify as the November election approaches.Among the parting...Moms Rise
A new state law that went into effect in January ensures that mothers have a right to breastfeed their children in public, without harassment or discrimination. But that doesn't mean everyone knows about or understands the new law, as a recent, much-covered case...
Firecrackin'
Firecrackers were my first illicit vice.Long before porn, drink or drugs, at 11 or 12, I was shelling out cold hard cash for things that went ka-blam in the night. I gave my few crumpled dollars to kids a lot older than me who were both allowed to head into New York...Imperium Watch: The Sludgepit Legacy
As protests in Peru quiet down after its legislature revoked trade rules that would have opened the way for logging and mining in the high Amazon country (see Imperium Watch, July 2, 2009), a suit leveled against Texaco-Chevron for polluting air, soil and water in...E-Edition
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