News
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 11, 2009 | News
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....
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 11, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 11, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Jun 11, 2009 | News
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...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 17, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Vannah | Jun 18, 2009 | News
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....
by Maureen Turner | Jun 18, 2009 | News
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...
by Mark Roessler | Jun 18, 2009 | News
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...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 18, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Jun 18, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 18, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 18, 2009 | News
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...
by Mary Serreze | Jun 23, 2009 | News
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,...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 25, 2009 | News
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...
by Mark Roessler | Jun 25, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Jun 25, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 25, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 25, 2009 | News
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...
by Tom Vannah | Jun 25, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 25, 2009 | News
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...
by Mary Serreze | Jun 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Our Readers | Jun 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Alan Bisbort | Jun 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Mark Roessler | Jun 30, 2009 | News
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...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 16, 2009 | News
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...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 16, 2009 | News
These days, even a trip to Target can feel fraught with peril.First item on your shopping list: sippy cups for your toddler. Will they have the ones made without bisphenol A (or BPA), which the state of Connecticut recently banned from use in food containers and baby...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 16, 2009 | News
At home, my extended period of recovery is wearing thin. My wife and daughter are happy to have me back, but after nearly a year, they've begun wondering when I'm going to be done healing. Truth is, I was feeling good, caught up on a year's worth of lost...
by Tom Sturm | Jul 16, 2009 | News
The evening of Tuesday, June 23 saw a vast show of student, staff and parental support for Pioneer Valley Performing Arts (PVPA) High School Executive Director Robert Brick at a 6 p.m. meeting of that institution's board of trustees. The standing-room-only meeting...
by Our Readers | Jul 16, 2009 | News
Unions Can Be CoerciveI'm writing in response to Ronald Rene Patenaude's letter of 25 June 2009 entitled "Nonprofits Bust Unions Too." I'm writing because there are two sides to every coin, and I represent the other side of the argument. When I...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 16, 2009 | News
Have you noticed anything strange lately about your local post office? For years, one of the big issues in my town was the need for a larger facility to accommodate the popularity of the services offered and the SUVs of customers clogging the tiny parking lot at the...
by Our Readers | Jul 16, 2009 | News
Looking Out for OthersSean F. Werle, Ph.D., states [Letters, July 9, 2009] that he has nothing against unions. Of course he has nothing against them; he has enjoyed the wages and benefits secured by a union contract without having to contribute dues or pay an agency...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 16, 2009 | News
Robert Strange McNamara died last week at age 93. The front-page headline attached to the New York Times obituary (superbly written by Tim Weiner) identified him simply as "Architect of Futile War." That "futile war" was, of course, Vietnam, the...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 16, 2009 | News
The recent coup that removed Manuel Zelaya as president of Honduras has brought the School of the Americas, now known as WHINSEC (Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), back into the news. The coup, which brought protest from farmers, unions and...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 16, 2009 | News
Like many communities, Springfield has an uneasy relationship with the billboards that dot its neighborhoods and ring its highways. To some, the boards are an aesthetic affront, cluttering the visual landscape of a city that already struggles to get outsiders to see...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 16, 2009 | News
Have you heard that Holyoke police chief Anthony Scott has a bit of a problem with judges?We're going to assume you have. Indeed, unless you've spent the last several years living under a newspaper- and TV-free rock, it would be hard to miss Scott's...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 16, 2009 | News
As the green energy economy takes its first shaky steps, questions arise about what kind of energy is really green. Those are not just intellectual questions. In the Valley, where four new power plants and an expansion of another are currently being proposed,...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 16, 2009 | News
John Perkins wrote the book (literally—it's Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Plume Books, 2004) on the U.S.'s systematic, government- and corporate-sponsored exploitation of other countries for their natural resources. The recent violence in Peru,...
by Our Readers | Jul 23, 2009 | News
Your Money VotesAs long as money makes the world go 'round, consumers have the power—whether they have $5 to spend when they walk into a store or $100 (see "Household Toxins," July 9, 2009). One thing I have learned in 52 years on this planet is...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 23, 2009 | News
A year and half into a staggering recession, Massachusetts is like a traveler stranded in a desert without food or water, hoping against hope to make it out of the wasteland to an oasis on the distant horizon.Through eyes bleary with heat exhaustion and dehydration,...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 23, 2009 | News
Sen. John McCain, it seems, has a career-enhancing business that involves advocating for the privatization of telecom companies in Latin America. Still unknown is whether associates of his had anything to do with the recent coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya, president of...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 23, 2009 | News
This fall's election was guaranteed to bring some major changes to the Springfield City Council, thanks to the long overdue introduction of ward representation. But mixing things up even more are the announcements—some expected, some surprising—by a...
by Mark Roessler | Jul 23, 2009 | News
Last week, while driving through his hometown of Holyoke and giving me a windshield tour of the city's historic neighborhoods, by chance Craig Della Penna spotted a tour bus parked next to the former passenger rail station. Without a second thought, he did a...
by Alan Bisbort | Jul 23, 2009 | News
This Sunday, July 26, the fearsome hitter Jim Rice, who played his entire 16-year career with the Boston Red Sox, will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Joining Rice will be Rickey Henderson, the all-time stolen base leader who seemed to...
by Mark Roessler | Jul 23, 2009 | News
Massachusetts is blessed with many magnificent bridges crossing the Connecticut River.In Springfield, there's the Memorial Bridge with its towering sconces perched upon mighty white pillars. In Northampton, the Calvin Coolidge Bridge's Art Deco eagles welcome...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 30, 2009 | News
Oh, look, the sales tax in Massachusetts is about to jump 25 percent. On August 1, the sales tax will rise from 5 percent, where it's been for the last 34 years, to 6.25 percent.Funny thing: although I'm a journalist who pays a fair amount of attention to...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 30, 2009 | News
From his window in the offices of Northampton's Look Park, Ray Ellerbrook has a bird's eye view of Route 9, directly in front of the park—and he doesn't like what he sees.Cars speed by on the road, the main route for drivers traveling between...
by Our Readers | Aug 4, 2009 | News
Take 'Em Down, Brown I have much respect for Jack Brown's discerning film reviews, and applaud the fearlessness with which he countered the hyperbolic regard for Sacha Baron Cohen's ambush-style brand of satire in his recent Advocate takedown of Bruno...
by Our Readers | Aug 6, 2009 | News
Keep Government Out of Health InsuranceWhy do Republicans really oppose government-run health care? There are three main reasons. First is enormous cost, and inefficiency and waste that accompanies such a system. Republicans understand that there is no such thing as a...
by Alan Bisbort | Aug 6, 2009 | News
What would you say if I told you that your city is targeted by a missile carrying a nuclear warhead? Chances are 1) better than you'd care to think that this may be so; and 2) you'd be a bit concerned, if not steamed, by this. The bomb no longer has to be...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 6, 2009 | News
Almost one-third of wages and salaries paid in the U.S. goes to executives, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Executives and other highly compensated employees," according to the WSJ, received nearly $2.1 trillion of a total of $6.4 trillion paid in...
by Tom Vannah | Aug 6, 2009 | News
Last week, Gov. Deval Patrick dropped by the Daily Hampshire Gazette's Northampton offices, where the Valley Advocate is also headquartered, for a meeting with the Gazette's editorial board. Gazette editor Larry Parnass invited me to join in; when my turn...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 6, 2009 | News
While Springfield has had its share of exciting mayoral elections in recent years—the re-emergence of former Mayor Charlie Ryan, who took back the seat in 2003; Ryan's surprising loss four years later to Domenic Sarno, the current incumbent—City...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 13, 2009 | News
From the moment Springfield Republican reporter Stephanie Barry christened it "Wienergate," the battle between hot dog vendor John Verducci and the Sarno administration has proved irresistible to punsters and word-play aficionados across the city, with the...
by Our Readers | Aug 13, 2009 | News
Save New World TheaterI am writing in response to the announcement of the planned suspension of New World Theater [Art in Paradise, August 6, 2009]. The University of Massachusetts has been my neighbor since I entered first grade at Mark's Meadow Elementary in...
by Alan Bisbort | Aug 13, 2009 | News
On many Saturday mornings, I load the trunk of my car with whatever used books have piled up in my basement and drive to Whitlock's in Woodbridge or Niantic Book Barn in Niantic or, if I get a really early start, to the Pioneer Valley to visit Valley Books in...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 13, 2009 | News
President Obama's biggest common-touch coup to date is the Cash for Clunkers program, which was so popular that instead of running until fall, it crashed like a speeding SUV into its original limit of $1 billion within a week. On the environmental side, the early...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 13, 2009 | News
A government land-taking is invariably sticky business, filled with the drama of angry landowners, threats of litigation, nervous politicians.That's certainly the case in Springfield, where the city appears poised—perhaps—to use its power of eminent...
