News
by Our Readers | Apr 30, 2010 | News
Noho Bridge Art: Second Time Around For the city to begin a new search for proposals for the Route 9 railroad bridge artwork project is a slap in the face to the artists who already made the effort the first time around and are now being told to resubmit their work....
by Maureen Turner | Apr 30, 2010 | News
The benefits of political incumbency are well documented: the power that comes from being a for-now-at-least maker of decisions and exerter of influence; the luxury of already being in office, rather than trying to cram in a campaign around another, full-time job; the...
by Mark Roessler | Apr 30, 2010 | News
In Greenfield this spring, an entity long thought extinct has made an impressive return. In a collaboration between a local financial institution and a local architecture firm, a handsome bank building was built that enhances the neighborhood in which it stands. Walk...
by Tom Sturm | Apr 30, 2010 | News
A rare swell of support for unions and organized labor has resulted from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s (and other Republican governors’) recent corporate-funded assault on public workers and their right to collectively bargain for wages, benefits and...
by Maureen Turner | Apr 30, 2010 | News
Springfield is a city with a deep industrial history, and while that remains a source of great pride (labor historian Robert Forrant has described the city, during the height of its technological activity, as the Silicon Valley of its day), it hasn’t exactly...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 4, 2010 | News
Talking about the foreclosure crisis isn’t simple because that crisis has a lot of levels. Early on, the favorite scenario for bankers and developers to put forward depicted the family who bought a house they could not afford, lived in luxury for a year or two,...
by Mark Roessler | May 4, 2010 | News
Recently, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) announced the launch of a new, comprehensive online database of corporate executive compensation, permitting anyone to search pay rates by company, industry or state. The...
by Mark Roessler | May 6, 2010 | News
On April 13, Rachel Maddow was a guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where he interviewed her about the documentary The Timothy McVeigh Tapes a program she hosted and helped edit that was to be released on the anniversary of the Oklahoma bombings. Though...
by Robert B. Reich | May 6, 2010 | News
Washington’s relationship with Wall Street is growing more schizophrenic by the day. On the one hand, Congress is trying to show how tough it can be on the financial sector by enacting a law ostensibly designed to prevent another near-meltdown. As the mid-term...
by Maureen Turner | May 6, 2010 | News
In 2009, it was Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Barbie (complete with tiny, tiny shorts and big, big hair) who took the prize. But what’s the most odious children’s toy of 2010? The Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood wants your opinion, as it...
by Mark Roessler | May 6, 2010 | News
Last week popular social media site Facebook removed the ability for users to determine who could see their list of interests or personal information. It used to be that Facebook promised, “No personal information that you submit to Facebook will be available to...
by Tom Sturm | May 6, 2010 | News
Every now and then the Valley spews forth one of its own into the shark-infested seas of national notoriety. Usually the culprit is an artist, a musician or a novelist of some sort, though on rare occasion you might see the rise of a filmmaker like Ken Burns or a...
by Our Readers | May 6, 2010 | News
The Chicken Connection I’d like to thank Maureen Turner for writing an insightful and measured article (“Poultry Politics: Is the Valley ready for urban chickens?”, April 22) on a local topic that is so intrinsically linked to the national...
by Maureen Turner | May 7, 2010 | News
There are a lot of lessons you might take from the string of natural disasters—the earthquakes and tsunamis, floods and droughts—that have been cropping up around the globe in recent years: about the effects of climate change, say, or the wisdom of nuclear...
by Maureen Turner | May 7, 2010 | News
Do you ever find yourself gazing at your cherubic, dimple-chinned baby lolling about in her crib and thinking to yourself: when is this little slob going to stop all this drooling and goo-goo-ga-ga nonsense and start getting serious about her future? Let’s face...
by Gwynne Dyer | May 7, 2010 | News
Ding, dong, the witch is dead. Osama bin Laden, the author of the 9/11 atrocity in the United States and various lesser terrorist outrages elsewhere, has been killed by American troops in his hide-out in northern Pakistan. At last, the world can breathe more easily....
by Our Readers | May 7, 2010 | News
Future Bleak for Nukes I should like to comment on the “Nuclear Power Safe” letter that appeared in your April 14 issue. I believe that further clarification is needed regarding matters introduced in this letter. The statement that “the nuclear power...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 7, 2010 | News
You might not find Michael Ruppert as much fun as Michael Moore. You might find parts of Collapse, the film in which director Chris Smith draws him out about his views of the impending violent downsizing of industrial civilization, less persuasive than other parts....
by Stephanie Kraft | May 11, 2010 | News
It seems good news that more businesses are hiring now, and it is. But it leaves a lot to be hoped for. That’s because many of the jobs don’t offer the wages and security that American workers could count on in the years before our manufacturing base...
by Tom Sturm | May 11, 2010 | News
The City of Easthampton holds a special election on Tuesday, May 18 that gives residents a chance to vote on a Proposition 2 1/2 debt exclusion to finance the construction of a new high school, which at last estimate would cost approximately $48 million. The debt...
by Norman Solomon | May 13, 2010 | News
If President Obama has his way, former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan will replace John Paul Stevens—and the Supreme Court will move rightward. The nomination is very disturbing, especially because it’s part of a pattern. The White House is in the...
by Our Readers | May 13, 2010 | News
Plastics Not All Bad I read your article on alternatives to plastics (“Back to Basics,” May 6, 2010) with interest. I agree that there are problems with the use of plastics, but like with so many other things in life, plastics have their positive and...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 13, 2010 | News
It’s an interesting paradox in a day when “socialism” has become a scare word: back in 1955, when Joe McCarthy, the Red Scare and blacklisting still hadn’t gone cold as news, the top 400 earners in America had to pay 51.2 percent of their...
by Maureen Turner | May 13, 2010 | News
As a writer and a home-schooling parent, Liz Castro knows as well as anyone just how valuable public libraries are. Castro and her family make regular trips to tiny Belding Memorial Library, in their hometown of Ashfield; when they need a bigger selection to choose...
by Maureen Turner | May 13, 2010 | News
Last month, as state Rep. John Scibak (D-South Hadley) fought to get included in the House budget an amendment to preserve the Western Mass. Regional Library System, he was surprised by the resistance he encountered from colleagues from the Boston area, he said. That...
by Christine MacDonald | May 13, 2010 | News
As many as one in every five new homes and a quarter of municipal buildings and office towers are expected to qualify as “green” buildings two years from now. But what does that really mean? There is no single standard. Instead, a broad array of...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 14, 2010 | News
We’ve heard this too many times. Way too many times. Beginning with the first salvo of articles about President Obama’s budget, the familiar refrain was there again: “…he avoids tough choices on such big issues as Medicare, Medicaid and Social...
by Our Readers | May 14, 2010 | News
No Give, No Take I am by no means the only reader of the Advocate who continues to regret the loss of This Modern World and its replacement with Mild Abandon, a bland, boring, and unfunny substitute. Though the Advocate has published a number of letters complaining...
by Maureen Turner | May 14, 2010 | News
Last week, the Patrick administration proposed strict new rules for “biomass” plants in the state, including limits on what kinds of wood could be burned in such plants. The regulations would also set high energy-efficiency thresholds that must be met for...
by Tom Vannah | May 14, 2010 | News
To get a sense of the depth of frustration biomass developers are feeling toward both environmental activists (at least those activists who oppose efforts to build large wood-burning electricity plants in Massachusetts) and the Patrick Administration, all you have to...
by Maureen Turner | May 14, 2010 | News
When it comes to matters environmental, just how ahead of the curve is the Valley? Two words (or maybe it’s three): composting porta-potty. Sure, there are plenty of compelling reasons to attend next weekend’s Hilltown Spring Festival: live performances by...
by Our Readers | May 20, 2010 | News
What Is a Green Building? Christine MacDonald began her editorial Who Decides What’s Sustainable? [May 13, 2010] reflecting on the expectation that many buildings nationally will be qualified as “green” in two years. Then she rhetorically asks,...
by Tom Sturm | May 20, 2010 | News
If eagles are the rulers of the sky and sharks the lords of the sea, the Pedal People are the busy bees of the Valley’s bike trails, bringing to the system the lifeblood of commerce and the virtue of conservation. An early pioneering effort that has since been...
by Maureen Turner | May 20, 2010 | News
State Rep. Ellen Story was knocked out by a nasty respiratory flu last week. But that didn’t stop her from celebrating encouraging signs that her bill to support new mothers, several years in the making, finally appears headed to become a law. Story, an Amherst...
by Tom Vannah | May 20, 2010 | News
Until the fall of last year, the biomass industry seemed to be on a fast track in Massachusetts. The Patrick administration was bullish on biomass, promoting it as one of a number of promising alternative energy sources, encouraging the development of biomass plants...
by Maureen Turner | May 20, 2010 | News
When the Patrick administration earlier this year called for a state ban on the use of the controversial chemical bisphenol-A (or BPA) in certain products, environmental activists reacted with guarded praise. In early March, the governor announced that he was ordering...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 20, 2010 | News
In the security line at the airport, you whip out your liquids, laptop and keys and throw them in a plastic box. You take off your jacket and fling it and your purse into a box; you take off your shoes. You know that putting things in boxes could make it easier for...
by Tom Vannah | May 21, 2010 | News
While the rest of the Valley Advocate staff spent last week putting the finishing touches on the Dining and Travel section for this issue, I was out dining and traveling my way across Massachusetts and up into Maine, stopping occasionally along the way to snap photos...
by Mark Roessler | May 20, 2010 | News
“What can I do about it?” Deep into a far-ranging discussion with Ricki Carroll, Ashfield’s internationally recognized “Cheese Queen,” she stopped upon this phrase, repeated it and declared the expression the essence of the problem the...
by Tom Sturm | May 21, 2010 | News
On the heels of its 50th birthday, Amherst’s WFCR 88.5 FM has made another move toward expansion in the region, acquiring yet another station to add to its rapidly growing public broadcasting network. CEO and General Manager Martin Miller announced this week at...
by Our Readers | May 21, 2010 | News
A Cow’s Life In connection with the Advocate’s May 12 cover story, “All Hail the Cheese Queen,” I feel it’s important that your readers know how cheese-making and all dairy products affect cows and calves. Regardless of whether the farm...
by Robert B. Reich | May 21, 2010 | News
The White House recently warned BP that it expects the oil giant to pay all damages associated with the disastrous oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, even if the costs exceed the $75 million liability cap under federal law. BP responded by saying its public statements...
by Mark Roessler | May 21, 2010 | News
Taking over as head brewer for a local brewery with a passionately loyal and ever-thirsty community of beer drinkers can be a daunting task. Though he appears to have mastered the job, Chris Sellers, the brewer for the People’s Pint, admitted in an Advocate...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 25, 2010 | News
The health care bill is not about health care. It is about protecting and increasing the profits of the insurance companies. … What the U.S. needs is a single-payer not-for-profit health system that pays doctors and nurses sufficiently. … A private health...
by Mark Roessler | May 21, 2010 | News
The chef at the People’s Pint says the reason he whips the butter every day and squirts it into small, reusable crocks individually for each customer is because his boss, the Pint’s founder and owner, Alden Booth “bristles at the word...
by Maureen Turner | May 25, 2010 | News
Could it really be true—is the Urban League finally preparing to move out of 765 State Street, opening the way to the long-overdue restoration of full library services in Mason Square? According to a May 21 update on the status of the building—which the...
by Tom Vannah | May 27, 2010 | News
John Hagan the scientist is a bird man—a Neotropical migratory bird man, to be specific—with a doctorate in zoology and a six-year stint as editor of Ornithological Monographs for the American Ornithologists’ Union on his resume. When he talks about...
by Tom Vannah | May 27, 2010 | News
When you sit down with a loan officer to fill out a mortgage application—maybe you’re buying a home; maybe you’re refinancing your mortgage, taking advantage of today’s historically low interest rates—you learn soon enough that loan...
by Our Readers | May 27, 2010 | News
Save Arctic From Spills I have been watching with horror as one of the worst oil spills in American history continues unabated, and millions of gallons of crude oil now threaten our nation’s vital Gulf Coast ecosystem. This latest national environmental crisis...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 27, 2010 | News
Even as Vermont’s two largest electric utilities, Green Mountain Power and Central Vermont Public Service Company, put off signing a contract for electricity from the troubled Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, they are arranging to buy power from a...
by Maureen Turner | May 27, 2010 | News
It appears safe to say that City Councilor Tim Rooke has not been intimidated into silence by the recent harsh words leveled at him by Mayor Domenic Sarno. Last week, Sarno issued a press release chastising Rooke for his ongoing criticism of the plan to move the...
by Stephanie Kraft | May 27, 2010 | News
One of the sleazy things about oil spills like the current British Petroleum mess in the Gulf of Mexico is that they’re front-loaded and back-loaded with our money. It’s what we pay that makes oil a profitable business, and, until Congress changes the laws...
by Maureen Turner | May 28, 2010 | News
As the Advocate went to press this week, there was still no word on whether the Springfield City Council would revoke or amend the special permit granted to the controversial wood-burning power plant proposed for East Springfield. The Council was expected to vote on...
by Mark Roessler | May 28, 2010 | News
These days, most cities have dozens of roads entering their limits, and every one of them leads to your home or business. When we roll the red carpet out for an old friend or distinguished guest, we tend to do so from our own front doorsteps. Occasionally, you might...
by Nan Levinson | May 28, 2010 | News
When Panayiota Bertzikis tried to tell her commanding officers that she had been raped in May 2006 by a shipmate four months into her tour at the Burlington, Vt., Coast Guard Station, they discouraged her from talking to an Equal Opportunity officer, barred her from...
by Our Readers | May 28, 2010 | News
Another Cow’s Life In regard to “A Cow’s Life,” a letter in your May 19 issue: it is unwise to speculate about “what happens to all cows and calves in dairy production.” Here’s how it is on the small family farm where I work:...
by Maureen Turner | May 28, 2010 | News
In 2002, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson instituted what was, from his perspective at least, a successful new policy: he began charging inmates under his authority a daily fee of $5 to help cover the cost of their incarceration. The policy—called the...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jun 1, 2010 | News
US Uncut represents a new protest movement against the cutting of social programs that help the poor and the middle class while large, profitable corporations pay no taxes in the U.S. You might call it a liberal counterpart to the Tea Party—that’s a rough...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 1, 2010 | News
Western Mass. was well represented among the 35 towns and cities named last week by the Patrick administration as “Green Communities”—a designation that will now allow them to compete for a pot of $8.1 million in funds earmarked for environmental...
by Our Readers | Jun 3, 2010 | News
Audubon on Biomass, Take 2 To clarify [see letter with editor’s response, May 27, 2010], since 2005, Mass Audubon has commented publicly and repeatedly on the biomass issue. Beginning with comments to the state on the Russell Biomass Project when it was first...
