News
Editorial: Looking beyond recycling for climate change solutions
Last week an item in the Advocate’s calendar was a “climate crisis grief-sharing gathering” in Northampton. The description read as follows: “Home gathering to share grief, fear, anxiety, despair, and anger about the climate crisis.” Participants were encouraged to...
Bizarro Briefs: Woody, is That You?
Woody, is That You? The New York City Police Department recently used a photo of actor Woody Harrelson (Zombieland, HBO’s first season of True Detectives, Natural Born Killers) to catch a beer thief who happened to look a lot like the well-known actor. The police...
UMass activists, Speaker DeLeo, accuse one another of ‘Trumpian tactics’ in exchange on education affordability
Activists with PHENOM (Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts), accused Massachusetts Speaker Robert DeLeo of “name calling and spreading misinformation” following a tweet from DeLeo stating that the activists had used “Trumpian...
Letters to the Editor: Support Refugee Resettlement Efforts in the Pioneer Valley
Support Refugee Resettlement Efforts in the Pioneer Valley In 2017 there were 68.5 million people that were forcibly displaced and since then that number has only been growing, according to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR). Of that number of...
Northampton Commission Recommends Voting Age of 16 and Ranked Choice Voting
In future Northampton municipal elections anyone 16 years or older might be able to cast a vote for their top candidate and also rank their second or third choices, too. At its May 21 meeting, the city’s Charter Review Commission voted in favor of moving forward four...
Fighting for a Springfield Bike Park: Safety concerns, frustrations with Mayor Sarno spurring advocates to act
Dallas Anderson, 14, rides his bike about six hours a day, mostly through the streets of his hometown of Springfield. He has fun doing it, and has met friends while riding in groups downtown, but he does worry about his safety, and he said he doesn’t get support from...
Editorial: If It’s Not Your Body, It’s Not Your Business
I was 17 when I had my first abortion. I was not ready to become a mother. I was still in high school, no money in the bank, and admittedly still a child myself. I know if I didn’t have that choice, my life would be 100 percent different than it is today. Sometimes I...
Advocates speak out against abortion bans at Northampton rally
It was near the end of a Northampton rally in support of abortion rights on Tuesday that Shirley Jackson Whitaker took the stage. She spoke to more than 200 people who had gathered at Pulaski Park following the passage of restrictive abortion laws in states including...
Bizarro Briefs: RIP Grumpy Cat
RIP Grumpy Cat A generational meme icon is no more. At the age of seven, the beloved feline known to the internet as “Grumpy Cat” has been taken from us, but left us with her always grumpy face, which will surely delight generations of internet browsers in the years...
Letters to the Editor: Forget the wall; plant a hedge
Forget the Wall; Plant a Hedge I think that instead of building a wall along our southern border, we should plant a hedge. And granted the cooperation of the Mexican people, finance the planting of food trees and vegetable gardens that will provide some respite to...
Pioneer Valley Workers Center to establish worker-owned farm
The Pioneer Valley Workers Center (PVWC) plans on breaking ground this week on its planned four-acre worker-run cooperative farm on the border of Hatfield and Northampton. Lorena Moreno, a member of the PVWC and the seven-member farm cooperative, said the hope is that...
Editorial: Even Politicians Are Beginning to Support Medicare For All in Mass
Earlier this week, both Holyoke and South Hadley overwhelmingly passed municipal resolutions in support of Medicare for All legislation. A few weeks earlier, Boston’s City Council did the same. They join Northampton, Cambridge, Williamsburg, and assorted other...
Bizarro Briefs: A daring escape (with cat)
A daring escape In what could easily be a scene from an action movie (starring an elderly woman and her cat), a Massachusetts woman managed to save herself and her feline companion from drowning when the car they were driving crashed into a river and sank. The woman,...
Q&A: ‘Rafiki’ film hopes to spark change in Kenya
The 2018 film, Rafiki, by co-writer/director Wanuri Kahiu, follows Kena and Ziki, two friends who encourage one another to follow their dreams by going to college and starting careers as young women in Kenya. Their friendship blossoms into love, but in their home city...
Letters to the Editor: It’s Time to Demand Cruelty-Free Circuses
It’s Time to Demand Cruelty-Free Circuses Shame on MGM. I was very dismayed and disappointed to see that MassMutual, now run by MGM, recently hosted Garden Bros. Circus, one of the most inhumane and dangerous circuses in the country. When MassMutual Center hosted it...
Summer Times in the Pines – this summer’s music lineup at the Pines Theater in Northampton
This summer at the Pines Theater at Look Memorial Park in Northampton is shaping up to an eventful one with half a dozen shows featuring big name acts such as grungey alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. with indie folk-rocker Kurt Vile as well as jam rock acts Moe. and...
Death With Dignity: Doctor Assisted Death Bill Making Strides with Lawmakers
Last year, Northampton City Councilor Marianne LaBarge cared for a dear friend as she died from esophageal cancer. Near the end, LaBarge says she couldn’t breathe well, even on oxygen, and was in tremendous pain, even on pain medications. “She was begging to breathe,”...
Editorial: We Need To Support Healthy Food Programs For Low-Income People
With the constant hum of negative political news at the national and international level, it’s easy to miss the fact that we may be on the verge of something very positive on the local and state level with regard to food and hunger. The centerpiece has been a...
Bizarro Briefs: The ‘Pooperintendent’ Returns
The ‘Pooperintendent’ Returns Previously on Bizarro Briefs: a mysterious serial track field defecator was revealed to be a rival school’s superintendent. He was fired. But wait folks, that’s not all! Now, the former New Jersey ‘pooperintendent’ has sued a police...
Guest Column: Richard Neal and the sabotaged free tax filing program
This is a story about what happens behind closed doors in Washington, how politicians quietly sell out the public interest to lobbyists and campaign donors, and how both groups then manipulate the truth to get away with it. Our main characters: The powerful tax prep...
Letters to the Editor: I’ve got my own Nifty Nabber now
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
Who Gets To Be Cured of HIV?: Equitable access at issue on the brink of a scientific breakthrough
Dino Schnelle, a 66-year-old resident of Heath, was diagnosed with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in 1996. An openly gay man, he contracted HIV through unprotected sex sometime in the early- to mid-1980s. He waited about a decade before getting tested due to fear...
Bizarro Briefs: A Dream Fake-cation To Nebraska
A Dream Fake-cation To Nebraska You’re down on your luck and feeling the blues. It happens to everyone. Maybe you need a trip to Disneyland to lift your spirits … or Nebraska? You don’t have to actually go to Nebraska to go on vacation because a Nebraska-based...
Editorial: We’re Living in a Teachable Moment On Vaccines
Last week, a Facebook comment thread on a Valley Advocate parenting column about dealing with tantrums went in an unexpected direction. Despite the article having nothing to do with vaccines, a reader took the opportunity to rail against them and espouse conspiracy...
‘Recovering Out Loud:’ At RX Drug & Heroin Summit in Atlanta, nonprofits show pathways to support lifelong recovery
As co-founder of the Kentucky-based Voices of Hope, a nonprofit that promotes and supports lifelong recovery, Alex Elswick, a former heroin user who now says he is “recovering out loud,” knows the hard way about substance misuse, addiction, sobriety and recovery. At...
Trump claims to be doing more to fight opioid abuse than any other president — to a crowd smaller than Obama’s
In months to come, this may become a point of dispute in the history of the national RX & Heroin Drug Summit: The 2016 appearance by President Barack Obama drew a larger audience than did President Trump’s keynote in 2019. And Sean Spicer won’t be there to settle...
Mini Bottles — MEGA MESS: Agawam man on a daily quest to get trash off the streets
A stream runs adjacent to a package store in Agawam. John Coughlin isn’t sure it’s legal for us to be there, but he wants to show me something. “Look at the nip bottles. Look at them. They’re everywhere,” Coughlin says. Small, smashed plastic bottles are mixed into...
Guest column: Richard Neal Auctioning Away Our Seat In Congress
Three weeks after U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, won his 16th term in Congress last November, he threw himself a giant weekend celebration. You probably didn’t get an invitation. Instead, according to the narrative that emerges from Neal’s Federal Election...
Data-focused presenters explain how numbers can be used to fight drugs
Bumped to the early hour of 7 a.m. because of scheduling rearrangements forced by President Trump’s mid-day keynote at the RX Drug & Heroin Summit, Hampshire HOPE’s Michele Farry’s presentation nevertheless drew a crowd of 75 people eager to hear about the...
Amherst Canvassing Director Says She Was Fired For Supporting Her Staff
The former director of the Amherst office of for-profit organization Grassroots Campaigns Inc., which raises money for progressive nonprofit organizations, says her employment was terminated earlier this month after she instituted policies she believed supported her...
Bizarro Briefs: Little League, Big Problems
Police in Dunedin, Florida, are looking for a man who stole $250 from a Little League concession stand who was wearing nothing but a ballcap and gloves when he was captured on video. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says the naked burglar also caused more than...
Local drug response program featured in national drug summit
At the opening plenary on the first day of the RX Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit in Atlanta, Hampshire County’s Drug Addiction Response Team program was among nine initiatives around the country spotlighted as promising community responses in the fight against...
Local delegation hopes to learn — and teach — at nation drug abuse summit
The first time Northampton Police Officer Adam Van Buskirk participated in the RX Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit two years ago, he returned to NPD and kicked the city’s Drug Addiction and Recovery Team into high gear. Known as the DART program — and now replicated in...
Back Talk: Support Forestry in Massachusetts
Support Forestry in Massachusetts In response to “Hey! DCR! Leave Those Trees Alone,” published April 11-17. The extent of exaggeration and distortion by the anti-forestry protesters in Wendell is truly astounding. I have a degree in Forestry from UMass and over 30...
An Old Stoner’s Guide to Modern Cannabis
I’m not sure I’m ready for modern cannabis. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for legal weed — for medical purposes and for grown-ass adult consumption (stay in school, kids, and just say no). As a young adult in my 20s and 30s, I indulged regularly. I inhaled frequently....
Editorial: Human Support for Striking Stop & Shop Workers
Since Thursday, April 11, Stop & Shop workers have been on strike, picketing what their union says is an unfair contract deal with owners of the grocery store chain. Hanging in the background of this dispute is one of the great demons of employment today — robots....
Bizarro Briefs: Turtle Power!
A man from Florida (yes, it’s one of those Bizarro Briefs) who calls himself “the saint” threatened to unleash the potent power of his turtle army to destroy people in the town of Indialantic, according to the town’s police department. The 61-year-old Florida...
Extravaganja Organizers Seeking New 2020 Venue Due to Age Restriction
After a forced move from the Amherst Common to Northampton in 2016, this could be the last year that political rally/festival Extravaganja will be held at the Three County Fairgrounds. The reason: the student-led University of Massachusetts Amherst Cannabis Reform...
Bizarro Briefs: Don’t rob cars in jail parking lots
Don’t rob cars in jail parking lots After spending time in jail on grand theft charges, a Florida man found himself again in lockup only 15 minutes after being released. The 37-year-old man was seen “acting suspicious and checking vehicle doors” in the parking lot of...
Letters to the Editor: Peace through music
A message best received through music “The Okee Dokee Brothers” wrote and perform the song: Somos Amigos (we’re friends). The video accompanying the tune showcases the duo joined by four other Mexican musicians standing on a bridge in which one might assume that...
Hey! DCR! Leave Those Trees Alone!
The road into Wendell State Forest was frozen solid with six-inch ruts formed the week before by vehicles navigating what must have been a muddy slog caused by yet another change in the weather. It’s said if you don’t like the weather in New England just wait a...
Woman accuses Hadley Police of discrimination, mishandling her case
The first time Carmen Allison’s things were taken from a storage unit at Stuff-It Storage in Hadley was in the summer of 2015. She had recently lost her job as a caretaker in Amherst and was away for a few months to look for work in New Jersey. She reported the items...
Editorial: Half-baked Plan Not Good Enough for Hampshire
Although the future of Hampshire College still remains uncertain, there’s a lot to be said for the strong level of support for the experimental 1960s-established college among Valley residents, alumni, students, faculty, and staff in advocating for an independent...
Back Talk: Non-violence belongs in schools more than military
Non-violence belongs in schools more than the military In response to “Is High School Too Young for Military Recruitment?” published March 28 – April 3, 2019: The Soviet Union had its Young Pioneers, Hitler’s Germany had its Hitler’s Youth, the U.S. has JrROTC....
Bizarro Briefs: Little Debbie Getaway
For the love of Debbie A man from Elmira, N.Y., has been charged with a felony crime after stealing a Little Debbie snack cakes delivery truck. Did he do it for the sweet, sweet chocolate cakes? No. He wanted to visit his friends. Twenty-minutes after allegedly...
Editorial: Policing the Police in Springfield
Last week, 14 Springfield police officers were indicted by a Worcester-based grand jury. It was in connection with a 2015 alleged assault on four people following a disagreement at a city bar. Some are charged with assault and battery, and others for covering it up....
Letters to the Editor: Rep. Neal should back the Green New Deal
Welcome Back, Valley Advocate In response to “An Advocate History” and “Still at it After 45 Years,” published March 21 – 27, 2019: Thank you so much for becoming the Valley Advocate again. I had about given up on you as there was little of interest left, just...
Is High School Too Soon for Military Recruitment?
Each year, high school students across the country see uniformed members of the armed forces within school walls offering information on how to join up. But a local organization asks the question whether these soldiers are overselling a dangerous career path to an...
Editorial: Compassion Needs to Cut Through the Distractions with Gun Deaths
Following the Parkland shooting last year, I was inspired by the activism of many of the student survivors, who marched to their state capital and lobbied Washington for gun control. The Advocate did a story about how those students were inspiring students in our own...
Letters to the Editor: Venezuela could be US’s Waterloo
Hampshire College price tag comparable to most private institutions In response to: “Letters to the Editor: What’s missing from the Hampshire College discussion” (March 14-20, 2019): Hampshire College gives deep discounts and takes in diverse student pop. Hampshire...
An Advocate History: The Valley’s alternative voice for over 45 years
The first edition of the Valley Advocate was published on Sept. 19, 1973, with a cover story titled, “Prophet & Profit — ‘Spirit’ Dies,” about a large hippie commune in Leyden called “The Brotherhood of the Spirit,” which became defunct when more than half of them...
Bizarro Briefs: A New Meaning for Phone Shield
A new meaning for phone shield A 43-year-old Australian man may have his phone to thank for the fact that he was left with only a small cut on his chin after he came under attack by a man wielding a bow and arrow in rural New South Wales. Confronted with the bow and...
Editorial: Still At It After 45 Years
Astute readers will no doubt observe the “plus” sign after the number 45 on this week’s cover. That is us coming clean that, no, this is not exactly our 45th anniversary issue. We wanted to bring you something like Chris Goudreau’s vast history of the Advocate...
Letters to the Editor: What’s missing from the Hampshire College discussion
What we are not talking about when we struggle over the possible loss of Hampshire College Everything I have read in the papers about the possible loss of Hampshire College has centered on the value of its creative approach to higher education, the progressive social...
Anti-Racism Now: Chipping away at racism by talking face to face
“One of my first memories of discrimination was when I was 10 or so,” said Gloria Graves Holmes, one of two co-facilitators of the Bridge 4 Unity project. “When I was standing on a corner, getting ready to cross the street, a white man drove by me and screamed ‘Go...
Editorial: So Long, Sam’s Pizzeria
Last Saturday night after returning home from The Big Surf Dance, an indoor, 12-hour winter music fest supporting veterans transitioning into housing, at Hawks & Reed in Greenfield, I heard the sad news that Sam’s Pizzeria in Northampton was closing after 12 years...
Bizarro Briefs: A Year of Free Taco Bell
A year of free Taco Bell We have an update regarding the man and his dog featured in last week’s Bizarro Briefs who survived five days in a car in the snow on nothing but Taco Bell Fire Sauce packets. Taco Bell this week released an odd statement, both announcing that...
Rep. Sabadosa champions immigrant driver’s license bill at discussion in Northampton
One undocumented woman’s husband was pulled over by a police officer and was asked to present his license. Even though he was obeying the rules of the road, he was arrested for not having a driver’s license. This was one common story from a group of local undocumented...
Resist Like It’s 1786: Modern protest movements have echoes of Shays’ Rebellion
The Daily Hampshire Gazette, one of the oldest newspapers in America, printed its first pages in the summer of 1786. From the start, things were tense in the Western Mass communities it covered. The front page of the earliest surviving issue of the Gazette reports...E-Edition
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