News
by Our Readers | Jul 29, 2010 | News
Tug of War As the Tea Party descended on Greenfield on July 17, members of the Greenfield and Northampton vigils to end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan continued their silent protest in Greenfield. Meanwhile, members of the Alliance for Peace and Justice...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 29, 2010 | News
The energy crisis and climate change combine to make the problem of achieving a sustainable way of life more pressing every day. That problem generates volumes of stories in the press. But one story that shows how painful it is to do the work of changing expectations,...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 29, 2010 | News
The New York Times recently pointed out that owners of houses valued at a million dollars or more are defaulting on their mortgages at a higher rate than owners of less expensive homes. One out of 12 owners of homes worth under $1 million are behind with their...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 29, 2010 | News
Should Northampton join the growing list of communities that are boycotting Arizona? That’s the question that will be the table this Thursday, at forum hosted by the American Friends Service Committee of Western Mass. While the AFSC supports a boycott in protest...
by Terry Allen | Aug 5, 2010 | News
America’s nuclear power plants are more incontinent than a nonagenarian with an enlarged prostate. Given the industry’s long record of leaks, fires, rust-outs and lax oversight, catastrophic failure at one of the aging nuclear power plants is a real...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 5, 2010 | News
God, don’t you wish some liberal Democrat would check in with a vice that isn’t commonplace, trite and predictable? Money and women. Women and money. People who have the opportunity to influence history, to boost the welfare of millions, will put it all on...
by Our Readers | Aug 5, 2010 | News
Construction Unions Don’t Jump at Every Building Project The presumption in “Short-Term Jobs vs. Open Land” [July 29, 2010] is that building trade unions blindly support any project regardless of the consequences for the environment. Nothing could be...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Aug 5, 2010 | News
I don’t know many people who would opt to be carless in Northampton. As one friend so eloquently put it upon my move back to Northampton from acceptable-to-be-carless San Francisco, “You aren’t gonna buy a car? I’d kill myself if I didn’t...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 10, 2010 | News
Almost a year after Springfield voters approved a ballot question to extend that city’s mayoral term from two years to four, city councilors are bracing themselves to take up an assuredly more contentious follow-up issue: whether the mayor’s salary should...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 10, 2010 | News
Last Friday, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill that will bring long-awaited reforms to the criminal justice system in Massachusetts, including significant changes to the Criminal Offender Record Information, or CORI, system. At the signing, Patrick was surrounded by...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 12, 2010 | News
There’s a long list of departments within the Massachusetts state government that deal with food in one way or another—those concerned with agricultural policy, environmental protection, business and commerce, public health, social service programs for the...
by Jim Cabral | Aug 12, 2010 | News
The disaster engendered by the explosion and subsequent hemorrhaging of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico has thrust energy costs—economic and environmental—back into the public discourse in a way not seen since...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 12, 2010 | News
It’s official: the FBI can exercise surveillance over people even when there is no evidence or particular suspicion that a crime has been, is being or will be committed. This came recently from the top cop himself: FBI director Robert Mueller. Mueller was...
by Our Readers | Aug 12, 2010 | News
Raw Milk Conversion Thank you for your recent coverage of the raw milk issue. I grew up reading about the horrors of bacteria in milk through advertisements akin to the “Reefer Madness” videos of the ’60s. However, I am now a firm believer in raw...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 12, 2010 | News
Jill Stein, the Green-Rainbow party’s candidate for governor, held a press conference last week to announce that she’d gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Too bad the press barely paid attention. Stein—who ran for the same...
by Tom Vannah | Aug 12, 2010 | News
If Beacon Hill existed only in a TV sitcom and the politicians working there were an ensemble of actors hired to spoof the machinations of a blue-state legislature, the recent wrangling over a casino bill would be just another hilarious turn in an amusing but very...
by Jason Lasky | Aug 17, 2010 | News
“The amount of disrespect being shown to Barack Obama is beyond belief,” offers Lenny Kates, a retired social worker from Pittsfield, who is countering the negativity with a message of his own. Once a week, Kates spends his day in the middle of a busy...
by Ted Rall | Aug 19, 2010 | News
Two months ago, long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas got fired by her employer, the Hearst newspaper conglomerate, in response to her off-the-cuff slam at Israel. I criticized the firing on free speech grounds. “Free speech must be defended no matter...
by Robert B. Reich | Aug 19, 2010 | News
The decline of America’s middle class can be charted directly. In the three decades after World War II, the median wage (smack in the middle) grew rapidly, right along with productivity gains. Even as late as 1980, the richest 1 percent of Americans received...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 19, 2010 | News
The typical victims of the foreclosure crisis are homeowners unable to make their mortgage payments. But another face of that crisis is that of the tenant who pays the rent and doesn’t violate the lease, but is being evicted from an apartment because the lender...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 19, 2010 | News
To understand the true character of many of our corporations, you have to look at what they do in other countries—not here, where regulations, public opinion and a government that hasn’t yet lost its last vestige of political sensitivity exercise some...
by Tom Sturm | Aug 19, 2010 | News
In keeping with one of the City of Easthampton’s expressed goals of remaking the former manufacturing town into a regional pioneer in renewable energy production, the municipality can now point to a local company that is working to make low-cost wind energy...
by Our Readers | Aug 24, 2010 | News
From BP to High Speed Rail Many of us have been appalled by the BP oil spill, but if it had to happen, the timing was perfect. It’s not as if we weren’t aware that we need to stop our dependence on non-renewable energy resources, but this event brought it...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 24, 2010 | News
Last week, Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law a bill designed to help women dealing with emotional difficulties after giving birth. The Postpartum Depression bill was sponsored by state Rep. Ellen Story (D-Amherst) and championed by activist groups including...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 26, 2010 | News
Among the things that didn’t make it out alive from the mad-scramble final days of the recently ended Mass. legislative session: a bill that would have guaranteed paid sick days to workers. The Paid Sick Days Act would have required employers to give employees...
by Tom Vannah | Aug 26, 2010 | News
Both candidates in the race for Northwest District Attorney came to the Advocate offices in August, Michael Cahillane on Friday, Aug. 6 at 10 a.m. and Dave Sullivan on Thursday, Aug. 19 at 9 a.m. Both meetings were arranged by staff from the respective campaigns....
by Our Readers | Aug 26, 2010 | News
Racist Theater Review? An Asian American who acts the “squinty-eyed Oriental” (“West Side Story” by Chris Rohmann, Aug. 12)? This is a racist phrase that is offensive to Asian Americans. I hope this is the reviewer’s poor choice of...
by Stephanie Kraft | Aug 26, 2010 | News
Maybe its size wasn’t the only reason the government didn’t want AIG to fail. The company has a lot more going on than just insurance. Something worth knowing about AIG is that it was founded by an uncle of the Kenneth Starr who served as special...
by Maureen Turner | Aug 26, 2010 | News
The city of Holyoke is poised for somewhat of a building renaissance these days, points out at-large City Councilor Rebecca Lisi. There’s the upcoming expansion and renovation of the city library, the new senior center, the long-awaited, yet-to-be-sited...
by Mark Roessler | Aug 26, 2010 | News
It’s strange, but when people think “dinosaur,” the Connecticut River Valley rarely rates high on anyone’s list. Still, while several locations across the globe boast productive dinosaur bone fields where paleontologists have exhumed skeletons,...
by Terry Allen | Aug 31, 2010 | News
BP was slow to staunch the hemorrhage of oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, but it wasted no time applying vast quantities of the dispersant Corexit. By mid-July, BP had released almost 2 million gallons of Corexit into the Gulf ecosystem. BP and Corexit...
by Tom Vannah | Sep 2, 2010 | News
Regular readers of the Valley Advocate may have noticed some changes in the paper in recent years. Over the last several months, we’ve published many letters from readers who vehemently object to at least one of those changes: our decision to stop running This...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 2, 2010 | News
Jill Stein was running more than an hour late for a recent campaign event in Florence. But that did little to dampen the spirits of the 50 or so Green-Rainbow Party supporters who chatted over glasses of lemonade as they waited patiently for their gubernatorial...
by Stephanie Kraft | Sep 2, 2010 | News
Most of what Americans owned used to be made here. From shoes and clothes to cars and washing machines, what we used daily was American-made, and the new hair dryers, bicycles, bedroom sets, televisions or air conditioners families bought not only brought them...
by Jake Whitney | Sep 2, 2010 | News
Andrew Bacevich, now a professor at Boston University, was a middle-aged Army officer serving in Germany in 1990 when he had an epiphany. The Berlin Wall had just been torn down, and Bacevich was trolling around what had been the communist East, absorbing his first...
by Our Readers | Sep 2, 2010 | News
D.A.’s Race: No Contest In your August 26 cover story, you report on “the first contested Northwest D.A.’s race in decades.” The contest, you explain, is between a candidate, Michael Cahillane, who believes it’s okay to put to a popular...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 2, 2010 | News
With primary day just around the corner on Sept. 14, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts has released its endorsements of legislative candidates, based on their positions on reproductive rights. Upper Valley candidates proved especially popular with NARAL; incumbent state...
by Tom Sturm | Sep 7, 2010 | News
Just by the count of political campaign lawn signs, the race for Northwestern District Attorney appears to be running neck and neck; both candidates, former Assistant D.A. Michael Cahillane and Register of Probate Dave Sullivan, have stretches of road in various...
by Stephanie Kraft | Sep 9, 2010 | News
For people facing joblessness, foreclosure and destitution, it’s still a serious recession. For many large corporations, it’s not. According to economist Robert Reich, the largest businesses have regained nearly 90 percent of what they lost in the crash of...
by Tom Vannah | Sep 9, 2010 | News
While speaking to a Franklin County resident the other day, I heard a question I’ve been getting a lot lately: “How am I supposed to figure out which one of these guys would make the better district attorney?” The fellow asking the question is a...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 9, 2010 | News
As the Sept. 14 primary election fast approaches, the six candidates for Hampden County District Attorney have been taking their turns in the harsh spotlight. First to feel the heat: Democratic candidate Stephen Spelman, who offered a less-than-flattering description...
by Mark Roessler | Sep 9, 2010 | News
Earlier this year, President Obama announced $8 billion in stimulus money to revitalize the nation’s long-neglected rail system and introduce high-speed commuter rail in several highly trafficked corridors across the country. $160 million was earmarked to...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 16, 2010 | News
The commonwealth’s new Green Communities program has been off to a remarkably successful start, even better than organizers had hoped for: earlier this year, 35 municipalities across Massachusetts qualified for a “Green Community” designation, which...
by Markos Moulitsas | Sep 16, 2010 | News
This should have been a favorable electoral year for Democrats—they were defending fewer seats in the Senate, had well-respected and entrenched incumbents facing reelection, had shown an ability to outraise Republicans in the money game and were coming off...
by Our Readers | Sep 16, 2010 | News
The Republican Solution Go ahead! Vote Republicans back in office. They will thank you for it. How? By cutting taxes for the rich; isn’t that always their answer to every problem? That’ll help you, right? By deregulating banks and the financial industry....
by Wendy Murphy | Sep 16, 2010 | News
A Palestinian man was recently convicted of rape by an Israeli court after he had sex with a Jewish woman who believed he was also Jewish. The court said in its ruling that the man committed “rape by deception” because the woman would never have consented...
by Our Readers | Sep 16, 2010 | News
Stein: “The Real Thing” In regard to your cover story on Jill Stein (“Voters, Fasten Your Seatbelts,” Sept. 2, 2010): We are lucky that a person of Jill Stein’s intelligence, integrity and vision is willing to run for office in our...
by Our Readers | Sep 23, 2010 | News
The Rich Don’t Need Tax Breaks One of the greatest cons of our day has been the assertion that we need to make rich people richer in order to create jobs. This is not only false; it is destructive to our environment, way of life, economy, health, spirit,...
by Stephanie Kraft | Sep 23, 2010 | News
As we’ve written before in this column, the American manufacturing base has eroded drastically. Why is that important for people who don’t want jobs in manufacturing anyway? One big reason is that the service jobs that have replaced manufacturing jobs pay...
by Mark Roessler | Sep 23, 2010 | News
When I grew up, back in the Age of Analog, there were clear protections on our private communications. Along with setting up the U.S. mail system, our first postmaster general, Ben Franklin, had established laws of conduct making it clear that tampering with the post...
by Stephanie Kraft | Sep 23, 2010 | News
To the extent that it oversees or nudges the economy, how much does the U.S. government value jobs for Americans? Historically, that value has had to compete with other values—which is one reason we have a crisis in job creation now. That crisis has deep roots;...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 28, 2010 | News
There are more than 45,000 parcels of property within the city of Springfield, with a total value of about $7.5 billion. Of those, 2,266 are legally exempt from paying taxes. That’s not an insignificant figure: the property value of exempt parcels totals $1.47...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 28, 2010 | News
Opponents of a proposed wood-burning power plant in Springfield—which developers call a “biomass” plant, and detractors refer to by the decidedly less benign term “toxic incinerator”—are continuing to apply political pressure to try...
by Stephanie Kraft | Sep 30, 2010 | News
Named for a small, darting falcon that loves open country, the Kestrel Trust has helped preserve some 5,000 acres of land in the Valley from development since it got its start four decades ago. The mission of the Kestrel Trust, and of kindred organizations across the...
by Tom Vannah | Sep 30, 2010 | News
Last week, as I watched the Sept. 21 gubernatorial debate in Brighton, I had a feeling that Gov. Deval Patrick might be in deeper trouble than the polls throughout most of the summer seemed to indicate. It’s not that Patrick has lost his poise and polish; he...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 30, 2010 | News
Voters in a number of Valley communities will have the opportunity to weigh in on some important marijuana-related issues on the Nov. 2 ballot. The state Elections Division has confirmed that four public policy questions supported by the marijuana reform group...
by Stephanie Kraft | Sep 30, 2010 | News
In 2008, five parcels in North Hadley, including 22 acres on the Connecticut River, 47.5 acres of farmland, 6 acres on Lake Warner and 24 acres of woodland, were purchased and protected by a partnership involving the Kestrel Trust, several state agencies,...
by Stephanie Kraft | Sep 30, 2010 | News
“Few trends could so much undermine our free society as the acceptance by corporate executives of social responsibility other than to make as much money for shareholders as possible.” That’s economist Milton Friedman speaking in 1970, quoted in The...
by Maureen Turner | Sep 30, 2010 | News
By the end of this month, the U.S. will have spent $1.05 trillion to fight the wars in Iraq ($747.3 billion) and Afghanistan ($299 billion), according to the Northampton-based National Priorities Project. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to come up with a...
by Tom Vannah | Oct 7, 2010 | News
Nearly 10 years ago to the day, I wrote a column about Stephen Buoniconti, then a 31-year-old assistant district attorney in Hampden County who was running against an entrenched Republican, Walter DeFilippi, for state rep in the 6th Hampden District. I remember...
