News
by by Pete Redington | May 21, 2013 | News
Sports equality history was made recently when twelve-year NBA veteran Jason Collins became the first openly gay male athlete to come out while still playing a major American sport.Collins played center for the Boston Celtics this past season before being traded to...
by Maureen Turner | May 24, 2013 | News
Over the past several weeks, Town Meetings in nine Franklin County communities have passed non-binding resolutions expressing concern about changes at Baystate Franklin Medical Center—the county’s sole hospital—that supporters say have reduced...
by Julia Pergolini | May 29, 2013 | News
The American idiom “Don’t take any wooden nickels!” predates the 1930s, but that era’s bank crises did lead to the actual use of wooden currency. When local banks failed or were inaccessible, some merchants and towns issued wooden money as a...
by Advocate staff | May 29, 2013 | News
Springfield Casino Plan Now Goes Before the Voters It was touch and go for awhile, but the Springfield City Council has signed off on an agreement with MGM to develop a casino in the city’s South End. The proposal will now go before residents, who will vote on...
by Advocate readers | May 29, 2013 | News
Pledged to Death The sub-headline in Maureen Turner’s piece, “A Report Finds the Warren/Brown ‘People’s Pledge’ Worked,” (May 14) was incomplete. It should have continued, “…for Elizabeth Warren.” I’ll bet...
by Advocate staff | May 29, 2013 | News
Slow It Down By Maureen Turner Next week, proponents of “slow living” will gather in Brattleboro to talk about their vision for a “a more reflective approach to answering how we live, work and play as human beings on a fragile Earth.” This is...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 4, 2013 | News
With a new-found desire to become a mother and her 41st birthday approaching, Miriam Zoll and her husband did what many older would-be parents do: they made an appointment at a fertility clinic. Almost a year earlier, on that most emblematically charged of...
by Advocate staff | Jun 4, 2013 | News
Noho: Round One Goes to the Benches Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz sidestepped what was shaping up to be a real donnybrook last week, when he undid his earlier decision to remove a half dozen benches from the sidewalks in his city’s downtown. Narkewicz...
by Advocate readers | Jun 4, 2013 | News
Why Alternative Currencies Work In regard to Julia Pergolini’s May 30 Between the Lines column (“Reinventing Money: Alternative currencies like Ithaca Hours and BerkShares boost local economies”), I think it is important to note the real power behind...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 4, 2013 | News
Earlier this year, state education officials began discussions with a non-profit organization whose mission is to create “personalized learning” technology for use in classrooms. “Every student is an individual, with unique knowledge, abilities and...
by Shikha Dalmia | Jun 11, 2013 | News
Conservative Ann Coulter has made a career out of bad manners, so it was no surprise when she slammed her libertarian hosts at the annual International Students for Liberty confab in February as “pussies.” That was almost a compliment compared to...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 11, 2013 | News
The Springfield City Council has spent years considering the prospect of allowing electronic billboards in the city. It’s held numerous meetings on the matter and heard from residents and billboard owners as well as the professionals in the city’s Planning...
by Tom Sturm | Jun 18, 2013 | News
While the bright new greens of spring are a welcome reminder that life is renewed every year, it’s really the summer that brings a full-on assault of color and a maturing of that renewed life in ways that infuse our perception with something like magic. Over the...
by Advocate staff | Jun 18, 2013 | News
Court Dismisses Casino’s Lawsuit Against Picknelly By Maureen Turner Earlier this year, when Springfield businessman Peter Picknelly was sued by a casino developer who accused him of abandoning a project in Palmer to pursue a rival plan in his home town,...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 18, 2013 | News
Andrew Morehouse can envision several likely outcomes to the battle over the federal food assistance program that’s now playing out in Congress. None of them is good. Last week, the Senate approved a federal farm bill that will cost $955 billion over the next 10...
by Advocate readers | Jun 18, 2013 | News
Pass the Tempeh In regard to the exchange in your Letters section about soy and meat production between Robert Wolfe (“One Man’s Meat,” June 13) and Eli Ingleson (“Soy and Nuts, Not Meat,” May 30): Companies hawking alternatives to edible...
by Tom Vannah | Jun 18, 2013 | News
Since the New Year, the staff of the Valley Advocate, under the direction of Daily Hampshire Gazette publisher Jim Foudy, has spent hundreds of hours reviewing every aspect of its editorial mission and process. With the newspaper’s 40th birthday coming this...
by Matt Rigney | Jun 18, 2013 | News
Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley announced on May 31st that the state will sue the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for setting cod limits so low that they amount to the “death penalty” for Massachusetts fishermen. In...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 21, 2013 | News
Lost Source: A Globalization Thriller By Stephanie Kraft Outsourcing, industrial spying, product piracy: they’re the stuff news is made of, and now they’ve been made into a very readable novel, Lost Source, by John Martin (iUniverse, Inc.; 339 pages,...
by Tom Sturm | Jun 25, 2013 | News
Much of the material on Colorway’s debut album came from dreams, says songwriter and primary creative force F. Alex Johnson. On his nightstand the singer/guitarist keeps an iPhone, whose voice memo app he sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and hums...
by Emelie Rutherford | Jun 25, 2013 | News
Makerspaces have been popping up in larger cities around the world in recent years, thanks in part to MAKE Magazine, the must-read publication for denizens of the growing maker movement. Definitions abound for makerspaces and similar fab labs and hackerspaces. They...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 25, 2013 | News
Armory Day in Springfield More than 2,600 men from Springfield fought for the Union during the Civil War, according to Springfield Technical Community College’s “Our Plural History” project—an impressive number, given that the city’s...
by Tom Vannah | Jun 25, 2013 | News
My 12-year-old daughter was adamant: “Please! Not another casino story.” (Sorry, Charlotte. I can’t help myself.) We were walking the dog on a recent morning. And I was still fuming about the video I’d seen 10 minutes earlier posted at...
by Maureen Turner | Jun 26, 2013 | News
The billboard business is a lucrative one; according to rate sheets from Lamar Advertising, the corporation that owns the majority of boards in Springfield, a standard-sized sign on a major roadway in this market rents for between $5,850 to $6,500 per panel for four...
by Advocate staff | Jun 26, 2013 | News
State Police Want Charges in Quabbin IncidentBy Stephanie KraftState police are pressing for charges against five men and two women originally from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Singapore who were allegedly found at Quabbin Reservoir at 12:30 a.m. May 14, long after the...
by Bennett H. Klein | Jun 26, 2013 | News
In 1994, when Sidney Abbott visited Bangor, Maine dentist Dr. Randon Bragdon to have a cavity filled, the goal of nondiscrimination against people with HIV was one of the most important tools in fighting the epidemic. People simply would not come forward for testing...
by Advocate staff | Jun 28, 2013 | News
Adjunct Pay by the NumbersIt’s hard to get information from colleges about how much they pay adjuncts. And it’s hard to say why that is—except that maybe those that pay low don’t want their part-time talent pool to move on to greener pastures,...
by Story by Maureen Turner; photos by Paul Shoul | Jul 2, 2013 | News
Middle-schoolers have gotten a bad rap, according to Stephen Hussey. “Middle school has a terrible reputation, and mostly because of the way it’s been done,” he says. In elementary school, students benefit from spending the bulk of their day in one...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 2, 2013 | News
While working in the garden the other night, listening to my chickens going through the vocal routines they perform every evening as they go off to bed, I felt blessed that I live in rural Franklin County, in a town where neither neighbors nor town politicos have felt...
by Advocate staff | Jul 2, 2013 | News
Mark Your Calendar Pioneer Valley Roller Derby wheels in for a doubleheader game July 13 at Lossone Rink, 22 Greenwood Court, Easthampton, 6 p.m. Advance tickets can be purchased for $8 at Turn it Up! Records in Northampton or online at...
by Advocate staff | Jul 2, 2013 | News
No Retreat for Opponents of Student Housing in Cushman By Stephanie Kraft A protest by residents of North Amherst against “The Retreat,” a proposed 191-unit development that would house 700 students on 154 wooded acres in Cushman Village, has put an...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 2, 2013 | News
Is there a place for casino gambling in the Pioneer Valley, and if so, where? Please leave your comments below.
by Advocate readers | Jul 2, 2013 | News
A Conservative in the Mix? In regard to Tom Vannah’s June 20 Between the Lines column (“To Forty More”): just like Fox Mulder on The X-Files, I want to believe. I would love to relive my college days, when my venomous pen would strike down liberals...
by Advocate readers | Jul 9, 2013 | News
Makers: The More the Merrier Regarding the your recent story on the Makers movement (“Making Makers in the Valley,” June 27, 2013): I am the co-founder of The Geek Group of Western Mass., a valley maker space. We have been in existence for almost three...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 9, 2013 | News
Like millions of sports fans across the globe this month, I will spend several hours each day glued to my television, watching 184 skinny men ride their bycycles across France. From the last Saturday in June until the third Sunday in July, the Tour de France...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 9, 2013 | News
Who Has the Highest Standard of Living? It’s no news that Europeans get more vacation time than we do, but it’s still startling to see the difference on a graph (above). Note that Austrians get a mandated 22 days vacation plus 13 paid fixed-day holidays....
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 9, 2013 | News
Discussions of servers’ wages lead to debates about tipping, and those debates are passionate on both sides. How hardhearted do you have to be not to tip a person who’s only getting $2.13 ($2.63 in Massachusetts) to reel off the list of specials, take your...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 9, 2013 | News
A movement is underway that may revolutionize the pay structure for the servers who bring you your dinner when you eat out. It’s a controversial movement because it could make restaurant meals more expensive. It’s already put the beloved, and berated,...
by Sen. Bernie Sanders | Jul 9, 2013 | News
Unless we take bold action to reverse climate change, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to look back on this period in history and ask a very simple question: Where were they? Why didn’t the United States of America, the most powerful...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 10, 2013 | News
Student Loans: Paying When They’re Gray By Stephanie Kraft The annual battle to keep the interest on new subsidized Stafford loans from jumping from 3.4 to 6.8 percent seemed lost in Congress last week, but U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) vowed to try to...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 10, 2013 | News
Michael Kogut and Mark Mullan have spent the past several months traveling around Springfield making their case for why city voters next week should reject MGM’s proposed $800 million casino in the South End. Often they find themselves in the casino...
by Daniel Ward | Jul 16, 2013 | News
In this era of standardization and utilitarianism, it is heartening to hear a government-appointed committee come to the conclusion that our educational system should be placing more emphasis on the arts and humanities, particularly language.“The Heart of the...
by Stephanie Kraft | Jul 16, 2013 | News
Should local police have to enforce immigration rules against undocumented people not implicated in criminal acts? A drive is on in Massachusetts to free state and local law enforcement from having to cooperate with certain aspects of the federal Secure Communities...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 16, 2013 | News
Was it appropriate for the Northampton City Council to take up the issue of drones last month, unanimously supporting a resolution calling on the U.S. government to stop using robots to kill alleged enemies and to reject Obama administration efforts to rewrite rules...
by Advocate staff | Jul 16, 2013 | News
The New SNAP Diet By Maureen Turner Last week, state Sen. Ben Downing (D-Pittsfield) posted on his Facebook page the receipt from his weekly trip to the grocery store. Another example of oversharing in this day of hyper personal documentation? No; Downing was...
by Advocate staff | Jul 16, 2013 | News
According to Chinese legend, in 278 B.C, the poet Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River to protest government corruption. His mourners paddled out on to the river, the story goes, to scare away evil water spirits (or, according to a slightly grimmer version, to...
by Advocate readers | Jul 16, 2013 | News
God’s Country Southward, ho! That seems to be the cry today among so many of our friends and relatives who are fleeing the lush, rolling hills of Western Massachusetts to escape the life-sucking ensnarements that are the defining features of large cities and...
by Story and photographs by Pete Redington | Jul 23, 2013 | News
As the public address announcer asks fans to sing along to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” an elderly man sitting 20 feet from us picks up his banjo, adjusts the microphone in what would normally be called the press box but is really just a desk sitting in...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 23, 2013 | News
I know it must be cathartic for many people to join the chorus condemning Rolling Stone magazine for its decision to put an image of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its August cover. For any of us who feel anger rising in our throats whenever we...
by Advocate staff | Jul 23, 2013 | News
Opponents: Casino Fight Far From Over By Maureen Turner Michael Kogut’s side didn’t win in last week’s casino referendum in Springfield. But as he reflected on the results the next day, he was still feeling pretty good. On July 16, Springfield...
by Advocate staff | Jul 23, 2013 | News
Take One for the (Rescue) Team If you’ve always wanted to jump out of an airplane—under controlled conditions, of course—you can do it for a good cause by signing up for the Orange Fire Department’s third annual Public Safety Skydive...
by Ethan Gilsdorf | Jul 23, 2013 | News
In the wake of terrorist acts, or school shootings, or other horrific acts of violence, we feel duped. How could we have missed the signs? Or have been susceptible? We remind ourselves to be vigilant. Be suspicious. If you see something, say something. In other words,...
by Advocate readers | Jul 24, 2013 | News
The Tourism Trap Regarding your recent cover story on the proposed casino for Springfield (“MGM: Vision or Mirage?”, July 11, 2013): I think that we are very late to this party. Many years ago I read a book by a nationally known urban planner, Jane Jacobs....
by Advocate staff | Jul 30, 2013 | News
Baystate Sends You Home in One Piece Scalpels, heart rate monitors, surgical gloves—1,500 objects a year are left inside hospital patients after operations, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. It’s not nice to reflect that going to the...
by Tom Vannah | Jul 30, 2013 | News
Iam intrigued, but not surprised, to see two old names in the news again: former Springfield Mayor Mike Albano, elected last fall to the Governor’s Council, charged with voting on judicial appointments; and former Holyoke Mayor Dan Szostkiewicz, candidate for...
by Advocate staff | Jul 30, 2013 | News
Geothermal Firms Want Same Incentives as Wind and Solar By Stephanie Kraft Geothermal energy companies in Massachusetts are working together to get geothermal the same tax incentives and other benefits that solar, wind and biogas have in the commonwealth now. A...
by Maureen Turner | Jul 30, 2013 | News
A federal appeals court ruling last week kept intact a historic district at Springfield’s former Our Lady of Hope church—a ruling that could affect a similar campaign to preserve a closed parish in Holyoke. Our Lady of Hope, built in the early 20th century...
by Jim Stergios | Jul 30, 2013 | News
Over the past six months, we have witnessed state government’s version of Kabuki theater. On the face of it, a visionary governor insists that Massachusetts must for all time address all possible state transportation finance needs. Meanwhile, the Legislature...
by Advocate readers | Jul 31, 2013 | News
Not Enough True Support for Springfield MGM The people of Springfield have spoken—some of them, anyway. What happens in Vegas will not stay in Vegas, unfortunately. It’s coming here: Welcome to MGM-Springfield. I wish I could be as optimistic as Michael...
by Thomas Taaffe, PhD | Jul 31, 2013 | News
As a cultural anthropologist working on environmental, health and socioeconomic equity issues in Springfield, I have observed for too long that the racially- and class-stratified “tofu curtain” has divided the Pioneer Valley into an affluent, mostly white...
