Opinion
Local and green with Darcy Dumont: Full steam ahead for green electricity aggregation
Finally! After years of researching and developing a plan, the Valley Green Energy Working Group of Amherst, Northampton and Pelham this month took its first official action needed to apply for a joint program of Community Choice electricity...
Guest columnist Jill Buchanan: Trying to muscle big solar into Shutesbury forestland
By JILL BUCHANAN
Massachusetts is moving faster than just about anywhere in the country to implement a clean energy economy, with the intention of adding as many as 2.5 million solar panels across the state in the next 20 years. While we need to act promptly, the...
Susan J. Tracy: Republican right has ‘canceled our culture’
While I agree with the letter writer that the fate of Vito Perrone at the hands of the Easthampton School Committee was a mishandled event, the writer offered no evidence of other people being “fired and disciplined” as a frequent occurrence of...
Guest columnist Arlene Avakian: No telling how WWII affected many vets
By ARLENE AVAKIAN
World War II veterans, on the 50th anniversary commemorations of their war in 1993, remembered and articulated, many for the first time, what they had experienced. Unlike the Vietnam vets, WWII vets were honored when they came home, but what they had...
Richard Bogartz: ‘Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’’
By RICHARD S. BOGARTZ
J. Edward Rollinson: What have we come to?
I have been the astonished observer during the past three years of a world where people seem to no longer like each other. I’ve seen families divided, people yelled at in stores and social media vitriol reach an all-time high.A video I saw some time...
Sanjay Arwade: Thank you UMass Baseball
Thanks to coach Matt Reynolds and the UMass baseball Minutemen for hosting our young players for a “Day with the Minutemen” at Lorden Field. Coach Reynolds and his players have been consistently generous with us over the years and are a credit to...
Guest columnist Daniel A. Brown: A troubled Israel turns 75 with an enemy within
By DANIEL A. BROWN
In 1977, as I was about to depart for my first trip to Israel, I went to a party in New York City and met a young Israeli boy. “Hello, my name is Raffi,” he said. “I’ve lived through three wars.”Naturally, I was taken aback; as a rule, American kids...
Guest columnist Allen Woods: Wars have no winners except arms merchants
By ALLEN WOODS
Memorial Day always immerses me in a pool of mixed feelings, like those inspired by the national anthem soon after the Vietnam War. Then, the song was used as a club in the culture war, which boiled down the complex issues surrounding the war into the...
Robert Cabral: Time to ban gas-powered lawn equipment
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Rrrrrrr, Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Are we ready to confront the decadence of lawn care? Our 1950s lawn fetish is unsustainable and obnoxious. Elbow grease and electricity should be mandated as replacements for fossil fuels in this arena....
Cassandra Hemenway: Student journalists deserving
The student journalists for the Amherst Regional High School newspaper The Graphic are to be commended for their reporting, which has ultimately resulted in an apparent investigation into alleged transphobic behavior by three school counselors at...
Jeanne Shumway: Kudos to student newspaper
If ever a small, feisty newspaper deserved a Pulitzer Prize, it’s the ARHS student newspaper, The Graphic. Recent events at ARMS have not happened in a vacuum, but it’s only because of the good work and courage of the staff and advisors at the Graphic...
Susie Mosher: The demands of public service
Leave it to a long-time educational leader to turn a needed leave of absence for mental health reasons into a teachable moment. We must take care of ourselves in order to take care of others.Amherst School Superintendent Michael Morris’ decision to...
Julie Zuckman: Wishing school superintendent the best
Years ago, I worked at Crocker Farm School in Amherst when Michael Morris was the principal. In interactions with him involving disagreements about the parameters of my job, I saw some of the ways in which being a principal is an extraordinarily...
Ali Wicks-Lim: A message for Amherst’s trans and queer youth
Dear Trans and Queer Youth of the Amherst Regional Public Schools,This might feel like a hard time to be who you are. This is exactly the right time to be who you are. It is always exactly the right time to be who you are.You are not the problem. And...
Columnist Russ Vernon-Jones: Birthing a new era of climate responsibility
By RUSS VERNON-JONES
“How do you keep from despairing?” a friend recently asked me, knowing that I focus consistently on the climate crisis. It was a heartfelt question. He had started to put more attention on the climate emergency and was encountering the bad news that...
Dr. Matteo Pangallo: Column perpetuated ‘grossly false narrative’
In her May 3 column, J. M. Sorrell casually asserts that the threat of rape is “a trans tactic” against cisgender women. This is the same demonstrably false and dangerous misinformation that the radical right has been spewing all around the country to...
Michael Levine: New school needs teachers, too
Now that Amherst has wisely decided to fund the new school, let’s hope that the town further decides to purchase the model that comes with teachers. Even though the ones with teachers may be slightly more expensive, it is likely well worth the...
Richard Bogartz: Why not more kindness?
“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.” — Henry JamesKindness has been on my mind. I’ve felt there was something I wanted to say or some question I wanted to ask but...
Ross Goodwin-Brown: ‘Horrified’ by drivers not stopping for school buses
I was horrified but not surprised by the article describing drivers failing to stop for school buses stopped to pick up or discharge passengers [“Buses being passed: ‘horrific,’” Gazette, May 3]. Kudos to the Leverett parents who are calling attention...
