Opinion
My Turn: A story of death with dignity
By ELLEN S. DICKINSON
On Dec. 27, 2021, my cousin Peg took death-with-dignity in New Mexico after a 7-year struggle with ovarian cancer. Peg’s story illustrates how important it is to have assisted dying legislation available.Because she and I grew up and settled almost a...
My Turn: What I learned about the Greenfield Human Rights Commission
By ROBERT KUBACKI
The harsh tone of Opinion Page letters and their vilification of Mayor Roxann Wedegartner and her decision not to re-appoint Greenfield Human Rights Commission (GHRC) Commissioner, Daniel Cantor Yalowitz, to another three-year term compelled me to...
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, write for social justice
By WILLIAM LAMBERS
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed in writing letters. Dr. King wrote frequently, including the famous Letter from Birmingham Jail in which he encouraged activism for human rights stating, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”Martin...
As I See It: To ‘Be British,’ to ‘Be American’
By JON HUER
In the news media coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth of England, we learned something about being “British,” as certain behavior was called “very British” and certain others “not very British.” What’s being “British?”The most historically famous...
Connecting the Dots: Vertical vs. Horizontal
By JOHN BOS
“You are intelligent,” he said. “That’s the newer of the two characteristics, and the one you might have put to work to save yourselves. You are potentially one of the most intelligent species we’ve found, though your focus is different from...
Shocked by column on plastics
I was shocked to read the column, Earthtalk, in the Greenfield Recorder on Jan. 9. In a full column, from the top to the bottom of the page, Earthtalk was supposed to answer the question “Why isn’t the government limiting plastics?”At no place in the...
Senior Center impressions
I have been wanting to write a letter about our Senior Center aka Council on Aging, for some time, but Marilyn Pelvis’ Jan. 12 letter prompted one. I’m always reading in your paper about all the activities at Senior Centers around me (Bernardston,...
My Turn: MLK event explores racism in the health care industry
By KIM AUDETTE, SUSAN TRIOLO, and AARON FALBEL
“Healthcare in America is not a right but a commodity,” says Jeneen Interlandi, a contributor to “The 1619 Project,” a book edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. Interlandi believes the system is designed to treat those with...
My Turn: Election reform needed
By JUDITH TRUESDELL
The movie “Spotlight” showed how The Boston Globe uncovered and published the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic church. The Spotlight team of investigative reporters, having found six priests who had abused children and been covered up by the church,...
My Turn: Instead of a pavilion, give UMass service works bonuses
By Robin Jaffin
While I was walking with my dog around the property and trails that surround the Arthur F. Kinney Center for Renaissance Studies building on the UMass campus, I noticed a Bobcat tractor ripping out the perennial beds behind the former Dakin home. I...
My Turn: Solar, trees and climate change
By MICHAEL SEWARD
Last month, the 2022 Massachusetts Climate Change Assessment was released. Among the most urgent impacts of climate change to the commonwealth stated in the report was forest health degradation, caused by warming temperatures, increased precipitation,...
My Turn: Time for words
By RUTH CHARNEY
‘While there is still time for words,” — let’s talk. I don’t recall who said these words, only that they resonate. Words are risky things, after all. Troublemakers. In company, we often censor our words to talk only about safe things, definitely not...
How to run a senior center
I would like to send a great big “Thank you” to the South County Senior Center. Its director, Jennifer Remillard, and program coordinator, Sue Gorey, went above and beyond in welcoming Kathy Steinem and some of her Greenfield Senior Center Seated...
Questions coverage of former school
The Recorder is once again blatantly and shamelessly taking sides in its coverage of the apparently endless controversy over the former Heath Elementary School.In your front-page story of Jan. 9, you report that our Selectboard received “roughly 30...
My Turn: Still just kids
By MADDIE RAYMOND
Sometimes I forget that I’m not a kid anymore. Last April I turned 18, my early spring birthday marking the line that, at least on paper, separates childhood and adulthood. Yet there is more to being an adult than being able to get your ears pierced...
Guest columnist Gene Stamell: The miracle of thumbs
By Gene Stamell
In December, Andrea Ayvazian wrote a lovely column about the miracle of the human body. Her thoughtful piece reminded me of discussions I used to have with several third grade classes (I taught elementary school for over 35 years). I would pose the...
What about the Constitution?
Call me foolish but I just can’t let go of the following fact: If the constitution states clearly that election procedures — rules and regulations — are set by state legislatures, and a handful of attorneys general in a handful of states unilaterally...
Feelings about SoulFest
Maybe SoulFest isn’t appropriate fore the small town of Northfield, but not for the reasons one writer lays out in her letter to the editor “SoulFest not appropriate for Northfield,” Recorder, Jan. 5). Her stated concern is the mental health of the...
Astonished by town officials’ response to mass resignations
I was astonished to read that all seven members of the Council on Aging in Leyden have resigned after submitting a letter to the Select Board citing continued “harassing” and “bullying” by a local resident (“Citing lack of support, Council on Aging...
Commentary: Climate change efforts won't work if they exclude people with disabilities
By Sébastien Jodoin, Penelope J.S. Stein and Michael Ashley Stein
At the recent United Nations climate negotiations in Egypt, disability activists urged governments to include people with disabilities in their plans to address climate change. In response, the member states adopted an “overarching decision” and a...
