My Turn: Fear about the future of medicine

By JOANNA BUONICONTI

Two weeks ago, the life-saving medication that I receive three times a year was injected through a spinal tap into my cerebrospinal fluid. Call it women’s intuition, but my mom and I both had the feeling that something would be different this time. It could’ve been because the last injection I had in December was particularly brutal due to the build-up of scar tissue that had formed in the area of my spinal canal that they typically drill into. The doctor who does the drilling could feel the scar tissue and see the amount of pain I was in.

My Turn: The hopeful math for saving democracy

By ROB OKUN

Think resisting authoritarianism is too big of a lift? Think again. This spring, while the U.S. resistance movement may not be in full bloom, it is blossoming.

Guest columnist William Lambers: V-E Day inspires peace heroes

By WILLIAM LAMBERS

In the early hours of May 7, 1945, most people in the United States were probably asleep, but their prayers were being answered far away. For at 2:41 a.m., German forces surrendered at General Dwight Eisenhower’s headquarters at a schoolhouse in Reims, France. The horror of World War II in Europe was over.

My Turn: The Greenfield Public Library matters more than ever

By MITCH ANTHONY

When I moved to Greenfield in the 1970s, downtown could have been a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. Parking was free on Friday nights, and the stores on Main Street stayed open late. Boys bought their first ties at Bartlett’s Men’s Store, and picking up a mail order at the Sears catalog store was a routine errand for everyone. Sullivan’s Drugstore would even stay open just for you if you couldn’t make it before their usual closing time.

Sherrill Hogen: Conflating anti-Israel activism with antisemitism

I wish we could trust the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to be tracking true antisemitism and not anti-Israelism. Likewise I mistrust State Sen. John Velis’ intentions in creating the Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism. For these reasons I am disturbed by the May 1 front page article in the Recorder, “Antisemitic incidents remain up,” with the subtitle, “Reports climb most steeply on college campuses.”

Tom Tolg: Columnist’s message sincere

I got behind on reading the Recorder so this comment may be a bit dated. I saw a recent column stating that columnist Al Norman’s concern about the possibility of ADUs growing at an alarming rate represented the “politics of fear.” Bringing up fear is awfully weak sauce.

Helen Gibson Uguccioni: Goldman for Montague Selectboard

I support Marina Goldman running for the Montague Selectboard. A write-in campaign for her election is in the works for the May 20 special election.

Pushback: One ‘absentee dwelling unit’ for everyone?

By AL NORMAN

“Massachusetts has had a housing crisis for decades.”

My Turn: ‘You gotta see this’

By RUTH CHARNEY

They were headed down Route 91, almost to Deerfield, when he says, “You have your ID right.”

Steve Minkin: Starvation and protests

In protesting the calamities of Donald Trump, we risk becoming indifferent to the plight of Palestinian children. UNICEF reports, nearly 10,000 are experiencing acute malnutrition and among them many are suffering from “severe acute malnutrition.” This is only the tip of the iceberg of what is becoming a disastrous famine. In all our rallies and protests we must make it clear that America needs to stop supporting genocide and that protesting the starvation of children is more than a free speech issue. It is a defining challenge to the moral fabric of our society.

Marion Griswold: War dead

I noted with sorrow the Recorder’s editorial cartoon published on May 3, which honors the 58,220 American soldiers who died in the Vietnam War. We grieve for those lost lives. But the cartoon is a lie, because it tells only a fraction of the story. For surely it is not just our own American soldiers who died that had lives worth living, and whose deaths are worth noting with grief. No one knows how many people died in that fruitless war, but one of the more recent estimates was a 2008 study by the British Medical Journal that estimated a total of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 1955 and 2002. That’s not a number; those are people.

Lynn Waldron: Disappointed in use of photo of pro-Palestinian encampment

I was deeply disappointed that you chose to show a picture of a pro-Palestinian encampment as part of your article on antisemitism [“Antisemitic incidents remain up,” May 1]. Those of us, and we are many, working to stop the genocide in Gaza perpetrated by the Israeli government with the help of U.S. weapons, are tired of the press trying to conflate support for the Palestinians with antisemitism. The Recorder staff would be well advised to read up on the meaning of antisemitism and what makes someone a Semite. Most Palestinians by virtue of language, culture and place are Semites. Many Israelis, by virtue of coming to the Middle East from Europe are actually not Semites. Following this logic, Israel, with U.S. support, is practicing antisemitism on a devastating scale.

Liz Brown: Support for Palestinians is not antisemitism

I trust I was not the only Greenfield Recorder reader who was taken aback by the headline on the May 1 front page (“Antisemitic incidents remain up”) accompanied by a photograph of a pro-Palestinian encampment at Emerson College. Conflating these students’ actions with antisemitism is precisely what the Trump administration wants, but it is not the truth. People like RumaysaOsturk, Mahmoud Khalil, and Mohsen Mahdawi who express concern over Israel’s ongoing violence against Palestinian civilians are not antisemites. This regrettable placement of the photo and that headline warrants a correction by the paper or at least a commitment to do better in the future.

My Turn: ADUs — The owner is gone, and so is granny

By JOAN MARIE JACKSON and MITCH SPEIGHT

Most days in Greenfield you can find us talking with our neighbors at our three favorite local stops: the Public Library, the Greenfield Senior Center lunch, and Saints James and Andrew church. We listen closely to what our community friends say about the challenges facing our city.

Guest columnist Jennifer Pederson: Do you know how often your water gets a check-up?

By JENNIFER PEDERSON

When was the last time you visited your doctor for a regular check-up? Maybe annually, perhaps even twice a year if you’re diligent. Now, consider this: your drinking water gets checked hundreds, even thousands, of times every single month.

Pam Roberts: Buddy Baseball starts May 10

Saturday, May 10 is opening day for the 31st season of Buddy Baseball! This year our team logo is the yellow Bumblebees. Buddy Baseball is a program for youth with disabilities to play ball with the help of peer buddies. We invite new players, buddies and coaches to join our enthusiastic, family and fun-oriented crew.

Wendy Sibbison: Antisemitism in the news

This paper should have done a better job of reporting the Anti-Defamation League’s claims of growing ”antisemitic acts of hate” on Massachusetts college campuses. ”Antisemistism incidents remain up,” [Recorder, May 1]. Buried deep in paragraph 14 is the ADL’s assertion that it “is careful to not conflate general criticism of Israel or anti-Israel activism with antisemitism.” But the content of the article proves quite the contrary. In it, the ADL admits that 63% of the purportedly antisemitic incidents reported last year “were related to Israel or Zionism” — i.e., were not acts of hatred toward humans who happen to be Jews. Two of the three specific incidents reported were similarly not attacks on Jews but on the state of Israel: at Smith College, an Israeli flag with a spray-painted swastika; and at Berklee College of Music, a student telling a Jewish classmate that he “cannot stop following Israel’s war against Palestinian children.” The third example was flagrant antisemitism which I won’t repeat.

Kathe Geist: Crossing the line on relocation

My most recent issue of Massachusetts Wildlife explains that relocating wild animals is both harmful and illegal. “Imagine, for a moment, if you were removed from your home and randomly “relocated” to a place where you had never been before and were given no money, means of communication, supplies, or directions. It would be disorienting and stressful, to say the least, and locating and obtaining the basic necessities in this circumstance would be incredibly difficult.” Uh-huh. This is the situation facing migrants who have lived in the United States for 10 or 20 years and are deported back to their “home” countries. It seems that the rabbit in your backyard enjoys more protections than the migrant who has lived in your neighborhood for 20 years. Of all the Trump administration’s abuses, its treatment of non-citizens is the most alarming if only because the line that this administration draws between citizens and non-citizens is razor thin and has already been crossed more than once.

Corky Miller and Mark Arnold: Time to draw the line on ADUs

Some years back, Greenfield changed its zoning rules to allow a single-family home to be converted into a two- or three-family dwelling — by right. This goes beyond the state law which only allows a two-family home by right.