Michelle Spaziani: High municipal employee turnover merits immediate review

The city of Greenfield has hired its third finance director this year. Consistent with my Oct. 22, 2024, letter to the dditor, the high turnover in the first year of Mayor Virginia Desorgher’s administration, especially the continued turnover in the...

Ira Helfand: A bomb survivors warn of nuclear danger

On Tuesday, Nihon Hidankyo, an association of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, became the fourth organization to win the Nobel Peace Prize for work advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons.In accepting the award, Terumi Tanaka...

My Turn: Massachusetts’ health system is failing

By AVA LARKIN

Imagine walking into an emergency room in the middle of a mental health crisis, only to be told you’ll have to wait —possibly for days or even weeks — before receiving the care you need. This is happening every day in Massachusetts. The mental health...

As I See It: How Trump’s bloodless revolution was gifted by liberal Democrats

By JON HUER

In 1814, Napoleon escaped from the island of Alba where he had been exiled after the disastrous Russian campaign. The newspapers in Paris reported: “Devil escapes from Alba.” Upon the news of his escape, many former French soldiers joined him in his...

My Turn: America dodged a bullet

By SHERRY COWDREY

Now that Vice President Kamala Harris will never be President Harris, she should do America a favor and become a recluse so we won’t have to hear that cackle ever again.Honestly, this woman has been bizarre from the get-go. She’s never made any sense...

Virginia and Howard Hastings: Every saved kilowatt counts

Northfield isn’t called Northfield for nothing. Northfield was named for its fertile ancestral fields that have been cultivated for centuries.Farms, food and forests are in critical danger in western Massachusetts. Our beautiful flat fields are a...

William M . Coli: Reality check

The recent election by plurality, not majority, of Donald Trump to a second term is indeed a reality, albeit a sad one. It boggles the mind that people such a recent letter writer could feel that the Biden-Harris administration “has plunged our nation...

My Turn: Out of touch government real lesson of election

By KEVIN LAKE

After spending too much money and too many hours on the campaign, I felt stunned at the outcome. But as I thought more, I realized that the outcome had really been decades in the making and all the “inside baseball” Democratic commentary about the...

Mary Collins: Imaginative collective nouns

A collective noun is that fun aspect of grammar which denotes groups of animals, people and things. Perhaps you’ve heard of a gaggle of geese, a parliament of owls or a convocation of eagles.I have created collective nouns for people in professions...

Barbara K. Seamon: Support pancreatic cancer bill

Thank you for your Nov. 26 article, “Legislation takes aim at pancreatic cancer.”I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September of 2023. I was told if I didn’t have chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery ASAP I would be dead in six months. I was...

Thom Martens: Appalled by UMass men’s basketball coaching style

As a UMass alum, longtime basketball fan, and human being, I am appalled by the behavior of the UMass basketball coach, Frank Martin. His screaming in the face of his players in front of an arena full of fans is nothing less than abuse, not to mention...

My Turn: Are these the ‘King’s Pines’ or the ‘People’s Pines’?

By BRUCE SPENCER

The colonists had not been long in New England before they noticed that there were tall conifers rising above all others as groups or groves of column-like trees. When word got back to England concerning these majestic trees, they soon became the...

My Turn: Kingdom of Trump

By PAUL GUIMOND

At the Constitutional Convention (May - September 1787), Benjamin Franklin made the following comment: “The first man we put at the helm, will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come after.” I seriously doubt that the founding fathers could...

Jim Bates: What would we do without plastic?

Let me continue highlighting the hypocrisy of our state and local government. No, I am not writing about our governor protecting people who crossed our border illegally who committed felonies from deportation.As many residents of Franklin County are...

Deb Lane: Cheers to the ShelburneTown Highway Department

Sending out a thank you to all the crew of the Shelburne town Highway Department who worked so hard to plow and sand our roads after our first snowfall. They are a small, hard-working group who did an amazing job cleaning the roads in preparation for...

Noel Gomez: Things the public doesn’t know

Next time Veterans Day comes around think of the 2,000 or so of us Marines who’ve been waiting three or more years for compensation from cancer from the drinking water at Camp Lejeune North Carolina.What a rotten way to treat us after we put our lives...

Todd Damon: Wants more of Trump’s America

If this is Donald Trump’s America, I want more of it. After years of doom and gloom politics and being shamed, for wrong think, we now have a reason to celebrate. MAGA is unapologetically alive, well and celebrating. The Trump dance has popped up...

Ruth Witty: Of oil and ancient lands

Regarding the letter “Tragedy of Palestine still being written,” [Recorder, Dec. 2], the writer implies Zionists wanted “to plant the Western flag in the oil and gas rich Arab world.” Well Israel has no oil, but please don’t let facts get in the way...

My Turn: Reality and fantasy in our teetering democracy

By KATHE GEIST

So, we have a once and future president who is an adjudicated criminal and sexual predator, was impeached twice during his first term, cannot tell truth from fiction — like many of his followers — and is incapable of governing competently and...