Juliet Seaver: Remembering our common humanity

An old lady in Italy sits on her porch or inside her apartment with the porch door open. There’s another one in Tunisia, Morocco, Paris, and Vienna. There’s one right here in Heath. One or two more down the road — more in the hilltowns, others in the Falls. There are young mothers watching their children in Wuhan province, Berlin, Baghdad, and Miami.

Eveline MacDougall: News article provided realistic confusion, nuance

I nearly skipped reading a full-page story in the June 23 Recorder because the gigantic all-caps header, “MAGA AND THE SINGLE GIRL,” followed by the subheader, “Conservative women attend conference to discuss careers, marriage, children” initially put me off. I figured the article was replete with tropes and tiresome, divisive rhetoric, none of which I personally need more of these days. I forced myself to read it, though, because I’m trying to broaden my perspectives and better understand our struggling human family.

My Turn: Keeping families intact takes advocacy, resources

By KAYLA BAILLARGEON

Last year, I joined local non-profit Community Legal Aid as a parent advocate for the organization’s Family Preservation Project, an innovative initiative which provides legal support to families who are involved with the Department of Children & Families (DCF) for poverty-related reasons rather than issues of abuse or neglect.

My Turn: The image of Emily Dickinson

By SKIAN MCGUIRE

Even though I have lived in the Pioneer Valley for almost 40 years and have long been a student of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, yesterday was my first visit to the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst. It’s a wonderful resource, and the museum has done a great job of restoration to give us an idea of the environment from which Dickinson drew much of her inspiration. The tour guides were excellent, and I especially enjoyed the tour of The Evergreens, where our guide Thackeray’s encyclopedic knowledge and deep love for the place made the tour the highlight of my visit.

My Turn: Greenfield Fireworks Triple Trivia fundraiser

By MIK MULLER

As it happens every year, the Greenfield Recreation Department hosts the annual July 4 fireworks; this event is funded by donations and fundraising, not by the city budget. The cost is about $18,000. Our fundraising events this year have included indoor mini-golf in April and a Cornhole Tournament in May. We are grateful for the generous sponsorship from local businesses, and participation from the community. Our June fundraiser is put on by the Friends of Greenfield Recreation.

Letter: No ‘dark money’ in Wendell

The My Turn column “Getting renewable energy, battery storage right” (Recorder, June 19) was signed by the president of the Alliance for Climate Transition. This writer is a registered lobbyist for that organization and also president of New England Clean Energy Connect, which is developing a multi-million-dollar deal with the Canadian utility Hydro-Quebec to sell hydroelectric power to distribution companies in Massachusetts.

Debbie Kates: Column on slavery, Black experience spoke the truth

Thank you columnist Tolly M. Jones for your important My Turn,” Free-ish since 1865” [Recorder, June 18]. So much truth is spoken in this piece, it should be required reading for all white people. This country was built on genocide and slavery, yet this actual truth is not taught. Racism by erasure.

Columnist Judy Wagner: The songs of summer

By JUDY WAGNER

June first, it snowed. The cottonwood trees were sending their white fluffy seed puffs down like large, slow-drifting snowflakes. In places they settled on puddles or coated newly raked garden beds with a light covering that did not melt.

Guest columnist Rob Moir: For cod and country

By ROB MOIR

In 1638, it was clear to the people of Plymouth, Massachusetts, that there were fewer cod and striped bass in their coastal waters because they knew what we were capable of. They did not blame divine intervention or the biblical call to “fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Marguerite Willis: Lessons aplenty in sports article

What a great piece of reporting on the UMass Minutemen visiting a local potato farm as a group [“Minutemen grow together,” Recorder, June 20]. There were multiple lessons in that article. Thanks for some good news.

Maia Hinesley-Saunders: The Skrmetti decision, Dobbs, and solidarity with the reproductive justice movement

On June 18, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Skrmetti, one of the most important transgender rights cases to be heard by the court. The court ultimately decided to uphold a decision by the Sixth Circuit banning gender-affirming care (GAC) for minors, regardless of parental consent. Of great consequence was the court’s finding that Tennessee’s law (SB1) does not discriminate on the basis of sex and thus necessitates only a rational basis test (as opposed to heightened or strict scrutiny). The court thereby rejected the Equal Protection argument to protect access to GAC.

Columnist Daniel Cantor Yalowitz: Marking the times of our lives

By DANIEL CANTOR YALOWITZ

Every positive change — every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness — involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception. ~ Dan Millman

My Turn: Angelenos must not let National Guard silence them

By JEAN IDA HOFFMAN

I was a student at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 when the National Guard murdered four students (including two of my friends) and wounding nine. This was the worst memory of my life and I experienced a visceral reaction this month as I watched Trump call in the National Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of the mayor of the city as well as the governor of California.

Letter: In a world of chaos, why support the JAMBs?

Franklin County has unique 200-million-year-old features called Jurassic armored mud balls (“JAMBs”). Hopefully, many readers have heard about these. The Massachusetts Legislature is considering recognizing JAMBs as the official state “Sedimentary Structure,” in addition to over 50 other distinctly Massachusetts items such as Podokesaurus (state dinosaur), Dinosaur Footprints (state fossil), and Boston Crème (state donut).

Peter Flynn: What is the point MAGA?

President Donald Trump is proposing draconian cuts to international humanitarian aid, human services, to public media, and aid to low-income Americans. I thought the reason for cutting international humanitarian aid was to better use that money for Americans in need. But we are cutting funding from Americans too. I thought the reason for cutting so much “waste” was so we could take the burden of high taxes off American taxpayers. But if the military is going to get 13% more funding than there is zero overall savings to give back to Americans. I thought we were moving out of Ukraine to save money for American taxpayers. Yet the military is getting so much more money. So I just do not get it. Please explain to me MAGA, what is the point?

Kevin Whitney: Community made access to the best emergency care in region possible

Recently, nearly 200 donors, legislators and media representatives toured our Emergency Department (ED) at Cooley Dickinson Hospital (“Cooley’s new ‘front door’ on display,” Gazette, June 7). Our long-awaited project, which is being completed in phases, expands the ED by 40%. It features new equipment, more private rooms and a floor plan designed with patients in mind. Earlier this year, we opened a dedicated space to provide a calm, healing environment for those needing mental and behavioral health support. Additional ambulance bays await our region’s EMS teams as they bring patients to our ED. The new addition opens in July and renovations in the existing ED continue through early 2026. Our ED is open throughout the project.

The World Keeps Turning: Signs, symbols and political morality

By ALLEN WOODS

The signs of summer are everywhere and hard to ignore. Birds surround the feeders, swooping and squabbling and feasting on a banquet of seeds and nuts, the grass threatens to grow up around my ears overnight, the sun lingers for hours at dusk, and the solstice brings more daylight than we’ve seen in a full year. It’s a glorious time in New England, bathed in verdant green and luscious gold, with months of heat and light ahead.

My Turn: Save Massachusetts’ native bees

By JOHANNA NEUMANN

Court Dorsey: Heartfelt thanks to Wendell voters

Today, as I was going through old Recorders, I came across two headlines that caught my eye — Nov. 28, 2024, Northfield: “AG pulls plug on energy bylaws” and Dec. 3, 2024, Shutesbury: “State overrules bylaw on battery storage.”