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Two articles in the Oct. 31 issue of the Recorder point to the corrosive effect that Donald Trump’s criminality has on public morals. Jack Texeira, convicted of leaking classified documents, awaits sentencing [“Prosecutors seek 17 years for document...

By JOHN GARRETT

Our community is facing a housing crisis fueled by an imbalance between demand and supply. More people want to live in Greenfield than our current housing stock can support. We know that when demand is high for something in short supply, its price...

By DAVID PARRELLA

 Ever since I moved to Buckland eight years ago, I have been trying to track down the historic and abandoned cemeteries that can tell us so much about life and death in the previous centuries of European occupation in these hills. One that has eluded...

As an Athol resident, I was not impressed by what I saw on Halloween morning. Businesses and people disgusted. Halloween is for young children and comes once a year. This is their day. But when you have a group of people coming to Athol center...

By JOSHUA S. GOLDSTEIN

 The Sunderland Energy Committee can hardly be blamed for the misinformation in its recent My Turn column opposing nuclear power (“Nuclear power is neither clean nor green,” Recorder, Nov. 4). These myths have been repeated so many times over the...

By ERIN ANHALT

 The first day I worked for the city of Greenfield as the chief of staff, I had the privilege of sitting in on the Licensing Board. I cannot begin to describe how much this board made me appreciate our wonderful city, but municipal government in...

By CLAIRE MORENON

 This winter, thousands of low-income Massachusetts families will have less food on their tables — unless we take action now. The state needs to allocate an additional $10 million to HIP, the Healthy Incentives Program, to stave off program cuts that...

By AL NORMAN

Decades before there was an Ice Cream Alley, the small crevice between two Main Street buildings in Greenfield was the storefront of Waffles T. Clown, aka Joshua Jay Jester, aka Joshua Dostis, one of Franklin County’s most colorful political activists...

By MAURA MORRISON

 In the Nov. 1 letter “Nov. 5 will make or break America,” the writer states, “When Trump was in office we got two raises in our Social Security checks. How many with Biden?” This statement is incorrect. The president does not set Social Security...

I enjoyed reading the “Tradeswomen of Tomorrow” article [Recorder, Oct. 29], which talked about what Franklin County Technical School is doing to support girls’ exploration of traditionally male-dominated fields such as manufacturing and engineering,...

Admittedly, the controversy about ADUs, or accessory dwelling units is, to say the least, complicated and confusing. The idea of providing more housing for folks in need is very appealing. But one should be careful not to throw the baby out with the...

I support the Greenfield mayor’s and the Connecticut River Conservancy’s efforts to take down the two (now useless) dams on the Green River. The river has a right to flow free of human-made impediments constructed at a time when there was little...

In the recent issue of Ashfield’s local paper, the inept Health Commission has made some rather worrying proclamations as pertaining to its agenda and overall values as a board of local government.For one, the proposal to raise the age of tobacco...

By JOANNA BUONICONTI

Deep breath. Those of you who are familiar with my work are very familiar with the fact that I approach any political issue with a high degree of trepidation. And this topic is no different.As a little girl who grew up during the Obama presidency and...

By AARON FALBEL, MEG FISHER-KRUGMAN, DAVID GOODWIN, LAURA WILLIAMS

 As we write this, the commonwealth’s climate and clean energy bill is struggling to obtain the votes to pass in informal sessions after having stalled during the regular legislative session. While there are many promising components to this bill, as...

If you’re on social media or know people who are (hint: that’s all of us), you can help create a saner country. How? By helping to combat disinformation.We are being encouraged to hate and fear each other. This isn’t one-sided, and it’s especially...

My wife and I enjoy our retirement in Greenfield. We live north of the high school on a third of an acre. We, and our neighbors, have well-kept yards with beautiful gardens. There are more of the same on much smaller lots between here and downtown,...

When you ask who I’m voting for, I say, “I’m voting for a dozen plus attributes: decency, integrity, sensibility, courage, stability, saneness, honesty, maturity, inclusion, transparency, moral character, normal behavior, welfare of people over...

By H. PATRICIA HYNES

On a blackboard in a 1930s log cabin at Jacob’s Pillow dance theater in the hills of western Massachusetts, I came upon an intriguing question written in chalk: When do you feel your true self? Visitors had left responses on the blackboard, some...

By PHILIP LUSSIER

 As we enter the final days before a very critical election, I’m prompted to reflect on the role of the Electoral College in deciding the fate of our nation.It is a curious institution. It was crafted as a compromise between two different parts of the...