I read on a scurrilous website called Jezebel a story about how a Mexico City park is dealing with dog poop. To encourage people to be vigilant about their collecting and scooping, officials have devised a box with a scale on it. For each dog poop deposited, it measures out […]
Tucked inside a supplement in last week’s Gazette was a fascinating story about what happens to the clothes we don’t want. A photo of bales of compacted used clothing each weighing half a ton was taken at the Salvation Army Donation Center in Springfield. I remember in the market in […]
In my country neighborhood in South Deerfield, we truly appreciate this slow, steady rain. Mostly because I live next to a tilled field, and since it was so warm in March, they plowed it much earlier than usual this year. Our window sills and our deck get caked with the […]
Have you ever broken a bone, or believed that your bone was more ok than it really was? After breaking my foot in March, requiring surgery and pins to hold the bones together, two weeks on I began relaxing and walking around with my black boot brace on. I was […]
Don’t you hate it when that happens? Today’s WSJ reports that the Coaches Trophy, awarded to Alabama after winning the BCS National championship in January was knocked over and shattered by the father of a Crimson Tide player. The $30,000 crystal football trophy wasn’t the first that was broken by […]
Have we become our cellphones? Many members of the Android club proudly eschew anything made by Apple’s arrogant late CEO, Steve Jobs. They proudly sit in front of PCs and for phones—no iPhones for them. They’re Android people. No music from iTunes? No problem, they’re just happy to not give […]
Today I joined what felt like nearly 1000 people to celebrate the life and untimely early death of a dynamo woman who made an impact across the valley and across New England. Among the speakers this morning at the very packed Log Cabin, in their biggest banquet hall, was a […]
Sunday afternoons can often be times of melancholy. I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty sure it goes back to my days as a schoolboy, thinking that no matter what I did, having to go to school was only hours away. Not that I hated school, it was just that […]
Every April 20 at the University of Colorado at Boulder, ten thousand visitors descend on the Norlin Quad to join the many thousands of students who live there for a day of civil disobedience. They light up joints, fill bowls full of weed, and flaunt their right to get high, […]
A bright, shining smile was what you got when you locked eyes with Andrea Raphael. She was always so happy to see you, in fact she was thrilled. Her passing leaves a giant hole in our community and mostly in the lives of her small children Christopher and Maeve and […]
In our age, there is a never ending quest to be the toughest and the mightiest, and it’s a battle to come up with events that are each harder than the next. It’s no longer enough to run dozens of miles and swim dozens of meters. Meet the Tough Mudder. […]
On Saturday night the Arts Block was jumping with the sweet rhythms of Nigeria when the big 12-piece band called Fenibo played their Nigerian Afro beat music for an enthusiastic crowd of dancers. Fenibo himself is the band’s only Nigerian, he’s shown at the left of the photo. Some of […]