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Must see: Prejudice and fairness: "Twelve Angry Men" redux at MGRHS on Saturday is well worth $8

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Go see a reminder of the tension between prejudice and fairness, independence and the power of crowd thinking -- all a part of the Mount Greylock Regional High School production of "Twelve Angry Jurors."

Remember the 1957 film starring Henry Fonda -- Twelve Angry Men about building consensus in the American legal system of trial by jury?   The quality of the acting by this 13-member cast is right up there with the pros and there are some lines that are chilling when you remember how long ago they were written. 

The whole play, written by TV screenwriter Reginald Rose in 1954 after he had himself sat on a manslaughter jury, is set entirely in a room where a jury is deliberating the fate of a teen-age boy accused of murder. 

See it Saturday, May 18, 7 p.m., at the school in Williamstown, $8 for adults and $3 for students. Well worth the time and money -- and great snacks at intermission to boot.  The director: Patrick Madden, MGRHS '10, who is gearing up June 9 to spend the summer teaching English and theater to middle-school students in Providence, R.I.

Discussion at Williams on Wednesday about constitutional amendment limiting corporate speech right

One of the key national organizers of a movement to seek a constitutional amendment rolling back the Supreme Court's assertion that corporations should have free-speech rights will be at a public forum at Williams College on Wednesday.  

John Bonifaz, executive director and co-founder of Free Speech for People, will be a guest of Williams' poly department.  He'll speak in Griffin Hall Room 3 at 7:30 p.m. 

Tweeting about the challenge of replacing lost Spruces housing

1. Bill Densmore ‏@greylocknews10 Apr

   Can #williamstown envision two developments -- one reusing a business site and another using a small portion of Lowry fields, replicated?

2. Might displaced #spruces residents react favorably to being part of an innovative "new urbanism" effort in #williamstown, Massachusetts?

3. How about surveying all displaced #spruces residents who still wish to return to #williamstown to find out what sort of housing they want?

4. #spruces How about preparing a spread sheet with pros and cons of all sites, including per unit costs, to promote dispassionate analysis?

5. #spruces If we use a few acres at Lowery for housing, let's commit to dedicating an = amt of Spruces land vibrant, food-producing gardens !

6. #spruces Can we move beyond detached individual homes to a co-housing project that innovates in land, energy and materials use?

7. #spruces Can we move beyond making a choice between agricultural land open space preservation and affordable housing in #williamstown?

Caretaker Farm and Images Cinema host free talk and screening of movie on alleged dangers of GMOs

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Caretaker Farm, a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm, and Images Cinema, the town's non-profit, single-screen theater, are teaming up to provide a free discussion and screening of a controversial film by best-selling author Jeffrey M. Smith, "Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of our Lives." 

The film will be screened at 7 p.m., on Monday, April 1, at Images and will be followed by a talk and discussion featuring biologist Ed Stockman, B.S. & M.S., (PHOTO) owner of Summit Farm in Plaintfield, Mass., and an organic farmer for 41 years.  The talk and screening are free, but the sponsors are asking for a suggested donation of five dollars.

For 13 years, Stockman has been lecturing against genetically-modified-organisms (GMOs) and their use in food. He is also co-founder of the Masschusetts Right to Know GMOs movement.

The film quotes physicans and scientists who say that after two decades the same serious health problems found in lab animals, livestock and pets that have been fed genetically-modified foods are now on the rise in the U.S. human population.  They assert that when people and animals stop eating such foods, their health improves. 

For more information on the film's contents, watch the video trailer.   There's also a Facebook page for the film. 

Ray Warner, ex-NYT copy editor and active citizen during Williamstown retirement, dead at age 89

(Where is Ray when we need him? An earlier version of this post misspelled "citizen" in the headline! -- Bill)

Ray Warner, one of Williamstown's most ardent and active public citizens during three dacades of residence in the Village Beautiful after retiring from The New York Times copydesk, died peacefully on March 21 at age 89, his wife, Barbara, reported in an email to friends.  The Warners had moved several years ago to Albany. 

Warner was an active Democratic Party member, supporting in 2006 the run of former state Rep. Christopher Hodgkins for state Senate. In 2005, he sponsored and championed a non-binding resolution approved at the Williamstown town meeting condemning the USA Patriot Act on civil-liberties grounds and directing the town's police not to actively pursue spying on citizens.  And earlier, Warner champion a town ordinance which banned smoking in public places on public-health grounds.

In early March, Barbara and Ray took a trip to New York City to celebrate 63 years of marriage and 65 years since they first met at Ursinus College. They went to concerts, saw "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and the Metropolitan Museum -- with Ray in a wheelchair, enjoying a twilight ride up the Hudson River on the Amtrak train to Albany. "A few people I know think this is a trip for sleeping," Ray wrote to his family a couple of weeks ago. "But that is rediculous!" 

Barbara said that Ray asked that there be no public service with his passing but the family will gather soon to listen to his favorite  jazz music and a symphony, Mahler's Symphony No. 1, "The Titan." Family members will share reflections. Donations in memory might appropriately be made to the American Civil Liberties Union or Habitat for Humanity, she said. The couple's four children are in Enfield, Conn., Northampton, Mass., Oak Park, Ill., and Seattle.

READ RAY WARNER'S OBITUARY

DOWNLOAD TWO-PAGE TRIBUNE TO RAY WARNER

In her email, Barbara Warner wrote:

To old and dear friends,

Our family wants to let you know of the unexpected death of Ray.  Ray died peacefully in his sleep March 21st.  He had been in failing health for the last several years but died just as he always hoped, suffering no lasting undue pain, but the general diminishment of quality of life that came with his 89 years (March 5th).  We will all miss him and be grateful for the happy lives we shared together for 65 years.

With fond memories,
Barbara and the Warner family.

 

EDITORIAL: "Greed, debt, Bain and the death of KB (Toys)"

The death of KB Toys, and the involvement of Bain Capital, is a rich story about how our system of capital formation works and why we may need corporate rules changes.  A Sept. 9 editorial in The Berkshire Eagle (If the link is stale, try HERE.), brings it to the fore.

First, a little background. Rolling Stone magazine recounted the history of KB Toys in an Aug. 29, 2012 piece on Mitt Romney and Bain Capital entititled: "Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital." by Matt Taibbi.  

READ MORE

 

LINK: The cost of running a rural Massachusetts town -- the 2013 Williamstown budget

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Residents may find it helpful to take a quick look at the 2013 Town of Williamstown Budget Workbook in advance of tonight's annual Town Meeting. Town Manager Peter Fohlin responded immediately this morning to a request for a digital copy, which I've posted as a downloadable PDF (link below). It's 131 pages -- a lot of work by the Finance Committee and town officials! For non-residents it gives a sense of what it costs to run a 7,000-resident college town in the Berkshires. Any suggestions? http://www.newshare.com/pdfs/williamstown-town-budget-workbook-2013.pdf

AUDIO: Joel Salatin, "sustainable" farmer, at Williams

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Author and food-choice advocate Joel Salatin declared his Virginia organic livestock farm is five times more efficient than comparable farms during a one-hour talk and Q-and-A at Williams College on Thursday (Feb. 23). 

"We are averaging five times the biomass production per acre of any farm in the county -- five times -- 400 cow days per acre compared to 80 cow days per acre," said Salatin, of Polyface Farms in Swoope, Va. "Now, if some trans-genetic modification company figures out a way to increase production by 2 percent, they get a week of press on New York Times. I'm telling 'ya we can quintuple it and build soil in the process, and run it on real-time, real-carbon cycling from solar energy, right now!" 

To listen to the audio, click on the carat to the left of the bar below, or download an MP3 podcast for offline listening. 

Read the announcement of his talk and a mini-bio. 

His one-hour talk highlighted his book, The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer to a full house at the 250-seat Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall was laced with humor, hubris and mispronounciation of the USDA and FDA. He described soil as alive, the challenge of genetically-modified organisms, a main-stream media "bought and paid for" by agribusiness, the need to promote agriculture to children. 

"We are growing young people today who have never watched the mystery of a seed turn into a plant, What can possible be more pleasurable than eating food from plants in soil that you cultivated," said Salatin.

He said the average American male between 20 and 35 years of age spends 20 hours a week playing video games, said Salatin, adding: "Is it really more pleasurable to be the top scorer on Angry Birds?" The problem with video games, he said, is it gives the player the false sense that he or she is in complete control of everything. In the real world, plants or livestock die if they aren't properly cared for. 

AUDIO: Elizabeth Warren rallies approximately 250 supporters in North Adams; sustained applause comes as she knocks Brown on Blunt contraception amendment

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren drew applause at a campaign rally at an Eagles lodge here when she knocked U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., for supporting what she characterized as limitations on access to birth-control services.

Under a measure co-sponsored by Brown and introduced by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, said Warren, "Any woman who is denied health-care coverage to cover contraception . . . is just out in the cold. She's got no protection anywhere. That's wrong."

Listen to a 29-minute audio clip Warren speaking at the Eagles lodge on Friday, Feb. 18, 2012. The typing sound is because the microphone is mounted on a computer keyboard. But most of her talk is still quite audible. The section about contraception begins at about 26 minutes. Click on the carat to the left of the bar below to launch the stream, or download the MP3 podcast for offline listening.

"What got me into this race, was people who said, 'If you do this, Lizzy, you'll not be alone.'" said Warren. "I'm hear to collect on that promise." 

Mayor Daniel Alcombrite, state Rep. Gailanne Carridi, D-North Adams, and state Sen. Benjamin Downing, D-Pittsfield, introduced Warren to a crowd of approximately 250 people. Alcombright -- a former officer of a locally owned bank -- said he was supporting Warren in part because she had taken on predatory lenders." The remark drew sustained applause.

In her talK -- similar to one she gave in Pittsfield several months ago -- Warren recountered what she characterizes as a middle-class upbringing in the Midwest, with older brothers who joined the military and a life that included babysitting and other work starting at age 9.

She said she has spent 30 years as an academic researcher and law-school professor studying the economic plight of the middle class, which she said is fading in America because of government policies. "I worry that my story is a story that is embedded in time," she said.  Warren's view is that policy changes can revive the middle class, rather than helping people "who have already made it," as she put it. "We know how to do this," she says. It's a matter of policy change, she added. "What kind of a country are we trying to build?" she asked. "Are we going to say, 'I've got mine?' " 

She said the challenge was not a question of economics, or finance, but one of balance. 

Perhaps the largest applause of the evening was when Warren excoriated her presumptive general-election opponent, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., for his support of a measure introduced by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt which would Warren said would limit womens' access to birth-control services. 

AUDIO: Aftermath of Irene -- Higher Ground and the Spruces

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- What's being done to help the residents of the Spruces Mobile Home Park -- many left still homeless months after Hurricane Irene flooding? In this audio podcast, recorded Jan. 4, 2012 in Williamstown, Lauren Shuffleton (right), of the support group-nonprofit "Higher Ground" -- and a Williams College senior -- explains. Click on the carat to the left of the bar below to launch streaming audio of the nine-minute interview or click here to download an MP3 podcast for offline listening or saving. (MORE NEWS)