Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Whatever postures our country has projected to the world – shining city on a hill; leader of the free world; model of democracy; the indispensable nation; a rules-based order–all have crumbled like a house of cards. Our country’s failures, however, are deeper and older than the recent […]
Your True Self
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 thoughtful, some light, such as: “When I am with my friends eating […]
Water, War and Women in Gaza
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – In late 2020, a report titled Saving Gaza Begins with its Water stated: The water crisis in Gaza is a problem of daunting proportions, with grave implications for the more than 2 million inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave. The Coastal Aquifer from which Gaza pumps water is diminishing; but […]
We Humans are embedded in a Web of Intelligent Life, not the Pinnacle of a Hierarchy
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – From the largest to the smallest and the oldest to the youngest creatures on Earth–Antarctic blue whales and coastal redwood trees, minute bacteria and human beings–we are all enmeshed in layers of relationships. We need each other, though some more than others. Plants evolved hundreds of millions […]
A Proclamation regarding the Anniversary of the First Nuclear War Crimes
August 6 and 9: A Proclamation Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – As I write, five of nine governments with arsenals of nuclear weapons – capable of destroying life on our planet many times over – are engaged in war: the United States (in multiple wars and stoking one with China), Israel, Russia, […]
Bigger than Dobbs: The War on Women is a War on Democracy
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – In 2018, the US National Sexual Violence Resource Center published that 81% of women reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault in their lifetime. Further, the majority of violence against women is perpetrated by male intimate partners and acquaintances. There are myriad other misogynist […]
Voices for Justice in Palestine
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment, Feature) – They gather every Saturday morning on the Greenfield Common, Massachusetts from 11-Noon. Their signs and banners read: LET GAZA LIVE FREE PALESTINE CEASEFIRE – NO ARM$ TO ISRAEL NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE Why? Johanna (Jo) Rosen stands on the Common because she is “heartbroken and outraged by […]
A Record-Breaking War on Mothers and their Children
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Ambassador Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s permanent representative to the United Nation, spearheaded the November 2023 resolution for a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, given that 70% of those killed in Gaza were children and women. “…Men want to end the war, women want to make peace,” she […]
Tax Day: The America I wish my Taxes paid for
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – In June 2023 Amanda Jones, an African American who had recently given birth to her second daughter Miranda, died from pregnancy-related causes. Her state, Georgia, ranks among the least safe states in the country for women to give birth; and the vast majority of women who die during […]