Share your thoughts on Northampton mayor's proposed Smith Vocational change

One topic for the Gazette’s first “Viewpoints” section May 15 will be Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz’s proposal that the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School be brought under management of the city of Northampton. On Wednesday, we plan to present reader comments on that topic, as well as columns by the mayor and a Smith Vocational teacher. We invite additional submissions of up to 350 words in length. Send them to opinion@gazettenet.com by 5 p.m. Sunday. “Viewpoints” joins our monthly rotation of themed Wednesday section 0

Living off the woody fat of the land

ASHFIELD — Twenty-five years ago, I moved into a home with an old Norwegian woodstove. Outside the kitchen window, across a yard and field, stood my fuel: acres of trees of all sorts — a typical New England mix of hardwoods and firs. And so I joined the fraternity of those who heat with wood, long before hearing the word biomass. We pay property taxes on our woodlot, for sure. But when winter nears, it’s my own little Saudi Arabia of energy. For 20 years, 0

Northampton's MEF seeks to expand educational reach with 'Exploded View' website

A Northampton nonprofit hopes a new website will bring its message about media literacy, particularly the manipulation of facts by the powerful, to audiences outside classrooms.   "Exploded View, Consuming Culture" is the name and mission of the site, created by the Media Education Foundation.   In a post on the new site, exploded-view.org, MEF founder and executive director Sut Jhally explains what Exploded View is all about. He cites author Stuart Hall's view that intellectuals today must see the world objectively and then help the public 0

Glendale Falls trail-building project in Middlefield lands $38,000; work to begin in October