Category: Great Barrington MA

Sorry, Mother Earth

Thursday, May 23, 2013 By Mickey Friedman I got my ass kicked. Playing Democracy In Action at The Mahaiwe. You might have seen the poster advertising not the opera or the Chinese acrobats but our Annual Great Barrington Town Meeting…

Just Say No, Thanks

April 11, 2013 By Mickey Friedman Will loves Simon and Garfunkel and Simon without Garfunkel and Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. So when Will opens Fuel at seven, he tells Pandora to sing the 1960s. Which means early mornings at…

The Dark

March 23 2013 By Mickey Friedman Last week began for me with the news my former love had hung herself. The obituary reported she died at home. True, but hardly the real story. When it comes to mental illness, we…

A Letter to the Red Crows

March 4, 2013 Dear Mickey, Totally agree about Old Mill. I’ve had some wonderful meals and parties there – we used to fit all of CHP in the small dining room at Christmas and it was so lovely. We weren’t…

The Good, The Bad, The …

March 3, 2013 By Mickey Friedman I’ve been meaning to tell you how much I like The Old Mill in Egremont ever since I read that cruel review in the Berkshire Beagle last summer. Reviewers are odd ducks. I’ve occasionally…

It’s Time To Act

February 16, 2013 By Mickey Friedman Rather than act, the Great Barrington Selectboard decided to discuss guns and gun violence. We Americans like to discuss/argue about everything.  But some arguments defy resolution. Like the argument about abortion and women’s rights.…

Digging in the Dark

February 7, 2013 By Mickey Friedman When last we spoke I was selling old CDs, used books, and desperately organizing a bake sale to raise the five hundred bucks to buy the second half of the still Not For Public…

Great Barrington and the Arming of America

February 7, 2013 By David Scribner Political fortitude appears to be in short supply among the members of the Great Barrington Board of Selectmen. Shortly after the horrific killing of 20 Newtown, Connecticut elementary school children – mostly first graders…

Traffic = Transformation

January 17, 2013 By Mickey Friedman News commentators like me, Maureen Dowd, and David Brooks, and old-fashioned reporter-types like the Woodsteins – who met their source in a dark parking garage, then blew the whistle on Nixon’s plumbers – well,…

Happy Mad New Year

January 3, 2013 By Mickey Friedman Anthony, my bestest Republican in the Best Small Town in America, frets about the Obama Death Panels. But as I transition to New Years, taking stock, a part of me looks forward to my…

And Even More Cheese

December 31, 2012 By Mickey Friedman We’re supposed to celebrate another great moment in the life and times of The Best Small Town in America. So many good things: The clean-up of the toxic New England Log Homes site; another…

The Best Town Manager We Ever Had

October 22, 2012 By Mickey Friedman Like icebergs, only a small portion of what goes on in a small town is visible. So much of what really happens, happens beneath the surface. The Great Barrington Selectboard finally acted on what…