Don’t Straighten Your Hair in A House With Plywood and While You’re At It Avoid that Plastic Foam Coffee Cup

According to U.S. National Toxicology Program’s Report on Carcinigens, formaldehyde causes cancer and styrene is a possible carcinogen. The finding, according to the New York Times:

was delayed for years because of intense lobbying from the chemical industry, which disputed its findings.

According to John Bucher, associate directror of the Program, workers involved in the manufacture of products containing formaldehyde are at greatest risk, but consumers can be exposed to potentially dangerous quantities of formaldehyde.

Formaldehyde is commonly found in many contemporary building materials, including pressed wood products, paneling, particle board and cabinets.

Click here to read the entire story.

Tale of Tangled Town Politics


A Building Inspector, A Town Manager, A Town Counsel, A Board of Selectmen & A Tree Farm That Isn’t

June 10, 2011
GREAT BARRINGTON, MA

There was a grim smile on Ed May’s face when he left the Town Hall meeting room Monday night.

“I feel vindicated,” he said quietly.

At a special Board of Selectmen meeting, Selectman Alana Chernila had declared her support — in no uncertain terms — for the town’s embattled Building Inspector and Zoning Enforcement Agent.

May had been on the hot seat for issuing cease and desist orders to an excavating business operating in a residential zone on Blue Hill Road.

Click here to read more about this Tale of Tangled Town Politics.

Bankers: Taking It To The Bank

The Berkshire Eagle reports that Berkshire Hills Bancorp, the parent company of Berkshire Bank – one of the strongest supporters of 1Berkshire and The Smart Cleanup Coalition – has recently been given permission by the United States Justice Department to go ahead with plans to purchase Legacy Bancorp.

In the meantime Legacy Banks has plans to sell four branches in Berkshire County: in Great Barrington, Lee, Pittsfield and North Adams.

Click here to read more:

Supreme Court: No To GE Challenge of Superfund


Rising Pond, Housatonic, MA – Site of Possible GE PCB Dump

In a move that has significant ramifications for the multi-million dollar PCB-cleanups of the Hudson and Housatonic rivers, the United States Supreme Court decided not to hear arguments in General Electric v. Lisa Jackson, administrator, Environmental Protection Agency, No. 10-871., clearly resolving the issue in favor of the US EPA.

Click here to read more

BIFF Bops Local Boosters

Has the Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) gotten too big for its britches and too swank for the Berkshires?

That would seem to be the case when it comes to the way it treated at least some of its local fans this weekend.

One movie buff had acquired a $150 pass – and at that, a bit of a stretch for this person’s budget — for the four-day festival that included a ticket to the achievement award ceremony honoring filmmaker and special effects wizard – and sometime Berkshire resident – Doug Trumbull. It included a seat at the screening of “The Tree of Life,” Terrence Malick’s film that won the Palme D’Or at Cannes and for which Trumbull had been visual effects advisor.


Not only had our acquaintance purchased the ticket, she had put in about 50 hours of volunteer work on behalf of the festival.

All that didn’t matter when the Trumbull’s celebrity status went through the roof – at least in the BIFF contingent’s eyes – due to “Tree of Life.”

Suddenly, the price of her pass went up to $250. And our friend was notified to pay up another hundred bucks or stay home – well, not quite. She was told she could stand in line for a ticket – if there were any last minute cancellations.

“Suddenly, I didn’t want to see that movie,” she said.

David Scribner

Local News: A Tree Farm, A Dump, & A Town Manager


GREAT BARRINGTON, MA

It wasn’t what I had expected to hear. It wasn’t what I wanted to know.

At a Memorial Day weekend picnic with friends from Great Barrington and beyond, Judith Kales said to me: “They started up again. This morning. Early. Sunday. Can you believe it?”

She was referring to the construction and excavation business situated next to her home on Blue Hill Road, an operation that has been under a cease and desist order from Great Barrington’s Building Inspector Ed May for nearly a year.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

C/V/ulture #1

Camille LeCrowe shares her thoughts on the end of the 2011 Spring TV season:

Detective Kate Beckett on Castle

THE LITTLE DEATHS

Now I know the little deaths I’m thinking of hardly matter in the scheme of things.  That’s The Scheme of Things.  The Big Picture.  The Big L.  Real life.  Believe me I know.  I’ve lost both my parents, some of my closest friends to cancer, friends to suicide, to traffic, and a friend and colleague to murder.

But still the little deaths get to me.  On the tube.

Click here to read her entire column.

 

Musing #1

 

 

 

 

 

I’m writing on Memorial Day 2011, a particularly confusing Memorial Day for me.  I’m experiencing a shifting mixture of pride and bewilderment.  Yesterday, I was out with my peace sign again as I have been these many years, glad of the appreciative honks, accepting of the occasional curse and upraised finger.  This is the third generation of signs.  The snow and rain and the odd angle it rests in the back of my car obviously takes a toll.

Click here to read the entire musing.

Red Crow Report #1

GE Distributes Dollars to Influence River Debate
By David Scribner
Illustrations by Honora Toole





Canoe Meadows, in the southeastern corner of Pittsfield, is as richly diverse a river and floodplain ecosystem as there is in the Berkshires. But appearances can be deceptive. For the Housatonic is a poisoned river, polluted by the former General Electric plant a couple miles upstream, where for 45 years the company allowed 1.5 million pounds of PCBs, a probable carcinogen and known growth and hormone disruptor, to seep into the river and collect along its banks and floodplain.


Click here to read the entire story.

Thanks for Subscribing to Red Crow News Updates

Please respond to the confirmation e-mail you’ll receive shortly!

Red Crow Everywhere

  • RSS Feed
  • Facebook

Follow Red Crow News on Twitter

Support Red Crow

Donate to Red Crow News and support an independent source of news and commentary in western Massachusetts.

RED CROW NEWS

An online newsmagazine based in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, Red Crow News covers what's happening and what we hope will happen.

Along with our slightly unconventional news coverage, you'll find musings and scribblings, and comments about what we care about.

Highly subjective, our C/V/ultures will be writing about culture or the lack thereof.

As always, we're guided by our founding principle: It's News To Us!

And if It's News To You, or you want to add your comment to any of our stories, please use our CONTACT RED CROW form on the left sidebar and send it along.

“A Red Family: Junius, Gladys & Barbara Scales” by Mickey Friedman

"An extraordinary set of reminiscences, beautifully put together by an extremely sensitive, even gifted interviewer. It is a jewel." --Glenda Gilmore, author of Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950

"Junius Scales is a fascinating character whose experiences tell us so much about his period, and Friedman's family approach opens up new angles on the story." --James R. Barrett, author of William Z. Foster and the Tragedy of American Radicalism

You can purchase the paperback edition of A Red Family for $25.00. Just click on the buy from amazon.com button:


CALENDAR

May 2012
M T W T F S S
« Mar    
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  

Red Crow News

Meta