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Regional Passenger Rail Projects Await Green Light - On The Other| David Scribner's column from the Berkshire Other

http://www.scribbyworld.com/other205.html

Regional Passenger Rail Projects Await Green Light. Driven by high prices for gasoline, highway congestion, renewed public calls for energy conservation and by a growing population needing access to New York City, proposals to restore and upgrade passenger rail service in upstate New York and adjacent western New England are receiving renewed attention â even going so far as to suggest reintroducing passenger trains to lines that haven't seen such service in more than half a century. It's not that hard t...

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Swimming upstream - Bibblings| David Scribner's journal for thought, ideas, commentary, images, fiction observed and imagined

http://www.scribbyworld.com/bibblings211.html

I'm in the middle of moving my writing studio out of Pittsfield, the ex-General Electric mill town, in the Berkshires where I live. A friend, a novelist, offered me his third-floor corner office in Great Barrington. GB, as it's called, is a busy little village on down south along the Housatonic River. Even though the room is in the center of town, it's quiet ' and companionable. There's a coffeeshop next door. It's got the makings of good karma. And friends gather round, and not be left behind, and to be...

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The ICE-men cometh: Local Skirmishes in the War Against Illegal Immigrants - On The Other| David Scribner's column from the Berkshire Other

http://www.scribbyworld.com/other207.html

The ICE-men cometh: Local Skirmishes in the War Against Illegal Immigrants. At dawn on Saturday morning, Sept. 27, 2008, men in jeans, flannel shirts and workboots were getting into old cars and battered pickups outside what is known by the Hispanic population in Valatie, N. Y., as the "blue apartments." Valatie is in Columbia County, across the Hudson River from the state capital of Albany, in upstate New York. These incidents represent but two of numerous immigrant roundups nationwide. They sometim...

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The Last Hurrah - Bibblings| David Scribner's journal for thought, ideas, commentary, images, fiction observed and imagined

http://www.scribbyworld.com/bibblings210.html

It's simple. Charge for obits. Everyone dies. An infinite market. Moreover, charge a lot, higher than the basic column rate. Much, much, much higher than the page rate you'd give to your favored auto dealer. Those in mourning will pay it because they don't think they have a choice - at least, most will - for how else would people know about the funeral service. How else to honor a life? Instead, an obit is a privilege granted by the newspaper - so long as you have the means to buy it. For that privil...

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The Disappearing Newspaper Blues, or Why I Love Those Inky Fingers - On The Record| David Scribner's column from the Berkshire Record

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The Disappearing Newspaper Blues, or Why I Love Those Inky Fingers. To the delight of newshounds and newspaper junkies everywhere - an endangered species - The New York Times published last month a collection of its front pages from 1851 through 2008, 300 in all in a handsome volume. New York Times: The Complete Front Pages" is indeed complete. The book also comes with three DVD's containing all 54,267 front pages, with Web links to stories on those pages from The Times' vast archive. Many analysts cite ...

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Lament for a Fallen Bookstore - On The Record| David Scribner's column from the Berkshire Record

http://www.scribbyworld.com/record208.html

Lament for a Fallen Bookstore. This week, the exquisitely intelligent and charming Stockbridge Booksellers on Elm Street is having a going out of business sale, preparatory to closing its doors after a four-year attempt to create a unique literary community. Of all places, Stockbridge, with its legions of summer tourists and with its well-educated year-round residents, would seem a likely location for a cozy bookshop. The Reagan ideology leads to the disparagement of the very idea of publicly shared and ...

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Advice to a President: Don't Adopt Massachusetts Health Care Model - On The Record| David Scribner's column from the Berkshire Record

http://www.scribbyworld.com/record209.html

Advice to a President: Don't Adopt Massachusetts Health Care Model. It is certainly refreshing that you have placed universal health care for Americans as one of the top priorities of your administration. If you can pull it off, we will at last join the other civilized countries in the world who regard excellent medical care as a right of citizenship - not a privilege for the wealthy, as we currently do. Mr Obama, I'm certain you read the recent Washington Post analysis of our national health care system...

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Parents to District Attorney: Why? - Bibblings| David Scribner's journal for thought, ideas, commentary, images, fiction observed and imagined

http://www.scribbyworld.com/bibblings209.html

Parents to District Attorney: Why? Fourteen years ago, 52-year-old Joseph Mechare and his wife Sharon had a dream. Just married and living in Millerton, New York, where Joe had grown up in a working class family - his father was a carpenter and he had been trained in autobody repair - they wanted to start a new life together. Joe took a job at the Johnson Quarry cutting granite for curbing - he worked there for 10 years - and they bought a small raised ranch house. On West Center Road. I told Mitchell to...

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Swimming upstream - Bibblings| David Scribner's journal for thought, ideas, commentary, images, fiction observed and imagined

http://scribbyworld.com/index.html

I'm in the middle of moving my writing studio out of Pittsfield, the ex-General Electric mill town, in the Berkshires where I live. A friend, a novelist, offered me his third-floor corner office in Great Barrington. GB, as it's called, is a busy little village on down south along the Housatonic River. Even though the room is in the center of town, it's quiet ' and companionable. There's a coffeeshop next door. It's got the makings of good karma. And friends gather round, and not be left behind, and to be...