The Traprock Blog
Blog archive here
- Local to Global: War is not inevitable; peace is just as possible
Monthly column by Pat HynesGreenfield Recorder, September 6, 2023 (online here; see also at Common Dreams) I am heartened each time I come across a study affirming that waging war is not an innate part of human nature, that we humans are just as likely to be peaceful as we are to be violent. To quote the … Read more - Warheads to Windmills
H Patricia Hynes and Timmon Wallis While planning this piece last month, July 3-6 set a record for the hottest world average temperatures yet measured. Western Massachusetts was saturated almost daily with heavy humidity and rain, whose floods devastated $10 million worth of farm crops. Record-shattering fires burning across half of Canada blanketed some US cities with the worst air quality on Earth. Always urban environmental justice communities of people of color suffered most from asthma-related emergency room visits. The first full update of the UN climate report since 2014 (the year … Read more - Learning more about nuclear weaponsMY TURN Greenfield Recorder, August 1, 2023 By SUZANNE R. CARLSON Watching the film “Oppenheimer,” I resented the sound and visual distractions and the lack of the horrors of the effects of atomic/nuclear weapons on the people and environment around the New Mexico test site (July 16, 1945) and those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Aug … Read more
- No security for all: We got exactly the ‘peace’ Kennedy rejectedMY TURN Greenfield Recorder, July 28, 2023 “And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights — the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation — the right to breathe air as nature provided it — the right of future generations to a healthy existence?” —President John … Read more
- Local Activists Critique Oppenheimer Film, Prepare for Annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki CommemorationsThe July opening of the film Oppenheimer, on the so-called ‘father’ of the atomic bomb, brought out peace activists opposed to nuclear weapons and alarmed by threats in Ukraine from both the use of nuclear weapons — and an accident at the 6 reactor Zaporizhzhia power plant. In both Greenfield and Hadley, activists offered movie-goers printed information on aspects not addressed in the film’s very personalized version of atomic history. … Read more
- Withdrawal of treaties another factor in Ukraine warREADERS WRITE Greenfield Recorder, July 19, 2023 Thank you for publishing the excellent and informative column by Aaron Falbel in the July 13 Recorder [“Russia’s grievances can’t be dismissed”]. In the current war climate, we hardly see any news that can explain what is going on in Ukraine except that Russia is evil incarnate and the U.S., … Read more
- ‘Poverty abolitionist’ focuses the conversationMY TURN Greenfield Recorder, July 15, 2023 By ANDREA AYVAZIAN I grew up in a New Jersey suburb until age 9, when my family moved to Saranac Lake, New York, deep in the Adirondack Mountains. Our New Jersey neighbors said we were lucky to be moving to what they called “God’s country.” Maybe it seemed … Read more
- Russia’s grievances can’t be dismissedMY TURN Greenfield Recorder, July 12, 2023 Recognizing them isn’t appeasement By AARON FALBEL Several letters printed in the Recorder have asserted that a negotiated settlement to end the war in Ukraine would play into the hands of Vladimir Putin. Echoes of Neville Chamberlain reverberate in our minds and lead many to believe that anything other … Read more
- TO LOOK OR NOT TO LOOKMY TURN Greenfield Recorder, July 7, 2023 By SHERRILL HOGEN I have been writing and rewriting this letter for a month. It is not time-sensitive, but it is urgent. There are things we — everyone including this writer — don’t want to look at, so we don’t. I don’t want to acknowledge how very close … Read more
- Negotiate for peace in UkraineBy Pat Hynes FROM GLOBAL TO LOCAL column Greenfield Recorder, July 3, 2023 A sign hung in a Greenfield storefront window: “Negotiate for Peace in Ukraine”— the most direct of the many “Peace,” “and singular “Make Tea Not War;” “Food For All, Not War; “Books Not War;” “Brew Beer Not War;” “Solar Not War;” “Shoes Not War;” “Art … Read more