The latest reports about another death of a patient at Bridgewater State Hospital is tragic, disturbing and all too familiar. Leo Marino, 42, committed suicide in his cell on April 8. His death could have been avoided, as could that of Joshua Messier and others before him.
Marino and Messier lived with mental illness. Neither was convicted of a crime, and both were committed to Bridgewater for evaluation and treatment. But Bridgewater isn’t a hospital at all — it’s a medium security prison where Massachusetts sends its sickest and most vulnerable people with mental illness.
Confinement to a correctional facility for people with mental illness is inhumane and unjust and puts their lives in jeopardy. Additionally, it greatly reduces the chances of recovery and integration back into the community. Marino and Messier, and others like them, deserve the appropriate services provided by the Commonwealth’s Department of Mental Health, as they would in every other state in the nation. We look to the administration of Gov. Charlie Baker to take immediate action to end this shameful practice.
Laurie Martinelli
Executive director, National Alliance
on Mental Illness of Massachusetts
The Gazette recently ran a front page story by Associated Press journalist Michelle R. Smith, “Sea level rise threatens US historic sites.” She dramatically pictured what would happen to the Statue of Liberty; historic Boston; colonial Newport, Rhode Island; Annapolis, Maryland; Jamestown, Virginia, and various international cities.
However, she greatly lowballed the extent to which the seas will rise, according to the world’s authoritative climate scientists. Smith opens saying sea levels by 2100 will be “several inches to several feet” higher. But the most accurate forecast we have is somewhere between 2 feet and 30 feet. Isn’t 2 feet a lot more arresting than several inches?
Three scientific groups reported in 2014 that the seas would rise from 0.57 to 1.5 meters (2 to 5 feet), making a more accurate prediction greater by 40 percent than the most recent 2013 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climage Change’s range. However, James Hansen, an authoritative of climatologist, wrote an innovative paper in 2015 giving the sea level rise by 2100 as 5 to 9 meters (16 to 30 feet). The reason for Hansen’s much greater rise is that his team took into account a newly-discovered mechanism: the way that ice melts in Antarctica. I investigated the most recent scientific literature on the rate of sea level rise for the column “In Close Proximity” in the Gazette last summer.
We in the Amherst-Northampton-Hadley area are at elevation 270-290 feet, so world humanity might turn back the sea before it gets to us. But our friends and families in Boston will not be so lucky. By Hansen’s rise, Fenway Park and Logan Airport, both at 20 feet elevation, will be underwater by about 2060.
LARRY ELY
Amherst
Vegan diet helps
fight climate change
With the 47th annual observance of Earth Day just past, this is a great time to explore more effective ways of slowing climate change and conserving Earth’s natural resources for future generations.
A 2010 U.N. report charged animal agriculture with 19 percent of man-made greenhouse gases — more than all transport — and recommended a global shift to a vegan diet. A subsequent World Watch study placed that contribution closer to 50 percent.
Meat and dairy production also dumps more water pollutants than all other human activities combined. It is the driving force in global deforestation and wildlife habitat destruction.
Last fall, England’s prestigious Chatham House declared that reducing meat consumption is critical to achieving global climate goals. A report from Oxford University found that global adoption of a vegan diet would reduce greenhouse emissions by two-thirds.
The 2015 U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has recommended reduced meat consumption and an environmentaslly sustainable diet.
Just as we replace fossil fuels by wind, solar, and other sustainable energy sources, we must replace animal foods with the more sustainable vegetables, fruits and grains. Being mindful of this can help us make better choices at the supermarket.
Asher Brookes
Amherst
Besides historic desk,
reverend owned people
An item in the April 15 Gazette described the acquisition by Historic Deerfield of a “desk/table” once owned by the Rev. Nehemiah Bull, minister at Westfield from 1726 to 1740.
There is another interesting connection between Deerfield and Bull that was not mentioned in the article. The probate inventory that was compiled after Bull’s death in 1740 is a fascinating document, listing all of his possessions including a “scutore” (a writing table), valued at 5 pounds, presumably the item that has recently come to Deerfield.
But another entry in the inventory reminds us that Bull, like most of the ministers in the Valley, was a slave owner — “A Negro maid named Tanner 90, ditto named Phillis 65, ditto named Dido 40.” Tanner, valued at 90 pounds, was probably the mother of the two girls, Phillis (65 pounds) and Dido (40 pounds).
Nothing is known about what happened to Tanner after Bull’s death. Dido was probably sold to a new owner in Springfield, where she died in 1741. And in 1742, Phillis was sold by Bull’s executors to Timothy Childs of Deerfield for 100 pounds — “A Certain Negro Girl named Phillis of about nine years of Age,” according to the bill of sale.
I have been unable to unearth any information about Phillis’s life in Deerfield after she was purchased by Timothy Childs. In all probability, Phillis never saw her mother after coming to Deerfield. Historic Deerfield now plans, appropriately, to exhibit the Rev. Bull’s writing desk in the Ashley House, home of Deerfield’s the Rev. Jonathan Ashley, (minister at Deerfield from 1732 to 1780) who, like Bull, also owned three black slaves — Jenny, Cato and Titus.
Robert H. Romer
Amherst
Amherst oak should
remain on South East
We are a concerned group of sixth graders from the Smith College Campus School. We would like to address our concerns regarding the tree whose fate is in limbo on South East Street in Amherst. The tree is perfectly healthy and will most likely not fall. It’s healthy, sturdy and has been growing for many years.
It is as likely to fall and injure or kill somebody as it is if the lights in your office fell and injured or killed you. The Amherst tree warden has approved it as healthy, and he is a reliable source. Which should we put first, the environment, or transportation which is polluting our earth? Why should we be destroying our environment, just to pollute our fragile earth? What we are really trying to say is that it’s not fair to cut down a healthy tree for no reason. We don’t want the tree to die unjustly, nor all the animals and insects that are living in the tree. Is it fair to have a genocide of these organisms because the tree has a 0.01 percent chance of falling? We hope many people will realize we need this tree more than the road.
Julia AlbroFisher, Madeleine Kruckemeyer, Emery Meroni, Angelina Miller, and Maxwell Schneider are students at Smith College Campus School.
Eating ‘on the go’ does not mean ‘throw as you go’
Can somebody help me understand the correlation between light beer drinkers and littering? Between McDonald’s eaters and throwing trash on the road? Between Dunkin Donut coffee lovers and thoughtlessness?
With a volunteer cleanup crew, we have collected many full trash bags of roadside debris on an otherwise beautiful section of road in Leverett. Now the winter’s worth of litter is fully revealed under the melted snow with light beer cans and fast food trash topping the list. Can someone explain to me how, in our supposedly enlightened Valley, so many people could feel OK with tossing trash out the car window?
Light beer drinkers, care to weigh in? What say you, fast food lovers? Giant Styrofoam Dunkin Donut coffee cup drinkers, any thoughts?? Inexplicable, careless selfishness.
Kurt Adams
Leverett
Don’t overwhelm Amherst teachers with mandates
When something bad happens at school in Amherst or in the district, everyone wants a clear response. Unfortunately, the central office has a predictable and ultimately ineffective response to each crisis. They start a new initiative.
The result is a district that is inefficiently spending time and money while placing an ever-shifting and expanding set of demands on teachers. As a teacher in the district for 13 years I experienced this first-hand. Since leaving, I hear from former colleagues that it has only gotten worse.
In recent years the Amherst Regional superintendent’s office has mandated the schools to take on a dizzying array of initiatives ranging from co-teaching, to a workshop model in the classroom, to new student behavior management paradigms. The authors of “Staying the Course, Sustaining Improvement in Urban Schools” warn about the consequences of implementing multiple initiatives simultaneously. “If educators are frequently implementing new initiatives, attention and capacity — necessary for ensuring full implementation — may be sacrificed.”
Initiatives should be thoughtfully considered and carefully introduced. The Harvard Educational Review states that school leaders should “begin with very-small-scale experiments before gradually testing their improvement on a larger scale as a means of building capacity, refining the intervention, and garnering buy-in.”
That is not how the district has been implementing initiatives. Their approach fails to build interest and capacity from the bottom up. It has created a difficult and stressful work environment for teachers. It has also wasted a great deal of time and money. Our district has bought software, hired consultants or permanent employees for initiatives that languish or go away.
We deserve a school district that follows well established best practices for creating change. Our teachers should be relieved from the burden of trying to implement many new initiatives that interfere with their teaching. Good teachers are leaving. Many teachers are feeling overwhelmed. The end result: our students suffer. I urge you to talk to the teachers you know and find out what they think. Then speak up and speak out.
Alfie Alschuler
Amherst
‘Black Males’ at UMass, powerful, must-see exhibit
As Carol Ross, an Amherst Regional High School graduate, continues her important work with Amherst Together, I want to urge folks to visit the UMass Museum of Contemporary Art to view the work of another Amherst graduate, Bayete Ross Smith.
“Question Bridge: Black Males” is an extraordinary visual exploration of contemporary black male identity that is uncompromising in the power of the images and voices of these men.
Smith, along with three collaborators, has succeeded in opening a window on the black male experience in the 21st century in the United States that should be essential viewing for men, women and children of all races, ethnicities and social and economic status.
Congratulations, Bayete Ross Smith, your work is thoughtful, provocative and speaks to the truth of the humanity and resilience of your subjects.
Kip Fonsh
Leverett
Special volunteers
at Survival Center
There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. It’s a common complaint. We all seem to have less time for sleep, family and our own interests these days. Time has become a precious commodity
In our community, hundreds of people have chosen to volunteer their valuable time to support a variety of health and human service organizations. Some of our community’s best values are exemplified by individuals prioritizing supporting the needs of others in their schedules.
At the Amherst Survival Center, we know that without these individuals our services would be significantly diminished. We are keenly aware of this as every job done by volunteers is an important contribution to the center’s success.
Every day, 50 volunteers work tirelessly in a variety of ways so that members of our community can be connected to healthy food four days a week, have access to a community store and food pantry that is cost free and a walk-in free health clinic.
Amherst Survival Center volunteers cook, clean, sort and hang clothes, stock shelves and help visitors find all that they need at the Center. Together with a relatively small staff (11 people), the Center’s 220-plus weekly volunteers create and deliver its programs.
Our community’s investment in the Amherst Survival Center is realized in large part because of those who donate their time in combination with the donations of funds, food and goods we receive.
These volunteers make the center a better place not only through their hard work but also by offering their perspectives to the organization, and by referring their friends and neighbors to the center’s programs.
April is National Volunteer Appreciation Month, and though we at the center strive to express our appreciation to our volunteers every day, it gives me special pleasure to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all the Amherst Survival Center volunteers whose dedication allows the center to play an important role in strengthening our community and responding to our neighbors. They inspire us everyday.
Carleen Basler
Amherst
The author is the volunteer coordinator at he Amherst Survival Center.