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By KRISTIN DEBOER

By U.S. SEN. EDWARD J. MARKEY

Western Massachusetts farmers are used to facing and overcoming challenges — from late frosts and damaging storms to droughts and soil erosion, and more. What they’re not accustomed to is the president of the United States standing in their way of earning a living and bolstering our local economies.

If I had one wish for government officials (not that I have only one), it would be that they understand exponential equations.

In today’s news is announced widespread elimination of an “alphabet soup” of divisions and programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia. When government agencies and scientists are categorized as alphabet soup, I know ignorance is on parade. Eliminated has been the Division of Violence Prevention, part of the injury center at CDC. I know the people wielding power do not know, nor do they care, about the leadership of this division across all forms of violence from suicide to elder and child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual violence.

By RYAN VOILAND

The following speech was delivered by Ryan Voiland at a farmers’ rally opposing cuts to USDA and other federal programs that are negatively impacting farms and agriculture in the region and around the country. The rally took place on Sunday, March 23 in front of Hadley Town Hall.

By SHALINI BAHL

Recent discussion in the Gazette about the Main Street project causes me to think it may not be too late for me, a non-Northampton resident, to comment. I live in Amherst. I shop occasionally from a few stores in Northampton; more often, I go there to cultural events at the Forbes, or the Academy of Music, Look Park or Smith College.

I was ordered into medical quarantine on Friday the 13th of March 2020. Nothing could have prepared me for the next several days, weeks, and months ahead … let alone years. I watched the sun go down from my bed as I binge-watched stupid pet videos for serotonin and escapism while fighting off death for eight nights.

By KATHY GREGG

The government’s detention and threatened deportation of Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil is a five-alarm fire for freedom of speech in the U.S. Instead of claiming that Mr. Khalil engaged in criminality, the government says it wants to deport him because it doesn’t like what he said.

‘Arlington Cemetery scrubs links deemed diversity” is the headline of a Washington Post article reprinted on Page A6 of the March 15 Gazette. The article explains how the Department of Defense has deleted internal links directing users to graves of notable Black, Hispanic and female veterans, as well as eliminating content on the Civil War. No longer can we easily find content that highlights leaders of color or women.

In 1975-76, I was a Fulbright scholar in Germany, teaching for a year at a German university. It was close enough in time to the Holocaust to stir feelings of fear (some professors still dressed up in SS uniforms on weekends).

By DAVID E. SULLIVAN

The following was excerpted from a talk given by Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan at the Northampton St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast at the Hotel Northampton on Monday, March 17.

We have descended down the deep hole of fascism. The guardrails have been stripped away and we are in grave danger of becoming an authoritarian state. Democracy will die down this hole. I am perplexed as to what 77 million Americans were expecting when they voted for this man. To make matters worse, he has brought in his sidekick, Elon Musk, an ununelected man with a chain saw to obliterate our government and our democracy. And this man with his chain saw has fired thousands of government workers, men and women who daily keep the system going.

The recent onslaught of actions taken by our new administration is calling to mind the regrettably prescient quote by Martin Niemoller. With apologies to the Rev. Niemoller, I offer an update:

President Donald Trump did more than humiliate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He humiliated himself and the American people. He acted like a bully and an evil dictator — and a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

By THE REV. ANDREA AYVAZIAN

I am a DEI professional.

By Dr. DAVID GOTTSEGEN

I’ve been a physician for nearly 40 years. We are trained to evaluate information about human health based on a foundation of knowledge learned in 11-12 years of pre-med, med school and residency training, evidence-based research, and experience listening to and treating thousands of patients.

By JOHN PARADIS

By MONICA MORAN

By JENNIFER CORE and CLAIRE MORENON