The Top Left Corner

Our hearts quicken when we get e-mail from you. [email protected]

It’s local election season here, and along with the crocuses, candidate lawn signs are starting to pop up in yards all over town.

Today, we’ll be talking with one of the candidates who’ll be vying for an open Select Board seat in the upcoming town elections, and one of your friendly hosts even has a surprise announcement of his own. (Hint: His name may also be on the ballot on May 25.)

If you’re here for the first time, the Top Left Corner is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and cowardice and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County. We also interview amazing guests.

–Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show by using the chat box on our show page or email us at [email protected]

LIGHT (OR NOT)

It’s easy to complain about mud season, but so far this year we’ve at least managed to avoid a mouse plague.

The Australian state of New South Wales is contending with an invasion of rodents that have been tearing through packages of toilet paper on supermarket shelves and even harassing hospital patients.

A bit further north, Bjork isn’t the only smokin’ hot thing coming out of Iceland these days…Check out this live feed of the Geldingadalir volcano, which began erupting earlier this month.

OUR GUEST THIS WEEK

Tony Boskovich is a Williams alum, a retired civil rights attorney who specialized in police misconduct cases, and a candidate for one of the two open seats on the Select Board. We’ll talk with Tony today about why he’s running and what he hopes to accomplish if he is elected in May.

BIO: Tony Boskovich (submitted)

Tony Boskovich (right) and his wife, Daphne Bolden, somewhere that is likely not Williamstown; submitted photo.

Hey, Greylock Nation —

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We’re delighted to be broadcasting this morning to all of our live listeners out there in Greylock Nation on the luckiest day of the year.

Our commonwealth’s fair capital, Boston, is often heralded as the largest Irish city west of Dublin. As a couple of Massachusetts rabble-rousers, your hosts are proud to be inspired by and carry on the tradition of refusing to sit down, shut up, and accept an unacceptable status quo that was so courageously exemplified by the Irish Rebellion.

The Irish Free State was declared on December 6, 1922. After centuries of oppression, Ireland finally severed formal ties to its English colonizers with the Republic of Ireland Act in 1949. That piece of legislation, among other things, permanently ditched the British Monarchy as having any role in Irish affairs.

If you’re here for the first time, the Top Left Corner is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and cowardice and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County. We also interview amazing guests.

–Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show by using the chat box on our show page or email us at [email protected].

OUR GUEST THIS WEEK

Robbie Leppzer; Skype screenshot by Jason Velázquez.

Robbie Leppzer is a lifelong filmmaker whose most recent film, Power Struggle, documents the 40 year-long grassroots effort to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vt.

Leppzer joined us for a wide-ranging interview about his latest film, the amazing series of events he chronicles, and the astounding courage and persistence of the grassroots activists he profiles.

Leppzer’s film will be featured at Images Cinema in Williamstown for two weeks starting on Friday, March 19.

As the world marks the 10th anniversary of the triple meltdowns at Fukushima, Japan, this nuclear disaster had a profound effect in the small state of Vermont, as it occurred in the midst of a years-long citizens’ campaign to close down an aging nuclear power plant located on the banks of the Connecticut River in southern Vermont.Filmed over five years by director Robbie Leppzer, Power Struggle portrays a heated political battle to shut down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The film follows the unfolding drama as citizen activi...

Above: increased flood projections newly engineered by the First Street Foundation offer a detailed state-by-state analysis of the most flood-prone areas in the country; courtesy First Street Foundation.

Hey, Greylock Nation —

Welcome to this week’s show! Spring seems to be springing here in the Berkshires, although we’re never really out of the woods, so to speak, until Memorial Day. Farmers, gardeners, and those of us with long memories know that we occasionally get overnight frosts well into May.

In other Berkshire County news, our vaccination efforts are picking up speed. In fact, one of your hosts received the Johnson & Johnson jab on Saturday down in Great Barrington. Word to the wise: If you get the J&J vaccine, be prepared for a couple of days of flu-like symptoms.If you’re eligible to be vaccinated in Massachusetts (we’re currently in Phase 2), the easiest way to get an appointment is by following @vaccinetime on Twitter and turning on notifications. When you get a notification that there are appointments available in your area, just click on the link provided to begin the sign-up process.

If you’re here for the first time, the Top Left Corner is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and cowardice and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County. We also interview amazing guests.

–Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show by using the chat box on our show page or email us at [email protected].

LIGHT (OR NOT)

The latest mission to Mars is underway.We think these images from the Perseverance lander are pretty cool.

Why do cats purr?We’re always interested in new theories on this endlessly fascinating topic. We also have our own theory that explains the proliferation of studies like this, namely that scientists just really want to conduct innocuous research and hang out all day with lovable, non-judgmental animals. Let’s call it the cutified field theory of grant-writing and workplace satisfaction.

LOCAL

Scott McGowan, the Williamstown Police Department sergeant whose federal lawsuit alleged sexual harassment, racism, and retaliation by former Chief Kyle Johnson, has been put on paid administrative leave.

In a story published in the Berkshire Eagle on March 5, Larry Parnass writes that Sgt. McGowan was the focus of a complaint by an unnamed employee regarding a “personnel matter.” The Eagle’s own investigation reveals that McGowan was involved in a domestic assault incident as well as two traffic stops that may have been alcohol-related.

THE COMMONWEALTH

Baker discarded the emergency vaccination plan Massachusetts public and community health officials spent two decades creating.

Here in the Bay State, we have recently started to trend in the right direction on all the important pandemic metrics–new infections, test positivity rate, hospitalizations, and deaths–after the devastating surge earlier this year. So what is Charlie “BlueCross/BlueShield” Baker doing? He’s eliminating capacity restrictions at Massachusetts restaurants.

THE REGION

Things are not looking good for Andrew Cuomo in neighboring New York State.Veteran Cuomo watcher Ross Barkan breaks it down ...

Happy March, everybody! When we were wee lads, our teachers told us that March “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” So far, things are looking pretty leonine around here. After high winds on Monday night, 600 or so of our neighbors here in the Berkshires woke up on Tuesday morning without power. We know the pain of trudging into the kitchen only to find the automatic coffee maker blinking “12:00.” Here’s hoping we’re all back online by the time this airs.

If you’re here for the first time, the Top Left Corner is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and cowardice and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County. We also interview amazing guests.

–Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show by using the chat box on our show page or email us at [email protected].

OUR GUEST THIS WEEK

Bilal Ansari is a member of the DIRE (Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity) committee in Williamstown that was formed last year in response to the scandal involving racism, discrimination, and sexual harassment at the Williamstown Police Department.Bilal has dedicated the past three decades of his work to challenging systems of racial, gender, and religious inequalities as a chaplain in federal and state prisons, community organizer, activist, advisor at various colleges, and educator.

He is a first-generation college student, with an AS in liberal arts from Ohlone College, a BS in human services from Springfield College, an MA in Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations and graduate certificate in Islamic chaplaincy from Hartford Seminary, and a DMin from Pacific School of Religion. Bilal is Assistant Vice President for Campus Engagement at the Davis Center at Williams College.

With the resignation of Williamstown Town Manager Jason Hoch and the Chief of Police We’ve got an opportunity to adopt a new policing model.With our old leadership departing, the Selectboard and Williamstown’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity (DIRE) Committee have been looking at alternative policing models. Could the mayor of Ithaca, NY’s approach work here?

LIGHT (OR NOT)

Take a seat, dexamethasone.A 105-year old woman from New Jersey who survived both the 1918 flu and COVID-19 credits her health to gin-soaked raisins.The latest mission to Mars is underway.We think these images from the Perseverance lander are pretty cool.

Why do cats purr?We’re always interested in new theories on this endlessly fascinating topic. We also have our own theory that explains the proliferation of studies like this, namely that scientists just really want to conduct innocuous research and hang out all day with lovable, non-judgmental animals. Let’s call it the cutified field theory of grant-writing and workplace satisfaction.

LOCAL

Scott Stafford writes in the Berkshire Eagle on Tuesday, Feb. 23 about how much the Williamstown Selectboard is going to miss Jason Hoch.

Jason Hoch (pronounced “hoke”) is the town manager who is leaving under a cloud in the wake of the Williamstown Police Department scandal. There’s a larger story here that’s not in this article, and we plan to get into it over the next several weeks. For now, let’s just say that Selectboard members scolding the citizens of Williamstow...

This week we’d like to start out with a special message to faithful listeners of the Left Hook podcast: We’re changing our name.

When we were noodling like a couple of giddy schoolboys over what to call our podcast, we landed perhaps a bit too soon on our former moniker. It turns out that there are lots of left hooks and Left Hooks out there–not to mention Joe Frazier’s. The field was too crowded. Ultimately, we want to be distinctive. Scratch that, we are distinctive. We are absolutely owning this.

So here we are, gloriously reborn, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a tired and overused podcast handle into our latest magnificent incarnation: the Top Left Corner. 

When you think about it, it just makes more sense. Williamstown, of course, is in the top left corner of Massachusetts when you look at most maps. Let’s put it a different way: We’re as far away from Nantucket as you can get and still have one foot within our magnificent commonwealth. We also like the initials. Everybody needs a little TLC from time to time.

In any event, welcome to the show.

If you’re here for the first time, the Top Left Corner is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and cowardice and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County. We also interview amazing guests.

–Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show or anytime by using the chat box on our show page, sending an email to [email protected], or sending us your tweets: @RadioFreeBerks.

P.P.S. We now have a virtual broadcast/podcast studio in Second Life! Join us and listen to our show (and the rest of RFB’s programs) and mingle with other SL residents. Joining is free!

The mongrel (a.k.a. Jay V.) kickin’ it in our new virtual studio.

LIGHT (OR NOT)

* Scientists establish freaky two-way communications with lucid dreamers

Four independent experiments across the globe have found that it’s possible to establish two-way communications with people in the weird, hallucinatory state of lucid dreaming, opening up a new field of real-time “interactive dreaming” research.

* Stubborn, talky Texan Husky, Malaki, refuses to let a rare thing go to waste. 

LOCAL

* Scott Stafford writes in the Berkshire Eagle on Tuesday, Feb. 23 about how much the Williamstown Selectboard is going to miss Jason Hoch, the town manager who is leaving under a cloud in the wake of the Williamstown Police Department scandal. There’s a larger story here that’s not in this article, and we plan to get into it. For now, let’s just say that Selectboard members scolding the c...

Welcome to this week’s show! If you’re here for the first time, The Left Hook is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamstown and Berkshire County.

We also interview amazing guests. It’s been a strange week. There was a performative impeachment trial in the Senate that’s been mesmerizing the CNN and MSNBC crowd and that came to its inevitable conclusion on Saturday. Meanwhile, Biden’s promises to the American people–no more kids in cages, immediate $2000 relief checks, etc.–seem to be receding, mirage-like, into the distance. Congress is currently on vacation, and Biden is at Camp David playing video games with his grandchildren.

Here in Williamstown, we’re still hunkered down under an increasingly shabby layer of snow, but the days are getting longer. Pretty soon we’ll be scraping mud off our shoes and chasing the dog around the house with a wet towel for mopping up footprints. For an antidote to the gloom, check out this week’s pet pics at the end of the show notes.

—Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show or anytime by using the chat box on our show page, sending an email to us at [email protected], or sending us your tweets: @heylefthook. P.P.S. Please send us your pet pics! We’ll post them on our show notes every week, and if you include a caption we’ll read it live on the air. Send your pics to [email protected].

LIGHT (OR NOT)

* We’ve been obsessed this week with Radio Garden, a website (and app) that lets you search for and listen to radio stations all over the world. Want to know what the kids are listening to in Puerto Rico? Try Mundo Rock FM out of San Juan. Wondering what’s happening on St. Helena, the South Atlantic island to which Napoleon was exiled and one of the remotest inhabited places on earth? Check out Saint FM 95.4.* Parts of our country that see snow maybe once a decade have been experiencing brutal winter weather. We know we’re not supposed to mess with Texas, but maybe our listeners can offer some advice to our friends from the Lone Star State about how to drive in snow.

LOCAL

* Tammy Daniels at iBerkshires reported earlier this month that the TD Bank branch in downtown North Adams will close in April. Mayor Bernard is right to be concerned both about the employees of the North Adams branch as well as the citizens of North Adams who may not be able to travel easily to Pittsfield or Williamstown to full-service branches. When the private sector can’t be bothered to provide essential services, that’s where the government in a healthy country steps in. It may seem like a distant memory now, but Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders both support...

Welcome to this week’s show!

If you’re here for the first time, the Left Hook is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and nonsense around here and retrieve the important stuff that we think you might care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County.

In New England, Super Bowl Sunday basically marks the midpoint of winter. Spring, or at least mud season, seems right around the corner. But there’s a reason why Shakespeare never wrote “A Midwinter Night’s Dream.” Hardy though we may be, we often find ourselves as sad and brittle as the dripping icicles hanging from the eaves at this time of year.

What we want to know this week is what you do to get yourself over the winter hump. Reading good books, Zooming with friends and family, plotting elaborate revenge on notional enemies, skiing, eating a whole giant box of Dots while bingeing Gossip Girl, cooking, snowshoeing, watching movies, bitterly and silently weeping, walking, learning a new language… What works for you?

Believe us, we’re only asking as an academic exercise in the public interest.

— Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show or anytime by sending an email to us at [email protected] or via Twitter: @heylefthook.

P.P.S. Please send us your pet pics! We’ll post them on our show notes every week, and if you include a caption we’ll read it live on the air. Send your pics to [email protected].

LIGHT (OR NOT)

* The great state of Texas’s Amber Alert system apparently misfired last week, sending push notifications out to the state’s citizens to keep an eye out for Chucky, the–dare we say it, beloved?–murderous doll and star of several eponymous films.

* Matthew Gault at Vice reports that the US Navy has been granted patents on a number of futuristic-sounding technologies invented by a researcher named Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais. We were suspicious, so we immediately ran this so-called doctor’s name through an anagram generator to see what was really going on. Nice try, Dr. Aviators Raze Places!* It took us a little while to figure out all the stuff you can do with this create your own Bayeux tapestry app, but once we did, we couldn’t stop.

LOCAL

* We speak with special guest Abigail Childs of the Berkshires Democratic Socialists of America about their latest community assistance program, “Care Packages for All.” Anyone living in Berkshire County who needs support in surviving this season may request a care package of personal care items and home cleaning supplies by completing this confidential request form. Fifty packages are available first-come, first-served starting today, February 9th; this form will close automatically when the limit is reached. Members of the Berkshires Democratic Socialists of America will make contactless deliveries on the afternoon of Saturday, February 20th.

Welcome to this week’s show!

We had a deep freeze here in Williamstown last week–that stretch of days every winter where the temp gets so low it’ll freeze the pipes in your house and the hair on your head if you take a shower and go outside without a proper toweling-off.

In the spirit of staying warm–at least figuratively–we’re going to start posting listeners’ pet pics each week. During the show, we’ll name-check your dog, cat, bird, fish, snake, llama, etc. If you send us a caption along with your pic, we’ll also read it live on the air.

Since this is the first week we’re doing this, we’re going to kick things off with some pet pics of our own at the end of the show notes.

–Jay and Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Listeners can participate live during the show using the chat box on our show page at Radio Free Berkshires or message us on Twitter @RadioFreeBerks.

LIGHT (OR NOT)

* An animal rescue center in the UK has started reading to traumatized animals as part of its rehabilitation efforts. It makes us wonder what’s on the reading list. “The Pet Goat,” perhaps?* Did you know that naked mole rats are quite vocal, chirping, squeaking, twittering, and grunting to one another? A neurobiologist in Germany has discovered that rats from each colony speak in distinctive accents in order to identify outsiders. Twittering is one thing, but what we’d really like to know is whether naked mole rats are tweeting to each other.* We’re not big fans of the Lincoln Project, but their attorneys on Saturday made public a scathing letter threatening Rudy Giuliani with a defamation lawsuit. As Felix Salmon noted on Twitter, most lawyers can only dream of penning a “Fuck You” letter like this even once in their careers.

LOCAL

* Using documents obtained via FOIA requests, WAMC’s Josh Landes last month revealed that the city of Pittsfield was working on a plan to kick unhoused people out of a public park where they’d taken refuge from the city’s unsafe shelters.* WAMC’s Landes also reports that two Williamstown employees resigned in the wake of a racist incident at Mt. Greylock regional high school earlier in January. In this same piece, Landes provides an update on the reckoning that’s underway within the scandal-plagued Williamstown Police Department.

THE COMMONWEALTH

* In the “Weekender” edition of the Berkshire Eagle from Saturday, January 30, 

We want to hear from you! Listeners can participate live during the show using the chat box on our show page at Radio Free Berkshires or message us on Twitter @RadioFreeBerks.

LIGHT (OR NOT)

A dog owner in the UK named Russell Jones injured his leg and needed to walk with crutches for a few days. The next thing he knew, his dog, Bill, seemed to have injured his leg. After spending $400 at the vet’s, Russell finally figured out what was really going on.

If you’re looking to zen out or zone out for a few minutes (or all day), check out this snowflake generator by artist and game developer Vivian Wu.

We speak with Doug Jones, executive director of Images Cinema in Williamstown, about the monster movie, or Kaiju, “Godzilla vs. Kong” comes out in March. The genre has morphed into a Hollywood blockbuster machine, but it didn’t start out that way. Actors in rubber suits were making a serious statement as they smashed their way through Tokyo in miniature.

LOCAL

Amanda Burke reports in the Berkshire Eagle that Methuselah, the North Street bar owned by Pittsfield City Councilor Yuki Cohen, has been hit with a two-day suspension of its liquor license. The city’s licensing board received a number of complaints regarding violations at Methuselah of COVID-19 safety protocols. In a letter to the Eagle last week one Pittsfield resident noted that politics in Pittsfield has gotten particularly venomous of late, particularly among members of the City Council.

THE COMMONWEALTH

The Massachusetts Democratic State Committee (DSC) has a lot to answer for when it comes to the homophobic smear campaign against Alex Morse they supported during the Democratic primary last year. We have four state committee members here in the Berkshires: Helen Moon, Sherwood Guernsey, Adam Hinds, and Richie Neal campaign consultant Lee Harrison. None of them were willing to bring forward any of the numerous complaints calling for Gus Bickford, the DSC chairman, to resign during a statewide meeting last fall. In the wake of the homophobic slur hurled at Cambridge Ward 3 city councilor Dan Totten during a meeting of DSC members earlier this month, we’ve invited all of them to participate in this week’s show.

For more background on the incident, including the smear campaign that triggered the initial call for DSC chairman Gus Bickford to...

Welcome to this week’s show!

Stuff we talked about. 

The date of this week’s show is a palindrome, i.e., a number or series of characters that is the same forwards and backwards. Could it be auspicious? We’ll see…

–Steve

P.S. We want to hear from you! Listeners can participate live during the show using the chat box on our show page at Radio Free Berkshires or message us on Twitter @RadioFreeBerks.

LIGHT (OR NOT)

* Scientists have discovered that birds have a “quantum sense” that enables them to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, among other things. We’ll do our best to wrap our heads around the science (neither one of us was a Physics major) and talk about some of the implications.* Why would anyone doubt that ET does some weird shit to us once he gets us up in that flying saucer? “Lucy in the Sky with Dolphins”

https://www.patreon.com/posts/lucy-in-sky-with-11876648 AND, to show this was a real thing: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-dolphins-lsd-communitcate-them-experiment-talk-john-lilly-margaret-howe-lovatt-a7787556.html And then read this: Octopuses Rolling on MDMA Reveal Unexpected Link to Humans https://getpocket.com/explore/item/octopuses-rolling-on-mdma-reveal-unexpected-link-to-humans?utm_source=pocket-newtab

LOCAL

* One of the cooler obits we’ve ever read. Frederick Wyatt “Fritz” Lord, a graduate of Dartmouth and the Harvard Business School and whose vocations over the years here in the Berkshires included attorney, massage therapist, and semi-professional singer, died earlier this month at the age of 91. Give it a read:

*