The Berkshire Edge On-Air - Wednesday January 30, 2019

The Berkshire Edge LLC is a locally owned, regional publication. Our goal is to provide – regularly and in depth – content that truly reflects the life, interests and aspirations of this unusually rich and vibrant community.

Guided by respected journalistic standards, the principle of fairness, the quest for truth, a commitment to social, economic and environmental justice, and an abiding admiration for the independent spirit of the Berkshires, The Berkshire Edge offers in-depth local news reports and features, perspectives on the arts, wide-ranging commentary, and a comprehensive calendar of events – all written, illustrated, and, in some cases performed, with wit, intelligence, insight and humor.

This week we talk about:

1. The town of Great Barrington is foreclosing on a highly polluted site — an abandoned drycleaners -- on Main Street.  It’s going to be expensive to reclaim that property… which is polluting the adjacent Post Office and the library and church across the street.
https://theberkshireedge.com/town-begins-foreclosure-on-polluted-ried-cleaners-site/

2.  Baba Louie’s, the popular iconic and organic pizzeria in Great Barrington, is moving around the corner, to upper Railroad Street…
https://theberkshireedge.com/baba-louies-moving-from-prime-main-street-location-to-former-allium-space/

3. Physician Dr Ernest Drucker of Great Barrington, a professor of Global Public Health and New York University and professor of family and social medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, applauds the legalization of marijuana .. and anticipates the legalization of other psychotropic substances. In the meantime, even in bitter cold, there’s an hour and a half wait to get into Theory Wellness, the marijuana dispensary in Great Barrington — even in bitter cold the lines are out to Stockbridge Road:
https://theberkshireedge.com/legal-marijuana-in-the-berkshires-stepping-over-the-edge-of-the-drug-wars/

4. Here’s a story to warm the heart in this bitter cold: James Taylor will be performing again at Tanglewood on July 3 —
https://theberkshireedge.com/preview-berkshires-fixture-and-icon-james-taylor-to-perform-at-tanglewood-in-july/

5. And while we’re on a musical theme, we had a profile of the founders of the Serenity Bamboo Flute Company in Stockbridge… and they make what the title implies: bamboo flutes:
https://theberkshireedge.com/serenity-bamboo-flute-company-embraces-sustainability-changing-times/

6.   Finally, a little bit of history: In her Connections column Carole Owens points out what a remarkable “neighborhood” Stockbridge was in the mid- to late-1700s… in town were Aaron Burr; the famous Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards; Ephraim Williams, founder of Williams College; Theodore Sedgwick, representative to the Continental Congress and the liberator of Mum Bet; Barnabas Bidwell, a congressman and aid to Thomas Jefferson… not bad for a community described as residing in a “great and terrible wilderness.”
https://theberkshireedge.com/connections-22/