Index: Bibblings | For The Record | Other Writings | David Scribner's journal for thought, ideas, commentary, images, fiction observed and imagined

01/18/11
Swimming upstream
Avoiding the next new thing.

02/28/08
The Last Hurrah
It was only a matter of time before local daily newspapers - the ones we used to count on for being a complete, accurate archive of essential community information, like the records of births and marriages and deaths - would realize that there's a pile of money to be made on death and dying and grief.

06/15/06
Parents to District Attorney: Why?
Fourteen years ago, 52-year-old Joseph Mechare and his wife Sharon had a dream. Just married and living in Millerton, New York, where Joe had grown up in a working class family - his father was a carpenter and he had been trained in autobody repair - they wanted to start a new life together.

03/24/06
DA Capeless: Zealot or tough cop? You decide.
In Berkshire County, Massachusetts, reputed rock-ribbed bastion of enlightened lifestyles, you can go to jail for two years for an offense that's the equivalent of a speeding ticket, especially if you are a foolish teenager, and have never had another offense.

02/20/06
American dream and a Toxic Legacy: Has GE Permanently Poisoned Pittsfield?
On warm spring days, when students at Allendale Elementary School in Pittsfield, Mass., break for recess, they can run down to a playground equipped with sparkling new jungle gyms and slides, and play games in a spacious recreation area, flat and broad, perfect for soccer, the whole circled by a track for strolling or jogging.

01/02/06
Spice is Nice; Crewdson Shoots; Alabaster and Toes
For those of you who aren't familiar with this column of observations, scoops and queries - based at the moment in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts but spiced with freewheeling curiosity about the world at large - it's made up of items oftentimes suggested by readers.

Twelve Steps in Pittsfield
The other day, I got an e-mail from a former colleague now living in Canada. What the hell happened, she asked.

Fair Ball, and a Denver Boot
A few weeks ago, my town and baseball got divorced. It’s final, or appears to be, and it’s a shame, really.

Idol Flocking
Last summer, my town became a city of sheep. It always had been, of course, but it was gratifying, really, for Pittsfield to fess up.

Put Pitt Back Into Pittsfield
A fortnight after the first day of spring, a gray chill rain was beating the blackened ridges of grime-packed snow that lined Pittsfield’s curbs and gutters into a gritty paste.

My Town
Welcome to the first edition of “Bibblings,” a weekly collection of observations, rants, ramblings, queries and meditations upon life in the picturesque hills of Western Massachusetts.

The Disappearing Newspaper Blues, or Why I Love Those Inky Fingers
To the delight of newshounds and newspaper junkies everywhere - an endangered species -- The New York Times published last month a collection of its front pages from 1851 through 2008, 300 in all in a handsome volume.

Advice to a President: Don't Adopt Massachusetts Health Care Model
Dear President-elect Obama:
It is certainly refreshing that you have placed universal health care for Americans as one of the top priorities of your administration.

Lament for a Fallen Bookstore
This week, the exquisitely intelligent and charming Stockbridge Booksellers on Elm Street is having a going out of business sale, preparatory to closing its doors after a four-year attempt to create a unique literary community.

A Commonwealth of Zombies
If Berkshire County District Attorney David F. Capeless were to compose a letter to his opponents conceding defeat on Question 2, the ballot initiative decriminalizing possession of small quantities of marijuana, here's what he might have written:

Don't Sell; Don't Tell; Light Up
There was a time when smoking was a fashionable activity - and it wasn't so long ago.

Who Really Needs Pittsfield International Airport?
A decade ago, in more prosperous times - when KB Toys was expanding, when GE Plastics, American-owned, was the most profitable division of General Electric, when the decaying structures of the shuttered GE Transformer complex were to be converted to the manufacture of hybrid buses - the business elite of Pittsfield began calling for an expansion of Pittsfield Municipal Airport.

Tax Revenues Go Up In Smoke
On the wall calendar above my desk I keep a tally of how many days it's been since I quit smoking.

A Jury of Peers
Recently, I learned what I have in common with Mitchell Lawrence.

Where's the Change?
Yes, I did. I believed.

The ICE-men Cometh: Local Skirmishes in the War Against Illegal Immigrants
At dawn on Saturday morning, Sept. 27, 2008, men in jeans, flannel shirts and workboots were getting into old cars and battered pickups outside what is known by the Hispanic population in Valatie, N. Y., as the

The Brooklyn of the Berkshires? Pittsfield's Push for a
When more than a thousand people turned out on the streets of downtown Pittsfield on a rainy Thursday evening in June for a celebration of the arts, music and culture, the city

Regional Passenger Rail Projects Await Green Light
Late on a summer's day in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Jack Fitzpatrick, former state senator and owner of the Red Lion Inn, likes to pace the platform of the Stockbridge rail station he bought 10 years ago for $150,000.

The Bear Facts
Springtime in the Berkshires, daffodils are blooming, mountainsides shed their brown winter hue for the luminous green, and about 1,000 black bears, ravenous from a five-month hibernation, are on the prowl, looking for patches of skunk cabbage, stray hickory nuts and acorns, a bee hive or two - and the nearest bird feeder.

Return of the Turtle
I met Light Cream Guy today.

A crow at twilight
My name is Theophilus. You know me as an American crow. I keep an eye on things.

Womb of the future
At the Medical Arts Complex the stairs to the Women's Imaging Center switch back down to the belly of the building.