Risk and Reward

Everything comes with a price. Most of us have learned this lesson in one way or another. To gain one thing is to sacrifice another. In the case of Valley Community Development Corporation’s (Valley CDC) affordable housing project, the price of building such a complex takes a certain amount of risk. As Chair of Classics Rebecca Sinos’ letter to the Town Council argues, establishing this housing unit has the real possibility of harm — in the form of used hypodermic needles in the Amherst College

The CLD and the Right to Free Speech

The right to free speech is a staple of American democracy. It is enshrined in our Constitution and a crucial part of the First Amendment. When movements attempt to restrict it, the backlash is always controversial and often reprehensible. In short, we as Americans believe in the immense value of “freedom of speech,” but how well do we really understand what this means, and what “freedom” it entails? More and more, it seems as if we don’t understand the meaning behind this freedom. Nowhere is t

The TSA: Just More Security Theater

We’ve all been there. We’ve all stood in line, in the bizarre bottleneck known as airport security, with Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers in bright blue who yell at you to take laptops out of your bag or confiscate a harmless bottle of shampoo. We sigh, roll our eyes and rush to the airport hours before our flights to compensate, yet we tell ourselves it’s all worth it because the TSA stops terrorism. Does it? The simple truth of the matter is that there is no evidence to