In Wim Wenders’s award winning 1987 film Wings of Desire (Himmel über Berlin), renowned actor Bruno Ganz plays an angel who sheds his wings and joins the seething mass of humanity in troubled pre-1989 Berlin. He’s fallen in love with the lovely Solveig Dommartin, who plays a trapeze artist. Before he takes that step, however, […]
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Black Lives Matter: Williamstown reacts
Friday June 5 saw an estimated 600 peaceful but vocal protesters gather to demonstrate against racial violence in Field Park in Williamstown.
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Williamstown & environs in times of pandemic
How are Williamstown and neighboring communities in Berkshire County coping with COVID-19? Answer: community spirit is strong, people are helping each other. But there’s much more to it than that…
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An Interview with Clint Wilkins and Mike Herlihy
When your life is going really well, why would you want to change it? What have you got left to prove? Why risk destroying the upward arc of a successful career by taking on a challenging, new job in a different part of the country….or the world? Our classmates Clint Wilkins and Mike Herlihy each […]
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Encountering Daddy Jim: Barton Phelps pays tribute to classmate Jim Thompson
Everybody who met Jim seemed to love him right away but fathoming the depths of his spirit could take a lifetime and I can only tell you what I know so far. I first met James P.W. Thompson on a golden autumn afternoon in1964 in the freshman quad at Williams College. I had driven up […]
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Our War and Welcome to It
The Vietnam War — our war — always loomed just beyond the mountains. To serve or not to serve? Our choice — or pure chance in the draft lottery — still marks us. Ken Burns’ documentary “The Vietnam War” once again reminded us of those who lived and those who were lost, on both sides. […]
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Never Again — commentary by Frank Reed
The late historian James MacGregor Burns, in his studies of political leadership, noted that throughout the decade of the 1960’s political leadership emanated from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. The civil rights movement, and later the anti-war movement, both started out with activism at the grass roots. He explained that it […]
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