Pubdate: Fri, 29 Apr 2005
Source: Berkshire Eagle, The (Pittsfield, MA)
Copyright: 2005 New England Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.berkshireeagle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/897
Author: Al Piccin

WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS IS NOT WEST TEXAS

As a citizen of the Berkshire community I feel compelled to add my voice to 
those of others who have written to The Eagle with reason, objectivity, 
compassion, and no personal agenda regarding the arrest and probable long 
term incarceration of the 19 or so young people "netted" in the now 
infamous police roundup, on drug charges in a downtown parking lot in Great 
Barrington and charged on an unfortunately drawn legal technicality, with a 
serious crime.

This is a technicality, I may add, that is usually ignored in such cases in 
the more enlightened parts of our country by more enlightened district 
attorneys.

West Texas is of course an exception, and now, it seems, so is Western 
Mass. There are also occasional attempts in Western Mississippi, I 
understand, to burn nude art. I have no objection to the locking up and the 
losing of the key of the two or three punks who have become violent with 
other members of the community in the same location, but that is a separate 
matter.

The matter at hand is of the kind in which hapless young people have, for 
generations, congregated on Friday nights, drunk too many beers and done 
stupid, hapless, things that the town elders have traditionally winked at. 
How many of the Torquemadas now crying for blood never participated in such 
adventures when they were in their teens or early 20s?

Al Piccin, Housatonic, April 27, 05
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom