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This week we’d like to start out with a special message to faithful listeners of the Left Hook podcast: We’re changing our name.
When we were noodling like a couple of giddy schoolboys over what to call our podcast, we landed perhaps a bit too soon on our former moniker. It turns out that there are lots of left hooks and Left Hooks out there–not to mention Joe Frazier’s. The field was too crowded. Ultimately, we want to be distinctive. Scratch that, we are distinctive. We are absolutely owning this.
So here we are, gloriously reborn, phoenix-like, from the ashes of a tired and overused podcast handle into our latest magnificent incarnation: the Top Left Corner.
When you think about it, it just makes more sense. Williamstown, of course, is in the top left corner of Massachusetts when you look at most maps. Let’s put it a different way: We’re as far away from Nantucket as you can get and still have one foot within our magnificent commonwealth. We also like the initials. Everybody needs a little TLC from time to time.
In any event, welcome to the show.
If you’re here for the first time, the Top Left Corner is a locally focused weekly live internet radio show and podcast based in Williamstown, Mass. We do our best to wade through the spin and biases and cowardice and bring back the important stuff that most of us really care about. Every Wednesday, we’re going to tell you what we think about local current events and the national stories that directly affect the people of Williamston and Berkshire County. We also interview amazing guests.
–Jay and Steve
P.S. We want to hear from you! Participate live during the show or anytime by using the chat box on our show page, sending an email to [email protected], or sending us your tweets: @RadioFreeBerks.
P.P.S. We now have a virtual broadcast/podcast studio in Second Life! Join us and listen to our show (and the rest of RFB’s programs) and mingle with other SL residents. Joining is free!
LIGHT (OR NOT)
Four independent experiments across the globe have found that it’s possible to establish two-way communications with people in the weird, hallucinatory state of lucid dreaming, opening up a new field of real-time “interactive dreaming” research.
- Stubborn, talky Texan Husky, Malaki, refuses to let a rare thing go to waste.
LOCAL
- Scott Stafford writes in the Berkshire Eagle on Tuesday, Feb. 23 about how much the Williamstown Selectboard is going to miss Jason Hoch, the town manager who is leaving under a cloud in the wake of the Williamstown Police Department scandal. There’s a larger story here that’s not in this article, and we plan to get into it. For now, let’s just say that Selectboard members scolding the citizens of Williamstown for forcing Hoch to resign is not a good look…
- …And with the resignation of Williamstown Town Manager Jason Hoch, the Selectboard now has two searches on its plate: one to find Hoch’s replacement, and one for a new chief of police. The Selectboard and Williamstown’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Racial Equity (DIRE) Committee have been looking at alternative policing models. Could the mayor of Ithaca, NY’s approach work here?
THE COMMONWEALTH
- Daniel Boguslaw writes at the New Republic about the rot at the heart of the Massachusetts Democratic party.
OUR GUESTS THIS WEEK
We’ve been hearing from tons of people about this piece in the New York Times from Sunday, Feb. 7: How Society Has Turned Its Back on Mothers. It’s not “burnout,” it’s “betrayal,” according to the author. Our guests this week is Laura Fernandez, a social worker and single mother from Williamstown, and Emilee, who gave birth to her son last year one week before Massachusetts went on lockdown.
