Three famous activists will give free or low-cost public speeches, with question-and-answer sessions, in the Valley. In a profile published last month, the Los Angeles Times newspaper called Cindy Sheehan an “anti-war activist who rose to national prominence after her son was killed in the Iraq war in 2005.” She lives in California and is a war tax resistor. More information about war tax resistance is at www.nwtrcc.org.

Robert McChesney is a bestselling author, a Communications professor at the University of Illinois, and co-founder of the Northampton-based group, Free Press www.FreePress.net. Free Press holds conferences around the nation – most recently in April in Denver, Colorado -- that bring together thousands of activists who are fighting for better news media and related reforms. Among the speakers at Free Press conferences have been journalist Amy Goodman and U.S. senator Bernie Sanders. In 2011, McChesney co-wrote a book with MIT professor Noam Chomsky. McChesney lives in Wisconsin.

Articles by John Nichols have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers. His bestselling book Dollarocracy, written with McChesney, was published in June. He lives in Wisconsin and is co-founder of Free Press.

Sheehan is scheduled to speak at 218 Depot Road in Williamsville, Vermont, near Brattleboro, on September 27 at 7:15 p.m. Admission is by donation. More information about the Sheehan event is available from Daniel Sicken (pronounced SEE-ken) at dhsicken@yahoo.com or by calling (802) 387-2798.

McChesney and Nichols are scheduled to speak at these free public events:

-in Amherst on September 30 at 4 p.m. in the Paino Lecture Hall in the Beneski building at Amherst College;

-in Northampton on September 30 at 8 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, 220 Main Street;

-in Amherst on October 1 at 10 a.m. in the Cape Cod Lounge in the Student Union Building at UMass (just McChesney, discussing his book Digital Disconnect);

-in Amherst on October 1 at noon in the Cape Cod Lounge in the Student Union Building at UMass.

More information about the McChesney and Nichols events is available by contacting the publisher of Dollarocracy via www.NationBooks.org or, for the McChesney-only event, the publisher of Digital Disconnect via www.TheNewPress.com.