The centre held...this time.
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Original Post (All day/night Saturday reverse chronological order):
11:15 PM AFD responding to UMass Washington high rise dorm for ETOH female
10:22 PM AFD sending ambulance to Mullins Center for two ETOH patients (passed out drunk). Westfield Ambulance hired by Mullins Center was busy taking another ETOH patient to Cooley Dickinson Hospital.
815 PM: Mullins Center line snakes out almost to the road waiting for techno music extravaganza
State Police, Hampden County Sheriffs, and the APD, prepare for darkness
7:15 PM Extravaganja 2012 Pot Rally is done. No arrests (as in hands cuffed behind back and thrown in cell), but thirty (30) citations issued for possession of less than an ounce of pot. Each citation is a $100 fine. Now the real partying begins, with alcohol the drug of choice. And by the looks of the parking lot at APD headquarters, they are ready for anything.
AFD APD respond to reported drug overdose (4:10 PM). Gone on arrival
Crowd of thousands at 4:15 PM
Town Center very busy around Town Common 4:20 PM
APD bike cops make a bust 3:00 PM
Town Common Extravaganja 10:00 AM (2 hours until start)
7:30 AM
And so it begins...like a Hollywood disaster movie: sun shining brightly, a vivid blue sky, a bird chirping incessantly from a far off perch.
All across the region folks are starting to stir. Soon, many thousands will descend upon us: SoccerFest at UMass, Extravaganja pot festival on the town common.
By daylight things will be fine. They always are. Although a thousand students will start to party.
Then darkness comes. More--much more--than a thousand students continue to party. The Mullins Center opens for "Fantazia," a techno dance extravaganza attracting thousands more, who revel in partying.
The stage is set.
Bus route detours to mitigate parties
Quick Larry crawl back under your rock, the sky is falling.
ReplyDeleteOr, there's a wolf in the fold.
ReplyDelete"Go ask Alice I think she'll know."
ReplyDeleteNo, the stage was set early last September when both the town and university made it clear that they consider the UM student to be nothing more than a fungible resource to be exploited, not unlike timber or natural gas.
ReplyDeleteMuch like pit bulls kept in small cages and repeatedly taunted, all it will take is a spark, just like happened two decades ago in LA, and the APD & UMPD will suddenly realize that they aren't having fun anymore.
It is still building, I don't think it will happen tonight, but I really do believe that there is going to be a very very bloody riot sometime in the near future. And police sirens already sounding at 1:24 PM are not a good sign.
Amherst is nothing but a purgatorial cesspool, a psychological black hole that sucks the souls out of persons seeking to better themselves and sends them out into the world as wounded warriors -- one does not graduate from Planet UMass, one survives the experience.
I have no doubt that an assortment of cowardly anonymous schmucks will -- no doubt -- attack the messenger, attack me personally rather than address the issue. That does not bother me, I am reminded of something an attorney pointed out to me: they gave me their highest and most valued degree -- what does that say....
Ed, I really hope you leave Town to write your book. I don't want to be near you when you incite the violence that you have been predicting for months.
ReplyDeletewill it be sold in the fantasy or comedy section?
ReplyDeleteJust what in God's name is going on with you, Ed?
ReplyDeleteI, for one, don't attack you, I pity you.
I understand that the organizers and participants in Extravaganja want us to see how open and free and honest they are.
ReplyDeleteBut the attempt to give it all meaning by making it about "a cause" is simply pure 21st century media spin.
It's about getting high, about escaping from whatever about yourself and what's going on between your ears on any other day is bothering you.
Saw APD on guard at Hobart late Saturday morning (all was quiet) did other areas have 24 hr police presence?
ReplyDeleteThe usual suspects: Meadow and Phillips Streets, Puffton Village, Townhouse apartments, upper North Pleasant.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the updates.
ReplyDeleteTo anonymous 9:34 pm: Then I guess there's not much difference between that and having a "brewski" or cocktail or two or three for those suited-up professionals. It's all a form of escape, but not such a bad thing if not done to excess (in my opinion). A few tokes on a joint is just about the same as a glass of wine...I would make a bet that if pot was legalized in the same fashion as liquor, the thrill of it all would be gone. But it is all about getting high no matter what the vehicle is that gets you there.
ReplyDeleteAs terrible as this sounds, I will be glad when a real riot happens. I will go further, heaven help me but I would love to see Amherst burnt flat.
ReplyDeleteI will neither contribute to nor encourage this because I still have my personal integrity. You schmucks are not worth it, you are small fish in an even smaller pond -- a pond which has been unnaturally filled by three decades of exceptional rainfall and which will dry up completely in a time of drought.
I don't even care anymore what you schmucks think of me. This is a really small pond, and it is a very big world.
Law is a social contract. With the exception of the 5% who are criminals, and maybe another 5% who are likely to go either way, we all obey the law because we enjoy the expectation that others will also obey the law.
We stop for red lights not because there is a cop there, but because we like living in a world where other people also stop for red lights. We all do this, and we all benefit from green lights.
The tipping point for me, for many UMass students, is when you realize that -- because you are a UM student -- the scales of justice aren't balanced. That there is a ton of lead on the other side, and that the blindfolded lady has taken off her blindfold and is flirting with the guys on the other side.
A UM student learns that the law, the criminal law, no longer protects you. People are licensed to do criminal things to you -- things which anywhere else would get them arrested and "up to six months imprisonment" -- but because you are a student in a college town, they can do them to you with impunity and the police threaten to arrest *you* for complaining.
OK, I understand the game, the police are not there to serve or protect me. No more than Daryl Gate's LAPD was there to serve or protect the Black residents of South Central LA in the '80s & early '90s.
If the law doesn't protect me, why should I be concerned about it protecting anyone else? What respect can you have for police officers who, while quite willing to act if you are in the wrong, are unwilling to do anything on your behalf when others are?
I will go even further -- if a woman (UM student) whom I personally cared about told me that she had just been raped and asked me to honestly tell her what I would do were it me -- I would say three things: (a) hospital across a state line, right now, (b) I will go with you if you wish, and (c) tell absolutely no one else, say absolutely nothing until after you graduate.
There are very solid reasons why I would give this advice to a female student whom I cared about, I know what the university would do to her, and I have seen enough of it and enough of the consequences of it to consider keeping quiet the lesser of two evils.
I know more than most, I know some things about UM that I really wish I didn't, but a lot of students -- decent people -- leave this community with the understanding that they had no civil rights here, and a lingering visceral sense of injustice.
Schadenfreude. Those of us who have been bullied by this town and this university will take particular delight in the misfortune of the town and university. I have warned about certain things for a decade, to no avail, and I will enjoy learning of Amherst's misfortunes...
Again, I will not incite nor encourage it. But I will enjoy seeing it on the news.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteBefore you graduate will you be filing the gazillion make believe lawsuits you have threatened all these years?
Before you graduate will you be filing the gazillion make believe lawsuits you have threatened all these years?
ReplyDeleteHonestly haven't decided -- I have until September 28th to make up my mind and I may decide that this cesspool just isn't worth it.
Probably will write a book about this place -- probably easier and cleaner and none of this ever was about money, anyway.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/schoolyard-on-fire-coming-of-age-during-the-la-riots/256462/
ReplyDeleteCheck out the story in today's Gazette, p. B2, "Weekend Unusually Quiet." The police don't wonder if all the dope smoking has anything to do with it.
ReplyDeleteStoners are mellow. Legalize it and watch the college kids quiet down in the time it takes to pack the bong.