Thursday, December 27, 2012

Newsmaker Of The Year



Umass Amherst founded 1863


What would Amherst be without the flagship University of Massachusetts?  A lot less newsworthy, that's for sure.

Yes, in all of the top Amherst news stories over the past 12 months -- from the alleged gang rape in a dorm, the "riot" after the Superbowl, the death of a young woman from a fall the University kept secret for ten days at family request, or the weekend in and weekend out Party House winners racking up a record breaking number of $300 nuisance house tickets -- the University of Massachusetts has played a central role. 

Of course alcohol has also played a contributing role in all those noteworthy stories as well.

On the plus side, however, Amherst has a 3.9% unemployment rate compared to the state average of 6.6% ... mainly due to our beloved economic Juggernaut, UMass. 

All in all, not a bad trade off (depending on your proximity to a Party House I suppose).

21 comments:

Walter Graff said...

Let's see how this looks without the blame:


What would Amherst be without the STUDENTS AT THE University of Massachusetts? A lot less newsworthy, that's for sure.

Yes, in all of the top Amherst news stories over the past 12 months -- from the alleged gang rape in a dorm, the "riot" after the Superbowl, the death of a young woman from a fall the University kept secret for ten days at family request, or the weekend in and weekend out Party House winners racking up a record breaking number of $300 nuisance house tickets -- the STUDENTS AT THE University of Massachusetts have played a central role.

Of course alcohol CONSUMED BY THESE STUDENTS has also played a contributing role in all those noteworthy stories as well.

On the plus side, however, Amherst has a (CORRECTED) 4.1% seasonally adjusted unemployment rate compared to the state average of 6.6% ... mainly due to our beloved economic Juggernaut, UMass.

But let's be realistic. Take 21 year old kids who can now drink for the first time, take them away from mommy and daddy, put them in a school that does little to prevent such things and you have what exists in a University town, the potential for trouble.

Amherst thinks it's easier to sweep such things under the rug rather than realistically deal with it. That you can blame the town and the school for. Why? Because in other college towns incidents like the ones in Amherst don't exist to the degree they do here.

Are those kids any better? No, but those towns and those schools do not react to things like Amherst does but rather pro-act. But in good old liberal socialist Amherst it's easier to let it all happen than stop it before it does or even bother to think of how successful other towns have been in doing just that.

Marmot said...

Walter:

Can you elaborate on what other college towns do to deal with these issues.

Walter Graff said...

I did outline it in a past post under one of the bloggers numerous drunk student blogs. It's not brain surgery. Many towns and colleges have been quite successful at curbing the crime and other issues related to drinking. I don't remember which post it was under but it was a long post by me. Search back in December I think.

Dr. Ed said...

What people fail to understand is that UMass has an alcohol problem for the same reason that the Soviet Union did -- human oppression. People have an inherent desire to be FREE and UMass is an intellectual and cultural gulag.

So of course the students drink -- it is how they survive in that hell hole. And in a way I do hope that you are successful in stopping it because what will then happen, quite simply, is an end to Amherst as you all know it.

Amherst is prosperous because there are a large number of students spending a lot of money there. Money which they and their parents have saved (instead of spending it in the communities where they earned it), money which they have borrowed (and hence won't be spending in the communities where they will be working in order to repay these loans).

Westfield never recovered from the decline of demand for carriage whips when the automobile arrived, Wichendon likewise never recovered from the decline of the wooden toy market. And Amherst will never recover eithar, and part of me wants you all to get the type of town that you so badly deserve -- an impoverished one.

Right now, owning property in Amherst is a license to print money. That will not continue, not when you (a) treat students like s**t, (b) the students increasingly have other options and (c) both they and their parents realize that the college degree isn't the employment credential it once was.

So you will have a quiet town -- and wish you didn't.

Dr. Ed said...

0ne other thing: Some of you would love to have UMass, just without students.

Folks, it's student money that drives everything else. Student money that pays for everything else, even if the money doesn't come directly from the students. The State and Federal money doesn't come out of some love for the town but because there are students there.

Amherst is thus a lot like the Revere Beach of olde -- by no means the nicest beach but one which could be reached by trolley from Boston. It thus had a captive market which collapsed when people got cars and started going down to the Cape and up to NH/ME.

Can Amherst re-invent itself for a post-student existence -- I doubt it. What natural advantage does it have, in a geographic and cultural backwater, populated by spoilt brats who fail to realize that while he is every bit as unpopular and corrupt (and likely to leave office in similar disgrace) this isn't still 1972 and it wasn't Richard M. Nixon who was just re-elected to the utter disgust of a rising political movement.

So create your gulag, drive the students out, and enjoy the consequences.

Anonymous said...

I would also like to see the evidence, Walter, of how other college communities have curbed this behavior.

Anonymous said...

Stop typing Ed, your nonsensical, psycho-babble rants aren't worth the wear and tear on your spacebar.

Anonymous said...

Ed,

I ask this honestly and don't mean for it to sound rhetorical or snarky. If you hate UMass and the Town of Amherst so much, which it seems clear that you do, why do you care what goes on here, vis-a-vis Mr. Kelley's blog? I am assuming that you are living elsewhere at this point, so why bother with us?

Anonymous said...

If Ed had a life of any kind (job, career prospects, female companionship, respect of his peers, etc.), none of us would ever have heard of him or from him.

But, alas, he apparently does not. This blog is his only means of drawing attention to himself, and as any child psychologist will tell you, negative attention is better than none at all.

So please, Ed, prove me wrong: Don't answer the question. Show us that you have better things to do with yourself than rising to the bait every single time.

Walter Graff said...

Simple. It is clear that like most Universities UMASS knows nothing about what works and does not work. Yet many universities have changed the drinking culture and the prevalence of issues related to drinking in a few simple ways.

First by using more stringent enforcement and allowing police to do sweeps and attack the problem before it starts. But in the socialist town of Amherst the idea of using a method that works for many major universities is "evil".
When police respond to a call where 100 cars are parked in front of a house then they are reacting to a problem and not preventing it. The police in the town of Amherst and UMASS are passive about enforcement other than traffic stops. There are a number of published methods designed specifically for police departments and that teach proactive enforcement. On other campuses this method has dramatic effects on on-campus and especially off campus drinking.

Second many schools are seeing dramatic changes by using proven methods of changing the drinking culture on campus. No, I'm not talking about a few religious students hanging out behind a banner that says let's not drink tonight. Like many universities UMASS ignores evidence based research that offers ways to change the drinking culture. One example is: http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/NIAAACollegeMaterials/TaskForce/TaskForce_TOC.aspx

So you can sit there and point fingers at the school but they are simply the recipients of a dysfunctional culture. Like most universities these kids are bring family dysfunction to campus. But it's not all students. In fact not near the majority. But it's enough.

In some ways you should blame the university. UMASS is bogged down by horrible politics. It takes months to hire anyone because everything is an extensive money-wasting search or a flowchart of impossible methodology. This is often the problem of a textbook driven, ideological, non-real-world culture.

All one needs to do is a simple Google search under topics of binge drinking, college drinking issues, and the like to see that this problem is curable. As I said in my post a while back, I attend a University where it was a major issue and in a matter of two years it was completely turned around. That first year Playboy voted my school party school of the year. I also worked with a police department and we implemented styles of policing that made a major difference. And I've seen the same implementations by other departments. I've seen it work from both ends.

It's sad to see what is known as a institution of higher learning that isn't so good about learning themselves. This also becomes a problem when those in power think they know it all and are afraid to look outside for help, and scared that if they do it will show some sort of weakness and ruin the potential number of applications they receive. Image is great but a beautifully wrapped box will eventually have to be opened only to see it is empty inside.

UMASS needs help and needs to stop using the broom because the rug has big bumps in it at this point and they aren't going away anytime soon.

Amherst is not any less guilty. Police do their best with the limited things they are permitted to do. The town can learn a lot but then again it too is run by an arcane system of government that does such wonderful things as builds a parking garage that only makes parking in the town more difficult.

Dr. Ed said...

If you hate UMass and the Town of Amherst so much, which it seems clear that you do, why do you care what goes on here, vis-a-vis Mr. Kelley's blog? I am assuming that you are living elsewhere at this point, so why bother with us?

A fair question.

First, "all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for the good people to do nothing." A half century ago, people were picketing the Woolworth's in Boston to protest the company's "white only" policy for lunch counters in the South.

If any of you know Esther Terry, ask her to tell you what it was like to be a "Freedom Rider" -- and someone ought to make a video of her telling her stories, she was there...

Someone could well have asked her the same question back then. She was a young graduate student at UMass, living in a state which had never had power-of-law segregation in which African Americans had been permitted to vote on the question of ratification of the Constitution.

Or going a different way, how many of you know that at the point where it goes under the State Street Bridge in Bangor (ME), the Kendeskeag Stream is tidal, as is the adjacent Penobscot River into which it flows. And that in a dry summer, which 1984 was, it is less than three feet deep at low tide.

Charlie Howard was a gay man who did not know how to swim. Three teenagers threw him into the Kenduskeag where he drowned -- in less than three feet of water. Cause of death was drowning.

A quarter century later, why should any of us care about someone who wasn't bright enough to simply stand up and walk ashore? I make no secret of my contempt for his boyfriend -- I am from the background of "we all go home or none of us do" and I can't comprehend abandoning someone whom you care about.

Mathew Shepherd was more recent, and the Howard case was a lot more complicated than people realize -- the 14-year-old had been sexually assaulted (some say raped) by a different gay male earlier that evening, and went back with is 15 & 16 year old friends seeking retribution. And we won't get into who the boy's parents were, but I digress.

I'm not a gay male from New Hampshire hanging out in a certain neighborhood of Bangor seeking to "hook up" with other gay males, why should I care that Howard was tossed off the (still too low) railing behind the bus stop? I am not Black and have never been south of DC, why should I care about what happened more than a a half century ago in places like Birmingham and Selma or on the Edmund Pettis Bridge?

For that mater, I am not Jewish, why should I care about the Holocaust?

Didn't someone somewhere once say something to the effect of "an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere?" I actually "walk the walk" on this social justice stuff -- and does that help answer the question?

Dr. Ed said...

If Ed had a life of any kind (job, career prospects, female companionship, respect of his peers, etc.), those things would compel him to speak out against the injustices in Amherst.

And is why he does.

Every time I see that deduction for "state tax", I am reminded that I am paying for Amherst. I am a fourth generation educator from a family that has been in Massachusetts since something like 1644, and what goes on in Amherst has a lot to do with education in the Commonwealth.

The USAF has a saying, "if they are shooting at you, it means that you are over the target."

Cicero once said "if the law is on your side, argue the law, if the facts are on your side, argue the facts, and if neither is, abuse the plaintiff."

The vitriolic abuse that is directed toward me quite clearly indicates both that I am right and that folks are quite sensitive about the fact that I am right.

Walter Graff is proposing police tactics that are not permitted to be used against drug dealers in Holyoke or protesters at RNC conventions. If drug dealers and self-styled "anarchists" who jump up and down on the windshields of police cars have civil rights, don't the rest of us also have them?

When GWB was POTUS, I believe that there was a Federal court ruling that a certain decibel level of "noise" was Constitutionally protected in protests outside the White House, even if it disturbed those residing therein. Shouldn't the same standards of "free speech" and "due process" apply in Amherst?

Why should college students, who aren't trying to do anything illegal, have less rights than those who are deliberately attempting to violate the laws and/or disturb others?

"Racial Profiling" is generally accepted as wrong. So accepted that I can't find a statement anywhere as to why it is -- we just all accept the fact that it is unacceptable.

Why is doing the exact same thing, but on a different basis (i.e. status as a student) any less wrong?

If the National Socialist had killed Catholics instead of Jews, would the Holocaust have been any less wrong?

Well????

Anonymous said...

Ed, you seem to appreciate metaphors and analogies, so consider this one:

Imagine that every time someone in town held a potluck, the guests' offerings were all laid out on a table, wrapped and labeled with the names of the people who brought them. And imagine that at every single potluck, there was always a package labeled "Fred".

Each time a package from Fred was opened, it was found to contain sawdust. Or motor oil. Or earthworms. Sometimes it might contain something vaguely edible, like uncooked macaroni. On rare occasions, the contents of Fred's offering might actually be a tasty casserole or a cake.

Nine times out of ten, Fred's package was simply inappropriate; it added nothing to the party, and most people learned to ignore it, to leave it unopened. Sure, there might possibly be something worth eating in there, but it was unlikely. Word got around that Fred just didn't seem to understand the point of the potlucks, and it was easiest to simply steer clear.

But not everyone took the path of least resistance. Some took to ridiculing Fred, a few got angry, and others asked him why he insisted on bringing such strange things to every single party. His answer? "Everybody's making such a fuss over my dishes -- that must mean they're really delicious. Everyone is just jealous because I bring the best stuff."

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:08-
Awesome post!

Dr. Ed said...

So I, who attempt to "speak truth to power" am being compared to someone who would deliberately serve contaminated food to his friends and neighbors.

Oh brave new world....

Anonymous said...

Wow Ed, you really are obtuse.

Anonymous said...

gran·di·ose [gran-dee-ohs] adjective

4. Psychiatry. having an exaggerated belief in one's importance, sometimes reaching delusional proportions, and occurring as a common symptom of mental illnesses, as manic disorder.

Dr. Ed said...

I do hope that people realize that they truly are not anonymous, that IP addresses are traceable back to specific addresses. Furthermore, much like a cell phone, each computer has parts that have to have globally unique serial numbers in order to work, and these numbers are identified at the other end and go all the way to Google, who will release them upon receipt of a request to do so.

I mention this only because I don't want anyone to be blindsided.

Anonymous said...

youve mentioned that many times Ed. so.....?

Anonymous said...

So don't be stupid, or don't be surprised...

Anonymous said...

How interesting, Ed. Maybe you can answer a question for me. People on this blog seem to disparage you and your comments on an almost daily basis, and you always shrug it off.

Yet when someone posts a definition of a symptom of a psychiatric disorder -- with no reference to you whatsoever (whoever you are) -- you start making veiled threats. How come? Is your mental health a touchy subject?