A week later and Blarney Blowout is still front page news
So now its been a tad over a week and the ignominious day of debauchery known as Blarney Blowout is still in the news.
The entire above the fold section of the weekend Gazette; and the print edition of today's Sunday Springfield Republican also has a guest column from UMass Student Government Association President Zac Broughton branding the actions of Amherst police "inexcusable."
The entire above the fold section of the weekend Gazette; and the print edition of today's Sunday Springfield Republican also has a guest column from UMass Student Government Association President Zac Broughton branding the actions of Amherst police "inexcusable."
Of course he cites snippets of video posted to the juvenile party-all-the-time website barstoolsports who said last's year's blowout, "looked like fun." Tellingly their support of this year's disaster has been less cheerleader-like, other than posting those videos.
Zac also asks why UMass has not come up with "alternative programming options" to preoccupy the kids. Of course his Student Government Association was co-sponsor of just such an event on campus last October on the night of the Red Sox World Series win and, umm, that "programming option" turned into a riot.
The simple fact of the matter is students congregated into an overwhelmingly large mass, most of them under the influence of alcohol. The disorderly crowd started throwing snowballs, bottles and cans along with other acts of vandalism, giving police no choice but to do their job: protect public safety.
Amherst Police Department will soon be issuing video from that day on their blog. Since their photographer was standing next to me, at one point I heard him get hit in the leg with an object thrown from the crowd, so I'm betting the video he took will be telling.
I hope they release the combat footage tomorrow -- as Monday is the start of the news cycle, and the Amherst Select Board is scheduled to discuss the Blarney Blowout at their meeting in Amherst Town Hall.
Attorney Peter Vickery will start things off at 6:30 p.m. Public Comment period by asking the Select Board to use their powers as liquor commissioners to ban all alcohol sales next year for the Blarney Blowout.
17 comments:
What a terribly entitled bunch this generation is. I am seeing cases where they quite jobs because they don't like what people say to them. I had two working with me last week and to get them to get off their ass was more work than it's worth. A week before that another of the entitled generation told me they didn't have to do what I asked them because they didn't feel like it. It's a terrible result of all the coddling done to them. They like to blame everyone and everything for things and hate feeling like they are part of a system. It will be interesting to see how the business world turns out in 20 years when they are the mainstream.
Maybe you should develop some people skills. This isn't the 19th century. It's the 21st century.
Like I said a lazy bunch of blamers.
The "lazy" part may be wise. After all the anti-war movement in the industrialized countries was motivated partly by a fear of nuclear war; likewise climate change and productive overcapacity don't lend themselves to being solved by "make-work."
And as far as being "entitled," I do think they were/are entitled to a better situation than the one forced upon them.
Walter -- the $2.65 minimum wage of 1978 would be $9.51 today -- see http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2.65&year1=1978&year2=2014
1: How much are you paying them, and how hard would you have worked (in 1978) for what that would have been back then?!?!?
2: Are you even paying them -- or are they interns who are actually paying to work? What tangible future benefits will they enjoy -- not "might" but will they see???
In other words -- what exactly do they loose by quitting? What motivation do they have not to?
3: What is this "working with" bullshite? If they are working for you, then say it -- and if they aren't then they have every right to ignore you. Slavery ended with the 13th Amendment.
Walter, you can say "lazy bunch of blamers" and I say "quite ambitious bunch of kids focused on their own best interests." Altruistic, no, but that's something else...
And which generation was it that put linoleum over all those lovely hardwood floors???
Larry, facts are independent of who is reporting them -- a video which shows "X" shows "X" regardless of who took it -- now it may not show "Y" & "Z" but that does not negate the fact that it shows "X."
Back in the '80s, there was an incident out on the Left Coast where a military (Navy?) train ran over some protesters, cut off legs and such, and the military said it was a terrible tragedy, it was foggy, the train was moving slowly and didn't see them.
Well the protesters had a videotape that showed it was a sunny day (not foggy) and that the train wasn't going 4-5 MPH but closer to 40 MPH and that the protesters scrambled to get out of its way. Those are facts, and it doesn't matter who took the video -- or today whose website it is on.
Same thing with the incident involving Lisa Kidwell -- I didn't even know that a telephone could record video, let alone that more than one person had recorded the incident -- but that doesn't negate the video showing what it shows. Doesn't matter who took it.
Larry, are you saying something didn't happen because some leftwing dirty hippie took the picture of it? Did the good sisters ever teach you about Emmanuel Kant?
"Climate change? What climate change?"
I have to give them more credit. I think they figure out they are working for a total loon pretty quickly.
Guys, guys, guys.
My friends from the NY Times are watching, so I'm going to start policing Comments a tad more diligently.
I'm sure someone will accuse me of "police brutality."
PART 1 of 2
I recently oversaw upwards of fifteen 20-somethings on various projects they were involved with. I am in charge of the group and assign their tasks and oversea their work. They report to me and others and those they report to report to me on their progress too. I often am in this position and in the last year have worked with over 200 of these millennials. All of us worked for a Fortune 100 entertainment company hence why I use the term "work with". Interns are paid for the position (more than minimum wage) and assistants are paid market day rate (much more than minimum wage). All except a handful had what I would consider lazy and sloppy work ethics. My guess is 30% of those I oversaw did not have competent communication skills. All are graduates of various four year colleges, many with well-known names and reputations. Many wrote illegibly and many had glaring spelling and grammatical errors, some even using texting acronyms for written words. Most all were glued to their phones any chance they could get - texting to whoever they seem to need to communicate with outside of the work, and constantly. Some never seem to have anythign more than one hand free as the phone is an extension of their body. All used the internet to check social media sites when they found they had a second of being alone. Few had appropriate phone skills and occasionally some even ask if they their was another option besides the phone. Many have few of what I was taught to be necessary social skills. They will mostly all gather in a group to talk about life and various things not related to work when they can. I also find it's as if their mind has a screensaver mode. The second they don't have any input they revert to looking at their phone to keep their minds occupied. Their incentive to work is that they are being paid for a job that asks them to work and they may have more permanent work based on performance. I'd say a large percentage of these kids put no more than 60%-70% of their potential effort into anything they do and asking them for more does little. Some will need the same reminder 5 or 6 times. All have the potential to go on to full time jobs with the company based on their work ethic and performance. So far out of a few hundred I have been able to suggest a handful as worthy. I'm not saying that every kid is like this. But because the pool is often so lazy, those that do stand out do so like a sore thumb because the baseline work ethic and interest is so lacking as to make anyone that achieves very noticeable. Last week I had an incredibly incompetent and disinterested person but could do nothing because her father (who is in a high position either in or out of the company) got her the work and that makes me powerless to do anything. For the last 20 years I have watched the pool of these entries slowly change to the point it has today. I'd say that the last ten years saw the most dramatic change. I am not alone. I was part of a supervisor meeting for different departments recently where the exact concerns I had were expressed by others in my position. It's easy to sit in a chair and imagine what it's like and make 1960's associations but in real world situations I can tell you it's gotten pretty bad.
PART 2 Of 2
I work extensively with many large corporations and deal with this all the time. I am not a curmudgeon to the group. I do my best to help anyone that needs it and enjoy mentoring. I look forward to helping a younger lesser experienced person learn the skills and I put a lot of effort into many of these kids. In fact I go out of my way to make their work experience and career goals the best it can be, often on my own time. I get high marks for my positive energy and my general treatment of them in their anonymous feedback comments so if you think I'm being hard, know I am not. I'm simply trying to get the tasks at hand done. I will say that in my opinion most liberal arts graduates today seem to be kids who never knew what path they wanted in college so finish with some sort of marketing/media degree only to take five years after graduation to figure out what they want in life and end up in a completely different direction. During their schooling they never focus on the basics so lack those qualities my generation took for granted.
Just as an example of some of what I deal with, here is a response I got just this week to the question of which medium was the accurate rendition to use on a final project. The response:
"Just a note that the banner logos are correct, but the banner logos are not so please reference the banner if you are looking to match up."
We all make mistakes but blatant sloppiness like this is a trademark of today's youth in my travels and I work a lot with the newbies so speak from a lot of direct contact.
This comment stands out:
"How much are you paying them, and how hard would you have worked (in 1978) for what that would have been back then?!?!?"
I personally was taught to work for enjoyment, work hard and always be the best you can be, regardless of pay or how difficult or "bad" you perceived the work. If I was working at McDonalds or the CEO of a multinational company I would give it my all. I guess the answer to that question is a matter of a persons work ethic.
You are 100% correct in the statement:
"quite ambitious bunch of kids focused on their own best interests."
IMHO this generation will work hard on anything that is about them but little on anything outside of their sphere or interest.
Dr Ed the incident with the train was at Naval Weapons Station Concord in Concord, California. This occurred at the main gate to the base and the gate to the Bay Area on what is known as Port Chicago Highway. I was stationed at that base and had seen my share of protests for the base is comprised of three areas. Bay Area, inland area were ammo of all types was stored and the Alpha Area were nuclear weapons and such was stored. I was stationed in the Alpha Area for 4 years and saw many modifications to our perimeter so as to give anyone a chance. D I I feel sorry for that man yes I do. But if they were protesting while nukes were being transferred to the Bay Area it could've been a lot worse for deadly force is used at all times and hostages shall be disregarded. Semper Fi
Steve Akalis -- I need to be clear on this:
As long as everything was being done "by the book" -- train operating in accordance with not only USN but all Federal & California Railroad Regulations (i.e. going no faster than the speed the track was approved for, the blinking red lights & bells at crossings were working, the horn was blown at least as soon and as much as the regs say it should be, etc.) then I don't have a problem with what happened.
If you are stupid enough to trespass (and it is trespassing) on an active railroad track and stupid enough to remain sitting on the rails when it is quite clear that a train is coming, then you are responsible for what anyone of at least marginal intelligence knows will happen next. It's like the idiot from Evergreen College who laid down in the blind spot of an Israeli bulldozer and got run over.
I neither knew nukes were aboard nor the policy regarding them -- it might have been wise to run a decoy train ahead of them -- and the Navy may well have been doing that == but no, you can't have people stealing nukes. (Shudder...)
However if it is a clear day and you are traveling 30-40 MPH, you say that, you say that it was a clear day and you were traveling 30-40 MPH -- you don't make up some story about thick fog, traveling 3-5 MPH and not seeing the idiots in front of you. You don't claim that you would have stopped if you had only been able seen them -- which I believe the Navy did.
My issue is that someone in the US Navy lied about it. Not what happened, but that they wouldn't tell the truth about it.
And my point to Larry was that it didn't really matter WHO showed that the USN wss lying but that they were lying -- and we can't have that. I was amongst retired military officers at the time and that was the point they made -- the report has to be truthful, you have to know that your people are telling you the truth because if they are lying about one thing, you have no way of knowing how many other things they are lying about.
Again, it doesn't matter how despicable the folks who document the lies are -- the issue is the lies. As long as the evidence isn't fabricated, it doesn't matter who presents it.
And that is my point regarding the allegations against the APD -- I don't care whose websites they are on -- if they are true then they are valid.
Who you going to believe, me, or your own eyes?
Dr Ed
Like I mentioned earlier, also to my knowledge there were no blinking lights or arms that came down to stop traffic, also no markings on the road. Just the tracks. Wasn't there at least 2 military pickup trucks blocking the road. With that being said yes the Navy is to blame. And since you so smart why don't you tell the people hear what happened to the small town of Port Chicago and who is to blame on that one
Simple fix to the blarney have Umass change spring break change it weeks that are not around Saint Patrick's day
what happened to the small town of Port Chicago and who is to blame on that one
It was "wartime" -- I view it in the context of "Kaiser's Coffins" that weren't always seaworthy in the first place, the asinine shipping of uncrated ordinance packed in dunnage -- and but one of many such explosions.
Yes racism played a part -- but witnesses reported hearing the sound of a winch/derrick ripping loose before the explosion, and if one of those collapsed, that'd be a "Kaiser's Coffin" issue as they were part of the ships.
Also consider it in the context of what happened in Halifax in 1917 -- that's why they still send a Christmas tree to Boston each year....
that video coming anytime soon?
or is it safe to assume that with the tide of public opinion having turned against the Police/UMass administration, said recordings, and alot of the other evidence from that day, won't see the light of until it is supoena'd once countersuits get underway?
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