Sunday in America

In search of prey...

The Alamo

UPDATE: 5:02 PM. Just received my emergency phone call from the Town Manager saying all is fine with Amherst water. Hey, the system works. I'll drink to that!


UPDATE: 4:50 PM. It's all good. Drink the water! Of course now students will have to come up with another excuse for consuming only beer over the next 48 hours.

UPDATE: 4:25 PM. Still no word. This is not good. Could we maybe have offered the test lab pizza and beer if they got us the test results by noon? Everybody--Town Manager, DPW chief, water/sewer chief and a bevy of underlings are still hunkered down in the DPW office.


1:25 PM (Still no word).

Trolley Station, turned DPW, turned War Room.

Water update 12:51

No, we don't have the results yet. Town Manager Larry Shaffer just arrived at the DPW office and they are hunkered down awaiting the results. The emergency phone system will kick in either way to spread the news: good or bad. Let's hope it's good.

Houston, we have a problem...

Friday 4:00 PM Click to enlarge

Smoking zone

Well, actually I think it's just steam from testing of the new Power Plant; sure makes enough of the white stuff. And they are still using Amherst effluent water in the production process, so you may not want to breath in those clouds directly. Last year Umass paid the water/sewer fund $38,000 for the superdiscounted effluent. This year they used roughly the same amount but paid zero. Side benefit of the 'Strategic Agreement'.

We are the world

My esteemed fellow Amherst Town Meeting members will love this:

Yesterday morning my overworked wife performed an international live lecture presentation over the Internet to about 100 academics concerning research techniques used in entrepreneurship from our little home nestled in the People’s Republic of Amherst.

The GEM Project (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor), a joint collaboration between Babson College, the London Business School and "teams" from numerous other countries, collects economic data worldwide and uses it to measure the role entrepreneurship plays in a country’s economic growth.

And like the recent sports spectacle in China, this academic pursuit transcends political bounds—as indeed it should.

Donna’s enthusiastic audience was located at the University of Tehran, in the People’s Republic of Iran. (Yeah, I half jokingly asked if she had cleared this with the State Department or Homeland Security.)

University of Tehran website reports

Some of you may remember one of the more recent “Only in Amherst “ episodes where our Town Meeting overwhelmingly approved a resolution declaring the US should never attack Iran. In response we received a “thank you” from their ambassador.

I’m so glad this Boston TV Channel 4 has bandwidth to burn, so you can still see this upload from January 2007. Kind of ironic to see then Selectman Robie Hubley (now absconded to South Hadley) use the term “Democratic Republic of Amherst”. Yikes!

Channel 4 reports

Perhaps even more ironic, the “thank you” is dated December 7 and has the subheading “In the Name of the Almighty.” Double Yikes!

EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN
INTERESTS SECTION OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
2209 Wisconsin Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20007
Tel: (202) 965-4990 Fax (202) 965-1073 www.daftar.org

In the Name of the Almighty

December 7, 2006

Ms. Sandra J. Burgess
Amherst Town Clerk
4 Boltwood Ave.
Amherst, MA 01002

Dear Ms. Burgess:

We would like to express our appreciation for the courageous stance of the participants of the Amherst Town Meeting in urging diplomacy with Iran and expressing opposition to any U.S. military action against our country. Your letter along with the attachments was submitted to the office of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Upon receipt of any response, this office will notify you accordingly. The staff of this office would be more than happy to respond to any questions you might have.

Sincerely,

A. Mohzabadi
for Mostafa Rahmani
Director

The Amherst Bulletin Reports

International Media reports this "weird" story