Free at last, free at last; thank God almighty...

At a meeting a few years back when the DPW was defending the taxpayer cost of adding a fire alarm system to their ancient brick building one of the Finance Committee members joked that they don’t need an expensive system since Larry Kelley lives next door (and yeah, once you inhale smoke from a major structure fire up close and personal you NEVER forget it)

So I’ve been hired to protect the damn sand. And I’m authorized to enforce limits with a shuffle hook kick upside the head (aka Billy Blanks good night kick).

Come on folks, there’s no such thing as a free lunch! Only in Springfield! (And the rest of America)

The Springfield Republican reports

Hell hath no fury...

Meanwhile intrepid School Committee member Catherine Sanderson is now both perky and pissed. And she has every right to be (pissed I mean).

Apparently the acting, interim Co-Superintendents cannot or will not do their $135-K job; so much for the Regional Chair’s "We're really getting two for one,” enthusiasm over their hiring 7 months ago.

The School Committee asked them (or told them) to run numbers on the all the options they need to look at for dealing with the current economic meltdown, and they did not do it.

Worse yet, they may actually have the numbers but simply will not cough them up. Maybe 40 years ago you could treat your bosses like mushrooms and keep them in the dark, but not any more—especially in overly enlightened Amherst.

Seems a little odd that School Committee members need to do a Public Documents request to get pertinent information to allow them to do the job they were elected to do.

So far the only good thing about Amherst’s interim Superintendents is the word interim.

Ms. Sanderson's Sunshine

Come Saturday morning...

Kendrick Park Skating Rink 10:00 AM

Hmmm...guess everybody must be in North Amherst at Winter Fest (even though it does not start until noon)

Retires undefeated

UPDATE: 12:10 High Noon.
So apparently the original poster at Masslive Amherst Forum (not the followup "sniper") was not somebody from the Amherst Chamber of Commerce or Cinda Jones, which I originally assumed. Because now the nitwit is ragging on me for not entering the race. But notice he does not confirm if the Town Manager was going to race in the first place (I believe last year when he begged off it was not due to a sudden injury but a chronic one.) And it's not like I"m withdrawing (which the Town Manager did last year). I never agreed in the first place to do it this year.

And of course this nitwit better arrive REAL early to make his effigy of me or use a Romulan cloaking device, as I will probably attend the event...

3466.1. Paper Tiger
by JohnEight32, 2/6/09 11:42 ET
Re: Winter Fest 2009 by JohnEight32, 2/6/09
Looks like the big race is off, according to Larry K's blog, (Only in the republic of Amherst) he will not be entering a box into the race this year. Why are you wimping out Larry? Too much animosity b/w you

I'll still planning to build an effigy of Larry Kelley in the snow sculpting contest, to raise money for the town of course.

Don't be a zhi laohu.
#########################################################################
ORIGINAL POST 10: 15 AM
So no, even though my name (spelled wrong) appears on the Winter Fest website (using last year's template) I will not defend my prestigious downhill box race co-championship, with my daughter Kira as co-pilot. And I also have a feeling the Town Manager was not going to race anyway as last year he begged off with a bad back.

Of course now that an Anonymous poster at Masslive Amherst Forum threatened (or was joking) to "hunker down with a sniper rifle" after someone posted to come watch Larry Kelley and the Town Manager race, I'm actually more tempted to defend that title (without my daughter of course).
############################################################

3466. Winter Fest 2009

by JohnEight32, 2/5/09 9:07 ET

Looks like good weather for this weekend's festivities, 43 degrees and sunny! Watch Larry Kelley and Larry Schaffer in the box sled race. Fireworks at 6pm, chili cook-off and much more.

Here is a link for more info: http://winterfestamherst.com/index.html

3466.1. THANKS!

by dueced, 2/5/09 14:17 ET

Re: Winter Fest 2009 by JohnEight32, 2/5/09

Good lookin' out! I'll make sure to get there early in order to camo up and hunker down with my sniper rifle....

3466.1.1. ^POLICE^TAKE^NOTICE^

by LloydLoar, 2/5/09 17:36 ET

Re: Winter Fest 2009 by JohnEight32, 2/5/09

3466.1.1.1. Don't bother

by joeya44, 2/5/09 20:09 ET

The cops will be givin that guy a boost to his tree stand...

################################################################

No Children were injured in the making of this movie.

Oh say can you see...

So for the first time in perhaps 20 years, the Amherst Town Hall Town Room (home to Monday night Select Board meetings) sprouted an American flag.

Don't call me a Democrat!

Click to enlarge/read

Since allegedly "institutional racism" is their main gripe with the American Jurisprudence system, why would the 'Justice For Jason' mob employ race baiting to promote their umpteenth rally earlier this week?

They want Lt Thrasher disciplined by UMPD for using the term “donkey”? And have the audacity to suggest that it is a racial slur against African Americans!

Well, being Irish I couldn’t help but remember the only ethnic group targeted by that term would be my ancestors--and they probably would not even take offense (since it denotes a hard worker performing a thankless task).

This is the only listing for “donkey” in the extensive ‘Racial Slurs Data Base’: “It was cheaper to hire an Irishman than a donkey in the Pennsylvania coal mining days of the 1800's”

Of course, the donkey also represents the (often asinine) Democratic Party.

I think Thrasher used the term as a synonym for “ass,” especially since:

Lt. Thrasher asked Officer Antonmarchi whether he was “gonna get a story out of this asshole.” When Officer Antonmarchi responded that he just conducted a fifteen-minute interview with Vassell, Lt. Thrasher asked: “What’s this donkey say?”

But Vassell's lawyers see it a tad differently (let's hope they're unpaid volunteers spewing this amateurish crap):

Within hours of the incident, Lt. Thrasher labeled Vassell a “donkey” and an “asshole” and characterized his account of the event as “horseshit.” Given the history of racial stereotypes against African-Americans and the prevalent one of African-Americans as animals . . . , it is a reasonable -- perhaps even an obvious -- conclusion that [Thrasher] intended [a] racial insult.

Wow! When I was attending Umass, far too many years ago, we had a saying about “throwing a lot of horseshit and hoping some of it would stick” when a Professor asked an essay question on a test you had not quite prepared for.

And if you’re going to discipline a cop for using bad language then how about his statement over the phone to a fellow cop:

“They get into a fucking knife fight in that lower lobby. [The]
cameras did a helluva job of showing me, you know, the fucking crime.”

As Rhett Butler once said (in that racist novel): “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Slip sliding away...

Tuesday 10:10 am


Wednesday 10:10 am (And DPW workers make how much per hour?)