A fitting tribute to Lt. David Pollack, Ph.D.

It has been hung on the wall at North Station since the day Dave graduated. His father accepted his Ph.D. on his behalf on May 22nd.

Dave and his family received a standing ovation from every single person in the Mullins Center... I have never seen anything like it before. Every faculty member, student, family/friend stood and applauded for what seemed like minutes...

NIMBY Experiment

Two years ago Amherst spent $8,000 on temporary speed cushions for Lincoln Avenue as an "experiment in traffic calming", and they were about as effective as whistling Dixie in slowing traffic from superhighway Rt. 9 over to Umass, the number one employer in the Valley.

Then in September the town placed concrete barricades to outright ban traffic from the final few hundred yards to Umass, the number one employer in the Valley. The response to that "experiment" was almost unanimously negative--to the point of outright nasty.

And unlike snarky cowardly Anon commenters on blogs, these folks (over 100) actually identified themselves.

So I'm a tiny bit surprised Phil Jackson--lead architect of all things Lincoln Avenue--showed up at the Select Board meeting to request official results of the most recent "experiment" that went as awry as anything Dr. Frankenstein created.



Outraged voices

Election snooze

Since Senator Kennedy did me a couple of B-I-G favors over the past 25 years, I should be more excited about voting for his replacement. But I'm not.

Shedding Photons

Lights by Walmart
Electricity by WMECO
Tree by God
Best of all: no tax subsidy.

Never forget.

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto




“With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Shedding Light (but not a lot)

So I'm far from an art aficionado, but less far from a Yankee farmer with some degree of common sense. The art project "Shedding Light"--sponsored by the Amherst Public Arts Commission--strikes me as pretty dim.

It simply looks like Bob The Builder is inside preparing to go to work.

The Bully reports

Come all ye faithful

So last evening, for a few moments anyway, the seriousness of world and national events--more troops in Afghanistan, Tiger Woods indiscretion, party crashers at the White House--were forgotten. Drown out by a chorus of Christmas songs.