Eat the Rich

Randomness

What a beautiful day, as evidenced by this awesome cloudscape over a field this afternoon in Amherst.

Another great day to be alive. However, staying alive can be placed in jeopardy by an invasion of bears, as evidenced by this photo I stole from Larry Kelley showing armed police responding to a bear sighting in Amherst.

Bears in these parts are quite small and are more likely to run from humans than attack them. However they can be a nuisance, getting into garbage cans and bird feeders. I spotted a bear myself recently down in Northampton. It had climbed onto someones front porch, apparently having just arrived from New Orleans bearing Mardi Gras beads. 

At Amherst's Simple Gifts Farm they have these delicious "heirloom" tomatoes. They are tomatoes grown from seeds that have been passed on by generations of farmers for their especially delicious taste. 

They don't look like much, but that's because we're used to supermarket tomatoes that are bred to be perfectly round and bright red, but unfortunately also sometimes tend to taste like cardboard. Experience the delicious taste our ancestors enjoyed by purchasing some heirloom tomatoes this weekend.

For years I was practically the only blogger in the Valley. Now however, local blogs are popping up everywhere, and I love it! As the dinosaurs of the old media sink into the tarpits of history, a new media, a people's media must arise to take its place and that can only be successfully done if there are many voices speaking from many different perspectives.

A really good blog that started recently is The Northamptonist by Paolo Mastrangelo. It's sort of wonkish, with lots of detailed information about government policy, but such blogs are valuable allies in the struggle for good government. It also has homemade videos, which is always a sign of a first class blog.

 



The picture above is from The Northamptonist and shows the railroad bridge over Main Street. Back in the olden times when I was a student living in Northampton, there used to be a large graffiti scrawled across that bridge saying, "EAT THE RICH!" Sadly, then came the yuppie revolution transforming and gentrifying old Hamp into something called NoHo. That was when the graffiti was quietly removed, as the new upper class arrivals realized that to eat the rich they would have to dine on themselves.