They were promoting it all week in the UMass Campus Center.
Friday afternoon when I passed by the Commons they were setting up the stage.
Here's what it looked like when the crowd showed up on Saturday, as captured by Larry Kelley.
The occasion was the annual Extravaganja Marijuana Legalization rally, which this year was expanded into a two-day affair. Here's a picture of local legalization activist Terry Franklin (center) with two of the student organizers of the event.
The event attracts a lot of vendors, such as this mobile Jamaican restaurant.
The Extravaganja always brings out the seldom seen freaks from the hilltowns, who leave their woodland hideaways to come into town for a day of revelry and then return to the forest to resume their mushroom meditations.
A flower power bumpersticker in a Northampton parking lot.
A Tea Party bumpersticker at a Northampton convenience store.
An unanswerable question on an Amherst College A.C. unit.
UMass was closed today in anticipation of a snowstorm that never arrived until after the school day is usually pretty much over. Most of the local public schools were also closed, a major inconvenience for working parents who were no doubt none too happy that they had to make special arrangements for the kids to stay home on a day when it never actually snowed during school hours. If thoughts could kill, the head of Brian Lapis would probably have exploded.
But finally around three o'clock it started to snow like mad, the wind whipped snow sticking to the trees at Amherst College.
That's where I was, at the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College.
By the way, have you heard of the hot new website Amherst Secrets? It has anonymous entries by Amherst College students such as:
i have had sex with 13 men in the last two years and only one of them was actually decent at it. get your shit together guys.
What? The men of Amherst are legendary sex machines! In fact several of them posed nude for this famous mural in the Frost Library lounge area.
Do you want a closer look? Of course you do.
Oh well, here's hoping you have someone to keep you warm on this wintry night.
Today's Music Video
Henning Ohlenbush took this picture of Yes onstage at the Calvin in Northampton Monday night. Read his review of the concert here.
More and more Democrats are becoming concerned about the moral fitness of Martha Coakley to serve in the United States Senate. They would like to vote against her, but are wishing they had an alternative to casting their vote for Republican Scott Brown. While Brown is clearly superior to Coakley in many respects, the fact is he is still a Bush Republican, and many Massachusetts Democrats just can't bring themselves to pull that lever. But now comes the happy news that Joe Kennedy has made it on the ballot! No, not the Joe Kennedy who as a congressman was once famously described by Howie Carr as "dumb as a post and mean as a snake."
Although initially considered a contender for his Uncle's seat, that Joe Kennedy was quickly dismissed as unelectable because of his close ties to South American dictator Hugo Chavez. Happily, there is Joe Kennedy the libertarian! Yes, his legal name is Joe Kennedy, and while that fact is worth a chuckle, there is nothing unserious about his campaign. Just look at this sampling of where he stands on the issues:
Afghanistan - This region of the world has been at war for centuries and it is presumptuous of us to think that we are going to stop it any time soon. Moreover, the role of the American military should be to defend against attack or the imminent threat of attack, not to act as an ongoing police state on foreign soil. Democrats often claim to oppose foreign wars. But after ten months in total control of Congress and the White House, Democrats have done nothing to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If elected I would do everything I could to pass legislation to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home.
Healthcare - Just 50 years ago low-cost health insurance was obtainable by almost every family. Doctors still made house calls, hospitals were dramatically less expensive and charity hospitals were available for those who could not afford to pay for care. Today, health care is significantly more expensive largely due to government regulation and liability insurance required to be held by our physicians. The government healthcare programs we have today are heading for bankruptcy. The same methods and people who got us into this mess can not get us out.
Drug War - Regardless of whether you are for or against the various uses of marijuana, my belief is marijuana regulation is an issue that each state can address independent of Federal intervention. The Federal Government should have no say in how each state treats the various uses of marijuana.
Now that there's a credible place for Democrats to cast their protest votes against Coakley, this race, once considered a shoo-in for the Democrats, is about to get interesting!
Parade of Progress
These public toilets called "peepods" are sweeping Europe.
However, if they become available in the United States do you think feminists will declare them discriminatory?
God's Justice
Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Northampton is scheduled to close next year. It's a priceless historic structure, but what can it be used for except a church?
Even more unimaginable is that Springfield's Our Lady of Hope is closing. Who can imagine Hungry Hill without it?
It is hard to feel sympathy for the dramatic decline of the Catholic Church in this area, considering the terrible sex crimes the church covered up for so many years. It wasn't the child abuse scandals that drove so many to quit the church, after all, anyone who thinks pedophiles can be found only in Catholic Churches is kidding themselves. What was unforgivable was the church's lack of response and evasiveness when the abuse was discovered. When confronted with evidence of outrageous crimes, they were not outraged. That is hard to overlook.
More Snow
Yesterday morning on the dawn bus into Amherst I took this pic through the window of these clouds pregnant with snow.
When I left the Robert Frost Library around noon the snow was falling like crazy.
It's a miracle I didn't break my neck walking down this icy hill.
Soon it turned into the dreaded "wintry mix" of snow and sleet that requires one to use an umbrella in a snowstorm.
And of course it all froze overnight, so that this morning the streets were slick sheets of ice.
How many days until Spring? Oh wait, the first day of winter isn't even until the 21st! Good grief, it's almost enough to make you wish that global warming was real.
Two Music Videos
Something gentle from Northampton's Calvin Coolidge Museum.
Most pumpkins have gone bad by now, but as my neighbor's porch shows the small ones seem to have longer lives.
As another of my neighbors has discovered, when pumpkins turn rotten they can become depraved to the point of eating their own young.
This sign suggests that the children where I live are slow, but at least they have the admirable desire to smash the state.
Posters on the railroad trestle downtown.
I'm now so completely out of the booze scene that I didn't even know that Pop's Packy had closed!
Just the thought of a Hamp without Pops is quite disorienting.
Oh wait, it only moved next door, into a newer, nicer building.
Pop's gone respectable? Combined with the loss of Augie's flophouse across the street, I guess the ol' Hamp of yesteryear really is gone. Does anyone remember when that location was a drug store?
These are the only signs I've seen so far on anyone's lawn in Northampton promoting a candidate for the special senate election to replace Ted Kennedy.
When Kennedy died everyone predicted there would be a titanic battle for his seat as the biggest names in Massachusetts politics from both parties entered the fray. Instead the race has been a screaming bore, with four cookie-cutter Democrats running while all the GOP has put forward is an unknown state senator and a scandal prone has-been. No wonder the public seems disinterested, with the probable outcome being that we'll end up with the same bad Democrat representation we always got from Teddy, only now we'll get it from someone without Kennedy's seniority or charisma.
Holiday Giving
Radio crazies Bax and O'Brien are doing a charity drive in Springfield, as humorously reported in this video.
Dan Yorke and I once helped in the 1990's with one of their charity events, but I don't remember if it was the same cause. In fact, come to think of it, technically it really wasn't even the same show as it was called Jonathan and O'Brien in those days. Wonder what became of Jonathan?
Back to the Future
Amherst College has a new logo (above) which is actually a return to the old logo that was in use before 1961. The latin lingo means,“Let them enlighten the lands." New or old, the logo sure is better looking than the official college tie, which only an alumnus could love.
To read all about the history of the Amherst College logo click here.
Speaking of Amherst College, in the Robert Frost Library is this stuffed owl that was donated to the school in 1862.
It was a different Pioneer Valley that owl flew over 147 years ago.
Today's Video
Someone asked me why I rarely put up anything by the Springfield band Staind. Okay, even though I find their music mostly a downer, here's a cover of one of their songs by Jay Brannan.
In 1989 millions of people were suddenly freed from socialist oppression when most of the communist world collapsed because of the failure of their socialist economies and the firm military pressure of the United States under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush. Yet virtually no media acknowledgement has been made of the twenty year anniversary of what might arguably be called the most important year in modern history. The only commemoration I've seen locally is a display in the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College.
How did we win the Cold War, and yet seem to have completely forgotten the lessons of that victory? Part of it is due to the domination of our higher education system by leftists, who at the time of the socialist collapse were still preaching about the "historical inevtablity" of socialism. The fall of the Berlin Wall should have been followed by the mass resignations of the heads of the humanities departments of nearly all our leading colleges and universities.
Instead, they stayed on and pretended the fall of the socialist world had no significance. Therefore, most Americans have never been properly educated about the Cold War, what it meant, and the important lessons to be learned. While the rest of the world is embracing free markets and enjoying the prosperity it brings, ironically the United States is trapped in a leftward drift with fading freedoms and a government crippled economy.
Cool Ad
This commercial from Alabama is a masterpiece of reverse psychology.
Amherst Antics
One good way to decorate this abandoned storefront in downtown Amherst is to let kids paint Halloween pictures on it.
The UMass Chess Club holds its meetings in the Blue Wall, the better to attract new members.
I was walking past the headquarters of the UMass Cannabis Club and saw that libertarian activist Terry Franklin was hanging out. I stopped in and took his picture.
Then he took mine.
Across the hall I saw this safe sex bulletin board decorated with drawsings of vaginas. Click photo to enlarge.
Wow, I remember just a few years ago there was a big stink at UMass about a public display of the image of a cock in a condom with a mouth near it. There was even a decency rally.
Personally I do not find images of genitalia offensive. But why the protest by some over the male anatomy display but not the female? Is there a double standard?
Good News
This coffeshop on King Street in Northampton is very popular.
Walking past it the other night after it was closed I saw this sign in the window that no doubt thrilled some anxious biker.
Today's Video
A beautiful performance by Storm the Ohio in Northampton last week
