Post Snow

Some pictures.

As I noted yesterday, there was a big snowstorm in the Valley, but fortunately it is finally over, as evidenced by this patch of blue breaking through the clouds this morning over the main UMass parking lot.

There are hardly any cars in the lot, since the students are still away on their winter vacation. A student's life is one of leisure and freedom - the shame is they seldom fully appreciate it until after graduation. The snow is pretty, as you can see from this shot of downtown Amherst.

However, if I hear one more media person use the phrase "winter wonderland" I'm gonna hurl! I spent most of the day in Northampton. This person was trying to make a snowman but all his friends abandoned him because it got too cold. I told him I'd run his picture anyway as a reward for his good intentions. 

It certainly was cold! Even a penguin was spotted wearing a silver scarf.

With the Valley paralyzed by snow we could've used a few superheroes to the rescue. As you can see, Modern Myths put the call out for Batman and Superman.

Yet whatever the weather the duties of commerce are unyielding, as this person roams the streets drumming up business for lunch.

Over at the local history center this banner proclaims the city's pride in its most famous resident, President Calvin Coolidge.

At a nearby antique shop I discovered this old sign from a local radio station. 

That station used to belong to my old TV/radio buddy Dan Yorke. Here is a picture from 1994 of Yorke displaying a copy of my "zine" The Baystate Objectivist on his WGGB-TV40 program. Before this blog was started in 1998, it was a print publication that sold advertising and actually made a profit. The first issue appeared in 1991. 

 



Lord have mercy, I can't believe I'm still doing this fucking shit all these years later! Here is a little excerpt from a Providence Journal article that touches on Yorke's ownership of WSPR:

In 1985, Yorke moved to Springfield, where he had a morning show on WSPR-AM and became news director at WMAS-AM. After a brief stint at a Hartford station, he bought WSPR in partnership with his father in 1988.

In 1991, though, the station went under. Yorke, who notes that there was a recession at the time, was the one who signed it off the air.

"Other than my father's death, and my mother's illness, that was probably the worst day of my life," Yorke said.

That version glosses over some important details. While there was a recession underway, the failure of WSPR under Yorke had a lot more to do with politics than it did economics. The type of aggressive, in your face radio journalism that Yorke did was unheard of in this area when Yorke arrived. Many local pols didn't like it one bit when Yorke began holding them to a higher standard than the rest of the sleepy media did. The Springfield Newspapers, which never ran such stories about other struggling businesses, ran a devastating article saying that Yorke was in financial trouble, an article that served to scare away many of Yorke's advertisers.

After the station went broke, Yorke went on to become the highest rated and highest paid talk show host in the Valley, proving that the radio station would have survived had the newspaper and its establishment allies not played that dirty trick. I couldn't blame Yorke when he finally moved out of the area entirely. He had never received the gratitude he deserved for all he sacrificed in our Valley's behalf.

Speaking of the newspaper and dirty tricks, someone appears to be trying to pull one on The Springfield Republican in this photo taken in Hamp yesterday of a paper box vandalized with the image of a bum and the price of the paper incorrectly listed as a quarter a copy. 

Who did that and why?

I couldn't find an angle to take this picture that didn't have a lot of reflection in it. Can you make out what the sign says?

It reads: It's too bad that the people who really know how to run the country are all making art.

The novelty shop Faces is selling art by Andy Warhol. 

Years ago Faces used to be a hippie head shop called Faces of Earth.

I am jealous of these mannequins going at it hot and heavy in the window of a Hamp eyeglass store.

 



Oh well, at least me and my friends can sit around La Fiorentina on a cold day. 

The globetrotting Jordan Williams is really traveling far afield with his recent trip to Istanbul. Here he is relaxing in a hash den. 

Finally, aren't you glad this isn't your kid?

 

Juggling Pizza

No time to blog.

However, at least I can leave you with this feat of pizza dexterity filmed just a couple days ago in Amherst's Antonio Pizza!

 

Hey, I promise to make amends tomorrow!

About UMass Sylvan

Another nostalgia trip.

 

Sylvan Woods

The other day I was walking through the Campus Center when I came upon this shocking sight: The arcade games are gone! 

That's like seeing the Mona Lisa without her smile! When I was at UMass in the late 70's I was a pinball wizard. Actually even before I came to UMass I ruled such infamous times wasting parlors as the Two Guys snack bar on Boston Road and downtown's Playtown. Of course in modern times the pinball machines have been replaced by video games, but the scene was still the same - a place for gamers to hang out.

I can't believe that the games are gone for good, but then why would every single one be gone? UMass doesn't change very much, so whenever something does change it feels like time is acting like a giant eraser rubbing away my youth.

This is the giant quadrangle in the middle of the Northeast Dorm area. When I was at UMass there used to be frequent streaking episodes here on Friday and Saturday nights.

 



In case you are too young to know what streaking was it was a big fad on campus in the 70's where people would basically take off their clothes, usually after drinking heavily, and run around the campus nude. Sometimes the campus police would chase them. Mostly they wouldn't bother.

I did not participate in streaking. It wasn't that I was modest or anything, it was because I was gay. There used to be a gay section in the John Quincy Adams Tower in Southwest where I used to party naked all the time. Running around bare ass was a novelty for straight kids but for us queers it was the norm.

Students today would find the concept of streaking quaint if not outright corny. What student parties I've been to in recent years always had people running around starkers after midnight; mostly guys but with a surprising number of drunken nude females. Without anyone taking much notice of it, modern American youth have adopted an almost European casualness about nudity.

Although I visited them frequently, I didn't live in any of the gay ghettos around campus. Instead I lived in the rural setting of Sylvan, so named because it was, well sort of sylvanish!

sylvan (sĭl'vən)
adj.
Relating to or characteristic of woods or forest regions.
Located in or inhabiting a wood or forest.
Abounding in trees; wooded.
[Medieval Latin sylvānus, from Latin Silvānus, god of the woods, from silva, forest.]

Sylvan consists of three dorms - Cashin, McNamara and Brown - located way up on top of the hill overlooking the campus. The original farmers fields that had once made up the site have been allowed to grow wild, creating over the decades a dark woods surrounding the dorms. 

To get up to Cashin from Northeast you have to climb these wooden stairs.

I lived in the dorm called Cashin.

Sexually I've never been in the closet, but I didn't always advertise my gayness. That was the case when I was at UMass. Certainly I never pretended to be straight, but there was a weird sort of unstated social contract in the 70's that made it okay to be gay as long as you didn't actually say or do anything around straight people to make that fact undeniable. It was like the military's don't ask, don't tell policy, only the civilian version.

One day as a student I went to check out The Stonewall Center or whatever the gay campus club was called, but it wasn't open. I looked in the window and saw all kinds of political stuff on the walls. I remember thinking, "Hey, I like to suck cock but that doesn't mean I want to march down the street waving a sign about it." I never went back.

Sylvan was the hippie section of campus and most people would have called me a hippie before they called me gay. My friends and I smoked pot, took acid and worshipped the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane/Starship. We would get totally blazed and stay up all night talking. One time we wondered what would happen if you kept on talking until it was impossible to talk anymore. How would the conversation end? We decided that any conversation could continue only until everyone participating completely exhausted their knowledge, which would occur when someone asked a question no one present could answer. Thus we composed this maxim:

"Any conversation taken to it's ultimate conclusion must end in a question."

For this sort of brilliance my parents scrounged to send me to college! This is where I used to eat my meals, at the Worcester Dining Commons. 

The biggest change since I lived at Sylvan is that our former tennis courts have been turned into new dorms. These dorms now block what once had been a gorgeous view of the mountains. 

I remember I used to walk to class and seeing that view I would feel happy that I lived in such a beautiful place. I'm still that way. To this day I continually find myself standing in awe of the incredible beauty of our Valley.


This is the anniversary of The No Child Left Behind Law and Liberator Online had this to say about it:

It's the six-year anniversary of the Bush administration's landmark No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. So far NCLB has cost tens of billions of dollars and brought record levels of federal involvement in education -- with, predictably, little or nothing worthwhile from it all. The law is facing reauthorization. But many commentators are condemning it as a costly failure -- and unconstitutional, to boot.

The law's stated goal is to have 100 percent of kids achieving government-defined "proficiency" in math and writing by 2014. Yes, just six years from now. Yes, 100 percent. Needless to say, there remains a good bit of catching up to do. (This reminds us of the demented 1998 goal of Newt Gingrich and numerous GOP House members of "a drug-free America by 2002," which was also introduced with loud trumpets and straight faces.)

Says Neal McCluskey of the libertarian Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom:

"Six years of No Child Left Behind, and what do we have to show for it? Stagnant reading achievement, slowed math improvements, declining academic performance versus competitor nations, and narrowed curricula, all for the bargain price of about $24 billion per year, or a 40 percent increase over fiscal year 2001.

"This pathetic return on our investment, of course, would be shocking were it not for another inconvenient truth: The federal government has been spending billions of dollars on education every year for over four decades, and it's never produced anything but academic stagnation and lighter taxpayer wallets. "Why? Because federal policy is primarily designed to do little more than let politicians show that they 'care,' and let the education establishment and its powerful lobbyists get as much money -- and as little accountability -- as possible.

"This year, Washington ought to give the entire country a present to celebrate NCLB's sixth birthday: the law's elimination, and the end of 40-plus years of expensive failure."

I haven't been writing much about my brother John, but that's because he's doing so well there is nothing to say! Connie wrote today:


Not too much to report from our place -- and that's a good thing! John is coming along as expected. He is eating and drinking well (though Guiness is not on the menu yet) and his blood tests show him to be right on track. He constantly fights the fatigue and he has to have the IV antiviral meds one more day. However, if everything keeps going well, the catheter will be pulled out in a week or so and he will be on oral antibiotics for several months.

When it comes to recovery from a life threatening illness, no news is good news.

Speaking of Jefferson Starship, here's a cool video from 1983.

 

The following is an exchange of correspondence between a customer and the Irish Railway Company:

Gentlemen, I have been riding your trains daily for the last two years, and the service on your line seems to be getting worse every day. I am tired of standing in the aisle all the time on a 14-mile trip. I think the transportation system is worse than that enjoyed by people 2,000 years ago. 

Yours truly, Patrick Finnegan

Dear Mr. Finnegan, We received your letter with reference to the shortcomings of our service and believe you are somewhat confused in your history. The only mode of transportation 2,000 years ago was by foot. 

Sincerely, Larnrod Eireann.

Gentlemen, I am in receipt of your letter, and I think you are the ones who are confused in your history. If you will refer to the Bible and the Book of David, 9th Chapter, you will find that Balaam rode to town on his ass. That, gentlemen, is something I have not been able to do on your train in the last two years! 

Yours truly, Patrick Finnegan.

Spfld Receivership Report Card

An informative look back.

 



Going through some stuff the other day I stumbled upon a printout of an old posting from 2004. It was printed the fateful day when Springfield narrowly escaped crashing into receivership and the Control Board was established instead. In the aftermath of that reprieve from disaster, I posted this report card that graded all of the Valley's major political players on how they performed - or failed to - during Springfield's darkest hour. It is educational to re-read it today:

Reprinted from
THE BAYSTATE OBJECTIVIST
July 19, 2004

Springfield is safe, at least for the moment, from the threat of receivership. That is really all that has been accomplished through the state bailout legislation. It simply puts Springfield in the position of being able to revive itself, provided the city has the will and the wisdom to do so. In that sense the real work has only just begun. The bailout gets the city back in the game, but what matters now is how we choose to play. Before the great adventure in renewal gets underway, here's a backward glance at how our local leaders conducted themselves in Springfield's hour of peril.

Charles V. Ryan

It's almost impossible to describe the awkward political position Mayor Ryan has been in. He had to point out the unfairness of the city's financial aid totals, but without angering the politicians in Boston or his own local legislative delegation. He had to show financial frugality, but without raising a squawk from the greedhead unions. He had to deal with a whining City Council, and explain it all to a confused public through a media with a guilt-induced phobia of using the d-word (as in Democrats) when discussing the causes of the crisis. Yet he somehow managed to navigate these shark-filled waters and emerge with a 52 million dollar line of credit. Can Springfield ever repay the debt of gratitude it owes to Charlie Ryan?

Grade - A-plus

Mitt Romney

Our Republican Governor has little patience for the Democrats whining because they spent too much money. Yet, despite having the power to put Springfield into receivership, Mitt and his fiscal guru Eric Kriss let the city have a chance to save itself without suffering the dictatorial powers of a state imposed receivership. The citizens of Springfield will always feel gratitude to Romney for giving the city a second chance it really didn't deserve.

Grade - A

Our State Delegation

The Valley Advocate in April of 1997 did a front page story declaring that Springfield was not receiving enough state aid in comparison to what similar size cities were getting out Boston way. Springfield's legislative delegation quickly denounced the article, claiming that when you figured in school aid the city really got more than its share. Now of course they are singing a totally different tune, with everyone using updated figures of what the Advocate pointed out years ago, because that way all the blame gets placed on Boston and the local politicians can escape scot free. It's a sad and cynical spectacle, but at the end of the day at least our delegation brought home the bacon. Only one Western Mass legislator, strict fiscal conservative Shawn Kelly, voted against the final package, which he could safely do since he is retiring this year.

Michael Knapik

Being from Westfield, nothing compelled Senator Knapik to get involved in Springfield's mess, and most of his non-Springfield colleagues chose not to. Yet Knapik understood that Springfield's problems are in many ways the region's problems, and he worked as hard as anyone to help, despite that he is unlikely to get any votes in Westfield for his efforts. For being Springfield's friend when he didn't have to be and had little to gain, he proved himself a first class legislator.

Grade - A

Brian Lees

I seem to recall he was one of those most loudly denouncing the Advocate article of 1997. Nevermind, sources tell me that without Lees' inside connections with the Romney Administration the bailout bill could never have passed.

Grade - A

Cheryl Rivera

She was Charlie's most loyal ally and passionate defender. I question her politics on a lot of things, but when it came to the bailout of Springfield then by anyone's standards, she done good.

Grade - B-plus

Gale Candaras

Although usually annoying on most issues, on the bailout bill she did a fine job.

Grade - B

Benjamin Swan

He put aside his usually irresponsible fiscal attitudes to join the team to save Springfield.

Grade - B-minus

Tom Petrolati

After all his years of kissing up to Albano, he dares to lecture us on fiscal matters?

Grade - C-minus

Chris Asselin

When he failed to appear in Boston at all on Springfield's behalf, he claimed to be involved in the debate by telephone. He then somewhat redeemed himself by being the only one to call publicly for Springfield's City Councilors to surrender their salaries. But when Asselin himself got nailed with indictments that included bribery and extortion, suddenly he didn't think politicians stepping aside was a good idea. Jail is too good for this hypocrite.

Grade - F

Linda Melconian

After snubbing Charlie Ryan on election night by not coming to congratulate him, then refusing to appear at his inauguration, it was hard to imagine how Senator Melconian could retire in a more classless manner. However she topped herself by using the fiscal crisis (which she had long denied existed) to take some parting shots at Charlie. She then attacked the Control Board because it was chosen on the basis of ability rather than skin color and gender. Well, at least we only have to put up with her for a few more months. Bye bitch, and thanks for nothing.

Grade - F-minus

Springfield City Councilors

The fiscal crisis awakened the Council from the semi-catatonic state it has been in for years. Although they then did too little, too late, some Councilors conducted themselves better than others:

Timothy Rooke

Long before any other Councilors seemed to understand the depth of the city's problems, Councilor Rooke was busy attending budget meetings and conferring with Mayor Ryan. He worked while others slept.

Grade - A-plus

Dominic Sarno

Had the Councilors had a clue of what was about to go down, they would have fought like cats and dogs over the Council presidency. Instead they just handed it to Sarno as a mostly ceremonial title, which is what it usually is. Now to the shock and dismay of his colleagues, Sarno is the only member of the Council who has any authority to vote on financial matters. The rest of the Councilors have been reduced to voting on zoning issues (yawn) and some vaguely defined "advisory" role. Although a passive Albanoite for most of his career, Sarno redeemed himself by following Charlie's lead throughout the crisis. As long as he keeps doing that, he will emerge from this with his career greatly enhanced and a leading contender to become a future mayor.

Grade - A

Angelo Puppolo

Always a sensible voice on the Council, he wisely followed Charlie's lead.

Grade - B

William Foley

Give credit where it's due - Foley was the first person to challenge Albano on financial issues, in particular the unaffordable police hires and the baseball stadium scam. On the other hand, he served as head of the Finance Committee, mindlessly approving Albano's many other forms of reckless spending. It's a wash.

Grade - C

Rosemary Mazza-Moriarty

What, one foot out the door already? She seemed too busy seeking higher office to focus on her Council duties.

Grade - D

Jose Tosado

Was he hoping that by keeping a low profile we would forget that he was an Albano stooge? Sorry, but we have forgotten nothing.

Grade - D

Bud Williams

Clueless, as usual.

Grade - D

Kateri Walsh

The dismay of Councilors Walsh and Kelly over the Control Board was in some ways understandable. I know if I had run for City Council, and if the voters were foolish enough to elect me, I don't know how happy I'd be to be shoved into an "advisory" role just six months into my two year term. However the complaints and ineffective spending cut suggestions they made couldn't have been worse timed, alarming Boston and scaring off a twenty million dollar grant. The only saving grace Walsh has is that she was not serving on the Council during the Albano years, although she was a strong Albano backer behind the scenes. Like so many others who supported Albano, she now has a lot to live down.

Grade - D-minus

Dan Kelly

This Albano puppet has essentially committed political suicide. All that remains is for the voters to take their revenge at the polls should he dare to run again.

Grade - F

Other Players

Richard Neal

Somebody tell Hoods to put this guy on a milk carton! While the largest city in his district was going down the tubes, The Congressman was totally missing, remaining silent as the Sphinx. Maybe he was hoping people would forget that Springfield's downward spiral really began in earnest under his mayoralty. It's a shame he has no opposition for re-election this year.

Grade - F

The Rebels

Now that the city has all but collapsed financially and is swamped with corruption scandals, it is important to remember that there were those over the years who repeatedly warned us that this day was coming. Now indeed that day of reckoning has arrived, and for the very reasons those local heroes said it would. I'm thinking of people like Doug Ariel, Peter Jurzinski, Dan Yorke, Al Giordano, Mo Turner, Eamon O' Sullivan, Kevin Noonan, Bob and Karen Powell, Stephanie Kraft, Pete Sygnatore, Tom Vannah, Mitch Ogulewicz, Bax and O'Brien, Michaelann Bewsee, Tony Gill, Sheila McElwaine and many others. There was even this nut running around shoving a publication at everybody called The Baystate Objectivist. But whatever their contributions, large or small, public or private, each worked in their own way to prevent the decline of Springfield, despite being marginalized or even ridiculed for their efforts. Each deserve our gratitude for continuing to fight for what was right even when it was difficult, even dangerous to do so. Today these rebels stand fully and completely vindicated as the verdict of history is in: The establishment that opposed them was totally wrong, while the rebels were completely right about everything.

Grade - A-triple-plus!

Talking about sleazy politicians, can you believe the latest about Massachusetts Senator John Kerry - shown below with his political equal?

I'm no fan of Kerry's running mate in 2004, John Edwards, but I think it's disgraceful the total lack of loyalty Kerry showed in endorsing Edwards' opponent Barack Obama yesterday. But of course Al Gore showed the same lack of class when he refused to back his running mate Joe Lieberman of Connecticut when he ran for president. Voters should take note once again that these Democrats can be a backstabbing bunch!


Someone sent me what are supposedly some real life examples of passages collected by English teachers from High School essays. They sure are funny, with some of them so bad they are actually good.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

5. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

6. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

7. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

8. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

9. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

10. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

11. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

12. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

13. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

14. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

15. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

16. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

17. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

18. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Cyber Cafe

And assorted photos.

Like all vibrant economic communities, Northampton is subject to periodic change according to the economic version of the Darwinian law of survival of the fittest. While I was away in rehab this new shop The Green Bean appeared. I haven't been there, and I'm not even sure what kind of food they serve, but it has to be better than the hot dog joint that preceded it. No wonder that went out of business, the service was lousy and the prices were outrageous!

Before the hot dog joint there was something at that location called The JavaNet Cybercafe. Here is a picture of it by E.H. Kramer.

The cyber-cafe was a concept that swept the Valley and the nation in the 1990's. The basic business model was that you would drink expensive coffee while you paid by the hour to surf the net on computers attached to the coffee tables. The cost to surf was sometimes as high as eight dollars per hour!

It was a business that exploited the scarcity of computer access in the early years of the internet revolution. But when people started to get personal computers and laptops and then virtually everyone had internet access either at home or at work (or both) then who the hell was gonna pay eight dollars an hour to check their e-mail?

The shame is that aside from the computers the JavaNet Cybercafe was a great coffeehouse in its own right. It had a really nice atmosphere that was cozy and intellectual while the downstairs lounge was a hot gay pick-up spot. I'm sorry it went out of business.

In the window near The Green Bean is this testimonial to the fact that Northampton is a good and caring community.

One of the weird things about the Massachusetts bottle bill is that it doesn't include water or juice bottles. To its credit, Northampton has put up these special trash barrels to bring those containers into the recycling stream. 

Like a ghostly vision from the past, this ancient hairdresser sign still faces modern passerby on Main Street. It seems nearly everyone fails to notice it. 

Here is the former location of the infamous Rahars. For many years it was Northampton's Party Central.

 



In certain years I spent a lot of time there, and if I told you all that went down it would burn out the both of your ears.

This is the current Northampton Peter Pan Bus Station.

Years ago it was located across the street where the big parking garage is now located. The bus station then was this little white shack where I was once stranded for hours during the blizzard of '78 while waiting for a bus to Springfield. 

The building next door seems to have been made into expensive condos, but it was once a real dump of a dive where some of my friends lived in the '80's. It was during a time when we were getting into pharmaceuticals like Valium, quaaludes, darvons and codeine-based stuff and for a while we called ourselves The Drugstore Cowboys. My friend Chuck even drew a big cowboy hat on the board that covered one of the broken upstairs windows. It remained there for years and became something of a landmark even after my friends had moved on.

People used to wonder, "What on Earth is that drawing of a cowboy hat doing on that building?"

In Amherst on the UMass campus pond this sign warning of thin ice does not seem to alarm these wayward Cape Cod seagulls.

Everyday this week this giant crane has been putting stuff on the roof of the UMass Fine Arts Center. New roof? Solar panels?

On my way to UMass this morning I passed this sign urging people to participate in a futile impeachment march.

 



Speaking of politics, John McCain appears to be making a comeback! But let's not take these early contests too seriously. Remember, it is the final vote at the nominating conventions this summer that will determine the winner. This is where the delegate count for those conventions stand as of today, illustrating how early we are in the process:

Republican Delegates (1,191 needed to win nomination)

Rudy Giuliani 0
Mike Huckabee 31
Duncan Hunter 1
John McCain 7
Ron Paul 0
Mitt Romney 29
Fred Thompson 3

Democratic Delegates (2,026 needed to win nomination)

Hillary Clinton 24
John Edwards 18
Mike Gravel 0
Dennis Kucinich 0
Barack Obama 25
Bill Richardson 0

The Quebec piece by Ben Duffy (above right with writer David Horowitz) has received some unexpected amount of attention, including a link from the Wall Street Journal. Read all about it by clicking here.

Someone sent me a poem. 

 The washing machines 

I love the laundromat.
There's nothing
pretentious there.
Just a jury of washing
machines and dryers
and I love them because
they're never crude
or obstreperous.
There's potential
for a lifetime friendship
there.
The washing machines
have no need to attend
A.A. meetings because
those angels have been
sober all their lives
austere and dignified
They never stumble
in the door late at
night and make everyone
miserable.
I choose to worship
and pray with them
and no others. 

Springfield and the Culture of Greed

A fresh overview of the Pellegrino case.

 



There is a great internet resource designed primarily for practicing attorneys called FindLaw.com. However, it can occasionally offer up information useful to the general public on court cases that may not have received all of the attention they really deserved. Such omissions are commonplace in our local media.

I was recently intrigued to read FindLaw's account of one of the more infamous legal scandals of the Albano mayoralty, the matter involving alleged double-dipping by former Springfield Parking Authority Director Kathleen Pelligrino, the matriarch of Springfield's politically high profile Pelligrino family. Her husband was a judge, and her son Raipher was a City Councilor once thought to have a promising career before he got booted from office by voters concerned about his increasingly close relationships with some of the bad boys of the Albano era.

According to Findlaw, here was the crux of the controversy:

On August 17, 2001, Pellegrino entered into two virtually identical personal services contracts, one of which was between her, the city, and the SPA (the city-SPA contract), and the other between only her and the SPA (the SPA contract). Pursuant to the city-SPA contract, it appears to have been intended that Pellegrino be an employee of the city, which paid her salary, while the SPA was required to "reimburse" the city for the full amount of this salary. A principal goal of the arrangement was to entitle Pellegrino to participate in the city retirement program....

After the city announced an early retirement incentive program for its employees, Pellegrino asserted her status as a city employee. While continuing to provide the identical services to the SPA, she took early retirement from the city and proceeded to collect city employee retirement benefits as governed by G. L. c. 32, in the amount of $54,588 annually. At the same time, she collected her SPA salary directly from the SPA at the full rate previously paid, such that, after "retirement," Pellegrino's pay increased to approximately $145,963 per year.

A public uproar ensued over the fact that a public employee could "retire" from the city, yet continue to go to work and collect her pay! The matter was further inflamed when it was discovered that most of the work done by the parking authority was contracted out to a private company, leaving in question whether Pellegrino's position was even needed or whether she actually did anything to earn her generous salary.

I knew Kathleen Pelligrino a little bit, and liked her. She was a friend of Kateri Walsh, whom I used to appear regularly with on the WHYN radio show The Reporters Roundtable starring Kateri Walsh. I found Pellegrino to be intelligent, professional and friendly. She had also been something of a local feminist pioneer, holding a number of achievements unusual for women, especially in the educational field. So when the scandal first broke I could hardly believe that it was the same Kathleen Pelligrino. It just didn't sound like the sort of sketchy affair she would be involved in.

However, when I saw her being interviewed on TV there was no denying it was Kateri's friend. In a telling moment, when the reporter asked her if she felt that her arrangement might be unfair to the taxpayers, Pellegrino looked genuinely startled, as if the fact that the interests of the taxpayers were involved had never occurred to her before! So ingrained was the culture of greed, privilege and corruption in the insider culture she occupies that she was oblivious to the possibility that there were any moral issues involved.

Even worse, her feminist background caused her to further embarrass herself by arguing that it was okay for her to collect two checks because there were male city employees before her who had done the same. She did not identify those employees, nor did the local media reveal them, but I'm certain they existed. Only in Springfield during the Albano era could she argue that she was a victim of sexual discrimination because she was denied the opportunity to be as sleazy as a male appointee! Pellegrino ultimately tried to sue the city but was slapped down by the court which proclaimed:

G. L. c. 32, § 91, "reflects a clear policy that an employee of a governmental unit in Massachusetts generally may not retire, receive a pension, accept employment elsewhere in the government, and, by combining her pension and her new compensation, make more money than if she had not retired."

Kathleen Pelligrino became an object of derision and scorn who was widely ridiculed as "Klepto Pellegreedo." While her public humiliation was in some ways deserved, she was more the victim of the culture of greed that has existed in city government long before she attempted to "retire." It was simply her misfortune to have been the person that brought that culture of greed out into the open and had to withstand the public backlash.

I regret that I was unable to attend the inauguration ceremonies yesterday for Springfield Mayor Dominic Sarno. However, I had an appointment with my drug rehab councilor yesterday morning and couldn't cancel it just to listen to some politician's flowery speeches.

However, it wasn't the flowery speeches I wanted to go hear. I wanted to see who was in the audience! That is a far more reliable way to judge what the Sarno Administration will be like - not by who is onstage, but by who felt it politically necessary to be in the room! Oh well, there will opportunities aplenty in the coming days to take the measure of the Sarno era. In the meantime, for the highlights of what happened on stage, check out this Bill Dusty video.

Prayers Answered!

The Stem Cells are Alive!

 

Brother John

Hey everybody! Here's some fantastic news from my sister-in-law Connie:

We received a beautiful bouquet of cut flowers about a week ago and they have lasted so long. Still I was surprised this morning to see a brand new huge pink lily that just blossomed. I am suspicious. "God, are you giving me a message?" Very soon after that, John called to triumphantly shout, "I have engrafted! My white count was 200! Whoopee!" So the stem cells are blossoming and will most likely take off and double every day now. Success! As soon as the white cells start to work, they will help out with the mouth sores, shingles, and fatigue. As soon as he can get back to eating and drinking adequately, he can go back to the apartment.

One hesitates to be too confident when dealing with such a little understood disease and with stem cell technology that is on the frontiers of medical science, but the fact that the stem cells are growing means that the transplant was almost certainly a success! The long nightmare is finally ending - my brother is going to live!

Since the day that I first discovered my brother by accident on Google there has followed an almost supernatural series of events that defy all normal concepts of probability. Each of you who have followed this incredible saga on any level have been witnesses to what is virtually a miracle. As hard as it has been at times to unearth long buried family secrets, to integrate my brother into his biological family and to watch his life threatening medical struggle, it has also been very mind-expanding and spiritually enriching. Thank you everyone for all your prayers and words of support.

Here is a picture I found today on the internet of a stem cell.

Gee, I hadn't realized how much they resemble marijuana buds!

This morning I had to go see one of my drug rehab councilors. My appointment was in the same building in Northampton that houses the Iron Horse Music Hall.

The lobby has one of the largest arrays of free papers in Northampton. It's too bad that The Reminder is unavailable in Hamp.

When I got off the elevator, I took this picture out the window of the city below. 

 

Here's the view from the same window but at a different angle. 

My councilor tells me, "Let go and let God and everything will turn out okay."


Did you read the latest column by George Will? If not then you should by clicking here.