Hobbled Hampshire

My wanderings over the past week have brought me to the campus of Hampshire College. Here's Johnson Library, a really cool place.

In fact "a really cool place" is a phrase you often heard about Hampshire College in general over the past half-century. But lately, not so much, at least when it comes to finances. Hampshire appears to be hobbled by a life or death fiscal crisis as the college president and several board members have abruptly resigned.

However, as I traversed the gorgeous Hampshire campus, hands-down the prettiest of the Five College system, I could detect no sense of impending doom. This sign announcing a pro-abortion conference, however, may be one small symptom of what has gone wrong.

Like a lot of Liberal Arts schools, Hampshire's once famously free style has been choked by political correctness. Good grief, even their gym has a pro-abortion sign overhead!

For some reason, people appear to be reluctant to spend over $50,000 per year to be turned into an unemployable social justice warrior so buried in debt you have decades of monthly bills as big as a mortgage payment - except you don't have a house. Hampshire's problems are just the symptoms of a wider crisis in higher education, which is that colleges today have become absurdly expensive, indoctrinate more than educate and do a poor job of preparing students for productive lives.

Only when this changes will students once again be willing to go to college in sufficient numbers to sustain small colleges like Hampshire. Right now, the smartest kids are avoiding college altogether and just plunging into whatever interests them, learning their field from the bottom up. Such people do not remain on the bottom for very long, and they by-pass all the leftist hooey and ruinous expense of what passes for a college education today.

Hampshire may be fading, but already gone is the Northampton Faces, a Valley commercial fixture since its origins decades ago in Amherst. The day after they closed, a mysterious wreath appeared in their doorway.

Lo and behold, it was a sympathy wreath from Packards, the bar around the corner.

Northampton's downtown business environment is the most cut-throat in the Valley, as merchants compete for dominance in our area's most successful downtown market. But bonds of friendship still form across the business district, and whenever a member goes down, the whole commercial community is saddened.

On a happier note, UMass had their literary bake sale, where students make funny and punny spoofs of famous books. This is so corny I had to laugh.

Never has a chocolate cake looked less appetizing.

Meanwhile, I was in arty mode this weekend as I attended an opening at the Oxbow Gallery on Pleasant Street in Hamp.

There was a good crowd.

I was never previously aware of the joint, but I'll be back.

The gallery undoubtedly gets its name from the nearby Oxbow section of the Connecticut River, which was painted by Thomas Cole in 1836 and entitled, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm. Learn all about this Pioneer Valley masterpiece in the video below.

Casino Quickie

Last week while I was in Springfield, I made a quick stop at the MGM casino, just to see what was going down. Across the street from Union Station, the former Peter Pan bus station is completely leveled.

That end of Main Street shows little improvement attributable to the casino, as seen by this trash strewn doorway.

I was shocked to see that the old City Hall hangout Cafe du Jour has closed. It was a great place for politico spotting. Owner Khaled Saleh told 22News, the landlord has refused to renew the lease.

Soon I arrived at the casino itself.

Just inside the door is this great mural based on a photo of a bustling downtown around a century ago.

By contrast, the Main Street of today was not quite so vibrant, but then I was there early.

The casino itself, however, was pretty lively, especially since it was only around 10:30am. As usual, the food court had steady customers.

The casino is not performing at the level that was hoped for, nor is it having as much of an economic impact on the surrounding area to the degree that was hoped. However, there has been a slow, but steady stream of announcements of new economic developments directly related to the casino. So, although the pace has been gradual, economic growth is occurring and the trends are still moving in the right direction.

Meanwhile, there was a Johnny Cash fan in Northampton recently.

Look at this corny sign in Urban Outfitters.

What on Earth? Faces is closing!

Thank God the nearby Haymarket shows no signs of going out of business.

Here's a video someone made in February showing Northampton from the front of the Academy of Music.

be positive

Littleton Street

I'm best known in the Valley as being a guy from Pine Point, but not too many know that when I was a little kid I lived in Hungry Hill at 151 Littleton Street.

Both my parents grew up in the Point, but when my father got out of the service, they couldn't afford a house in their old neighborhood. Therefore, we lived on the Hill until they could afford to return to their beloved Pine Point.

My main memory of that period is how when I was in kindergarten at Liberty School, I once got my parents to agree to let me sleep in the big, old garage behind the house in a wagon (blue, not red) with some blankets and pillows. My parents were just humoring me, thinking that when I was alone in the dark I would quickly decide to come inside to the safety of my own bed.

They were wrong.

When my parents decided they were going to bed (and both were real night owls), my father had to come out and carry me back inside. I remember how I was so disappointed to wake up and discover that somehow I had ended up back in my own bed. Anyway, here's a video I made on a visit to my kiddie stomping grounds last week.

The plans for the Extravaganja 2019 are up, which you can check out here. One of the bands featured is Shobazoba, a band that was involved in a controversy some years back for being cancelled by Hampshire College for being too white! Here's a video of their music:

Wonking With Neal

Western Mass Congressman Richard Neal was at UMass yesterday afternoon as seen below in this photo taken at the event by Judith Gibson-Okunieff.

Of course I attended, and when I arrived at the Old Chapel where the event was held, there were protesters by the door.

The socialist flavor of the moment.

Suddenly Neal himself appeared in our midst, waving a greeting.

One of the woman protesters shouted at Neal, "Why are you the only member of the Massachusetts delegation that hasn't endorsed the Green New Deal?" Neal then stopped to directly confront her.

First he asked her who she was, to which she replied, "I'm from Easthampton, I'm one of your constituents," and then she added, "When are you going to hold a town meeting so we can tell you why we want the Green New Deal?"

Neal responded firmly, "I already agree with a lot of its aspirations, but sorry, I can't support anything until I can find the money to pay for it."

The Congressman then entered the Chapel, as the woman turned to the other protesters and asked, "What do we say when told we can't afford it?" The tone of her voice suggested she had never thought of the fiscal side of the Green New Deal before.

The Old Chapel, which holds around a 120 people, was over 90% full, but not nearly the crowd of students that showed up at Amherst College last month for former Republican Governor John Kasich.

As it turned out, the doorway confrontation with the protesters was about as lively as the event got, with Neal's talk being heavy on insider insights into pending legislation before Neal's Ways and Means Committee. I found most of these topics interesting, but I suspect a lot of Neal's talk about pension reform, infrastructure negotiations and changes in tax law pretty much went over the heads of most of the people present.

The average person doesn't usually follow these fiscal issues to the degree of depth to be able to fully appreciate what Neal was talking about. In fact, the moderator, Professor Lee Badgett of the Department of Economics, repeatedly requested Neal to provide background information, such as the meaning of something he kept referring to as SALT, which Neal then explained as being an acronym for state and local taxes.

You can read more about the whole policy wonk fest here.

BLM

What on Earth?

What is this logo for the racist, cop-hating group Black Lives Matter doing on a banner hanging in the middle of Amherst?

If there are haters in Amherst who subscribe to the twisted views of Black Lives Matter, then that is their prerogative, but the group's message of deceit, division and hatred should not be imposed on the entire citizenry by this banner. Whoever is responsible for choosing which banners get to be strung across the road should be replaced by someone with better judgement and a formal apology issued to the entire community.

Meanwhile, down the road at UMass the new addition to the Isenberg School of Management opened in January, but somebody didn't order enough letters.

Then just recently a crane was parked outside.

Voila!

It's been pretty snowy lately.

Makes it hard to get the paper.

This is my favorite Northampton snow video.

Lumenating

Last November, the marijuana store opened in Northampton.

The volume of customers was so great that they had to set up porta-potties outdoors for those waiting in line, which of course had to be cleaned periodically.

In any case, one of the great advantages of marijuana legalization is that you no longer have to smoke it, you can eat it instead, which sidesteps all the dangers that come with huffing the stuff into your lungs. I've tried a number of the edible products available, and these Lumens (essentially gum drops with a kick) are my hands down favorites.

I don't take them very often, and I am certainly not the druggie I used to be - thank goodness - but I do take marijuana candy. Hey, what can I say? Marijuana is the only drug that never bit me! If still getting mildly stoned sometimes makes me a loser and a weakling, then I can only state the wise words of that immortal philosopher Popeye the Sailor:

I yam what I yam.

Based on my own research, here is a guide to Lumen dose levels:

Take 1 gum drop: You'll smile.

Take 2 gum drops: You'll giggle.

Take 3 gum drops: You'll laugh hysterically.

Take 4 gum drops: You'll trip balls.

Take 5 gum drops: You'll never do that again.

One of the risks that come with smoking pot or tobacco is the chance of getting lung cancer. Passing by the old courthouse this morning, I came across the charity campout for the Cancer Connection, an organization I whole heartedly support, as both my parents died of lung cancer.

The event is put on each year by radio dude Monte Belmonte, who always dresses up for the occasion, this time as Elvis. The burning barrel is because it is so freakin' cold out today!

The King did not arrive in a pink Cadillac, but this will do.

This is not the first time that Elvis has appeared at that location, as seen in these 2009 pics. That is not Monty, but Elvis is sorta like mall Santas, they're everywhere!

Here is an appearance by an Elvis in Northampton in 2016.

Dave V.

I regret hearing that longtime Springfield politico Dave Vigneault has died at the age of 82. Here's a picture I took of him years ago that the media has stolen and spread all over the place uncredited. Oh well, at least they steal from the best.

Dave was easy to get a picture of because it seemed he was everywhere, as if no local political event of any importance ever occurred that he was not in attendance. His activism was of a passionate but humble sort, I remember him setting up chairs in the Pine Point Library for a debate between Brian Lees and Frankie Keough, despite the fact that he had once been the State Representative for the Pine Point neighborhood. Dave was supporting Keough, who would later go to prison on an array of corruption charges. I was not a fan of Vigneault's political career, nor were most Pine Pointers at the end of it. Vigneault was a strong supporter of the disastrous school busing program imposed on the city in the early 70's and most of the residents of Pine Point were furious with him for it. Media accounts said he left office because he felt "burnt out" but the truth is he had by that time become unelectable.

Next to the closing of the Springfield Armory, the busing program was the single greatest contributor to Springfield's tragic decline. The resulting white flight sent people who had lived in Pine Point (and throughout the city) fleeing for the suburbs, permanently changing those neighborhoods as the city lost a big chunk of its upper and middle class taxpayers. With 20/20 hindsight we can now see that none of the Utopian fantasies of racial harmony through busing actually came to pass, while all the negatives that were predicted, like white flight, neighborhood destabilization and erosion of the tax base became all too true. Dave Vigneault's political legacy will forever be tarnished by his role in supporting that ruinous policy.

The truth is you could generally count on Dave to be wrong on nearly every issue, which apparently was true to the very end, as it has been reported that he was out campaigning for Bernie Sanders at the age of 80. Yet, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, here is Dave in front of the former Pine Point Library holding a sign for Charlie Ryan in 2005.

Some of the media coverage described Vigneault as a "reformer" but I always considered him an inside player. It takes no courage whatsoever to be a liberal Democrat in Western Massachusetts. (Yesterday I saw a student walking across the UMass campus wearing a red MAGA hat - THAT takes courage!) Vignealt was indeed fully embedded in the local political machine, and those of us activists who were working to clean up the incompetent and corrupt Democrat machine in Springfield never counted him as an ally. His posthumous statements of praise read like a Who's Who of the political elite, including none other than William Bulger (brother of Whitey) who was probably the least reform-minded Senate President you could imagine. Indeed, Vigneault actually worked for Bulger at one point. I wonder if Vigneault ever overheard Bulger taking phone calls from his fugitive brother in his Senate office, as suggested by the FBI? If so, Vigneault carried that info to his grave.

I don't think Dave fully approved of me, although he was always very nice when I would go to the polls and see him standing outside, usually holding a sign in each hand for entrenched establishment figures we true reformers were trying to throw out of office. But in the long run Dave Vigneault will not be remembered for his misguided views, or the legislative record that enraged his constituents, or the insider games he played with the power players. Dave Vigneault will be remembered instead for being that guy that was always around the scene, helping in small but meaningful ways to make the political process work. Vignealt's death comes less than six months after the loss of a similarly once ubiquitous figure in Springfield politics, Mildred Dunbar. Like her, Dave was often the first to arrive and the last to leave an event, always willing to do the unglamorous grunt work of democracy without which it cannot function. I fear we have too few activist role models like Dave and Millie today, and we still need them.

 

Meanwhile, I took a picture out the bus window the other day, just as a protest was forming in front of City Hall over the national emergency declaration to build a wall on our southern border.