But it's no laughing matter for the street people.
But nothing fazes UMass, where the students are busy recruiting for their groups, such as the UMass Democrat Club.
And the UMass Republicans.
Someone sent me this claiming it happened at "a local college" but doesn't say which college or the name of the professor. Still, the point is well taken, wherever it comes from.
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialist economic policies were superior because under socialism no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class in socialism." All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade. No one will fail but no one will receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The A students who studied hard were upset because their grade was lowered to a B and the students who got C's, D's and F's were happy because their grades were raised. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too, so they studied less.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame mongering and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings until no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor explained to them that socialism would always ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when the government takes the reward away through taxation, no one will try or want to succeed.
An icy block of arctic air has settled on top of our Valley.
All the snow makes a mess of everyone's floors, as demonstrated by the Haymarket Cafe.
Perhaps no modern Republican Governor of Massachusetts was more determined to revive the Republican Party in Massachusetts than William Weld (above). It was an admirable goal, since one party governance didn't work in the old Soviet Union, doesn't work today in North Korea and it certainly hasn't worked in Massachusetts, which is swamped by debt and facing even more ruinous losses once the Feds stop subsidizing Massachusetts' fiscally failing attempt to create a universal health care system.
Yet even Weld eventually threw up his hands in despair of reviving the GOP, famously describing the Massachusetts Republican Party as "a shoot-out in a rowboat," suggesting that if the party exerted half the energy it devotes to attacking fellow party members and directed that energy against the Democrats they would be far better off. Most Massachusetts Democrats are such easy targets, with rampant corruption and incompetence at every level, that only the Republican's self-sabotaging divisions can explain their failure.
How bad is the infighting? Frankly, I've known people who ran for office as Republicans in Western Mass who at the end of their losing race told me that their experiences left them feeling more hatred towards the Massachusetts Republican Party than for their Democrat opponent. In fact they claimed their Democrat opponent treated them with more respect. That may explain why there is such a constant stream of one hit wonders in the party, activists who make a big splash at first and then vanish, never to be heard from again.
The latest crop of masochists fighting to take on the thankless job of leading the party are David D'Arcangelo, a public relations man from Malden who wants to reform the party's image, businessman Richard Green, who believes the party should run on their principles, win or lose, and Kirsten Hughes, who wants the Mass Republicans to distance themselves from the national party in order to appeal to more moderates and liberals. Thus far Green is in the lead with 34 committed votes, and Hughes is second with 32. 41 votes are needed for a majority. D'Arcangelo has no committed votes, but may emerge as the compromise candidate should the Green/Hughes contest deadlock.
I've supported a number of Republican candidates over the years, not because of any great love for the Party of Lincoln but because I've thought any Republican would be a step up from the usually corrupt and/or incompetent incumbent Democrat they were running against. Many times my featherweight endorsement was the only public endorsement those GOPers received, although the Republicans have seldom praised me for my efforts on their behalf, as they usually find me too libertarian and too queer. That's okay, I take the Groucho Marx approach to partisan politics - I refuse to belong to any organization that would have me as a member.
Yet, somehow we have to restore a functioning two party democracy in Massachusetts, if only to keep the Democrats a little bit honest. Let's hope whoever the next chairman turns out to be that they can unite the party and then give the Democrats the electoral challengers they so richly deserve. The MassGOP State Committee Meeting and Election of Chairperson will be held at Verve Crowne Plaza, 1360 Worcester Street, Natick Mass (RT 9) on January 31st at 7pm. The public is invited to attend. Here's a video from a debate between the candidates for chairman held last week.
John was stoned when he made this.
Jorma in 1972.
Think how lucky I was to come of age as an artist in the Sixties when the art of the time was inextricably entwined with the evolving culture. The music, the graphic art, spoken work and literature was a touchstone for the times. I realize that it is a cheap shot to compare the musical scene of the Sixties and Seventies with today. What I perceive of today is such a soft target. The artists that become visible and pass for today’s mainstream are far more proficient as musicians, players and singers, whatever than we ever were and yet to what end? To me, the music was a means to convey a story. Now, not every story has to be War And Peace, sometimes it’s just Goldilocks And The Three Bears, but a good story is always a good story. On those rare occasions when I listen to mainstream ‘popular’ musicians, I find very few stories worth listening to and I’d like to think that it is not just because I’m an old coot. - Jorma Kaukonen, January 11, 2013.
Sunrise upon the woodland way into downtown Northampton.
Baby it was cold this morning!
Cooking breakfast at the Amherst Survival Center today.
Winter is almost half over and my friend still has plenty of wood left.
Last spring when I first heard the tune "Call Me Maybe" I said, "Wow, what a catchy hook!" Then I saw the video and thought it was sexy and cute. However, by mid-summer, when the song was so saturating the airwaves that even President Obama commented on it, I was about ready to strangle the next person who played it! However, I see from this totally re-worked Heavy Metal version that it was simply misplayed as a pop song, no surprise since as we all know that everything goes better with Metal.
Whoa, after that dream I don't wanna go back to bed, so I think I'll take a walk downtown instead....
Northampton at the break of dawn.
First rays of the rising sun hit the buildings of downtown Northampton.
According to the Boston Business Journal, before they raise taxes on Massachusetts' workers the legislature should pause to consider the true causes of the financial crisis in Massachusetts:
It is a fascinating question why a state government that already collects some $22 billion from its citizens needs to raise another billion to fund a basic government service. Part of the answer is Massachusetts public transportation has been slowly suffocated by political incompetence and indifference. And part of the answer is state government funding increasingly is absorbed by fixed costs related to the unrealistic and unsustainable promises politicians made to government unions. Our tax dollars increasingly fund retirement benefits that are unheard of in the private sector. There’s less and less left for stuff like buses and bridges.
ATTENTION ELIZABETH WARREN: THE MIDDLE CLASS IS GETTING HAMMERED! WHERE ARE YOU??? Read more here.
Yesterday I had to leave behind the tranquility of the babbling brook by my house and head into the Big City.
22 seconds of the Connecticut River along Route 5.
Finally I arrived in ol' Pine Point.
There was a car accident in front of the Pine Point Library.
This looks interesting. Are there ominous parallels between the War on Terror and the Spanish Inquisition?
Clerics were given authority to use torture in a document issued by the pope in 1252. They were also given advice manuals with instructions for interrogating suspected heretics. Murphy says he was astonished by the similarities between the Inquisitor advice manual and modern-day guides for intelligence agencies and police departments.
"You see that everything that is being suggested now had already been anticipated," he says. "For instance, you want to spook the person you're interrogating. [The Inquisitors] have a whole bunch of tricks they lay out. The person to be interrogated comes into the room and the inquisitor [advice manual advises]: 'Be sitting there. Have a huge stack of documents in front of you. And as the person is answering questions, flip through the documents as if you have more information than this person could dream of. And every so often, shake your head as if you can't believe what they're saying.' It's almost word for word, you find the same thing in modern handbooks."
Jay is still living in a small apartment in New York City, but at least he's paying for it by playing music. Bob Dylan said, "Anybody that gets up in the morning and does what they want is a success." Note that there is no mention of income levels in that definition.
The UMass ducks were enjoying a few fading moments of serenity this morning before 20,000 kids hit town like a hurricane this weekend as the students return from winter break.
