Too Much Information?

Anybody who has covered the rowdy student party scene over the past year should know how weather related the problem is:  the better the weather the larger and more pernicious the parties.

Amherst Town Center 12:00 Noon

Tonight promises to be a summer-like warm and clear -- probably the best Friday night weather since the semester started.  And the weekends have certainly been nothing if not calamitous since the semester began.

Thus I question whether the local newspapers should have mentioned prominently that UMPD and APD beefed up, joint patrols specifically targeting rowdy party houses will start next weekend. 

It does however give me an idea for a twitter hashtag tonight: #LastchanceFriday

Wield a Big Stick

Even the diffident Amherst Bulletin has, after all these years, finally gotten it!

About the only thing missing in today's scorching editorial is an illustration borrowed from Vlad the Impaler with students heads on display at the former Frat Row -- the main gateway to UMass, and with streets like Fearing, Phillips and Lincoln Avenue, Ground Zero for rowdy, unsocial, dangerous out-of-control partying (like it's 1999).

As we discovered on 9/11 with the horrific destruction of the Twin Towers or the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi 4 days in to a grueling 31 day battle, symbols are vitally important in war.

The bucolic -- some would say bumpkin -- college town of Amherst, named after a British general, and the flagship of higher education in a state renowned for academia, UMass/Amherst, need to declare war on rowdy student parties.

And they both need to stop taking prisoners!

Achilles Heel

 New Cisco emitters await being installed on streetlights in the town center

The public WiFi overhaul bringing downtown Amherst a stronger more reliable system has potentially one minor problem with reliability (actually kind of major):  a power failure like the one we experienced almost a year ago on Halloween weekend will take out most of the system, as the vast majority of the 24 new emitters are still tied into the street lights for power.

Note huge spike in traffic to town website seeking info immediately after storm 

Last year, because the main router is located in Town Hall and the municipal seat of government had no generator, the entire system went down lock, stock and bandwidth.  Although the town website did stay up the entire time since the servers for our presence on the Web are located in Holyoke in one of the few areas unaffected by the storm. 

A new $85,000 generator is being installed soon, but will only cover the building itself and not any of the adjacent street lights.   

The Police station and Central Fire Station have generators and are being outfitted with the new Cisco emitters, as will Town Hall.   So if we do experience another major prolonged power outage, those three buildings will attract us smart phones and tablets addicts like insects to a bright light on a hot summer night.

The Shadow Knows!

 "Who Knows What Evil Lurks In the Hearts of Men ..."

So if I really were a Fox News fanatical parrot, I would now be squawking about this morning's above the fold front page photo appearing in my favorite Massachusetts newspaper, 7th largest in the state, The Republican.

Besides being a lousy photo -- especially for the AP -- one could Tweet that they decapitated the guy standing in for Mitt Romney.  Not only that, but the shadow they so "artfully" wish to highlight looks like it's giving a Nazi salute (from a Nazi who lost his right arm in combat).  Yikes!

Anyone remember when Time magazine artfully photoshopped a cover pic of O.J. Simpson to make him look more sinister?  Or speaking of Fox News, the "bombshell" video they are currently playing that makes the president seem at tad too, err, black.

In politics this is called the "muddy season".  And for a good reason.  I just expect a little more from the AP (or Time Magazine, if they are still in business).

Online version (interesting fair-and-balanced pic of the President)

The Little School That Could

 Old School indeed

Forty years ago when I was at St Michael's High School suffering discipline at the wrinkled hands of scary nuns you could learn a lot about another school from their basketball team.  Back then Hopkins Acadamy was a winner.

So it comes as no surprise that they hold up well when compared academically to the paragon of education in the Happy Valley, Amherst Regional High School.  According to SchoolDigger.com, using the new MCAS scores just announced, ARHS has a rating of 123 out of 325 or top 38% in the state.  Hopkins Academy on the other hand has a ranking of 94/325 or top 29%

But the astounding difference is in the financial component of each operation.  According the Mass Dept of Education website, Amherst is in the top 11% statewide for costs per student at $17,916 while our neighbors in Hadley manage to run their schools coming  in at the bottom 1% for costs, or $9,770  per student.

Thus Hadley educates its 301 middle and high schools students for a cost savings of $2,508,233 had they been enrolled in the ARHS and ARMS.  Of course one telling difference is Hadley only has one administrator making over $85K and the Amherst Region has over 20.

Yes, Hadley has less of a minority population and a much higher percentage of home ownership (three quarters vs Amherst's one half).  But they still have farms, like they did 40 years ago, so kids can learn the value of hard work.  And that is priceless.

Tale of the Tape according to US News:

Hopkins Academy

Amherst Regional High School

Cat On A Cool Stone Wall

Party House of the Weekend

 1107 North Pleasant Street, Amherst

In addition to being assaulted with cans, bottles and pepper spray this past weekend, responding Amherst police officers also had to dodge beer poured from the second story of this humble abode just north of campus.

Yes, 1107 North Pleasant street is a repeat offender although the cars in the driveway are different from last year, so probably the perps are also different. Maybe the house is haunted and makes denizens act that way, or perhaps the landlord is lousy at screenting tenants.

Arrested late Friday night for Resisting Arrest and Underage Drinking:

Kyle Edward Darosa, 106 Edgement, Braintree, MA, age 19 (UMass student)

Arrested for Noise and Nuisance House:

Bryan Gudewich, 31 Meadow St, Lowell, MA,  age 21, (UMass student)
Adam Harrington, 21 Michael Ave,  Nashua, NH, age 21, (UMass student)
John Bulman, 7 Laurel Lane, Tyngsborough, MA, age 22, (UMass student)
William Collins, 9 Winter St, Tyngsborough, MA, age 21, (UMass student)

 #####

Another busy weekend for AFD with alcohol or drug overdoses (ETOH) and false alarms from UMass Frats 

AFD Weekend Run Summary 9-28-2012