Classic Jonathan Melle

Photo is Amherst's classic congressman, John Olver.

Fellow Pittsfield native Jonathan Melle observes Massachusetts politics from the Live Free or Die state. Reprinting his views here (see below) is not an edorsement.
9/10/2007

What do John Olver and Jon Melle have in common?

Dear News Media, Politicians & the People:

The answer to the above question is...ANDREA F. NUCIFORO, Junior, (aka Luciforo)!

To explain, John Olver is the long-standing sitting United States Representative for most of Western Massachusetts. Unlike the incumbent Congressman from Amherst, Massachusetts(John Olver), Nuciforo, of Pittsfield/Boston, is a minion of the "John Forbes Kerry, Martin Meehan, Barney Frank...special interest political machine" ran by the large financial institutions in and around Boston. The Corporate Elite in Boston wants Nuciforo elected to Congress, thereby ousting Olver, so that he will do their bidding on Capitol Hill.

To illustrate, when John Forbes Kerry ran for the presidency several years ago (in 2004), the Corporate Elite in Boston put on a fundraiser for the wealthy candidate in Nantucket (Spring, 2004). The event, which was hosted by John Kerry, was also co-hosted by Andrea F. Nuciforo, Jr., who wore a matching tuxedo as he stood next to the junior Massachusetts Senator greeting the wealthy corporate executives and lobbyist who raised more campaign money for Kerry than the incumbent Bush was able to raise from his Corporate Elite donors in 2004.

To further illustrate, go to the following web-site:

http://www.bermananddowell.com/jsp2196567.jsp

There you will find that Nuciforo really only serves the Corporate Elite in Boston as a private Corporate Attorney for Boston's big banks and insurance companies.

Furthermore, please review the Boston Globe's 1/16/2007 news article, pasted below, which explains that:
$$$$$$$$$$$$
"Nuciforo , the former Senate chairman of the Financial Services Committee...collected $11,000 in political donations from Commerce executives in [2006],...Nuciforo has focused his private law practice on insurance issues during the time he chaired the committee. He is listed as "of counsel" to Berman & Dowell, a Boston law firm that cites insurance defense as one of its three practice groups. He joined the firm the year he became committee chairman. Nuciforo's practice area is listed "insurance coverage" and "insurance defense , " according to the firm's website. That legal work entails defense work for insurance companies against claimants. ...Nuciforo, who made $72,000 a year as a state senator, listed receiving $15,000 in income from the law firm in 2005, according to his latest financial statements filed with the State Ethics Committee. ...
$$$$$$$$$$$$

In 2008, Nuciforo will be able to run for U.S. Congress against John Olver and keep his "sinecure" in Pittsfield where he makes over $80,000 per year as the Central Berkshire Registrar of Deeds with a term of being up for "election" every 6 years. Nuciforo was "elected" to this "sinecure" in 2006 and he will not be up for "election" again until 2012. That gives Nuciforo the best of all Worlds! On the one hand, Nuciforo will raise more campaign money than John Olver because of his affiliations with the Corporate Elite in Boston, and on the other hand, he will have the security of his "sinecure" in Pittsfield. The only advantage that John Olver has against Nuciforo will be his long-standing incumbency. BUT, John Olver has one more ace up his sleave, although he may not know it, and that will be the assistance of Jonathan Melle (me) in defeating Nuciforo in his run for Congress by exposing the FRAUD Nuciforo really is!

NOW, here is the difficult part. Jonathan Melle (me) comes from a "have-not" background. My parents rely on public pensions for their financial security. Around this time in (the Autumn) 1997, my dad was quoted in The North Adams Transcript as criticizing the commonwealth for not paying the full amount to the Berkshire County Government for the Courthouse rent. By the Spring of 1998, Nuciforo filed a Massachusetts State Ethics Commission report against my Dad to get him fired from his then state job as a probation officer and force his resignation from my dad's elected position as a Berkshire County Commissioner. Please note that during the same time period in the Spring of 1998, Nuciforo set up secretive plans with the Pittsfield Police Department to have me arrested because Nuciforo alleged that I was a threat to him after Nuciforo threatened me twice the year prior. Please note that if Nuciforo got his way, my dad would have lost both of his jobs and his son (me) would have gone to jail. Had Nuciforo gotten my dad is trouble, my dad would not be collecting a state pension today. My family would be very poor instead of middle class.

What is the point? By Cliff Nilan calling my dad, Denis Guyer sending my mom anonymous letters with my emails enclosed, and the like, the point is that if I help John Olver next year win re-election by providing the Congressman with documents of Nuciforo's deficient and corrupt public record, the Pittsfield Political Machine will strike at my family again -- 10 years later. The Pols will try to take away one or both of my parent's public pensions to spite me for my long-term and continued stand against Nuciforo. My parents will blame me instead of the Pols for their plight, and dirty politics will win the day.

Because the absurdly trivial Pittsfield Political Machine has their targets on Congressman John Olver to put Nuciforo in political office, my family will be a casualty of war. I will be made to be the bad guy, and Nuciforo will shine like a statue and smell like a rose.

What John Olver and Jon Melle have in common is Nuciforo's dirty politics. I hope that John Olver realizes what is coming and will protect more than his own interests--i.e., guard at least my parents in their coming times of hardships. I don't care what happens to me in all of this. Bash me around, spit on my face, slander my name all over the place. I will still be there, standing tall, helping my parents and John Olver during their difficult times of need. I have been through Nuciforo's dirty politics ten years ago, and I am ready and willing to face him in Round #2!

In closing and on a human level, my mom is suffering as a cancer survivor. I know that politics is usually banal: Abortion, Healthcare Coverage, Homelessness, etc. BUT, in this case, have a heart for my mother's illness. The odds are against her. She may not survive. Do what you want to me, but please don't harass my mother anymore. If you "Pittsfield Good Old Boys" want to play hardball with me, I will beat you at your pathetic game each and every time around. If you want to play hardball with my mother while she is vulnerable and suffering, then you will meet the strongest of my continual dissents. You don't like me, and I don't like you, and that is the banal reality, but please, please, please have a heart and stop targetting my mother.

I WILL ALWAYS SPEAK MY GOOD CONSCIENCE FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE!

In Dissent,

Jonathan A. Melle

--

THE BOSTON GLOBE
NEWS ARTICLE
Ex-senator moving on insurance positionSix say Nuciforo sought advice
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff
January 16, 2007
Former state senator Andrea F. Nuciforo Jr., who was sworn in two weeks ago as Berkshire County register of deeds, is already moving on to his next job search: a bid to become Governor Deval Patrick's commissioner of insurance.
Nuciforo, who has been the Senate chairman of the committee that oversees the state's heavily regulated insurance industry, has told his former colleagues and politically connected figures on Beacon Hill that he wants the insurance post, which would pay about $120,000 a year. The move would require him to resign as register, which pays him about $80,000 a year but also permits him to practice law.
Nuciforo, a Pittsfield Democrat, did not return calls over the last several days seeking comment. Nuciforo's former Senate aide, Patrick J. Quirk, said the senator would have no comment other than he would be "flattered" to be considered for a position in the Patrick administration.
But six of his former Senate and political colleagues on Beacon Hill have told the Globe that he has sought their advice and help in seeking the insurance post.
It is not clear what chance Nuciforo has in landing the position in the Patrick administration. A senior adviser to the governor said the former state senator probably would not get the position, although he may be granted an interview. Patrick's press secretary, Kyle Sullivan, said the administration does not comment on "pending personnel matters."
Nuciforo's campaign to become insurance commissioner has confounded many of his former colleagues in the State House and stirred the political world in Pittsfield, where Nuciforo has been a popular state senator for 10 years.
Last March, he shocked local political observers when he announced he would not seek reelection and instead run for the register of deeds position that was being vacated.
Because he was a popular senator with a bulging campaign account, his presence in the campaign for register persuaded two other contestants, including a former Pittsfield mayor who once served as his aide, to drop out of the race. He ran unopposed in the primary and general election, taking over what is considered a political sinecure.
Nuciforo, a 10-year incumbent whose final Senate term ended Jan. 2, was deeply involved in several controversial auto insurance reform proposals designed to change the way auto insurance is regulated in Massachusetts, including plans by several major firms and former governor Mitt Romney that sought to create a more competitive market.
Nuciforo, the former Senate chairman of the Financial Services Committee, came out strongly against House legislation proposed last June that would have phased out state-set rates and phase in competitive rate setting over five years. He predicted that if it passed the House, the bill would be "dead on arrival" in the Senate, contending it was "consumer-unfriendly." He and other critics said it would sharply increase premiums for drivers in urban areas.
Commerce Insurance Co., the state's largest auto insurer, has lobbied heavily against many of the proposals on Beacon Hill, contending that proposals to overhaul the system would raise rates for drivers in urban areas. Those opponents say the legislation would reduce subsidies that currently flow from suburban and rural drivers to urban motorists.
Nuciforo collected $11,000 in political donations from Commerce executives in the last year. As his committee considered the bill last year, he also collected donations from insurance company executives who wanted more autonomy in setting rates. Massachusetts is the only state in which regulators set auto insurance rates.
Patrick has yet to clearly outline his views on insurance reform, although during the campaign last year, he said he would like to see more competition.
Nuciforo has focused his private law practice on insurance issues during the time he chaired the committee. He is listed as "of counsel" to Berman & Dowell, a Boston law firm that cites insurance defense as one of its three practice groups. He joined the firm the year he became committee chairman. Nuciforo's practice area is listed "insurance coverage" and "insurance defense , " according to the firm's website. That legal work entails defense work for insurance companies against claimants.
According to the firm's promotional material, Joseph S. Berman, a partner, "leads the insurance defense group which provides clients with aggressive and cost-effective representation in a broad range of insurance matters, including insurance defense, coverage, and the defense of unfair insurance practices lawsuits."
Berman said in an interview several months ago that Nuciforo does not refer insurance defense work to him or others in the firm.
Nuciforo, who made $72,000 a year as a state senator, listed receiving $15,000 in income from the law firm in 2005, according to his latest financial statements filed with the State Ethics Committee.
Last week, Patrick fired Julianne M. Bowler, Romney's insurance commissioner, who was implementing an assigned risk plan, in which as many as 1 million of the state's drivers would be randomly assigned to carriers based on market share. The plan marked a radical change from current policy.
Jonathan A. Melle30 Hanover Street,
Apartment # 209 Manchester, NH 03101-2227 Telephone: (603) 232-5538 Cell: (603) 289-0739
E-mail: jonathan_a_melle@yahoo.com

Citizen Vince O'Connor

From the Amherst Bulletin

O'Connor on the case - Activist keeps eye on town affairs
By Mary Carey Staff Writer
Published on March 24, 2006

Editor's note: In Amherst, it isn't just the high-profile officials who influence town politics. This is the first in an occasional series about other Amherst residents who help shape government decisions.
A tall, thin man with voluminous white hair and a Lincoln-style beard was arguing a point at Town Meeting one night in November, but the moderator kept trying to cut him off.
To an unseasoned observer of town government, it likely would have been a puzzling scene.
The Town Meeting member was making an exceedingly fine - even obscure - point, hinging on a side issue to a relatively uncontroversial question.
But anyone with a passing familiarity with town government would have been unsurprised at the level of specificity and the obvious acquaintance with the history and facts of the matter and the articulate way the member, Vincent O'Connor, was making his case.
A longtime Town Meeting member and 32-year resident of Amherst, O'Connor is arguably the most high-profile of Amherst's 240-member Representative Town Meeting.
Although he has never served on any of the town government's major boards, the Finance Committee, Select and Planning boards, he has been an active participant in many of the significant sessions at which the town's policies are determined.
O'Connor has become more than just a fixture at meetings, he has become a major factor in the decision-making process, prompting some people in Amherst to dub him the 'sixth Select Board member.'
'I think Vincent is great,' said Select Board member Robie Hubley. 'I listen to a real lot of what he says and then I judge it from the position I'm in.'
Hubley noted that O'Connor can be single-minded, and 'his agenda is so intense.' And there are times, he said, when O'Connor's agenda doesn't line up with the Select Board's.
'He gets down on you if you haven't done what he has suggested this week, even though what he suggests one week usually takes months to get done,' said Hubley.
'He seems to be very involved in pretty much every aspect of Amherst town government for someone who is not an elected official,' said Baer Tierkel, a Town Meeting member who is relatively new to Amherst. 'It seems he's having a very large impact on policy.'
A private person
The seemingly indefatigable O'Connor is something of an enigma.
A native Californian, O'Connor, 64, refused to be interviewed for this story. He said he is a private person and wants to keep the focus on the issues. The Amherst street list states community organizer as his employment.
He is mentioned in a December 1967 letter to The New York Review of Books written by Richard Flack, a University of Chicago sociology professor, who commends O'Connor for his 'unique form of draft resistance,' in choosing to face jail rather than accept the alternative service assignment given to him as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.
O'Connor, 'who happens to be the son of a conservative San Francisco Superior Court judge was working in Arkansas as a civil rights organizer,' when he was inducted, Flack wrote.
'He has decided to face jail, even though he could have avoided the issue by accepting his status as a conscientious objector. His case offers a dramatic opportunity for publicizing the totalitarian character of conscription and its effects on the entire fabric of American life,' Flack wrote.
O'Connor served 14 months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terminal Island, Calif, a medium-security prison.
Making an impact
O'Connor, this year alone, has brought easily over a dozen issues to the Select Board's attention - from traffic problems he has noted near Puffer's Pond to his criticism of the Community Preservation Act Committee.
Self-identified as a lifelong tenant, O'Connor has argued that the town boards are dominated by property owners, who, he says, have different priorities than renters.
That night at Town Meeting, O'Connor was arguing that members should not approve spending $65,000 requested by the Comprehensive Planning Committee to develop a 'master plan' for Amherst, a document required by the state. Before he could finish making his point, though, Moderator Harrison Gregg gaveled him down.
But O'Connor has often been persuasive at Town Meeting, particularly among a core group of 70 or so members referred to by some as 'the Vince crowd.' Some of them can be seen consulting during the night with him in the seat he always takes near the back of the Amherst Regional Middle School Auditorium where Town Meeting is held.
In June, he led a contingent of members who opposed spending $685,000 over 10 years to renovate athletic fields off Potwine Lane. They forced $12,000 referendum question on the subject, on which Town Meeting had already voted five times.
Paul Bobrowski, the Planning Board chairman, has said that the town's Planning Department has had to do many hours of work as a result of O'Connor's numerous suggestions - some of which have proved to be impractical. One of them was a plan to designate an agricultural district in town and create a no-build zone around it.
Landowners took the town to court over a flood prone conservancy zoning article promoted by O'Connor and approved by Town Meeting several years ago, which would up costing Amherst over $100,000 in lawyer's fees before the town ultimately lost. Amherst taxpayers could end up paying another $1 million or more to compensate the landowners for their legal costs, if the town loses it appeal.
When former Select Board members Carl Seppala and Eva Schiffer were on the board, two years ago, they voted unsuccessfully against appointing O'Connor to the Public Works Committee, saying he could be difficult to work with.
The current Select Board has proved to be more responsive to O'Connor's suggestions and advice. Members directed the DPW to find a solution to the traffic problems near Puffer's Pond. A few weeks after he criticized the Community Preservation Act Committee, the Select Board appointed him a member.
Hubley has heard O'Connor described as the unofficial sixth member of the board. It doesn't bother him.
'The new Select Board is dedicated to more openness in government. We listen to everybody more than anybody did before,' Hubley said.
As for the claim that O'Connor is the board's sixth member, Hubley said: 'Nobody tells us how to vote.'
Mary Carey can be reached at mcarey@gazettenet.com.

Cheryl Zoll: intriguing new Amherst Survival Center director

Here's a Q & A with Cheryl Zoll by the Gazette's Steve Pfarrer followed by a little story about her and the center by me.
"Cheryl Zoll has planted trees in Senegal, studied linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and taught African languages and forms of English with African influences, such as Jamaican Creole. But in April she added a new chapter to her career -- management -- when she became executive director of the Amherst Survival Shelter.
Zoll, a native of Salem, taught linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge for eight years before moving with her family to Amherst about five years ago. Though she did some teaching at both Hampshire and Amherst colleges after arriving in the Valley, Zoll says the opportunity to try something different appealed to her: "I realized my heart was really in social services. I call this my 'mid-life epiphany.' "
She says she filled in her skill gaps by doing considerable volunteer work, eventually becoming the site director for The Literacy Project in Orange. Zoll, who's also vice-chair of Amherst's Comprehensive Planning Committee, adds that moving from teaching to management "is not as dramatic as it might seem ... the fact that 'All the world's a classroom, and all the men and women merely students' has made it easy to take skills acquired through teaching and apply them in a practical manner to broader social issues.'"
Full name: Cheryl Zoll
People know you as: Cheryl
Date and place of birth: May 31, 1962, Salem
Address: Amherst
Job: Director, Amherst Survival Center
Who lives under the same roof as you? My husband, Eric Sawyer, and our daughter, Lydia Sawyer
Children: Lydia, 8
Education: Salem High School, 1980; Harvard University, B.A. in biology, 1984; Brandeis University, M.A. in linguistics, 1992; University of California at Berkeley, Ph.D. in linguistics, 1996
Pets: A guinea pig, Sir Seth Skwekoms Hwounkee Zowhoir
Books you'd recommend: "Motherless Brooklyn," by Jonathan Lethem; "Spoken Soul," by John Rickford and Russell Rickford
Favorite movie: "Afterlife," a film directed by Hirokazu Koreeda. It's a vision of purgatory where you get to preserve on film one incident (and only one) from your life to take with you into eternity
Favorite television shows: "NYPD Blues" and "Seinfeld," neither of which I get to watch anymore!
Favorite singer or group: Girl Howdy, an all-women honky-tonk band based in Greenfield
What do you waste your money on? Old-timey music CDs, especially vocal duos like Stecher & Brislin, Hawker & Justice, Hazel & Alice
Guilty pleasure: Occasional dips into East Heaven Hot Tubs in Northampton with my husband and daughter on cold winter nights
Life-changing experience: Two years doing forestry as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small rural village in Senegal
Funniest memory: Being stranded with a friend for several days on the border between Senegal and Guinea. We ending up having to sleep on the dirt floor of a restaurant run by young boys, who in exchange asked us to translate the book "Treasure Island" into Pulaar, one of the local languages
Strangest job you ever held: I once worked the graveyard shift at a psychiatric hospital, supplying study subjects with schnapps in exchange for "points" they earned by constantly pressing a little red button they held in their hands
Bumper-sticker statements? "I love North Quabbin" (until recently I worked in Orange)
A little-known fact about you: I play the banjo
Dumbest thing you ever did: Spent 15 years playing and paying off a bassoon, and then quit the day it became fully mine
One product, trend or fashion you'd like to see return: A person at the other end of the phone!
What really sets you off? Faulty logic
Favorite Web sites: www.people.umass.edu/support/asc/ and www.ouramericancousin.com
One thing you would change about yourself: I would fold laundry immediately out of the dryer
People who knew you in school thought you were: An egghead
Whom do you most admire? I've been lucky to have been mentored by a lot of strong, wonderful women. Locally, Jenifer McKenna of Northampton, co-founder of the California Women's Law Center, and Rhonda Cobham-Sander at Amherst College are two people for whom I have boundless admiration
Parting shot: In the words of Jane O'Reilly -- "We must remember the past, define the future and challenge the present, wherever and however we can"
-- Compiled by Steve Pfarrer
By MARY CAREY
The Amherst Survival Center has probably never been a boring place, but some new things happening there --a monthly open mike night and a monthly "kvetch," for instance -- just might make it a more interesting place yet.
Picture Cheryl Zoll, the new director, playing the banjo while two guys tell jokes, for instance. You could also see it for real at open mike night. They're scheduled the third Thursday of every month at the 1200 North Pleasant St. drop-in center. The next one is June 21 at 6:30 a.m.
As for the monthly "kvetch," it's pretty much what it sounds like it is. " We want to make sure that people have an opportunity to complain (kvetch) in a safe environment at least once a month," Zoll said.
"It's not that we won’t take complaints any day, and it's not like we don't take the complaints seriously. But we try to make people feel like it’s not a big deal and people should tell us what's on their mind."
The kvetching has ranged from observations about there being too few bags in the free store to people talking about not getting along with each other. " It usually ends up in a discussion about how we can improve things around here," Zoll said. "Everybody should have it."
Photos from the last open mike night -- no kvetch photos yet -- are posted on the center's Web site at http://people.umass.edu/support/asc/, where Survival Center supporters are also advertising the auction of two front-row seats at Fenway Park for the July 4 Red Sox vs. Tampa Bay Devil Rays game. Red Sox fans can email their bids to starr@langlab.umass.edu. Bidding begins at $50.
Or click on Zoll's blog either at the Website or directly at http://amherstsurvivalcenter.blogspot.com/. In her most recent entry, she muses on "the vastness of space" in connection with the layout of the kitchen, hall and free store at the center.
"In 1961, JFK vowed that the US would 'put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade,'" Zoll writes. "At ASC, our parallel goal for 2007 is 'to move a client from the Free Store to the Kitchen and return her happily by the end of the day.' Sure, the moon is 238,855 miles from Earth, and we're only talking about roughly 238 feet here, but in many ways the challenge is as great."
The center is shaped like a barbell, Zoll explains, including a photograph of a shiny barbell to help readers visualize it. There's the big kitchen and dining area, which is connected by a narrow hall to the free store. It's a layout that contributes to peoples' general impression of cramped space -- not the vastness of space, says Zoll.
"We are beginning now to work with our community to find a new home adequate to our current needs but with space to initiate new programs as well," she concludes. "If JFK could put a man on the moon, then we can surely hope to succeed in meeting our own small challenge."
Zoll enjoys a challenge to hear her tell it. A native of Salem, she spent two years with the Peace Corps in Senegal and was an associate professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before moving with her husband Eric Sawyer, an Amherst College music professor, and daughter Lydia to Amherst about five years ago. She taught at Amherst and Hampshire colleges but decided she preferred social work. That led her to The Literacy
Project, in Orange, and, in April, to the Survival Center.
The function and behavior of tone patterns in African languages and their implications for linguistic theory is her academic specialty. In 2005, she co-authored a book with Sharon Inkelas titled "Reduplication: Doubling in Morphology." (Reduplication, she explained to Around Amherst is the process by which speakers of some languages create the plural of a word by saying the word more than once.)
"That was my last act as a linguistic professor," Zoll said of the book. " I feel like I did that and now I'm now I'm doing this."

For the Archives

Perennial Pittsfield candidate and fathers rights activist -- Hel-lo, Alec Baldwin -- Rinaldo Del Gallo (photo) responds to political observer Jonathan Melle's questions below. Includes link to separate treatise on perceived failings of fellow small-time scribe Jack Dew, of the Berkshire Eagle.

Let me reply, to best of my abilities, issue by issue:

(a) The teen pregnancy rate in Pittsfield continually rose to higher numbers and now doubles the statewide average!

We at the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition have talked about this for years, only to be shunned by the Eagle. Click here, here, and here for our stories and letters to the editor. It is one of the few things government can change, but does not.

(b) The only thing in the Pittsfield economy that has grown has been the escalating WELFARE CASELOADS!

John, I believe that Pittsfield has undergone a massive fall for years—few seem to readily confront this problem. When I ran for office in 2005, the Eagle actually ran stories about the vastly improved Pittsfield economy.

(c) Property Taxes continued to skyrocket under Mayor Ruberto!

There is little public interest in a fiscal conservative such as myself John. All those that ran on a platform that taxes were getting too high lost—and the Eagle ignored us.

(d) Pittsfield Public Schools have seen lower and lower standardized test scores, among other problematic public educational issues. Instead of the public schools getting better, they have demonstrably gotten worse!

Again, we have ideas. Click here and here and here to read them.


(e) Patrick Fennell's Letter in the 2/27/2007 Eagle edition about Mayor Ruberto blatantly breaking state election laws!

Jonathan Levine of the Pittsfield Gazette has written on this subject and I agree with his analysis. Errors were made and laws were broken. Do I think that makes the mayor a monster? No. I think he has learned from his mistake.

(f) The "Good Old Boys Network" is in full bloom, not grassroots democracy!

Jonathon, there is an old saying in politics—dance with those that brought you to the party. Virtually every candidate for office does this. They also want to build on their power base.

(g) The spending of GE's economic development funds on the Colonial Theater and Spice Restaurant instead of industry's that would have created living wage jobs.

I ran on this platform in 2005 and the Berkshire Eagle did not show up, and there was little radio coverage. Even had an economic forum. The economic effect of the Colonial Theater was lower than even my predictions--I thought that it would bring an increase in foot traffic yet has done little. The effect on the local restaurants was also very small—I anticipated a greater return on investment. As you know, I thought the monies could be better spent elsewhere—namely to attract high wage employers.

(h) PEDA being created in the Summmer of 1998 and almost 9 years later having not one private business tenant.

I was the only candidate in 2005 running on PEDA’s underperformance. Again, the Eagle did not show up. Nobody is listening—there is more concern about things such as the gender of candidates.

(i) PCB pollution being capped, not cleaned up. The PCB caps only last a maximum of 25 years, and then they will spread again all over Pittsfield and down south through Southern Berkshire County, Connecticut, and the Long Island Sound.

This is a serious issue.

(j) The implementation of an inequitable garbage collection fee on working poor tenants and their landlords.

I agree. If anybody is to pay, it should the richest not the poorest of our citizens. They claim it is a tax on landlords—those bad landlords—but the cost must be passed along to the tenant.

(k) The impending loss of GE Plastics, and Berkshire County being the number one region in the commonwealth for job losses.

If in 2005 they took up my idea for a business retention programmed, we might be better poised. Eagle editorial slamming a potential buyer was also not helpful.

(l) The proposed selling of the names of the Colonial Theater and Wahconah Park to private corporations.

I am not aware of this but not against this—it is a way to raise capital. Usually, the name “Colonial Theater” or “Wahconah Park” is kept. Obviously, these should be big bucks to warrant such an extreme claim.

(m) The forced retirement of Larry Caprari from the Veterans Office after many decades of quality service to the city's Veteran population because he wouldn't fudge quantitative numbers for Mayor Ruberto.

Know nothing about it so I can’t comment on it.

(n) Imposing a $20 admissions fee for Deval Patrick's Pittsfield Inauguration Ball. From 2003 grassroots candidate to 2007 elitist Mayor!

Jonathon, the mayor was not on the committee—I was. I tried to have a free “Children’s Inaugral” and had obtained a great deal of local talent, lights, and sound, but the idea was nixed. The problem is that the event had to be self-funded. There was a great deal of donated food however.

(o) The possible conspiratorial silencing of Dan Valenti after Valenti exposed Ruberto's violations of state election laws, which was the subject of Patrick Fennell's aforementioned letter.

I don’t know about the subject. Its hard to say that Dan Valenti “exposed” the story—the Gazette did that.

(p) The costly financing of a Pittsfield Cinema Package when North Adams' financing made much more sense without the use of so many public taxpayers dollars.

Tax breaks are one thing—the use of actual city monies is another. I hope it works. As you know, on West Street at the old Big N complex a similar ventured lasted for a number of years but ultimately failed with the coming of the mall. Government is in a poor position to assess the worth of businesses. That’s why I don’t like giving out money until the jobs are created. Tax breaks are another matter.

(q) Opposing the Community Preservation Act to meet the tax needs of business over the residents.

Jonathon, the tax rates on business are too high. It’s a serious concern.

(r) Proposals to raise health insurance premiums to early retirees, thereby taking away their incentive to retire early.
Haven’t thought about this issue.

(s) Supporting D.A. Capless' persecution of 7 first time drug offenders in a Great Barrington drug bust, and supporting the fallacious argument that Pittsfield drug offenders are treated harshly so therefore Great Barrington drug offenders must be treated harshly too.

I respectfully disagree with our District Attorney’s view that prosecutorial discretion is inherently arbitrary. The reasons why DA’s have it, and why prosecutors should use it, is of such widespread knowledge that extensive commentary is not needed. The first hope of the criminal justice system is to turn the lives around of criminals before they become heavily involved in crime. Throwing the book at people for minor first time offenses, such as very small sales of marihuana nowhere in the presence of children seems to make little sense. I was not aware of mayoral support of the DA's position.

(t) Replacing a more qualified woman chair of the city's licensing board with "Good Old Boy" Carmen C. Massimiano, Jr.

Why a woman chair? I personally like Carmen—though I know you had problems with him. I have been offended by people that would not sign my nomination papers. I sign everyone’s nomination papers, even people that I even ran against. I think everyone deserves a right to run. I don’t view signing papers as an “endorsement.” That’s my position. Carmen probably looked at it as an endorsement and opposition to Andrea Nuciforo—I respectfully disagree with this position, but he is not alone in that belief.

(u) Pittsfield's high and socially unjust public school dropout rates by demographics:
PITTSFIELD GRADUATION DATA - FOR STUDENT SUBGROUPS:
***Low-income students: 41.3 percent of 189 students graduated in four years.***
Special Education: 31.3 percent of 115 students.African-American: 43 percent of 35 students.Hispanic: 40 percent of 15 students.Limited English: 58.3 percent of 125 students.Male: 64.1 percent of 287 students.Female: 71.7 percent of 240 students.Asian: 100 percent of seven students.

(u) The loss of Pittsfield Public School assistant Superintendent Dr. William Cameron to another public school district, and the possible loss of Superintendent Katherine E. Darlington to another public school district, if she is hired.

I don’t think it’s the mayor’s fault. I also think there is an element of trying to hop off a sinking ship here.

(v) Jack Dew's news article "Ruberto denies columnist's claims" (Eagle, 12/21/04) that alleged that Mayor Ruberto told Berkshire Regional Planning Commission Director Nat Karns to either censure Andrew Lenton's wife's, Liz Levine's, First Amendment Free Speech Rights or have Andrew Lenton retaliated against and ultimately have his employment terminated.

I would give very little credence to a Jack Dew article. I treat it like any other urban legend—it might be true, it might not. Click here to find out why.

(w) Ruberto and Deanna Ruffer's restructuring of a city agency without regard to the career status of Tina L. Bernat-Samia, who has been employed by the city of Pittsfield for 21 years.

Is this the Parks Department story? I do agree that people should not learn they are losing the jobs through reading a story in the Eagle. I don’t know enough about the particular merits of the case for further comment.

(x) The awarding of the internet design contract to a North Adams company with close ties to Mayor James Ruberto for the city's municipal web site. Boxcar Media — which produced Ruberto’s campaign web site — was the only local vendor invited to offer a quote to develop the new City of Pittsfield web site. Boxcar received the contract even though an out-of-area vendor provided a lower bid.

Why would you want to use an out of area provider unless they were MUCH less expensive? Keep the jobs in the Berkshires.

(y) Jim Ruberto's unethical backstory: One of several corporate executives to bankrupt a Texas plastics company, Ruberto takes a cut of the corporate loot after screwing over many investors and workers and makes a run out of state to his mother's Pittsfield home. After moving into his mother's Pittsfield home, Ruberto decides to run for Mayor and loses. Ruberto then places his mother into a nursing home under the pretenses of Alzheimer's Disease and then remains living in his mother's home, never having to pay a mortgage or purchase the property. Ruberto then runs for Mayor again two years later not only with his cut of the corporate loot he took from the Texas Plastics Company he bankrupted as a corrupt corporate executive, but now Ruberto has control over his mother's home that he USURPED by placing her into a nursing home and remaining in her Pittsfield home.

Jonathan, I have every confidence that Mayor Ruberto loves his mother and would never in a million years do anything to harm her. I also thought that he helped save the Texas Plastics Company, not hurt it. I have not studied his past corporate dealings in depth.

RINALDO: Jimmy Ruberto needs to be voted out of political office. It is like Ken Lay has taken over Pittsfield. You, Rinaldo, have solutions. You have written about Pittsfield's economy many, many times to me, and most of your ideas are good and effective ones. You, Rinaldo, have a case against Ruberto, and a platform ready made to turn around Pittsfield's many socioeconomic problems. When you run for Mayor of Pittsfield, Rinaldo, I pledge to you my full support! Please run for Mayor and bring good results back to our beloved native community.

Johnathan, I have a much different vision for Pittsfield regarding focusing on industry, PEDA, and seem to be much more willing to be “hand on” in such social issues as the dropout rate, bullying, or teen pregnancy. I like Workshop Live, but there seems to be little interest in focusing our efforts on ventures of this nature. We need more Workshop Lives—using incentives to bring business, but not actually giving them money unless they produce. As for other areas of economic development, my predictions became realities.

Jonathon, I very much appreciate your kind words. But nobody is really listening to folks like me who are focused on industry, high tech, and these other social issues such as the dropout rate. To the extent they talk about the problem, they offer no solutions and then degrade my proposed solutions.

The Eagle will not cover me Jonathon, and that makes change nearly impossible. I cannot run even an effective “issues” campaign let alone a real campaign because the Eagle ignores my press releases. And change in the one thing that Pittsfield needs.

I hope the Mayor decides to work with us in the future, and enlist his current help with regards to the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition’s efforts to raise the age for dropping out of school in Pittsfield with a municipal solution instead of relying on the state.

I thank you for your kind thoughts Jonathon.

Rinaldo

Rocket Joe of Wilbraham

Here's a character -- Rocket Joe Roberts of Wilbraham, AKA Farmer Joe, who took this photo of his Pekin ducks (that's what he calls them anyway). He's a Dark-Sky enthusiast; says light pollution will soon have obliterated the nighttime view of the sky with the exception of the moon and planets. Advocates for fewer of "shielded" lights (facing down not up) at night. Amherst character Dissident Vince O'Connor carrying the dark-sky banner in Amherst. Some links to Rocket Joe's world:

http://www.rocketroberts.com/joe.htm
Joe Roberts Astrophotography This page covers my activities in photography of the night sky.Amateur Astronomer's Notebook A site dedicated to amateur astronomy, especially suited to those just starting out!Hale-Bopp pictures I took Darn! No spaceship!Joe Roberts' Hawaii Five-O Page If you are a fan of the show Hawaii Five-O you'll want to visit this section (my most frequently visited page)!Minnechaug Class of 1978 Home Page Everything you loved and hated about school, and then some...Resume Not currently looking for work, but I'll consider outstanding opportunities...Technical Articles "readable" articles I wrote on technical stuff...Farmer Joe's Home Page Scenes and equipment from around the farm...Joe's Rocket Page Very little here right now, this is a new undertaking...Joe's Model Railroad Page Some highlights and photos of my 1970's vintage model railroad.Joe's Wilbraham Photo History Page Old and new historical photos from Wilbraham, MA.Joe's Farmall "M" Site A site with focus on my 1949 Farmall M tractor.Joe's Farm and Nature Page A page with photos of things around my hobby farm.A 1970's Teenager's Bedroom A page that illustrates my start in stereo systems and electronics.Korean War Photo Page Photos from in and around the front lines and rear area in Korea.My Backyard Observatory A chronicle of the construction of my Backyard Observatory.Joe's Radio Aircheck Page A page with classic radio airchecks from the 70s to the 90s!How and Why Wonder Books A page dedicated to the vintage childhood book series.Ramblings My comments on a variety of topics.Miscellaneous Notes and Facts A collection of common misconceptions and miscellaneous info...Important Notes about the contents of my pages Notes about copyright, originality of work, etc.

Nick Grabbe: A real individual in a good way

Photo is of an AlphaSmart, vintage laptop precursor on which my co-worker Nick Grabbe takes notes at meetings. Found this article he had written about his and wife Betsy's "radical frugality." LOVE it!
Good lifeTM just gets better
By Nick Grabbe
On a sunny spring weekend, you can find me splitting and stacking the wood that will keep my family warm next winter.
Or I might be loading the compost I made a year ago into a wheelbarrow and spreading it into the garden beds before the vegetables go in.
After pruning my two apple trees in March, I'll be spraying them in April and May, trying to outwit the insects and prevent disease.
None of these tasks is necessary to my family's survival. If I bothered to count up the money I save and compared it to the hours I toil, it wouldn't seem "worth it" financially. But over the years this lifestyle of urban homesteading and what we call radical frugality have become like a hobby for me and my wife, Betsy Krogh. It's worth it because we enjoy it.
For me, it all began 30 years ago, when I read a book called "Living the Good Life," by Scott Nearing. Nearing and his wife, Helen, spent decades in Vermont, building their own houses and growing their own food, before attracting widespread attention in the late 1960s. I wrote a story about Nearing when he came to Amherst to speak in 1976.
Like many young adults of that era, I thought I wanted to "go back to the land" like the Nearings, but there were several problems. I am not handy, and couldn't build a shed, much less construct a house or tinker with a tractor. Betsy and I have two children who have needed attention and community _ and money _ for the past 20 years. And I have no desire to retreat from society; I like being involved in my town and cherish the friendships I have developed.
So we've come to a compromise that suits us well. We live in a farmhouse-style home on a half-acre lot a mile from downtown Amherst. I work four days a week and enjoy writing the newspaper articles that provide us with a modest income and health insurance. Betsy has not worked for pay but has supervised the children and had time to contribute her talents to our home economy and the local community.
It isn't exactly living off the land, but it's a balanced life. Our beliefs are interwoven with our tasks, and as we go about our household chores, we have that good feeling you get when work and play become one.
Every April, I make a large compost pile and marvel at the magic I'm able to conjure up.
On Sundays throughout the year, I pick up peelings and spoiled fruits and vegetables at Not Bread Alone, the free-meal program at First Congregational Church. I layer them with ground-up leaves and our own kitchen scraps in a 4-foot-square enclosure made of cement blocks. Then in April, I relayer them with grass clippings or manure, plus dirt, lime and water. This concoction heats up, sometimes registering 160 degrees on my trusty compost thermometer, killing weed seeds and disease pathogens and producing a sweet-smelling natural fertilizer.
I spread it on the 11 raised beds in our backyard garden, providing all the fertilizer we need, and in April and May the seeds go in. We grow lettuce, beans, squash, peppers, tomatoes, raspberries, peas, kale, chard and rhubarb. We can the surplus of tomatoes, apples (made into sauce) and raspberries (made into jam) for winter use. We freeze beans and peppers. The kale usually lasts until January under a hoop greenhouse.
We do not use chemicals to deter pests, but do employ a variety of techniques, including hand-picking, wood ashes and compact discs hung from strings. We even use beer, which attracts slugs that enjoy it so much they drown in it. Once, when I went to a package store to buy a single bottle of cheap beer, I told the clerk sheepishly, "It's not for me, it's for my slugs!" I think I saw him raise his eyebrows.
Not all our efforts to go organic have been successful. Apples are the most difficult crop to grow organically. Several years ago, I stopped using chemical insecticides and fungicides, and also stopped getting apples on our two trees. One year we tried a new product that coats the trees with a clay-like substance that supposedly causes insects to look elsewhere. That didn't work either, and our trees eventually became firewood. I get more sheer enjoyment out of processing firewood than from any other outdoor task.
Several wooded lots in our neighborhood have been cleared for houses in the past two years, and I asked the contractors if we could have the trees. In one case, a contractor delivered them to me; in another, I cut them into logs and brought them to our yard in a wheelbarrow.
Using a chain saw to cut up trees is dangerous, and I'm careful to do it only when I'm feeling alert and to quit before I get tired. But using an ax and a maul to create stove-size logs is satisfying work.
The woodpiles seem so beautiful that sometimes I just stare at them and feel a deep sense of contentment. In the winter, warmed by the stove, I feel that all my work has been worthwhile. My heating fuel has not been transported thousands of miles from unstable countries, but has come from my own neighborhood.
Some aspects of our urban homesteading life are much easier because of our in-town location.
Living near town, schools and work, we usually own only one car. We use bicycles, the bus, carpooling and walking for much of our transportation with hardly any inconvenience. And living in a college town, we anticipate the annual late-May departure of the students, not only for the quiet it brings but because they leave behind all sorts of furniture, clothing and household goods that we are delighted to harvest from the roadsides. We also love finding books and other useful items at the "take-it-or-leave-it" exchange at the town's recycling center.
Other household practices are designed to save energy or avoid spending money. We hang our laundry on a clothesline outside to dry in the wind and sun, a practice that's actually restricted in some parts of Amherst. Last year, we invested in a solar hot-water system that adds a new dimension to taking a shower.
We belong to a natural-food-buying club in our neighborhood, and I regularly bake bread and cookies and make soup from scratch. In the summer, Betsy often cooks rice in our homemade solar oven. We get books at the Jones Library and share newspapers with nearby family members. We even pick up bottles and cans on the street; our redemption income is about $50 a year. At our little urban homestead, my family and I enjoy a high level of domestic security. We produce some of our food and energy and avail ourselves of what is freely given by nature or cast off by other people in our land of plenty. We relish the challenge of creative solutions to overcoming life's obstacles and acquiring life's necessities. We incorporate frugal and earth-friendly practices into our everyday routines. We seek satisfaction in relationships, work and the nonmaterial delights of expanding our minds and spirits.
In spring, as in the other seasons, we aim to enjoy it all.
Reprinted with permission of the Daily Hampshire Gazette. All rights reserved. Nick Grabbe is a freelance writer who lives in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at ngrabbe@gazettenet.com.

Rebel (or rogue) for the collection:Marilee Jones

Caveman blog includes gallery of rebels, rogues, indiVIduals and characters. Today's nominee: Marilee Jones, worked at MIT for 28 years, rising through ranks to dean of admissions. Trouble is she never graduated from college though she claimed to have. Exposed after publishing book “Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond."

NEW YORK TIMES

April 27, 2007
Dean at M.I.T. Resigns, Ending a 28-Year Lie
By TAMAR LEWIN
Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became well known for urging stressed-out students competing for elite colleges to calm down and stop trying to be perfect. Yesterday she admitted that she had fabricated her own educational credentials, and resigned after nearly three decades at M.I.T. Officials of the institute said she did not have even an undergraduate degree.
“I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to M.I.T. 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since,” Ms. Jones said in a statement posted on the institute’s Web site. “I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the M.I.T. community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities.”
Ms. Jones said that she would not make any other public comment “at this personally difficult time” and that she hoped her privacy would be respected.
Ms. Jones, 55, originally from Albany, had on various occasions represented herself as having degrees from three upstate New York institutions: Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In fact, she had no degrees from any of those places, or anywhere else, M.I.T. officials said.
A spokesman for Rensselaer said Ms. Jones had not graduated there, though she did attend as a part-time nonmatriculated student during the 1974-75 school year. The other colleges said they had no record of her.
Phillip L. Clay, M.I.T.’s chancellor, said in an interview that a college degree was probably not required for Ms. Jones’s entry-level job in the admissions office when she arrived in 1979. And by the time she was appointed admissions dean in 1997, Professor Clay said, she had already been in the admissions office for many years, and apparently little effort was made to check what she had earlier presented as her credentials.
“In the future,” he said, “we will take a big lesson from this experience.”
Since last fall, Ms. Jones had been making speeches around the country to promote her book, “Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond,” written with a pediatrician, Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg. The book had added to her reputation as a kind of guru of the movement to tame the college admissions frenzy.
“Less Stress, More Success” addresses not only the pressure to be perfect but also a need to live with integrity.
“Holding integrity is sometimes very hard to do because the temptation may be to cheat or cut corners,” it says. “But just remember that ‘what goes around comes around,’ meaning that life has a funny way of giving back what you put out.”
Professor Clay said the dean for undergraduate education, Daniel Hastings, received information 10 days ago questioning Ms. Jones’s academic background. M.I.T. officials would not say who had provided the information.
“There are some mistakes people can make for which ‘I’m sorry’ can be accepted, but this is one of those matters where the lack of integrity is sufficient all by itself,” Professor Clay said. “This is a very sad situation for her and for the institution. We have obviously placed a lot of trust in her.”
On the campus, where Ms. Jones was widely admired, almost revered, for her humor, outspokenness and common sense, students and faculty members alike seemed both saddened and shocked.
“It’s like a Thomas Hardy tragedy, because she did so much good, but something she did long ago came back and trumped it,” said one friend, Leslie C. Perelman, director of the M.I.T. program in writing and humanistic studies.
Mike Hurley, a freshman chemistry student, said, “It was surprising,” adding, “Everyone who was admitted here probably knows her, at least her name.”
Mr. Hurley said that the admissions office had been unusually accessible, with Ms. Jones’s “bright” personality and blogs for incoming students.
“Whenever someone’s integrity is questioned,” he said, “it sets a bad example, but I feel like the students can get past that and look at what she’s done for us as a whole.”
Rachel Ellman, who studies aerospace engineering, said, “I feel like she’s irreplaceable.”
Ms. Jones had received the institute’s highest honor for administrators, the M.I.T. Excellence Award for Leading Change, and many college admissions officers and high school college counselors said yesterday that whatever her personal shortcomings, her efforts deserved respect.
“She’s been working and presenting a lot of important ideas about our business,” said Rod Skinner, director of college counseling at Milton Academy, the Massachusetts prep school. “What I’m hoping is that the quality of the research and the book will hold up.”
Ms. Jones was hired by the admissions office in 1979 to recruit young women, who at the time made up only 17 percent of the institute’s undergraduates, compared with nearly half today.
Since she entered the field, admissions to M.I.T. and other elite institutions have become increasingly competitive, and she made her mark with her efforts to turn down the flame of competition.
Among other things, she told students that they did not need perfect SAT scores to get into M.I.T. She also redesigned the institute’s application form, leaving less space for students to list their extracurricular activities, so as not to imply that every student needed 10 activities to fill the 10 lines that used to be there.
Competition remains fierce, though. For the coming fall, M.I.T. accepted 12 percent of 12,443 applicants.
Those who attended this month’s events for admitted students said Ms. Jones had been in good spirits, especially at a Saturday night finale. There, Ms. Jones, who in younger days was a torch singer at upstate New York clubs, took part in a “battle of the bands,” singing, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
Christy McKerney contributed reporting from Cambridge, Mass., and Sara Rimer from Boston.

Ana weighs in on CAT BLOGGER screenplay idea

Not enough conflict/action, unclear whether aiming to be a Hollywood v. quirky script, "rich world of blogosphere" hard to translate into action -- was what Ana (my daughter, who works for L.A. talent agency I.C.M.) said about proposed script (see explanation at http://aboutamherst.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-about-this-for-screenplay.html) Must introduce conflict by Page 10, heroine bottoms out end of Act 2.

In response and after thinking some more, I come up with these modifications.

1) Drop the cat and wild turkey wondering around town in opening exterior shot. Make that JUST a turkey.



2) Locale: Pittsfield, MA., once a thriving General Electric town, now sad, post-industrial. Open with turkey wandering down train tracks, amid empty GE buildings, PCB-filled Silver Lake, Housatonic River undergoing dredging for more PCBs.

3) Opening interior shot: hospital room. Cat blogger talking to brother, small-time scribe and once small-time scribe, about downward spiral of newspapers.

4) Multiple cat owner either DIES or faces EVICTION by city.

More later.

Hello from the author

OK, MAYbe OnGeicoCaveman is not really turning into a cat blog. That was a bit of rebelliousness inspired by Media Bloggers Association saying that "cat bloggers" weren't welcome to join their organization. Maybe OnGeicoCaveman is the author's rebel, not-for-prime time side musings, inspired by the caveman, a smart, cultivated -- amusing, even -- guy who not everyone GETS. Whose problem IS that, is the question. The answer? Not clear. Photo is the author in NYC. Early influences: Ace teenage detective Nancy Drew, redheaded comic strip reporter Brenda Starr, "That Girl," Marlo Thomas.

Our cat Hester, like her or lump her

Mavericks: Dad, lone turkey of Amity Street

Dad explained why he declined to join an HMO in a front-page Berkshire Eagle story on Jan. 3, 1996. "It bugs me," he said, "when I get a call from Boston or somewhere and they say, 'How long are you going to keep so-and-so in the hospital?'"

Saw the lone turkey of Amity Street, pictured in a Gazette photo here in the Stop & Shop parking lot last year, walking south along the railroad tracks crossing Strong Street yesterday.

Listening to the peepers

Maybe this will just be AboutAmherst's shadow blog -- until the Geico caveman TV series starts.

Oh. I decided to turn this into a CAT BLOG

Unless anyone objects.

Caveman to get his own show?

News alert (please forgive I posted this at AboutAmherst first)!
Could be seeing a lot more of the Geico caveman. One of my blogging mentors Stephanie O'Keeffe just sent me this:
TV is So Easy, Even a Caveman Can Do ItPosted Mar 2nd 2007 12:02PM by TMZ StaffFiled under: TVABC is looking to an unlikely place to find the next big television show: Geico TV commercials. Yes, the net is developing a half-hour comedy based on the cavemen characters from the popular insurance ads. The show would revolve around three pre-historic men who must battle prejudice as they live their day-to-day lives in modern Atlanta. Who smells Emmy?The Geico spots feature cavemen pissed off over Geico's slogan for its website: "So easy, a caveman can do it." At least they didn't try and make a show out of that stupid gecko, although that's probably next.

Misunderstood Herman Melville, Anna Nicole

Two more misunderstood people: Herman Melville, Anna Nicole Smith. Stinting story about the death of the latter in NYTimes today. But love this quote from Anna Nicole -- "I love the paparazzi.They take pictures, and I just smile away. I've always liked attention. I didn't get very much of it growing up and I always wanted to be, you know, noticed."

Below, ambitious compilation of stuff by Pittsfield lawyer and perennial candidate Rinaldo Del Gallo on his quest to get Pittsfield schools to require students to read "Moby Dick." I used to work giving tour' of Melville's Pittsfield home Arrowhead. Gathered the author who gave us Ahab and Bartleby the Scrivener was pretty misunderstood in his day.

Email from Rinaldo Del Gallo to local press:

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Moby Dick Should be The Official Novel of Massachusetts

As can be seen from my January 15, 2007 letter, I had made inquiry why Moby Dick was not required reading in Pittsfield anymore. I sent my e-mail to the Superintendent of Pittsfield Schools, the Pittsfield School Committee, the high school English teachers a Taconic and Pittsfield high school, and a number of people that were Moby Dick scholars throughout the country. My premise was that Moby Dick should be required reading for Pittsfield High School students. The story was prompted by the purchase of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” by the Pittsfield School Committee.

The response was varied. No academic scholar—one’s by the way that devoted a significant part of their academic study of Moby Dick—decided to respond to the e-mail.

On school committee member responded, “As you can see from the Eagle article, you are preaching to the converted. I have absolutely no idea why In Cold Blood should be included in the required reading for high school.” Another teacher responded, “Who are you.” One person responded, “I did check with both my kids. They read parts of Moby Dick, but did not read the entire book.”


Another responded, “My son is a 2003 graduate of Taconic High School. While he was a student there ‘Moby Bick’ was required reading for one of his English courses. And the course was not advanced placement English. I share your high regard for ‘Moby Dick’ as a literary work. But the supreme status you accord it -- the greatest novel written in English -- is not self-evidently warranted. Partisans of ‘Ulysses,’ as well as a few other novels -- ‘Middlemarch,’ perhaps, possibly ‘The Sound & the Fury,’ and even ‘The Golden Bowl,’ which, if it is not the greatest language-language novel, is likely the most perfect -- could with justification challenge your characterization.”

In response to this I would certainly say that a great case could be made that Moby Dick is the “Great American Novel,” although I would say that a close runner up is Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Wikipedia has a good article on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Novel


While obviously, we could forever debate just what was “The Great American Novel,” I think Moby Dick makes the shortlist. That said, unlike Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), the book was not popular until after the author’s death and in fact Melville had to give up writing. (Both appear to have gone on the lecture circuit, which was once a way to significantly raise money. Twain was almost as legendary for his oral skills as his written ones.)


HERE IS THE LATEST FROM THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE:


'Moby-Dick': A state classic?
Squash, Guthrie's syrup among other bills filed
By Matt Murphy, Eagle Boston Bureau

Wednesday, February 07
BOSTON — Herman Melville's classic "Moby-Dick" may soon be required reading for anyone who wants to call themselves a true Bay Stater.
And while you're reading that whale tale, perhaps you can snack on a roll of Necco Assorted Wafers, made right in Revere.
Both could soon become official emblems of the state of Massachusetts along with squash, the necktie and Guthrie's Battleground syrup, made by folk singer Arlo Guthrie at his Washington home in the Berkshires.
Of the 6,262 new bills filed this year by state legislators tackling serious issues from gambling to sex offenders, at least a dozen are, shall we say, of the lighter fare variety.
And who could argue against the squash as the official state vegetable? Though these might seem like a silly waste of time for elected politicians working on the taxpayers' dime, some legislators say they are just doing it for the children.
In fact, many of the bills were filed simply to give local school children a chance to watch the legislative process in action.
State Rep. Christopher Speranzo, D-Pittsfield, filed the bill to make "Moby-Dick" the official book of the commonwealth after visiting a fifth-grade civics class at the Egremont Elementary School in Pittsfield.
Melville wrote the American literary classic at his Arrowhead home in Pittsfield. The bill is co-sponsored by all 86 fifth-grade students and teachers at the school.
"I'm hopeful to have them come down for the hearing and let them follow the committee process. I can think of no better way to explain the legislative process and teach them about civics than this," Speranzo said.
Similar bills filed as part of a class project include one from state Rep. Barbara L'Italien, D-Andover, to make the necktie the state's official men's accessory.
State Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, is working with the Taunton Catholic Middle School to make the Cape Cod quahog Massachusetts' official shellfish.
"I don't think enough government is being taught in our public schools. These aren't just frivolous bills, and I don't think they bog the process down at all," said state Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, D-Lenox.
Pignatelli filed a bill to make Guthrie's Battleground syrup, tapped by Guthrie himself, the state's official maple syrup.
Guthrie has been an ardent supporter of Pignatelli in the past, and the Guthrie Center has done a lot to promote culture and the arts within his district, Pignatelli said.
"I will guarantee you this will be the sweetest bill to ever pass in the Statehouse," he said.
David Guarino, spokesman for House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, said all bills are treated equally and will be forwarded to committees for full hearings over the course of the next session.
As one of his last acts of office, former Gov. Mitt Romney signed a slew of last-minute bills including one naming the garter snake the state's official snake.
Other curious legislation that could find its way into law this year include bills prohibiting the use of chain-link basketball nets, swearing by police officers and the possession or sale of spray paint to a minor.
One legislator wants godparents to have their own holiday, right alongside mothers and fathers. And another seeks to create a commission to study the heritage of the cranberry.
These bills won't solve poverty or fix health care. But this is still government at work.


RINALDO’S COMMENTS: I think it is perfectly appropriate to recognize Moby Dick work for the greatness that it is. And while there are certainly other great Massachusetts writers (Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edith Warton (Lenox, MA) immediately come to mind as eminent novelist, both who had spent some time in Berkshire County). Louisa May Alcott, author of “Little Women,” (Orchard House, Concord, MA) comes in at a distance, as does Jack Kerouac of the Beatnick movement (Lowell, MA). That said, none have written a single novel that comes near in greatness to Moby Dick.
OTHER GREAT MASSACHUSETTS AUTHORS THAT NEVER WROTE A NOVEL: (Henry David Thoreau [transcendentalist philosopher] [Concord], Emerson [poet, transcendentalist philosopher] [Concord], Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. [Cambridge/Pittsfield], Emily Dickinson [poet] [Amherst], Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [Cambridge/Pittsfield], were all great writers from Massachusetts, but not novelist. I have left out authors of the numerous famous political tracts from Massachusetts.]

http://www.finetravel.com/unitedstates/northeast/mass.htm



Just some thoughts on race and Moby Dick.

Ironically, though completely different in substance and style, there are similarities. Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn put aside what were then traditional notions of race, ironically, while traveling bodies of the water and all the symbolism that that represents. In Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim (the slave) put aside pre-civil war notions of race relations, and as they travel down the river, Jim becomes more of a father figure and a man. The same can be said for a whaling ship, where unlike nearly ever other institution of its day, race distinctions were not recognized. (I have never studied this subject, but there is a book, “Black Hands, White Sails,” by Patrick and Frederick McKissack, on this very subject.)

(http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Hands-White-Patricia-McKissack/dp/0590483137)

In Moby Dick:

Star Buck, the first mate, is a Quaker. As described in wikipedia, “Queequeg is a savage cannibal from a fictional island in the South Seas. The son of the chief of his tribe, he befriends Ishmael in New Bedford, Massachusetts before they leave port. Queequeg is a skilled harpooner on Starbuck's boat. He exhibits both civilized and savage behavior.
Tashtego is described as a savage, a Native American harpooner. The personification of the hunter, he has turned from hunting land animals to hunting whales. Tashtego is the harpooner on Stubb's harpoon boat.
Daggoo is a gigantic savage African harpooner with a noble bearing and grace, on Flask's harpoon boat.
Fedallah is the harpooner on Ahab's own boat. He is of Indian Zoroastrian ("Parsi") descent. Due to descriptions of him having lived in China, he probably might be among the great wave of Parsi traders that made their way to Hong Kong and the far east during the mid 19th century.
According to a Herald Story, “According to the book, black slaves manned whaling ships as early as 1640. By the 1850s, tolerant Quakers who ran many whaling ships were employing free black sailors.” http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-59215748.html

While I am certainly no literary scholar, there appears to be a striking similar where there is a racial equality on the open waters in both Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick, with infinitely greater degrees of colorblindness than on the land. Huckleberry looks to Jim almost as a father figure. Ishmael looks to his non-white companions as mates and co-patriots, and speaks of them in the highest regard. In both novels, race relations are borne out of mutual need, mutual respect, and mutual admiration. It was axiomatic that “…southern whalers, and others with an aversion to living and working with black sailors "...soon learned that when hurricane winds were blowing or their boat was attached to the end of a raging bull sperm whale, it didn't matter what color the hands were that handled the sails or pulled the oars. The rules were clear. All men had to work together if they were to survive. This reality is what earned blacks respect, or at lease they were tolerated, even though they were not always accepted". P.16 of Uncorrected Proof. http://web.coehs.siu.edu/public/jaacl/bkreview3.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn

Perhaps one of academics that I have sent this to could write an article, “Freedom on the Waters: A Study of Race Relations in Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn.”

The wikipedia article on Moby Dick reads, “Although the book initially received mostly negative reviews, Moby-Dick is now considered to be one of the greatest novels in the English language, and has secured Melville's reputation in the first rank of American writers.”



Monday, January 15, 2007

WHY ISN’T MOBY DICK REQUIRED READING FOR PITTSFIELD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS?

Q. What book, if any, could be called, “The Great American Novel”?
A. Why it’s Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, written in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Q. What work of fiction would be considered the greatest written in the English language?
A. Why it’s Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, written in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Q. What book, if any, was not required reading when I went to Pittsfield High School and is not to this day (and may never have been)?
A. Why it’s Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, written in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the greatest work of fiction in the English language, and thee Great American Novel. (send me an e-mail if I am wrong on Moby Dick not being required reading—but I think I probably will be correct).

In fact, I have never met a person that when to a Berkshire County based school and was required to read it. If you asked almost all Pittsfield High School students where did the line “Call me Ishmael” come from, most would have no idea.

There are a number of reasons for why Moby Dick is not required reading in Berkshire Schools, of which the following are most probable:

An excessive obsession with Shakespeare, as if he was the only writer worth reading, leaving little time for other authors.
The books length—it is a tome. Teachers feel they are not accomplishing anything if there are not books that can be read in a week. This book might rightly take one of the two semesters to read, and nobody wants to devout the time—when I was at PHS, we read Billy Budd just to say we read something by Melville.
There are a lot of “big words” that turn off today’s student.
The symbolism and allegory is somewhat difficult, and allegorical literary thought is becoming somewhat out of style as a literary device in the general population—people want more of an immediate understanding of what is happening. With the already difficult task of turning students onto reading, difficult prose is out, “The Catcher in the Rye” and Mark Twain is in. (“The Catcher in the Rye” actually was one of my favorites when I was young.)
The philosophical sentiments expressed in Moby Dick seems to be beyond the modern student. Take for instance the following quote, “Truely to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.” It is hard to imagine the PHS student I see drifting into Burger King seriously pondering such difficult reading—there are no difficult words in this passage, but there are somewhat difficult thoughts. It is hard to imagine a PHS student seeing that, in much the same way there is an answer as to why an ominipotent God allows evil in the world, we need discomfort in order to understand the blessings of comfort. Hopefully I am underestimating today’s student, but I suspect I do not.

The history of Moby Dick is in itself of great interest. The fact that it is not read in high school by even those in Pittsfield where it was written—though it is the “Great American Novel” says much. Many questions arise:

The book initially obtained many bad reviews—is Moby Dick actually a bad read exalted only by intellectuals?
Are the long technical descriptions of whaling no longer of interest to the modern reader?
Are long books, in today’s information packed society, a thing of the past?
Were the initial critics and the original lack luster sales an indication of a greater truth—Is Moby Dick just a bad read for average folks that was given an ill-deserved revival by early 20th century scholars and rightfully should not be read by high school student lest they be turned off from reading?
Put another way, are the reasons that Moby Dick was such a “box office” flop during Melville’s lifetime the same reason it isn’t being read today by Pittsfield High School students?
Most importantly, WHY ISN’T THE GREATEST AMERICAN NOVEL EVER WRITTEN REQUIRED READING IN THE VERY SMALL CITY IN WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN?

I ask this as a serious question, not a rhetorical one. There may be some damn good reasons that high school students shouldn’t be required to read Moby Dick, and I am all ears. Yet surely one can understand the questioning of not having Pittsfield, Massachusetts students not read the greatest American novel ever written when it was written in their home city.

Below is story by Tony Dowlbrowski of the Berkshire Eagle about a Truman Capote novel “In Cold Blood” will be required reading for 10th Grade Honors and 11th Grade Standard. Why “In Cold Blood” and not Moby Dick?

I must confess, I have only “read” Moby Dick as a book-on-tape, while driving. But though Moby Dick was “rediscovered” in the 20th Century, it was not a best seller during Melville’s lifetime. And while Melville enjoyed moderate success as a writer, he ultimately could not sustain himself by that profession. Melville wrote at Arrowhead for 13 years, but spent the last 20 years of his life working as an inspector for the New York Custom’s House. In fact, some people actually attributed Melville’s decline in popularity to Moby Dick itself. Ironically, I read Billy Budd at PHS, a work published postumusly 33 years after Melville’s death in 1924 (Melville died in 1891)—it is not sure that Melville ever wanted it published, and the practice of going through manuscripts and piecing together novels is highly controversial—posthumous works of Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.


Melville died in 1891. He wrote Moby Dick in 1851. Except for some works of poetry, which is capable of being written while working another job, Melville’s writing life ended shortly after Moby Dick. In fact, the work “Pierre,” published shortly after Melville’s Moby Dick was so thoroughly panned I am tempted to read it to see if it was really that bad. Wikipedia says of Pierre, “Other Melvillians, however, have found in Pierre a dark masterpiece that repays multiple re-readings by unfolding unexpected moral and philosophical depths.” Is a book—especially a long book—that requires “multiple re-readings” for “unexpected moral and philosophical depths’ worth the read? While that was a description of Pierre, it could also be a description of Moby Dick.

If Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) had written in Pittsfield, I suspect that we would read everyone of his books. I am reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons, as difficult a read as he is, I don’t have to read passages over and over again for deep meanings that reveal their truth on the third read—is this asking to much of a reader?

By the way, if Moby Dick is required reading at PHS or THS, please e-mail me back and let me know—I doubt that is the case. Any insight on why Moby Dick isn’t required reading would also be appreciated.

IDEA FOR A STORY: I have an idea for a story for anyone in the media interested—interview the principles of PHS and THS and St. Joeseph’s, the English department heads, and the English teachers themselves, and ask WHY isn’t Moby Dick required reading in Pittsfield? Contact the folks at Arrowhead and Mellville.org (you should read the panning of the critics—the critics of that era were perhaps more egotistical, if that is possible, than the critics of today) about the novels import. The story should not just be about Moby Dick—the story should be about the books import vis-à -vis its not being required reading in Pittsfield High Schools.

FOR CRITICISMS OF THE BOOK, GO HERE: http://www.melville.org/hmmoby.htm#Contemporary

I have sent this e-mail to many Melville Scholars from around the country, English teachers at Pittsfield High School and Taconic High School, as well as the Pittsfield school committee.

I have taken the liberty of blind carbon copying the press.

Is there a good reason why Herman Melville’s Moby Dick isn’t required reading at Pittsfield’s two high schools?