If he were president....

If Al Gore were president could he have made this happen?

April 1st

The countdown begins to the Amherst town elections. It will be interesting to see who tops the list at the end of the day on (unfortunately) April Fool's day. By any measure, this is a memorable campaign season for Amherst and a strong turnout will be welcomed (and unusual).

It's tough to judge who might be ahead by lawn signs and standouts, phone calls or leaflets stuffed in the door. But as the old saying goes, there's only two ways to run for office: scared or unopposed. Clearly there's opposition, this year more than last, which is reflective of the opinion folks have of the Selectboard. Running in a contested election takes a great deal of time, effort, and some money so the fact that so many people are willing to step forward and try can be taken as a signal of discontent. One open seat and one vulnerable incumbent makes for an interesting opportunity for change.

Hanging at the State House

Stan Rosenberg invited the Pioneer Valley Photo Artists to exhibit images at his office in the State House and I'm among those taking him up on the offer. The photos (40 in all) will be on display from April 1 through June 6th and can be seen during normal statehouse business hours (no weekends or holidays). Stan has long been involved in promoting the arts and is one of the founders of the Arts Extension Service.

The photo in the header is a slice of my contribution to the exhibit.

Error of our ways?

There's been some grumbling of late that the folks who got it wrong in the first place continued to get space in the media on topics like Iraq and the housing bubble. The question is why and Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution has the answer:

The answer is media incentives. It wasn't just the experts who were wrong, the majority of the American people got Iraq and housing wrong. The war was popular in the beginning and people continued to buy houses even as prices rose ever higher. So what does the American public want to hear now?

The public wants to hear why they weren't idiots. And who better to explain to the public why they weren't idiots than experts who also got it wrong?

TATA for Now

No, I'm not going anywhere – just engaging in a bad pun for the purpose of restarting this blog.

TATA Motors of India, in what has to be world class irony, is buying to esteemed British brands from Ford Motors: Land Rover and Jaguar. Back in my dreamy misspent youth in western New York state (the hinterlands some 400+ miles away from The City) I used to dream about traveling across deepest, darkest Africa or some other god forbidden place in my Land Rover. Not luxury but the opposite. A bone jarring ride on terrain that required a vehicle as tough as the men on board. Luxury be damned, it was reliability and ease of repair we adventurers required.

Of course, that was I time when I would have purchased my big game rifle, a Weatherby .457 magnum, from that premier outfitter, Abercrombie and Fitch, located in Manhattan.

So now, Land Rover is reduced to selling SUVs to folks who have to negotiate the difficult terrain of southern Connecticut, in rain or snow. It is in competition with the Toyota Land Cruiser which seems to have pre-empted the Rover from its natural habitat if not the 'burbs.