A nice place for a golf course?

Lest we forget,

once we came close to losing the meadow between the Smith Vocational School and Florence, and the whole farm program. And it wasn't that long ago. The meadow and its cows is an elegant reminder of the old Northampton, the town Jenny Lind called the paradise of America. The school's main campus, which used to total eighty acres, wraps around land-hungry Cooley Dickinson Hospital to the south and west. Once upon a time, not too long ago, there was a pretty orchard behind the hospital. Students harvested fruit from the trees and stored the apples and peaches in barns on the grounds of the school. Gradually, however, the orchard fell on hard times, a victim of budget cutting. ·

In the early nineties when I was on the city council, I got a call from a friend who worked at Smith Vocational. He says, "Mike, they are trying to shut down the farm program up here, and you've got to come to the board meeting to show your support for the farm and this guy Ed Maltby, who manages it. " So I went, along with quite a few other Northampton city councilors. It was a stormy meeting. I was mildly surprised to find Mayor Mary Ford engaged in shouting matches with farm supporters. Read the whole article here

Why the Ward three race is so important to the major players

There is a wonderful scene early in "The Sting" where Paul Newman and a gang of scammers gather around the table in the back of a brothel. The target is a mob boss who has killed one of their number. A canny old man who handles the pigeon assessment goes through all of Robert Shaw's virtues: "Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, doesn't chase dames."

"He does however, run a rigged card game on the Chicago Limited" he says, and then pauses and smiles. "And he cheats." The mood lightens in the room, and the plot ensues, a scam to end all scams. Out-cheating a cheater.

Wayne Feiden runs a rigged game, and no one has figured how to beat him yet. Read the full article here.