Items by Tom

• The Witch Wins

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 1
  Now Scott Brown Must Defeat Her
  
  
  Wicked Witch Coakley and Scott Brown
  I'm sorry to report that political hack Martha Coakley has won the senatorial primaries to select two candidates to compete for the seat once held by Ted Kennedy. One might have thought that' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 09, 2009, 1:50pm EST
  by Tom

• Augusten on Holyoke

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 3
  Unflattering Portrait
  
  
  
  I'm currently reading Amherst writer Augusten Burrough's hatchet job memoir of his late father, UMass philosophy professor John Robison, A Wolf at the Table. In it Augusten describes how he got his first apartment on Appleton Street in downtown Holyoke. He does' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 08, 2009, 5:29pm EST
  by Tom

• Thanksgiving Thief

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 1
  Taxing the Holidays
  
  
  
  Did you know that over 40% of the cost of your Thanksgiving dinner was imposed on you by the government? Americans for Tax Reform did the math which shows that an unwelcome guest was at your Thanksgiving feast - the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 07, 2009, 4:53pm EST
  by Tom

• Senate Endorsements

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 3
  No Good Candidates
  
  
  
  If the voters can stop yawning long enough, they will go to the polls on Tuesday to select two people to run for the U.S. Senate seat left open by the death last summer of Edward M. Kennedy. I don't know' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 06, 2009, 12:29pm EST
  by Tom

• Westfield Wanderings

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  Off the Beaten Path
  
  Yesterday my sister and I headed out on the streets of her adopted town of Westfield to see what we could see. This is ol' Saint Mary's.
  
  
  
  I was sorry to see that this art store has gone out [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 05, 2009, 2:11pm EST
  by Tom

• On the Sauce

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  Albano's Brand
  
  Reprinted from the November 17, 2002 edition of Tommy Devine's Online Journal:
  
  
  
  I finally got around to trying out he coffee and spagetti sauce the Mayor of Springfield has been peddling for several years. I purposely avoided doing so any earlier [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 03, 2009, 12:49pm EST
  by Tom

• SPFLD

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 5
  A Visit.
  
  On the bus.
  
  
  
  Out the window going past Sylvester's.
  
  
  
  The Peter Pan bus station in Springfield.
  
  
  
  Breakfast at Jake's on Main Street.
  
  
  [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 02, 2009, 1:52pm EST
  by Tom

• True Romance

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 5
  Boys in Love
  
  It's always assumed that young guys are cold, ruthless predators when it comes to sex. Some obviously are, but the majority are not, according to this study:
  
  
  
  Boys and girls report similar feelings of "love" in a relationship, the authors [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 30, 2009, 4:16pm EST
  by Tom

• Vonnegut at Smith

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  More Flashbacks
  
  Okay people, I've been rummaging through the vaults again and have unearthed a few out of print gems that I'll be posting in the coming days. Let's start with this reprint from the May 22, 2001 edition of Tommy Devine's Online Journal:
  
  
  [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 29, 2009, 2:00pm EST
  by Tom

• True Education

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 1
  The Kind You Never Forget
  
  I like this David Brooks piece in the New York Times about the too little appreciated importance of what we learn about life through art. I could write a similar piece about the Grateful Dead.
  
  
  
  Like many [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 28, 2009, 12:59pm EST
  by Tom

• Beatnik Comics

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  Mostly Disappointing.
  
  
  
  With fewer and fewer people reading books these days, it is no surprise that a lot of literary stuff is being made available in comic book form. When the popular artists Harvey Pekar, Ed Piskor and others united to do a collection [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 27, 2009, 11:30am EST
  by Tom

• Gratitude

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 3
  Happy Thanksgiving!
  
  The lights looked really nice in Northampton last night.
  
  
  
  Today was the community Thanksgiving dinner put on by the Amherst Survival Center at the Lutheran Church.
  
  
  
  The yard of the partyhouse next door to [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 25, 2009, 2:12pm EST
  by Tom

• Hampenings

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  Around Hamp
  
  Most pumpkins have gone bad by now, but as my neighbor's porch shows the small ones seem to have longer lives.
  
  
  
  As another of my neighbors has discovered, when pumpkins turn rotten they can become depraved to the point of' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 2:08pm EST
  by Tom

• UMass Criticized

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 7
  By Prominent First Amendment Advocate
  
  
  Angela Davis caused a UMass free speech controversy in the 70's.
  
  Nationally respected free speech advocate Harvey Silvergate weighed in on the recent free speech controversy at UMass over the cancelled invitation of a leftist terrorist. Not surprisingly,' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 21, 2009, 3:29pm EST
  by Tom

• Jack's Advice

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 1
  Writing Tips.
  
  
  
  I can't believe I never saw this before! It's a list that Jack Kerouac once wrote of the "essentials" of writing which he called Belief and Technique for Modern Prose. Here's the list with my comments after each one based on my' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 4:59pm EST
  by Tom

• Lightfooted Thunderbolt

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  Or the Last of the Narragansetts?
  
  
  
  I have to laugh over the details of the arrest last weekend of Springfield poltitical villain Frankie Keough. He got busted for breaking into his former second home in Rhode Island (odd how so many "public servants" in [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:10pm EST
  by Tom

• Past Judgement

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  Old Reviews
  
  Okay people, just one more day of nostalgia as we look at these old reviews I wrote.
  
  
  
  I finally understand this pirate craze thanks to seeing the Disney film Pirates of the Caribbean a few weeks ago. I saw it [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:58pm EST
  by Tom

• Springfield Starship

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 4
  More Oldies
  
  Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (or at least the concert stages) I was a misbehaving teenager attending acid rock shows in the Springfield area armed with a beautiful topshelf Yashica camera I got for a pittance from a B&E artist I knew (as in Breaking and [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 16, 2009, 11:45am EST
  by Tom

• Invisible Bear

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 3
  Barely There.
  
  This morning I came upon this sign along the woodland way leading into downtown Northampton.
  
  
  
  People who live along the woodland way often let their cats run free. They don't realize there are things in the woods that are dangerous' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 14, 2009, 1:25pm EST
  by Tom

• Timothy and Charles

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 1
  Leary and Manson
  
  I'm still working my way through Robert Greenfield's biography of Timothy Leary, the Springfield native who ended up in prison with insane murderer Charles Manson. Indeed, as this little excerpt shows, Folsom prison was a long way from Indian Orchard.
  
  
  [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 1:03pm EST
  by Tom

• Vagina Farce

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 4
  A Flashback
  
  Here's a reprint of a long out of print post I wrote on January 23, 2004 about a controversy in Amherst:
  
  
  
  I was on my way to purchase my three morning papers (the Springfield Republican and then depending on who has' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 11, 2009, 2:47pm EST
  by Tom

• ACORN at UMass

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 1
  Founding Father Speaks
  
  
  
  Wade Rathke (above) the founder and former head of the controversial "community organizing" group ACORN paid a visit to Western Mass, speaking at Springfield College yesterday and at UMass today. Rathke has deep roots in our Valley, having begun his career [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 10, 2009, 6:20pm EST
  by Tom

• Capuano in Amherst

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 2
  At the Black Sheep
  
  
  
  All of the candidates for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy - with the exception of the frontrunner - appeared at UMass last night. In an unusual twist, the candidates from both parties appeared together, instead [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 2:51pm EST
  by Tom

• Neal's Challengers

  —Tommy Devine's Online Journal

  Number of comments: 5
  A Year Before the Vote.
  
  The election results on Tuesday strongly indicated that the political tide is turning against the Democrats just one year after they swept into office on a wave of "hope" with Barack Obama. Of course it's best to take these off year election trends with' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 07, 2009, 12:03pm EST
  by Tom