This New England

This is the golden time of year when the last of the beautiful leaves drop from the beautiful trees -- and then everything is ruined as yard crews and languid homeowners get out their shrieking leaf blowers and create dead zones around their houses, often for hours a day during the late autumn. Birds and many other forms of wildlife flee the assault, and human neighbors go indoors to avoid aural and psychiatric damage from these machines, which are also impressively air-polluting.

Affluent folk often arrange their yard crews' schedules so that the workers (some of whom are U.S. citizens) show up when the former are off at their spiffy weekend places, or on vacation, in, say, Palm Beach.

One of the great pleasures of wealth is insulating yourself from some of the nasty social side-effects of your purchases. It's not so much selfishness as obliviousness.

It's truly the Age of Noise. Consider how difficult it is to fnd a store that isn't blaring fifth-rate rock music.

I once asked a clerk at CVS's Wayland Square, Providence, store how she stood the cacophony hour after hour.

"After the first couple of hours, I don't hear it,'' she asserted, but with a grimace. Well, some parts of her ears and brain are picking it up, and it can't be doing them any good. Blessedly, CVS sells cheap ear plugs. That's great for customers but employees can't use them. And in this economy, most of them won't complain.

But at least they don't have to walk far to pick up a sedative.

Making the colleges pay

Rowdy college students have long irritated the neighbors. Now some Worcester city councilors demand that colleges reimburse the city for these costs. They complain that the city has spent more than $1.5 million on incidents involving college students in the past couple of years. If they press ahead with this in Worcester, you can bet that the many other New England communities with lots of resident college kids will think about doing the same thing, especially in a bad economy.

Slots not dogs?
Now that Bay Staters have approved a law to ban greyhound racing, look for some to push for slots at the state's two dog tracks -- Wonderland, in Revere, and Raynham -- as if that will be a panacea in a time when, incredibly, New Englanders seem to be gambling less.

Dr. Kennedy
Sen. Edward Kennedy will receive an honorary Harvard doctorate on Dec. 1 The timing, of course, has something to do with the senator's life-threatening brain cancer.
As an undergraduate, Mr. Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard for paying someone to take a Spanish exam for him but he later returned for his degree. Harvard has long since forgiven the legislative titan for that youthful indiscretion, minor compared to that of many other alumni.

 Tags  CVS Edward Kennedy greyhound racing leaf blowers slots Worcester

Comments

Hickok said:

So Haaaaavard is awarding Kennedy an honorary degree after he was expelled for cheating? Brown did the same for Ted Turner although he was expelled for misbehavior and never graduated. These hallowed institutions seem to forget past transgressions if you donate enough pesos. It is my understanding that Haaaavard is naming a dorm after Kennedy, and calling it The Johnny Walker Red House, with the Mary Jo Kopecne Cafeteria downstairs.

Link | November 11, 2008 12:43 AM
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Saul Ricklin said:

In days of yore
Twas a pleasant chore
Leaves to rake and burn
Odor not to spurn
But now its all gone
Blower cacophone
A sad solution
To air pollution

Link | November 11, 2008 4:13 PM
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