This New England

The fastest way to get the economy going again, and of course reduce suffering: Boost Food Stamps, Medicaid and unemployment insurance.

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While adjunct instructors get paid only several thousand dollars a course, 150 University of Massachusetts employees raked in more than $200,000 last year, The Boston Globe reported. The highest paid was Derek Lovley, associate dean of UMass-Amherst's College of Natural Resources and the Environment, who made $613,000 last year! UMass Medical School Chancellor Michael Collins made $609,000, reports The Globe.
It's the winner take-all-society. No wonder there's so little money left for the adjuncts.

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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a promotional campaign for vegetarianism in New Hampshire that appeals to people on the basis of the assertion that eating vegetable protein as opposed to meat makes you more fertile -- assuming of course that you want to be more fertile.

But in fact the people likely to be vegetarians are the same people who tend to call NPR talk shows and have very few (but very cosseted) children or none at all. The "social conservatives'' who have big families are apt to stick with their steak. Some of them think vegetarians are perverts and commies.

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Speaking of NPR, it's astonishing how much air time must be devoted to commercials for your local NPR station that relentlessly tout its "commercial-free'' status. Meanwhile, place your order for a box of NPR chocolates, or long-stemmed roses (who wants short-stemmed ones?) to be Fed-exed to your house by Saturday! NPR is anything but commercial-free!

Still, it's well worth the agony. Commercial radio is a wasteland -- ruined by national chain ownership (Citadel, etc.) of unrelenting greed and banality. Rewound bad CVS drugstore music (but I repeat myself), utterly predictable talk-show hosts and often angry but ignorant call-inskies.

NPR has become essential.

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Newspapers and magazines still fear charging for access to their Web sites because people have become used to "free'' news. But given the way advertising is moving, what is the alternative to charging for it?

 Tags  Derek Lovley NPR PETA UMass

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