NEW YORK — Stocks dropped Monday, giving back a slice of their recent gains as investors dumped shares in some of the large technology companies that hold outsize sway over major market indexes.
The slump in technology shares Monday was a reminder of the ugly drop stocks suffered in October. Worried about rising interest rates, trade tensions, and a potential peak in corporate profits, investors briefly pushed the broader market down nearly 10 percent below its late-September peak and into negative territory for the year.
More recently, stocks had regained much of that ground. Wall Street jumped after last Tuesday’s contentious midterm elections were resolved, with the S&P 500 finishing the next day up more than 3.5 percent.
Yeah, I was told the results were exactly what the market was looking for.
Monday’s pain was not exclusively due to tech stocks.
Shares of Goldman Sachs tumbled 7.5 percent as questions mounted over what role the investment bank may have played in the looting of a multibillion-dollar Malaysian government investment fund.
Offhand I would say probably a big one.
General Electric’s stock fell 6.9 percent in its fourth straight decline after comments by its new chief executive failed to calm investors’ worries, but Apple remains a key concern. The company has a market value above $900 billion, so moves in the share price have an outsize effect on stock indexes — like the S&P 500 — that are weighted by market size.
Yeah, there is a “sense of urgency” over there, and what are you saying?
That the stock market is nothing but a fixed and rigged arbitration of value worth nothing more than the phone screen on which it is written?
That dynamic mostly has been a boon for the stock market in recent years. Apple shares rose more than 45 percent last year, and large tech companies have been crucial to the market’s performance this year. From the start of the year through the market’s Sept. 20 peak, roughly half the gain of the S&P 500 was attributable to five huge tech companies: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Through much of last month’s slump, these companies held up reasonably well, but Apple’s recent stumble suggests that some investors are questioning the ability of major tech companies to continue to carry the broader markets.
Then what?
See: Amazon ready to announce new headquarters sites, report says
I'm on the edge of my seat.
Apple’s tumble Monday followed another slide after its Nov. 1 earnings report, when the company said it would no longer report the number of iPhones it sells each quarter. So far this month, its stock price is down more than 10 percent.....
Forget the sliding stock and closing of shops.
Just focus on the live events you are being sold.
--more--"
I thought an Apple a day made you healthy:
Watertown’s athenahealth to be bought by New York financial firms, report says
They had to remove Jonathan Bush first.
Athenahealth to be acquired, combined with former GE Healthcare operation
I suppose it is no coincidence that "Jeff Immelt, the longtime chief executive of GE who has been leading athenahealth on a provisional basis, said in a statement that its new private owners would “provide athenahealth with increased flexibility to achieve our purpose of unleashing our collective potential to transform healthcare.”
At least it brings a measure of stability.
Protesters are angry over insulin prices, but the drug makers have asked them to be patient until January (building up the supply takes some Nuance).
Then the stuff can be imported:
"Trump’s NAFTA plan could be upended by Democrats’ House takeover" by Glenn Thrush New York Times November 12, 2018
WASHINGTON — Democrats, emboldened by their midterm win and eager to outshine Trump as defenders of the American worker, are unlikely to sign off on any deal that does not include significant changes that labor leaders and newly elected progressives are demanding. That could involve reopening negotiations with Mexico, although US and Mexican negotiators have both publicly ruled out that possibility.
PFFFFT!
Eight years of loving was enough.
“Trump made it seem like this was a done deal, but there is a long, long way to go,” said Representative Bill Pascrell, the New Jersey Democrat likely to be named chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade.
So the agenda is going to be investigate and obstruct until you can steal 2020, 'eh?
Robert E. Lighthizer, the US trade representative, has repeatedly assured Trump that he will be able to sell the deal to Democrats and the leaders of the United Steelworkers Union, the AFL-CIO, and the United Auto Workers Union, according to current and former White House officials.
If not, you're fired.
“We are very confident that Congress will approve USMCA,” said Jeff Emerson, a spokesman for the US trade representative, referring to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
“From the beginning, Ambassador Lighthizer has worked closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate on the renegotiation of this agreement,” he said, adding that the pact “is a balanced deal with strong provisions that will benefit US businesses and workers and that enjoys broad support among key stakeholders,” but there are signs that Lighthizer, who has a close working relationship with many labor leaders and pro-union Democrats like Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, may have a tougher time than he anticipated.....
Fine. I didn't like the deal anyway.
--more--"
Related: "The Democratic takeover of the US House is expected to spark a reshuffle of Washington’s K Street lobbying shops as Corporate America signs up advocates to help influence new personalities and priorities in Washington. As Democrats emerge from eight years in the minority, companies and trade groups are searching for experienced hands to tackle a new agenda that could win bipartisan support, including infrastructure, drug pricing, and tech privacy, lobbying specialists said. The shift in power on the Hill also may spawn congressional investigations into corporate issues such as executive pay, environmental track records, diversity, and how companies used money gleaned from President Trump’s tax cuts, said several K Street watchers. ‘‘We anticipate sustained and aggressive oversight, both of the Trump administration and of multiple industries,’’ said Bruce Mehlman, a Republican lobbyist and former Hill staffer who was an assistant secretary of Commerce under President George W. Bush. In the new landscape, Republicans remain in control of the Senate and the White House. As attention swings to the 2020 presidential campaign, Democrats will be revving up efforts to unseat Trump, whose tax, trade, and immigration policies fueled a lobbying surge in the first two years of his administration. Democrats’ phones had begun ringing even before the election, according to lobbyists, and the courtship is bound to accelerate."
Yeah, the FIX WAS IN!
Small cable companies criticitize Comcast; Trump joins in
There he goes again, speaking up for the little guy!
Speaking of little guys:
US analysts locate secret North Korean missile sites
The web version gives you the Associated Press version; my printed paper carried the New York Times (as if there were a difference):
"In North Korea, missile bases suggest a great deception" by David E. Sanger and William J. Broad New York Times November 12, 2018
WASHINGTON — The new commercial satellite images of a network long known to U.S. intelligence agencies suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: the existence of the ballistic missile bases, which North Korea has never acknowledged, contradicts Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination of a nuclear and missile program that the North had warned could devastate the United States, and the sanctions are collapsing, in part because North Korea has leveraged its new, softer-sounding relationship with Washington, and its stated commitment to eventual denuclearization, to resume trade with Russia and China.
Here we go again. They told the Saudis that Iraqi troops were on the border in 1990 with a fabricated photograph, we were told Iraq had mobile WMD labs based on satellite photos, and now this. I suppose if anyone knows about great deceptions it is the New York Times.
You can shove the provocative war propaganda and agenda being passed as a distraction regarding the crapping economy. Soooooo played.
Moreover, a U.S. program to track those mobile missiles with a new generation of small, inexpensive satellites, disclosed by The New York Times more than a year ago, is stalled. The Pentagon once hoped to have the first satellites over North Korea by now, giving it early warning if the mobile missiles are rolled out of mountain tunnels and prepared for launch, but because of a series of budget and bureaucratic disputes, the early warning system, begun by the Obama administration and handed off to the Trump administration, has yet to go into operation. Current and former officials, who said they could not publicly discuss the program because it is heavily classified, said there was still hope of launching the satellites, but they offered no timeline.
Is that what this is? An attempt to get the war-profiteering pipeline going again?
They can't discuss the program, and yet here they are discussing it while my war-promoting pre$$ places it as the front-page lead!
The secret ballistic missile bases were identified in a detailed study to be published on Monday by the Beyond Parallel program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a major think tank in Washington.....
Oh, a the report is from a war-promoting $tink tank, how wonderful!
A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment, but the “the level of effort that North Korea has invested is very logical from a survival point of view.”
--more--"
South Korea is already calling out the bullsh!t.
Related: US Navy carrier suffers second aircraft crash in weeks
We aren't ready for a war in Asia!
I'd say heaven help them, but.....
Bishops were ready to vote on accountability. Vatican said to wait
It was a day of reckoning postponed until Christmas (they missed the opportunity to be trusted).
[flip to below fold]
In key campaign role, Katherine Clark helped Democrats regain House
She was a Big Sister to the Deep State CIA operative Abigail Spanberger "won" a reliably conservative seat in Virginia that was being held by Dave Brat (the guy who upset Eric Cantor), while Minnesota’s Second District went LGBTQ.
In jail calls, Aaron Hernandez discussed NFL’s reliance on painkillers with former teammates
You are ruining the game with your Spotlight.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Parties in Florida election ordered to ‘ramp down the rhetoric’
The Democrats are going to steal Florida just like they are Georgia, Mississippi, and Arizona. Everybody knows what is really happening down there.
Fifty countries, but not the US, pledge to fight election interference on the Internet
That is because there was MASSIVE FRAUD and THEFT HERE.
It's okay, though, because the right people won.
Have you noticed that all the recounts have gone in the Democrats favor?
HMMMMMM!
Wisconsin school district investigates boys’ apparent Nazi salute
Deport him to England.
Man who posted selfie with stepfather’s dead body found incompetent to stand trial
That is why Facebook went down Monday afternoon, while the ma$$ media is still focused on the Acosta tape.
Methadone industry added 254 new clinics between 2014 and 2018
No wonder the "problem" of addiction is never $olved.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Oh, yeah, while you were consumed with all that:
"Israel, Palestinians exchange fire after botched Israeli raid" by David M. Halbfinger November 12, 2018
JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched an intense and sustained rocket and mortar attack across much of southern Israel on Monday, in retaliation for the killing of seven fighters by Israeli forces in a botched covert operation in Gaza the night before.
The details of which were unclear.
Israeli aircraft struck back, hitting targets in Gaza.
A ball of fire could be seen Monday above the building housing the Hamas-run television station al-Aqsa TV in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike (AFP/Getty Images).
Seems proportionate for an Israeli violation of Gaza sovereignty, 'eh?
I wonder if the Palestinians were able to get any flaming kites (remember those) up as an air defense.
The fighting threatened to scuttle months of multilateral talks aimed at calming the Israel-Gaza border, where protests since March have been met with a lethal Israeli response, killing some 170 unarmed Palestinians and wounding thousands more. The talks had already produced concrete steps to ease tensions in Gaza, including increased electrical power and the influx of millions of dollars in aid.
I think we all know why talks had to be scuttled.
More than 200 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel in just the first two hours Monday afternoon, 60 of them intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, the Israeli military said. By nightfall, the military said its fighter jets, attack helicopters, and tanks had struck more than 70 military targets in Gaza belonging to the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Authorities in Gaza said three Palestinians had been killed in Israeli airstrikes and three others were wounded. More than a dozen Israelis were reported wounded in the rocket and mortar attacks, including a 19-year-old man who was seriously injured when a bus was struck near Kfar Aza, northeast of Gaza, by an anti-tank missile.
The Israeli military ordered all residents in the south, including in the cities of Ashdod and Beersheba, to remain in bomb shelters. There were reports that homes had been struck and residents injured in Netivot and Sderot, Israeli towns near northern Gaza. Air-raid sirens were heard as far away as Hebron and the Dead Sea area.
The Israelis are as much a victim of the mind-manipulating fear and psyops as the rest of us.
The escalation came hours after Palestinians and Israelis buried combatants who were killed Sunday night, after what Israeli news media described as an Israeli intelligence mission inside the Gaza Strip that went awry.
Like what happened with Khashoggi?
So what other cover stories have gone awry (don't hold your breath waiting)?
Six Hamas fighters, including a commander of forces in the Khan Younis area, and a member of the Popular Resistance Committees, another armed faction, were killed. An Israeli lieutenant colonel in the elite Maglan unit, a commando brigade, was also killed in the clash and was hailed as a national hero at his funeral Monday.
I don't think the assassinations, 'er, mission went awry at all!
According to a former Israeli official with knowledge of the operation, the mission’s goal was surveillance, not an assassination.
Consider the liars telling you that.
Israeli intelligence officers frequently conduct this kind of operation, which is usually aimed at installing surveillance equipment. Because of extensive planning, they are considered at a low risk of exposure and confrontation.
Oh, they do this frequently, huh?
They are acting like Turks, aren't they?
Israeli officials have not publicly explained the mission or what went wrong with it.
Don't hold your breath waiting for one, either.
“The aim of the operation was not to abduct or to kill a Hamas operative,” Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israel military spokesman, said Monday night. He said that once the Israeli force met trouble, it “acted swiftly, professionally, was able to defend itself, exfiltrate in a very professional manner, making sure that all soldiers got back to Israel, that none were left behind.”
Asked to respond to accusations that Israel had broken an informal cease-fire, Conricus said there was no formal agreement.
“We are not aware of any cease-fire,” he said. “No such thing has ever been in place.”
(As a conscientious human being who is aware of the history and reality of the situation, you just shake your head at these monsters)
Still, he said that the covert operation Sunday had not been a deliberate provocation but was a routine part of the Israeli military’s efforts to contend with terrorist threats across its borders.
Routine, huh?
I guess the Palestinians have legitimate complaints after all!!
“Just as terrorist organizations don’t stop to plan, and to harbor weapons and try to strike against Israeli civilians, neither do we in our preparations, in our collection efforts, and in our operations that we conduct in order to mitigate the capabilities of the different terror organizations around us,” he said.
That the mission was botched has already had effects well beyond the scope of the mission itself. In addition to the heavy bombing on both sides Monday, it could derail cease-fire talks mediated by Egypt that appeared to show progress in recent days.
That is what it was intended to do, so maybe it wasn't a botch. The amount of attention it is receiving in my jew$paper, being the World lead and all, also raises suspicion.
With both sides eager to address Gaza’s collapsing economy, electrical shortages, and a deepening humanitarian crisis, the talks had already yielded measures to ease life for Gazans.
Yeah, Israel is eager to address the sufferings of Palestinians.
Tell me another one, NYT!
Israel agreed to let new shipments of diesel fuel be delivered to Gaza’s power plant, sharply increasing the availability of electrical power for residents of the beleaguered coastal enclave and allowing sewage treatment plants to resume operation.
As if it wasn't the Palestinians human right to receive such things.
Last week, Israel allowed a donation of $15 million in cash from Qatar to be driven into Gaza, where Hamas distributed it as back pay to thousands of its civil servants who have received only a fraction of their salaries for months.
Yeah, Iswael is so nice!
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of the importance of the talks on Sunday, saying that he was “doing everything I can in order to avoid an unnecessary war.”
That's a good one!
I needed to laugh out loud today!!
That was hours before the Israeli commando team had its cover blown in Khan Younis, setting off a firefight and requiring airstrikes to cover its retreat into Israel.
OMFG!
SIGH!
Hamas, the group that governs Gaza, was collaborating on the strikes against Israel with rival factions including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, and several other armed groups, according to a joint statement.
The groups called the barrage “a measured and carefully thought out response to last night’s incident,” and warned Israel that “the range and intensity of fire from Gaza will increase in accordance with the volume of the Israeli response.”
Moatasem al-Aloul, a driver from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, said he was stuck in traffic when he suddenly saw people running away from the rocket launches, as explosions crackled overhead.
“The bombing is everywhere,” he said.
By nightfall, during a lull in the fighting, the streets in parts of Gaza City were almost empty, with many residents staying indoors. Few cars were on the road, and the loudest sound was that of Israeli drones hovering overhead.
In a sign of its respect for the Palestinian rockets’ range, Israel began opening bomb shelters as far as 25 miles from the Gaza border.
Or was it to f*** with their own population like they f*** with us here?
In Kibbutz Alumim, less than 2 miles from the Gaza border, Sara Mash, 32, a secretary, said her three children and husband had been in their safe room — their children’s bedroom — since 4:30 p.m., when they first heard an explosion and then an air-raid siren.
“We’ve had times like this, but you could at least step out of the safe room and breathe,” she said by phone. “This is a situation where we could not, because every second there was a boom, nonstop — and you have no idea what is going on outside: Is it our side or theirs?”
Then she suddenly shouted, “Red alert, red alert — pick him up!” and ended the call.
--more--"
See: Hamas threatens more rockets after attack kills one in southern Israel
At least that took your attention off this, American:
"Taliban slaughter elite Afghan troops, and a ‘safe’ district is falling" by Rod Nordland New York Times November 13, 2018
SANG-E-MASHA, Afghanistan — One pickup truck after another arrived at the government compound in a district capital in Afghanistan on Sunday, pulling around to the back of the governor’s office to unload the dead, out of sight of panicked residents.
Soldiers and police officers, many in tears, heaved bodies of their comrades from the trucks and laid them on sheets on the ground, side by side on their backs, until there were 20 of them.
The dead all wore the desert-brown boots of Afghanistan’s finest troops, the Special Forces commandos trained by the United States. Four days earlier, the soldiers had been airlifted in to rescue what is widely considered Afghanistan’s safest rural district, Jaghori, from a determined assault by Taliban insurgents.
Early Sunday, their company of 50 soldiers was almost entirely destroyed on the front line. And suddenly, Jaghori — a haven for an ethnic Hazara Shiite minority that has been persecuted by extremists — appeared at risk of being completely overrun by the Taliban.
Is it worth the treasure and blood, America?
A small team of journalists from The New York Times went into Jaghori’s capital, Sang-e-Masha, on Sunday morning to report on the symbolic importance of what everyone expected to be a fierce stand against the insurgents.
This should be good!
Instead, we found bandaged commandos wandering the streets in apparent despair and officials discussing how they could flee an area almost entirely surrounded by the Taliban. By the end of the day, we were on the run, too.
Somehow it seems appropriately ironic, given their role in delivering the wars based on lies to us.
Officials told us that more than 30 of the commandos had been killed and we could see, on the streets and in the hospitals, 10 other wounded commandos. An additional 50 police officers and militiamen were also killed in the previous 24 hours, according to the militia’s commander, Nazer Hussein, who arrived from the front line with his wounded to plead for reinforcements.
“This is genocide,” Hussein said. “If they don’t do something soon, the whole district will be in the Taliban’s hands.”
Maybe, but that term gets tossed around so much it is nothing more than a political buzzword.
When you are talking genocide, you are talking what is in the article above -- and yet no one dare call it that.
The disaster sparked a protest by Hazaras in Kabul, who railed against what they said was government inaction, but even that took a deadly turn. The demonstration had just ended Monday when a suicide bomber struck, killing three women and three men, one a police officer, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman.
Jaghori’s 600,000 people are poor and live in an isolated part of the central highlands, an area that has no paved roads or electric lines, with terraced wheat fields and abundant orchards of almond and apple trees, but the district is famous for how peaceful it had been. Most people say they cannot remember the last time there was a murder or serious robbery.
Now this event stinks!
Whatever happened to those reported peace talks anyway?
A week ago, the Taliban broke a longstanding truce and attacked Jaghori from three directions in what appears to be a determined effort to take the district, as the insurgents have done elsewhere with increasing frequency, inflicting steadily rising death tolls on government forces.
Sort of like Israel, huh?
The governor of Jaghori district, Zafar Sharif, said that there had been no Afghan troops in the district before the commandos arrived Wednesday — only 250 police officers, plus the informal militia groups. About 1,000 Taliban had attacked, he said.
By late Sunday, reports came that Hotqol, a market town a few miles from Sang-e-Masha, and the place where the commandos had been killed, was now undefended, and families were fleeing from there and the next town as well. Panic set in amid rumors that the Taliban were only an hour away from Sang-e-Masha.
Sharif went into hiding.
We fled, too, along mountain tracks barely visible in the darkness. Nearly all of the traffic was one way, cars and even dump trucks packed with families escaping Afghanistan’s latest catastrophe.
--more--"
I'm sorry, but it is time to get the f*** out of there like they did!
Related: Fake images of woman acquitted of blasphemy roil Pakistan
The crisis surrounding a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy now has social media and deceptive images to deal with (their version of the Acosta tape).
Back to SPAMming you:
"Trump renews attacks on NATO and trade imbalances" by Eileen Sullivan, Maggie Haberman and Jack Ewing New York Times November 12, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump, fresh off an international display of unity among global leaders to mark the end of World War I, renewed his attacks on the United States’ longtime allies Monday and demanded fair treatment for the US in a trio of Twitter posts.
Wasting little time after the midterm elections, held just six days earlier, Trump renewed one of his favorite campaign topics — the “unfair” position of the United States in the NATO alliance — without even mentioning the name of the alliance, but the complaint, a familiar rallying cry for his political base, serves as a reminder that his campaign to win re-election in 2020 is well underway.
See: Turning Towards 2020
The president also renewed his complaint about the trade deficit. His comments come as Europe’s chief trade negotiator, Cecilia Malmstrom, heads to Washington this week to meet with Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative. The US and Europe have been engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war, as Trump imposed tariffs on European steel and aluminum and the bloc retaliated with tariffs on American products like peanut butter, orange juice, and whiskey. Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on European cars and car parts if the bloc does not agree to US trade demands.
Hopes that the US and Europe could quickly make substantive progress to resolve disputes on industrial goods, steel tariffs or cars have largely evaporated. Instead, Malmstrom will be on a mission to try to secure some modest wins, including gaining greater access to the US agricultural market, including selling shellfish in the US, and brokering a deal around pharmaceuticals.
Will it get through the House?
The European pharmaceutical industry is pushing for the US to recognize clinical trials of new drugs conducted in Europe and vice versa. That would cut the cost of testing a new drug by millions of dollars and help hold down prices for prescription medicines.
I can't see them not getting what they want.
Brussels trade negotiators hope that “as long as there is constructive work toward a stronger future trade relationship, the United States will withhold the urge to impose further tariffs,” said Koen Berden, a trade expert at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.
“They to want to show to Trump that we are serious and we want this to work,” Berden said in an interview Monday, but the proposals under discussion fall well short of the “new phase in the relationship between the United States and the European Union” that Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, described after a meeting at the White House in July.
The meeting in Washington on Wednesday will be the second between Lighthizer and Malmstrom since July, and her first trip to Washington. Members of their staffs have met more frequently. They have focused on regulations, which are often a more serious impediment to trade than tariffs.
As for the trade deficits, most economists do not see any gap as money “lost” to other countries and do not agree with the president’s view that the trade imbalance shows the United States’ weakness on trade policy.....
--more--"
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"UMass Boston promises swift improvements at new dorm" by Laura Krantz Globe Staff November 12, 2018
UMass Boston will swiftly implement new safety procedures at its dormitory in response to complaints from students that they feel unsafe, according to an e-mail sent Sunday to residents.
The e-mail followed a Boston Globe story about a host of concerns students have about the new facility, which range from safety to water leaks to bad food in the dining hall.
They served it up fast then.
In her e-mail on Sunday, which was obtained by the Globe, interim chancellor Katherine Newman promised to fix the problems quickly and hold responsible the company that built the dorm.
The $120 million residence hall was built and is operated by Capstone Development, a private, for-profit company that contracted with the University of Massachusetts Boston. Student room and board fees go to Capstone, not UMass.
Was supposed to be your dream dorm.
Starting on Sunday, Newman said, uniformed guards would be posted at the turnstile entrances to the residence floors in addition to the staff that is normally on duty for that purpose.
Except the previous article from Sunday told us the staff was absent!
So now the kids have to get more police state!
Officers will check student IDs to make sure only residents and their official guests, who must sign in, enter the dorm, the e-mail said.
“We appreciate that this may slow entry into the building, but we believe this slight inconvenience is a small price to pay for your peace of mind,” Newman wrote.
Freedom isn't free, but some people do give it away.
What do you do when the educational institutions and their leaders adopt a totalitarian mindset?
According to two students, on Sunday evening guards were stationed at the entrance to the elevators of the east building, but were not checking IDs. However, they were making sure each student swiped with his or her own key and did not let extra people in at once, students said. There was no extra security in the west building, according to one student.
The e-mail reminded students that they must accompany their visitors at all times and said resident assistants will patrol the floors and common areas.
“We expect them to treat all our guests with respect and courtesy, but we also have to insist that unattended guests cannot remain in the halls, especially if they are sleeping in common lounges,” the e-mail said.
Related:
"A massive manhunt in Rochester, N.H., for a gun-toting homeless man who fired at a State Police helicopter came to an end Monday when he was apprehended near the wooded area he’d been living in, but not before a night of “tense moments” for law enforcement, authorities said. During an afternoon press conference Monday, officials said a New Hampshire State Police chopper equipped with high-tech infrared technology tracked every move of the suspect overnight as he took cover in a wooded area behind a local Walmart....."
Good thing the CERT SWAT teams were called!
The e-mail also reminded students that the sale and possession of alcohol and other drugs is prohibited in the dorm, which is for freshmen only.
C'mon, it's college!
That is where they are supposed to experiment.
Resident assistants plan to convene students on Tuesday night to review security rules and answer questions about them, the e-mail said. Students will also be able to voice any concerns about safety or building management at their meetings, the e-mail said.
“Safety is our highest priority. We will monitor the impact of these improvements and will work with RAs, security staff and students to do more if need be,” wrote Newman, who was not available Sunday evening for an interview.
Those words have as hollow a ring to them as the echos in the rooms.
As for the cold showers, Newman said the school is talking with Capstone, which has said it is working on repairs.
The parts have been ordered.
Newman said she will also review the quality of the food in the dining hall, which is run by the company Sodexo. Newman has called for the creation of a committee to recommend improvements to the food, as well as a third-party survey each semester of the food.
Can you get a side of bureaucracy with that?
“A new project of this magnitude – the first dorms on our campus – is bound to develop problems,” Newman wrote. “Construction of residence halls was an important milestone in the history of UMass Boston. It’s important that we get it right – and I am personally committed to making that happen.”
Yeah, minimize the piece of crap they constructed.
She provided an e-mail hot line for students to give feedback.
PFFT!
I'm sure it's full by now.
On Sunday evening, several students said they were impressed with the chancellor’s response, though they lamented that it took a newspaper article for officials to respond.
And it only made the paper because a certain chosen person spoke up:
“I’m glad the issues are being taken care of, and I hope she follows through on her promises,” said Rebecca Engel, a student whose goldfish died, she believes, because of the poor quality of the water in the dorms.
Isn't Engel a Jewish name?
Parents are also concerned about the dorms.
Janet Boswell, of Winchester, said people pulled her aside at church on Sunday morning to ask if her son, who lives in the dorm, was OK. She said she knew the food was poor but had no idea the extent of the problems.
“It seems like they’re doing even less than common judgment would require of securing a dorm,” she said.
Boswell said the security concerns worry her the most. She said her son feels unsafe, and the RAs seem ill-prepared to handle the situations.
“The one thing I was not counting on, in terms of him adjusting to being at school, was him feeling unsafe where he is living,” she said.....
He's already nervous being in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar surroundings.
--more--"
You want to order a pizza?
A restaurant critic walks into a Papa Gino’s . . .
Condescending eliti$m has become a joke (or perhaps always was, huh?).
"A century before Columbus, a Scottish knight explored Massachusetts. Or did he?" by Brian MacQuarrie Globe Staff November 13, 2018
WESTFORD — Like the UFO that allegedly crashed in Roswell, N.M., the incredible is believed to have happened here. The knight, said to be Sir James Gunn, is thought to have died in Westford during Sinclair’s unproven expedition across the Atlantic.
Forget that, what about Sheffield (I've always wondering why no one has ever seen them over a baseball stadium)?
“I’m blown away by how much evidence there is,” said David Brody, fiction writer and former lawyer, as he broomed the controversial carving that has become his passion.
The buzz has become international.
Such theories are considered by dismissive scholars to be “pseudo-archeology” that looks for evidence, “usually outside the bounds of accepted scientific research, [for] pre-established beliefs,” said Peter Drummey, librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Like the cover story of received history.
In the meantime, Brody remains a believer that European explorers and traders probably poked around New England well before Columbus arrived in the Caribbean.
They probably did, but history is now a pack of lies, agreed upon myths that support the narrative of those in power.
Politeness, at the least, extends to Town Manager Jodi Ross, who, after a long pause, said she believes that Henry Sinclair, first earl of Orkney, did indeed traipse through the 14th-century wilderness here.
“There definitely is an etching of the sword,” Ross said. “It’s a very interesting story, so why not?”
My response is who cares?
Brody and many others are mesmerized by the possibility.
“If this legend is true, it rewrites the history books, and Westford is really the first place we know of that Europeans came to explore,” Brody said.
“This kind of stuff keeps me up at night, wondering.”
That's funny because it put me to sleep.
--more--"
I guess he crossed that bridge when he came to it before stopping on the side of the road to deliver a baby.
