More Human Than Humanic

The site of the former St. Joseph's Church, which used to stand tall against the skyline in Springfield, appears nearly ready for it's new incarnation. It's rumored there will be a Starbuck's-centered shopping plaza taking it's place...



Since we're here, a couple more panorama shots of the rest of our fair city....





Driving through the Eastern Avenue section of Springfield, which is unfortunately notorious for it's gang activity and general down and out-edness; it was nice to see some people taking initiative, and doing some clean up work.





A few buildings further up, some more of the same, and this time I noticed a couple of the workers had similar grey shirts on.



Around the corner and closer to the Springfield College campus, There began to appear more and more of them. They were marching in groups, armed with rakes, shovels, garbage bags and other implements of orderliness.



They were part of Springfield College's annual Humanics In Action Day.



This is their 11th year of doing battle (for a day) in the local community against illiteracy and blight, and forming a closer bond between the college and it's surroundings.

Up in Northampton, there suddenly appeared one of the last of the v-double-ya miiicrobuses......



I wonder if they'll make a resurgence, and VW will create a modern version like the new Beetle, in this time of energy belt-tightening...

Speaking of beetles, I'm often forced to do battle with bugs (mainly bees) at work, as they love to hide out in HVAC units and surprise a sleepy service technician. I read somewhere a while back that the more we use pesticides on them, the more resistant they become. Eventually, we will have superbugs, immune to whatever we can throw at them. They'll even fight back, weakening our sensibilities with Rock Ballads...



Johnny, go back to the truck, and grab me that BIG can of Raid...

Finally, some evidence of the Dumbing Down: when did television nightly news decide it's a good idea to make a transition to junior-high level, low brow grammar?



There are better ways to compete with the internet...