UMass Magazine Online

Spring 2005

Departments

Exchange

Features

There Goes the Neighborhood

Fab Four

The Gravest Danger

The Wonderful World of Disney

Cooking Lessons

Exchange: To and from the editors

All the letters all the time

Dissapointed at Disney
I am sadly dissapointed that my "disney magazine" was cancelled. I enjoyed receiving this magazine quarterly. The magazine was aimed at adult people even my 16 year old daugher enjoyed reading it. We enjoyed the updates on the park, looking at the new trading pins that were coming out, and new events that were happening at the parks. And it even had coupons and offerings for the resorts. The only thing I did not like about the magazine was that it did not come out often enough. I would have liked to receive it monthly or even every two weeks. The had the bulletin board which was very interesting. And I hope if you do not come back with this magazine you come back with one similar to it. They had great recipes. It was just an overall great magazine for adults young at heart. Also it would be nice to have more contests.

I hope to see this magazine back in publication as soon as possible or another similar to it for adults. I am really dissapointed in the Disney magazine company!

Teresa Hellebrand ’76
South Plainfield, New Jersey

Can Coke
The recent Alumni magazine was touting the UMass association with Coca-Cola. It was appalling to me. Coca-Cola is causing horrendous hardship and grief in third world countries. Coke is buying rights to water in the third world and in the most blatant greedy fashion charging the people of these countries for their own water. Please, please do research on this topic and sever the connection. There is much information on Coke’s actions.

Brenda (Oliveri) Bergstrom ’62
Burlington, Vermont

Outsourcing rhetoric
As a UMASS grad, 1973, Vietnam Vet, and general supporter of the campus life and what it represents I was saddened and shocked to read your article in the spring 2005 UMass Amherst magazine regarding Vivek Paul and WIPRO.

His rhetoric about outsourcing is such an obvious smokescreen about the truth of the matter.

I am ashamed we went to the same university, he has paid back the America that welcomed him by putting thousands of American skilled workers, including myself and many others, out of work or having to find new careers. There are countless Americans who have suffered because our government allows companies like WIPRO to take advantage of an uneven playing field.

I actually speak from experience after having personally dealt with his company.

He is a trusted partner as long as you play by his rules not the fair ones. He and his ilk are a disgrace to the university.

Stephen Garbowit ’73
Hamden, Connecticut

Enamel rotting garbage
I graduated from the College of Engineering, BS Civil/Environmental 1991, and enjoyed my last two years at UMASS living in Butterfield. Just as a comment, Iím equally disturbed, as many others seem to be, by not one but two full page ads for coca-cola!! I mean really, the product itself is pure enamel rotting garbage and the companyís policies and practices are quite suspect!! For the only commercial advertising in the magazine coca-cola is surely a horrible choice.

Chris Moran ’91
Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Stadium confusion
I think your magazine is a professional production. I just started reading my brother's, James Taseos ’75, spring issue. In your winter issue there was a photo of a man wearing a UMass jersey at a New England Patriot's game. The caption said he had gone to San Diego to follow the Patriots. Actually, the stadium in your magazine photo was the AZ State University stadium in Tempe, which the Arizona Cardinals ues. The Patriots were at the Tempe site on September 19, 2004.

George Taseos
Phoenix, AZ

Disgusted with Coke
I can hardly believe you are saying, right after pointing out the financial payoff of $15,000.00, that the Coke contract “is more than a financial arrangement; it’s a relationship.”

UMass graduates are well known for their less than average intellect and partying-on. Maybe they’ll fall for this. The few of us who went to UMass for a cheap, mediocre education as better than none at all, won’t fall for such stupidity.

Please quit sending me your magazine, and while you’re at it, investigate how many of your graduates eat Stonyfield yogurt and wouldn’t touch Coke with a ten foot pole.

Disgustedly yours,
Victoria H.C. Rogers ’66
Otisfield, Maine

Coke - speak to the truth
On June 6, I received the latest UMass Alumni Issue which I have been receiving since graduating with the Class of "49" Engr. I have watched the magazine expressing the thoughts of many thousand contributors. The fact that I am of a different generation you would expect that I would disagree with many of the articles particularly when I have seen the University, overall, becoming a liberal bastion of education. In all these years I could have had reason to quote the inbox, "cancel my subscription" but one should respect the opinions of others and read what is spoken to and evaluate the contents

These two letters addressing Coca-Cola points out exactly what I speak to in the above paragraph

when some one speaks out on an anti-business agenda the liberal coalition jumps on board and continues the bashing of the company without waiting to an analyzing of the facts.

Why do I say all this !

On June 7, I picked up my copy of the Wall Street Journal and then preceded to read a many column article that speaks to the very heart of the items these two Inbox letters were commenting to and that same article would also substantiate your opinion on a Question of Ethics, just another way of saying "speak to the truth."

Good luck and don't cancel my subscription.

Joseph O'Gorman ’49
DeLand, Florida

In your defense of Coca-Cola's corporate behavior you state that it is not in violation of any laws. Legal and moral are two very concepts. There are plenty of immoral acts that are legal, esp. in the often corrupt countries where Coca-Cola's behavior has been the most egregious. Particularly in the midst of a global obesity epidemic, in which soft drinks play a major role, your shilling for this corporation is very unbecoming for a institute of higher education.

Though I enjoyed UMass and got a great education there, this alumni magazine is mostly fluff. Please save a tree, and some that $15,000 you sold out for and take me off your mailing list.

Michael Modica ’77
Saugus, Mass.

Then and now; let's have both
You might say it’s ironic that I am “inspired” by the photo just inside the cover of the Spring 2005 issue. It’s a picture of the way UMass Amherst “was”. In the photo are farmers harvesting hay with pitchforks and a horse drawn wagon. The irony of all of this is that I majored in Natural Resources and the Environment while I was at UMass, and I’m inspired by the past, and inspired by how it might be possible to return to nature here and now in the present. I have to admit, however, that irony seems to spring from things which have lost their truth and tradition at times. It is ironic to be inspired today by something that was definitively real many yesterdays ago. Now I have to cut to the chase, like the reaper with his scythe, because this has to be short. I did poorly at UMass in so far as my “low cut” GPA was concerned; and I’ve figured out why: environmentalism is precisely opposed to letting people be in contact with the environment. It’s another irony but it’s true. You may notice that there are no tents, animal hide teepees, or bark wigwams in any of the New England state’s state forests or parks. It’s difficult enough to talk to people about using native lumber from local deciduous forests as entire timbers for something like timber framing a barn, or perhaps a federal style colonial home, a sturdy four post master bed, or even for milling into custom dimension lumber cut to sizes other than something similar to the glut of industrial processed lumber now on the market as the ever present 2x4; a product every New Englander can get, even though the vast majority of us have no related idea about how tall the Douglas Fir tree it came from was.

On October 1st 1905, at the beginning of Theodore Roosevelt’s second term, and with Gifford Pinchot as the US Chief Forester, the United States moved the US Forest Service from the US Department of the Interior into the US Department of Agriculture where the agency remains to this day. Environmentalists from New England would cite the eradication of the grey wolf, or perhaps the clear cutting practices of industrial logging for the 2x4 overproduction purposes mentioned above; but I have to say that the dream of what I can here term an agrarian and environmentally aware society has yet to be reached; despite our need for such a mindset as a component of our culture and our need to follow the legal precedent set by the federal government in state government agencies where objections of a population disconnected from the environment prevents allocation of the time and energy to take action. The forest service in Massachusetts and states nearby like Connecticut still lies under the control of this recent creation of environmental protection, parks and recreation, and absentee environmental presence. The main place the Federal Government and the Department of the Interior is making a stand in Massachusetts is on Cape Cod, where homes owned by those people with no children to inherit their land are returned to the National Seashore and the beautiful miles of endless dunes and sea grass; in a wonderful effort to save the environment. It turns into a policy relating to some apocalyptic anticlimax. Thankfully the federal government has the wherewithal to handle the wild, but it seems something needs to be done to make the land more fruitful in our north eastern states. The state agencies in charge around here intend the difficult necessities of logging operations in our region to appear messy and horrible to look at; with literally tons of “slash” logging waste left behind as if to make people say what a horrible thing it is to try to make a living from the land. Resource Economics even preaches that due to the fact that natural resources are finite, profitability invariably fails and work done outdoors in the environment can not be economical in the long run. Don’t make me bring up the “no taxation without representation” debate as an unfortunately economically plutocratic diversion from farming and the ways of the original constitutional life led by the first of minutemen and their neighbors, all I want to say is that we can do this without the economics game that it seems only New York is capable of really playing. Unfortunately, there always seems to be someone who says “it’s not in the budget” or “where’s the funding” when we consider how we are going to build utopia. Maybe an iron ore miner or a granite quarry stone cutter just needs to drive the big rock to the place where we are going to put the freedom tower. It is time for real environmentalism in our region, it is time for farming, it is time for organic food, it’s time to see trees as a renewable resource, it’s time to bring back the harvest. When I stare from my window, or forward through the windshield, and I look at this land of ours, I see lumber as far as the eye can see; just look into the distance from the highest floors of W.E.B. Dubois library. I see fields of green, I see crops, and managed forests of complex edge habitat dynamics like the ones they say the Native Americans had before the idea of demons in the wilderness arrived. It is truth. This will come to pass. We need fire in our forestry policies. We need to realize we have diesel and gasoline and hydraulics and metal and millions of people with all the different types of knowledge from study, and experience, and life, which it will take for whichever biosphere reality we choose. If you are thinking high technology consider the possibility of computer numeric control (CNC) manufacturing capacity being used for the big rock I was just talking about. Then and now; let's have both.

Simon Alan Flynn IV, ‘04
Killingsworth, Connecticut

Legal doesn't equal ethical
I was very much disappointed in your editorial in the spring issue of UMass Amherst magazine. I feel compelled to point out what I believe you already know—but I’ll say it anyway.

The editorial about Coke was very disingenuous. Just because what a huge global corporation does is LEGAL does not make it ethical, moral or right. After four years of Bush Administration’s "disassembing (sic) —that means to lie” to use his own words, you can’t really believe that what you said had any ring of truth to it. You sidestepped the issues. Paige Bridgen’s letter was good, but Mary McClintock’s was the last word on the subject, as far as I’m concerned. I do give you credit for at least printing them.

If you need coke’s money to send out UMass magazine, then please, cancel sending my copy.

I do not say “my subscription” because as you know, nobody actually subscribes.

And work on your conscience—if you really believed what you wrote, your UMass education was sorely lacking critical thinking skill development.

Raymond Paquette ’80
Greenfield, MA

Wise choice—Coke
Hear - Hear to you for your reply in A Question of Ethics - Spring 05 UMass Amherst magazine.

I read this article with interest—then I found the comments—Can Coca-Cola...

I'm often in a seat of criticism about having a consumer relationship with Coke. As a public school administrator - I researched the advantages and disadvantages of offering Coke and other carbonated beverages and their non-carbonated beverages to middle & high school students. After reviewing the benefits and disadvantages (bad press Coke and school have) to administration, we concluded that the relationship with our local Coca-Cola vendor in Greenfield, MA, offered more for our school and students than to not.

We researched what the company could offer us and most importantly we concluded that it offered the students choices - choices about selecting products. The vending machines located in the cafeteria offer only non-carbonated beverages - Dasani water, Powerade and juices - during academic hours. In fact, water is the biggest seller. The carbonated vending machines are activated once the academic day concludes - offering the students/customers options - choices they must make. What was not available on campus - the students drove uptown to purchase. We preferred the convenience for students, and the commission earnings from the sales. Our school has been able to support many student-related activities, plus be the recipient of an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED), and enjoy material items, i.e., scoreboards, that our school operating budget would not allow.

We believe it is important for us to educate our students on wise choices. Like UMass being able to mail UMass Amherst magazine because of Coke revenue - our public school benefits too.

Glad you supported your research. Glad you continue to run the Coke ad.

Christine Radzinski Nosel ’78
Ware, MA

Fab Four—great story
I finally got to sit down and read the printed UMASS article about the "Fab Four". What a great story of four wonderful alumni. Thank you for making this type of story available to other employees, alumni, and friends of the University.

Greg Brown
Director, UMass Amherst Multicultural Engineering Program

Caption confusion
Hello. Once again, you folks have produced a truly fine magazine with a good assortment of features, well written and edited, nicely laid out and accompanied by really fine photos. Believe me, it’s appreciated.

I don’t like to be the one to find errors (especially in my own work), but I am obliged to point out one I happened to notice in the photo caption on Page 37. You’ve reversed the ID’s of former Sen. Sam Nunn and Sen. Richard Lugar. You’ve probably noticed this by now, but I thought I should mention it just in case someone hadn’t. This is nothing compared to the screw-up I made in my early days as a reporter in 1961 on the Middletown (NY) Times Herald Record, where I nailed the difficult last name of the deceased in an obituary, but managed to get the wrong first name, thereby killing the man’s brother in print.

Soldier on, folks.

Alan Lupo ’59. (As in 1959, not 1859, though it sometimes feels that way).
Winthrop, MA

Since there is no "errata" category once you click on the link for it, here goes: I assume someone has alerted you to the fact that the photo identification on page 73 in the Spring 2005 edition is not correct. Sam Nunn is the second from the left and Richard Lugar is the third from the left.

Carol Cooke ’73
Alexandria, VA

In Memoriam error
I would like to address an error which was printed on page 79 in the spring 2005 issue of UMass Amherst magazine. Specifically, I would like to let my UMass friends know that the reporting of my death was in fact—premature. Robert E. Radowicz of Sunderland was my father so the reporting error can be easily understood. Dad died at the Leahey Clininc in Burlington after a courageous battle with a rare and deadly form of blood cancer.

If there are any folks out there who remember me from my Industrial Engineering/ Operations Research classes, the Ski Club or my time in Van Meter, I want you to know I'm still alive and well and living in Maine. Feel free to drop me a line to catch up.

Bob Radowicz ’81
Gray, Maine

Personal and Corporate Ethics
Thank you for printing the two letters complaining about Coca-Cola. Thank you also, and very much, for printing your reply.

There is a factor regarding ethics implied here which you did not—and possibly felt you could not—include. It is quite true that corporate ethics had slipped; it is also true, in my opinion, that corporate ethics are, in general, improving. However, what the two letters illustrate so clearly is that personal ethics have also slipped. Before anyone, public or private, makes a statement regarding anyone else, public or private, it used to be that the individual was careful to make sure of his or her facts, particularly if the statement was or could be thought of as derogatory. As the two letters, and your subsequent investigation, demonstrate, this is not true any more.

Just as corporate ethics needed improvement, and still need more improvement, we all must be aware that our own actions and ethics need to be above reproach before we comment negatively on someone else's actions and ethics.

James C. Hall ’87G
New Hartford, Connecticut

Coffee Gallery - symbol of culture scene
Thank you for publishing the article about the Coffee Gallery (winter 2005). I am a native of western Massachusetts. My family members have been customers of the Gallery for 30 years, and have watched the business grow. The Coffee Gallery has definitely established itself as a symbol of Northampton's culture scene.

Caroline Liebenow ’98
Oulu, Finland

Algae a la Mode - no false positive
Omega-3s play an important part in our life and I laud Dr. Decker in his accomplishment.

One fact that is not recognized by the medical community, especially when testing men for high PSA and/or cPSA to tPSA, is that if the male is taking flaxseed oil the total PSA may double with a month.

This is an indication of prostate cancer.

Thus the false positive reading may lead to unnecessary needle (18 awg), much pain and emotional distress and in some case removal of the prostate - may be unnecessary.

Here the male must manage their care and question test results, use alternative therapies (zinc, selenium, fish oil, vitamin A @ E with calcium...the B-complex will also help). And be retested after three month of conservative herapy.

I would like to see the data on Dr. Decker's product as it progress through the Harvard Medical School. Perhaps Dr. Decker can make an analysis on how close the algae chemical composition is to flaxseed oil?

As I mentioned some within the medical profession, urology, do not know of the "false positive" reading generated by use of flaxseed oil in the male.

This may be a selling point and benefit when Dr. Decker's product hits the market: "No false positive reading with Algae a la Mode like the false positive generated by males using flaxseed oil for omega-3s".

Walter J. Feszchak '73
Cupertino, Ca

Unhappy with University's connection to Coke
I've just finished reading the Winter 2005 issue of UMASS Magazine and want to compliment you on its attractive and informative content and design. I particularly enjoyed the Field of Dreams section and am pleased to see the important agricultural work of UMASS-related folks highlighted. The article on CSA's by Faye Wolfe is superb.

As I flipped through the back of the magazine, grazing on a class note here or there, I had a smile on my face and a warm spot in my heart for UMASS. Then I got to the inside cover and saw the life-sized bottle of Coke. I felt like someone had just slapped me in the face. What is that ad doing in a magazine with virtually no other advertising? Coca-Cola is the antithesis of the values espoused in your articles. It is a huge global corporation known for its violent and environmentally destructive practices around the world. The ad makes it look like some nostalgic wholesome food instead of the sugar-laden, fake chemical "beverage" that it is.

My respect for the Alumni Association and its magazine just plummeted. Instead of a well-done, informative issue, I saw it for what it really is: a glossy package to deliver however many thousands of UMASS alums to this advertiser.

I am aware that UMASS recently renewed a multi-year EXCLUSIVE contract with Coca-Cola. Anyone who studies at, works at, or visits the UMASS campus is inundated with images of red and white Coke logos. I know that part of the agreement with Coke is a clause stipulating non-disclosure of how much Coke pays the University for the right to plaster Coke ads on any and all available surface areas. I also know that a group of students and community members tried to get UMASS to choose another beverage provider to receive the contract, including the possibility of the Massachusetts-based company, Polar Beverages.

How much did Coke pay for that magazine ad? Or is access to the UMASS Alumni Association part of the exclusive contract?

Please cancel my subscription to UMASS Magazine and remove my name from lists of the Alumni Association. I will direct any contributions I might have made to educational organizations that have not been bought out by corporate criminals.

Mary McClintock '89G
Conway

Proud of UMass Amherst magazine
We receive several Alumni magazines at our house, all from well respected, challenging universities and colleges. The UMASS magazine is always the one I'm most proud to receive, and most eager to read, but you outdid yourself with Winter 2005; what a beautiful testament to the College, past, present and future.

Elizabeth (Earls) Ramos '69
Celebration, Florida

Stockbridge -Can you help Stockbridge?
Thank you for the UMass Amherst alumni magazine – winter 2005. The section on a “Field of Dreams” was extra good. I wish the Stockbridge School of Agriculture could publish such interesting material. What can you do to help them?

John C. Stockbridge ‘50S
Bloomington, MN

The power of ideology
The letter from Cynthia McPherson Frantz in your Winter 2005 issue ("The Power of ideology") expresses irony that apparently escapes the author. Ms. Frantz complains that what she perceives as the US' "failure" in Iraq is being misreported in the press in general and in UMass Magazine in particular; that we are faced with "profound unrest and violence mounting in Iraq" that has resulted in the US' failure; and that any opinion to the contrary "is a testament to the power of ideology to blind humans to objective facts."

Ms. Frantz, I am aware of at least three million Iraqi women—purple ink-stained fingers raised in celebration of their new right to vote—who would give you a really spirited argument. Ms. Frantz, I attended UMass with your ideological fellows. They were wrong and so are you.

Kenneth B. Sherman, '68, '75G
Commander
US Naval Reserve (Retired)
Republic of Vietnam, 1970 – 1971

Durfee memories
Just HOURS after reading the article on Ben Sullivan [UMASS Amherst, Winter 2005, pp. 14,15],and noting the picture of Durfee Range, I was looking through an old album of postcards, dating from the early 1900's. The collection was put together by a distant cousin, long since deceased, who lived in Hazardville [Enfield]. CT. To my surprise I came upon a postcard showing the Durfee Range. The year the postcard was sent does not show, but it can be determined it was sent on July 30 from Amherst to Miss Gertrude E. Adams who was my maternal grandfather's 1st cousin. [The album was apparently obtained by my mother after the death of Miss Adams in the late 1940's. She squirreled it away and it was long forgotten. Mother died on 28 Feb 1999 at age 94 + years (b.8 Jun 1904). I am in the process of 'gleaning' through her things, a slow process since she squirreled away so many artifacts of some and no value.]

I cannot recall how many times I had stopped in to Durfee Range, the name of which I had assumed had something to do with ROTC target practice. Not only were the plants and flowers of interest, it was a great stop to warm up on cold days while traversing between classes and Greenough or Baker dorms. Also of interest were the ginko and cork trees highlighted in lectures by Prof. Torrey in Botany I.

Attached are front and back views of the Durfee Range postcard.

Richard B. Robbins '58
Onset

Bresciani—good fortune comes his way
It was good to see Dick Bresciani with such a big smile on his face—he deserves the good fortune he has had. Always hard working, always pleasant, always a general good guy, he worked the sports side at WMUA while I worked the music and Deejay side.

Dick's voice doing the "color" for the UMass games from 1956 to 1960 remain an indelible part of my undergraduate experience and I believe him when he says with true sincerity that he is happy to see people happy.

Leland J. (Lee) Katz, ’60
Bellingham, MA

Trees and more trees to love
Thank you for the "Trees we Love" feature in UMass Magazine in print and online. There are some long-neglected trees you should add to your map. They are along the steep western slope of the hill above Central (known to old-timers as Prexy's Ridge because it's near the old President's House, now the Chancellor's House). There are old White Oaks, Hemlocks and other native trees in that forest. That forested hillside is a marvelous place, and we shouldn't neglect it just because the trees planted themselves and aren't "class trees"!

Elisa Campbell ’80G
Amherst, MA

Take care of that sweet smile
The UMass Amherst magazine is a fine publication and I look forward to its entertaining and informative articles, but I was dismayed at the total lack of awareness regarding nutrition and its relationship to dental health exhibited in the Winter 2005 issue. The article, "A Spoonful of Sugar", was particularly distressful as it seemed to advocate frequent sweets consumption focused on calorie concerns rather than dental health. The article, "The Sweetest Thing", seemed to reinforce the theme. Finally, the soft drink ad on the inside of the back cover put the frosting on the cake so to speak.

As a dentist for more than 30 years I can attest to the extensive destruction of the human dentition due to frequent exposure to the sugars referred to in the articles. A healthy dentition is essential to a quality life.

Peter C. Amorosi, D.D.S., ’66, ’68G
W. Yarmouth, MA

Magazine as teaching tool
I am a graduate of UMass and the Stockbridge school of Agriculture. I currently teach horticulture at Burncoat high school in Worcester. Your winter 2005 issue "Fields of Dreams" has some excellent articles related to horticulture and would make a great teaching resource. I am always trying to encourage my students to attend UMass and/or Stockbridge. Could you possibly send me 15-20 copies to use with my students? Or even better, 45 so I could give one to each of my students.

Russell J.Anderson, Stockbridge ’72
Horticulture Program
Burncoat High School
Worcester

Impressed with magazine
You and your staff are to be congratulated on the spring and fall issues of UMass Amherst magazine. They are by far the best publications I have ever received from UMass.

Other than the class notes, which contain less and less of interest as the years pass by, I have found very little I cared to read in alumni publications. This has been unfortunate, especially for alumni who live out of state.

You are doing a fine job of telling us interesting things about alumni as well as about interesting things that are happening on campus.

Chancellor Lombardi seems to be doing great things!

Keep up the good work!
George Hamel ’41
Ocean City, MD

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All the letters all the time