Left In Lowell

And then there were three. Barry Finegold has now confirmed attendance at the weekend’s blogger-media Q&A at UML, joining Eileen Donoghue and Jamie Eldridge for the first candidate forum of the special election season. Don’t miss it! It’s open to the public (first come first serve) at the Wannalancit Mills, 650 Suffolk Street, at 3pm (I think doors will open at 2:45) to 4pm.

I was supposed to be on a Left Ahead podcast right now, which you should be listening to (or listen to the archive later on), but my voice is shot and you wouldn’t be able to hear my co-podders over my hacking cough. So, instead, I thought I would post about the official presentation, earlier today, of the monies needed to build the nanotech center at UMass Lowell.

Patrick took a tour of some of the labs on north campus, labs that would be greatly improved once moved to a new building, with clean rooms and equipment that will propel R&D forward. I shouldered my way into one of the labs, where Patrick was busy asking lots of questions of the scientists. To me, I think that’d be the rewarding part of being governor - traveling around the state, learning new things and being able to support real efforts that will change people’s lives.

The new nanotech building will bring together many disciplines, said MA University system president Jack Wilson. Bio and nano manufacturing will be incubated in the new labs. State Senator Panagiotakos spoke to the efforts that brought the University its funding for this project - 4-5 years of putting together the proposals and getting colleagues’ support. I know that we all complain when elected officials put pork (such as extraneous gazeboes) in their effort to “bring home the bacon,” but the nanotechnology center represents the flip side…bringing education, economic development, and job creation together for the greater good, not just in Lowell, but statewide, nationally, and even internationally, as the Senator said.

State Rep Murphy spoke a little bit about the more conservative House and the work they did to pass the nanotech initiative there.

Some facts about the state’s University system that were cited: 2/3 of Massachusetts’s college-bound kids go to public universities. Of them, 85% stay in Mass. Isn’t it time we invested in our own future?

Then Patrick spoke with his usual passion for policy, announcing that he’s authorized the transfer of the $21M to the university building fund for the center. He half joked that though one of the downsides to coming into a position like his was getting the blame for all the problems you inherit, but the good part is coming to get credit for things when everyone else already did the hard work. Governor Patrick talked about how Massachusetts is ranked #2 in the nation for nanotechnology, that it is a $10 billion sector (didn’t catch if that is statewide or nationally), employs 100,000 workers here in MA, and that the new nanotech center will be an anchor for economic development, intellectual achievement, and jobs in our region.

When asked by a reporter if he had gotten a “Nanotech 101″ class in his tour, the Governor answered, actually, it was Nanotech 102, since he had been here on a tour before. With a governor so engaged in our university system, I am looking forward to many more visits and much more investment in our public institutions. Massachusetts is near dead-last in spending in public higher ed (as well as in elementary and secondary ed). Yet we demand that our kids be the high-tech, nanotech, biotech inventers of the future? It’s no wonder Massachusetts is losing jobs and people. We will not be able to retain our exalted place in the nation and world unless we reverse this trend.

So let’s get nano!

These people can’t lose ratings fast enough for me.

Listen to some of the questions Fox News had in their recent poll:

39. Who do you trust more to decide when U.S. troops should leave Iraq — U.S. military commanders or Members of Congress? (ROTATE)

40. Last week the U.S. House voted to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by no later than September 2008 — would you describe this as a correct and good decision or a dangerous and bad decision?

I love this one:

36. After the 2004 presidential election, the president of the left-wing Moveon.org political action committee made the following comment about the Democratic Party, “In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it’s our Party: we bought it, we own it and we’re going to take it back.” Do you think the Democratic Party should allow a grassroots organization like Moveon.org to take it over or should it resist this type of takeover?

HELL YEAH I do! You bet! I’ll take grassroots individual donations over big corporate money any day! Honestly, how can anyone in the world say Fox News is a real outfit is beyond me. Anyone who watches it to get their news is a stooge and a moron. No. I’m not going to be polite about it.

*sigh*

[via Kos.]