Month: April 2007

Worcester sewage

This afternoon Grace Ross and I went down to Worcester’s water treatment plant, and I taped Karla Sangrey giving us a tour. It was fun checking out all the different equipment. Didn’t smell too bad, either.

IMGA0140

With a little luck, a short movie about Worcester’s water treatment situation will come out of this. With a lot of luck, some fresh new ideas for dealing with the situation will emerge.

At present, the EPA is unhappy with the level of some of the chemicals coming out of this plant into the Blackstone River. (Worcester is the headwaters of the Blackstone.) It looks like the city will sue the EPA to keep from upgrading the plant, as such an upgrade would be very expensive.

Coffee in Worcester: WCCA TV13

DSCN1782The cover story of this week’s InCity Times is a hagiography of WCCA’s Mauro DePasquale, a guy who deserves all the praise he can get. I’m a WCCA volunteer, and Bruce is an intern, so this week’s review is of the WCCA office coffee.

Pie and Coffee: Did you take a look at the article? What did you think?

Bruce: Definitely him. One small problem—I’m not in any of the photos.

P: Maybe we should put a photo of you at WCCA in this article.

I love the introduction (written by Rosalie Tirella):

We’ll say it loud and we’ll say it proud: We love WCCA TV 13 and its Executive Director Mauro DePasquale! From the political shows to the kids news programs, from the exotic and highly capable Zara Dedi at the front desk to no-nonsense community leader turned TV producer Judy Langlois. From the esoteric to the mundane. From the political to the spiritual, TV-13 rocks! Located in the heart of downtown at 415 Main St., in an old bank practically a stone’s throw from City Hall—

[Patrick, a member of the WCCA youth program, walks into the room, takes the paper, looks at the photos, and comments—]

Patrick: Everyone’s there except me.

P: Patrick, why is everyone concerned about their photo being in here?

WCCA practices its own brand of politics: a refreshingly inclusive and progressive kind we’d like to see more of in ‘ol City Hall.

WCCA’s community producers and guests are black, white and brown. They’re old, young and middle-aged. They’re political insiders like City Manager Mike O’Brien; they’re political ousiders (like me!). They’re conservative and liberal; religious and questioning. To tune in to TV 13 is to feast at some funky urban banquet. DePasquale likes to call his station “the electronic park.”

Continue reading “Coffee in Worcester: WCCA TV13”

Items

All my friends draw Z Magazine covers
Last year, Tom Lechner got his art on the cover of the American leftist Z Magazine. This month, Rudi Cilibrasi got his art on the cover of the Amsterdam street Z Magazine.

art by Tom Lechner Artwork by Rudi Cilibrasi

Some of my friends are nominated for awards
You can vote for Zack Berger as “Best Overall” blogger in the Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards.

Others are coffee drinkers
The other day I started tracking my coffee consumption in my Google Chat status . . . now I am hearing that friends of friends are doing it. I love the internet.

Government channel
Worcester’s city run government channel is slowly experimenting with publishing multimedia online. If the city would just declare footage of the council meetings as public domain, I predict that within a month the meetings would be uploaded on a regular basis . . . . Continue reading “Items”

CROP Walk in San Pedro

Howdy folks. This Sunday, April 29, I’ll be participating in the Peninsula Harbor CROP Walk. This is a 10-km walk around the streets of fabulous San Pedro, California to raise funds for Church World Service’s interfaith efforts to fight world and local hunger. My sister is a high school teacher and is heading a team of some of her students called Team Jester (after the St. Joseph’s HS mascot). You can find out more about Church World Service here.

Donation is easy! Just follow this link and you will be taken to my personal donation page where you can make a secure online credit card donation. Donations of any amount are appreciated.

I used to do the Long Beach CROP Walk every year when I was a little kid and it was always a happy event.

Catholic Worker Darfur talk

Here is the audio of a talk on Darfur at Holy Cross College earlier this month by Brenna Cussen, with Scott Schaeffer-Duffy chiming in. They were part of a four-person Catholic Worker Peace Team that visited Darfur in December 2004.

I really liked part 2 of this talk, where they got into questions like: How can a pacifist respond to genocide?

Photo by Brenna Cussen
Woman in Darfur IDP camp, photographed by Brenna Cussen

Mustard Seed closed, again

On the front page of today’s Telegram & Gazette is an article about how Donna has closed the Mustard Seed Catholic Worker soup kitchen for a week, because she needs a break.

I don’t hang out at the Mustard Seed, but it’s my impression that closing the Seed is not news; it’s something she does several times a year. I talked to a couple Mustard Seed habitues today, and confirmed this.

“She closes all the time. Why are you asking me about this?”

It’s on the front page of today’s paper.

“You’re [kidding] me!”

So why does this make the paper? The article describes a note left on the door:

I would advise you to open up the doors for the hungry people who come there soon. Thank You.
[…]
If you don’t, I’m going to the newspapers and see what else can be done about this.

Hmm.

Obscenities have been omitted from this article in respect for the fine work done six days a week at the Mustard Seed.

Worcester Middle East Film Fest, April 20-28

Iraq In Fragments posterThe Worcester Middle East Film Festival starts tonight. The films are free, but putting this on is costing the organizers a lot of money, so if you can make a donation (suggested: $5) it would really help.

The listings are at the festival homepage.

The first film is Iraq In Fragments, April 20, 7pm at Worcester State College.