Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
On last night’s Jeopardy!, the $1600 answer in the category “Rage Against the Machine” (all about people raging against machines, not about the band) was:
In a 1980 antiwar protest, these priest brothers, Daniel & Philip, attacked missile warheads at a G.E. plant.
Contestant Roy, a building inspector from Rancho Cucamonga, California, correctly, albeit ungrammatically, questioned, “What is Berrigan?”
The record release party for the Snow Ghost’s new album was a success. It was low-key, as you might expect from an adult party held at Pizza Hut. Attendees included a guy with a Wikipedia page, a guy without a wikipedia page, and some guys who showed up in the paper the next day. And of course the Snow Ghost himself (pictured above), the most notable of the assembled celebrities.
You can order the album at the Snow Ghost homepage.
Snow Ghost news
The new Snow Ghost CD, “Despair, Death, and Redempshire,” is out. You can listen to it at the Internet Archive, or order a $10 ppd. copy at the Snow Ghost homepage.
We’re having the record release party tonight at Pizza Hut (Bruce’s brilliant idea). The attendees will be disproportionately vegan, and one of them pointed out to me that the only vegan stuff at Pizza Hut is the crushed red pepper and pizza sauce. “They put milk in things it seems you couldn’t put milk in.”
Jacob wrote a nice description of the Snow Ghost Community Show debut party at the Catholic Worker house. “the snow ghost’s connection with them is peculiar, in that he is a self-avowed ‘satanic warrior’, but i guess they can still respect each other by virtue of being on the same coin, if opposite sides.”
Worcester Wal-Mart news
The Zoning Board of Appeals was supposed to hear a petition against the Wal-Mart this week, but because of a recent change in the zoning laws, they had to turn down this particular petition. They’ll likely hear the petition after a building permit is issued, which turns it back into an issue they can rule on.
You can listen to the discussion as an mp3 or in other formats.
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City Council candidate websites
Just added Joe Casello’s site to the list.
Indiana, here I come
I’m leaving Worcester in a couple days to spend the summer at the South Bend Catholic Worker, and was planning to write an article on Pie and Coffee with a bunch of suggestions on what Worcester Magazine can do to improve, because I know editor Michael Warshaw reads (but doesn’t really like) my commentary on his magazine. But last week the T&G reported that Mr. Warshaw is leaving WoMag to edit a semiweekly paper in Framingham. Good luck and godspeed. Of the three major media outlets in Worcester, WoMag was the only one that doesn’t make a regular habit of insulting its readers’ intelligence, and if I’ve written lots about the things I don’t like in it, it’s because I like it enough to want to see it be even better.
Interesting comment on th T&G article from WoMag copy editor Lester Paquin. He points out four errors in the article, none of which were in the on-line version by the time I saw it. Does the T&G make on-line corrections without noting them? So it seems.
The other day I got a list of City Council candidates from the election commission so I could mail them a survey, so I went ahead and put the list on the Worcester Activist wiki too. I’m pleased to report that there’s been no vandalism yet.
Many people are running for City Council this year; only a few of them have websites.
(If there’s a website I skipped, e-mail pieandcoffee@gmail.com and I’ll update this article.)
Continue reading “City Council candidate websites”
Today I interviewed Worcester activist and City Council candidate Grace Ross on her experience with the “food stamp diet.” 
Many US politicians, including several members of Congress, have taken the challenge to eat on $3 a day, the average US food stamp benefit.
Open Source did a great show about the food stamp challenge.
Related at Vox Nova: The Welfare State– Right and Wrong Reasons.
The Snow Ghost Community Show will start airing every weekend, starting this Friday. Fridays at 8:30PM, Saturdays at 11:30PM, Sundays at 9:30PM, and Mondays at 9:30AM, on cable channel 13 in Worcester.
We’re going to have a little party this Friday at the Catholic Worker to celebrate, since the guest is Catholic Worker Scott Schaeffer-Duffy talking about the Three Stooges.
As if that weren’t enough, you can now watch episode 100 (3) online.
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A fellow Worcester blogger alerted me to this Toronto art project from earlier this year.
Mark Daye made these signs, with slogans like “Homeless Sleeping–QUIET,” for his design school thesis.
Spacing Wire has lots more pix, and The Star has an article. (I lifted this photo from The Star.)
Puts me in mind of Worcester’s ill-fated anti-panhandling campaign. The response to that mostly involved modifying existing signage, rather than creating new signs.
Vox Nova, a new group blog
Messrs. Iafrate and Wildermuth, who I often cite in this space, are contributing to Vox Nova.
Scientologists camp on the Commons
The Scientologists have set up big, yellow tents on Worcester Commons as part of a promotional effort. I’m told they’ll be there a week.
New William St park
Here’s the design.
First vigil at new Planned Parenthood location
Saturday June 9, 9AM, 470 Pleasant St. PP hasn’t moved yet; I haven’t even noticed any signage at the new location. I wonder what people driving past will think: “Why are they protesting a vacant building?”
Democracy/Miro news
This week WoMag has an update on Worcester’s own Participatory Culture Foundation and their flagship project, the Democracy Video Player (soon to be renamed Miro). For me, the key Democracy news this week is that they now have a package for Ubuntu Dapper. (For technologically-ignorant Linux users like me, this is key.)
Continue reading “Items”
Tommy Colletta talks with Shannon Senior of Worcester First and Al Norman of Sprawl Busters. (The first couple minutes have sound trouble, not sure why.)
Austrian Catholic Franz Jägerstätter, who was beheaded for opposing the Nazis, has been beatified. Super news. Good article at Whispers.