508 #8: the election and the internet

508 is a show about Worcester.

This week, Mike is joined by Bruce Russell, Brendan Melican, and Matt Feinstein.

You can download the mp3, subscribe to the feed, or see other formats.

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Brendan’s long article on the election is our jumping-off point; Bruce raises the subject of Worcester casinos; Scott Zoback and Worcester Magazine are praised for their on-line election coverage; Mike reiterates what he said a year ago, that WoMag’s site should be a simple WordPress install; the panel speculates on Councilor Kate Toomey’s internet nemesis; more ranting against the T&G’s comments section; Bruce comments on a slain infant; Worcester forums that work well include the Go List and Volcanoboy; Mike decries the inaccurate representations of the Cirignano trial drifting around the right-wing blogosphere; WoMag covers a story we mentioned last week; and we hear part of an interview about how some Worcester residents are opposing the Darfur genocide.

Brendan: “We’ve got a guy who was convicted of drunk driving on the council, though. I think that was really, really cool, because he’s only there because he was convicted of drunk driving. If nobody outed his drunk driving conviction and nobody outed his probate records, he would have come on dead last in that race.”

Matt: “I think there were a lot of us looking for real change in this election. Really hoping for some change. Whether it be District 4, or Grace Ross getting on the council, or new blood in the mayor’s seat, or Bill Coleman finally making it to there, or something like that. And I realized that after all the work that went into these campaigns, you know, some things changed, and some things were really clarified how politics work in Worcester.”

Mike: “I wanted to comment on this Worcester Magazine headline, ‘Catholics want the T&G to apologize.’ I wish the article had made it more clear that this wasn’t an official position of the Catholic Church or anything like that, this was just a bunch of people who happen to be Catholic. And I’m a church-going Catholic, I was actually at all of the Cirignano trial, unlike the critics in this case, and I think Richard Nangle is a righteous scribe.”

Bruce: “They don’t want to do the casinos, but do they have any other way to get the money? Sure, you lay everybody off or make people pay more.”

6 thoughts on “508 #8: the election and the internet”

  1. Likely so; we’ll see if it seems played-out by Friday.

    If anyone would like to guide the conversation, or contribute an audio op-ed, you can leave me a voicemail and I’ll play it: 508.471.3897.

  2. Good podcast this week, …I finally got a chance to play it this morning. My only comment would be that on the night of the election, during the WCCA-TV 13 live coverage, when Kate Toomey alluded to the un-named “blog” that she apparently felt was not worth looking at, my first thought about what she might be referring to was the Craig’s List worcester rant section where another “toomey” is regularly vilified.

  3. Jeff, thanks for the pointer to the Worcester Craig’s List discussions–do you find it useful to follow them, or is it all just ranting? (The ranting is all I see at first glance.)

    One thing I think we’ll talk about next show: this new Worcester Local First group and their attempts to promote the local economy.

  4. Worcester Craig’s List… just another “anonymous” cesspool.

    Worcester Local First… the spark for this apparently comes from http://www.livingeconomies.org, which I only discovered after reading the article in the paper today and doing some quick re-surf-search to try and find out who’s makin’ money creating yet another “group” with a high purpose. I pretty much ran out of curiosity-gas, though, when I read the following in the Wikipedia entry for BALLE: “Members of local BALLE networks have a direct stake in the future of their communities and bioregions…”

    Bioregions?

    That word just stopped me cold. It’s really gonna take me a while to digest the political and spiritual ramifications of that word…

  5. I’ve got to say that I’ve given up on Craigslist myself. It just never goes anywhere worthwhile.

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