November 2008

508 is a show about Worcester. This week Mike is in West Virginia, and Brendan Melican and Bruce Russell are in Worcester.

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Headline: Elk Collecting Deer Hides for Veterans

Mike is comparing blog coverage of Worcester news to the Telegram & Gazette; his first case study shows the blogs doing surprisingly well.

Headline: Fly Gets 40 Years in Prison

Are New Englanders friendly?

We listen to the City Manager talking about the challenges of snow removal, and look forward to having the same discussion this year.

Also: Bruce tells jokes.

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First, a couple of buzzkill items. Don’t forget that Friday is Buy Nothing Day, a day to send the message that the Christmas season is not about money. (I guess it doesn’t have to be a downer: read Mark Dixon’s account of a crazy BND experiment.)

Also, casual turkey cruelty:

New York Times:

[PETA] released undercover videotapes taken at the nation’s premier poultry-breeding operation, showing turkeys being stomped to death and punched by workers.

[...]

The scenes show stomach-turning brutality. Workers are seen smashing birds into loading cages like basketballs, stomping heads and breaking necks, apparently for fun, even pretending to rape one.

It gets worse.

Now for some positive items.

Close Guantanamo Now
An interview about closing Guantanamo in which I repeatedly interrupt Mauro DePasquale and Claire Schaeffer-Duffy. Sadly, I do this to them off-camera, too.

Adam Villani beats Ben Stein’s ass, twice
Pie and Coffee contribuor Adam Villani won Ben Stein’s money, and correctly guessed that the housing market was over-valued. The score is 2-0.

How strong is the Worcester blogosphere?
Help me figure out how Worcester’s amateur news stacks up to the daily paper.

Will you pray with me?
Let us pray.

1

God, we pray for the world.

The prayer cycle of the World Council of Churches
reminds us to pray today for the peoples of
Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.

We thank you for
the freedom for Christians to worship in Mauritania
even though it is an Islamic country.
We thank you for
those who depend on nomadic ways of life and
continue to retain their ethnic heritage.
We thank you for
those who plant trees to counter the spread of the desert.

We pray for stability in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
We pray for an end to slavery in Mauritania.
We pray for an end to civil war in Chad.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
Read the rest of this entry »

Homily from mass at the Mustard Seed, Worcester.

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508 is a show about Worcester. This week we talk with Brendan Melican.

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How is the Worcester City Council like the movie Groundhog Day?

PILOT vs. BILOT?

How dark is the future of Worcester journalism?

Would local bloggers like to video themselves for TV?

Just how charming are holiday shoutouts?

Also: Last weekend Kevin Ksen went to a KOMBI event at Coral Seafood to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the standardization of Albanian spelling.

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To leave a voice message to be played on the show, call 508-471-3897.

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Will you pray with me?
Let us pray.

1

God, we pray for the world.

The prayer cycle of the World Council of Churches
reminds us to pray today for the peoples of
Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Equatorial Guinea.
We also pray at this time
for the Democratic Republic of Congo and for Rwanda,
for those people displaced from their homes due to the conflict,
for the peacekeepers and diplomats
working in a difficult situation.

Today we remember all the road traffic victims,
on the day designated for this remembrance.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
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Matthew 25:14–30 (≈ Luke 19:12–27)

I walk down High Street and I see a sign: ‘Good news! Your debts paid – free of charge.’ If I see it in a bank window, I might well think of alerting the Financial Services Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority. But if it says ‘Jesus pays for my debt, and yours too! Come in for the Good News!’ in a church window like ours, I might not think twice. Well, maybe it is time to think twice! Maybe such statements need to be considered not just metaphorically, but literally. Read the rest of this entry »

Some highlights from the Catholic Worker 75th anniversary national gathering, Worcester, Massachusetts, July 9-12, 2008. Brought to you by the Snow Ghost Community Show.

Video: Download the mp4 video directly (342 MB) or see other formats. To burn your own DVD, download the ISO. This program is available for broadcast on your local cable access station; e-mail pieandcoffee@gmail.com for help.

Audio: Download the mp3 (14 MB).

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508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel features Brendan Melican and Kevin Ksen.

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The Telegram & Gazette continues to be in financial trouble; things look awful for their parent, the New York Times. Nevertheless, they continue to bird-dog local police misconduct and write about downtown retail.

We briefly discuss the election, which Brendan predicted with some success.

Some local college students aren’t happy with downtown Worcester.

Mike is going to DC next year to work against torture, and local Catholic Workers were sentenced to community service for praying the rosary.

mp3 link, other formats, feed, low-fi versions

To leave a voice message to be played on the show, call 508-471-3897.

To get an e-mail each week alerting you of the new episode of 508, join the e-mail list:

We won’t share this list with others.

The United Reformed Church has a three-year programme called Vision4Life: for this coming year, the first year, we will be looking at the Bible in the Church’s life. It made me try to articulate how I think of the Bible.

It was Mike Benedetti who got me interested in the Apocrypha. I remember that summer nearly ten years ago, sitting in a hotel room in Iqaluit, Nunavut, tired from hiking, but discussing Bel and the Dragon (and, incidentally, also Thomas Aquinas) with some enthusiasm. Read the rest of this entry »