February 2010

508 is a show about Worcester.

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This week, Mike and Brendan begin with a recap of city government’s efforts to bring Google Fiber to Worcester. The Whiskerite charity beard competition raised almost $1000. Check out the video.

We have learned of the origins of the “Right Place, Right Time” song. (Video here, too.) Anyone have a copy of Worcester’s 1972 theme?

CSX wants to expand their Worcester rail yard. We are planning to learn about Worcester’s position on the Opioid Overdose Prevention program.

Worcester’s metalheads are awesome. We may as well link to Juggalo News.

Mike is enthusiastic about the Free Store at the Holden Recycling Center, and Coinstar.

We don’t like Worcester’s proposed pit bull ordinance. Mike recommends a Malcolm Gladwell article on the subject.

Finally, Holmes Wilson had a beautiful wedding in the Midtown Mall.

As I mentioned earlier, I went to a talk by Dr Sándor Fülöp, Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, at the British Ministry of Justice headquarters on Thursday evening (2010-02-25). Here are some notes I took. Any inaccuracies are mine.

The Commissioner is one of four ombudspersons in Hungary, appointed by a two-thirds supermajority by Parliament for a 6-year term (good), eligible for reappointment (not so good). It is the only such commissioner for sustainability in the world. The legal basis is the Ombudsman Act, passed only a couple of years ago.

The name is poetic, but really the job description as provided in the Act is that of an environmental ombudsman – a complaints officer. It would be unwise to reopen the Act to include socio-economic concerns of future generations, for fear of industrial lobbying that would erode the environmental focus. Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote this note 12 November 2009 and recently sent it to my friend Dr Rupert Read. After discussion with him – who turned out to be in support of a Green Senate or a Sustainability Commissioner – I added a moderating amendment (see below). Rupert and I are going to hear the Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, Dr Sándor Fülöp, at the Ministry of Justice on Thursday, at an event organized by the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development.

In the past 5 years or so, I have heard from time to time impatient proponents of a Green Senate, a committee for sustainability, a parliamentary chamber with a built-in long-term view and overriding power in favour of measures for sustainability. Famous proponents include Norman Myers, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and (most recently, this past Tuesday) John Strickland. I do not think such a constitutional arrangement would work.

First, who would we appoint to this Senate? Would they be 70-year-olds, having accumulated years of experiences and (one hopes) accompanying wisdom? Or would they be 20-year-olds, or even teenagers, who have a stake, with realistic interests, in the future? Or a mixture thereof? Then, what about the midlifers? Are they totally disinterested, and should only be shoved around by the young and the old? Read the rest of this entry »

The best thing about entering a charity beard competition is telling people with a straight face: “I have entered a charity beard competition.”

Thanks to the organizers for raising money for the Worcester County Food Bank and giving us an excuse to stop shaving!

WINNERS: Burly Man – Derek Ring; Facial Topiary – Mike Benedetti; Fan Fav – Peter Mascitelli; Best in Show – Duncan Arsenault.

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Brendan Melican, Scott Zoback, Jen Burt, and Jeremy Shulkin.

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Inspired by Jeremy’s Worcester Magazine cover story “Selling Worcester: Who will take the lead to market our city?”, we discuss the rich oral tradition around Worcester’s many slogans, including the long-lost “Right Place, Right Time” and Bruce Russell’s “This City Should Be Destroyed”. Worcester even had a No Slogan Day. In the ad industry, slogans have fallen from favor.

Mike mentions that you can buy Ethiopian/Eritrean foods at Fresh Farm in Worcester, across the street from Lincoln Plaza. This Saturday is the Whiskerite fundraiser, Distant Castle anniversary party, Q arts fundraiser, and Pecha Kucha IV Haiti fundraiser.

Jen tells us about Clark students and alumni uniting to help Clark food service workers unionize.

The ongoing Venerini Academy story is starting to make sense as we learn their fundraiser has left a “trail of lies”.

Mike didn’t like the AP article in the T&G about Wal-Mart’s financial situation; he thought the NYT article was better.

Read the rest of this entry »

Finally got my acts together to see Avatar (3D) yesterday evening, two months after release. My Green friends Drs Richard Lawson, Derek Wall, and Rupert Read (and those over at Two Doctors blog in Scotland) all liked it, along with many of us studying the Accra Confession at the Saint Columba’s Manse Discussion Group.

L’Osservatore Romano did not like Avatar, some suspected due to alleged pantheism. But the philosophy therein was not really pantheism, but can be more accurately described as panentheism (as my friend Dr George Zachariah of the Mar Thoma Church taught): finding God in everything; finding the image of the divine in everyone. I would have to struggle if I had to deny this as Christian.

[...] Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries [...]

– Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The scene was indicative, where the scientist Dr Grace Augustine presented her results about the synaptic nature of the biosphere on the planet Pandora, and the businessman Parker Selfridge dismissed her thus: ‘what have you been smoking!’ Science is only accepted when it conveniently serves the imperial–rationalist exploitation: at all other times it is dismissed. As Dr Lawson pointed out (and echoed by the Reverend Dick Wolff), this has been going on in the climate-change debate: ‘If you are a committed free market fundamentalist, you will never accept the climate change facts, as they are incompatible with your ideology.’

I will be going to the Conference of the Green Party of England and Wales this Saturday; expecting Green hugs.

Ash Wednesday sermon at the chapel of Mansfield College, Oxford, based on two earlier blog posts: ‘What keeps me awake at night’ and ‘Brecht’s Galileo, or, Against Macho Science’.

Luke 15:11–32 (Prodigal Son).

May I speak in the name of God: Creator, Christ, and Comforter. Amen.

A few years ago, I went to the National Theatre in London, to see Bertolt Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo, in a version by David Hare. With 20th-century hindsight, the German playwright Brecht retold the life-story of the 17th-century scientist Galileo Galilei. Today, on this Ash Wednesday, I want to talk about the nature and motivation of scientific pursuit: this play happens to provide some hooks for my thinking. So, at the risk of substituting a theatre review in the place of a sermon, here I go.

If you recall, Galileo championed the theory of Copernicus that the Earth orbits the Sun. The Church forced him to recant this view. The famous British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking says, ‘Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.’ Is this modern science a good thing in the round? Was the Church right to slow Galileo down after all? Galileo’s 17th-century contemporaries did not have the benefit of hindsight and retrospection: They were riding the wave of the Renaissance, pregnant with the prospect of rationalism’s triumph in the 19th and 20th centuries. Read the rest of this entry »

Lent is a 40-day time of prayer, fasting, self-denial, and almsgiving leading up to Easter. This year it begins Wednesday, February 17, 2010. (For Catholics, at least. Other Christians have other calendars.)

Lent is the most DIY Christian season–you have to pick a vice or luxury to “give up” for the season, and plan how to add more prayer and fasting to your life.

This is my tenth Lent as a vegan. Most Catholics abstain from eating mammals and birds on Fridays during Lent, but that’s my daily routine anyway, so once again I’ll have to devise some sort of food-related Friday absinence. Years ago Adam suggested vegans give up soy; I’ll try that again.

This is the first Lent in years that I had a good idea of what luxury to “give up” far in advance. Oh, it’s so obvious to me. (I’m not going to talk about it ahead of time.)

Two years ago I spent Lent working for an end to the Iraq War, and last year I lived in DC, working full-time to close the Guantanamo prison. This year I’m looking forward to a quieter observance.

What are your Lenten plans?

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panelists are Tracy Novick, Brendan Melican, Mike Benedetti, Jeff Barnard, Drew Wilson, Nicole, Bruce Russell, Matt Feinstein, Paul Levitsky, Kevin Ksen, Jesse Pack, and Jacob Berendes.

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This week, we ride the #2 and #16 buses and record the 100th show.

Other posts:

• Bringing Google Fiber to Worcester
• Signs of Worcester: At least we’ve got “diversity” on street corners, How did we get here?, The typography of street name signs, Graphic elements and street-type designations, How do they compare?, Oops!
• Jeff comments on the show
• Tweet from the show

Read the rest of this entry »

508 is a show about Worcester. This weeks panelists are Greg Opperman, Tracy Novick, Brendan Melican, and Mike Benedetti.

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Tracy, a School Committee Member, talks about fundraising efforts for the vandalized Belmont Street Community School. You can help. We spend most of the show talking about the upcoming city school budget, and why there always seems to be a funding crisis.

Greg is the cook behind the uncontested world-champion vegan macaroni and cheese recipe.

Mike has entered a charity beard competition. February 20, Dive Bar.

Scott Zoback et al have a Haiti fundraiser today. February 5, 5pm-1am, Lucky Dog.