Interviews

On May 17, 1968, a group of Catholics now known as the “Catonsville Nine” went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot in wire baskets, dumped them out, poured homemade napalm over them, and set them on fire.

To remember the anniversary of this event, which continues to bear fruit today, we talked with Catonsville Nine member (and our housemate) Tom Lewis. Also part of the conversation is long-time peace activist Emeritus Professor Michael D. True, Ph.D. and Doctor of Humane Letters (honoris causa).

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Bruce and I went to a show at The Q, 362 Chandler St in Worcester. The time has come to talk about it.

Bruce: . . . I already was elected.

Pie and Coffee: Elected to what?

B: Elected to make a difference in the world and in people’s lives. And I’ve already succeeded.
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It’s time for our annual conversation from and about the Mid-Ohio Valley. This year, Mark and Sarah talk about the Aeropress coffee maker, the Golden Girls, Yakov Smirnoff, “Black Pete,” and “Bubble.”

But not Barry Switzer.

Pie and Coffee: Are we going to talk about coffee first, or Barry Switzer first?

Mark: Whatever you want. I don’t care.

P: I’m drinking this cup of coffee. This is not the greatest cup of coffee I’ve ever had.

M: Yeah, it’s okay coffee, but it’s not–

Sarah: I’d say it’s solid.

M: I’d say it’s fine. I mean, that’s the thing, it’s perfectly acceptable.
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Here’s a long interview with occasional Pie and Coffee contributor Scott Schaeffer-Duffy about zombies, and how compassion is a key part of defense against zombie attack.

Scott: Division and self-interest are not good solutions. Building up walls, keeping out people, not being hospitable, they’re not good solutions cause ultimately somebody’s gonna catapult a plague victim over your walls because of the bitterness. You’re gonna end up divided with each other. You gotta keep your values intact.

Mike: So actually Worcester’s success in dealing with people who are experiencing homelessness, or addiction, or whatever, maybe comes into play when we face zombie attack.

Scott: The compassionate cities are gonna fare better.

I recently spoke with a juror in the Larry Cirignano case. The juror chose to be anonymous.

I edited the juror’s answers only lightly, but I removed some of my more aimless questions, and some of our conversational exchanges that aren’t really relevant.

If other jurors would like to come forward with their stories, please e-mail us at pieandcoffee@gmail.com.

Some would say that the details of deliberations can’t be revealed without hurting the whole process. But I learned a lot from this conversation, and I hope it will make me a better juror if I’m ever called to serve.
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Today I interviewed Worcester activist and City Council candidate Grace Ross on her experience with the “food stamp diet.”

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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.

 

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This week, the discussion begins with honeybees (here’s the article I mention) and Bill Richardson’s ad choices. We then talk with Shannon Senior, one of the leaders of the campaign against a proposed Worcester Wal-Mart.

Hosts: me, Janine Duffy, Jim Henderson.

Recording with TalkShoe continues to be fun and challenging. My controls died about halfway through this episode, and there’s a long silence at the end when I restarted the controls so I could click “Terminate episode.”

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Pie and Coffee: Courtyard Cafe. We’ve been talking about going there for a long, long time.

Bruce: And we finally did it.

P: And you feel a sense of accomplishment?

B: Oh yeah. The first thing I noticed when I walked in there, the funny thing about it is like, and this goes back way before, it’s like every time I used to do errands for Joe, Elwood Adams and stuff like that—

P: —back when you used to run errands at Java Joe’s?

B: Yeah. And I would go by there or, it goes back even farther than that. I have to back up a little bit. I used to go to Al Bum’s a lot, up on Highland Street, and I used to go by that coffee place a lot, the Courtyard. And I never found an apparition to go in there until . . . .
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Here’s a cable access interview with Catholic Worker Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, of Worcester’s Saints Francis & Therese community. You can watch it at the Archive, or download an mp3.

 

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In this coffee review about the Boulevard Diner, Bruce and I are joined by Michael, the “publisher” of Pie and Coffee, who rarely appears on this blog. He speaks Hungarian, is a fan of classic diners, and lives near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Pie and Coffee: So how do you say her name?

Michael: Báthory Erzsébet.

P: And what were you telling me about her?

M: Well, she liked to bathe in the blood of young girls. She thought it kept her young. And that’s not really cool, but the family couldn’t kill her, because she had a title and all that, and you don’t kill a family member. So they walled her up in her room, because they weren’t really killing her then.

P: So they just let her die.

M: Roughly speaking, yeah.

Bruce: Of a slow death.

M: Yeah. But they didn’t kill her!

B: Of a bloody death.

P: Did you hear Bruce’s song about her?

M: Yes I did, I liked that very much.

P: It got a good review on Volcano Boy.

B: I got a great review on Volcano Boy.

M: I saw that too.

B: You know what they say about Volcano Boy.

M: What do they say about Volcano Boy?

P: It’s a volcano—watch out for the ashes! They get hot!

P: So the Boulevard Diner.

M: The Boulevard Diner rocks!
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