A Life Worth Living from Doug Rogers on Vimeo.

Some Worcesterites associated with the Catholic Worker movement.

508 is a show about Worcester. This week, Mike and Brendan talk about a printout of the Turtle Boy, resignations, and questions

Audio: Download the mp3.

Contact Info

You can watch 508 Fridays at 7pm on WCCA TV13.

[0:00] We have made a 3D printout of the Turtle Boy.

[3:05] Some, but by no means all, area politicians have resigned.

[3:43] Happy birthday Holly!

[4:00] What issues do you want the candidates to be discussing as they run for Worcester City Council this fall? Based on feedback, we identify some issues. We’ll ask any candidates we interview about them, and if any candidates discuss the issues in another forum, we’ll report on it.

We’ll formulate the questions in the coming days. Here are the issues:

• The proposed slots parlor and related economic development thoughts.
• Urban farming and related regulatory thoughts.
• Is Worcester a sustainable city?
• Personal vision for the city.
• Favorite character on The Wire?
• How many pushups can you do? Lifetime max?
• What do you carry with you every day?

April 15th started out full of hope. The weather was perfect as 27,000 men and women from 60 different nations lined up for the 117th Boston Marathon. I saw racers of every age, some in wheelchairs, some blind running with guides. There were even two dwarves. Thousands ran for special causes. The diversity and positive spirit was incredible.

I ran well until 18 miles when my quads seized up. I slowed down and eventually walked a few stretches. After training all winter, I can’t tell you how frustrating it was. To make matters worse, at the 22-mile mark, I was passed by a young man in a hamburger costume. I cried, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” But then, seeing the agony visible on my face, fans lining the course cheered like I was an elite runner. Children put out their hands for me to slap, and I felt the inherent goodness of the marathon.

Aiden & Scott moments before the bombings

At 24.5 miles, my son Aiden, clad in his high school cross-country uniform, jumped the fence to help me finish. I was afraid I’d collapse, but Aiden kept me going. Once we turned from Hereford to Boylston Street and could see the finish, he encouraged me to find the strength to sprint. We crossed the line together and had just had our picture taken, when we heard an enormous explosion. We turned around and saw the second bomb go off. Our hearts sank.

We spent the next two hours anxious for news. Most runners had family and friends still on the course. Thankfully, my wife Claire made a last minute decision to avoid Boylston Street.

On the morning after the bombings, she and I went to Mass to pray for the injured. Crossing the Boston Common afterwards, we saw rows of military vehicles, along with heavily armed and armored soldiers and police officers.

That afternoon, Rebekah Chessic, our intern from Assumption College, posted on Facebook, “We are not alone. So many across the world are mourning the loss or injury of friends and loved ones…” Rebekah received a torrent of angry responses calling her “unbelievably insensitive” and “vile.”

Four days later, bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev killed MIT police officer Sean Collier and then car-jacked a vehicle. After a chase and gun battle, police shot and killed Tamerlan while Dzhokar escaped. In an attempt to capture him, police put the bulk of Boston and surrounding cities under marital law. Mass transportation was halted. People were told not to go to work or leave their homes. Police toting assault weapons searched houses without warrants or success in finding the suspect. Only when the lock-down was lifted did a man discover the wounded Dzhokar Tsarnaev hiding under a boat. Police fired three hundred rounds before arresting the unarmed suspect.

Once in custody, Dzhokar was questioned without a lawyer, and a military trial was openly discussed. Some columnists and politicians called for stronger immigration restrictions, while others favored widespread video monitoring and even drone surveillance of next year’s Boston Marathon. One letter writer to The Worcester Telegram said, “It is long past time for us to go ‘Israeli’ with security in this country.”

Two weeks later, after Tamerlan’s body was accepted by Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Home in Worcester, the mortuary was besieged by a flag-waving mob that wanted his body “thrown in a wood chipper”or returned to Russia. Peter Stefan, the funeral home’s director, is well-known for his willingness to bury unwanted souls. He was the only mortician in Massachusetts who would bury AIDS victims in the early years of that epidemic. He buries the poorest of the poor. (He laid to rest two of our guests.) When asked why he would accept the body of a “terrorist,” Mr. Stefan cited his oath as a funeral director to give everyone a decent burial. He even said, “I’d bury Adolf Hitler if they asked me to. I’m not burying what he stood for; I’m just burying the body.”

After it was reported in The Worcester Telegram that I planned a vigil to support Mr. Stefan, an anonymous caller told me I was a “media whore” and that “Holding this vigil is like putting a gun to your head.” I asked the man, “Did you lose a loved one to the bombings? Do you know someone who was injured or who ran the marathon?” After he answered “No,” I asked, “How is it then that you are filled with so much more anger than I am when half of my family could have been killed?” Thankfully, no one was harmed at our vigil, and Tsarnaev’s body was privately laid to rest on May 9.

Women, in front of Graham Putnam & Mahoney, say,“We need compassion, not hate, in the face of tragedy.”

It has been three very emotional weeks. From the outset, I shared Rebekah’s initial reaction. The sound of the Boston bombs vividly evoked memories of atrocities I was close to overseas. I especially recalled standing by the ruins of a West Jerusalem pizza parlor where, 24 hours earlier, a Palestinian suicide bomber had killed himself and 15 others, including nine children. My mind was also drawn to a service I attended in Kabul for nine young boys machine-gunned from a low-flying US helicopter.

The willful murder of the innocent is so appalling that it’s hard not to conclude that the perpetrators are monsters who deserve no quarter. But that kind of thinking lead the US, after 3,000 civilians were murdered on 9/11, to kill 300,000 civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. Terror breeds terror. The 800,000 Iraqi children killed by US-led sanctions were part of Osama bin Laden’s rationalization for attacking civilians in New York City. The German bombing of Coventry expunged British remorse for the fire-bombing of Dresden. The same can be said about Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. As an Irish historian once said, “The past murders the future.”

It is natural to feel shock, grief, and anger over the cruelty of the marathon bombings, but we will never escape the cycle of violence and hate without empathizing with others, especially those our government murders in our name. Unfortunately, politicians seldom make this connection. On April 18, at Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, President Obama offered solace to the marathon bombing victims, and then went home to lead a government that murders innocents with drones and tortures other innocents in Guantánamo.

As bad as the President was, the Vice President was worse. At the Sean Collier’s funeral, Biden dragged out the Bush/Cheney line that terrorists attack us because they hate our goodness. Biden ignored testimony before the US Senate that drone missile attacks on civilians in Yemen were driving people to join Al Qaeda. He paid no mind to reports that the marathon bombers may have been angry over the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He could not acknowledge that American violence had turned anyone against us. The arrogance was stunning. Biden’s summation was even worse. He quoted Seamus Heaney’s “The Cure at Troy” out of context. The poem bemoans Catholic and Protestant victims in Northern Ireland, but Biden misused it as a rallying cry for US victory in the war on terror. Have we no shame?

More questions are arising. How will payouts of upwards to a million dollars for marathon bombing victims play in Afghanistan where families of those killed by US troops are offered only $2,000 or $3,000? Is anyone offering to compensate the thousand innocent victims of corporate greed at the garment factory in Bangladesh? Are the Afghan and Bangladeshi lives worth less?

In the two weeks following the marathon, 29 people of color were shot, six of them killed, in Boston. Police Commissioner Edward Davis said, “There’s been an outpouring of sympathy from across the world that doesn’t attach to what happens in the day in and out…. Each life is precious and should receive the same type of attention.” NAACP leaders are asking if racism is not partially responsible for the disparity.

At times like this, American Muslims are especially sensitive to bigotry (recall how they were falsely accused for the Oklahoma City bombing). Our friend Nana Abdelkader, whose son lives and goes to school a couple of blocks from where the bombs went off, said, “I am so sick and tired of my faith being on trial every time some psycho who happens to be Muslim does something wrong; as if Muslims don’t have psychological disorders or people in that group don’t snap like everyone else does. NO ONE questioned the faith of the Adam Lanza, or the guy who shot Congresswoman Gifford in Arizona, or the medical student who killed people in a movie theater or Timothy McVeigh; and the list goes on.”

Former US Representative Ron Paul sounded yet another alarm when he decried “paramilitary police riding in tanks and pointing automatic weapons at innocent citizens.” He said the acceptance for putting cities under martial law was “unprecedented” and “should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.”

The American Civil Liberties Union spoke out against the government’s long delay in reading Tsarnaev his Miranda rights. Former Central Massachusetts ACLU director Ronal Madnick said, “These rights must be protected for everyone, regardless of who they are because if rights are withheld from someone, they can be taken away from anyone.”

Thankfully, there was a groundswell of support for Peter Stefan. Vickie Langohr of Watertown, Massachusetts said, “School shooters, murderers, and pedophiles are buried every day in the US Even the most heinous criminal has the right in the US to be defended by a lawyer, and every human deserves a dignified burial. Respecting the fundamental rights of all shows America at its best, and the directors and staff of the Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral home represent the highest values we possess.”

Boston resident Maria Rodrigues thanked Stefan for his “honorable efforts to care for the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and for trying to bury him with dignity.” She went on to say, “In these difficult times, your actions demonstrate the best that human beings have to offer, regardless of nationality or religion: we are able to rise above the barbarism of hate and intolerance, to upheld the virtues of respect and tolerance. Your actions make us strong, they make Boston strong, and the make America strong. Most of all, they honor the victims of Tsarnaev, who will not let hate defeat their courage.”

My own grief over the marathon bombings was healed considerably by the 43 people who came out on April 7 to vigil in support of Graham Putnam and Mahoney. The gathering reminded me of the decency of most Americans.

Another decent American, Martha Mullen of Virginia, was so upset with the anti-burial protesters, whom she felt “portrayed America at its worst,” that she took it upon herself to personally arrange Tsarnaev’s burial. She said she was motivated by Christ’s command to love our enemies.

Mullen’s goodness brought to mind Christina Olsen, who, after her sister was murdered on 9/11, joined Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow appealing to then President Bush not to go to war. She later went to Afghanistan to comfort the victims of US air strikes. With the moral athority of their loss, people like Christina put flesh on Christ’s call to love the enemy. Her love challenges me to reject vengeance as an appropriate response to the surviving Tsarnaev brother or his college friends, who tried to protect him from arrest. Rebekah’s critics want her to wait before broadening her compassion, but Christ forgave from the Cross itself, and Christina knew that love is most potent when it is most difficult to express.

Hicham & Scott leave for the Boston Marathon

Lastly, I draw healing from continuing to run. Less than a week after the bombings, my friend Hicham Maalouf and I signed up for the Vermont Marathon on May 26. Although we are still recovering physically and emotionally from Boston, we are determined to race again as a statement of hope. Hicham and I are not alone. The Boston Globe reported on April 26 that runners are scrambling to find a summer marathon which will qualify them to run in Boston on April 22, 2014. It could be the largest turnout in the Boston Marathon’s 118 years. Globe columnist and runner Shira Springer said, “True to the spirit of the sport, marathoners want to show resiliency and contribute to something bigger, much bigger than a race, to give back in their own way by coming back.”

Non-runners often wonder what motivates people to run year-round in all weather. They think we are solitary masochists, but they don’t realize that we are part of a real community of friends, a family that wants to be together in all conditions. When violence strikes the innocent, the love of friends and family is a more powerful source of healing and security than the waving of flags or guns. I believe this resilient community will help us go on in hope.

This article originally appeared in the June/July 2013 issue of The Catholic Radical.

A Mass of Holy Remembrance for Tom Lewis will be celebrated tomorrow (Friday the 17th) at 7:15 PM at the Mustard Seed CW (93 Piedmont Street, Worcester) followed by the film, “Investigation of a Flame”…. and good conversaton following that! Please join us if the Spirit moves you!

Today is the anniversary of the Catonsville Nine action, when in 1968 nine Americans (including the late Tom Lewis) napalmed draft records.

Tom left us years ago, but he’s still in the news, most recently for his “role” last July in the “Transform Now Plowshares” action:

They poured and splashed blood that had once been in the veins of a painter-activist named Tom Lewis, one of the Catonsville Nine who, on Hiroshima Day 1987, hammered on the bomb racks of an anti-submarine plane at the South Weymouth Naval Air Station near Boston. In 2008, Lewis died in his sleep, and his blood was frozen so that he might one day participate in one last Plowshares action.

(The Transform Now activists currently await sentencing.)

As my column in Thursday’s Worcester Mag stated, I am considering running for the District 5 city council seat held by Bill Eddy.

Here’s the link to that column: http://www.worcestermag.com/speak-out/columnists/Running-for-city-council-could-make-me-a-big-loser-207470751.html

I have only a few days to gather 100 signatures of registered voters and to submit my nomination papers on Tuesday, May 21.

Although I’ll be knocking on doors the next few days to get those signatures, I also would like people that I know in D-5, their spouses and children of voting age, to sign my papers.

If you are willing to help me, please call me ASAP and let you know at what time I can drive over to your house to get the signatures of you and your spouse. It will take only seconds for you to sign and I’ll be on my way.

If you know of other D-5 voters who would sign, please let me know. And I have many extra nomination papers so even if you obatined 10 signatures for me this weekend, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your help!

Gary Rosen

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is School Committee member Tracy Novick and Emily Jones and Maureen St. Cyr from Community Legal Aid. (For legal help, you can contact CLA at 508-752-3718, ot you can contact a private attorney.)

Audio: Download the mp3 or see more formats.

Contact Info

You can watch 508 Fridays at 7pm on WCCA TV13.

Legal Aid is ready to help you with lending discrimination or foreclosure problems.

We listen to “Legal A” by Bruce “Snow Ghost” Russell, remixed by Mubba. (mp3 link)

We debate the quality of Rush Street Gaming’s pro slots parlor website.

The ACLU has sued the city over the recent anti-panhandling ordinances.

The City can no longer crack down on landlords renting 1 apartment to 4 students by claiming these are unlicensed rooming houses.

Huge amounts of public school issues are being decided in the next month or so. If you have an opinion, now is the time to talk to the School Committee.

Mike likes Nori’s catalog of the supermodels of Worcester.

Stop hating on the Constitution. Nice city you got there, shame if it got sued.

Today: ACLU sues over Worcester panhandling ordinances

The civil suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Worcester, by lawyer Kevin P. Martin claims the ordinances are unconstitutional, violate free speech and the right for people to peacefully solicit donations in public.

Mr. Martin, a volunteer lawyer from the Boston firm of Goodwin Procter LLP, also said in the suit that the ordinances target the poor and homeless. The plaintiffs are listed as Robert Thayer and Sharon Brownson, two people described as homeless city residents; and Tracy O’Connell Novick, a member of the school committee here.

508 is a show about Worcester. This week we mostly talk about ‘s body at the Graham Putnam and Mahoney funeral home in Worcester. We talk a little about a drawing of the proposed Worcester slots parlor. We have an interview from the final Dive Bar Thursday Music Night. And we talk about other awful stories you will have to google yourself.

Audio: Download the mp3 or see more formats.

Contact Info

You can watch 508 Fridays at 7pm on WCCA TV13.

• Bombing suspect’s body buried
• “Stop making jackasses of yourself in front of the entire nation.”
• Innocence, terror lay side-by-side at Worcester funeral home
• Uncle Ruslan Not Happy With Moronic Worcester Protestors Of Loser Tamerlan’s Dead Body
• Why Burry in Worceter???
• This end is a beginning; The Curtis Mayflower sets sail as Dive Bar Music Series concludes
• A collection of posters from The Dive Bar Thursday Music Series

The body of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been at the Graham Putnam & Mahoney funeral home for the past few days. There have been small protests outside from time to time, and a visible police presence. I was shocked when I first heard about this, much less so when I heard that the saintly/cranky Peter Stefan was behind it. The Catholic Worker community is organizing a vigil Tuesday in support of burial of the dead (one of the Christian works of mercy.) More at the end of this post.

T&G:

For some 25 years, Mr. Stefan said, the Main South funeral home has dealt with burying the poor, the unwanted and even murderers. Because of that, Mr. Stefan said he’s even been involved in burials that took place well into the night.

Charles Pierce, Esquire: “Stop making jackasses of yourself in front of the entire nation.”

Dianne Williamson: Innocence, terror lay side-by-side at Worcester funeral home

Also, it’s being reported today that Worcester Bishop McManus “was arrested Saturday night in Narragansett, R.I., charged with drunken driving and refusing a chemical test”.

Bishop McManus released a statement this morning: “On Saturday evening, May 4, I made a terrible error in judgment by driving after having consumed alcohol with dinner. There is no excuse for the mistake I made, only a commitment to make amends and accept the consequences of my action. More importantly, I ask forgiveness from the good people whom I serve, as well as my family and friends, in the Diocese of Worcester and the Diocese of Providence.”

Initial reaction in the diocese appeared supportive.

“Like any brother in our family that this could happen to, I would support him,” said the Rev. John Madden, pastor of St. John’s Church in downtown Worcester. “All of us have made mistakes in judgment. Like he’s said, we can only apologize and make amends.”

Update: In RI court, Bishop McManus pleads not guilty to DUI

Catholic Worker press release:

Vigil to Support the Burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

On Tuesday, May 7, from 5-6 p.m. the Saints Francis & Thérèse Catholic Worker will sponsor a vigil opposite the Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Home at the corner of Main and May Streets in Worcester to support the burying of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body here in the United States as his relatives have requested. Although we strongly condemn the Boston Marathon bombings, we believe the religious and civic duty to bury the dead holds for everyone, including Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Burying the dead is a civilized act, which in this context is a powerful rejection of revenge as well as a form of closure. We recall how upsetting it was to see American soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by Somalis angry over the hundreds of civilians those soldiers had killed. Burying Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a small statement that Americans are better than that.

We also recall that, no matter what kind of life someone lived, morticians take a solemn oath to provide them a decent burial. Those who work at Graham Putnam and Mahoney have done this for some of Worcester’s poorest and least popular citizens for years. Theirs was the only funeral home which would bury the victims of AIDS in the early days of that epidemic. These decent people at Graham Putnam and Mahoney have been maligned by angry protesters who have accused them of supporting terrorism for trying to carry out their sworn duty. Many of these protesters now are calling for Mr. Tsarnaev’s body to be sent out of the United States. His relatives have said that since Mr. Tsarnaev lived here for so many years, he should be buried here. In matters of death, the relatives have the right to make that decision. It’s a matter of common decency. It in no way honors any act of the person being buried.

Scott Schaeffer-Duffy
Saints Francis & Thérèse Catholic Worker

At the 75th anniversary gathering (held in Worcester!) many remarked that the CW seemed as vital as it had ever been. On this 80th anniversary, it feels just as lively.

Image: Rita Corbin.