Year: 2006

Siting: No peace in sight

Last fall I criticized the Mayor’s Social Service Task Force Report because:

First, it doesn’t have a plan for getting beyond the current hostility between social service agencies and neighborhood groups.

Second, it provides no incentive for social service agencies to follow the “best practices” it outlines for siting social service programs.

This week, the City Council voted 8-0 to endorse the report. (City Solicitor David M. Moore convinced them that endorsing the report would not violate the law, despite clear indications that this report will get the city sued at some point.)

At a Council meeting last fall, I brought my concerns to the Council. They didn’t seem to think the report was vague at all, and thought that it was practically a Roadmap to Peace between agencies and property owners’ groups.

This morning, the T&G reports on last night’s meeting between the agency SMOC and some Main South people.

Despite the presence of “five city councilors,” “the third in a series of meetings between neighbors and SMOC” was “the most acrimonious yet.”

There’s a bumper sticker that says: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

The Worcester City Council needs to put out its own bumper sticker: “There is no way to peace.”

Coach Williams opportunity missed

After his all-black basketball team was eliminated from the playoffs, South High Coach Williams accused two referees of racial or class bias. Many denounced him as a race-baiting sore loser, but a number of coaches, teachers, players, parents, and even another referee supported his allegations and demanded a full review. Many saw this as an opportunity for Worcester to grow in racial sensitivity.

Unfortunately, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association decided to suspend Williams for four games and require that he attend anger management classes. The Telegram & Gazette front page story on the decision noted that in 1992 the MIAA gave a milder penalty to a coach who grabbed a referee. When the coach of St. John’s grabbed a referee, spinning him around, during a game in 2004, no penalty at all was imposed.

To all those aware of racism’s deep roots in our society, Williams’s punishment represents not only a failure to consider his serious charges, but also a warning to others not to raise the issue again.

Immediately below the Williams story, the T&G featured a report that the History Channel has chosen our region to stand in for the Old South in an upcoming film. Was this a coincidence or commentary on the MIAA?

“Basil Pennington” response

A reader letter:

Mike,

While searching Father Basil Pennington I encountered an old posting you may have made on Pie and Coffee. The posting indicated you “stopped by the monastery last week to pick up a donation of food for some shelters and soup kitchens in Worcester, and they also gave me several boxes with Fr Pennington’s clothes. It was like being handed a crate of holy relics.”

Father Pennington is meaningful in my life. He influenced me with his teaching on Centering Prayer, his writings, and a personal chance meeting in the book store while on retreat at Saint Joseph’s Abbey many years ago. Feeling like a kid approaching a great athlete I asked him to autograph his book Centering Prayer.

Your feeling of holding a crate of holy relics is very understandable.

Coach Williams suspended

On today’s front page of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, there’s a front-page article headlined above the fold: “Central Mass. to become Old South for TV movie.”

Above that is another article: “Boy’s basketball coach suspended: South High’s Williams alleged racist referees.” From Jackie Reis’s article:

South High Community School boys’ varsity basketball coach Patrick Williams has been suspended for two weeks or four games, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association announced yesterday.

The penalty comes after Mr. Williams alleged that two of three referees at a Division 1 semifinals game March 5 were racist and caused his team to lose to Holy Name Central Catholic Junior/Senior High School in double overtime. Mr. Williams apologized to the MIAA five days later for “bringing racism into the conversation” and for violating MIAA rule 50.1.1, which prohibits coaches from publicly criticizing game officials.

[…]

The MIAA suspended former Burncoat High School boys’ basketball coach Jim Diamantopoulos for one year for allegedly grabbing a referee in 1992. That suspension, however, was reduced to eight days upon appeal after the MIAA sportsmanship committee determined there was “no physical assault” by Mr. Diamantopoulos, who missed just one game.

The ruling doesn’t appear on the MIAA website. No idea if Mr. Williams was additionally reprimanded for being “uppity.”

Minimum Wage

The idea that minimum wages lead to unemployment is so ingrained in a lot of people who think they’re intelligent about economics that it’s essentially taken on faith from first principles rather than backed up with research. This article in the Knoxville News Sentinel isn’t a controlled scientific study, but it does present some data that suggest that a higher minimum wage correlates with lower unemployment and a healthier economy in general. Continue reading “Minimum Wage”

South Bend zoning news for May 2006

From today’s South Bend Tribune:

  • The Board of Zoning Appeals has approved of a request by the South Bend Catholic Worker to have their house at 515 S. St. Joseph Street be a group residence.
  • The BZA has denied a request by Opus Dei to raze a building, replace it with two smaller ones, and change the zoning. The article cites a laundry list of objections, but the one that leaps out at me is that the change would conflict with “neighborhood redevelopment plans.” Woe to anyone in South Bend who would make use of a lot in some way not envisioned by the neighborhood redevelopment plan. What would Jane Jacobs think of this foolishness?

Continue reading “South Bend zoning news for May 2006”

History of Immigration Laws

Mae M. Ngai had a commentary article in the L.A. Times a couple of days ago about the history of immigration laws in the U.S. Essentially, they came to be because people didn’t like Catholics, Slavs, or Chinese. But wouldn’t unskilled foreign labor cause economic havoc in the U.S.? I say let the market figure that out. If Americans are more skilled, then why are we worried about competition from Nicaragua, anyway? P&C administrator Mike, in a personal conversation, pointed out that all of this talk about free trade is really only talking about part of the equation— trade of goods. What about free trade of labor? I’m for both. And anyway, illegal immigrants are an essential part of the economy already. Legalization — the free trade of labor — is about treating people with basic human dignity rather than using them for their labor while keeping them as a permanent, illegal underclass.

“Copyright & Culture” June 8

Nick NassarNick Nassar will be giving a talk on “Copyright & Culture” June 8, 7:30pm, at 52 Mason St, Worcester, Massachusetts.

He’ll look at the ethics of copyright, and how current trends in copyright law hurt individual freedom and society.

This talk is free and open to the public. Spirited discussion and refreshments will follow. Sponsored by the Saints Francis & Therese Catholic Worker community.

Nick is the lead developer for the free, open-source Democracy video player, a project of the non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation.
Continue reading ““Copyright & Culture” June 8″