Author: Mike

Ron Wehrle, 1936-2014, RIP

Ron Wehrle, beloved member of Worcester’s Catholic Worker community, passed away on Monday. His funeral was this morning.

For some classic shots of Ron brandishing his cigar, re-watch this lovely video about Worcester’s Catholic Workers:

A Life Worth Living from Doug Rogers on Vimeo.

Continue reading “Ron Wehrle, 1936-2014, RIP”

Transform Now Plowshares activists sentenced; and, the Worcester connection

Reuters, yesterday:

A U.S. judge sentenced an 84-year-old nun, Sister Megan Rice, on Tuesday to 35 months in prison for breaking into a Tennessee military facility used to store enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.

Two others accused in the case, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, were sentenced to 62 months in prison. The three were convicted of cutting fences and entering the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 2012, embarrassing U.S. officials and prompting security changes.

Tom LewisA fourth “participant” in the breakin was Worcester’s own Tom Lewis, the late artist-activist. As the Washington Post reported in an amazing article about this act of protest last spring:

They spray painted the building’s north wall, which was designed to withstand the impact of aircraft but not the words of the Book of Proverbs. 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.

In bright red rivulets, the last of Tom Lewis streaked down the concrete.

There Is a Mid-Winter Festival Hidden in Plain Sight

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Groundhog Day, Candlemas, St. Brigid’s Day, and the old pagan festival of Imbolc are all mid-winter holidays that basically happen on the same day every year. By that day, midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, you know for sure that the days are getting longer. It’s still winter, but you know you’re going to make it. So you do things like bless all the candles you’ll need for the coming year (if you’re a Christian), or study the behavior of giant hibernating ground squirrels to predict the onset of spring (if you’re a Pennsylvanian). You might welcome Brigid (the saint or goddess) into your home (if you’re Irish). It’s a time of purification and light.

The mid-winter festival is a great day to consider how your New Year’s Resolutions are going, and if necessary toss them out to prepare your life for spring. Candlemas is when I officially start planning for Lent. That means starting to think about what I might want to give up, and asking my non-Christian friends if they’re observing Lent this year (many of them do!). It’s also a good day to start fantasizing about your garden (if you haven’t) and to do a little something to get started on your taxes.

This year, Chinese New Year and the Superbowl are both taking place on mid-winter weekend, resulting in an embarrassment of feastday riches.

Candlemas–now my favorite neglected holiday.

508 #237: The City Manager Hunt

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Nicole Apostola, Chris Robarge, and Tracy Novick.

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We talk about the reopening of Stone Soup, Worcester Magazine’s story on the American Antiquarian Society, the hunt for a new City Manager, and how to explain the role of the Worcester City Council to political newbies.

Making Guantanamo History

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Justin Norman/Witness Against Torture

Saturday was the twelfth anniversary of the first detainees arriving at Guantanamo.

I went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History with my crazy friends from Witness Against Torture.

One small group, dressed as detainees in black hoods and orange jumpsuits, formed a tableau in a second-floor atrium. Then more than 100 people (from WAT and other groups) entered the museum from outside and, mic-check style, explained to hundreds of surprised museum-goers what was going on with this “temporary exhibit” of recent American history. They went on like this for some time, mic-checking and singing about Guantanamo, indefinite detention, and torture. Two banners were briefly hung from the railings on the balcony above.

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Shortly before that started, another group in jumpsuits entered an “America at war” exhibit on the floor above and tried to “install a temporary exhibit” there. Guards quickly cleared the area, sending a flood of tourists to the third-floor balcony overlooking the other tableau just as as the action in the atrium began.

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Justin Norman/Witness Against Torture

Most of the group planned to be arrested for all this, but nobody was. For reasons none of us understand, after maybe 20 minutes (at which point the atrium group went silent), the war exhibit was reopened, and the upstairs demonstrators were able to establish a “temporary exhibit,” with one member giving a marathon teach-in about freedom and the War On Terror while others stood silently or chatted with tourists.

The downstairs “exhibit” remained for two hours, and the upstairs group for more than three, at which point the museum was about to close, and they left.

Some tourists loved this spectacle. Others hated it. In my role as videographer, I overheard a lot of conversations, not all of them supportive but all of them thoughtful.

It was a grand and weird experience.

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