Ever since Jeff Barnard first mentioned the new magazine Inside Worcester, I’ve been eager to take a look.
Now I have, and I’m disappointed.
Category: Worcester
Fourth Sunday of Advent
We’ve been using a booklet of Henri Nouwen meditations this Advent. He often counsels that we stay in the moment, and today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, Greyhound is doing their bit to keep me where I am both mentally and physically by cancelling bus service to Worcester due to snow. (I am in no hurry to ride on icy roads after my Christmas wreck last year.)
Today we celebrated the season by Christmas carolling at a local nursing home and at the homes of neighbors and friends.
I also wanted to share photos of a homemade Advent wreath and a sort of “Advent board” tracing the lineage of Jesus, based on a design by legendary Catholic Worker artist Ade Bethune.
Hope you all have a wonderful, safe week!
508 #96: The local green economy
This week: the 508 Christmas Spectacular! The panel is Julius Jones and Mr. Brendan Melican. Theme song: “If I Had One Christmas Wish.” Words by Bruce “Snow Ghost” Russell, music by Mike Benedetti.
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Buddha Hut buffet Saturday; Stone Soup party Friday; Winter Mystery Band signups happening now.
The NYT is not selling the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Top suggestions for the T&G: stop running the internet poll on the front page, because you’re deceiving people who don’t realize it’s a phony poll, and you look bad to people who know what’s going on; create an RSS feed for Worcester news; make use of the <title> element so it will be easier to Google T&G articles; add features to the comment system to filter out noise.
Julius, who helps run the Regional Environmental Council’s gardening program, talks about the local green economy, or lack thereof.
Holiday gift guide:
- New Worcester shirts!
- Old Worcester shirts!
- Hex signs and other anti-demon items
- You can reportedly make a contribution to Park Spirit to help buy a real live Holiday Tree for behind City Hall.
Nicole has posted an experimental Virtual Assignment Desk; Jeff Barnard highlights Bill Randell’s reporting on low-income housing financing.
You should wear a hat to stay warm! I’m told Lutheran Social Services has classes for recent immigrants to help them dress appropriately for the (bad) weather.
508 #95: Barnraising
508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Scott Guzman, Heather Mackenzie, Drew Wilson, and Brendan Melican.
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This week is the 10th anniversary of the Cold Storage Fire (photos). Brendan explains the city maintaining its current tax structure.
There’s an “energy barnraising” weatherization event at the Woo Church, 911 Main St, Worcester, Saturday, December 5th, 11-5pm.
Drew points out that Al Gore is finally speaking out against factory farming. Mike and Drew will be doing some vegan outreach at the local colleges.
Spectrum Health has a peer recovery center at 25 Pleasant St; also a Twitter feed. Mike asks Nicole to post a virtual assignment list.
She has been looking into, among other things, relations between Holy Cross students and their neighbors. This discussion has recently escalated. We need Holy Cross students to invite us to some parties so we can report on them.
Mark Lund has revived theater at Becker; they have some free plays this weekend. There’s an art fest at Union Station Sunday; Seah will be debuting a three-decker tee shirt that sounds like this season’s smash holiday gift.
508 #94: Journalism
508 is a show about Worcester. This week, we talk with legendary Telegram & Gazette columnist Jim Dempsey and his WPI class about the state of Worcester journalism and whether bloggers can help.
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Two possible inspirations for Worcester amateurs: the NYT’s Virtual Assignment Desk, Clay Shirky’s “Let a thousand flowers bloom”
Patty Angevine and other Thanksgiving items
Nice profile of local Catholic Worker and awesome person Patty Angevine in the Telegram and Gazette. Among other things, she co-founded the great soup kitchen at St. John’s. (Note that it’s rarer than you might think for Catholic Workers, like Patty, to work professionally in social services.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Michael Iafrate makes the case against Thanksgiving, then admits:
. . . I am not about to be so politically smug that I would simply refuse to participate in my own family’s traditions.
Me neither. I love celebrating a fall feast with family, and I love celebrating a utopia in which natives and immigrants could co-exist. I’d embrace a chance to have a more honest celebration without giving up the joy.
Don’t forget that the day after Thanksgiving is Buy Nothing Day. I’ll be doing my bit to “keep the Christ in Christmas” by keeping myself out of the mall. For a great example of a joyous Buy Nothing Day, see Mark Dixon’s 49 Hours at Wal-Mart.
Worcester Police on Twitter
The WPD’s Twitter feed makes me wonder when we’ll see our first Worcester crime blogger. Seems like anyone could gather quite a bit of info with a computer, police scanner, and telephone.
508 #93: Faceplant
508 is a show about Worcester. This week, Mike and Brendan discuss a skateboarding accident.
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“Shaping a Local Green Economy” in Worcester
Last night there was a forum on “Shaping a Local Green Economy” at Clark University in Worcester.
People experimenting with Worcester green initiatives, along with institutional players, spoke briefly about their work. The keynote speaker was Omar Freilla of the Bronx-based Green Worker Cooperatives.
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My video of the event was only so-so, so I’m posting the audio of the Worcester speakers here for anyone curious about the range of local green things happening.
The Worcester speakers were:
- Joel Fontaine, Worcester’s Director of Planning and Regulatory Services. Worcester has “adopted the state’s first climate action plan.”
- Stephen O’Neil of the Worcester Regional Transit Authority. The bus system is seeking ISO 14001 certification of their Environmental Management System.
- Patricia Feraud, Toxic Soil Busters Co-op. TSB, part of the Worcester Roots Project, is a youth-led project that tests lawns for lead contamination and deals with the problem when they find it.
- Julius Jones of the Regional Environmental Council. Julius works on projects that manage community gardens and teach young people how to grow and sell food in their neighborhoods. The “overall vision is to have community gardens within walking distance of anybody that wants one.”
- Jill Dagilis of the Worcester Community Action Council. WCAC would like to “reduce and eliminate the reliance on fuel assistance” by increased weatherization.
- Clark Provost David Angel. Clark is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1995 levels by 2010, and to be “climate-neutral by 2030.”
- Mary Knittle of Quinsigamond Community College. QCC will have a regional training center for clean energy jobs.
- Stacie Brimmage and Ashey Trull of the Worcester Energy Barnraisers. At their events, people learn weatherizing by joining dozens of others in weatherizing a local building. (I made a short video of their last event.)
- Stephen Healy of the Worcester Green Jobs Coalition.
- Sarah Assefa of the EMPOWER Energy Cooperative. EMPOWER is a business that plans to make biodiesel out of local waste vegetable oil.
508 #92: Bald eagle
508 is a show about Worcester. This week Brendan Melican and Drew Wilson talk about a bald eagle.
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Also: Buddha Hut’s vegan meatballs a top 10, Saturday is a VegWorcester buffet, Stone Soup porch burned, Rosen’s Roundtable talks taxes, and Hermis Yanis starts a podcast after his radio show is “terminated.”
508 #91: Fox Cops
508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Kevin Ksen, Brendan Melican, and Tracy Novick.
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We talk about the City Council election. We talk about the School Committee election. We talk about a new Worcester video site Mike’s playing with (and you should, too). We talk about a $10 million lawsuit against Worcester for an incident during the taping of the Fox TV show COPS in 2006.