Items

Kevin Ksen case: The T&G now has this story. See also Pie and Coffee’s coverage.

Plowshares: Michael Walli released from prison. You’ll recall he damaged a nuclear missile silo dressed as a clown.

Climate: The Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue will be in Worcester March 20-21.

Catholic Worker news: The Eugene, Oregon CW community has moved to a new location.

Come join: The Catholic Coalition for Material Cooperation with Evil.

More from the Research Bureau: Their latest report, which I haven’t read yet, apparently says 65% of Worcesterites are satisfied with the city. Also, according to the T&G, the survey respondents were 92% white. Which doesn’t sound like a good sample, to be honest. But I should read the survey before writing more.

History: Over at the wiki, check out The Anti-War and Anti-Draft Movement in Worcester, 1965-75.
Continue reading “Items”

The T&G website now has comments

Holy cow, you can now comment on articles at the Telegram & Gazette website.

I tried this out and found that:

  • Your comment appears can appear instantly.
  • Comments with URLs go to moderation.
  • Your e-mail doesn’t appear in the comment.
  • No count of comments is included in article blurbs. No “recent comments” list. No way to browse comments in general, or get a sense of where the discussion is hot.

Here’s an article with comments.

No idea how long this feature has been there. Kevin Ksen mentioned it to me this morning, so I suppose it was there yesterday. Someone with us asked: Can you still only read the last 14 days for free? Answer: Looks like it.

Lest you think hell has frozen over, the T&G’s RSS feed remains screwed up.

Ksen gets continuance/dismissal

This morning Kevin Ksen, accused of trespassing and resisting arrest in connection with organizing and photojournalism he was doing regarding the Fox TV show “COPS”, was given a 6-month continuance, at the end of which the case will be dismissed.

The judge said: “Mr. Ksen, you stay out of trouble, the case gets dismissed in six months.”

I’ll update this post with links to better articles this afternoon.

Video update: Click To Play

To share, go to blip.tv.

T&G update: Criminal charges against local activist set aside:

[ADA] Mr. Bibaud said in his motion that he had discussed the proposed disposition of the case with Police Chief Gary J. Gemme and deemed the continuance without a plea or finding a “suitable” resolution given the circumstances of the case. Mr. Bibaud said the case involved allegations that Mr. Ksen interfered with the arrest of another individual.
The prosecutor said police officials agreed with the proposed disposition, which was accepted by Judge Despotopulos.

Another T&G update:

A reader asks: Has the case been “set aside,” or “continued”?

friday.jpg

saturday.jpg

I think the answer is: the case has been dismissed, but in order that everyone involved can save face, it’s been dismissed with this 6-month delay/continuance. “Set aside” is surely the wrong way to put it: the case has been resolved, as far as everyone involved is concerned.

See also: Worcester man arrested for flyering?, Citizen journalist files “false arrest” complaint

A few days after Kevin was arrested in July, Worcester’s Police Chief kicked “COPS” out of the city, saying:

“I just believe it is in the best interest to ask ‘Cops’ to leave.”

The act of seeing with one’s own eyes

I stopped drinking coffee cold turkey yesterday. I didn’t feel bad, but I think my concentration suffered. I wrote two blog posts, both of them traditionally bloggy summaries of others’ work, and neither very accurate or pithy.

One of the ideas I had when starting this group blog was to combine the personalist philosophy with the personal; rather than commenting on news reported by others, I would write about my own firsthand experiences. Rather quickly this blog descended into traditional meta-news blogging as well. After all, another idea behind this blog was to have fun, and meta-news blogging is fun.

But a day like yesterday points up a problem with meta-news blogging. I might write a bad post about my own experiences, but I’m not likely to be inaccurate about them. Yesterday I blogged about two things I have no firsthand experience of, and so a mild deficit of reading comprehension led to both bad and inaccurate blogging. (I’ve been following the Cirignano stuff behind the scenes, but I wasn’t there for the original incident. I have zero firsthand knowledge of WoMag, and as mentioned yesterday it’s only moving further to the periphery of my awareness.)

Think not that I have learned my lesson: in the coming days, this space will feature several pieces that feature not only meta-news, but also meta-analysis. If this scares you, consult Allen Levine’s floating head for solace.

Post title taken from Stan Brakhage.

Here’s the WoMag deal

Business @ Noon:

Worcester Business Journal to be sold; WoMag will be kept

WORCESTER-Worcester Business Journal and two other publications owned by Worcester Publishing Ltd., Hartford Business Journal and Mainebiz, will be sold to a new company being formed by Peter Stanton and Joe Zwiebel, two senior managers at Worcester Publishing.

Plans to sell the three business publications to New England Business Media LLC were announced this morning by Allen W. Fletcher, principal owner of Worcester Publishing, 172 Shrewsbury St. Mr. Fletcher said the sale will allow him to focus on a single publication, Worcester Magazine, which will continue to be published by Worcester Publishing but move to a new location on Water Street.

[…]

Two or three full-time positions will be eliminated, he said.


Press release.

Update: T&G article, no real new details.

As a result, Worcester Magazine will leave its 172 Shrewsbury St. offices for space above Jose Murphy’s on Water Street in the old Arkus Pharmacy Building.

Whither WoMag?

Just heard the rumor that Worcester Magazine is being sold broken off from its sister publications, changing location, and laying off some people. I hope this rumor isn’t true; a weaker weekly is the last thing Worcester needs.

I tried calling someone over there, but so far just got voicemail….

See also: Santa Rosa TV station fires news staff, to ask local folks to provide programming

Update: It has been suggested that freeing Worcester Magazine of the other publications in the Worcester Publishing stable might make it more focused, rather than weaken it. Sure hope so. In my 5 years in Worcester, WoMag seems to have slowly crumbled, and I guess my knee-jerk reaction is to read any WoMag news as part of that narrative of collapse.