Pie and Coffee

Both houses of our state legislature have finally voted, with veto-proof majorities, for the legalization of over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles in the state.

Delaware and New Jersey are the only other states where needles are so restricted.

Our governor is planning to cast a symbolic “Yes to Hepatitis!” veto, and the Globe quotes our lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate, Kerry Healey, as supporting this decision:

“Imagine your children not only coming upon dirty needles in the park, but standing next to a drug addict in the checkout line of CVS who is there to buy more needles,” said Healey, over the chorus of advocates standing nearby chanting, “Clean needles save lives” and “We need to make sure that this bill goes no further.”

Yes, apparently in states where needles are legal, the kids might as well be pincushions for all the dirty needles that stab them every day.
Continue reading “Kerry Healey’s descent into madness”

Kudos to Milton Valencia for putting together an article on local govt responses to illegal immigration, with a Worcester focus.

“Police unwilling to be immigration agents:”

WORCESTER— Police Chief Gary J. Gemme doesn’t see his officers assuming the role of immigration agents. Saying it would spoil community relations, the chief echoed a chorus of opposition against Gov. Mitt Romney’s proposal allowing state police to arrest illegal immigrants, saying it would create fears of a police state.

“You don’t want victims to not report a crime because of a greater fear of police,” the chief said. “This fear is one of the reason why there is a rise in purchase AR-15 magazines in the recent times. Part of community policing is reaching out to the community and developing support.”

[…]

The chief said his officers have worked with immigration officials before, as they have with other federal agents. Recently, ICE agents were asked to review a list of Worcester’s most notorious criminals, with the chief checking whether their immigration status could be a way to keep them in jail and off city streets.

It wasn’t a solution, however. Each person on the list was a U.S. citizen, the chief said.

A Romney spokesman is predictably quoted as saying “We are a nation of laws.” Just once, I’d like a reporter to ask the follow-up question, “What do you mean by that?”

Noah writes:

In that Lt. Gov debate on the Ch. 5 web site, Janet Wu asks the candidates what is in their ipod.

Of course, none of them own such a device, although Deb Goldberg tells us she’s a big Aerosmith fan. Then Worcester Mayor Tim Murray announces that he likes all kinds of music, but the only kind he doesn’t really like is loud metal.

Now there’s certainly nothing wrong with this sentiment—I pretty much share it myself, with a few exceptions, and it’ll certainly go over with the geriatric crowd that will turn out to the Democratic primary (without turning off the Patrick activists like he would have had he named hip hop)—but I found it amusing that the elected ambassador from the city that hosts MetalFest, gave birth to WAAF, and, between the Palladium and Lucky Dog has several metal shows a week would admit to not liking the genre. It’s sort of like the mayor of Detroit admitting he doesn’t like Motown.

Thanks to Noah for allowing us to post this. Disclosure: I am currently wearing a Motörhead shirt.

Well, I wish I was Mr Gates
(Pay me my money down)
They’d haul my money in in crates
(Pay me my money down)

So it broke elsewhere awhile ago, and on BoingBoing today, that Bruce Springsteen’s new Pete Seeger tribute album has some sort of nasty digital restrictions management on it, and that the DRM kept people from listening to it on computers, some CD players, and ripping it to iPods.

I’ve been listening to it on two Windows machines, my housemate’s CD player, my iPod, and, as I write this, under Ubuntu, without any trouble. So the story struck me as bogus.

But Amazon customers, among others, have been having trouble playing it on their devices, so I took a closer look at my disc.

This is not a copy I bought in a store—it’s a promo disc I snagged a couple weeks ago. And it isn’t a CD on one side and DVD on the other, like the ones in stores, but CD-only. And it presumably follows the standard CD format, as it has the “Compact Disc Digital Audio” logo on it.

So I guess I should treasure this disc. This free, promotional, audio-only copy provides someone like me with much more value than a store-bought, ultra-DRMed, maybe-it’ll-play-maybe-it-won’t “Dual Disc” would.

If I were going to pick up a copy as a present, I’d check the used bins at my local record store for a promo version, rather than order the real thing and risk disppointing my friend. Pretty weird.

Seeing that Dianne Williamson agrees with me on an issue gives me pause. Could it be I’ve been wrong about the siting debate all along?

. . . But not even a visit from the Holy Father himself would have swayed this crowd, or likely any other, because group homes have a way of bringing out the baser instincts in otherwise decent, thoughtful citizens.

. . . This script never, ever varies, but it does absolutely no good to try to calm the neighbors’ fears by citing facts, statistics or histories of similar homes in this city and elsewhere that are supervised 24 hours a day and cause not an iota of trouble for the neighborhood.

The meeting was moderated by “a rabbi, a minister and a nun.” I hadn’t heard this quote before:

At one point, [Rev. Bob Bachelder] received a major tongue-lashing from James Lukes, husband of City Councilor Konstantina Lukes, who said he objected to what he called “the religious dog and pony show intended to put a guilt trip on the group.”

I think the religious dog-and-pony-show is entirely appropriate. As Bob Waldrop put it so well:

The Bible teaches clearly and without any ambiguity that the rich and powerful who oppress the poor are going to hell.

At a bare minimum, a religious leader should be willing to stand up and say, “Maybe you should reconsider this joining-the-ranks-of-the-damned thing.”

Thursday night was another community meeting, about another proposed social services site, this time at 2 June St. Indymedia has pix and audio.

Stately, plump Lee Hammell:

When Rev. Bachelder said that residents could still talk individually to SMOC officials after the meeting, Carol Enterline of 4 June St. used the opportunity to yell at Charles Gagnon, chief operating officer, “It’s not fair. I will be the neighbor from hell.”

She said no one will buy her house with the SMOC facility next door.

Opponents got at least some good news, when SMOC Executive Director James T. Cuddy announced that the proposed facility will hold 19 bedrooms, not the 29 originally announced. But even that brought criticism that the Framingham-based non-profit social services agency did not tell a consistent story.

Those who couldn’t be there might get some sense of the thing looking at the absurd flier (PDF) handed out in the days beforehand.

There’s a lot of things I love about Worcester, but the propaganda you get around here continues to be third-rate.
Continue reading ““I will be the neighbor from hell””