Stone Soup celebrates second anniversary

One of my favorite things in Worcester, the Stone Soup community center at 4 King Street, celebrated its second anniversary last night.

It was more sedate than the first anniversary party, probably because it was at Centro Las Americas, a much larger venue than Stone Soup and more appropriate to the crowd size, and because there were a couple other big events tonight so people were in and out.

A highlight for me was the murga group La Clandestina:

George sings Happy Birthday, cracking up Nori and Aiden:

Dave Maciewski:

Happy birthday, Stone Soup! May this be the second of a hundred!

(These are just some videos from my camera. You can expect more footage in the future courtesy of youth videographer Sergio Castillo, who was on the scene. He e-mailed saying, “The deal is you have to let other people know about my website.” Here you go.)

Vegan cupcakes

508 #64: Fax machines

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Tina Zlody, Kevin Ksen, and Brendan Melican.

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Sunday, December 7, from noon-5pm at Worcester’s Union Station is the “stART in the Station” arts festival.

Seth Godin, from his “Holiday Shopping Guide”:

Buy handmade items from people you like.

stART can hook you up.

There was actually some news on the PILOT/BILOT front this week, with the pharmacy school making a small annual donation to the library.

Worcester will be remembering homeless residents who died in 2008 at this year’s “Longest Night” events, leading up to Dec 21. Watch this space for details.

Worcester has a contract with a new superintendant of schools. There have been delays in the release of the Mark Rojas records.

Mike continues his local journalism case studies. Kevin says the T&G has a new investigative team, or “I-Team”, with Jay Whearly as John “Hannibal” Smith.

The City Manager recognizes Colin Novick’s good work.

Dave Winer on the death of newspapers:

They see the cliff, they know they’re headed for it, but they don’t ask how to turn the car. They don’t really want to know. I think sometimes what they want is to be missed when they lie dead in a crumpled car at the bottom of the cliff. But we don’t want that to happen. Not because we love them, but because life without them is pretty hard to imagine.

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508 #63: Friendly New Englanders

508 is a show about Worcester. This week Mike is in West Virginia, and Brendan Melican and Bruce Russell are in Worcester.

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Headline: Elk Collecting Deer Hides for Veterans

Mike is comparing blog coverage of Worcester news to the Telegram & Gazette; his first case study shows the blogs doing surprisingly well.

Headline: Fly Gets 40 Years in Prison

Are New Englanders friendly?

We listen to the City Manager talking about the challenges of snow removal, and look forward to having the same discussion this year.

Also: Bruce tells jokes.

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Pre-Thanksgiving items

First, a couple of buzzkill items. Don’t forget that Friday is Buy Nothing Day, a day to send the message that the Christmas season is not about money. (I guess it doesn’t have to be a downer: read Mark Dixon’s account of a crazy BND experiment.)

Also, casual turkey cruelty:

New York Times:

[PETA] released undercover videotapes taken at the nation’s premier poultry-breeding operation, showing turkeys being stomped to death and punched by workers.

[…]

The scenes show stomach-turning brutality. Workers are seen smashing birds into loading cages like basketballs, stomping heads and breaking necks, apparently for fun, even pretending to rape one.

It gets worse.

Now for some positive items.

Close Guantanamo Now
An interview about closing Guantanamo in which I repeatedly interrupt Mauro DePasquale and Claire Schaeffer-Duffy. Sadly, I do this to them off-camera, too.

Adam Villani beats Ben Stein’s ass, twice
Pie and Coffee contribuor Adam Villani won Ben Stein’s money, and correctly guessed that the housing market was over-valued. The score is 2-0.

How strong is the Worcester blogosphere?
Help me figure out how Worcester’s amateur news stacks up to the daily paper.

508 #62: Groundhog Day

508 is a show about Worcester. This week we talk with Brendan Melican.

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How is the Worcester City Council like the movie Groundhog Day?

PILOT vs. BILOT?

How dark is the future of Worcester journalism?

Would local bloggers like to video themselves for TV?

Just how charming are holiday shoutouts?

Also: Last weekend Kevin Ksen went to a KOMBI event at Coral Seafood to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the standardization of Albanian spelling.mp3 link, other formats, feed, low-fi versions

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Snow Ghost Community Show presents the 2008 Catholic Worker National Gathering

Some highlights from the Catholic Worker 75th anniversary national gathering, Worcester, Massachusetts, July 9-12, 2008. Brought to you by the Snow Ghost Community Show.

Video: Download the mp4 video directly (342 MB) or see other formats. To burn your own DVD, download the ISO. This program is available for broadcast on your local cable access station; e-mail pieandcoffee@gmail.com for help.

Audio: Download the mp3 (14 MB).

508 #61: Embolden the punks

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel features Brendan Melican and Kevin Ksen.

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The Telegram & Gazette continues to be in financial trouble; things look awful for their parent, the New York Times. Nevertheless, they continue to bird-dog local police misconduct and write about downtown retail.

We briefly discuss the election, which Brendan predicted with some success.

Some local college students aren’t happy with downtown Worcester.

Mike is going to DC next year to work against torture, and local Catholic Workers were sentenced to community service for praying the rosary.

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100 days against torture in DC

Witness Against Torture and other groups will spend the first 100 days of the Obama administration in an intensive effort to persuade our government to end America’s policies of torture.

I’ll be in Washington, DC from January-April 2009 as part of the core organizing team.

We’re first calling for the closing of the Guantanamo prison. With luck, this will happen quickly and we can encourage to government to take further measures against torture.

You can contribute to this project by coming to DC for a week, or by donating via PayPal at the Witness Against Torture site. If you’d like to sponsor me/help me with my costs directly, e-mail pieandcoffee@gmail.com. This money would go to staples like my transportation, food, and (possibly) internet costs, not beer or movies or anything like that. I’ll donate any leftover funds to Witness Against Torture.

  • January 11-20: Public fast for an end to torture. (The first detainees reached Guantanamo on January 11, 2002.)
  • January 20: Inauguration Day.
  • January 20-April 30: 100 days of lobbying, vigils, and education to bring an end to America’s policies of torture.

I’m still getting up to speed on all this. I’ll blog more details here and at the 100 Days site.

Barack Obama, August 1, 2007: “As President, I will close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions.”

TIME/AP, Nov 10, 2008: “President-elect Obama’s advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.”

ACLU: “Therefore, on the first day in office, the next president should issue an executive order directing all agencies to modify their policies and practices immediately to: . . . Close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay and either charge and try detainees under criminal law in federal criminal courts or before military courts-martial or transfer them to countries where they will not be tortured or detained without charge . . . .”

Updates
Words & deeds of first 100 days of every president since Roosevelt, via Kottke

508 #60: telegram.com

508 is a show about Worcester. This week, we feature a conversation with Telegram & Gazette News Editor Mike Elfland about telegram.com, the paper’s website.

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Some links mentioned:

I may have been wrong in my description of how links to old T&G story revisions work. Looking at this moose discussion thread, the old links just seem to break, rather than linking to an old revision.

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