Mr. Hetero’s final chapter
Worcester Magazine notes that Tom “Mr Hetero” Crouse has dropped his lawsuit against the City, in which he claimed he was coerced into paying for a huge police detail to protect his “Mr. Hetero” pageant (see City documents for more). The City Solicitor writes:
The suit was dismissed by Rev. Crouse when it became apparent in depositions that Mechanics Hall, acting as his agent and fearing that the agreed upon number of police officers would not be sufficient to protect event attendees, actually requested additional paid-duty police officers above and beyond the number recommended by and agreed-to by Rev. Crouse and Mechanics Hall for the event to further ensure the safety of event attendees.
Earlier in his statement, the City Solicitor engages in fantasy:
Attendance at both the event and the protests was far less than expected due for the most part because February 18, 2006 turned out to be one of the coldest days of the winter.
There’s no evidence that the weather was the key factor; days before the event, Worcester Magazine was reporting that advance ticket sales were extremely low. For February, the weather was actually pretty nice; at least there wasn’t a blizzard or icy roads.
Fresno Catholic Workers and others support homeless woman vs. McDonald’s
Mike Rhodes writes at Indybay:
The arrest last weekend of a homeless woman at a Fresno McDonald’s led to a protest today. Protestors said Sherri Williams’s rights were violated when she was arrested for attempting to use the restroom at McDonald’s on Olive and highway 99. Speaking at the protest Liza Apper, of the Saint Benedict Catholic Worker group, said she was “here today to support Sherri and her husband Al who was discriminated against from getting service at this McDonald’s.†Liza said she would “like McDonald’s to acknowledge their policy of discrimination toward handicapped people and change. They should give the same level of service to their fully abled customers as they do to their handicapped customers.â€
Mike Rhodes photo of Liza Apper
Snow Ghost Community Podcast
In order to answer a viewer question about the Community Show, Bruce and I taped a Snow Ghost Community Podcast. You can download the mp3, see other formats, or subscribe to the podcast feed. We’re planning to do another podcast every time we get a viewer question, or 100 downloads, whichever comes first.
More from the annals of stupid local pols
In Fitchburg, City Coucilor DeSalvatore spoke out on the poor and needy hanging out downtown:
They’re not there as consumers. They’re not there to shop. They’re just there because they have no place to go.
Many on both the left and the right oppose consumer culture, the reduction of people to wallets to be emptied. DeS seems to think he can pick up some votes by appealing to those who want to see society become more fragmented and depersonalized in the name of profit.
Kinda edgy. Still, some people are alientated by DeS’s message. There’s a blog dedicated to opposing this guy, and Progressive Fitchburg is making fun of his website and comparing him to a super-villain.