A few items and a lot of media analysis–or, as my grandparents’ generation called it, “bitching about the paper.”
Chinese New Year: The place to be is the Buddhist temple, 96 Dewey St, Worcester. Things start 11AM Sunday. We stopped by last night and they were making the decorations.
CW news from all over: Check out this great article about Catholic Workers in Iowa. Also, Bob Waldrop of the Oklahoma City Catholic Worker is running for mayor. If it seems odd for a member of an anarchist movement to run for mayor, recall that Wisconsin’s Mike Miles ran for Congress in 2004 and is running again this year. In ’04 I asked him about Catholic Workers running for public office. “Dorothy’s probably rolling in her grave,” he said. “Most fun she’s had in years.”
State of the Union response: Worcester County’s own progressive podcast, Saint Kermit, will record commentary on this Tuesday’s State of the Union address immediately afterwards, including analysis by angry Texan and Green Party 2004 presidential candidate David Cobb. They promise the podcast will be edited and uploaded “by early the next morning.”
(Photo: David Cobb accepts the Green Party’s 2004 presidential nomination in Milwaukee. Photo by Mike Benedetti.)
Catholic Peace Fellowship: Has a blog.
Notable protests: You’ve read about the kids with the great sign turning their backs on Gonzales. Maybe you missed that Greenpeace dumped a 20-ton whale on the doorstep of the Japanese embassy in Berlin. Speaking of whales, you might want to read Paul Watson‘s “Confessions of a Career Criminal.”
Worcester Magazine: They did the right thing this week by running “Zippy” full-width. They did the right thing by running a 2003 strip that mentions “pie an’ coffee.” But somehow it came out at such a low resolution you can’t even read the copyright notice. Bill Griffith and the City of Diners deserve better.
Above: From the copy on their website.
Papers swiped: Both the T&G and WoMag [scroll down] have the story today about the “Case of the Stolen InCity Timeses.” Gist: many copies of the free IT were taken before anyone could read them, probably because of a controversial cover story (which has been posted to Indymedia). The legal case mentioned at the end of the IT article has been dismissed after both sides came to an agreement–read the T&G and WoMag stories for that update.
The newsracks for our newsletter, The Catholic Radical, are vandalized from time to time. Somebody will rip off the sign and steal the papers. It has happened to our newsrack at Living Earth twice this month. I watch the newsracks like a hawk, and usually find the papers in good condition in a nearby trashcan. So it’s very plausible that someone has been stealing the IT.
Telegram and Gazette webwatch: A kind reader writes to point out that the day after we speculated that the T&G was web-blind, they ran a URL on the front page:
“$1M donation puts diocese in the black”
…
The full report can be accessed at http://worcesterdiocese.org/2005%20Annual%20Rpt/FY2005-rel.htm, and it is included in this week’s Catholic Free Press.
…
Kathy Shaw gets a “web awareness point” for this one.
Another kind reader gleefully writes to point out that days after WoMag ran a short item [scroll down] about someone sending anonymous e-mails complaining about the airport to local politicians and media, the T&G ran an expansive front-page story on the same thing.
The only interesting bit here is that Airport Commission Chair Robert Nemeth replied to the guy and accidentally hit “Reply to All,” sending his angry complaint to everyone on the mailing list. Several of these guys told the press they didn’t want the anonymous e-mails in the first place, so the real story is that there are powerful people in Worcester County who still can’t use the filters on their e-mail programs.
The T&G reporter mentions the anonymous guy’s e-mail address, but there’s no sign he tried to e-mail him. Shame! No “web awareness point” for you.
WCCA-TV: Mauro’s 500th “Soapbox” show will be taped Monday, an interview with Michael O’Brien. Members of the media are invited to attend.
They’ve modified their website, and I can now get their video feed by opening http://wccatv.com:8010/;stream.nsv with Winamp. Doesn’t work for me under Linux.
There’s a campaign to bring Democracy Now! to WCCA. If you want to see this come to your TV, you can write or e-mail WCCA with your support:
WCCA TV 13
Attn: Tracy Foley
415 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01608tracy@wccatv.org
Don’t forget Iowa Catholic Worker Brian Terrel not only ran for his towns mayor, but actually won.
I was wondering if there were any other Catholic Workers in politics, and somebody sent me a note about this website which mentioned Mike in Wisconsin running for Congress. Then I see the reply about Brian Terrel running for mayor of his town and winning! Marion Latiolais, of the Divine Mercy Catholic Worker, is on the city council of Lyons, Kansas. I was worried I might get excommunicated from the Catholic Worker movement, but then I remembered we didn’t have a hierarchy to do any excommunicating anyway, and given how unconventional we all are, who is to say what a typical Catholic Worker is. Hope to see everybody at the national gathering this fall.
Bob–Thanks for dropping by. Good luck with the election! I liked this from your campaign page:
I’m glad to find y’all. But where’s the section on pie? I found the section on coffee. I do have some pie recipes I could post.
But anyway, the paragraph you snipped really does say it all about my campaign. If elected, I will certainly demand a recount.
I noticed above that y’all have racks for your newsletter. Where do you get them or do you make them? We’ve thought about using them too but I have been too lazy to do the research and find out where newspaper racks come from.
Bob–Our newsracks are made of wood, and used inside the library and a couple of local stores.
I’ve looked into getting a permit to chain newsracks to lightposts on the street, but got confused on how much liability insurance the city required. I put this question to the city’s legal department, but they never got back to me and I’ve been too lazy to pressure them for a real answer. Our newsletter is distributed by hand at parishes across our county, so putting newsracks on the street is not a high priority.