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A lot about signs this week.

Darfur: Some updates to the March 29 Darfur demonstration in DC. If you live near DC, and can take the morning off, I hope to see you out there.

More Darfur: You can now see our “Fasting for Darfur” series archived by the Library of Congress/Internet Archive project.

ACLU: Ron “Worcester ACLU” Madnick, on the whole thing of the Catholic Church not supporting gay couples adopting kids:

“If they want to discriminate, that’s fine . . . . The bishops need to understand they need to give up their tax exemption and stop bringing in state and federal money.

“We cannot allow government funds to be used to discriminate against a class protected by the anti-discrimination laws of Massachusetts . . . .”
(Telegram& Gazette)

I don’t know about giving up their tax-exempt status, but I think giving up government money is an excellent idea for my church.

Via Boing Boing: the wonderful buildings of Nunavut. Me and fellow P&C contributor Kaihsu Tai have been inside a couple of these. Is that the 50s-themed restaurant?

Full-circle panorama of Mike Benedetti on the Road to Nowhere, Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. By Kaihsu Tai. Click the photo for the huge, hi-res version.

Anti-hate Worcester demo: There was a walk today in response to a bunch of racist graffiti at Doherty High. Indymedia estimates there were 300 people.

I think people have to do something to respond to craziness like that, even if just to let off steam.

Photos by Kevin Ksen. Originals at Indymedia.

More Coach Pat Williams: I hear there were only a handful of people outside City Hall Thursday to support Coach Pat Williams, and, by the time the School Committee got around to discussing it, only a handful of people to speak at the committee meeting. They don’t put their documents on the web, so I’m not exactly sure what resolution they may have passed. I’ll update this if the T&G’s able Jackie Reis mentions it in her article tomorrow.

Signs: Say what you want about the people of Millbury, they know how to make visible signs (unlike a lot of people in Worcester):

Photo from Worcester Magazine’s cover story.

One of these signs is great, the other is lousy:

Somebody needs to read How To Make A Sign. If a person has to invade your personal space to read your sign, you’re missing the point of a sign.

My fave is FEAR FOR THE CHILREN:

The print version of the story has a photo of a different demonstration with a different person holding the CHILREN sign, showing that the wise people of Millbury love this sign as much as I do.

Most of these are lettered in the same quirky style. I’m not sure if this is because of a particular technique or medium. With paint, a brush, and some penciled guidelines, even a fumble-fingered guy like me can letter respectably:

Via Whispers: fave pope pic of the week.

Worcester’s Buck Paxton: champions a cause we all should support—drinking in public. That’s one demo I would not miss.

To Heck in a Handbasket: Now that Noah Schaffer’s left Worcester Magazine, the place has fallen apart. No longer does the Blog Log disclaimer say, “…swear words are not reprinted.” And so one blogger this week describes Mr. Hetero as “macho bullshit.”

As one who was at the event, I can see describing it as bullshit (though I wouldn’t go that far), but not as macho bullshit.

Greens in the news: Continuing our close read of WoMag, in “Worcesteria” we learn that Worcester resident Grace Ross is the Greens’ candidate for governor. (Their state convention is Saturday at the Worcester library, where you can hear the candidates speak.)

This is described as “Continuing a long tradition of Worcester liberalism.” It’s worth noting that most of the Green Party energy in this part of the state isn’t in Worcester City, but in the rest of Worcester County, especially the Leominster/Fitchburg area. (About 1/4 of people in the County live in the City.)

The Central Massachusetts podcast Saint Kermit is by a couple very active Greens in the aforementioned L/F area.

It is also interesting that about 1/4 of the people at the 2004 Massachusetts Green-Rainbow convention were Caltech alums.

$50,000: The final WoMag item we have time for is Action Geek, in which Doug Chapel takes on the “cultural wayfinding” project:

More discussion at Volcanoboy.

Update: And yes, “Buck for Mayor” means what you think it means.

Institutional Linens: Here’s an old photo I found on-line of Scott and some of the murals he painted on Institutional Linens. Barbara Haller was thinking of having them removed from the building and putting them in storage, rather than tossed with the rest of the demolition debris; I don’t know if this worked out.

The article accompanying the photo is nice because it talks about what Jo and Marc do. They are representative of the many people in the City of Worms who do wonderful stuff without trying to get into the papers.

Previously: Institutional Linens demolition photos, IL comic strip, history of Mason Court. You’ll notice that Sojourner Truth’s portrait is missing from the comic strip—it was destroyed in an early-2006 fire.

All One!: Here’s an article about the wacky Ralph “Son of Dr.” Bronner. The one time I met him, he gave me cash money because I was a Catholic Worker—the only time a stranger has done that. I was heading out on a long non-CW trip, so I mailed the money to my housemates, and Ralph wrote a note that went something like this:

You Catholic Workers work too hard. This money is for FUN ONLY. If I hear you did something charitable with it, my next donation’s going to the Pentagon!

The other Ralph Bronner fact I know is that he has this big, annual, semi-public birthday party, which brings lots of “troubled youth” or whatever out into the countryside for a day of fun. He always adds 100 years to his age. Have a happy 170th, Ralph!