Worcester – Page 67 – Pie and Coffee

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Vox Nova, a new group blog
Messrs. Iafrate and Wildermuth, who I often cite in this space, are contributing to Vox Nova.

Scientologists camp on the Commons
The Scientologists have set up big, yellow tents on Worcester Commons as part of a promotional effort. I’m told they’ll be there a week.

Scientologists on Worcester Commons

New William St park
Here’s the design.

First vigil at new Planned Parenthood location
Saturday June 9, 9AM, 470 Pleasant St. PP hasn’t moved yet; I haven’t even noticed any signage at the new location. I wonder what people driving past will think: “Why are they protesting a vacant building?”

Democracy/Miro news
This week WoMag has an update on Worcester’s own Participatory Culture Foundation and their flagship project, the Democracy Video Player (soon to be renamed Miro). For me, the key Democracy news this week is that they now have a package for Ubuntu Dapper. (For technologically-ignorant Linux users like me, this is key.)
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Worcester Wal-Mart update from “What It’s Worth”

Tommy Colletta talks with Shannon Senior of Worcester First and Al Norman of Sprawl Busters. (The first couple minutes have sound trouble, not sure why.)

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Isaiah House Music Club
The LA Times reports that some of the kids from the Orange County Catholic Worker sang at Carnegie Hall!

Another friend attacked over gay rights
You’ll remember that back in December 2006, my friend Sarah Loy was reportedly assaulted at a pro/anti gay marriage event in Worcester. Earlier this week, Kaihsu’s friend Peter Tatchell was attacked at a gay rights event in Moscow. BBC:

Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell and singer Richard Fairbrass have expressed their shock after being punched by anti-homosexual protesters in Moscow.

Both men were hit on the head during a gay rights march on Sunday. Protesters attacked with kicks, punches and eggs.

Anne Marie Kaune profile
Nice article in Worcester Business Journal about the sometime Catholic Worker, healer of the poor, and St. Peter’s parishioner.

New Snow Ghost book: Many Wisdom
Download it from the Archive or buy it at HBML.

Snow Ghost Community Show #2: Dracula
[display_podcast]
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Tom Lewis in the blogs

Long-time Worcester resident Tom Lewis was out of town this weekend, up in Maine to protest a new Aegis destroyer coming out of Bath Iron Works. But that didn’t keep him from appearing all over the blogosphere.

Linking to a Catholic Free Press article, Defend the Faith notes that Tom and Fran Warner, who both have artwork in the ARTSWorcester Biennial, have covered their work to protest Planned Parenthood holding a fundraiser in the gallery.

Michael Iafrate remembers the recent 39th anniversary of the Catonville Nine, in which nine Catholic activists napalmed draft records, by quoting Tom’s testimony from the subsequent trial:

I wasnâ€™t concerned with the law
I wasnâ€™t even thinking about the law
I was thinking of what those records meant
I wasnâ€™t concerned with the law
I was concerned with the lives
of innocent people

Rock over London,
Rock on Worcester,
Tom Lewis — the freshmaker.

Tom Lewis, Harry Duchesne, Michael Boover at the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, 2006

Saint Kermit live #4: Wal-Mart

This week, the discussion begins with honeybees (here’s the article I mention) and Bill Richardson’s ad choices. We then talk with Shannon Senior, one of the leaders of the campaign against a proposed Worcester Wal-Mart.

Hosts: me, Janine Duffy, Jim Henderson.

Recording with TalkShoe continues to be fun and challenging. My controls died about halfway through this episode, and there’s a long silence at the end when I restarted the controls so I could click “Terminate episode.”

[Download the mp3]

Coffee in Worcester: Courtyard Cafe

Pie and Coffee: Courtyard Cafe. We’ve been talking about going there for a long, long time.

Bruce: And we finally did it.

P: And you feel a sense of accomplishment?

B: Oh yeah. The first thing I noticed when I walked in there, the funny thing about it is like, and this goes back way before, it’s like every time I used to do errands for Joe, Elwood Adams and stuff like that—

P: —back when you used to run errands at Java Joe’s?

B: Yeah. And I would go by there or, it goes back even farther than that. I have to back up a little bit. I used to go to Al Bum’s a lot, up on Highland Street, and I used to go by that coffee place a lot, the Courtyard. And I never found an apparition to go in there until . . . .
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Support your local junk shoppe

HBML, Worcester’s best visionary junk shoppe, is running low on cash. If you live in Worcester, perhaps you would like to visit them at 420 Pleasant St. If you live elsewhere, perhaps you would like to PayPal them $30 in exchange for a bunch of posters.

You know what they say about your neighborhood junk shoppe: use it or lose it.

Pie and Coffee accepts no advertising or donations, but at this point our daily readership is high enough that I feel like we should be using that untapped commercial potential for something.

Worcester Wal-Mart opposition gains traction

Holy cow, Shannon! Good job!

T&G: Appeal stalls planned Wal-Mart: Quinsigamond Village abutters fault officials:

A group of abutters has temporarily put the brakes on the planned Wal-Mart Supercenter in Quinsigamond Village.

Three abutters to the â€œWorcester Crossingâ€ shopping center development, to be built on 44 acres along the Blackstone River, have filed an administrative appeal with the Zoning Board of Appeals, claiming the Planning Board did not adhere to the cityâ€™s site plan review standards when it approved the first phase of the project in March.

Maybe this will buy some time. That’s just what the opposition needs. The fact that any effort has “put the brakes” on this thing at this point is a big surprise.

Video: Shannon Senior and John Harvey talk Wal-Mart.

Monks win! and other items

An e-mail exchange:

Mike: I love this city, I gotta say.

Adam: I gotta say it does not surprise me that you’ve settled in a city that is years from a gentrification bubble. Any chump can talk about how much they love, say, Savannah or Santa Fe, but it takes a Mike Benedetti to love Worcester.

Teresian Carmelites win land battle!
This story has everything I love—Roman Catholicism, contemplative prayer, a $15 billion corporate villain, renewable energy, the works of mercy, and cable access TV. WCCA has the scoop.

Olympia CW closing?
Maybe so. When I visited them in 2003, the people doing the day-to-day work were short-time volunteers, with a non-profit corporation providing continuity. Most Catholic Worker communities don’t start that way, but several of them have ended up like that. If I get my act together, I’ll phone Olympia and find out what the story is.

Ukes at the Ship Room
This Saturday night: cheap beer and tiny guitars.