Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
Just playing around with webcams . . . looks like they’re setting stuff up at City Hall:
Related stories:
For the six months ended March 31, average daily paid circulation fell 5.2 percent in Massachusetts from the same period a year earlier, and 2.1 percent nationally, according to data reported yesterday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, an independent monitor of newspaper circulation.
At the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, daily circulation fell 11.6 percent, to 84,754, based on a six-day average.
Update (April 2, 2009): Just now became aware of this “clarification” published in the T&G after these numbers were released: A major portion of the Telegram & Gazette’s circulation decline for the six month period ending March 31 was attributable to switching the company’s website from a paid subscription to a free site and to a reduction in the “other” circulation categories outside of traditional home delivery and single copy sales. Because of a reporting error, a story published Sunday in the Telegram & Gazette did not completely identify those reasons for the decline. They say this accounts for about half their losses, which still means they are doing terribly, but closer to average for Massachusetts. In subsequent reports they consistently did worst than the national average, as it turned out.
Telegram & Gazette webcam, with pigeon in foreground
Speaking of news gathering, Larry Cirignano was back at the Worcester courthouse this morning with his lawyer. I ran into an old friend on Main Street, and got to the courthouse just as reporter Ethan Jacobs, who’s been following the case closely, was emerging. So no news from me, but Ethan should be posting something at Bay Windows soon.
This afternoon Grace Ross and I went down to Worcester’s water treatment plant, and I taped Karla Sangrey giving us a tour. It was fun checking out all the different equipment. Didn’t smell too bad, either.
With a little luck, a short movie about Worcester’s water treatment situation will come out of this. With a lot of luck, some fresh new ideas for dealing with the situation will emerge.
At present, the EPA is unhappy with the level of some of the chemicals coming out of this plant into the Blackstone River. (Worcester is the headwaters of the Blackstone.) It looks like the city will sue the EPA to keep from upgrading the plant, as such an upgrade would be very expensive.
The cover story of this week’s InCity Times is a hagiography of WCCA’s Mauro DePasquale, a guy who deserves all the praise he can get. I’m a WCCA volunteer, and Bruce is an intern, so this week’s review is of the WCCA office coffee.
Pie and Coffee: Did you take a look at the article? What did you think?
Bruce: Definitely him. One small problem—I’m not in any of the photos.
P: Maybe we should put a photo of you at WCCA in this article.
I love the introduction (written by Rosalie Tirella):
We’ll say it loud and we’ll say it proud: We love WCCA TV 13 and its Executive Director Mauro DePasquale! From the political shows to the kids news programs, from the exotic and highly capable Zara Dedi at the front desk to no-nonsense community leader turned TV producer Judy Langlois. From the esoteric to the mundane. From the political to the spiritual, TV-13 rocks! Located in the heart of downtown at 415 Main St., in an old bank practically a stone’s throw from City Hall—
[Patrick, a member of the WCCA youth program, walks into the room, takes the paper, looks at the photos, and comments—]
Patrick: Everyone’s there except me.
P: Patrick, why is everyone concerned about their photo being in here?
WCCA practices its own brand of politics: a refreshingly inclusive and progressive kind we’d like to see more of in ‘ol City Hall.
WCCA’s community producers and guests are black, white and brown. They’re old, young and middle-aged. They’re political insiders like City Manager Mike O’Brien; they’re political ousiders (like me!). They’re conservative and liberal; religious and questioning. To tune in to TV 13 is to feast at some funky urban banquet. DePasquale likes to call his station “the electronic park.”
On the front page of today’s Telegram & Gazette is an article about how Donna has closed the Mustard Seed Catholic Worker soup kitchen for a week, because she needs a break.
I don’t hang out at the Mustard Seed, but it’s my impression that closing the Seed is not news; it’s something she does several times a year. I talked to a couple Mustard Seed habitues today, and confirmed this.
“She closes all the time. Why are you asking me about this?”
It’s on the front page of today’s paper.
“You’re [kidding] me!”
So why does this make the paper? The article describes a note left on the door:
I would advise you to open up the doors for the hungry people who come there soon. Thank You.
[…]
If you don’t, I’m going to the newspapers and see what else can be done about this.
Hmm.
Obscenities have been omitted from this article in respect for the fine work done six days a week at the Mustard Seed.
The Worcester Middle East Film Festival starts tonight. The films are free, but putting this on is costing the organizers a lot of money, so if you can make a donation (suggested: $5) it would really help.
The listings are at the festival homepage.
The first film is Iraq In Fragments, April 20, 7pm at Worcester State College.
This morning Grace Ross announced she’ll be running for an At-Large seat on Worcester’s City Council.
Ms. Ross is best known as the Green-Rainbow Party candidate in the 2006 Massachusetts governor’s race. She lives in Worcester’s Piedmont neighborhood.
In our first podcast using the live TalkShoe service, the Saint Kermit team talks about the Virginia Tech shooting and Massachusetts politics with former Green-Rainbow gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross.
It was great to have Charlie call in and ask Grace some questions. This kind of interaction more than makes up for the sound problems we had with TalkShoe. I’m sorta bummed, though, that Saint Kermit will no longer be heavily edited to make me sound smart and quick on my feet.
We’ll be interviewing Grace Ross, former Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party candidate for governor and Worcester resident, Tuesday night for the Saint Kermit podcast.
We’re recording the podcast with the TalkShoe service, which means you can listen to it as we record it, and phone in with your own questions. See the Saint Kermit website for details.
Grace is making “an important announcement” Wednesday morning, and we’ll be asking her about that.
We always pick the topics for Saint Kermit a few minutes before recording it, so I’m not sure what else we’ll be talking about. Probably sports and taxes. The regular team of Jim Henderson, Tony Lorenzen, Janine Duffy, and myself will be hosting.
Larry Cirignano is being arraigned in Worcester court today. You’ll recall he allegedly pushed a woman to the ground at an anti-gay-marriage rally.
I was outside the courthouse a little this morning to try and snap a picture of the elusive fellow, but no luck.
Update: I’ve heard conflicting reports of the hearing. How can there be conflicting reports of an arraignment? Anyway, I think if there was real news, Ethan Jacobs would have posted something on the “Bay Windows” website by now.
Update 2: “Cirignano pleads not guilty”