Category: Worcester

I’m on a public panel Thursday

I’ll be part of a panel on “Your Right to Know” this Thursday, 2pm, at WCCA (415 Main Street, Worcester, Massachusetts). This event is free and open to the public.

Sunshine WeekWe’ll be talking about how to get information about what the government is doing, and how the government often stonewalls private citizens, bloggers, and professional journalists. This is part of the national event called Sunshine Week.

Other panelists include blogger Bill Randell, Assistant District Attorney Patricia C. Smith, Jay Whearley of the Telegram & Gazette, and Jaime Flores of Vocero Hispano.

This discussion will be taped, and later broadcast on WCCA and posted to their website.

If you have suggestions for things we should discuss, comment away.

T&G article about the panel

Coffee in Worcester: Boulevard Diner

In this coffee review about the Boulevard Diner, Bruce and I are joined by Michael, the “publisher” of Pie and Coffee, who rarely appears on this blog. He speaks Hungarian, is a fan of classic diners, and lives near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Pie and Coffee: So how do you say her name?

Michael: Báthory Erzsébet.

P: And what were you telling me about her?

M: Well, she liked to bathe in the blood of young girls. She thought it kept her young. And that’s not really cool, but the family couldn’t kill her, because she had a title and all that, and you don’t kill a family member. So they walled her up in her room, because they weren’t really killing her then.

P: So they just let her die.

M: Roughly speaking, yeah.

Bruce: Of a slow death.

M: Yeah. But they didn’t kill her!

B: Of a bloody death.

P: Did you hear Bruce’s song about her?

M: Yes I did, I liked that very much.

P: It got a good review on Volcano Boy.

B: I got a great review on Volcano Boy.

M: I saw that too.

B: You know what they say about Volcano Boy.

M: What do they say about Volcano Boy?

P: It’s a volcano—watch out for the ashes! They get hot!

P: So the Boulevard Diner.

M: The Boulevard Diner rocks!
Continue reading “Coffee in Worcester: Boulevard Diner”

Worcester County Ecumenical Council dissolving

Tanya Connor, in the Catholic Free Press:

The Worcester County Ecumenical Council is closing on June 30, due to waning support and changes in ecumenical endeavors.

The Rev. Allyson D. Platt, executive director, made that announcement in a March 1 letter and explained reasons to The Catholic Free Press Tuesday.

“The General Board, with both current and past members, reached this unanimous decision in the fall of 2006,” said the letter. Rev. Platt said they worked out details before making the announcement.

(read more)

I have mixed feelings about this. Part of me thinks that somebody should be doing full-time ecumenical work around here. (According to the article, running the Council is a 17-hour-a-week endeavor.) Another part of me is glad to know that Worcester is a city of religious cooperation, and that the people behind the WCEC are willing to say “mission accomplished” rather than keep the WCEC together just for the sake of keeping it together.

Less anxiety about the Worcester Wal-Mart

Don’t get me wrong. I still think bringing Wal-Mart to the city would be, economically, a step in the wrong direction. But after meeting with some folks about this last night, I no longer feel a free-floating anxiety. I don’t have a lot of hope at this point, but I have some actions I can take.


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For those who are interested, you can read the planning proposal.

Hermis Yanis switches stations

The final episode of The Hermis Yanis Show on WCCA TV13 airs next week. The first episode of “Hermis At Large” airs on channel 3 this Friday at 3pm.

This show has always been controversial for unknown reasons, so I thought it was worth a mention as part of the local media landscape. WCCA wishes him well.

Hermis keeps telling me he’ll send the press release, and then forgetting, so I talked to him today and here’s what I know:

  • It will start off as a 30 minute show, and may change time and length as TV3’s schedule changes. TV3 shows a lot of infomercials as well as NECN. You have to pay for your slot, so the show will have some commercial sponsors and could conceivably turn a profit.
  • The first guests are Mayor Konnie Lukes, prominent attorney Gregory Cassell, and Christina Andreanopolis, PR person for the New England Surge. (Sorry if I spelled any names wrong.)

Tell Grace Ross to run for City Council

I talked to Grace Ross last week after an event at Assumption College, and asked her: Are you going to run for City Council? She said she’d run if she thought she had enough people interested in volunteering for it to be a real campaign. I asked her if I could spread the word, and she said Yes.

Consider the word spread.

If you’d like Grace to run for an at-large seat on Worcester’s City Council, and you’d be willing to put some work into a campaign, e-mail her at gracegrnrnbw@aol.com.

Coffee in Worcester: The Pickle Barrel

This Presidents’ Day, Bruce, I, and five friends packed a booth at the Pickle Barrel.

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Bruce: I had a pretty good time there with all those people there.

Pie and Coffee: What’s the Pickle Barrel like?

B: The day we went there, everybody was in good spirits. Because I’ve gone in there a couple times before, and it wasn’t such a good vibe. I really got a good vibe that day, because everybody there was on MySpace. My MySpace friends.

P: Not everybody, but a lot of them were.

B: A lot of them sitting at the table were. I encourage more people to be on MySpace.

P: What’s the coffee like at the Pickle Barrel?

B: Very good.

P: What’s the service like?

B: The service we had was very good.

P: It’s actually a pretty well-known place. It’s “the place” in that neighborhood.

B: Yeah. I mean, if you lived in that area, then you would go there. In the case that you lived downtown, you would go to the Midtown Mall, to that diner there.

P: The Pickle Barrel’s a lot bigger and busier than the Midtown Dinette, though.

B: One thing, The French toast is good, but the Midtown Dinette’s was better. One thing about the Pickle Barrel, they forgot to bring me syrup. Other than that, it was pretty good.

P: Well I gotta say too, it would be awesome if the Pickle Barrel had some vegan options. I know that’s sort of insane, and has nothing to do with their being a neighborhood diner. But I throw that out there as a suggestion.

So what is that paper that you’re wielding?

B: I was writing this down last night, abbreviating what the Snow Ghost would be. The rest, the rest, depends—this is two different sayings. The first one would be: shit-nude-out-whore ghoul-horror-out-sick-toll. The nice one would be: so-nice-to-weather good-host-original-snow-transport.

The other one, the Black Death, would be: the bastard-loud-arse dat-eat-arse-to-hell.

P: Any final thoughts about Worcester?

B: It’s kinda cold out today.

Shadow of Wal-Mart falls on Worcester

I regret that the time has come to tag a post both “Worcester” and “Wal-Mart.”

Telegram & Gazette:

A 209,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter is part of a shopping center planned on 44 acres in Quinsigamond Village where U.S. Steel once operated foundries along the Blackstone River.

Buck Paxton:

I consider myself to be the single biggest proponent of hard core, blood thirsty capitalism this side of Iowa, but Wal-Mart still manages to make me ill.

I’ll be blogging this issue over at Worcester Activist.

Cirignano hearing

Larry Cirignano appeared at the Worcester courthouse this morning for a probable cause hearing in connection with an alleged assault at a marriage rally late last year.

I couldn’t hang around the court all morning, so you’ll get no news from me. Kevin Ksen of Indymedia and Ethan Jacobs of Bay Windows are on the scene, so some reportage may surface.

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Update: Sounds like the Cirignano case is moving forward. One photographer on the scene tells me he tried to get a shot of Cirignano leaving, but that he’d eluded the press. I wandered by the court on my lunch hour, and while my photo isn’t good, it’s something.

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Larry Cirignano

Update: Rock on, Ethan Jacobs:

Following the hearing, which was not open to the public or the press, Cirignano confirmed to Bay Windows that the magistrate had found probable cause on both charges, but he declined to comment further.

Telegram & Gazette update (the next morning):

Criminal complaints charging Larry Cirignano, 50, of Arlington, Va., with assault and battery and a civil rights violation were issued yesterday after a show-cause hearing in Central District Court.

[…]

Ms. Loy initially told police she was not injured, but investigators later photographed a small bruise on her elbow.

Three witnesses said they saw Mr. Cirignano push Ms. Loy “with force,” according to the [police] report.