Left In Lowell

I can’t resist the blogging bug I guess. I just love sharing the great music and atmosphere with everyone.

The first video, Eden Brent. What an awesome smokey voice, piano chops to rival anyone’s, and an amazing stage presence.

More to come if I can.

Ok, here is some Dervish, Irish music. And, I am officially cooked…

If you are interested in such things, take a look over at Dick Howe’s blog. In the upper right hand area of the front page are several hyperlinks, each related to a subject that you may find compelling. The one I find myself frequently clicking is titled “ELECTIONS.” There you find:

Welcome to our “Politics” page where we combine our two interests, Lowell Politics and Lowell History. This page consists of two sections: The first is a link to our “lowellpols” site which is an alphabetical index of everyone who has held or sought elective office in Lowell during the past fifty years. The second section of the page consists of links to the voting results of various Lowell elections.

I have been crunching the election data for this century and the information Dick provides is very helpful, especially when looking further back than the year 2000.

I was curious about total ballots cast in city elections, particularly the ratio of that total and the number of votes garnered by the elected candidates. To get a rough idea, I plotted three values; total ballots cast, 1st place finish vote total and 9th place finish vote total against time. I used 1st and 9th as a type of bookend, as 2nd thru 8th vote totals lay between them.

Going back 20 years from the 2009 city election, you see:

The graph shows, with notable exceptions in 1993 and 2001, a downward trend in participation or roughly 10,000 less ballots cast across 8 city elections. In 2003, a “bottom” was hit and there is a slight recovery of 1,000 more ballots cast across 3 city elections.

Let’s zoom back to this century: (more…)

Fun fun! What Qik video I could get with what remaining battery I had. Also, follow the Twitter feed (@leftinlowell or on the left sidebar of this site) for more updates, live video when I turn it on, and photos from the Fest all weekend! That is, when I am not working LTC cameras on Saturday!

You all know why you must go to the Folk Festival this weekend. But maybe you have friends from out of town that need some convincing. I wrote a post on Blue Mass Group that explains how a weekend of music, food, and friends is worth forgetting your worries for a little while.

Our MA delegation in an It Gets Better ad aimed at GLBT youth struggling to cope with not only being a teen, but being a GLBT teen. Did I mention I really love our MA delegation? Even Lynch is in the video.

It does get better, if anyone knows that, it’s Barney Frank, who was the first openly gay member of Congress - and who came out during a much harsher time for gays. He ends the video, poignantly.

As an aside, and I know this is politicizing something that should not be, but where the hell is Senator Brown in this video? I’m severely disappointed in him, and this time, on a personal level instead of political. I am guessing that he was just too busy that day to help teens struggling with depression over their identity.

I have many times compared Lowell politics to being in junior high school. It’s good to know we’ve progressed to high school tactics!

Anyone who is jointly Facebook friends with Lyle Moran of the Lowell Sun, and City Manager Bernie Lynch, go log into Facebook and find Lyle’s page. Search his friend list, and see if Bernie Lynch, who was of course once on the list, is on there now. [Edit: correction, you only have to be friends with Moran to search his friend list for Lynch.]

I happen to know personally that the defriending was not Lynch’s doing.

So now we’ve solved the mystery of the missing Lynch comments on Moran’s Facebook post with his article on the Pollard Library personnel situation. Comments that challenged Moran’s reporting on the situation in a pretty measured manner, which ended with the blockbuster (bold mine):

Truly disturbing to me was a question put to me by Lyle for his story in which he asked “when I was going to show the Director the door….?” in a manner in which it was clear that he had taken the position that that was what should occur. Call me old fashioned but in my mind that isn’t reporting the news thats attempting to use the pen to advance a particular position.

Moran then defriended the CM (on his own initiative or on someone else’s we can’t say), which means all Lynch’s comments disappear from Moran’s posts. It’s the most high school move we’ve seen from the Sun since Campanini drooled all over the editorial pages about former Lowell Superintendent Chris Scott.

All in all, a pretty incredibly immature reaction to being officially challenged in someone’s official Sun Facebook account. Is this how the Sun treats questions about its coverage? (No, wait, don’t answer that. I know. M.K.)

Any bets on when Moran will defriend me for writing this post? Do I have any takers? (Stay tuned!)

Update: So, I did a little test of my own. I know it’s a minor point, whether or not the comments disappeared because of a defriending, a blocking (as noted in comments) or by deletion of the comments directly, on top of the defriending. But it matters, in order to know the extent to which that particular Lowell Sun’s reporter will go to avoid having to answer any serious questions about their coverage.

I created a quick new account on Facebook, and friended my real account. I then made a post with the new account, and commented on it with my main account. (In this case, I was acting like the Lyle Moran account was the new account I just created, and my main account would play the part of Lynch.)

What I found is that neither defriending, nor blocking someone (an option to block/report this person is in the sidebar) deletes their existing comments on your wall posts. Therefore, besides defriending the CM and/or blocking him (blocking I think makes it so even if you have mutual friends, you cannot see their comments and they cannot see yours, on that mutual friend’s post), Moran had to have deleted the comments in question.

How forethoughtful of Jack to have grabbed those comments while they were still up, hmm? This sheds a lot of light on the recent coverage of the city by Moran.

PS - taking on Moran is, I will mention, not in my own personal best interests. He has covered MLF and other events I have been involved with, and therefore I have every reason to keep on his good side. But truth will out, and I have to land on the side of doing the right thing. If he is not doing his job, I’d much rather there be a discussion on this even if it hurts my own causes. Take that for what you will…

Wait, did I just write that title? I think I’ve been following local politics too long.

Anyway, the CM has a new post on his blog outlining a lot of fun detail (seriously? fun?) on the new capital investments in the form of versatile equipment, front loaders, etc and more to come, to address our snow removal and road maintenance more efficiently. I especially like the info on the new sealer thingie:

In keeping with our policy of improving preventive maintenance, part of this package includes a unique attachment—an infrared asphalt heater that will be used to “re-weld” cracked sections of asphalt to prevent them from developing into future potholes. The 4’x6’ heating pan is powered by an 80 horsepower, 45 kW generator that heats the broken pavement to 400 degrees. Once heated, the now melted asphalt is leveled out and rolled to a near-new solid finish. If needed, additional asphalt material is added to maintain a level road or sidewalk surface.

Sweeeeeet.

On a side note, is there someone over at DPW I could kiss for finally repaving the utter mess that was the upper end of YMCA Drive where it meets Thorndike? Also, someone changed the timing of that light, and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone running the light so late that it was green for YMCA Drive. Nice! Your local government at work, folks!

Before we go too far down this road, let me be clear. The Republican Party are mostly no good bastards that regularly lie to America, so as to ensure a steady migration of wealth from the middle class to the upper-upper class. They pose on principles, but their god is money and greed is their holy ghost.

I am looking forward to the upcoming MA Senate race in 2012. It’s fairly clear that Senator Scott Brown is an empty suit, bent on finagling his votes to provide a fig leaf over his diligent service to his corporate masters. Having attended the MADP convention in Lowell, I was fortunate to get a sampling of the Dems vying for the nomination and a chance to replace Brown, as our junior Senator. A quick handicap of the primary; Massie’s organizing demonstrated a keen eye on the grassroots. Khazei is working on his media and communications craft. As Kahzei knows grassroots like the back of his hand, I’m leaning Khazei.

That said, I am intrigued by Elizabeth Warren. Her potential candidacy has sent progressives into a frenzy. Folks, frenzy leads to stoopid.
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This has been a strange week and it just got even stranger.

Anyone remember M.K. Guzda? You may recall, in her brief stint at The Sun, she ushered in an effort by the paper to expand outreach (meaning revenue) into new, newer, newest media. For most of us, that means The Sun staff popped up on our Facebook pages. Honestly, I’m glad of it. I don’t buy the dead tree version. Hell, I don’t buy any version. But, bits of it come to me, ever so conveniently, on my FB page.

So, as it were, our young man about town, the intrepid Lyle Moran, posted his version of the flailing over at the Pollard Library on his FB page. As me and Lyle are what FB calls “Friends,” it came to me. Sweet! It just so happens that I have an opinion on the matter, so I slapped my digits against a keyboard and poof! It’s kinda like Topix, but with less zipperheads. I left a comment:
Note: Remember the date references are relative to the time I made the copy.

Thursday at 10:44am John ‘Jack’ Mitchell
So, a Library employee gave the IM’s to the Sun, directly? Or,maybe to a City Councilor, who gave them to the Sun, directly? Somehow the proper “conflict resolution” chain was skipped and the Sun was brought in. If the messages where not “hacked” out of a computer, they still went public.

Suffice to say, my comment was not arbitrary. I’m taunting the Sun and their sources. What’s going on in the library? I don’t really know. But, I deduced that someone on the inside is working the matter from the outside in. The Sun, it seems, is more than happy to oblige.

Lyle Moran offered his opinion:

Yesterday at 8:21am Lyle Moran
Hi Jack. Librarians have gone to their supervisors in the past and been told to keep quiet so the perception is that all is well at the library. They then went to the council and were then reprimanded for doing so. Since the library director can not bring peace to the facility, it is now up to the manager to do so.

Yes, it is his opinion. It might vault to the level of a theory, but his concept of the matter is certainly not a “fact.” Which is unfortunate, as reporters are sorta stuck with sticking to facts. Bear in mind, this conversation is not occuring on Lyle Moran’s personal FB page. This FB page is part of his work, so he is beholden to the mores and values shared by his peers. This fact, did not escape the City Manager, who took the opportunity to tell his version of things:
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The Community Software Lab (CSL) fundraiser is tomorrow, a nonprofit dedicated to helping other nonprofits with technology, and training young people in the field of IT and software. It’s a great group and the party sounds really fun. It starts at 5:30 tomorrow (Saturday) at 119 Gallery.

It’s only $10 (ahead of time) or $15 at the door, and features a band (Zoloff and the Mood Elevators), food, and if you can’t make it you can also just donate. They are hoping to get needed matching funds for a grant from Google for their technology training program.

Great cause, and good people! Go get your tickets.