Left In Lowell

I’ll be honest, I still haven’t had as much time for blogging as I would like, this week. Or for being outraged. Or whatever. Or maybe not much is happening. So here’s an open thread.

Sharing the blog is the reason why I want to do the aforementioned LiL upgrade even more - on days or weeks where the news is going crazy but so are my clients, I’d like to have all that great content that I know many of you can produce. So far, I have about $350 in generous pledges (thank you guys!), but I need to reach $1500 in order to really get this software development going. So if you are still interested in throwing into the kitty (well, pledging to throw into the kitty) we still need you! I did want to clarify that in that post, I mentioned that user post status will not be given automatically, though priority will be given to those with a good comment posting history, those who are in other local towns we can’t cover, progressives (though it won’t be required), along with candidates and elected officials because we want to encourage them to interact with the public.

I’ll tell you what, though, this FISA thing scares the crap out of me. It’s like the House Dems can’t give away our civil rights fast enough. Last night on some show we were watching (Olbermann I think?) the conversation turned to this strange phenomenon of Dems wanting to give Bush everything he wants on FISA. They surmised that the Democratic leadership (Rep. Steny Hoyer for one) has their own you-know-what’s to cover, so they’re happy to sell out the American people and civil liberties to do it. By giving the telcos immunity, they in effect give it to Bush and his illegal spying programs (past, present and future) and give it to themselves since some of them knew about it.

Some Democrats in the Senate are already crying foul and stating that it will not pass in the Senate. I hope so. Russ, we never needed you more than now.

Unbelievable. So someone creates a new user over at BMG, “proudlib,” and within five days, puts up three posts (two on Feb 4) trying to push support for casinos. He neither links to the people he rants about nor quotes them.

What makes me think he may not be a professional paid plant is some of his very poor rhetoric. Surely, there are better arguments for casinos than some of his statements. Like this: “…after reading Rep, Dan Bosley’s almost infantile statement regarding his opposition to resort casinos…” I mean, you can argue whether or not you think Bosley’s arguments are right or not, but infantile? Not only have I always found Rep. Bosley a passionate, engaged pol on this issue, but his arguments are very mature and thought out, and backed up by data he has studied.

On the other hand, in the same thread, someone named “cbrillo” backs up proudlib’s attack on Rep. Bosley. “cbrillo” created their account on Feb 6th, and has commented exactly twice - once on proudlib’s “infantile” anti-Bosley post, and once with a fairly nonsensical pro-casino response elsewhere.

Yeah, that sounds like a grassroots swelling of support for casinos, alright.

In the latest post from Feb 9th, proudlib makes a lot of assertions about how many jobs, etc, the casino proposal would create, but no citation of where those numbers come from and who asserts them. In fact, they are asserted by the casino lobby and trickle down from there, and therefore are highly questionable, as many commenters in the post point out.

Why do I care about this? Because that last post got frontpaged on BMG. Now, I’m all for a fair and balanced discussion on this issue, but at the same time, a poorly-cited dubious post by someone who only recently created a user account and whose language appears, at best, shrill and unhinged at times…well, don’t we bloggers complain all the time about the mainstream media and its lazy habit of citing the he-said, she-said debate without parsing out the context or the facts of the matter? I’m not calling out the BMG editors (well, maybe just a smidge) as they are constantly front-paging all sorts of things and the blog moves fast, but I wanted to notate it to caution all readers of blogs that not all commentators, or even those of us who write on front pages, have earned the sort of credibility to be taken seriously. Please always use your best judgment when reading on the internets.

And I include readers of this blog in that. I am not immune to scrutiny, and won’t object to it either, so long as it’s fair scrutiny.

This week Governor Deval Patrick indicated that he is in favor of requiring elderly drivers to be tested. He did not specify what age he thinks they should be tested nor what the particulars of the driving test should be.

His comments come in the wake of a horrific accident in Randolph where an 8 year-old student was seriously injured when an 86-year-old man, on his way to vote, struck her with his car in her school yard. The little girl is in a coma. This is not the first incident of its kinds that has made news.

I hope we can all put emotions aside and admit that this would be a good piece of legislation. As the saying goes, none of us are getting younger. All of us will get to the winter of our lives sooner or later; actually some of us sooner than others.

Our neighbors to the north, New Hampshire, require that anyone over the age of 75 passes a road test every 5 years. That would be a good place to begin. If we think that teenagers lack the judgment and skills to drive; we should also acknowledge that at a certain point, we may no longer have the mental agility to keep on driving. A new piece of legislation would not prevent anyone from driving, it would just give us a way of measuring our skills.

I hope Governor Patrick goes ahead and files the measure.

The Sun Column today starts off with the item about Kristin Ross-Sitcawich’s relinquished appointment to the Conservation Commission Board. The several paragraphs lead with some history and context, and objectively lays out most of the details, by which I can only assume, due to past experience, that it was not written by editor Jim Campanini.

What I find particularly illuminating about this whole incident is the lengths that some people will go to ascribe their own motivations to others. In the case of the GOB (Good Ol’ Boys), this (bold mine) was most interesting:

THE SWITCH certainly was appreciated by local builders and developers and some on the council, particularly Councilor Armand Mercier.

Mercier apparently approached Councilor Kevin Broderick with his discomfort during the City of Lights Parade. Broderick brought the issue to Lynch, concerned that it would only open another avenue of opposition to the manager. (Broderick said he did no lobbying of Lynch.) Mercier also had been spreading concerns that Ross-Sitcawich would anti-everything throughout some Lowell political circles.

The chief concern was that Ross-Sitcawich would vote in step with Stephen Gendron, whom Lynch appointed. Gendron earned the ire of builders for helping to block a 128-unit condominium complex that Stephen Beati is developing on Middlesex Street. Beati ultimately won that matter on appeal in state Land Court. Gendron has also criticized certain aspects of the zoning ordinance, which was overhauled by the present council after extensive review.

Never mind that Gendron’s objections were probably based on some factual aspect of the development (since his job as a Board member is to protect the city’s environmental assets), even if overturned on appeal. I don’t know those details. But it seems to me that this whole vague “objection” is shorthand for “Kristin would vote the way Lynch wants her to.” Since this is the way the Good Ol’ Boys operate, a tradition steeped in personal loyalty akin to that which hounds the Bush administration, they assume that anyone generally inclined to support Lynch feels the same way and would vote accordingly.

As someone who has come to know Kristin very well, after following her run in 2005, I know that she looks at things as objectively as she possibly can. She has expertise in management, budgeting, and gained personal experience in a homeowner’s journey through the very system she was tapped to join. That to me is invaluable - back when the Conservation Commission was run by GOBs, Kristin and her family had to endure a lot of financial pain and stress to defend their property. That job, of watching out for the city’s citizens, is actually supposed to be the Conservation Commission’s. Luckily, since then, many of those ridiculous GOB networks have been pruned out of positions of power, and now we’re being subjected to the backlash from that undercurrent of entitlement that has long dominated this city. (The latest of which was the last election.)

I also know that Kristin had the personal integrity to step aside for a candidate with expertise greater than her own. Imagine if one of the GOB had been tapped (say, by then-manager Cox) and then got passed over after everything had been on the public agenda (and in the paper). Imagine the hue and cry and politics of personal destruction between GOB and GOB…

No, Kristin, with her actions, has shone beyond a shadow of a doubt that her aim is and always has been a fair, transparent, and equitable local government, to the point of stepping aside for another candidate on a Board she had hoped to be on.

By the way, Kristin and I often disagree on many fronts, and she is not anti-developer nor anti-development. Nor does she agree all the time with Lynch, or any other like-minded person. She is perfectly able to look at the facts of the matter and judge on the merits. This is what makes her so dangerous and controversial, of course…

You see, the GOB isn’t interested in being treated fairly. They desire a return to preferential treatment. Their assumptions about how you or I would conduct ourselves is that we are just like them. They can’t understand how a person can have integrity that runs in opposition to mere blind loyalty, because they have never experienced it themselves. That’s why they have reacted (now under the radar) so strongly to Lynch, and since forced to campaign on supporting Lynch’s running of the city, his appointments.

I think we can all safely state there is a very strong tie of personal loyalty and friendship between local developer and Councilor-elect Mr. Kazanjian, and Councilor Armand Mercier. It’s hardly a state secret. Take that for what you will. I only hope that Lynch will remain with the city amid this absurd little GOB dance. While the GOB pays lip service to supporting the current direction of the city, they already have started to court candidates to replace Lynch. Yeah, like the last time we hired a politician for that position, it worked out real well, huh?

Remember your promises to voters, my friends, and folks of integrity will be happy to work with you and let you take some credit. I don’t understand how anyone would want to play politics with the success of our city and its citizens. It’s the most selfish action anyone could ever take. But selfish is, as selfish does.

Hmmm… “politics of personal selfishness.” That pretty much explains it, doesn’t it?

I usually do not comment on neighboring town’s politics. First, I am not familiar with all the details and second, I do not know if my opinion is welcomed. But the town of Chelmsford is once again in the midst of deciding whether to bring their ambulance service in house.

I know this issue has generated a lot of heated discussion. Since Chelmsford does not yet have their version of LiL, I thought I would post on it to given Fran, MikeC and others an opportunity to discuss this issue on this forum.

Rita Savard has a front page article in today’s Sun. In order to keep all of the fire station open, Town Manger Paul Cohen is proposing to hire 5 additional fire fighters; the fire department will operate the ambulance service thus generating revenue for the Town and making it possible to pay these 5 additional fire fighters.

I though the new wave in municipal government was to outsource to private firms and to regionalize service; this seems to go against the grain.

David Perry front-page, lead article in today’s Sun reports on local efforts by Armenian-Americans to ask the City of Lowell to revoke its affiliation with the Anti-Defamation League’s “No Place to Hate” program. Dick Howe had written about this issue on his blog on Sunday night.

With me, this issue is as personal as it can be. I am the grandchild of four Armenian Genocide survivors and my father was a boy when they were forced to flee our historical homeland. I am not interested in debating the Armenian Genocide. It is a reality.

Those who want to deny it for their own geo-political motives are liars. And those who proclaimed themselves to be a human rights organization and work to deny it, are hypocritical liars.

The Boston Globe, other media outlets and the blogsphere have been following this story for the past few weeks. Please check out the No Place for Denial web site if you are interested in learning more about No Place for Hate/Anti-Defamation League/Armenian Genocide.

As for the City of Lowell, I can tell you every year for at least 2 decades now, the City Council, through its Mayor, has annually recognized and commemorated the Armenian Genocide through proclamations, speeches and attendance at the Armenian community’s flag raising ceremony. I am confident that they will do the right thing when the time comes for them to take action to once again reaffirm to their Armenian-American constituents that Lowell is not only not “a place for hate” but also not a “place for genocide denial.”

UPDATE: The national offices of the ADL issued the following statement this afternoon.

And here is the Resolution that is now in the U.S. House of Representatives, co-sponsored by 225 members requesting affirmation of the Armenian Genocide:

Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United
States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning
issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented
in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide,
and for other purposes.

Did you know that Lowell has 76 bridges? When you think about it, we do have one major river, and its significant tributary, a number of canals, brooks, railroad tracks, and the Connector.

Now that the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota has put the spot light on “deficient” bridges, both the State and Federal governments are taking a long hard look at the infrastructure that they chose to neglect for decades.

As a result of these recent round of inspections, the University Avenue Bridge (Textile Bridge) has now shut down one of the lanes, although traffic still flows in both directions. In a previous post, Jason commented on what impacts this has on the Fire Department and the residents of Pawtucketville. (more…)

In fits of pandering for his presidential run, former governor Romney stalled and hindered stem cell research, and partly as a result, our state, which coulda been a contender (in the bioscience of regenerating tissue from stem cells) is far behind. (It didn’t help that he and the lege chronically underfunded higher ed even when they claimed there was a “surplus.”)

It’s nice to have a governor who believes in science.

Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick said Friday he will push to reverse stem cell research restrictions imposed by his predecessor, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

The changes last August prompted complaints from researchers who said they could be prohibited from using some embryonic stem cells. They also argued the restrictions undercut a 2005 law that had been approved by the Legislature over Romney’s veto.

Patrick told a meeting of the Life Sciences Collaborative on Friday that he would ask the Public Health Council, which approved the changes, to revisit the policy. In effect, Patrick will be able to reverse the policy, since he will gain control over the panel next week amid an overhaul linked to the state’s new health insurance law. [bold mine]

I found that last part particularly interesting. In my post about the micromanging legislature, I argued that perhaps once it was desirable to micromanage Republican governors so they could do less damage (certainly, they got enough damage done with the control they had). But Patrick is both a smart, interested administrator who cares about his job, and someone who shares the values of the majority of the Commonwealth - and the legislature. So, giving him control over his own branch of government is not only prudent, it’s going to move Massachusetts forward.

By the way, I have a real personal stake in the outcome of stem cell research. With PKD, I have a good shot at developing kidney failure when I’m older. Stem-cell-grown kidney tissue might someday save my life.

Apologies in advance…I’m going to be a bit harsh in this post. Because I’ve had it up to here with what I have come to see as plain, old, unthinking rhetoric about Cape Wind from the NIMBY-pamby types out there.

I tried so hard to see all sides of this issue. For all my partisan biases, I do realize there are lots of sides to any argument. But the main advocate on the internet for the anti-Cape Wind crowd, Cape Cod Living, has shone a remarkable ability to say the same thing over and over again with, near as I can tell, little to back them up. They also have come onto this blog, and others, commenting even in non-Cape-Wind related threads (such as my Lt Gov Forum post) to plant their rhetoric where it isn’t really welcome. Click for the rest of the post: (more…)

I do not pretend to understand all the technical issues or applications of this latest attack on a fair and free internet by large corporations, but it boils down to this: Comcast- and Verizon-type companies want more money, and they want to charge you, and the websites you want to view, for the privilege of carrying the data.

The Senate is considering whether to limit the ability of high-speed Internet providers to restrict access to their networks. The need for such legislation arises from the determination by the Federal Communications Commission that advanced telecommunications services (”broadband”) were not really telecommunications services, but were instead “information” services. As explained in a previous column, these semantics relieve broadband providers from the obligation to provide equal service to everyone who uses the system. This was called Common Carrier Regulation. Today the debate has been given the catchy term Net Neutrality.
…
For roughly ten years Lawrence Lessig has been warning us of the inevitable problems when telecommunications companies are not prevented from introducing “code” that limits what people can send or receive through the Internet. The challenge created by what Lessig called the architecture of control is no longer merely potential, nor is it a mere bellicose threat.
…
…the CEO of SBC (now AT&T) told a BusinessWeek interviewer, “Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!”

But wasn’t the Internet supposed to be the answer to the limits of broadcasting and cable? Wasn’t the Internet supposed to be inherently democratic? Wasn’t the future supposed to be open and free and full of choice? [Emphasis mine.]

I’m sure it’ll start small. You know, Google might come up a little slower than Yahoo! for a Comcast cable broadband customer, because Yahoo! has paid for the privilege. You’re annoyed, but since there’s very little choice for broadband service, plus Verizon or Earthlink also do this, there’s not much you can do.

Then, your favorite online store stops coming up, because they can’t afford the rates. Next, goes any blog that’s not on Blogger, because only Blogger has the money to pay. CNN loads up just great, but has bought some expensive exclusive rights and so MSNBC takes a full 30 seconds per page to view, or doesn’t come up at all.

Why isn’t the media all over this issue? I know most people would be up in arms (including my non-technical but online-shopping mother) to know that their internet service provider might be allowed to choose what sites they can and cannot see or access. But hey, if I were Big Media, I’d be content to let the internet corporations (who often own or are owned by the same people who own the TV and radio stations and newspapers) choke off the life of the internet, which is contributing to the falling ratings of their news organizations anyway, for a quick buck.

This is a crossroads for internet free speech and delivery of such. Are you ready to see this last citizen’s space sold to the highest bidder the way they sold our airwaves?