It just keeps getting worse!

I just don't get Ted DeSalvatore.

Lately it seems like with every day that passes I learn some new disturbing thing about him, say to myself "Oh man that's pretty bad..." and then the next day it happens again! He's turning from a well-meaning-but-sort-of-jerky dimwit into a megalomaniacal cartoon supervillain right in front of my eyes!

Today's depressing news comes from this article in the Worcester Telegram.

It opens with this charming pseudo-quote:

City Councilor and mayoral candidate Ted E. DeSalvatore said he’s never backed down from a fight.

Oh joy, that's just what I look for in a mayor! Pigheaded stubbornness has done such great things for this country!

Who's his fight with this time? Those mysterious "local thugs" he's always blaming for ruining the city? The dreaded hungry people trying to eat at Our Father's Table? The dastardly gays and their "perverted teaching"? Or is it something even worse?!

Mr. [John] Westlake became tearful when describing the problems he said began a few weeks ago with an unauthorized entry into his business and placement of [DeSalvatore] campaign signs in his storefront windows. Mr. Westlake said he keeps the windows covered with white paper so that passers-by are not tempted to steal his valuable inventory and computer.

“When I took down those signs, I gained an enemy,” said Mr. Westlake, a disabled Air Force veteran who said he takes medication for post-traumatic stress disorder. “He says he’s for small business, but he violated my rights. He’s willing to step on anyone to become mayor.”

Holy crap, Ted! Picking a fight with a disabled veteran with PTSD? What the fuck is wrong with you? Were you tired of picking on the poor and hungry but couldn't find any orphans to kick around?

It only gets uglier from there, I'm afraid:

Mr. DeSalvatore agreed that their problems began with the signs. He said he thought he had permission to put up the signs, so he got a janitor to let him in when Mr. Westlake was not there. Since the incident, he said, Mr. Westlake has been trying to make his life miserable.

Janitor Charlene Mann said she was “hoodwinked” into letting Mr. DeSalvatore in to Mr. Westlake’s business. She also said she witnessed the tape-recorded interchange on Sunday between the pair.

“It was classic bully power moves,” Ms. Mann said of Mr. DeSalvatore’s behavior. “John tried to negotiate the peace, but (Mr. DeSalvatore) didn’t want that peace.”

Ms. Mann said at one point Mr. Westlake kneeled and begged Mr. DeSalvatore to leave him alone.

On the tape, Mr. DeSalvatore is heard saying, “It’s too late. You pushed my buttons.”

I don't know if any of you reading this are familiar with PTSD (especially if it's combat-related). I know several people who suffer from it, and while it can vary case-by-case, most of the people I know just want peace and to not have to be reminded of the stress in their past. Conflict is what caused the problems in the first place. If you're a guy with PTSD begging for peace, then you've got a really damn good reason for doing it.

On the other hand, if you're just a guy who's being a huge dick because someone "pushed your buttons" it just means you're an asshole.

So, Ted "hookwinked" a janitor into letting him put up some campaign signs in Mr. Westlake's space. Mr. Westlake took them down. They had a confrontation. End of story, right? Everyone eventually shakes hands and laughs at the misunderstanding?

Not quite:

Mr. DeSalvatore said he is working with the landlord, Gerald Martel, to get Mr. Westlake evicted. Then he added that he chose the site to make a point.

“I represent the middle ground. I don’t shy away from street trash,” he said.

No Ted. You are the trash here. You're not the middle ground, and you sure as hell should never again serve in any public office. You're an embarrassment to the city already.

Have a tiny bit of dignity, leave the man alone, and move your campaign HQ elsewhere. Like to another state.

New blogs in town, DeSalvatore not looking so good

As those of you who've read my critique of Ted DeSalvatore's website already know, Ted doesn't think much of bloggers. In fact, he warns people not to listen to them and instead to get everything straight from him. He presumably didn't consider the possibility that blogs might just quote him verbatim.

It appears one blogger has taken Ted's warning to heart, and started the Say No To DeSalvo blog. (I assume because it rhymes better than the "Say No To DeSalvatore" blog). Regardless, it's a new blog which at the time I'm writing this has just two posts, but both are doozies. It's worth noting that the blogger in question doesn't really editorialize (though I suspect the caps are his/her doing, correct me if I'm wrong please), just presents Ted's own words.

The first post was basically a transcript of DeSalvatore's Ward 4 campaign promises/propaganda/gibberish. It contains such nice nuggets as:

"In addition to compromising our safety some homeless may be involved in the frequent break-ins, cars and homes alike. By giving them a DESIGNATED AREA and remanding them to stay clear of our neighborhoods the job of our police department may get easier, break-ins may be reduced and our officers may be allowed to put more of their time on other issues."

So, he basically demonizes the homeless and then promotes a ghetto arrangement. That worked great in Warsaw!

Another peach:

"MANY HOMELESS EAT FROM DUMPSTERS AND GARBAGE CANS AND ARE COMPLETELY SATISFIED WITH THAT"

Nice. I'm glad Ted felt so comfortable speaking for the homeless. This is the same guy who is opposed to having "Our Father's Table" feeding the hungry on Main St.

Some context for that from the Sentinel:

Fitchburg Ward 4 City Councilor Ted DeSalvatore, who said last week he did not support Our Father's Table's return to Main Street, said Thursday he thinks the presence of homeless people on Main Street could deter both potential businesses and customers.

"Very few people feel comfortable coming downtown when there's a lot of people just hanging around," he said. "In most cities, especially bigger cities, any one street can have a mixed-use environment where homeless people gather. But we've only got one main street. We don't have a lot of places of commerce where people can set up shop."

I'll now take a short digression to point out another recently-created blog, the Fitchburg Voice. It's been dealing extensively with the Our Father's Table issue, and the most recent post has an interesting quote from one of the cofounders of OFT:

In the beginning homelessness was the issue. The faces changed. Now they are mostly elderly, some handicapped, some families, very little homeless. People come seeking fellowship, companionship and spirtitual need fulfillment. They come to us with dignity and they leave us with dignity.

So, the opposition from Mr. DeSalvatore is based on nothing, just like almost everything else the man says! Way to live up to expectations!

But back to the "Say No To DeSalvo" blog. That first post was full of stupid statements made by Ted, but was pretty much par for the course. There are dozens and dozens of examples of Ted saying stupid things all over the place. It's just the way he talks.

The most recent post on the SNTDS blog I actually find a lot more interesting because it presents some things that Ted has somehow managed to not talk about to the local paper or put out as press releases.

The blog quotes from this post in an online discussion from August of 2003. It's from someone known as "truth_seeker" (whose profile identifies him as Ted). It's all part of a religious discussion about an openly-gay bishop. Ted got involved to answer the question "where did Jesus say homosexuality was wrong?"

Yikes.

Okay, most of the post is typical religious gobbledygook. Just an exercise in theological masturbation, as far as I'm concerned. Debating gibberish with more gibberish. But there are some parts that are quite interesting...

Sayeth Ted:

Long ago a group representing the Gay Liberation Association of Rochester, New York visited my social studies class while I was in high school. One of the members stated something I will never forget. At the time I was not a Christian however had a great hope that God and Jesus did exist. The statement was, “Jesus was a homosexual.” I and my other classmates, absolutely appalled by the statement, escorted the entire group out of our school and asked the school to remove the teacher who invited the group to speak to us. This was 1973 and the push to make us except that attitude continues. That teacher became a guidance counselor. Go figure! I learned later that he was at one time or another the president of the Rochester branch of Gay Liberation Association.

(In case you had any doubt that "truth_seeker" was in fact the same Ted DeSalvatore, note that Ted was in high school just outside Rochester, NY in 1973. Also, all misspellings and grammatical errors are original.)

Now, I'm a little doubtful that this group just walked in, said "Jesus was a homosexual" and got kicked out. If they did say that, I presume they had a reason behind it, otherwise they were just being needlessly confrontational. I'm also a little doubtful that high school students have the power to "escort" invited speakers out of the building. And to go to the effort to try to get the teacher fired? Well, it seems like Ted has a real big problem with Gay Jesus!

Lots of people are idiots in high school and turn things around when they get older or wiser. However, those people don't generally brag about their idiocy. Ted's not one of those people. Further supporting the concept that his old biases are alive and well, at other points during this screed he also implicitly calls homosexuality "wrong, immoral or unnatural behavior" and a "perverted teaching".

So, Ted's a homophobe in addition to all his other flaws. Great. I wonder why it is that so many people so strongly oppose his mayoral campaign...

Finally, Ted closes his 2003 screed...

People who stand outside the place of what is appropriate will always try to justify and or infect as many others as they can. There is strength in numbers. The body of Christ is being divided over every little thing as Lucifer revels in its weakening, the army of Christ is quickly becoming ineffective. We must put up our best fight however nothing will prevent scripture from being fulfilled. These things must come to pass and the end of things as they are, will be realized.

Some lessons from this paragraph.

1. Ted thinks that homosexuality is something you can "infect" others with.
2. Ted believes in a literal devil, named "Lucifer".
3. Ted probably believes in the "Rapture".

While the last two put him in the company of a large number of similarly crazy people (our President included), the first one is all you really need to know the man is unfit to be mayor.

Anyway, go check out those other blogs and show them some love. Fine work all around!

Another Mayoral Website!

We suspected it was coming, and it's finally here! Ted DeSalvatore has a website! As part of my ongoing series of Mayoral candidate website critiques please follow me on a journey through www.ted4change.com!



First let me say that the only reason I found this site is that I was tipped off by a friend. Thanks friend!

Google was no help, since a simple search for "ted desalvatore" mayor brings up mostly blogs (this one included) and a couple Sentinel articles. (By comparison, the same search for Lisa Wong or Dan Mylott gives their sites as the first result.) As we'll see later, it's possible that DeSalvatore isn't happy about this lack of listing...

But on to the site. It has 5 pages, which puts it one ahead of Lisa Wong and four ahead of Dan Mylott. Also, each page is wonderfully reminiscent of the web circa-1995. An overabundance of different font colors and styles, weirdly-encoded images, images used where text could do the job, animated gifs, and so on. If only it had blinking text it would be a perfect recreation of how I remember the web in its early days (or Myspace now).

In fairness, maybe this is by design. He could in fact be trying to appeal to people who love Myspace. That would also explain why he used "ted4change.com" when the less stupid-looking "tedforchange.com" is perfectly available. Gotta appeal to all those text-messagers out there!

Ted's "History" page is as good a place as any to start.

First we learn this odd tidbit:

Ted was born in Rochester New York on July 7th, 1955. He grew up in the suburb of Greece, which today has about 90,000 residents. The City of Rochester and the surrounding communities as of the 2000 census, boasts 735,343 residents in 286,512 Households.

Well, my longstanding curiosity about the population of Rochester, NY has now been satiated! I can just imagine all the other mayoral candidates now scrambling to find census figures for towns they grew up near in case DeSalvatore brings them up in a debate.

One might think that would be the last bit of weirdness on the page, but one would be horribly wrong:

Ted attended Greece Arcadia High School and majored in math but needed a sport to keep him interested.

Now, it's been awhile since I've been in high school, but I don't recall ever being given the option to "major" in anything. Is this commonplace in the Greece school system? Also, not sure how good a move it is to say you "needed" a sport to keep interested in school. I could be mistaken, but I think most people would prefer a well-educated mayor to one who's good on the parallel bars.

I'm going to assume the "business owner" bit of this page is intended to fill the mysterious gap from the time he left the Army in 1976 to his teaching job begun in 1999. Not that he gives any exposition on his businesses, but they're physically located in that gap on the page. And calling yourself a "Business Owner" sounds better than writing "1977-1998: Dilettante" on a resume.

One does have to question the statement "I have no political baggage and therefore I am the only candidate that can effectively challenge those issues that give our city its poor reputation." First off, how does alienating virtually the entire city council, the police chief, and any number of others as Ward 4 councilor equate to "no political baggage"? That sounds like an awful lot of political baggage to me.

Anyway, there's also a picture of him and his wife looking out the porthole of a submarine, which is sweet:


Enough of that. Let's move on to the "Details" page!

This is about as close as he gets to a real listing of issues. The front page has some vague language about wanting to improve things, but here we get into the meat and bones. Sort of. But first we need to get past the self-aggrandizing bits:

Ted is the challenger who will implement the changes needed. In the face of exhaustive criticism and threats, Ted has continued to fight for our rights. Help us put back the “We” in We the people!” [sic]

All right...

So, what's DeSalvatore fighting for? Umm... well, here's what he's against...

Against! The Slumlords that nurture the environment for Gangs, Crime, and the Ruin of our inner-city neighborhoods. Slumlords must be held responsible!

Against! High Utility Rates & the Dual Tax Rate, causing reduced investments in commercial and industrial properties. [and so on...]

Okay, so he's for exclamation points and against a few other things. So what is he going to do about them?

Ted will bring an end to irresponsible spending and work hard to return lost services. Ted will encourage business growth by aggressively taking on the utility company, which creates a regional imbalance, robbing us of our competitiveness. Ted will institute a new approach to crime by addressing the environment through code enforcement, which will in turn support our local law enforcement officers, assisting in getting the job done.

Oh. He'll use vague language to fix the problems! Aggressively! Also, he'll further push his belief in the largely-discredited "Fixing Broken Windows" theory of crime reduction.

That's it for the issues, but there's a beautiful nugget of insanity on the bottom of the page. Recall how earlier I mentioned that I suspect DeSalvatore is upset that when searching Google for him you get mostly blogs and the Sentinel? Well, here's why:

Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers or on the Blogs. Reporters don’t always have the greatest sense of context and the Blogger world is filled with character assassinators, having the mentality of pyromaniacs. If you ever have a question or wish a clarification, the best thing to do is ask me directly.

Basically what DeSalvatore is saying here is to ignore any independent reporting that mentions him, because they won't spin it they way he wants them to. Never mind the facts or reality of the situation, just ask Ted what you should think. I believe this is known as the "Bush/Cheney method" of dealing with the press.

Given his stance, it's a little odd that DeSalvatore doesn't just put what he thinks (with specifics, not just vague ideas about change and fighting) on the website. That would be a great way to avoid people having to find out about him from blogs and newspapers. Or it would be if they could find his website more easily.

Okay, last page now. The "Gallery" page. It's, um, a gallery. Mostly of trash cleanup and abandoned cars and stuff.

It's also interspersed with some funny bits of text, like this:

These [abandoned] vehicles like graffiti, trash, junked white goods and other ugly or concerning conditions, aid to the control of an area by its local thugs and gangs.

There you have it, gangs and "local thugs" exist because of littering! I'm all in favor of cleaning up trash, but I think that's a bit of a reach...

So what's the verdict on DeSalvatore's website? Well, it's better than Dan Mylott's. Not as good as Lisa Wong's. Also, it exists. Which puts it ahead of Donnelly's and Dionne's.

Unfortunately, it really doesn't address the issues and focuses mostly on the vague concept of "change" and DeSalvatore's self-styled outsider/rebel image. On the plus side, it has plenty to make fun of, but on the minus side it has very little real substance to it. Which puts it closer to Mylott's site than Wong's (which is not huge on substance, but does have a decent "Issues" page).

So there you have it, three websites down and two left to appear (hopefully).

Now I'm off to go set something on fire! Cheers!

The Fitchburg Longsjo Classic

Fitchburg has a lot of problems. Nobody really disputes that. However, it also has one thing that very few communities have, and that's one hell of an impressive bike race.

The Fitchburg Longsjo Classic in its current incarnation is a four-day stage race attracting roughly 800 entrants. It's currently in its 48th year, and still going strong. It was started as a memorial to Fitchburg native Art Longsjo, who was a spectacularly talented athlete and the first American ever to compete in the summer and winter Olympics in the same year. (See here for more history on Art Longsjo). The Longsjo Classic is also the second-oldest race in the country and one of the few races to be designated a "classic", and it may be the one thing about Fitchburg that can actually be called "world-renowned".

If you look at the American winners of the Tour de France (easily the most prestigious bike race in the world) you see three American winners: Greg LeMond, Lance Armstrong, and Floyd Landis. All three have raced in Fitchburg. LeMond raced here as a Junior (under 18), Armstrong actually won the race spectacularly in 1992 (pre-cancer), and Landis was here a couple of years that I'm too lazy to look up.

Actually, if you look at pretty much any international-caliber American cyclist you'll find that at some point they probably raced in Fitchburg. It extends beyond Americans, as well. Fitchburg has been host to Olympians and world champions from across the globe. We've hosted teams from New Zealand, Australia, Norway, the Bahamas, Canada, Switzerland, and numerous other countries. In any given year, there are probably 15-20 different countries represented (though not all by formal teams).

In short, it's a hell of a race, and something that people in Fitchburg should be proud of. It's also going on right now and runs through Sunday. Visit www.longsjo.com for more information if you're interested. This is something that definitely deserves everyone's support.

Mayoral candidate websites are fun!

As a public service (and because I'm bored at work), I hereby bring you a critique of the websites of the mayoral candidates. This will be a short preview, because I couldn't find websites for three of the five announced candidates. If anybody knows where they are (if they even exist) please pass them along. In the meantime, enjoy!

• Mayor Dan Mylott - www.mylott.com:
  
  
  Well, it's almost a website. It has a picture of the mayor and a bunch of signs. It also has old news that he's running for mayor, and a slick babelfish translation button at the bottom so you can try to translate it from French to German (doesn't work), or read the page in what I assume would be badly mangled Japanese.
  
  Here's his catchy slogan to illustrate:
  
  Sweet...
  
  Oddly, that's it. There are no active links on the page at all. Nothing about issues. No list of qualifications. Nothing.
  
  Well, unless you dig into the actual html, where you can find the old links commented out. It appears this website is just recycled from the Mayor's 2001 campaign. As evidence, here's the image beneath Dan's picture on the front page:
  
  Compare to the image in the same spot on every other page:
  
  Now, there's nothing wrong with updating an old campaign website for your current campaign, but sheesh Dan, at least put something on the new site!
  
  For a trip down memory lane, here are the old pages no longer linked to:
  News & Events
  "Where Dan Stands"
  "Dan's Biography"
  More news, apparently
  Old gallery of funny pictures
  
  Now, I'm sure that Mayor Mylott could at least update his Biography. Plus I'm willing to bet he might still stand for something or other. Maybe all that information is out in the media, but it's beyond me why he's not making his own case. C'mon, Mr. Mayor, give us something new!


• Lisa Wong - www.votelisawong.com:
  
  
  
  Lisa Wong's website when it first came online was embarrassing. A single page of mostly white space with a weird-ass slogan and very little of anything else on it. Mylott's page above was superior in comparison, which is pretty sad.
  
  Happily, they've switched places. Where once Mylott had a real site that turned into one page, Wong's one page has turned into a real (four page!) website. The new site is in place now and it's much better. It still has its quirks (it would probably be good to rename the main page to something other than "Page 1" for instance), but it's at least got some substance to it now. For instance, there's this awesome picture of her and her brothers preparing for a formal-dress game of "Red Rover":
  
  
  
  Aside from the charming family photos, there's actually a pretty in-depth Issues page. I won't bother quoting it here, but overall it's a pretty decent list of what Wong hopes to do as mayor. As such, it may be more of a "plans" page than an "issues" page, but at least it's not an annoying "What Lisa Stands For" page.
  
  I'm also going to go out on a limb and bet that Lisa actually made this website herself. Why? Because the title of the "meet Lisa" page is actually "ABOUT ME". Aha!
  
  This isn't a bad thing, though. There are zero cases of "it's" being used when "its" should have been, nor are there problems with "insured" versus "ensured". This automatically makes Wong a better writer than 95% of the people on the internet. Which is obviously a qualification you want in a mayor.
  


• Ted DeSalvatore - not really...:
  
  
  I don't know if Ted DeSalvatore has a real website hidden away somewhere. After all he's a computer guy right? Or if my suspicions are correct and this is his LinkedIn profile, a "Computer Service & Support Training Specialist". Either way, a dude who should have a website.
  
  But no, once again I've linked to the hilariously incomplete Team to Elect DeSalvatore's contact form. Incidentally, if you're an obnoxious blogger who perpetually makes fun of Ted they probably won't want to hear from you, even if you try to be nice.
  
  Regardless, it's not really Ted's site so it doesn't count in the grand total.
  
  UPDATE 7/18/07: He's got one now! Review is here
  


• Ronald Dionne - ?:
  No website I could find, but I don't think anyone gives him much chance anyway. He could better his chances with a bit of self promotion on the web, perhaps. But then people might have to give him more of a chance.


• Tom Donnelly - ?:
  I couldn't find a website for him either. Probably he's just too big a pussy to make one.
  
  UPDATE 8/3/07: Not so! Review is here

There you have it, your handy "Progressive Fitchburg Guide to Mayoral Campaign Websites, Featuring the Unicow". Now back to work.

Huh?

A friend has alerted me to a particularly confusing quote in this Fitchburg Pride article.

It's a pretty boring article about the opening of a supermarket. Not the sort of thing I'd normally even read. But get this:

"There are trees around, so it is not just a black wasteland," said Mayor Dan Mylott standing outside of the store. "The back is as nice as the front because the parking garage is back there, it is a beautiful place to be."

A black wasteland? What the fuck?

I had several thoughts when reading this particular quote. First I pictured a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a la Mad Max. Dan Mylott was a mohawked road warrior who found a tree in the middle of the vast desert and for one brief moment brought his deathmobile to a stop just so he could get out and gaze at it in awe.

However, it turns out that despite Fitchburg's woes, it isn't actually a Mad Max-ish post-apocalyptic wasteland...

Next, I thought that perhaps he actually said "a blank wasteland," meaning of course a wasteland without any trees in its parking lot. Which would mean Fitchburg Pride either made a typo (unheard of!) or misheard him.

Alternately, this could mean that perhaps he really wanted to say "a motherfucking wasteland" and replaced "motherfucking" with "blank" in order to appear more mayoral. Sort of a self-bleeping mechanism...

But when you look at the larger quote, it also appears our mayor thinks that a parking garage is "a beautiful place to be."

Now, I've been in a lot of parking garages. Not once have I looked around and thought "Gee, this sure is a beautiful place to be!" Usually I'm just trying to figure out where the fuck I parked so I can leave as quickly as possible.

The only conclusions one can really reach from this quote is that the mayor is either really easily impressed by strip malls and parking lots, lies (unheard of for a politician!), or is drunk all the time.

Yeah, he should do great in the next election...

Tran is obsessed, Donnelly is a pussy

I've been bored shitless with Fitchburg politics lately. There's only so much pointless bickering and vapid proclamations from people running for office that I can take before needing a break.

But one thing seems to get me back in the mood to ramble, and that's Dean Tran's insane focus on sex offenders.

As I've blogged about before, Tran was instrumental in pushing the law that now says level 2 and 3 sex offenders can't live within 1,000 feet of things like schools and playgrounds. I criticized it at the time as being "nearly impossible to enforce", among other problems.

Guess what, seems like they're having trouble enforcing it! Go figure!

Per a recent Sentinel article:

Not one sex offender has paid a citation for living within 1,000 feet of a school, park or daycare center, more than eight months after city councilors unanimously passed the residency restriction ordinance, city officials said this week.

[...]

Some councilors suggested this week that the difficulty in moving forward with both of Tran’s proposals shows such legislation is easy to vote for, but too difficult to implement.

The other proposal of Tran's mentioned here is of course his brilliant idea to put the names of level 2 and 3 sex offenders on water bills, because there's nothing people enjoy more than paying their bills while thinking about sex crimes. It's two great tastes that go great together, as they say.

I think Tran has watched too much Fox 25 news or something, because he seems to have sex offenders on his mind far more than anyone really ought to. He did offer this lame defense of his bill:

Tran defended his petitions, saying that those who are against these ordinances offer nothing in their place.

“There’s no stakes higher than losing a child in the city, and I’d rather be proactive then reacting to a situation such as this,” Tran said.

Umm, Mr. Tran... call me crazy but I'm pretty sure this is reactive and not proactive. These are people who already committed a crime. You're just really keen on shouting their names around after the fact. Perhaps you've convinced yourself that putting names on water bills is the way to keep them from re-offending, but since there's a pretty low recidivism rate among sex offenders anyway maybe you could focus on preventing these crimes from happening in the first fucking place. You know, with things like treatment of those who are at risk but haven't committed a crime, or giving kids more safe havens and activities in the community. Just a thought.

Also, about not offering anything in their place... If I propose a bill to have skywriters decorate the sky above Leominster with insulting slogans (fuck those assholes and their fiscal solvency!) and everyone says "no, that's a dumb idea" they're not obligated to present something similar in its place.

Anyway, Tran's lost to the horrors of tabloid news, but at least mayoral candidate Thomas Donnelly has the right idea. Too bad he's only developed a spine recently:

Councilor at-large and mayoral candidate Thomas Donnelly slammed the ordinance as “feel-good legislation.”

Donnelly said even the smallest amount of effort or tax money to support these ordinances should be considered too much.

Donnelly said that he couldn’t have voted against the residency petition last September because, “I tried questioning it last time, and I was crucified.”

Okay, I agree it's feel-good legislation. I agree that tax money going to support these ideas is a bad idea. Like Donnelly, I've felt this way for quite awhile. But unlike Donnelly, I didn't vote in support of the very fucking thing I'm currently criticizing. Because I'm not a giant pussy.

Maybe Donnelly would indeed have been crucified then, but at least he'd have shown some guts and taken a stand on something he believed. He should be crucified now for voting for his own political expediency rather than principle or for the good of the city.

Mr. Donnelly, if you get elected mayor you'll have to stand up to situations where you could get "crucified" if you do something unpopular. For Christ's sake I hope you have the balls to ignore that peril and do the right thing whether or not it's popular.

As always, Crazy Ted DeSalvatore got a few words in too. They're typical of him in that they're directly contradicted by fact.

Ward 4 Councilor and mayoral candidate Ted DeSalvatore said he thinks the laws have a big effect in the long term in persuading sex offenders to move somewhere else.

[...]

“Does it stop child abuse? No,” DeSalvatore said. “Does it create a new atmosphere of consequences? I think so.”

What consequences would those be, Ted? Oh yeah, the unenforceable ones... Yeah, I'm sure those are super-effective.

Man am I glad we've got more mayoral candidates than just a giant pussy and a terminally-deluded fucktard. We've also got a mayor who doesn't seem to grasp basic math, a guy I don't know much about who probably won't win, and umm... an economist. Wong looks better all the time.

Incidentally, it's actually worth reading the Sentinel article in full here. It's much better reporting than you generally get from the Sentinel, and even presents the viewpoints of someone who actually knows what she's talking about!

Sinners all dead, God now killing fat fucks

Well, it's finally happened.

God has finished killing all the homosexuals, fornicators, abortion doctors, secularists, potheads, people who dance the "Lambada", Democrats, video game players, New York City intellectuals, unbaptized children, Teletubbies, ACLU members, rock musicians, unwed mothers, Muslims, and Larry Flynt. Now he's had to move on to killing the Moral Majority.

Surprisingly, this doesn't come in the form of their expected Rapture, but rather in the heart of one giant turd of a man giving out.

Yes, Jerry Falwell is dead and the small minority of self-righteous bigots who used to call themselves the "Moral Majority" are without their founder.

Some might say it's in poor taste (or even immoral) to speak ill of the dead. Even when the dead man in question was a hateful theocrat who set into motion the whole concept of the "Christian Right" in this country.

Those people are douchewads.

This is a man famous for such statements as this one about 9/11:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Speaking ill of others was his bread and butter, and it only seems right that his passing be celebrated in the way he lived his life.

So badmouth him with pride! Jerry Falwell was nothing but a waste of human flesh who went out of his way to demonize and alienate anyone whose behavior made him uncomfortable. He hid behind religion in order to bilk the gullible out of their hard earned money. He built up enough ill-gotten gains to fund an empire devoted to making non-Christians second-class citizens (if indeed citizens at all). He somehow got enough power to get most of the Republican politicians in this country suckling at his man-teat for an endorsement. He devoted his days to trying to make life for people like you and me (and the vast majority of Americans) impossible. And he had the fucking nerve to think he was not only "moral", but part of the "majority".

The fat fuck is dead, and I for one am pleased as punch. The world is a better place without him.

Also, extra bonus points for anyone who can guess which candidate in the Republican presidential debate tonight will mention him first (in praise, of course).

My money's on Mitt Romney. He's never met a group he wouldn't pander to, and theocratic bigots are his new bread and butter. I won't be watching, so someone let me know how it turns out.

Shocking news! Lisa Wong is Asian!

I don't generally read the Save Fitchburg blog these days. While it does seem to have a lively community of commenters, most of them strike me as being clinically insane.

However, I do read (or at least skim) the Fitchburg Pride and stumbled across its "Save Fitchburg Roundup" (Jason Lefferts of the FP also founded Save Fitchburg). The last time I looked at Save Fitchburg was shortly after Lisa Wong announced her candidacy for mayor, at which point commenting was moderated due to racist dipshits making idiotic remarks because she's Asian.

Good move on the part of the Save Fitchburg guys to go to moderating, but it didn't do much to make me think their commenters have improved any...

However, I was glad to see there was a pretty coherent comment by "Howdy's" which was quoted in part in the Fitchburg Pride:

[G]ender, ethnicity, age, etc SHOULD not be an issue with this election, but I believe it still will.

Yes, this is the 21st century….in Fitchburg.

I am 100% on board with Lisa. I am excited about the opportunity she brings, but…

There are many Fitchburg voters that will have a hard time getting beyond what they see.
I’m glad Lisa will make her “first” appearance in a “safe” environment. It will take a very polished Lisa to make many similar appearances all around the city to overcome the familiarity Mylott and Donnelly already have with the voting base. Change is hard, especially in Fitchburg. Lisa will need to make people comfortable with her while she is touting her credentials and vision

The "safe" environment mentioned is Wong's speech to an "Asian Pacific Islander even at the Statehouse". I don't know any more about that, but it's not really germane to what I'm talking about right now anyway. It does seem weird that it would be called "safe" just because of a shared heritage, but no matter...

Lisa Wong is a woman of Asian heritage. So fucking what?

Are people in Fitchburg that big a bunch of morons that they actually care one bit what ancestry a person has when choosing who to vote for as mayor? Some would apparently say yes, but oddly enough I seem to have a higher opinion of the voters of Fitchburg.

While "Howdy's" up there is well spoken, I actually totally disagree that Wong's racial heritage will matter one bit.

Who would it matter to, after all? Obviously it doesn't matter to me, it probably doesn't matter to you if you're reading this blog, and frankly I don't know a lot of people in general who actually have a problem with Asian people. Sure, the dicks who comment on Save Fitchburg (and get deleted) are racist, but they're hardly the voting majority. One or two morons don't speak for the masses. And while racism is definitely out there, I don't think it generally takes a form that would hurt Wong's mayoral campaign.

If her name was Lisa Al-Masri or something then maybe that would matter, because people actually feel quite comfortable being openly racist against Arabs these days, but who the hell hates Asians? A few crazed WWII veterans who wish we could go back to the days of internment camps for the Japanese, and that's about it. Most of the racism actually manifests in thinking that Asians are smarter than white folks, which I don't see as hurting Wong's chances. (It also manifests in a belief that Asian men have small penises, but again that shouldn't affect Miss Wong one bit.)

Perhaps there are reasons to vote against Wong. But her age, gender, or ethnicity aren't among them.

This post actually comes from a bigger frustration, which is the idiotic "Is America ready for a black/female president?" bullshit you see in polls dealing with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Now it's represented on the local level as "Is Fitchburg ready for an Asian female mayor?"

The only people who seem to not be ready are the fucktards asking the question in the first place.

The rest of us have been ready for some time.

Sentinel desperately in need of "Community" news

In my occasional trawlings of the local newspapers I sometimes find something that's worth writing about. Far more often, however, I find something that just makes me snicker at how ridiculous the local news actually is.

It's not like I expect a lot from news, really. I haven't watched television news in at least a decade. The local newspapers are several orders of magnitude beneath television news (yes, even Fox News), but at least they're in print form and I can easily skim through the crap to get to those items that may have somehow retained a little tiny shred of dignity.

So I was skimming the Sentinel website today, and noticed the following enticing article linked on the front page:


Holy cow! You know that's got to be a good juicy story!

Understandably, I was all eager to read what would no doubt be some sort of old-fashioned moralizing about the evils of seeing boobies on the interweb. That could entertain me for 30 seconds or so.

Sadly, I discovered a couple of problems with this item of "Community" news...

First, it's really fucking old:


While it's good to see that the devoted editors of the Sentinel do indeed work at (exactly) 2 am, the nearly two and a half year-old nature of the item is less encouraging. Perhaps that one late night did them in for the next 28 months, but holy crap people, this is linked to your front page!

The article itself was a bit of a disappointment once I got to it. Apparently it's a pseudo-Ann Landers syndicated bit of drivel. The fun porn stuff was only the first of three letters to "Annie", and the response was boring.

Also, here's another problem:


Now, I'm sure that people in Manitoba have made-up problems that need answers from faceless syndicated columnists who don't have to answer to anybody just like everybody else, but this is in the "Community" section of the local newspaper. Manitoba is decidedly not local! If you wanted to drive there, this is the route you would have to take. That's a long drive, people.

What does all this mean to you and me, the loyal readers of the local press? It means it's time to take action! There are clearly far too few things going on in our own community to warrant mention. So it's time to start making the news!

Fathers, start looking at a lot more porn on the internets. I suggest you start with tentacle porn and work your way up. Make sure never to clear your cache or delete cookies or really make any attempt at all to cover what you did. Then let your teenage daughters use your computers. With any luck they'll discover your surfing habits and write a letter to the local paper about it. Then we'll have real community news!

Also, mothers, I suggest you become obese and get in car accidents.

There you go, a surefire way to get the Sentinel to actually put news from this community in the "Community News".

On a brighter note, at least the Fitchburg Pride is on the ball with their shocking "Breaking News" about some dude dumping leaves in the woods. Go Pride!

Give me a gun!

Aside from being really good at Duck Hunt on my old NES, I don't have much experience with guns.

I've never used so much as a BB gun, nevermind something that actually shoots real bullets. It's not that I'm really anti-gun or anything, I've just never had the exposure. I do think hunters are giant fuckwads, but that's mostly because I think anyone who kills animals for fun is a fuckwad. I give more respect to someone who strangles cats for fun, because at least they risk scratches. If you want to hunt, have the balls to do it hand-to-hand.

But I've fallen off-topic. The topic being the delightful letter to the editor I just now happened across in the Sentinel. Its title is "Atrocities could be stopped if people were armed", and the basic premise is that tragedies like what happened at Virginia Tech could be avoided if everybody and their grandma were armed.

Umm... okay. Let met allow the editorialist to speak for himself:

These cowards attack schools, post offices, and other places like this because they know that there is no one there to oppose them. If a principal, or faculty member, or office manager was known to be armed, these people wouldn't dare to set foot in the place. Even if they were armed with non-lethal weapons, such as tasers or mace, it would be a deterrent. These cowards cannot function if they are opposed.

Right on! Let's make sure everyone in schools and post offices are armed! Because having guns in everyone's hands will certainly reduce gun violence! After all, fights never break out in schools. And that whole "going postal" phrase certainly wasn't coined after a rash of postal employees killing people with guns! Good idea, crazy person!

The writer also brings out this awesome argument:

Our politicians and other bleeding hearts with their heads in the sand can only say, pass more laws against guns and the problem will go away. Hitler used the same approach and look what happened to the population when he disarmed them. Ask any Jew how it feels to have storm troopers come into your home and drag you out or burn you out and steal all you have and put you to death at their whim.

Woo! Hitler-based arguments are the best!

I was going to take his advice and ask a Jewish friend of mine how it feels to have storm troopers come into her home and drag her out and kill her, but then it occurred to me that she was born in 1976. Shockingly, there are Jewish people who didn't go through the Holocaust! Beware if you try to follow this advice, "any Jew" might not do!

Anyway, making fun of letters to the editor becomes dull quickly, so I'll wrap this up with a final thought...

Arming everyone in the world may actually not be the best way to reduce gun violence. Also, people who write letters to the editor are almost universally morons.

09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0

Not much news really, but this random hexadecimal string came to me in a dream or something and it just seemed to belong as the title of a blog post. Go figure.

Wong is officially in the race now. Which is no surprise, but good to see. Will a candidate who I actually respect kill my normally-vitriolic blog? Stay tuned! Or don't!

Holy cow! A mayoral candidate I like!

Good thing I started blogging again yesterday, because today we have a new mayoral candidate! It comes in the form of 27-year-old Lisa Wong.

Just to get this out of the way, I should say that I know Lisa socially and would consider her a friend. Though our conversations don't generally involve politics (they more often involve me making a dumb joke about kayak-related head injuries or something), I can at least say that she's extremely bright, personable, and would probably make a kick-ass mayor. But I'll try to keep my personal experience with her to the side in my posts here.

Anyway, here's some stuff from the Fitchburg Pride:

Lisa Wong, the former director of the Fitchburg Redevelopment Authority, said this morning that she is running for mayor, injecting a new dynamic into the race.

Wong, during an interview this morning, said she feels the city is facing an internal financial crisis and expects that to be her top priority, but also feels the budget strain is overshadowing positive developments in Fitchburg.

"I want to manage the crisis, but help Fitchburg reach its potential," Wong said. "As a trained economist, I will be looking at how to run the city efficiently and effectively."

Eek! I didn't actually know she was a trained economist. Generally I rank economists alongside astrologers and voodoo priestesses (at least when it comes to economic predictions), but it actually is a useful background to have when it comes to managing city finances. And city finances at the moment are not being managed at all well.

It's also nice to have someone running who has actually worked to improve the city. We've already got candidates courting the malcontents who just want a change for the sake of change, so it's good to have someone in the race who has actually worked to bring about positive changes and hasn't merely talked about all the things that are wrong.

Wong also did the thing every damn candidate since the beginning of time has done and said she wants to encourage business investment. Yawn...
But wait!

Wong said she wants to encourage business investment in the city, and also create residential investment in the city.

"I'm a proponent of smart growth, meaning growth that is beneficial to the city," Wong said. "We want to make sure anyone who moves to the city is part of the city."

Holy crap, citizen involvement! Relying on people to better their own community instead of just bitching about it. Very nice.

Lastly:

Wong said as successes build, the goal will be to improve the reputation of downtown.

"The first thing is creating an identity for downtown for what downtown is," Wong said. "It's a vibrant cultural center."

I'd argue that downtown Fitchburg is not currently a "vibrant cultural center". It could be, it should be, but at present it just isn't. However, I do agree that the reputation of downtown needs to be improved. For whatever reason, people in Fitchburg seem to spend a lot of time badmouthing it. While there are obviously problems that need to be fixed, half the stuff they focus on as being negative isn't even true (for instance, crime).

While we actually do have a decent museum, it's cursed by its location. We also lack any good music venues. While the Common Ground coffeehouse apparently hosts bands, my understanding is that they're Christian bands (which aren't really a big draw for anybody but hardcore Christians). A lot more could be done with downtown to get it towards being as vibrant as Wong would like, and hopefully as mayor she could help to make some of those things happen.

Honestly, even if I didn't know Lisa socially I'd almost certainly support her. She's got brains, ability, a proven track record, and a vision for Fitchburg that's actually positive. We'll see how things progress as her platform comes out, but this development makes me much more hopeful about Fitchburg's future.

Tran, DeSalvatore, and Theodicy

I've been a mixture of sick and super-busy lately, so no blogging for me. I remain slightly sick and relatively busy, so here's a quick one.

Ted DeSalvatore writes letter to the Sentinel instead of talking to his fellow council members. In return, Dean Tran calls him "cowardly and immature". DeSalvatore responds that Tran is a pee-pee head.

In the same article:

[City Council President Jody] Joseph said Tuesday the current level of inter-council bickering is "unprecedented" in his six years on the council. The change began when the current set of councilors came into office in 2006.

"I've tried to ask the councilors to be a little more civil to each other. ... I guess they're not going to heed the warning and act professional."

...

"It's a very difficult group of people to work with at this time. Everybody seems to have their own agenda, and it's just hard to move the city forward," Joseph said.

And people wonder why I think DeSalvatore is an embarrassment...

Also, Pastor George Small's article at Fitchburg Pride shows not only that he sucks at theodicy, but that he is perfectly willing to attempt to capitalize on a tragedy to lure people into a church. Sad... Plus he looks a little like Biff from "Back the Future".

Finally, go read this article in the Guardian showing how the Bush administration is doing what fascists do. I'm just heartened to see that there's someone else out there who finds the use of the word "homeland" as creepy as I do.

That's it for now. More when I have a bit of time.

Crime down, doomsayers disappointed

Good news for people like me who keep insisting crime in Fitchburg isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It actually isn't!

Or at least it's not as bad as it was in 2005, according to this article in the Fitchburg Pride about the Fitchburg Police Department's 2006 report.

According to the Fitchburg Police Department's 2006 annual report, overall crime in the city dropped 15 percent from 2005, especially in areas of drug incidents, breaking and entering, rapes and assaults.

Unfortunately, the most recent report on the FPD website is from 2004. It would be nice for them to put out some recent figures to the public, since people (particularly candidates) have been harping on how terrible crime is despite evidence suggesting otherwise.

So why's crime down? That of course is going to depend on who you ask. But Chief Edward Cronin had something to say that more public figures should listen to:

Cronin said the department has been focusing on more than just suppression, acknowledging through programs, reinforcement and advocacy that crime is a much larger issue affected by outside factors such as economics and race.

"We've generated a big picture way of looking at the problems," Cronin said. "You can't keep hitting things in one way, you can't keep arresting people and ignore the outside factors that have contributed to the crime, and minority status and poverty are right on top."

Holy crap! Address the roots of crime instead of just blindly focusing on enforcement and things actually improve!

He goes on:

He says the department's approaches are about empowering others.

"It's not about things like language, but the affirmation of who someone is when they walk in here and about serving the community honestly and with humility because in my mind, that's what leadership means," he said.

"I'm not saying we don't have problems," he continued, "But we're making progress without having to use thug policing. I have always said that our community is not our enemy."

Indeed it's not.

One of the big problems with things like the "Liberty Walk" is that they treat the community as the enemy. Almost explicitly in that case, since the idea was to get a bunch of people who didn't live in the "bad" neighborhood to walk through that neighborhood, essentially belittling the people who do live there. It's no wonder they were met with scorn by the residents. They were treating that entire community as an enemy, one they could apparently only face with an army of like-minded walkers with them.

Ted DeSalvatore's vigilantism does the same thing. As I quoted in an earlier post:

DeSalvatore admits he regularly walks through neighborhoods in his ward which have a reputation for drugs and violence, often taking videotape and calling the police if he spots illegal activity.
DeSalvatore also acknowledges that certain people often ask him to leave, which he refuses to do.
He says that on one recent occasion, he told a confrontational young man on Elm Street, "I'm going to be back here every day just for you."

Clearly, to some of our mayoral candidates, the community is the enemy.

Glad to see Chief Cronin has the right attitude.

Incidentally, don't expect people to drop the spurious "crime is out of control!" claims. They've never been based on facts anyway, so more recent facts aren't going to change anything.

This is getting tiresome.

Candidates announcing they're running for things just isn't that exciting.

Donnelly's officially in the mayoral race, having pulled papers yesterday.

He had a few things to say, but has yet to really present a platform. He does think the town needs a CFO, which given our recent bond rating issue makes sense.

That's about the only idea presented in the Sentinel piece though, aside from a vague (and somewhat naive) statement that places that can't stand on their own feet shouldn't necessarily get federal grant money to help them. Not sure what to think about that, but the thought requires more fleshing out before it can be either accepted or rejected.

Whatever the case, he should make haste on presenting a damn platform!

Dean Tran is also running for re-election to City Council. Like every other damn candidate for everything he thinks we need business growth.

He's also proud of his sex-offender law, which I already discussed back in October. Aside from his unhealthy obsession with sex offenders (which is hardly uncommon in politics these days), Tran seems like a pretty decent councilor. So good luck to him I guess.

On a non-election related note, I stumbled across the Sentinel's Locals reflect on four years of war article and was struck by this remarkably honest but geographically delusional quote:

Leominster resident Antonio DiGeronimo, 92, said he thinks the war is necessary.

"We have to protect our oil," he said.

Holy fuck.

Here's another one

Well, we have another mayoral candidate. Or will shortly, anyway.

According to a whopping four paragraphs in the Sentinel, city councilor Thomas Donnelly is indeed going to run for mayor. He hasn't pulled papers for it just yet, but has confirmed that he plans to.

That's it. That just told you absolutely everything of significance in the Sentinel piece. Gee, I wonder who the local press is going to back...

Anyway, I don't know a whole hell of a lot about Donnelly, but from what I can gather he seems like a pretty decent guy. He opposes Dean Tran's dumbass idea to put sex offender names on water bills, which means he has at least half a brain.

Once he announces a platform (supposed to happen in "the coming weeks") there will be something to talk about. For now just thank your lucky stars there's a viable alternative to Mylott and DeSalvatore.

Oh, and if you're in the mood go over to the Fitchburg Pride Poll and give him a vote. He's already got half the votes of the ballot-stuffing DeSalvatore team. Even if you don't support him, it'd be nice just to even things up.

(PS If you're a geek like me and use the Firefox NoScript extension, set it to temporarily allow fitchburgpride.com or the JavaScript-based poll won't show up for you.)

Everybody Running for Everything

Oh boy, there are candidates aplenty these days.

First, the local crazy people are aflutter over Ted DeSalvatore's official announcement that he's running for mayor. (even though we've known he'll be doing this for months).

Here's one of those crazy people now:

Patty E. Martin, who owns The Hair Cottage and is a lifelong resident, said to see the decline in the city “and not have anybody recognize it until certain people have stepped forward is very enlightening.”

“He’s a man of the people,” she said, “and for some reason you were led to this city, and you’re going to lead the city to a brighter future.”

Mr. DeSalvatore has found himself at odds with some of his colleagues on the council.

Mrs. Martin said she is proud of how he handles himself at meetings when “negativity” comes up. This is an effort to distract him from the issues, she said.

Of course, this focus on "negativity" is bound to be a recurring theme in Ted's campaign, with Ted presented as the "positive" candidate and everyone who disagrees with him portrayed as negative. Never mind that the only negativity we've really seen is other city councilors saying Ted's ideas suck. And that's only because they do.

Second, (but the first to announce, sorry Ted) is mayoral candidate Ronald Dionne, who pulled papers on Tuesday. The Sentinel didn't bother to report on it until Thursday though, because he's not Ted.

I don't know a whole lot about Dionne. He's a Democrat, he's been manager of the old Child World toy store, managed a liquor store, and was a truck driver. (Incidentally Ted is an independent, presumably because it suits his self-styled rebel image. Or because no party would have him.)

Right now those (fairly paltry) qualifications put Dionne well ahead of dangerous Ted DeSalvatore and incompetent Dan Mylott in my book, which is pretty sad.

Finally, Peter Allaire is a 58-year old former firefighter and is running for the Ward 5 city council position. He did say this, which I agree with:

"I'd like to see things in downtown that could draw college kids to Main Street."

However:

Allaire's brother used to be married to Cynthia Allaire, manager of the now-defunct Club Karma and the new Bourbon Street Food and Spirits.

Why is that a "however"? Well, DeSalvatore has some ties with Club Karma. Some potentially unethical ties.

That may or may not reflect badly on Allaire. But if he's a DeSalvatore groupie then he could very well be a dick. Time will tell.

On a side note about Club Karma, a friend of mine used to work part-time there and told me they had "bikini bull riding" on Thursday nights, which sounds awesome. She also told me the boss was a total raving jackass, which isn't so awesome.

So there you have it, three candidates I can't get the slightest bit excited about. One of whom worries me deeply (guess which!).

Which brings me to the next point; are you curious about which of the local papers has the biggest hard-on for DeSalvatore? Wonder no more, it's easy to measure!

• The Worcester Telegram isn't too excited:

  A string of supporters stood up last night to talk about the candidate they were backing, while an audience of about 50 people looked on in the Stonehaven Restaurant.

• The Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise is getting a little excited:

  "It is my hope that in '08, we can bar the egos and the shenanigans from City Hall," DeSalvatore told about 60 people who attended a kick-off dinner Thursday at Stonehaven Food & Spirits.

• Fitchburg Pride is raring to go:

  "I guess I'm in this for the long haul," DeSalvatore told a crowd of about 70 people at the Stonehaven Restaurant. "I am your candidate for change."

Congratulations, Fitchburg Pride! You win!



[Addendum] Wait a second! "[B]ar the egos and the shenanigans from City Hall"? Did Ted just disqualify himself at his own kick-off dinner?

Crap

Word of warning to my fellow Linux users. Don't use the Konqueror web browser to write posts on Blogger. Or if you do certainly don't hit "preview" at any time.

Argh.

Oh yeah, and someone else is running for city council. Youngish. Likes to run. Bad puns could ensue.

Also, the Fitchburg Pride newspaper is hilariously bad. Many jokes to be made. Especially about religion in the Corner Corner and the written-by-someone's-eight-year-old-brother expose on typing "Fitchburg" into search engines. Hilarity!

City Council candidate offers youth, freedom from Decepticon tyranny

It was with a bit of pleasure I read this morning's news about 22-year old Shaun Cormier, who will be running for City Council this fall.

First of all, it's almost always good to bring youth into situations like this. Yes, people will automatically fault him for inexperience, but that can be overcome if he has decent enough ideas. And it sounds like he's at least on the right track:

He suggested a tax incentive for first-time homeowners, and said the city should work to attract recreation-oriented businesses such as a miniature golf course or an arcade.

He's also eyeing the empty movie theater on Main Street.

"It's been vacant for so long. We really need to explore ways to make it more lively again," Cormier said.

The theater could be a concert venue, or could be converted to a dance club, he suggested, noting that the club could have some 21-plus nights, but could also host 18-plus nights when no alcohol is served.

All pretty solid ideas, if you ask me.

That theater on Main Street is just ripe for improvement, and while there may be some issues with it (I hear the inside isn't quite fit for man nor beast in its current state), it's got potential. Personally, I'd like to see it become an art-house movie theater, but the club idea isn't terrible.

Either way, it's nice to see someone with some reasonable ideas for actually drawing people into town.

It's still quite early of course, so there's a while yet to see if he actually has viable plans or not, but in trying to find out just who Shaun Cormier is I found this page containing an interview.

The S&E article mentioned him working for Hasbro, and the interview goes into glorious detail:

There are times I do get to play with toys, but that’s only after I have repaired them, finished programming them, or built the electronics for them. Although to me, programming a toy is just like playing with a toy. I am programming the movement of the toy for the final production change.

Nice, so he's at least a fairly smart guy with some intellectual curiosity. Why he's getting into politics is beyond me. Regardless, here's the really important bit:

One of the toys I am working on is called Butterscotch. It is a life size miniature pony that moves its head and blows air out of its nostrils. I’m working on some new Spiderman toys that won’t be out until 2007, some Transformers, and some of the Playskool line.

So not only does he make Transformers (which is awesome), but he makes some sort of demonic horse creature which will surely be involved with bringing about the forthcoming apocalypse!

Based on his experience both with taming fire-breathing stallions of doom and his experience with the complex political climate of the planet Cybertron, he definitely looks like the most qualified candidate in some time.

[Update 3/1/07] A friend who worked with Cormier a few years back has indicated that Cormier's intellectual curiosity at the time he knew him was in fact rather lacking. Hopefully that situation has changed, but the jury's still out on this one until more is known.

Said friend also made fun of the mini-golf and arcade ideas, which I have to agree are pretty weak (does anybody still go to arcades anymore?), but the basic premise of increasing recreational activities I think is still sound.

Nevertheless, Transformers are still awesome!