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!

Piles of bullshit

I don't typically aim to get into national politics here, but when the local paper is running opinion pieces that lack the slightest intellectual honesty it's time to make an exception.

Today's craptacular editorial is entitled Hypocrisy in Congress, and comes to us courtesy of either the Sentinel & Enterprise or one of the copywriters at their parent MediaNews Group. (I'm going to assume the latter, since the NH Broacaster has the exact same editorial.)

Let's start at the beginning:

Two weeks ago, congressional Democrats and Republicans extended unconditional support to Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, President Bush's new commander in Iraq.

Really? "Unconditional support" seems like an odd thing to offer, given that they'd totally be abdicating their responsibility of oversight.

In fact, nobody offered anything like unconditional support of Gen. Petraeus's strategies or anything else. What they did was to vote for his confirmation unanimously. Unanimous is not the same as unconditional. When right-wing media tool Chris Wallace made the same dubious connection, here's what Jim Webb had to say:

WEBB: When the administration puts forward a general officer to fill a billet that exists, I will take a look at his qualifications and see whether I believe he is qualified to be a commander. That doesn't mean that I have to back a political strategy that impels him into motion.

Back to the editorial:

However, those same lawmakers that praised Petraeus are now working to deny the crucial funding the general needs for his troops to get the job done.

What hypocrites!

Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, and a host of Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Ted Kennedy and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are working together to get approved a non-binding resolution condemning Bush's troop surge and the money required to support the mission.

Interesting leap of logic here.

Warner, Reid, and Kennedy all voted to confirm Petraeus. That vote was to put him in position as commander of the Mulitnational Force in Iraq. Not for a troop escalation, nor for any of Bush's other plans. Simply for Petraeus as being qualified for the job he was nominated for. Period.

There's no hypocrisy at work here, there's oversight. That's something the conservative press has a hard time accepting, so maybe I can provide a metaphor that could help.

Let's say I run a factory and have just hired a new foreman. The board of directors has approved him as being someone who's fit for the job. We're having trouble with our production due to some machines that have broken down. The new "Diplomacy 1500 (r)" machine is sputtering terribly, for instance, and a number of men have died trying to replace its normal role (which involves welding thermite to TNT or something, you get the point).

Ignoring this, I decide the best course of action would be to hire 21,000 more employees to do the incredibly hazardous job the machine used to do. My foreman agrees with me that this would be effective. The board of directors, on the other hand, thinks we should fix the damn machine and refuses to fund the new hires. Some dolt at the local paper than accuses the board of being hypocrites for hiring the foreman even though he disagrees with them.

This isn't hypocrisy, it's oversight. It's what's keeps us from making horrifically stupid mistakes over and over again, and it's what was missing when Republicans controlled Congress.

At least there's one thing I can agree with in this editorial:

If pulling the plug on all U.S. military operations in Iraq is what Congress really wants, then lawmakers should do it

Yes, yes they should.

Doesn't play well with others.

In what will come as a surprise to no one, Ted DeSalvatore is not very popular with his peers.

Two city councilors say that Ward 4 Councilor Ted E. DeSalvatore is a divisive force on the council, and works to advance his own interests, not those of the city.

But DeSalvatore said the opposite is true: It is the other councilors who take issue with him, and who advance personal agendas.

Here, DeSalvatore is utilizing the "I know you are but what am I?" strategy of debate. Well done, Ted!

"I have grown tired of (DeSalvatore's) implications that his fellow councilors' actions are always of a political nature, while his actions and intentions are always so noble. I see things very differently," Ward 5 Councilor Stephan Hay said during Tuesday's City Council meeting.

Hay and Councilor at-large Thomas Conry both spoke Tuesday night, and disputed DeSalvatore's claims -- printed in a newspaper article last week -- that councilors made "backdoor deals" prior to choosing a new councilor Tuesday night.

"I find this insulting and untrue," Hay said. "Since this process began, I have not been asked by one councilor other than Mr. DeSalvatore to vote for a specific individual. And Councilor DeSalvatore did not ask me to vote for someone; he told me who I should vote for."

The quoted remarks "were false, contained innuendoes and pure suppositions," Conry said.

So, contrary to the "backdoor deals" innuendo previously published (by this same newspaper, natch), apparently the only person trying to rig the election of a new councilor was Ted himself.

At least Ted's honest about one thing:

DeSalvatore acknowledged that tension exists between him and other councilors.

Too bad he thinks it's because he's Sir Galahad and they're a bunch of demons out to steal his Grail (yes, that's a strained metaphor).

"There is a core group that will stand against me because they don't like the way I haven't fallen into place," he said.

Here's a little lesson in human relations, Ted. The other councilors "stand against you" because you do things like slander them to the local bootlick press, not because you're some kind of dashing maverick.

Additionally, it's just conceivable that they disagree with you because all of your ideas are profoundly stupid. Perhaps they'd like to see the town become a better place and are frustrated at having to drive over the speed bump of your ideas to get there.

While I may not be crazy about Dan Mylott as a mayor, I do like his statement.

"Things have been said about the council that are not true," Mylott said.

He added that he hopes DeSalvatore will "start to moderate those loud utterances that really don't make a lot of sense."

I believe that would be all of DeSalvatore's utterances, Mr. Mayor.

While the Sentinel's article focused rightfully on Ted being a dick, the new weekly paper Fitchburg Pride (providing a conservative weekly alternative to the conservative daily paper) focused their website's "Breaking News" for Wednesday pretty much exclusively on Mylott. Perhaps saying anything substantial about Ted's social problems makes them less proud.

The paper named after a high-school pep rally ran the headline "Mylott stands by comments critical of DeSalvatore" and the body of the article contained this:

Mayor Dan Mylott stood behind comments that were made last night by councilors Stephan Hay and Thomas Conry, Jr. towards fellow councilor Ted DeSalvatore. Last week, DeSalvatore said he thought councilors were colluding to select a replacement for an empty City Counicl [sic] seat.

"It is causing dissention [sic] among councilors," said Mylott.

He responded to comments people have made about backroom politics among council members, saying it is not true, and that councilors are open about their opinions. DeSalvatore is considered a likely candidate for mayor, as is the three-term Mylott.

The rest of the article dealt primarily with Mylott's plan to fine delinquent "industrial wastewater users", whatever they are.

Thank god we have an alternative press in Fitchburg!

Are DeSalvatore's plans for a mayoral run in trouble? I really doubt it. This is a man who fancies himself an "outsider", surely he couldn't care less if he has the ability to behave with civility towards the people he'd have to work with as Mayor. Surely he can get more done going it totally alone, right?

Of course, some voters may recognize that it would be unwise for a mayor to constantly make an ass of himself and alienate people like the city council and the chief of police. At least I hope so.

Exploration time!

Good news, everyone! The "exuberant" Ted DeSalvatore has formed an exploratory committee to look into running for mayor!

"It's a question of making sure, that's all," DeSalvatore said Friday.

"There seems to be an incredible outpouring to have me run for mayor, from the community," he said. "The exploratory committee has the task at hand of making sure that what we're hearing is in fact the truth, and not just the figment of the imagination of a number of people."

Well, I can answer that even without a committee.

There's a subset of people in Fitchburg who think Ted DeSalvatore is the cat's pajamas. A small subset. They're the ones with the good imaginations. They're also noisy. There's another subset that thinks he's an embarrassment to the city. Also a small subset. Less noisy, but more sane. Then there's a whole lot of people out there who have no idea who he is or what he thinks. It's those people he'd have to win over to become mayor.

Of course, that's easier said than done. Every time he opens his mouth something stupid comes out, and once he's officially a mayoral candidate more people are going to start to pay attention. At that point they'll realize he'd make a much better cartoon character than he would a mayor. A well-informed voting public is not Ted's friend.

But city residents have urged him to run, saying that "crime is out of control" and "the city has absolutely lost its friendliness," the councilor said.

Well, having an unfriendly city sure is problematic. I don't really see how you can blame that on the mayor though. I'd blame the weather. And the racially divisive marches.

As for crime, it certainly is slightly higher than in neighboring Leominster. But "out of control"? We're lower than the state average overall, though we do rank higher than the state average for violent crime. Let's call it a tossup. Crime could always be lower.

Of course, a mayor generally has to work well with the Chief of Police to do anything about crime. Given DeSalvatore's extremely rocky relationship with Chief Cronin I'm not sure that places him as the best man for the job. Maybe he'll just take his vigilanteism to the next level and run around town in his Bat-Mayor costume to deal with crime personally.

In other news, Dan Mylott is also going to run for mayor again. Which is no great surprise, but hardly the stuff excitement is made of. While Mylott seems like he means well (the same can be said of DeSalvatore), he's just not proven himself to be a very effective mayor. He does have the benefit of experience and name recognition that DeSalvatore lacks (despite Ted's incessant publicity stunts), but there are also plenty of people who will vote for "anyone but Mylott" in the upcoming race.

Let's hope some more people get involved. Anyone, please.


However, one word of warning to any potential candidates named "Matthew" or "Matt". My trolls have taken time off from tossing Ted DeSalvatore's salad to warn me they won't be voting for you because they think you're me (yes, all of you). Apparently when my parents gave me the ninth most popular boy's name of 1975 they didn't count on the possibility that I would one day have a blog about local politics. Go figure.

Former city councilor Matt Straight is in particular trouble, since apparently it's hard for people who've gone off their Haldol to differentiate between us. Of course, he has bigger problems.

What this all means to you unfortunate Matts and Matthews is you potentially may lose up to three votes from people who would have voted for DeSalvatore anyway. Try not to lose any sleep over that.

On a side note: In an attempt to limit future confusion caused by my having one of the most popular names of the last century I will now be writing under the pseudonym of "The Unicow". Hopefully nobody was planning on voting for her anyway. Although she just may be the best choice we have right now.

Seriously, who could ever vote for this guy?

More Crazy Ted time!

I honestly don't go out of my way to find these things, but for some reason it's hard to read anything in the Sentinel these days without finding Ted DeSalvatore doing or saying something ridiculous.

Today's example comes from an article on The Compound nightclub getting shut down early by police:

Police shut down the Compound nightspot about an hour early Sunday morning because of an argument between two women which looked like it might "escalate," Sgt. Glenn C. Fossa said.

Pretty standard stuff. The Compound has had a few incidents in the past, and the city's License Commission has been critical of them lately so I suppose that closing an hour early is sort of newsworthy, even though there were no arrests.

But it doesn't make for a very exciting story. And how do you spice up a boring article? Call Crazy Ted!

Ward 4 Councilor Ted DeSalvatore, a former supporter of downtown's now-defunct Club Karma, said clubs which feature hip-hop will always face an uphill battle.

"I know that tends to bring in the clientele that can be a little tough to deal with it [sic], you know they just have to be a little more vigilant," DeSalvatore said, explaining that Club Karma's staff could not handle the sometimes violent crowds he said hip-hop music can attract.

Okay, I'll grant that a club that plays hip hop may bring in a younger and therefore more rowdy crowd than one that only plays John Tesh and Kenny G. But who in their right mind really thinks hip hop attracts "violent crowds" these days? It's about as mainstream as mainstream gets.

The Compound's web site says its upstairs features live bands, comfortable seating, and pool while the downstairs is "Hip Hop, Techno, and Top 40 Dance". Yeah, that's some hardcore gangsta shit there, alright.

Now, just blaming hip hop for violence would be dumb enough, but Ted rarely stops there. No, it's time to take it to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme!

DeSalvatore said he would consider putting a total stop to hip-hop in the city's bars and clubs, although he wondered if it would be legal to do so.

"If you are going to have regular violence that is due to hip-hop, maybe it should be something that should be banned," DeSalvatore said.

Two big problems here:

One: "regular violence that is due to hip-hop"? Ted, it's two girls fighting in a bar. I'm willing to bet it wasn't over the song selection. It's just possible that the alcohol being served had more to do with the fight than the music being played at the time.

Two: You can't fucking ban an entire genre of music just because you don't like it! Even suggesting such a thing should disqualify you from ever seeking higher office and probably earn you a remedial civics lesson on the Bill of Rights. Then maybe you'd realize that yes, there are some pretty big legal problems with banning music.

The likelihood of anything coming out of DeSalvatore's remarks is slim, but just knowing that he thinks along these lines is frightening. If this man gets any real power the city of Fitchburg is in big trouble.


[In honor of Ted's love of good Marxist hip hop, this post has been written while listening to The Coup's "Steal This Double Album".]

Dancing Christians Everywhere!

Yesterday there was an opinion piece in the Sentinel about the Christian Performing Arts Center (CPAC) that's moved onto Main St.

Reading it I felt a twinge of concern. A performing arts center is a fantastic thing to move into downtown Fitchburg, but what's with all the Christianity?

After all, we already have a Christian coffeehouse* right next door to the new CPAC. Despite being exactly the type of person to whom a coffeehouse should appeal, I've never gone in. Why? Because I'm quite openly an atheist and just don't feel like I'd be particularly welcome in such a place. Or if welcome, that I'd have to put up with a lot of pointless proselytizing. A well-run coffeehouse on Main Street would be a fantastic thing, but a Christian coffeehouse inherently limits its clientele.

Now, the argument could be made that Christians tend to stick together, so by being a "Christian coffeehouse" they guaranteed themselves a core group of religious folk. But it's coffee, people! I can't imagine someone opening a "Christian bar" or a "Christian pizza place". Why a Christian coffeehouse?

But that's the past. Now the Christian Performing Arts Center is opening. Plenty of great art has been been based on religious themes, and certainly I have nothing against people expressing their beliefs with artistic expression. My one concern was is this going to be something else that (like the coffeehouse) fractures people rather than bringing them together?

To try to figure this out I emailed Jen Potts of the CPAC and asked a couple of questions. First, are non-Christians allowed to participate (Jews, Muslims, atheists, etc)? Second, is the focus primarily on art or religion?

The answers were encouraging. Anyone can participate, and Jen explicitly stated she's not looking to "segregate our society" in any way. Now, their focus will clearly be Christian-themed (or at least Christian "worldview") performance, so it's debatable how many non-Christians would be interested in joining. But it's good to know that they're welcome anyway.

As for the focus, apparently it's really on the arts. The religious aspect can be used as a tool towards that end, and the material chosen needs to stick to the "Christian worldview". You're probalby not going to see them performing "The Vagina Monologues" any time soon, but frankly why the hell would you want to? Regardless, the focus seems to be on the art itself, with the performances (and possibly the instruction to some degree) having clear Christian overtones. Not my cup of tea, but not necessarily something that would prevent a non-Christian from getting involved for the love of the art itself.

Would I prefer a secular performing arts center? Yes, of course. But I have to give CPAC credit for doing what they believe in, so the best of luck to them.

So there you have it, possibly the first time I've ever agreed with an editorial in the Sentinel. Except for the end part about wanting to see a Barnes & Noble downtown. How about a nice independent bookstore that will actually give a shit about the community? Sheesh!



* As a friend pointed out to me, the local coffee house's name, "Common Ground", is shared by a chain operated by the Twelve Tribes cult. I assume this is coincidental. I certainly hope so, because the Twelve Tribes are a bit scary. In a nutshell:

The Twelve Tribes await the coming of the Messiah. Children play an integral part in the preparation for the Messiah and the Last Day. Freeing children from guilt and keeping their minds pure is a critical necessity. For this reason, teachings instruct that children not play with toys, play imaginary or fantasy games, have candy, or watch television or movies.
If a child disobeys these rules, does not respond on first command to an adult, or commits any other sinful act, he or she is spanked by his or her parent with a wooden rod which is an "eighteen inch, thin, flexible balloon stick meant to sting but not injure." When punished, the child is supposed to refrain from crying and thank the punisher, the reproof and instruction having built his character.
Members, upon entering the Community, renounce all possessions, in the spirit of living together communally and sharing all goods.

Eep!

Very Reasonable Man May Run For Mayor

Good news, people! Very reasonable (not batshit insane) person Ted DeSalvatore might run for mayor!

At least that's according to an article in yesterday's Worcester Telegram. It's not so much he's running for mayor yet though as it is that people just really, really want him to:

“I have had people ask me to run for every office: mayor, senator, governor and even president,” Mr. DeSalvatore said with a chuckle.

Mr. DeSalvatore, a first-term councilor from Ward 4, said he was floored when several of his supporters recently stepped forward and asked if they could throw him a party to thank him for his outspokenness on several issues facing the city.

The supporters, who have formed Team to Elect DeSalvatore, will hold an event on Jan. 27. Details will be forthcoming.

Take the Team to Elect DeSalvatore (aka TED) lightly at your own risk. They've already got a kickass website up really lame website they took down [updated 1/19].

It's hard to argue with the man's qualifications. After all, he's a first-term ward councilor. Also, he's a vigilante!

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."
DeSalvatore says he is only fulfilling the promises he made when he ran for City Council last fall.

I must have missed the part of his campaign when he promised to walk around invading people's privacy and harrassing young people. Which is a shame, because I would have loved to see people's reactions.

Whatever the case, if he does run for mayor it should make for some fantastically surreal debates. Go for it, Ted!

Happy New Year!

Well, I'm back from an interminable 10-day trip to Texas over the holidays. The highlight is reflected in this adorable picture of two meerkats at the Fort Worth Zoo. About 30 seconds after I took this picture they started having angry sex and making some horrifying noises. Children scattered. It was great!

I returned with a horrific cold, and in this sort of state I have a tendency to wander over to "Save Fitchburg". I made the mistake of looking at their poll today. It's about who you'd vote for for mayor if the election were held today. Horrifyingly, Ted DeSalvatore is way ahead. Not that I expect any less from the nice folks who visit Save Fitchburg, but yikes!

So, out of nothing more than antihistamines and spite I present my own poll:

---

How big an idiot is Ted "Liberty Walk" DeSalvatore?
	Really super hugely big, like crazy big man!
	Very very large indeed.
	Big, really big...
	So big he eclipses the sun.
	Bigger than Jesus.
	I think he's a very reasonable person, and you're an asshole for making this poll.

---

Only one vote per person please, this isn't the Sentinel & Enterprise.

Also, happy New Year!