Suffer from fits of rage? You could work for the Sentinel!

Today I somehow found myself browsing through journalismjobs.com. This is a bit odd, since I'm not a journalist and already have a real job, but nevermind that.

What did I find there? Why, I'm glad you asked!

I found five open jobs at the Sentinel & Enterprise. Now may be the time for a career change!

But what to do? Hmm, let's look at the jobs...

Okay, two listings for "Ace Reporter"... I don't know what that is. I assume it's the opposite of "Cub Reporter," so it's probably like Lois Lane and not Jimmy Olson (but wasn't he a photographer? Dammit.). Either way, they didn't really appeal to me. Sure, I'm "not only capable of covering meetings, but also digging for scoops and turning out features," but so is your average eighth-grader.

One listing for "Ace News and Sports Reporter." Hmm... that's like the same thing except with sports tacked on, which I'm not particularly interested in. Plus you don't have to just cover meetings, but "meetings and games," which is pretty dull.

Wait a second, here's one that's perfect!

A job opening for "Aggressive Reporter!" Just what I've been looking for! All my alcohol-induced fury can finally be channeled into prose instead of me just taking it out on the cat!

But am I fit for the job? Well, here's the listing...

The Sentinel & Enterprise, an award-winning daily newspaper in North Central Massachusetts, is looking for an aggressive general assignment reporter to focus on criminal justice and breaking news stories. Interested candidates should send resume, cover letter, references, work samples and salary requirements to Jeff McMenemy, Editor, The Sentinel & Enterprise, 808 Main St., Fitchburg, MA 01420.

Yes, I am eminently qualified. All you have to be is aggressive, and I can be that after downing just a couple pints of gin! Also, who knew that "worst paper in Central Mass." is an award?

Of course, if all they want is an aggressive reporter, who even cares if you can write? Or fact-check? Or indeed have a brain at all?

On the other hand, I may face some stiff competition if I apply for this position. Maybe there's an ill-tempered Rottweiler or fighting cock out there who could snatch it away from me. I mean, I'm not that aggressive, and it's not like writing skills or research ability or anything will help me get the job. Crud, maybe it won't work out after all.

There is one position left though; the dull-sounding "News Editor." Yawn.

But wait!

The Sentinel & Enterprise, an award-winning daily newspaper in North Central Massachusetts, has an immediate opening for a News Editor to run the pagination/copy desk for a growing and aggressive daily in North Central Massachusetts. Job responsibilities include working with the Editor to design daily pages, special projects and special sections. This is a second-shift position. The successful candidate must be a great designer and copy editor, who can also manage the desk staff.

Well, I'm not a great designer or copy editor, but that's not what I'm excited about. I just learned that the Sentinel is a "growing and aggressive daily!"

So the whole paper is aggressive! Could that possibly be any more awesome?

Then again, they say it's "growing" too. Funny, I'd heard the opposite.

Still, aggression! That's what makes news, people! None of that pansy-assed sitting around learning the facts or investigating things carefully. That's for sissies and dirty liberals! Aggression is where it's at!

Thank you, Sentinel, for once again announcing to the world just where your priorities lay.

Chuck Morse: Off the air but still a dickbag

So, ultra-conservative radio host Chuck Morse is no longer on WEIM. That's been true for awhile. As such, I figured I'd leave the guy alone. I mean, what's the point?

Of course, he still has a blog that nobody reads but me! Mostly because it's really bad and stupid.

Here [Update: he removed it, see the bottom of this post] is his latest entry. It's a dumb thing about how Hillary Clinton is supposedly a Marxist.

I'm no fan of Clinton, but it struck me as even more stupid than Morse's usual ranting. Both because quoting stuff is dangerously close to actual research (Morse is more comfortable just making shit up) and because this isn't the way Morse usually writes his blog entries. (He normally spends a lot of time talking about how Barney Frank is a big homo who loves terrorists or something.)

So I searched for one of the quotes attributed to Clinton in the blog. Guess what I found! Morse ripped the whole thing from a stupid forwarded email! Worse yet, I can't even debunk it for you because it's been around so long that Snopes has already done it!

Here's the Snopes page debunking this bullshit.

Let me state this again. Chuck Morse, "intellectual conservative" and guy who actually got to ask questions at one of the mayoral debates, cut-and-pasted a fucking forwarded email and presented it as his blog entry (without attribution to anyone but himself). He even left in the spelling errors (Mao Zedong/Mao Tse Tung/Mao Tse Dong is not "Mao Tse Dung." And why is Yeltsin in there? He's the guy who wanted to go from socialism to a free market!). What's more, Morse apparently didn't have the common sense to realize that anyone with half a brain could figure this out!

That's what apparently passes for conservative intellectualism these days. Forwarded emails from idiots.

Bravo, Mr. Morse!

[Update: he deleted the post, so here it is for you in screenshot form!]
[Some text got cut off here. According to my RSS reader it was:]

4) 'We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own...in order to create this common ground.'

[Also, I enabled Javascript between taking these screenshots, which is why the same image from shot #1 shifted down in shot #2. Just in case you're wondering...]

My Demand For Mayor Wong: Fix The Damn Weather!

Dear Mayor Wong,

It has come to my attention that there is inclement weather in Fitchburg. Not only that, but there are occasionally weather conditions that interfere with important things like driving buses and being able to walk down the road without slipping around and looking silly.

This will not stand!

As a young, idealistic mayor you've presented a bunch of interesting and creative ideas for improving Fitchburg. That's all well and good, but what's it going to get you when sudden ice storms cause me to slip and fall on my supple and widely-envied ass? A big fat nothing, that's what!

As a well-respected blogger, I join our community in asking--nay, demanding--that you fix the goddamn weather. Right now would be good, because I hear there may be a storm coming later this week.

Now, I've been told that you are of Chinese ancestry. Furthermore, I know that the Chinese government has elaborate weather control systems planned for use during the Olympics. Surely if a nation of 1.3 billion people can stave off a little light rain, a town of a mere 40,000 people can totally eliminate winter! We're much smaller than China! Do you have any connections in the Chinese government/Olympic committee that can help?

I've heard the arguments against this before: "Nobody can control the weather," "Invest in some good snow tires," "It's New England, get used to it," and on and on. These lame excuses (and oddly sensible advice) can no longer be tolerated!

You ran on a platform of changing things, getting rid of the old ways, and maybe some other stuff (fiscal responsibility? Beats me!). What's more of an "old way" than to have crappy winter weather? Let's get rid of it.

Perhaps you're thinking "Fitchburg is very hilly, there are bound to be some unavoidable difficulties in icy weather." Defeatist! Obviously the hills are a problem for snow removal and ice de-icing. So flatten them! I don't want to hear excuses, I want to see bulldozers out there pounding down the hills and filling in the valleys until everything is nice and flat.

If you can just take care of this one little request and keep Fitchburg a comfortable 72 degrees year-round you will go down in history as the greatest mayor Fitchburg has ever had. Otherwise you're a failure. Get to it!

Regards,
The Unicow

PS Please redirect the inclement weather to Leominster. They're jerks.

Mayor Wong is everywhere!

So, you've seen nice articles about our new mayor in the Boston Globe and other significant regional papers. Which is swell, but not that exciting.

You've also seen her mentioned by Andy Rooney, if you're an octogenarian who watches 60 Minutes. Still not great, since he thought she was a man and his sense of humor is poor.

More recently, you've likely seen her nifty photo with Obama, Patrick, Kerry, and a couple of Kennedys.

Now we move into new realms. Driving to work this morning I heard her on WBUR (90.9 FM) in a preview for this week's generally-excellent Radio Boston show. I actually listen to this show just about every week, and it's always been quite good, so it should be an interesting show.

Also, while I'm in the middle of writing this, Radio Boston just left a comment on my last post mentioning the show. Sweet.

Anyway, the show seems to be called "Fitchburg Rising?" and deals with mill cities and "hope" and so forth. Here's the video promo for it:



The show airs Friday at 1 PM on 90.9 FM or can be streamed at wbur.org, though you should be able to hear it archived on the net if you miss it then.

Apparently it will also feature a webchat with Mayor Wong! Nifty!

Whatever you may think about Wong as a mayor so far, I think everyone could agree that she's been excellent at bringing good press to the city.

Primaries are dumb

An interesting thing happened at the voting place tonight.

I voted. Yay me! Since I'm officially unaffiliated, it means I could vote for anyone I want! (I chose Obama, which probably surprises nobody. I would have chosen Kucinich but he dropped out.)

So that's all well and good and whatnot.

But here's the interesting part. My girlfriend/fiancee is officially registered as a libertarian. Don't worry, she's not a crazy Paultard or anything. In fact, she wanted to vote for Mike Gravel (a Democrat).

But woe is her!

Apparently there are no libertarians running (at least under the title "libertarian"), which means that those who show up to the polling place with a little "L" beside their name don't get to vote for anybody, regardless of party.

That sort of sucks.

The unaffiliated people like me get to vote for anyone we want. The independents get to vote. So do the Greens. Some other little party I forgot about already (I saw the list, but only very briefly) gets to vote. [Update: Mrs. Unicow thinks it was the Rainbow Party.] Dems and Republicans get to vote too. But if you dare to self-identify as a libertarian, you don't get to vote!

Now, I realize the point of primaries is to whittle down the large number of people running under one dominant party so the winner can run against the winner of the other dominant party, but I fail to see how it's good for democracy to deny anyone a vote. Just because you self-identify as a particular political party, why should you have to vote for them?

It's a corrupt system. Another example of how the vote of an individual does not count. What counts are party politics and stupid affiliations more than voting for who you think would be best for the fucking job.

And I'm just ranting. But the Lady Unicow is upset, and that's not the way you should feel after trying to vote.

On the bright side, I did write her name in for a write-in (non-presidential) spot. So maybe she'll get something out of this after all!

Go now!

What are you doing wasting your time here when I have nothing to say today?

Instead, go right now to Hello Fitchburg and check out the photo of Mayor Wong surrounded by political bigwigs. Make sure to click on the picture so you can see everyone.

Pretty awesome.

ps also don't forget to vote today. Or something.

The Unicow, accept no substitutes!

Some of you may have seen these "Free ticket" things to the Commerford Zoo sitting near the registers of your local merchants.

You may have further noted that the Unicow appears on them!

Just beware, if you go there expecting jaded political commentary, you'll be disappointed. You'll probably also see a really sickly-looking emu which will make you sad. And a lot of really fat little goats, which are also pretty depressing. Frankly, the whole thing is a drag.

Anyway, yeah that's where I got the name.

The End.

Dear Electoral College, it's time for a change

Okay, electoral college, it's time we had a talk.

Now, I understand that you were created back when people had to ride around in fancy-pants horsedrawn carriages to vote, and that for most people getting to the polls would be the equivalent of me driving to Brazil with a really gassy friend.

So it sort of made sense back then to have delegates. Probably it even made sense to have "superdelegates." I don't understand what they are, but I believe they may be delegates with x-ray vision or super-long tongues or something. Either way, I'm sure they were useful back when Jesus came up with this voting thing in the 12th century.

Since I'm an expert on all matters political, let me put the whole voting process into layman's terms for everyone.

• Step 1: Go to your polling place (look for a school with a bunch of jerks standing around outside it waving signs).
• Step 2: Either vote with a machine that will eat your ballot or do that weird caucus square dance thing that nobody on the face of the planet understands.
• Step 3: Wait around awhile to see who wins / watch the returns on tv / go get drunk.
• Step 4: Cheer if your candidate got the most votes, otherwise kind of mope around.
• Step 5: Realize that you weren't actually voting for a candidate, you were voting to tell some delegate douchebag who to vote for in some secret election you're not invited to.
• Step 6: Ponder why the person with the most votes has fewer delegates than the person with the second-most votes. Maybe blame the Illuminati.
• Step 7: Have some smartass tell you that America is a "constitutional republic" and not the silly "democracy" your civics teacher talked about.
• Step 8: Say "oh to hell with this stupid country" and move to the Netherlands, where they let you smoke pot.

Sure, it's a simple process. And, as I've said repeatedly it probably made sense back in 1066.

But times have changed! The Norman invasion is over! Nowadays we have cars and velocipedes and iGoogles! Time for a new system!

So here's my proposal...

Let's get rid of all the delegates and the electoral college and all that shit. Let's just vote for who we want to win, and whoever gets the most votes can be the winner! We could even do Instant Runoff Voting so we could maybe skip the whole stupid primary system!

And let's all do it at the same time so that the news media can't bore us to tears for two fucking years ahead of time, and so that people in states that don't vote first actually can feel like they did something.

And let's not do it on a stupid Tuesday! Let's have the polls open for a whole week, 24 hours a day! That way everyone who wants to vote can do it when they want to do it. Even vampires and people with shitty jobs. Keep reporters and pollsters away with razorwire fences so they can't do entry/exit polling and ruin things for the later voters.

Also, give people cookies after they vote. This is what blood drives do, and it works for them. Voter turnout would be great! Plus it would attract hobos, and it would be fun watching the candidates compete for the cherished hobo vote.

If we could just implement those little minor changes we'd finally have the vibrant, people-driven democracy we deserve. So, get to it Electoral College!

Love,
Mr. Unicow

Once again, irrational fear hurts everyone...

There are a lot of things wrong with this country's prohibitionist "War on Drugs." Too many to go into here, really. Prisons full of nonviolent pot smokers, the creation of a highly lucrative black market, and a system that does far more harm than good to the very people it claims to be protecting are just a few examples.

A far more insidious problem, though, is the reframing of drug use/addiction as a criminal act instead of the health issue it actually is. And guess what? We have some of that right here in Fitchburg!

The Sentinel just ran an oddly-titled article called Treating local addicts? that addresses the way some city councilors are "concerned" about the possibility of a medical practice specializing in addiction treatment opening on Summer Street.

The medical practice in question is described by its founder, Dr. Punyamurtula S. Kishore, like so:

"We are an enhanced primary care facility," Kishore said. "Everything is integrated, from people who have diabetes, to patients that need a check up and others who are addicted to alcohol, we help everyone."

Wow, scary stuff! And indeed, looking over the website for his group sure is terrifying!

I mean, they offer creepy programs like "Weight control and smoking cessation programs," "Physical exams and health assessments," and a "Home Detox Program." Someone quick, hide the children!

Speaking of which:

[S]ome City Councilors are concerned about the location of the facility, being blocks away from St. Bernard's High and Elementary Schools.

"It's right next to a school," said Councilor at-large Annie DeMartino. "I'm shocked they want to put one in there."

Umm, yeah. Because a doctor's office is totally a threat to schoolchildren who may be in the general vicinity. People seeking medical care certainly can't be allowed anywhere near children!

Oh, but this isn't about people seeking medical care, is it? No, it's about "addicts."

The word "addict" (as used by the Sentinel headline) conjures the image of a junkie shooting up in an abandoned building, so they're scary. And scary people should be kept away from children, right?

You see, in this country we don't talk about people with addictions as being people with a health problem. No, they're dangerous criminals! Never mind that the vast majority of people with addictions (which is probably about 95% of the country, to one thing or another) are no danger to anyone. Never mind that "addiction" usually doesn't involve anything illegal. Never mind that the people who'd be coming to this doctor's office are people seeking help. Let's just be ignorant and freak out about all the scary addicts!

Thomas Conry goes along with DeMartino's illogical fears and expresses concern at the location, but takes it one particularly ill-informed step farther:

Thomas Conry, an at-large councilor, said he has "very serious concerns" about the facility.

"I believe that people have to be treated, however I feel Fitchburg has enough of those types of practices now," he said.

Apparently Thomas Conry is in no way familiar with the medical landscape of this area.

This is a primary care facility with a specialization in addiction medicine we're talking about. Fitchburg has a serious dearth of primary care providers (as does most of the country).

In fact, the state is currently sending questionnaires to local doctors in an attempt to assess whether Fitchburg should be categorized as a "Low Income Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA)." Generally such assessments aren't undertaken unless the people involved are pretty confident they're going to qualify. Having seen the dearth of new providers coming into the area, I'd be shocked if we don't.

Additionally, the low income population of Fitchburg (and several surrounding towns) has been categorized as a "Medically Underserved Population" since 1996. (This information is easily found at http://muafind.hrsa.gov/, though I can't link to it directly.)

Now, those classifications are specific to "low income" populations, but don't read that to mean those of us with a bit more money have a good situation. While it's definitely more difficult for a low-income person to find a provider, that problem is made worse by there not being enough doctors to go around.

Low-income patients mean low reimbursement for the doctors who care for them, so many doctors try to limit their numbers. The poor also tend to have more medical problems than wealthier people, which means they take up more time and resources. Yet the reimbursement (especially from Masshealth/Medicaid) is extremely low compared to people who can actually afford reasonable insurance. So from a doctor's business perspective it's unwise to let the percentage of low-income/crap insurance patients in your practice get too high.

Without enough primary care providers in the area, the low-income people get hurt first, because it's not in the doctor's best interest to see too many of them. With the ridiculously ill-conceived Massachusetts "universal" health care sham now in effect, that's going to get even worse. And unless more doctors come into the area, it's going to move up the chain until nobody can find a doctor (it's already a tough thing to do around here).

Anyway, back to the Councilors.

DeMartino seems to harbor an irrational fear. Conry shares it and heaps on a big pile of ignorance. Now we get Norman Boisvert to take it to the next level of dumb:

Ward 2 Councilor Norman Boisvert said he doesn't know the specifics of the plan, but said he doesn't think Fitchburg should be attracting addicts to the city.

"There are ample places for the addicts to go," he said. "If we bring another center in, that's more addicts into our city, what we should be doing is running them out of town."

Hey, guess what Norm? There are already plenty of people with addictions living in this area! They fucking need treatment to help them get over these addictions! We wouldn't be attracting busloads of those scary meth-heads you picture, we'd be helping people in the community to deal with their addictions without having to drive to Worcester to do so. So they'd, you know, get better!

But apparently instead of helping people in town to get better, Boisvert thinks the right thing to do is to "run them out of town." Congratulations, Norm! You're a giant idiotic asshole!

You know, Hillcrest Nursing Home is right in the same part of town. Some of the patients there suffer from dementia or Alzheimer's, and could at times be classified as a danger to themselves or others. Let's run them out of town too! And certainly let's not let them stay near the school, what if an old person gets out and does something crazy?

It seems like the only City Councilor on the record as having any understanding of medical care is Jody Joseph:

Ward 6 Councilor Jody Joseph, whose ward the facility would be located in, defended the practice.

"It's a doctor's office, that's all it is," Joseph said. "One of the things he does is treat addictions, but it's not going to be a methadone clinic."

Joseph said people are rushing to judgment on the practice.

"People have made it into a horror show, when he's really just a general practitioner for people that don't want to go to a detox center," Joseph said. "It's for the average person."

Right on, Jody!

Joseph is quite right. People have gotten this false idea of what an "addict" is from television and the Drug War propaganda campaigns. But most people with an addiction are very much "the average person."

Smoke cigarettes? Drink too much? Eat too much? Too many lottery tickets? Four cups of coffee a day? Get stuck on painkillers after an operation? Take a medication that's addictive at its normal dosage? Or yes, even have a problem with illegal drugs?

Congratulations, you have an addiction. Norman Boisvert wants to run you out of town, and others on the city council fear you.

Meanwhile, intelligent and well-respected people like Dr. Kishore want to help you improve your life. Which would improve the lives of those around you. Which would improve the city.

And of course having a new business and some more primary care providers in a city that desperately needs both wouldn't be so bad either.

Hopefully the city council will figure out at some point that their constituents are not their enemy, that they don't need to be afraid of everything, and that helping people with problems actually helps all of us.

But don't hold your breath.


[Update: January 9th]
The suckass newspaper ran an editorial opposing the practice opening. Conry, DeMartino, and Marcus DiNatale spoke against it at the ZBA hearing. And the fools at the ZBA turned down the zoning change required to open it. So it's dead.

So we've lost an opportunity for a business to open (while simultaneously costing that business $100k), lost the chance to bring some much-needed primary care doctors into the area, and showed everyone that we're an ignorant little shithole town*.

Way to go.


*In fact, Fitchburg is not an ignorant little shithole town. But is it any surprise that we get characterized that way when this is how we present ourselves?

So yeah, Obama...

Well, the nearly meaningless Iowa caucus was last night, and we're left with Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee as the winners. Whoopedy doo!

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Obama won. For that matter, I'm glad Edwards beat Clinton. But frankly, I'm not surprised by either of those outcomes.

Why not? Because the media are a bunch of fucking idiots. Hillary's entire "inevitable" status was created by them because they're stuck in an old way of thinking. We in Massachusetts, and especially in Fitchburg, should have already abandoned that way of thinking by now.

Allow me to explain...

Obama's victory was predictable if you watched the elections that gave us Deval Patrick and Lisa Wong, who both won by considerable margins. The commonalities are almost too numerous to mention, and I see no reason why the outcome should be any different.

I'm not talking about stuff like minority status here. It's insignificant as a factor in any of their victories. What I'm talking about is the two basic messages common to each of these candidates; "change" and "hope."

Most people aren't happy with the way the country (or the state, or the city) have been run of late. They want change, and they want intelligent change.

Kerry Healey didn't represent change, Tom Donnelly didn't represent change, and Hillary Clinton doesn't represent change. Patrick, Wong, and Obama did (or do). Whether that representation is accurate is an open question, but the perception is that they're at least agents of change. And not just any change, but a change that inspires people and engages them. That's perhaps the most important bit.

That's also the bit that involves "hope."

Now, hope is a tricky thing. Some (including myself) might say it's an empty word meaning nothing. You can't hope your way out of an unjust war, you can't hope your way to better healthcare, and you can't hope your way to a better government. But hope's still a powerful thing. If you don't have it, you don't get a lot done. You just sort of sit around being bummed out. So you sort of need hope.

And hope is what those three candidates give people. Which is no easy task with a populace as apathetic and jaded as ours. But it's pretty fucking powerful.

So here's what happens, and this is what the political pundits and media talking heads have yet to realize. All the elections in the coming year or so are going to have record turnout, and that turnout is going to push for the candidate who inspires hope and represents change.

Let's look at Obama vs Clinton for an example.

This is just anecdotal, but in my experience people who support Clinton are pretty lukewarm about her, and people who don't support her hate her fucking guts. So her supporters aren't necessarily passionate about going to support her, and those who don't support her are passionate about going to vote for someone else.

Obama has the opposite situation. People who support him are excited to do so. Those who don't support him don't seem to hate him, but sort of have a lukewarm (lukecold?) attitude towards him. There's not a lot of hate for Obama (unlike Clinton).

Anyway, Obama's motivated supporters definitely show up to vote for him. Clinton's haters show up to vote against her (and may well vote for Obama). Obama wins, Clinton loses.

This doesn't have a perfect analogue with the Patrick/Healey and Wong/Donnelly races, because I don't think people had the same hatred of Healey or Donnelly that they have for Clinton, they were just uninspired by them. Still, if you have one inspiring candidate and one boring milquetoast, the inspiring candidate is always going to win.

When it comes to Huckabee, it's sort of the same thing. Which is weird, but allow me to explain.

Willard "Mitt" Romney is the most boring piece of offal on the planet. Dull dull dull. He's the functional choice. The one with the nice hair and a lot of money. Seems like he'll win by the old-school thought.

But Huckabee excites people. Granted, the people he excites are batshit crazy. But it's the same deal as with the Democrats. He excites the crazy people while Willard just sort of appeals to the dullards. Hence, Huckabee won because the crazy idiots came out to vote in droves.

No idea if that win will carry over to other primaries (issues of money and so forth, plus Huck's general insanity do still matter a bit), but it should be a warning shot for Romney. Boring dudes don't win when the country wants change and vision!

Anyway, yeah. Vision is extremely important in a political leader. Hope and passion are very important to getting elected, and not so bad to have in a leader either.

And the media isn't going to get it yet again. What else is new?

I'll give my prediction, just in case you care. I've expressed this privately before the caucus, but might as well get it on the record in case I'm right...

For the Democrats, it comes down to Obama & Edwards, with Obama coming out on top. Hillary takes a couple of states, but that's it. Maybe an Obama/Edwards ticket in the general. Anyway, Obama wins president.

For the Republicans... well, I'm rooting for Huckabee just because he's so totally unelectable. It'll probably be Willard Romney though. Who will lose in the general election, just like he would have lost had he run for governor of Massachusetts again. McCain's the only Republican with a chance in hell of winning the presidency, but the guy doesn't have the money or support from the far-right base to get the nomination.

So there you have it. Feel free to make fun of me if I'm wrong.

Sentinel a self-described car crash!

A friend who for some bizarre reason reads the Worcester Business Journal forwarded me this semi-interesting interview with Chuck Owen, the publisher of the Sentinel.

Most of it's boring business-speak, but there are a few telling bits. Shall we quote them? We shall!

People go to stock car races not so much because they want to watch it go around and around and around. They go to see the car crash. We're reporting on certain pieces of news, news that people may not like, and they may call it negative, but it gets people to respond, to clean up, to take an active role in their community.

Well, what an enlightened approach to news reporting! I've never heard anything like that before!

Okay, I have. But it's usually used as a derogative way of describing the pathetic state of news reporting. Bragging about it is a touch bizarre.

Now, he's probably right that people go to stock car races for the crashes. But that's a fucking stock car race! Its primary purposes are to entertain rednecks and to sell advertising space!

The Sentinel, on the other hand, is a newspaper (albeit a poor one). Its purpose is ostensibly to inform people about the news, not to entertain them with fiery crashes and traumatic head injuries.

Now, I can't claim to have watched sports reports about stock car racing, but my bet is that they tell you about more than just the crashes. No doubt certain crashes are mentioned, but I'm willing to wager that they also tell you about who won the race, maybe some of the tactics, maybe some analysis of the flow of the race itself, et cetera. Which I guess makes them more newsy than our local paper, which only cares about the crashes.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to reporting on negative things. If anything, I think the media is too timid about doing so (when's the last time you saw a war photo in a newspaper that actually conveyed the horrors of war?). But it can't be your only focus, and it can't exist in a vacuum. You need context or these sorts of stories are both misleading and pointless.

Sure, you can run your depressing stories like "A Family's Christmas Nightmare". But while a family getting robbed of its hard-earned XBox 360 and Video iPod does indeed suck, you've got other families out there who didn't get robbed because they had nothing to steal.

Do those families not have nightmares too? When you can't even consider pricey electronic gifts because you're struggling to figure out how to both heat your home and feed your kids this month are you not newsworthy?

No, you're not. Not for the Sentinel, at least.

It's not sexy to suffer from complicated societal ills. There's no car crash moment in slowly wasting away. There's no easily identifiable burglar to demonize when the whole system is at fault. So your problems aren't going to be in the paper. Sorry about that!

How about the assertion that this negative focus "gets people to respond, to clean up, to take an active role in their community"?

Well, it's bullshit. Going back to the car crash analogy, what role does the average citizen even have? I'm not a doctor, I'm not a fireman, I can't fix cars. It's a one-time event that's responded to by the people best suited to respond to it. If anything, these stories give people a feeling of helplessness. That the world is rough, but that they can't really do anything about it.

What we really can do something about are those bigger context-laden stories (the ones that don't get reported because they're not sexy). You know, big issues like poverty and homelessness and suffering. They're things that take a lot of people doing a lot of work to really make a dent, but they're not dramatic.

And if they don't get reported on, they're not even visible problems to a lot of people.

So there you have it. The Sentinel will start giving a shit about you and me just as soon as something exciting (and terrible) happens to us. If you're slowly starving to death or something, don't look to them for help. It's just not car-crashy enough.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Meh.

I had a post sort of half-written about this dumb Sentinel article and how they keep trying to create controversy where none belongs and then I got rambling about religious intolerance and zero-sum game theory and blah blah blah.

Then I realized just how fucking bored I was with the whole thing, so I stopped.

But I used this picture of Zombie Jesus that I found somewhere and sort of liked it, so here's a totally useless post just so I don't lose it.

Oh, but I did like this article, because of this quote:

[R]esidents who live near Kirby's bar [Hooligans] said they have a videotape of a fight outside of Hooligans that they want the commission to view. Tony Reyes, who lives at 35 Day St., said the tape shows a fight outside of the bar with blood and people urinating in public.

I want to see that videotape, because it raises so many questions!

Was the urination part of the fight? Was it used as a weapon? If not, how could these people manage to pee with a fight going on right near them? I have trouble if someone parks himself at the urinal next to me when I'm about to go. I can't imagine being able to pee with the danger of flying fists and blood heading my way.

Report more on this, Sentinel! Important questions have been raised!

Holy Zombie Jesus things are boring lately...

Nazis and Arabs and Dickbags, oh my!

One thing I'll give the far right credit for; they're remarkably predictable. Predictably wrong, yes, but predictable.

You know what they're going to say well before they say it. You also know it's going to be dumb, but that every idiot right-winger out there will repeat it until it almost develops an air of legitimacy. There aren't a lot of original ideas coming out of that ideology, but there are a lot of lies.

What am I getting at? Who knows? But local radio dickbag Chuck Morse has a new blog post up that you could have seen coming a mile away.

It's not really worth following that link, because most of his post is misdirection, but here's the opening paragraph from the charmingly titled "Iran Report echoes American approach to the Nazi Holocaust":

Israel government minister Yitzhak Cohen, responding to the US Intelligence report concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was shut down in 2003 stated: “The manner in which the Americans relate to the intelligence report on Iran is similar to the way in which they viewed reports they received during the Holocaust on railways transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their death at Auschwitz," [sic]

Well, if Israel says something, it must be true, right? They never do anything bad!

After that paragraph Morse goes on to babble about Nazis and ignore the whole issue of Iran. I suspect Morse has never heard of Godwin's Law or Reductio ad Hitlerum, but he pretty much embodies both of them. The man loves a good (and by good I mean logically fallacious) Nazi analogy!

Because that's the whole post. He doesn't really make any arguments about Iran, he just quotes shit about Nazi Germany and expects his readers to jump to the conclusion that Iran is the same thing because of his headline. Which is dumb.

Morse's only real mention of Iran boils down to this:

Author Kenneth Timmerman claims that Thomas Fingar, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council which issued the report, harbors political motives for publishing what his sources in the Middle East call “a deliberate disinformation campaign” cooked up by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who laundered fake information and fed it to the United States through Revolutionary Guards posing as diplomats in Europe.

Oh, so it isn't Morse's idea at all. It's Ken Timmerman's! Timmerman, by the way has an awesome web site. I love the banner at the top and the horrible flashing things everywhere! Also the lack of any evidence for his delusional claims!

Anyway, the basic idea here is that people who are set on invading Iran are unhappy about the NIE report that indicates that "Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015."

Oh, that sounds like good news to me! But it's bad news to the warmongering right, because it means they don't have a good excuse for invading Iran.

Mind you, if the report said "OMG Iran is totally going to bomb us tomorrow!" these same people would be cumming in their pants. But since it didn't their only recourse is to try to discredit it. Shame they didn't do that with the totally crap reports about Iraq's make-believe WMD program, but it's not like they're actually interested in the truth in either case. They just need a way to push their agenda and this NIE makes that harder.

Now, the parallel I've just made between the intelligence on Iran and the intelligence on Iraq is a totally obvious and relevant one to make. I think any half-conscious follower of politics would make the same one.

Morse doesn't. He sees some parallel with Nazis. I mean, everyone knows Nazis were bad, so obviously if there's a parallel then it means that this report must be bad too, right?

To quote Dickbag:

In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz and subsequently issued a report in which they estimated that the number of Jews killed in Auschwitz between June 1942 and April 1944 was about 1.75 million.

Incidentally, that report actually was wrong. Current estimates put the total number of people killed at Auschwitz at about 1.1 million, 90% of them Jewish. Still a horrible thing of course, but facts are facts...

Morse goes on to babble about history and how we really should have done something about Auschwitz when we heard this report (which I'd agree with in theory, but I'm hardly an expert on WWII-era military tactics), and blames it on this dude McCloy. He closes with:

McCloy's motives in ignoring and in covering up the Nazi genocide are not known, nor are the motives of State Department official Thomas Finger and his coterie in their present attempt to obscure what appears to be a program by another genocidal leader to build an instrument of mass death, to be used against the Jews.

Whuh?

Let me put Morse's argument (if you can call it that) in a nutshell here.

1. When the US got intelligence about Auschwitz in WWII it should have acted on it.
2. The US just got intelligence about Iran saying it's not the nuclear threat we've been led to believe.
3. Because of 1), we should ignore 2) and bomb the fuck out of Iran.
4. QED

Make any sense to you? Because it doesn't to me!

Okay, maybe that's not fair. I left out Morse's number 2.5: "The people who made the Iran NIE are big liar-pants, because some crackpot says so!" But what the fuck does that have to do with Nazis? Oh, nothing! What does it have to do with reality? Also nothing! What does it have to do with pushing an agenda no matter what the truth is? A whole lot!

I don't know if the NIE is right or wrong. Nor does Morse. Nor does anybody except the people running (or not running) the nuclear programs in Iran.

What I do know is that when you get down to it, neither Morse nor any of these other right-wing warmongers really give a shit if the NIE is right or wrong. They want to bomb Iran, and no amount of evidence suggesting that's a bad idea is going to change their minds.

Oh, and Nazis were bad.

The War on Paganism!

Here I was, sitting back and trying to simply ignore the whole "Holiday Season," sitting at work, watching people slip around hilariously on the ice outside, when my peace was disturbed!

I blame the time-traveling Mr. Lincoln for forwarding me this Sentinel editorial, no doubt in an effort to get me riled up. And riled up am I!

The editorial is written by Sentinel editor/douchebag Jeff McMenemy and is entitled "Tree controversy shows what the world is coming to."

Oddly enough the piece doesn't really explain what the world is supposedly coming to. Is it Armageddon? Cultural awareness? Orgies on every streetcorner? Also, are you really supposed to end a sentence with a preposition like that, Mr. Editor? Shame, shame!

Anyway, McMenemy is apparently a Teutonic Pagan and wants to push the trappings of his crazy-ass religion (I can say that because my girlfriend is a pagan) on the rest of us. To wit:

I don't understand the world today sometimes. [Unicow's note: this is both self-evident and a really sucky sentence.]

Case in point being the decision made by Samoset Principal Donna M. Pierce early last week to take down the school's giving tree -- which was used to collect donations to give to less fortunate people in Leominster -- because she received several complaints from parents and school employees who said it wasn't fair to put a religious symbol in the schools during the holidays.

Holy crap he's a bad writer. Not to mention a misleading one. Did people really think it wasn't "fair" to put up a religious symbol (in this case a Pagan one) in a public school? I'd bet they thought it wasn't constitutional, which is unrelated to fairness. McMenemy clearly has no qualms about pushing his nutty nature-worship on the rest of us, but the Constitution of this country isn't real big on that kind of behavior.

He goes on to say:

Pierce later agreed to put the tree back up after a huge public backlash.

Hmm. Do you think Mr. Pantheism there reads his own newspaper?

Because there was this story which explained pretty clearly that...

A parent put up the tree Friday to the "surprise" of faculty members and students, who had been working on a display that now includes Hanukkah and Kwanzaa symbols, as well as Christmas decorations, Superintendent Nadine Binkley said Wednesday.

"A parent came in and put up the tree without consulting anybody," she said. "It was an individual parent who chose to do it as opposed to a unified effort from the school community."

Oh, what a huge controversy! The school took down something that was erected too soon only to put it back up when it was due to go up anyway! Oh no!

So, some parent comes in and does something that could be argued to promote religion in a public school setting if left standing alone. Instead of leaving it there, it's taken down until such a time as the planned and coordinated Xmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Whatever decorations can get put up and thereby avoid potential establishment clause issues (displays for religious holidays are okay in public schools only if you give equal time to all comers, and don't promote any religion). Horrible!

[Another note: I was going to make an establishment clause / Santa Claus joke here but decided against it. You're welcome.]

(Also, if you're curious about what is and is not acceptable when it comes to religious holidays in public schools, the Christian Legal Society has some information here.)

Actually, what the principal did makes a lot of sense. But it's not controversial and doesn't fit into McMenemy's preconceived "War On Pagan Traditions That Are Explicitly Warned Against By The Bible."

I mean, only an idiot would freak out over schools following their own schedules, right? Or is he advocating anarchy in our public schools now? What if the parent had put the tree up in September, Mr. Goat-worship? Should we just leave it up and thereby abandon all order? Think of the children!

If McMenemy had left it at that I wouldn't have been too bothered. I mean, he's just one dumbass among many. But for some reason he had to get nasty:

The correct thing for Pierce to do would have been to thank everyone for their concern, and then politely tell them the tree was staying up, and suggest they could lessen their chagrin by donating something to put on the tree.

That way these thin-skinned, politically correct left wingers -- because you know we Republicans love Christmas -- might actually do something helpful for once in their lives.

What the fuck?

"We Republicans love Christmas?"

Okay, I'd like to think that was tongue-in-cheek, and McMenemy just doesn't have the writing skills to convey sarcasm. But I don't think it was, which just means that Jeff McMenemy is an unbelievably huge asshole. Hey, fuck you, Jeff!

I get told by people all the time that Xmas is about giving and brotherhood and all that (hey, wasn't Jesus into brotherhood too?), and you come in defending it with the most stupidly divisive statement I've ever read? Fuck you again!

What, Democrats don't love Xmas? That'll come as news to an awful lot of people. Now, I hate Xmas, but I hardly speak for all Democrats (and my hate has more to do with the secular annoyance and conspicuous consumption than the let's-pretend-Jesus-was-born-in-December-even-though-he-wasn't religious tripe anyway).

And to suggest that the left-wing doesn't do anything to help the needy? What world have you been living in? Fuck you yet again! Fuck you and all your animal-sacrificing buddies!

I wasn't opposed to having Xmas trees in schools before (when done correctly, in a way so as not to promote religion), but now I am! Just to piss off Jeff McMenemy.

People like McMenemy are so keen on destroying the First Amendment and breaking down the separation between church and state (and make no mistake, that's what this is really about), that they become blind to what's actually going on.

In reality there's no controversy here. There's no sign of "what the world is coming to." It's a non-story that the Sentinel has tried to turn into a controversy by having three stories and two opinion pieces about it (so far). All that's really here is some right-wind fucktards freaking out over nothing, and using it as an excuse to attack people who they disagree with.

I may not subscribe to McMenemy's neo-paganist beliefs, but he's welcome to them. Trying to stir shit up for no reason isn't cool, though. Nor is it in keeping with his supposed belief system. Nerthus would be very disappointed!

ps Also, nice job pushing your pro-death penalty agenda in the same editorial thing, Jeff. 'Tis the season for giving (lethal injections)!

Why Does Lisa Wong Hate America?

Sad, sad news today.

It seems that Mayor-Elect Lisa Wong has a problem with the incoherent ramblings old-school comedy stylings of beloved nonagenarian Andy Rooney.

I realize this is deeply troubling, so if you need to take a few moments to collect yourself, please do so now. It gets ugly from here on out.

The story begins a few days ago. Whichever one has the day with Andy Rooney giving his wonderful commentaries. Sunday? Yeah, Sunday.

Anyway, Rooney had the ingenious idea of looking at local newspaper headlines out of context and then complaining that he didn't understand them. Hilarious stuff, and totally original! Nobody ever makes fun of newspaper headlines!

You can view the genius of his performance here (link courtesy of 1970's Abraham Lincoln, the master of all internettery). By all means, do it now! Don't wait!

Did you notice the mention of Wong and Fitchburg? Hey, I know who that is! I also know that she's not a "he," but I'm going to assume that was dementia intentional and was just Andy being too lazy to even read one sentence into the article madcap crazy hilarious like usual! Oh man that guy is funny!

Because old man ranting comedy gold like that is obviously big news, the Sentinel today ran a story about it! Good reporting for once, Sentinel!

Rooney's rant focused on how newspaper headlines are too broad and do not give enough information to readers.

As an example, Rooney held up a headline from the Nov. 7 Boston Globe which read "Wong Claims Win in Fitchburg," and used it as an example of headlines that are vague.

"You don't know if Wong won in Fitchburg or if he just claimed to have won," Rooney said.

Oh man, that's lame funny stuff!

Anyway, the Sentinel went out of its way to interview Wong herself (himself?) about it!

"I think it's great actually that Fitchburg was mentioned in a positive -- if not humorous -- light," Wong said.

Oh no!

Wong is clearly calling the mention "not humorous!" Or maybe she's not, but that's how I'm choosing to interpret it!

That's Andy Rooney, national annoyance treasure you're calling "not humorous," Miss Wong! Which leads me to my question: Why do you hate America?

Also, other stuff might be going on in town. Beats me. This whole Andy Rooney thing has sent me into a deep funk about our mayor-elect's apparent lack of a sense of humor. Also, I had trouble coming up with the headline for this post, and I blame her for that too. Man, it's a dark day in Fitchburg...

Thank you, Sentinel, for your waste of space that could have been spent reporting on something meaningful important article!

Apes Evolved From Conservative Talk Show Hosts

Election's over, enough local politics for a minute!

As a guy who strives to provide a different voice in Fitchburg, I ingest a lot of media that I quite frankly can't stand. But unless you know what other people are saying you're in no position to point out that they're often totally wrong. That's why I read skim the Sentinel thoroughly for things to make fun of and that's why I occasionally listen to the horrible Chuck Morse show on WEIM.

I happened to be listening last night while Morse went off about how people who believe the theory of evolution is correct (i.e. everyone with even a basic grasp of science) are big fat jerks. Now, I may be a big jerk, but I'm not fat. Morse also updated his terrible blog with information about it! Incidentally, I think his blog gets even fewer readers than his radio show has listeners, which might put it into negative numbers somehow.

Morse is clearly neither a scientist nor a theologian. Nor does he seem to have any real understanding of science or theology. You'd think that would make him unqualified to have a meaningful discussion of the evolution vs creationism "controvery," and you'd be right!

But funny thing about evolution. Most scientific theories are debated by scientists. If some radio host started going off on a totally uninformed tirade about the theory of relativity people would just laugh at him. But evolution has been politicized to the point where anyone who's even heard of Darwin can rant about how horrible evolutionary theory is and have a similarly uninformed subset of idiots believe him.

But this is science, not politics. So let's get to the facts, shall we?

First, a quote from Morse's blog so you can see where this all came from:

I am proud of comedian, author, economist, and former presidential speechwriter Ben Stein for taking on the thorny issue of evolution versus intelligent design in his new film "Expelled - No Intelligence Allowed" due to be released in theatres [sic] February, 2008.

Besides delving into the raucous debate over the scientific legitimacy of Darwinism, the theory that claims that man randomly developed from muck and was formed by mutating over millions of years, the movie also documents the Stalinist tactics of the darwiniacs, the devout cult followers of this questionable theory.

Hmm, okay. Ben Stein was a teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." And though I don't see "scientist" or "theologian" in his credentials either, people seem to be under the odd impression that he's kind of smart.

After all, he had that show where people tried to steal his money, right? No way could that have been set up to mostly ask questions that he'd be likely to know the answers to!

Morse, as usual, began spouting things that just aren't true right away. There's absolutely no "raucous debate over the scientific legitimacy of Darwinism." There's a political debate, not a scientific one. Sure, there are debates within the field of evolutionary biology, but they're about elements of the theory, not the legitimacy of the theory as a whole. Nor is the theory "questionable" in the usual sense. All scientific theories are open to questioning, but the validity of the theory isn't in doubt in the scientific community (it's only in doubt by the moron community).

Also, evolutionary theory doesn't really claim that "man randomly developed from muck." It has little to say about the origins of life, and is really about the development of life after that point (which actually means it's not even incompatible with a "creator," but more about that later). He's right about mutations being important though, so good for him getting at least one fact right!

Morse talked last night about how he considers evolutionary theory "just a theory," and how he wrote a column several years ago that said that and got a lot of criticism. Chuck Morse apparently does not know the difference between a "theory" (as used by the general public) and a "scientific theory" (as used by scientists, natch). This is a common argument used by similarly-confused creationists, like the Cobb County Board of Education, whose unconstitutional sticker for textbooks is reproduced below.



Anyway, here's a link that explains the difference in ways even Morse should be able to understand. For those of you too lazy to follow it or that need a refresher, in a nutshell:

A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology...

A theory is developed only through the scientific method, meaning it is the final result of a series of rigorous processes. Note that a theory never becomes a law unless it was very narrow to begin with...

...Real scientific theories must be falsifiable. So-called "theories" based on religion, such as creationism or intelligent design are, therefore, not scientific theories. They are not falsifiable and they do not follow the scientific method.

Pretty simple, no?

Evolutionary theory, of course, is a scientific theory. One that's as well-proven and accepted as quantum theory or the theory of relativity. It's open to debate and revision, but outright rejection of evolutionary theory would require some pretty dramatic evidence against it.

Back to Morse:

Stein reveals how how [sic] educators, scientists and commentators have been publically [sic] denounced, scorned, and in some cases denied tenure and even fired for the “crime” of believing that there might be evidence of design” [sic] in nature.

Maybe that's true. I don't know. If a science teacher is denying evolution in favor of creationism I'd certainly deny him tenure. Similarly, I'd deny him tenure if he was staying the Earth is flat or that gravity only exists because God keeps shoving everything to the ground. Science teachers are supposed to teach science, not crackpot theories.

Come to think of it, evolution is probably better understood than gravity (which works, but isn't well-explained). Probably even better than quantum theory (which is just incredibly hard to wrap your head around). Quantum theory is accepted as fact though, because it explains how the world works with incredible accuracy. Evolutionary theory does the same thing. And that's what a scientific theory is about! If it works, it's a good theory. If it doesn't, it's rejected and hopefully replaced by a better one. Hurrah for science!

Morse seems to have a touch of PTSD from his dramatic loss when he ran against Barney Frank for Congress:

I had my own run-in on this issue when I ran for Congress in Massachusetts against Barney Frank in 2004. In his opposition research, Frank had uncovered an article I had written that (gasp) questioned Darwin's theory of evolution. He brought this up during a joint television appearance on NECN - Nightline with Chet Curtis and Jim Braude.

Frank looked angry as he exposed what he considered to be a bombshell, a shocking scandal. By questioning Darwinism, I was not to be taken seriously. [blah blah blah]

Yeah, indeed Morse shouldn't be taken seriously. But it's not for "questioning Darwinism," it's just for being really really dumb. I wouldn't take someone who denies the Holocaust seriously, I wouldn't take someone who denies the theory of relativity seriously, I wouldn't take someone who thought that when I hit the button to open my garage door invisible pixies flew over to it in order to do the heavy lifting seriously, and I wouldn't take someone who denies evolution seriously.

It's not about asking questions (science actually encourages that), it's about intelligence. If you question evolution intelligently then you should be taken seriously. If you deny it wholesale because your invisible friend in the sky told you to then you absolutely should not be taken seriously.

Morse ends his blog post with this paragraph:

Darwin's evolution is the cornerstone of the secular faith because it removes the possibility of God. Thus, God is replaced by the State which is, according to the secular faith, charged with the moral responsibility to evolve man. This was the faith of the ancient pagans, the idol-worshippers of biblical times. The state set up an idol, such as Baal, and dictated the means of worship down the lines of supporting "enlightened" state power. This also gave the King, who controlled the false idol, the moral pretext to denounce and remove his enemies. Perhaps not much has changed.

Okay, ignore for a minute that most of it makes no damn sense and let's just focus on this idea that evolution=atheism. Morse doesn't come right out and say that in his blog, but he did on the radio. As we've come to expect, it too is totally made up.

Of course there are plenty of atheists who accept evolution as fact. The brilliant Richard Dawkins is perhaps one of the best-known evolutionary biologists at work today, and has taken an extremely strong stance against religion (and I dare anyone of faith to read The God Delusion without questioning what they believe). But there are plenty of others in the field who believe in a god.

One very well-known evolutionary biologist who also believed in a god was the late Stephen Jay Gould. Gould introduced the concept of Non-Overlapping Magesteria, which boiled down to a belief that religion and science are seperate "magisteria" with nothing to say about each other. For that matter even the Vatican under John Paul II has endorsed evolution, though I think the current pope isn't on board with that anymore.

The head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, has also espoused the theory of Theistic Evolution (TE). I happen to disagree with Collins (personally I'm a Pastafarian), but the fact that so many respected biologists are clearly theists pretty effectively debunks Morse's claim.

As for Theistic Evolution, it's the belief "that religious teachings about creation and scientific theories of evolution need not be contradictory." And indeed, they need not! Who's to say that a god didn't set evolution in motion? That'd be a pretty clever trick! Certainly smarter than creating men with nipples and all humans with an appendix that does nothing except sometimes get inflamed and kill people!

One last thing I want to address. Morse talked a lot last night about how he got so much anger and hatred and so forth for his evolution denial. He seemed baffled by it, and suggested that evolutionary theory was the one thing in this country you're not allowed to question.

Now, I'd actually argue that other people's religious beliefs are the one thing you're not allowed to question, but let's just go with this...

Chuck, the reason people react so strongly is because you're totally uninformed about the subject you're discussing. To reject evolution at this point is (rightfully) seen by many people as a sign both of ignorance and of a desire to impose your religious beliefs on others.

No question here, so-called "Intelligent Design" is just creationism in fancy clothes. Its goal is to get God into the public schools, which is clearly forbidden by the Constitution. If you endorse gutting the Bill of Rights, you're going to piss people off. People who are pissed off are going to react strongly. It's not just atheists, it's anyone who respects the First Amendment.

I haven't focused much on the creationism side of this argument, because I believe it to be nonsense. You can believe it if you like, but the instant that belief turns into a desire to corrupt the minds of our children with fairy tales when they should be learning real science, you earn yourself an enemy. And I'm hardly alone in that.

Question evolution all you want, but learn a thing or two about it first. Try reading a book that doesn't agree with your religious preconceptions once in awhile. Just being a dumbass won't get you far.

Wong Won, Donnelly Didn't

See that alliteration in the title? Impressive, huh?

Anyway, per the Fitchburg Pride, Lisa Wong just won the mayoral election with "a mandate-setting 72 percent of the vote."

Holy crap, Fitchburg! Way to go!

Now, I didn't make any predictions here, but I privately had told people I expected her to take "65% easily." Getting 72% actually doesn't even surprise me that much. People who had never taken an interest in local politics before were all over this race. That alone should have told anyone paying attention that Wong had it in the bag all along.

I don't have any information on the other races yet. Hopefully Wong's win means lots of smart people went to vote today (and indeed turnout appears to have been reasonably high). So hopefully lots of good candidates got in. I'll probably write something about all that tomorrow.

Anyway, this is a short post. I just wanted to congratulate Mayor-Elect Wong. Lots of people have high hopes for you. Try not to fuck up.

Update: make that 75%, not 72%. Damn you, Fitchburg Pride!

Councilor-at-large time!

Note to readers: I started this post reviewing all the Councilor-at-large websites but got distracted part of the way through. The election is now happening tomorrow and I'm too tired and lazy to finish what I started and update the bits that have changed since I wrote this like two weeks ago. Rather than let what I had go to waste I'm just going to post it. Enjoy. Or don't. Whatever.

Do vote though. And vote for the right people. Or else.

Post begins here ----\/

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Time for more website reviews!

We've been through the mayoral candidates. We've been through the Ward Councilors who actually bothered to have websites. Now we have the councilors-at-large!

There are five councilor-at-large positions. One of them is currently held by Tom Donnelly, who won't be returning. Annie DeMartino and Thomas Conry are both incumbents, but don't seem to have websites. Jesus "Jay" Cruz and Dean Tran are incumbents who do have websites! We also have newcomers Shaun Cormier and Marcus DiNatale running (who have websites).

Once again I've failed to find a decent list or just who's running and how many seats are contestable (I'm assuming all, but who knows!). Shouldn't stuff like this be easy to find? Isn't that what the internet is for? Could some kind person with more time than me put one together? Maybe the city clerk or a newspaper reporter or somebody? Sheesh!

Not that it matters for this post. Here I'm just going to critique the websites of the four Councilor-at-large candidates who do have websites. Anyone else can go to hell.

Let's go in alphabetical order, shall we?

Shaun Cormier: www.shauncormier.com

What are the first impressions of Cormier's site?

Every page has a bigass picture of the city, which is actually the only picture on the site! It's not a bad picture though, and the site is actually pretty simple and clean-looking. Also at the bottom it says "This website is designed and maintained by Shaun Cormier," which I'm going to take literally. If he did indeed make it all himself he actually did quite a nice job. Seems like a FrontPage jobby.

On his front page he does the traditional "I'm running for office because I want improvement in the stuff that currently sucks" thing, lists where to vote, and gives this more-specific paragraph:

If elected as Councilor At-Large, I will strive for improving communications between city officials, propose that the City of Fitchburg use renewable energy sources, look into tax relief for first time homebuyers, and find ways to attract more recreational businesses to Fitchburg. I will further strive to find ways for the city to save money.

Not terrible, but not inspiring either.

Moving to his About Me page, we find no picture! Hey, everyone else has had a picture! This lack of picture may not be a bad thing. Cormier's quite young-looking (and I believe is just 22, so that makes sense), and conceivably his youth could turn off some old fogey voters. Personally I see it as a strong point, but old people have more votes than I do. Then again, young people have computers.

He gives some of his background (lived here forever, etc), talks about his job (sadly without mentioning the really awesome parts), and takes this interesting swipe at the current state of political discourse in the town:

There have been many negative articles written towards city departments blaming city council or city council blaming city departments on certain issues. I want to see all city departments working together to help solve problems. I would especially like to see a better relationship with the city council and mayor.

Oh, snap! Take that, stupid people who can't get along! Cormier's coming to town and he's going to make you all do trust-building exercises and give each other Secret Santa gifts!

Next we have his Ideas page, which is like an "Issues" page, but without the word "Issues" being involved.

It's pretty decent, actually. The best we've seen from Council candidates so far, at least. Renewable energy is the top bullet (I'll come back to that in a moment). He wants to kick the asses of "Delinquent Tax Payers," who I would argue should actually be called "Tax Non-payers," but whatever. He spells "increased" wrong in this bit, but it's just a typo. Still, Unicow hates tpyos!

He also proposes incentives for first-time home buyers, which is nice. Wisely wants to exploit FSC, which is something a lot of people have been saying for awhile now but nobody has managed to do. Then there's more bugging the city officials to get together and hug. Fine.

Last, he proposes a Route 2 On/Off ramp (both West and Eastbound) on Mt. Elam Rd. Which I've heard talked about before and isn't a bad idea.

The next page is actually the most prominent link, entitled Renewable Energy Information. Cormier is clearly big into renewable energy, which is something I also feel strongly about. So kudos for that!

He talked about the need for renewable energy on his "Ideas" page, and here he gives basically just a buttload of links to information about it. Unfortunately he doesn't go into any great detail. Just links. Which I suppose is okay, but I'd like to see more explanation of where and how these technologies can be best used in Fitchburg. Wikipedia pages do not help me with that! They're great if you want to learn to speak Klingon or find out the history of LOLCats, though.

Then there's a Links page.

Hey, I'm on it! That's awesome! Go me!

Anyway, it's just links and links are boring. It's sort of nice that he links to his opponents though. Classy touch!

The last page is a contact page, and suitably uninteresting.

Conclusion: Actually, not too bad. It's sparse, yes, but it does have a few specific ideas and remains pretty light on the political rhetoric. The design is simple but unobtrusive. I'd like to see the renewable energy stuff fleshed out a bit more, though. Also, the site is totally devoid of any pictures of the toys he made. I want to see the fire-breathing horse "Butterscotch!"

Moving on...

Jay Cruz: www.councillorcruz.com

First off, I have a major problem with Cruz spelling the word "councilor" as "councillor" (with two l's). Yeah, I know both may in fact be acceptable in some areas, but "councilor" is the right way! If you're on the fucking council you should know how to spell councilor!

Anyway, Cruz's page is done by Kreative Dezign, the same people I criticized for the god-awful Seney site. Yet this site doesn't look too bad. It does have a very strange looking blobby blue picture on the front page. Which I guess is an old-timey picture of Fitchburg, but looks like crap.

Let's start with Jay's Bio!

He went to Monty Tech, was in the Marines, has some kids and a wife, served on a couple of boards, and owns a heating & air conditioning business. Boring. Next!

Oh, next he just tells me How to Volunteer. But he hasn't given me a reason to want to volunteer yet so I'm not going to. Then it's Make a Contribution. Same deal. And on to Fundraising, which I almost skipped!

Good thing I didn't, because I would have missed the charming photos of him surrounded by former mayors, children, and assorted old people!



Okay, that was a waste of time too. How about some issues or something Jay?

The next link is called Articles and has one article on it: "Cruz Plans City Council Campaign / If Elected, Cruz could be the only Latino on the Fitchburg City Council." Umm, he already is. He's an incumbent (albeit an appointed one). Big whoop.

Then he has Contact Information, an offsite link to register to vote, Where to Vote, and Useful Links, which aren't all that useful and don't include me!

What the fuck, Jay? No issues at all? No information about where you stand? Nothing?

Oh wait, there's a link to Charter Reform on the other side of the page. But argh! It just takes you to a question of whether you'd sign a petition to support charter reform! He doesn't even tell you if he supports it!

Fucking waste of time.

Conclusion: This site wasn't half as ugly as the other Kreative Dezign site I've looked at during this process, but it suffers the same problem. Total lack of meaningful content. It has like 5 different ways to contact Cruz in order to help him, but absolutely nothing about how he'd actually help me. This is not an informational website. It's not even about self-promotion. It's about trying to get people who already support you to help more, because nobody else is going to have a clue what Cruz thinks. Plus he spells councilor wrong. Bad!

Marcus DiNatale: marcusdinatale.com

First impression? This site was designed for a tiny browser window. There's a little box with the important stuff in it, then a giant field of purply-red stars (communism?) as the background. I'm not crazy about the style, but it does look professionally done.

The front has a picture of Marcus, along with his slogan: "Stabilize, Prioritize, and Harmonize." For some reason this makes me picture him in a barbershop quartet.

He "respectfully" thanks you for visiting his website (really Marcus, it was no problem!), and seems to want you to send him a yard sign for some reason. His "priorities" are also listed, but is really the first part of a linked page (fancy!), so we'll deal with that when I visit the links.

Handily, the annoying "Volunteer/Contribute/Contact" links are all set aside from the links that might actually be interesting to me, so I'm just going to ignore all of those! Let's see what Mr. "I have a cooler goatee than Jay Cruz" has to say!

First we have Meet Marcus. Oh my god that's a confusing picture! The picture of Marcus in the banner has a goatee. In the picture of his family his father has a goatee and he's clean-shaven! But they look fairly similar! I've added some stuff to this screenshot to try to explain it:



As you can see, the goatee-Marcus up top corresponds to the clean-shaven Marcus down below. Disregard the goateed older DiNatale (state Rep. Steve!), and the sister (who really you wouldn't get confused about anyway but happened to be in the picture).

Why is everyone so proud of being a "lifelong resident" of Fitchburg? That's not a qualification! Also, he lists education and stuff. He's on the school committee too, which is good.

Moving on, he has a lengthy Priorities page! Like really dense-looking and long. The sort of long thing that actually discourages me from reading it, to be honest. I'm going to do it anyway, of course. But if I'm discouraged, then you can bet the casual web-weenie is even more discouraged.

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Hello again, readers. This is where I got distracted! I don't remember what did it, but it was probably related to sex, drugs, or rock'n'roll. Regardless, I didn't finish, but really all that was left was to make fun of Marcus some more and then hit Dean Tran.

I'll give super-short reviews of both of their sites just so you don't feel slighted:

DiNatale: Okay, but boring.
Tran: Has a thing called a "shoutbox", which is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Man, if I ever actually developed the motivation to review this thing I would have endlessly made fun of it. But I didn't, so bully for him.

There you go, folks!