Massachusetts still the most tech savvy state
Congratulations, Massachusetts.
Massachusetts remains the “gold standard” for other states thanks to its institutions, cutting-edge firms, and ability to retain a skilled work force.
1. Massachusetts
2. Maryland
3. Colorado
4. California
5. Washington
6. Virginia
7. Connecticut
8. Utah
9. New Hampshire
10. Rhode Island
Outlawing the future
Looks like some new water colors are in order! I can only imagine this rendering from the official City Square website was created in error. To think Berkley Investments would suggest street vendors could actually play a role in the revitalization of Downtown Worcester. Who do these people think they are? Urban planners!?!! Look how smug that cartoon vendor lady looks as she steals business from legitimate brick and mortars! The nerve.
May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008
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Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Motherfucker
Tits
A stupid week of stupid
Wow. This was a hell of a week for those of us who enjoy a good laugh at the expense of local elected officials and other public figures. At last count Worcester took exactly 32 baby steps backward this week, leaving us approximately in 1957. Good work Worcester!
Here’s the highlight reel:
Billy and Babs Up in Smoke
The Wheeler & Woolsey of the Worcester Temperance Movement, Billy Breault and Barbara Haller saw by far the most action this week. Not ones to settle with forcing a private business to pay police to patrol public ways the pair found the time to draft a letter to a whole bunch of local officials regarding the use of Narcan to keep people alive. The letter is ultimately an exercise in patience. If you could imagine an early alchemist attempting to debate a modern day theoretical physicist in the basic principals of the universe; thats essentially what this letter is. Two people so completely ignorant of the world they live in you almost have to begin questioning their sanity. Heres the letter for those interested parties.
Street meat forced to beat feet
The city council is working on some cockamamie plan to ban/limit food venders around the city. This may go down as both the silliest and eventually most anti-buisness decision to roll out of council chambers this year. The city is fortunate to have Councilors Rosen and Rushton challenging this matter, but the reality is they’re alone in their fight. The plan is nothing more than a way to get rid of a few problem entities without engaging in creative thought; something the administration seems to be finding difficult these days. The most interesting part of this plan is the way its being justified as protectionist, favoring established brick and mortar business. That really speaks volumes to the way our local leaders view our local restaurants. If Councilor Palmieri believes someone could be about to walk into the Chop House on Shrewsbury St only to divert to a water-dog cart and end up canceling their reservations… Well maybe local restauranteurs might want to ask Phil to stop doing them any favors, it doesn’t say much for your fillet. Mayor Lukes is even more illogical saying if we don’t do something we’ll end up with empty store fronts. Maybe Konnie is hanging out in different parts of town than me… BUT THE STOREFRONTS HAVE BEEN EMPTY FOR 20 FUCKING YEARS! And she thinks a fucking Super Pretzel is going to send everyone packing? Way to stay in touch with the city.
New recycling vendor will save the city money! Sweet!
No word on whether I’ll still be buying the most expensive trash bags on the planet based on the cost of the old vendor! Booo!
When is a band actually a band?
Although it was reported nowhere, I have it on good authority that the License Commission decided this past week that at least in the case of the Emerald Isle, an acoustic act that is run through an amplifier is no longer acoustic. No really, they said that.
The most expensive Mercedes in town
We’ll let poet laureate Billy Breault sum this debacle up.
“I hope you close him. I hope you keep him to two officers. I hope he goes out of business.”
Thanks Billy, keep it classy.
Stop having sex on my lawn
The Q. Never heard of it? Well, it’s a really neat little coffee shop where young people hang out. For us old kids in the room, think the Coffee Kingdom in the early ’90’s. Well the neighbors on chandler street don’t think it’s fun at all. We’re guessing they’re AARP members. If the license commission wanted to take a logical approach they would ask the police in attendance why there have been no arrests for public sex at the Q instead of just taking a neighbors word that it happened. The police claim “more than 50″ complaints. Well thats great, but how many arrests? These are old people, all they do is complain.
Papers please
Running a livery in Worcester just became an exercise in civil liberties. According to Worcester Magazine liveries now have a dress code: no swimwear, bathing suits, jogging shorts, or torn or ripped shorts. They can’t have external markings that would distinguish them from private vehicle (which is simply silly and to prove it I’m going hang a livery magnet on the door of my private vehicle and just not pick anyone up). They can only take payment by check, credit card or U.S. mail billing. Which is a direct attack at the poor in the city and before you call me on that name for me the bank anywhere in the Main South or Beacon Brightly districts issuing these credit cards and checks? I have three banks within a 5min walk of my house in tatnuck, there are no financial institutions in the areas serviced by these liveries. And the kicker…
All taxis and livery vehicles are subject to random spot checks at any time or location and taxi and livery drivers must all keep a daily log of all pickups; livery drivers only are required to note the name and number of all passengers. All logs must be kept for two years, and must be made available to any police officer upon request.
Thats the best excuse I’ve seen in years to get a professional set of fake papers. I think I’m going to go out this week and get me a nice Brazilian passport just for kicks.
Well. There’s a week in Worcester for you. A a semi related note. CVS has a sale this week on 4 packs of D-cell alkaline Batteries. Nothing tells a local official how you really feel, like throwing D-cell’s through the windows of City Hall while council is in session. Now I would never suggest that is the right thing to do… but we certainly are running out of things we CAN do, so don’t write it off just yet.
Some things are better left unexplained
William Breault: Stupidest man in Worcester, part 2
I remember when working as an EMT, a conversation that would spring up often was the potential of narcan for non-professional administration. If you’ve never seen the drug used it’s really an amazing thing. Watching someone who has overdosed on opiates on the nod and on the way out the door, essentially go into withdrawal and ready to OD again, all in seconds. Very neat stuff. Since an opiate overdose will obviously kill you and narcan is relatively safe drug with a short half life, it stands to reason packaging the product for self administration the same way we have epi-pens for allergic reactions, would be a no brainer.
Enter Billy Breault, the one man band known as the Main South Alliance for Public Safety, with an opinion on the grant money Worcester is getting to train opiate users on the self administration of narcan.
“We’ve had private conversations with those involved,” Mr. Breault said. “This funding is under the guise of drug prevention, but this is more about assisting than preventing.”
Yes, you disgusting fraud, it’s about assisting people in staying alive while reducing the burden on public services. How is that a bad thing? The problem with douche bags like Billy, they really believe there is a war on drugs. They thought Nixon had a real plan, believed all that Nancy Reagan bull shit, they still think D.A.R.E. is a successful program and they believe in some puritanical pipe dream that one day people will stop putting the things in their bodies that make life fun. Fear these people as they are not very bright.
This grant Worcester is receiving is an extension of a program currently running in Boston, San Francisco, New Mexico, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Chicago; modeled after successful programs in Europe. The reality of these narcan emergency kits is they save lives and arguably more importantly they save resources. They allow a user, friends or family to administer a narcan nasal spray at the first sign of overdose, which contrary to popular opinion is an anomaly for a seasoned user. So while it’s fair to be critical of the OD itself and the addiction leading to it, it’s undeniable this self administration removes an ambulance, engine company, police response and obligatory emergency room evaluation from the equation. Since the only logical argument against drug use and its affects on society is the burden it places on public resources, this sort of program is an obvious step in the right direction.
Our biggest problem with drugs in Worcester isn’t the drugs themselves. It’s pretending they don’t touch every race, economic class and political affiliation. Which is why in Worcester we’re decades behind other large cities in treatment and prevention. Until we’re honest with that fact, annoyances like Billy will continue spouting off and ignorant fools will continue to listen.
link to T&G article on the subject.
And lest we forget…
It is our issue
Last thursday a post went up over at the WoMag blog following the License Commission meeting that seemed too bizarre to be true. Following the latest shooting in the area of Alta Cafe, on Main St which admittedly is one of the biggest train wrecks of a business the city has going, the Worcester License Commission has some new rules in play for the club. Namely two paid police details the days they are open and the club is not allowed to open until those details arrive and is not to open if they are not able to secure detail officers. Money quote provided by chair of the Worcester License Commission, Kevin O’Sullivan
“If you can’t get an officer, I’m sorry. That’s not our issue,”
Actually, Kevin, it is our issue. Taking the current size of the M.G.L. into account it’s inconceivable that we don’t already have the laws in place that would shutter the Alta as a public nuisance. The club owner is being asked to hire details for problems that occur mainly outside his doors. That means the city is asking Alta owner Ben Mercedes to pay privately for police to patrol public ways. I was always under the impression WPD salaries covered this sort of thing. And it’s still not clear what if anything this move is expected to change. Since any reasonable person would realize the problem is not with the club, but the douche-bags who go there and hang around outside after the club is closed. If Alta closes, the douche-bags simply go somewhere else. One has to wonder if the average idiot who thinks Benefit St is a swell place to stand for hours at 2AM even realizes the city is having relatively public conversations about their presence; probably not. So if you have a hundred people blocking a public way, loitering and generally being a nuisance, why are the police not making arrests, nightly? The WoMag piece on the issue has the Alta owner admitting that parking for the club blocks the adjacent side street, so why is there not a fleet of tow trucks waiting to haul every car as soon as the engine is killed? Is there even a no-parking sign at the location?
Why are we allowing career politicians to pretend publicly that we don’t already have the tools for this particular job in the form of the M.G.L. and local ordinance or that we haven’t figured out all these problems in the past, simply to close a business they don’t like? That’s lazy and a classic example of just how unfriendly to business the city of Worcester can be when the people involved are simply unwilling to do the jobs we pay them to do.
so many pigs and so many dogs
Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer-except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion. There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called “files,” “reports,” “minutes,” and “memoranda.” These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace. This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said. But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour; and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.
