[Halo] Jim Madigan, the director of public affairs programming for WGBY-Channel 57 in Springfield, did the Pioneer Valley proud in October, moderating a standout debate that cross-examined this year¹s crop of governor candidates without playing it cute or cozy. With reporters Dan Ring of the Springfield Republican newspaper and masslive.com, Laura Hutchinson and Barry Krieger from WWLP 22 and Fred Bever of WFCR-FM asking smart questions, Madigan held candidates Deval Patrick, Charlie Baker, Tim Cahill and Jill Stein to tight time constraints, refusing to back down a number of times under heavy pressure from some very confident, very slick politicians. By being fair but tough, Madigan, host of the WGBY series The State We’re In, squeezed more relevant, character-revealing content into his debate than we saw on any other televised debate of the season.
[Horns] One set of horns to Deval Patrick for what he has already done–shill for casinos; wimp out on a BPA ban–and another set for how he’ll betray us again now that we’ve sent him back to the corner office for four more years. Guy’s a jackass.
[Horns] From his refusal to hold public hearings on casino legislation—because, hell, who cares what the public thinks?—to his entanglement in the Probation Department patronage scandal, Rep. Robert DeLeo continues the shameful streak of out-of-touch, ethics-challenged Massachusetts House Speakers.
[Horns] A set of horns and a dozen rotten eggs to Holyoke City Councilor Patty Devine and her equally uninformed colleagues who tossed a hissy fit over Councilor Tim Purington’s well-thought-out proposal to allow city residents to raise backyard chickens. Devine, who tried to kill the proposal before it got a public airing, told the Springfield Republican that chickens would bring “health problems and undue negativity” to the city; we submit that the real problem might lie with officials who respond to the city’s ugliest underbelly—in this case, those who squawked that backyard chickens would bring a “third world” feel to Holyoke.
[Halo] A halo to the Rev. James Scahill, pastor of East Longmeadow’s St. Michael’s parish, for his continuing advocacy for the victims of abusive priests. When Scahill publicly called last spring for the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI for his inadequate response to the crisis, he was chastised by his bishop and accused by some critics of grandstanding; we, however, join the many disillusioned Catholics who consider him a brave voice demanding justice for victims.
[Horns] Boo-hoo! Ludlow state rep Tommy Petrolati had to give up his post as House speaker pro tempore after his name turned up all over an independent counsel report alleging a pay-for-jobs scandal in the state Probation Department. While we wait for the outcome of a federal investigation into the alleged corruption, here’s a set of horns for the Fifth-Amendment-pleading Petro.
[Halo] A halo for courage, truth-telling and an understanding of what his office is for to New York State Attorney General and governor-elect Andrew Cuomo for helping quash the financially rickety scheme Entergy had devised to spin off its nuclear power plants to a new subsidiary. Entergy, owner of the Vermont Yankee plant near Brattleboro and the Indian Point plant in New York, among others, hit a major bump on the road to license extension for Vermont Yankee when New York State, largely because of Cuomo’s objections, refused to approve a deal that would have transferred the nuclear plants to a fledgling corporation that would have started life $3.5 billion in the red.
[Horns] Casually handing the Constitution to special interests for shredding at their leisure, the Supreme Court of the United States is perhaps the most diabolical horn-wearer of 2010. Opening the floodgates for corporate cash to pour into elections (as if there wasn’t enough of it already), the Citizens United decision pretty much clarifies that even the most sacrosanct, non-political arm of government has been hijacked by money, which is now apparently referred to as “speech.” Corporations are now referred to as “people” as well, though it’s proved difficult to find a jail cell that can hold them when they break the law.
[Horns] No doubt we will be accused of meanness for giving a pair of horns to Judith Griggs, publisher of the now-defunct Valley food magazine Cooks Source. After all, Griggs has already paid a pretty big price for running—without payment or permission—work by freelancer Monica Gaudio: a rash of bad publicity, censure in a range of online outlets, and the closure of her publication. But given Griggs’ nasty (and misinformed) response to Gaudio when the writer complained—Griggs claimed work found on the Internet is “public domain,” suggested that Gaudio should, in fact, pay her for editing the piece, and added that the writer “should be happy we just didn’t ‘lift’ your whole article and put someone elses [sic] name on it!”—we just can’t resist.
[Halo] This year, the Mass. Legislature once again took up the dreadful idea of casinos, and the gambling industry once again unleashed its well-paid, sharp-suited lobbyists on Beacon Hill. Standing firmly on the other side, wearing a well-deserved halo: Kathleen Norbut, the smart, well-spoken former Monson selectwoman who’s led an impressive grassroots charge against the scheme.
[Horns] Springfield Urban League President Henry Thomas made a crummy decision in 2003 when he bought the Mason Square library, securing a nice new space for his agency but robbing the neighborhood of its library. And in the years since, rather than try to make amends to the community, Thomas has adopted a rather belligerent stance, even threatening to start a legal fight against the City Council’s decision to reclaim the library by eminent domain. This winter, Mason Square will finally get back its library; how long will it take for Thomas to undo the damage done to the good name of the agency he runs?
[Halo] U.S. Rep. Ed Markey might not represent Advocate readers directly—his 7th Congressional district covers 19 towns in the Boston area—but his efforts to ban the use of BPA and other chemicals linked to health risks make him a champion of everyone’s health.
[Horns] Speaking of BPA: horns to the Patrick administration and the Mass. Public Health Council for failing to take a stronger stand to protect the commonwealth’s kids from the chemical Bisphenol A, linked to health risks including cancer and developmental problems. Following Patrick’s lead, the PHC recently banned the use of BPA in bottles and sippy cups only, rather than adopt a broader ban that would have kept the chemical out of baby formula cans and other food containers.
[Horns] The Hampden County District Attorney’s race was Steve Buoniconti’s to lose—and that’s just what he managed to do, in inglorious fashion, haunted by revelations that he failed to fully disclose his earnings on a state ethics report, and hounded by media reports questioning his steadfast refusal to disclose his recent tax returns as his opponents in both the primary and general election had done.
[Halo] We were awfully impressed with Mark Mastroianni’s smart, sensible campaign for Hampden County district attorney—and look forward to his bringing that thoughtfulness to his new job.
[Horns] The Senate chamber of the United States Congress. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. These empty, amoral shells of human beings have shown again and again that they would not only sell your grandmother for a dollar, they’d also lend you $2 to buy her back, at 39 percent interest. From filibusters to failure even to show up for votes, this body politic has proven itself in the last year to be the most dysfunctional, transparently corrupt entity since Harvey Keitel in The Bad Lieutenant. It’s a wonder Bernie Sanders can exist in there without a respirator and keg of whiskey.
[Halo] As the founding director of the Springfield-based Pioneer Valley Project, Fred Rose was a leader in campaigns to improve education, ensure economic equality, and strengthen community-police relations, among other efforts. This year, as Rose settles into a new job at UMass’ Center for Public Policy and Administration, a halo for his great work at PVP.
[Horns] For a bunch of reputed eggheads, the leadership at National Public Radio sure made a dumb-ass move when they fired news analyst Juan Williams for his (admittedly lame) comments on Fox News about feeling nervous when he boards an airplane with “people who are in Muslim garb.” While Williams was quick to put his comments in a more nuanced context, there was nothing nuanced about NPR CEO Vivian Schiller’s knee-jerk axe-wielding. Schiller’s decision to fire Williams was an early holiday (err, make that “Christmas”) present to Fox and other NPR critics, who’ve had a field day painting the organization as a bunch of free speech-hating hypocrites. Oh, and Williams? He’s walked away with a $2 million Fox contract and a deal to write a book about the fiasco.
[Halo] While some of their colleagues in the Mass. Sheriffs’ Association pushed a plan to charge inmates in county jails for room and board, Hampden County Sheriff Mike Ashe and Hampshire Sheriff Robert Garvey stood up in opposition, pointing out that the plan would end up hurting the family members who provide inmates with what cash they have. “I think people are sent to us as punishment, not for [further] punishment,” Garvey told the Advocate earlier this year. “Their penalty, obviously, is the loss of their freedom coming here. This [fee system] is double jeopardy to me.”
[Horns] Thanks but no thanks, wimpy Massachusetts state Legislature, for the anemic “safe driving” law passed this year. While activists had called for a ban on all use of hand-held cell phones at the wheel—eight other states, including Connecticut and New York, have such bans—in the end, legislators decided that restriction should apply to teens only. Sure—because once you turn 18, you develop the ability to navigate icy roads and fast highways one-handed while arguing with your spouse on the phone about whose turn it is to go to Stop and Shop?
[Horns] The courts will decide on the legal culpability of the teens accused of bullying Phoebe Prince in the months before her suicide, and the feds are looking into how South Hadley school officials handled the case. In the meantime, a set of horns to the South Hadley School Committee for its unresponsive, circling-the-wagons response to concerned parents, including banning questions about the case at an April public meeting and ejecting one parent for violating that (free speech-violating) rule.
[Halo] 2010 brought the sad news that the Western Mass. Regional Library System was being folded into a larger, statewide library system, a move that’s left many in this part of the state worrying that the needs of our typically smaller, rural libraries will get lost in the bigger system. Cheers to those advocates—including the We Love Western Mass. Libraries Facebook effort and state Rep. John Scibak—who fought for the regional system, and to the WMRLS staffers who’ve done so much to make our local libraries such treasures.
[Horns] Horns to the Western Mass 912 Project, the local arm of the Glenn Beck devotee network, for targeting the weekly Greenfield peace vigil this year. Hey, we’re all for political organizing (even if this particular group’s agenda isn’t, well, quite our cup of tea). But picking on a group of peace-promoting vigilers—in an online discussion, 912ers talked about the need to ” arrive in bunches and let the ‘moonbats’ know we are not going away!” and to “show up en masse to show the liberals that we surround them”—made this group of activists sound like a bunch of bullies, and kinda creepy.
[Halo] During a generally uninspiring election season, the Massachusetts Green/Rainbow Party’s slate—including gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein, her lieutenant governor pick, Rick Purcell, and auditor candidate Nat Fortune of Whately—offered a smart, inspiring alternative to the corporate-controlled, money-driven, morally bankrupt two-party system. In particular, the Green-Rainbow party’s gain in 2002, when Fortune joined the state’s impressive and committed third-party progressive movement, was a loss for the state Democratic Party, not only further depleting the party intellectually but exposing it as a party no loving parent or staunch supporter of public education should abide. Fortune didn’t win his race for auditor this year, but he didn’t sell his soul, either.
For progressive voters who care about the environment, truly accessible healthcare, economic justice (without casinos!) and other overlooked issues, the Greens made it at least more pleasant to go the polls—even if the results turned out to be more of the same old, same old.
[Horns] Were those tears real? The tears incoming House Speaker John Boehner was spilling all over Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes? If they were, we’re crying right along with you, John, like all the folks that are struggling with insuperable student loan debt because you sold them out to the lenders by spending years convincing Congress to write all the rules in the lenders’ favor.
We’re crying because when you and your sidekick, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, talk about “what the American people want,” what comes next is all politics, not policy, not governance. “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” says McConnell. There’s creativity for you: playing kidney-kicking party politics on the taxpayers’ dime while the taxpayers themselves are mired down in stagnant wages, unemployment and foreclosure.
This is the new leadership: you with your pockets lined with money from the banks while a McConnell-controlled committee has gotten fat off dollars from mining companies like Massey Energy that were never busted for safety violations under Bush II (was it pure coincidence that McConnell’s second wife, Elaine Chao, was Secretary of Labor at that time?). And in the matter of climate change you showed real intellectual horsepower when you cracked that “The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. … Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.” Gee! Don’t bother sending in the clowns; they’re already here.
[Halo] Cheers to the Northampton Department of Public Works for instituting a municipal composting program this year, allowing residents to easily divert tons of food waste from the city’s landfill. Here’s hoping this pilot program becomes a permanent option.
[Halo] A halo made of kibble to the late Simon Powell, the canine political candidate who challenged Mike Albano for the Springfield mayor’s office in 1999. For voters frustrated by the misdeeds and mismanagement, the arrogance and antics of the Albano administration, and disappointed by the lack of a serious human candidate, Simon—beloved pet of activists Karen and Bob Powell—provided a much-welcomed alternative.
[Halo] Cheers to the faithful of Indian Orchard’s Immaculate Conception parish for refusing to accept the Springfield diocese’s decision to shut down their church without a fight. Instead, parishioners organized to make the case that their church was strong enough to stay open—a battle they won this summer, when the diocese reversed the closure plans.
[Horns] Greenspan, Bernanke and Co., in the wake of the worst recession in the last 70 years, have caused a lot more light to be shed recently on the Federal Reserve central bank, a quasi-governmental entity that increasingly appears to not be working for the interests of the average American, but for (surprise, surprise) an elite cadre of bankers and derivatives traders. Opposed from the left by Sen. Bernie Sanders and from the right by Rep. Ron Paul, the extremely fishy Fed has even been implicated in perhaps the best JFK assassination “conspiracy theory” to date (which readers can frustrate themselves with at www.john-f-kennedy.net/executiveorder11110.htm). If printing money is good for the economy, maybe we should all start doing it!
[Halos & Horns] The Springfield Business Improvement District’s Arts Initiative did a great job with its Art & Soles public art project—mostly. Unfortunately, the good vibes created by the project (which placed giant fiberglass sneakers, decorated by Valley artists, around the downtown) were tainted by organizers’ decision to spraypaint over a provocative section of artist Robert Markey’s contribution (the image of a stripper on the sole of a sneaker featuring more benign scenes of dancers on the top) without his consent.
[Halos & Horns] Despite its amazing interface and thousands of useful, entertaining and creative applications, the iPhone is still, sadly, tethered to AT&T. America’s oldest telecom behemoth, the insidious company was broken up after its role in overthrowing South American governments in the 1970s made us think that maybe it had become a bit too big, and it’s still a major contributor to anti-progressive causes. What’s more, its network sucks. Come on, Apple—it’s high time to free the iPhone!
[Halos & Horns] The organization’s fearless leader may seem like a counter-culture hero (sex allegations aside), and it’s truly fascinating that it seems to have started the world’s first real cyber war without necessarily meaning to, but the vote is still not in on Wikileaks. In some ways, its leaked cables are a titillating and revelatory peek inside the real world of international relations, but we’ve yet to be given the smoking guns that we’d like to see—could it be that there really aren’t any? In any case, until we get the cables on UFOs and aliens, Julian Assange, you will reside in purgatory, which is appropriately represented currently as a British jail cell and/or ankle bracelet.
[Halo] Consumerism in America is out of control, wasteful, thoughtless and bad for the environment. Why does every person who has a baby have to buy onesies that only get worn three times before your little one isn’t so little anymore? Thankfully, thanks to Freecycle, they don’t. The online, community-based exchange of free goods cuts down dramatically on waste, ensures that most things get thoroughly used, saves people lots of money and helps to clean out cluttered garages and basements. It may sound like communism, but in the old days it would have just been called “common sense.” Now if only they’d deliver!
But wait!
[Horns] You say that you want our hand-me-down pack ‘n’ play, that you can’t live without the fondue set that’s been languishing in our basement since the bridal shower, that you’d be oh, so grateful for the excess day lilies we’ve dug up from our garden. So we bundle them up, leave them on our front porch … and then wait, and wait, for the pickup that never happens. Horns to you, no-show Freecyclers—not that you’ll bother to come by to pick them up.
[Horns] An alleged MCAS cheating scandal, questionable handling of funds, the hiring of a convicted felon with relatives on the board—shame on the adults in charge of Springfield’s Robert M. Hughes Academy charter school, whose poor decisions and bad management led to the loss of its charter this year, leaving 180 kids without a school.
[Halo] Before the age of the Internet, many’s the time a reference librarian in some Valley town helped us find, or check, a fact just in time for a looming deadline. Even now, librarians sometimes throw us a lifeline. In September we lacked the archival resources to answer a request from Martin Theys, a graduate student at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, for Advocate articles from 1977 and 1980 on the nuclear freeze movement. But librarians Madeleine Charney at UMass and Margaret Humberston at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History came to our rescue and supplied Theys with the articles, which he needed for his master’s thesis research. We hereby award them halos to be bestowed by St. Marian of River City, patroness of librarians.
[Halo] Who would have thought just a decade ago that there would be anything like a comprehensive online encyclopedia? An extra set of wings for Wikipedia (est. 2001), which, despite not being always right about everything, is quite amazing in that it exists at all. Facts at your fingertips, public domain images galore and a host of specialty sub-wikis for those with obsessive interest in pre-Cambrian geology, fractal math, ancient Greek civilization, semi-tonal music theory, recipes of the world or thousands of other subjects, in 262 languages: it may not quite be the Encyclopedia Britannica, but you don’t have to turn pages, and it’s a lot easier to carry around!
[Horns] Over in the well-coiffed Clark Kent/Guy Smiley wing of the Republican Party, you’ll find incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor hobnobbing with hairspray defenders Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry, reminiscing about the glory days of former club president Trent Lott. Cantor is at the vanguard of most every bad GOP idea, but he still deserves an “attaboy” for his well-groomed image, not to mention co-authoring Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders. Unfortunately, you’re about to see a lot more of this guy, and not just in AquaNet commercials.
[Halo] This year, Springfield Police Commissioner William Fitchet did what police officials should have done years ago: fired patrolman Jeffrey Asher, whose time on the SPD has been marked by multiple allegations of abusive behavior, including a 2009 case for which he faces criminal assault charges. (Despite the firing, the 39-year-old Asher did win approval from the state retirement board for disability retirement benefits, although he could lose them if convicted of felony charges.) The drawn-out Asher saga offers one more argument to be made in favor of the city’s establishing a civilian review board that’s both empowered and publicly accountable.
And…
[Halo] Halos to the anonymous person or persons who captured on videotape the arrest of Melvin Jones III by Springfield police officers, including ex-patrolman Jeff Asher. Whatever results from the criminal assault case against Asher, that video footage (you can see it at www.cbs3springfield.com) helped rid the SPD of a notoriously violent cop.
[Horns] While credit should be given to good-faith efforts to pay for cleanup, no amount of money can truly repair the damage done to the environment, the food chain and an the economy of an entire region that had just barely recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States earns a pair of horns for British Petroleum, for putting profits above people and planet, and for a short-sightedness that reflects a diametrically opposed philosophy to that expressed in their touchy-feely commercials. May oily seabirds peck their eyes from their heads after they’re buried in their golden sarcophagi.
[Halo] It’s about time that a group that supports labor, human rights and environmental causes woke up to the need to go global. After all, corporations did it decades ago, and it shows in the fact that (at least in the U.S.) wages have gone up approximately only $303 per year since 1980, falling well behind the consumer price index and any modern concept of “cost of living.” A halo, then, to Avaaz.org for their savvy organizing of protests, petitions and boycotts on a world-wide scale, in ways that have brought about a surprisingly effective share of beneficial change.
[Horns] Ian Bowles, state Secretary of Energy and Environment (an agency that Gov. Deval Patrick, may he burn in hell, created to greenwash energy development in Massachusetts), showed zero leadership on proposed biomass technology, while around the state, and particularly here in the Valley, activists from every walk of life coalesced against the idea of raping our woods to make electricity. Bowles gets a pinch of credit for bringing in a consulting firm, the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, to confirm that his initial enthusiasm for biomass was full of bullshit. Still, Bowles didn’t even have the decency to apologize for ginning up the development of an industry that, as Manomet concluded, is far from green; declining to demand environmental impact studies for a number of proposed projects; and accusing Valley activists who opposed the plants of being NIMBYs. That crap might work at Harvard, but it doesn’t play out here in the real world.
