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Hoffman

It’s all over now

By Jack Hoffman

I know the following might piss some of my loyal women readers including my editor and publisher. Hillary you have got to get out of this race now. You are endangering any chance the Democrats might have in recapturing the White House.

In the words of the infamous sportscaster Len Berman, lets roll the video back two weeks before the March 4th elections. The media buzz at that time was, including the words of Billy, was Hillary had to win Ohio and Texas to continue her candidacy. The polls at that time were showing Obama with a high single digit lead in Texas and he was closing in on Hillary’s margin in Ohio. In order to stop the Obama momentum it was decided that a change within the campaign had to be made. So added to the vernacular of the Karl Rove negative political thinking was “kitchen sink politics” throw whatever you can out there and see how it flies.

It first began with a photo of Obama dressed in a native Kenyan outfit, something that is customary that all foreign dignitaries usually wear- the why is obvious- a subliminal message to keep the Muslim rumors alive.

Continue reading It’s all over now →

Green Island Grrrl

I love a parade!

By Rosalie Tirella

So there I was at Worcester’s Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, with the boyfriend and trusty dog, Bailey, when it hit me: this is the real Worcester, the Worcester I love. Worcester, the place where I was born; Worcester the place where I will most likely die. Home, sweet home! Home to me and the people I’ve met and known throughout the years. People who will pass before my mind’s eye when I am 85 years old and sweetly reminiscing in my Lazy Boy, somewhere in one of the Webster Square “tower” apartments: my neighbors, my friends’ children, former colleagues at old jobs, community volunteers, even a nemesis or two. They are all part of my life – part of me! To honor, love, respect (and sometimes diss). To have and to hold (sometimes a tad too tightly). ‘Till death do us part!

My life felt perfect on that brittle sunny day, the day we Worcesterites choose to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day (always a week before the real date, in deference to Worcester politicians who want to schmooze in/be a part of the Boston celebration). There was a melding of my heart and aluminumsided three-deckers. Because on parade were a city’s – my city’s! – aspirations and history. All decked out in Kelley green boas, bow ties, beads and baubles!

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InCity Letters, Uncategorized

Fur: The gold standard of cruelty

By Paula Moore

Anna Wintour feels our pain.

In the September issue of Vogue magazine, Wintour informs us that she and her fellow editors are taking this recession very, very seriously and have edited “the collections with value for money in mind.”

We’re then treated to a two-page article on Fendi’s new gold fur—24K-gold bars are pressurized into a mist and infused into fur coats and shawls. “You can sport part of your financial portfolio, and your financial adviser will be pleased to see you so prominently into gold and out of bad stocks,” the writer gushes. One coat in the collection costs $100,000.

If we needed any more proof that fur-loving fashionistas are out of touch with the rest of the population, this is it. By now, most of us know that there is no kind way to rip the skin off animals’ backs, and we’re not buying it—at any price.

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Green Island Grrrl

Casinos in Worcester? Don’t bet on it!

It’s all about dumping on Worcester’s older neighborhoods. Department of Public Works and Parks head honcho Robert Moylan reopens the Quinsigamond Village dump after Worcester decides it needs to have more landfill space. Moylan reopens/increases the size of the dump after the City of Worcester promised Quinsig Village residents that the city would never reopen the landfill – that it would honor the wishes of neighborhood residents who worked like mad in the ‘80s to get the dump closed – for good. Moylan reopened it after hundreds of residents signed a petition against the dump and presented it to the city – a petition which the city mysteriously has no record of. (Should we check the dump?!) So now the expanded landfill is with us – bigger and better, I am told. So new and improved that it has even won an award!

My question to City Fathers/Mothers: Why can’t we give the AWARD-winning dump to the west side – or perhaps relocate it down the street from Robert Moylan’s home?

Continue reading Casinos in Worcester? Don’t bet on it! →

Hoffman

Don’t fence me in!

By Jack Hoffman

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences/ gaze at the moon until I lose my senses/can’t look at hobbles, and I can’t stand fences/ so don’t fence me in.” Sung by Gene Autry.Words and Lyrics by Cole Porter.

It seems every time I hear about tightening our borders, especially with a fence, I want to scream out: “You phony fools! You’re duping the American people again!”

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InCity Feature

War! What is it good for? War! Carl Nelson’s volume of war poems may be one answer to the question

Carl Nelson’s volume of war poems may be one answer to the question

By Rosalie Tirella

One of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, Carl Nelson, works as a teller in a local credit union by day. By night, however, and especially during the weekends, Carl is out scouring bookstores throughout New England for old or outof- print books – specifically those containing poems about war. Any war – ancient battles in China to guerilla fights in the jungles of Vietnam. His goal? To find and preserve the perspectives of the average soldier in war. The grunt. Or the villager whose home has been ransacked by the enemy or the father of a slain soldier. Carl hopes to complile hundreds of the poems he has found in a volume big enough to serve as a kind of reference book for college, even high school, students. Or for any one who really loves poetry. Carl, who lives in East Brookfield with his wife Marie and their daughter Annie, recently sat down to talk with ICT editor Rosalie Tirella about his mammouth undertaking – his labor of love.

Rose: You work in banking but your true love is …

Carl: Literature. … I actually only went to college a year when I graduated from high school in 1968. I pursued other things … . I was laid off from (a floral business). I had a chance to go back to college and I decided to do so. I went to Worcester State [in 1992] to finish my degree in literature and minor in journalism. I graduated in 1995.

Continue reading War! What is it good for? War! Carl Nelson’s volume of war poems may be one answer to the question →

Hoffman

In the name of national security?!

By Jack Hoffman

This is a country that takes human rights seriously.” “We do not torture.” “It’s against our laws and against our values.” That’s your Vice President Dick Cheney.

Just a few days ago, before a Senate sub-committee, General Michael Hayden, head of the C.I.A., admitted the intelligence service did in fact use water-boarding – but only on one prisoner. He would add he claimed it was legal then and now it is not. He must have heard Bob Dylan’s song The Times are a Changing. I guess that just burns the last remnant of pants Mr. Bush has left on him. I thought he ran out of clothes long ago! Denying the use and advocacy of torture – we can add a few more falsehoods. Ever since these denials, evidence of brutal treatment of prisoners in this war seems to transform these folks into piles of mandacious dung – shit that this administration has accumulated since the first day it came into power.

Continue reading In the name of national security?! →