Festival pics, a video and a Franco update.
While floating through Holyoke on Saturday afternoon I came upon the Celebrate Holyoke festival, or whatever it's called.
This guy was selling a lot of balloons!
This Holyoke cop was zooming around the festival on a Segway. I've seen them before on television, but this was the first time I ever saw one being used in real life.
Of course nothing happens in Holyoke without the politicians onhand, and in this case they are being represented by a whole string of signs.
Mr. McGee had a campaign tent set up to support his candidacy.
I came across one gentleman who was dealing baseball cards, some of which he was selling for as much as two hundred dollars! Observe the Mighty Yaz in the right hand corner.
On a Holyoke No Parking sign I saw this old Fishing Buddies sticker. They were quite the sensation in the 1990's when they fought to open the reservoir for fishing.
The Environmental Protection Agency eventually gave them a merit award, and had this to say about them on their website.
Darby O'Brien founded Fishing Buddies and began a grassroots campaign to open the City of Holyoke's drinking water reservoirs to recreational fishing. In 1998, two nationally known environmental leaders and activists – John Cronin, the Hudson Riverkeeper, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., co-director of Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic – joined the campaign. In September 1998, the city sponsored a one-day fishing derby for residents at the Whiting Street reservoir. Working with EPA, the state Division of Fish and Wildlife and others organizations, the "buddies" and their colleagues continue to advance a community policy to allow limited recreational use of the reservoirs. Fishing Buddies sponsors a local chapter of the national Fishing Tackle Loaner Program at the Holyoke Public Library for boys and girls who don't own fishing poles. They also solicit mentors for the Buddy System, which hooks kids up with volunteers to take them fishing.
Our Valley could use more of their kind of activism.
Mike Franco, who is in a legal tussle with supporters of State Rep. Angelo Puppolo over an alleged assault over political differences, sends this further detail of the alleged political harassment he has received, this time supposedly from someone at the Springfield Newspapers. Here is what Franco said in an email I received this morning;
Another disturbing occurrence immediately after the violent attack upon me that morning was when a guy by the name of Stasi Hierapolis (sp?), claiming to be a reporter with the Republican Newspaper (but wouldn't show me his credentials), verbally accosted me, shoving a recording device in my face, and accusing me of posting another banner in the area that called the Republican a "Homosexual Activist Newspaper."
Sincerely,
Mike Franco
In May I saw that protester on Route Nine in Northampton and took this picture.
With the hat and the shades, I can't be sure if it's Franco or not. Can you?
4 comments:
What’s kind of ironically funny Tommy is this guy Franco wants to “use you” (obviously not in a sexual manner) to get his message out (not massage) about his assault and battery—and as a First Amendment freak I abhor any and all actions that have a chilling effect on free speech—but in a listserve email this morning he wrote about his assault:
“Regional bloggers reference the matter such as Tommydevine.blogspot.com (Caution: Blog may be graphic and perverse).”
Hmmm, so you are good enough to get the word out, but you may be “graphic and perverse”. What the fuck does that say about him?
ahhh, the fishing buddies brings backs memories...I would say that is not Franco in the picture.
Actually I consider "graphic and perverse" as complements!
Seriously, I don't care what Franco stands for or what his agenda is. On principle I cannot condone anyone being assaulted for expressing their political beliefs.
It also amuses me to see how the media is refusing to cover this obviously newsworthy story. It is when I see others cowering in fear that I want to shout from the mountaintop!
Thursday, August 23, 2007 9:46:00 AM EST
Tom -
It's hard for me to believe, or maybe it shouldn't be considering the people that get attention these days, that Mike Franco has somehow carved out public persona and actually run for office. Knowing his career history and knowing him personally a number of years ago, he has been an abject failure at everything I've seen or heard about him doing. What is he now, a Veteran's Agent? That funny, considering he washed out of pilot training, was a horrible officer and I don't remember him being particularly committed to the military. Basically, everyone disliked him. Is the sign he may be holding just informative or are we supposed to recall in horror? I'd say it's him, as that's the type of shoddy work he does.
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