Coen Vs. Franco

Over Beck Rally.

 



Springfield rates almost right smack in the middle of the 200 largest broadcasting markets in the USA. As a result, whenever someone of real talent appears in our Valley TV media they often quickly disappear to somewhere else, usually the Boston or Hartford area. However one first rate talent who has stuck around is WGGB-TV's Scott Coen. How long? Here's a video that has surfaced of Coen doing a West Springfield armwrestling story he reported on in 1993.

 

This is Coen as he looks today.

Coen in a playful mood.

Over the years Coen has evolved into a real multi-media artist, doing not just his TV gig but also doing sports updates on WHMP and ESPN. He has his own Masslive column My Wide World which is more or less about everything and anything Coen wants it to be about. Sometimes he strays into politics, such as these recent comments on today's conservative rally organized by TV host Glenn Beck.

I wasn't going to weigh in on Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally, because for me, it was a no-win situation. But then, I changed my mind. I don't care for Glenn Beck very much. Actually I think he's an idiot, a race baiter, and represents everything that's gone wrong with the Fourth Estate. I feel the same way about the talking heads on both sides of the aisle. I just find Beck to be completely objectionable --- the others only sometimes.

Coen's putdown of Glenn Beck drew the ire of Governor's Council candidate Mike Franco. That's Franco on the right with Springfield City Councilor John Lysak. 

Franco put out a press release blasting Coen for his remarks:

Bizarre... Notice how liberal neophytes who have isolated themselves for years in their insular universe immediately stoop to name calling and nasty rhetoric. There is no time for concerned Americans to wait for them to understand the truth about the course of our government. We will act now, and we will not relent or shirk our duty.

Wow, pretty strong words on both sides! Hey maybe they ought to have a charity arm-wrestling event or something to settle their beef!

Meanwhile, someone in Northampton appears to be disillusioned with our Governor. 

North Valley congressional candidate Michael Engels openly declares himself a "democratic socialist" but at least he has a sense of humor, as evidenced by this anti-Olver graphic on his website.

The other candidate in the three-way race is local tea party hero Bill Gunn.

State Rep. candidate Dan Melick at UMass recently. 

 

Southwick's Congamond Lake where dinosaurs roam. 

I also went down to Bike Nite in Springfield on Thursday to see what's left of the 80's band Skid Row. They definitely appealed to the biker scene.

In Springfield they love hard rock, but Northampton likes to explore the bizarre.

Holyoke Happening

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?