Former WGGB-TV40 investigative reporter Jim Polito (above with Clare Higgins) is now a radio host in the Worcester area at station WTAG. Last Friday he had quite a controversial rant on his show about a request Polito received for an interview from a staffer of Congressman Richard Neal. Allegedly the request was being made because one of Neal's challengers, Tom Wesley of Hopedale, had been on earlier.
The press aide suggested that Polito had gone easy on Wesley and that Congressman Neal also receive a "break" during his appearance, seeming to imply that Neal should be served only softball questions. Polito was neither co-operative nor amused, as Tom Wesley himself reports in this press release.
Tom Wesley with Agawam's Peter McNair and Bob Magovern. City Councilor Magovern is a direct descendant of the family of Amherst's Emily Dickinson.
WTAG radio host Jim Polito, during a broadcast on January 26, revealed that a press aide to Congressman Richard Neal had called him and requested that Polito have the congressman on his show. The press aide cited that Tom Wesley had appeared on the show, and Congressman Neal should receive the same treatment as Wesley during his appearance.
“Congressman Neal is running so scared and so desperate right now that he wants to come on this show,” said Jim Polito. “Now, his aide cited that I had his opponents on, and specifically the aide mentioned Tom Wesley of Hopedale ... I think he is more concerned about Wesley. He is that desperate. The best thing to happen was that election last week. Because it took people like Neal who have been sitting there and taking the voters for granted and just figuring he’s just going to get re-elected every two years and it gave him some religion.”
Polito explained that the press aide cited “equal time” in requesting Neal’s appearance, and said Polito must also give Neal “the break” that Polito had given to Wesley. Polito responded: “No I don’t. Absolutely not. If Richie Neal wants to come on this show ... its going to be about the Democratic Congress and its going to be about [his] failed policies. That’s what its going to be about.”
Here is a video of Jim Polito's complete remarks regarding Neal's request.
The Golden Boy
Two weeks after his election, Scott Brown mania continues to sweep America. As if being immortalized by Saturday Night Live wasn't enough, there is also a Scott Brown action doll for sale. He comes with three outfits - senatorial, casual and Cosmo. The Boston Herald reports:
Faster than a speeding pickup! More powerful than a locomotive full of Kennedys! Able to kill off Obama-care with a single vote!
Look, up on the Web! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Sen.-elect Scott Brown - Action Figure!
Herobuilders.com, a Connecticut company that makes custom dolls modeled after celebrities, politicians, reality stars and crooks, will roll out its latest action figure tomorrow - the new Republican senator from Massachusetts....
BTW, if it’s any indication of the mood of the country, Vicale reports that the Obama doll is a “terrible” sell.
“He doesn’t translate into a good action figure because he never does anything,” he joked. “All he does is babble nonsensically.”
Each Scott Brown doll is priced at $34.95. Click here to place an order.
Today's Music Video
Dar Williams got her start playing the coffeehouses of Northampton. She doesn't live in the Valley anymore, but as you can see from her latest video, she's still doing alright.
In the 1990's, youthful Attorney Raipher Pellegrino seemed to be one of the rising stars of Springfield politics. The son of a popular judge, Raipher was elected to the City Council on his first try. However, he soon became, like so many of the bright young talents associated with the administration of former Springfield Mayor Michael Albano, identified in the public's mind with some of the sleazier aspects of that era, causing him to be removed from office by the voters. His defenders at the time argued that Pelegrino was unfairly singled out for criticism, that he was no worse than many others who were slithering through the political scene at the time, and in some ways better.
In any case, Pellegrino doesn't appear to have suffered much from his political demise, as he continues to work for one of Springfield's most lucrative law firms. Pellegrino also deserves credit for the work he did on State Street restoring a historic building at mostly his own expense that had fallen into seemingly hopeless disrepair.
However it is Pellegrino's legal career, rather than his political one, that has caused him to surface on the vengeful website People You'll See in Hell. This is a website for people who want to publicly indict others as deserving to spend eternity in Hell. To me that sounds like a website begging to be sued out of existence, but it has escaped that fate thus far. Among those indicted on the website is Raipher.
Categories of indictment include Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Insanity, Lust, Pride, Sloth and Wrath. Raipher is indicted under the categories of Greed and Lust. The charges involve a weird case Pellegrino won involving a person accused of entering the Calvin Coolidge dorm at UMass and sexually attacking a student. The accused claimed that they were walking in their sleep at the time they committed the crime and should therefore be found innocent. With Raipher's help the defendant was acquitted. The case provided the basis for Pellegrino being nominated for Hell:
If you thought there could not be another reason to lose sleep at night, Raipher D. Pellegrino is there to defend that which goes bump or more like “boink” in the night. For 156 years jurors had more than enough common sense as to believe that someone could commit a major crime while sleepwalking. In 2002, with the magic word “somnambulism” (the medical term for sleep walking), Raipher defended a multiple raper – someone was able to stay asleep while sexually assaulting multiple women in the Coolidge Dorm at the University of Massachusetts in 2001. The sleepwalking rapist was 19 – I would believe it a bit more if instead the perp was 91. I’ve aced a few classes I’ve slept through, but I wake up for sex because sex is definitely more interesting than Algebra, Geometry English, etc…
Seems crazy? OK I have done a few crazy things half asleep. But when someone says “no” and fights back, how does one sleep through that? I have a hard enough time getting into my own house awake, never mind going into someone else’s “asleep”. I did have a friend who woke up in the cellar of a strange building, but he had been drinking.
So, if somnambulism means sleep walking, what’s the term for sleep entering, sleep boinking and sleep sexual assaulting?
As of Oct 28th 2008 Attorney Pellegrino has now made it legal to enter a neighbor’s house and grope 19-year-old women as long as one can say they were asleep the entire time. This POS was a college athletic director, someone who is going to tell others how to manage their bodies and yet have no control over his!
So now Attorney Pellegrino is the first defense lawyer to successfully use this defense twice. I am more than sure his rates have increased. I also wonder what defendant number three is going to be able to claim they snoozed through.
Ouch! Following this indictment by someone anonymously calling themselves "The Nibbler" readers are invited to become jurors and vote on Raipher's fate. Does Raipher D. Pellegrino, Attorney at Law, deserve Hell? So far this is the jury's verdict.
Yes (51.0%, 116 Votes) All Lawyers belong in Hell (29.0%, 65 Votes) No (21.0%, 47 Votes)
Hey, doesn't look too good so far for Atty. Pellegerino, but note that at least one in five say Raipher should be spared the fire and brimstone. Unfortunately, besides voting, jurors can also leave comments, and many of these make the original indictment seem tame. For example:
Only in America can you sexually assault someone, then hire a guy who looks like a coke addict who helps you beat the case with a sleepwalking defense. Or in this case sleepfucking.
However Raipher does have his defenders, even his admirers:
I’d be okay with hiring this guy. If I’m going to hire a lawyer, I want the greasiest, most unethical, slimiest motherfucker money can buy. This guy can do it with a smile on his face – is he in the Yellow Pages?
However one thoughtful commenter seems to feel that the case in question is more an indictment of the legal system than of Raipher personally.
I don’t know about this one. I graduated from law school and had an opportunity to spend some time on both sides of the fence. Honestly, my final reaction was that the system is just in terrible shape. Period. It’s not defense attorneys any more than it is judges or DAs.
The courts are crowded and my general impression was that your crime doesn’t matter to anyone – DAs included – unless it’s a really big deal. There are no Law and Order show downs between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Sure, some have personal problems with each other and overall they stayed away from each other, but not always. There was definitely a lot of laughing across the aisle while waiting for a judge. They’d talk about family or vacations, argue for a bit over a case and walk out of the courtroom chatting again.
The point is that, in my humble opinion, the entire system is in shambles. most people just take the plea and there’s no real individualized assessment, no real look at how dangerous a particular person may be if they get the oh-too-often probation offer. Sentences have become so seemingly random that it’s maddening. Sure, some defense attorneys are worse than others. but some judges are terrible and some DAs are jaded and disinterested. It’s all just so, so messed up.
To read the full indictment and comments click here. What I'm wondering is why, instead of picking on Raipher, no one has written up an indictment to Hell for former Springfield Mayor Mike Albano, whose administration helped corrupt a whole generation of young (and not so young) local politicians.
Green Street Lamps
One of the worst aspects of Springfield's decline was that at one point they had to turn off street lamps in order to save money, not a good idea in city already struggling with high crime. Shut off by Mayor Albano, the street lights were quickly restored by money saving measures introduced by Albano's successor, Charles V. Ryan.
But to make sure that never happens again, maybe the city should consider investing in these new solar/wind powered street lights!
The innovative wind and solar powered hybrid street lamp concept can not only produce light by using renewable energy, also it’s a boost to an everyday object that can operate completely off-grid. This concept was derived from the effort of designers to create a more sustainable future that integrates a range of reusable energy technologies into everyday life objects. These lamps comprise a solar array connected with a wind turbine, and can produce up to 380W of power.
These wind/solar powered street lamps are fitted to locally made, usual galvanized steel poles and can be easily swapped with previous street lamps. The turbines can be either a horizontal axis wind turbine or a 2nd generation 300W vertical axis wind turbine. Two solar panels are mounted on the side of the pole that is capable of producing up to 80W of power.
With the Control Board now gone, maybe buying these lamps would be one way of proving that the city can come up with ways to save money on its own.
New Road
The main drag in downtown Amherst is getting repaved.
I don't know whether it's one of those "stimulus" projects or just something Amherst had planned to do all along. I guess if it was a stimulus project it would have one of those stupid signs broadcast journalist Jim Polito took offense to.
Can you believe those signs cost 300 dollars apiece? Just like the government to waste our money while telling us what they're wasting our money on.
What is former WGGB man Polito doing these days? Still doing radio up in Worcester. Here he is surrounded by WGBY producer Tony Dunne and Magi Bish, mother of the tragic Molly.
Anyway, the construction didn't seem to have any effect on this sidewalk sale.
Despite the economy being in a downward spiral, Antonio's Pizza has a "Help Wanted" sign.
However, that may have less to do with an uptick in the economy than that their normal source of help - college students - have split for the summer.
The photographic record.
When I was writing about Jim Polito recently, I was surprised by how difficult it was to come up with a photo of Jim to use in my story. In the end I couldn't find one, and had to go instead with a generic picture of the WGGB headquarters on Liberty Street in Springfield. Amazingly, for someone whose face once saturated the media, Polito has become an almost Orwellian non-person about whom no physical image can be found.
A big part of the problem is that most of the images and articles about Polito were on the WGGB-40 website, which appears to have gone to considerable trouble in order to erase them all. When I told Polito he had become an internet non-entity, he sent me some pictures to put on the web, thereby restoring him from cyber-oblivion to the land of the living. Polito helpfully supplied his own explanations with each picture: This is a picture that was taken last summer for the intern in the picture. His name is Brendan Monahan. He was an intern from UMass and was very good. His cousin Aaron Saykin used to be a UMass intern at the station years ago. Aaron is now an investigative reporter in Pittsburgh. I took the picture for Brendan on his last day. He thought it was hilarious that I was wearing shorts to anchor the news one weekend last summer. He thought it was confirmation of the old cliche that anchors wear jeans, shorts or boxer shorts underneath the desk where viewers can not see them. I did not do it for the laughs. I did it to stay cool. The air conditioning always crapped out in the studio on very hot days. The temps could get above 85-90 degrees under the hot lights.
Someone took this picture of me riding on the sands of Daytona beach during one of my spring trips down south. This is one of the only times you'll see me riding on my Harley without a helmet. The speed limit is 15MPH on the beach.
This is a picture of a picture of me doing a live report from ground zero on the one year anniversary. Sorry about the quality. I do have images of me at ground zero on 9/11/01 and the days that followed but I have not converted them from video to stills.
This picture was taken by abc40 chief photographer Bob Hastings from his car while we were driving east on the MASSPIKE on 6/18/06. It's quite amazing that he got this picture in one shot with his cell phone camera at 65MPH. That's why he's the chief photographer. I was driving to my parent's house with a father's day gift for my dad, the green bag on my luggage rack contains two books. Bob was driving to his part time job at New England Cable News. It's quite a coincidence that we met up. I won't tell you who passed who.
I included the above picture of me riding on the highway for another reason. My biker friends always say, "Jim, you ride a motorcycle but you're not a biker." They would point to that picture as proof. One, it's not considered cool to ride in shorts. Two, for safety reasons you should at least wear jeans in case you fall and slide. However, these same biker friends hate wearing helmets and take them off in state where it's legal to do so. I don't, no matter what the law. So, if we wipe out, I may have road rash all over my body, but there's a better chance I'll still be alive. As for helmet laws, I have no opinion, I'd wear one whether it were the law or not
This is how I ride when I take off for two weeks. That's all my luggage and included in there is my wireless laptop computer so I can check in with the world (including your blog, Tom) while traveling. On that particular trip I towed my bike up to Toronto with an old girlfriend who had family there. Then I loaded up and did 3600 miles. I zig-zagged down the east coast, visiting old friends, until I made it all the way to Key West, the southern and eastern most point in the US. Then I repeated some of the stops on my way home.
So thanks for the pics Jim, and now those searching for photographic evidence of your career will have somewhere to look!
I am shocked and dismayed by the recent closing of two major restaurants in downtown Springfield. The worst blow comes from the closing of L'uVa located by the arch which was one the city's best high class restaurants. It was the last thing holding back that end of Main Street from turning into a complete slum.
Almost equally devastating is the loss of the new deli that took the place of the beloved Gus n'Pauls at Tower Square (Baystate West). Here is a picture I took of that establishment after it closed.
To everyone's delight, the Ryan Administration successfully engineered a quick replacement. Here I am shortly after the grand opening posing with Lady Liberty and restaurant co-owner Stu Hurwitz.
Yet after only three months it has gone belly-up, a stunning setback that only increases the growing sense of impeding doom among the business community of downtown Springfield. Speaking of downtowns, here's something I came upon in downtown Northampton during yesterday's storm that you don't see very often: A giant tow truck taking away a bus disabled by the snowstorm.
I spent some of yesterday's blizzard relaxing downstairs in Northampton's Haymarket Cafe. My eye caught something I'd never really noticed before, a battered red sign just outside the door.
Stepping outside I saw that it was an old sign from the original Haymarket Cafe which if memory serves was originally only on the ground floor. It goes back to the days when it was also a bookstore. As far as I know, there is no longer a book to be bought in the place.
I believe that sign was originally located at the top of Cracker barrel Alley and directed people to the what was once the front entrance but is now the back. Here is Cracker Barrel Alley as it appeared yesterday as I left the Cafe.
This morning I had breakfast at good ol' Jake's in downtown Northampton.
Jake's has been around as long as I can remember. I used to eat there with my co-partiers every morning after all night stoner film festivals at the Calvin Theater next door. Usually I was coming down on psychedelics, which was fine as long as I didn't look at the food too closely, lest I see paisly designs on the pancakes and squiggly things in the orange juice. It was the reverse of what William S. Burroughs called a naked lunch, where "everyone can see what's on the end of every fork." And of course he wasn't really talking about food.
My breakfast companion this morning was Jim Polito, the former WGGB-TV 40 investigative reporter. For somebody who's unemployed, he's in good spirits.
Polito still has his Channel 40 jacket, although he's revised it by replacing the WGGB logo with a Harley-Davidson one. He still has the motorcycle cop insignia given to him by the Springfield police.
Unfortunately, the best stuff we talked about over breakfast had to be off the record, at least for the time being. Of course there's a time and a place for everything, and what comes around goes around.
While we were eating, Northampton Mayor M. Clare Higgins stopped in. She saw me and waved, but failed to recognize Polito, although she ended up sitting right behind him.
Later, Polito gave me a ride to UMass, as he was heading north anyway to visit his parents in Worcester. Although I was going to the library, Polito dropped me off at the Fine Arts Center because cars are not allowed on the campus itself. Polito said when he used to do stories at UMass, he would drive on the campus using a special news reporter sign he would put in the window. Having no futher use for it, he gave it to me as a collectors item.
Perhaps I will think of some mischievous use for it. In fact, you know I will.
