Sal DiMasi and Deval Patrick (as Dianne Wilkerson looks on)
When Bill Clinton came to Springfield in 1996, reporters from the eastern part of the state gasped when they saw that former House Speaker Charles Flaherty, who had just been forced out in disgrace, had actually been invited to speak prior to the President's arrival. However, while most decent people were shocked to see a convicted pol given such an undeserved honor, our local politicians saw in "Good Time Charlie" Flaherty a kindred soul. For them, Flaherty's only sin was to have gotten caught.
Flaherty's successor, Tom Finneran, also left under a cloud and now the current speaker is sinking in an ethics scandal. What's wrong? From an editorial in the SouthCoast Newspaper:
So the last two Democratic speakers of the House in Massachusetts have been indicted.
Tommy Finneran for perjury and Charlie Flaherty for income tax evasion.
We're evidently going for a trifecta, as a federal grand jury now is investigating the activities of current Speaker Sal DiMasi. Last Thursday, Attorney General Martha Coakley indicted Mr. DiMasi's personal accountant, Richard Vitale, for allegedly lobbying "the speakah" illegally.
Now why, you might ask, have three Massachusetts speakers in a row skated so close to the ethical line between right and wrong?
Well, one good reason is because there's no one in an opposition party to watch them.
With only 11.6 percent of state residents registered as Republicans, and only 19 of 160 state legislators members of the GOP, there's no one with enough political juice to check the power of an ethically challenged Democratic leader.
Are all Massachusetts Democrats ethically challenged? Certainly not. Although you could make a good case that you have to be in order to rise to the position of speaker, given the history of the last three guys to hold the job.
I don't blame people for not yearning to vote for the GOP, there are few species of politician more pathetic than a Massachusetts Republican. However, the Democrats are mostly corrupt in this state, and without Republicans to keep an eye on them, they will continue to run hogwild. As a civic duty, every Massachusetts Democrat should make a solemn vow that they will find a Republican on the ballot this year that they will vote for, even if they have to hold their nose while doing so. It is their duty in the cause of good government to revive a fully functioning two party democracy in Massachusetts.
Here is something that appeared in the Valley Advocate about me way back in 1996.
It's hard to know which is the more surprising, the unexpected outcome or that it's considered a surprise. Louisiana Representative William Jefferson was caught with $90,000 dollars in his freezer that he couldn't explain. Yet, it was universally thought that he would handily win re-election. From Politico:
Indicted Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) has lost his New Orleans-based Congressional seat to a little-known Republican attorney, Anh “Joseph” Cao.
With all precincts reporting, Cao has defeated Jefferson 50 to 47 percent. The AP has called the race for Cao.
Even with Jefferson’s ethical woes, his ouster comes as a huge shock. His New Orleans district is one of the most Democratic in the country, giving President Bush only 24 percent of the vote in 2004. And he hadn’t suffered at all politically since indicted for bribery in June 2007, comfortably defeating another Democrat in the Election Day primary.
The results are a welcome repudiation of a sad trend, the tendency of dishonest politicians from minority groups, particularly blacks, to be re-elected despite their ethical challenges. For example, here in Massachusetts, my former classmate State Senator Dianne Wilkerson was repeatedly re-elected despite numerous ethics scandals, and finally left office not because she was voted out, but because she was videotaped taking a bribe. Another example is Alcee Hastings of Florida, a judge who was impeached after being caught taking bribes, but who was elected a member of Congress anyway.
It's hard to explain this phenomenon. Some say a history of discrimination causes black voters not to take seriously ethics charges, dismissing such accusations as manifestations of white racism. A more plausible explanation is that turn out is often very low in areas with a high black population, allowing corrupt political machines to keep their puppets in power no matter what.
In any case, the dumping of Jefferson by his mostly black constituents is a welcome development, perhaps showing that in the Obama era where blacks have proven they can rise to any level of power, there is no longer any need for the black community to endure corrupt second-rate representation from an incumbent just because they have black skin. In fact what is also interesting about Jefferson's defeat is that he lost to an Asian, refuting the racist assumption that blacks will only allow themselves to be represented by other blacks. In fact black people, like all voters, know that good government comes in all colors.
Springfield's Theodore's is not the only place reputed to be haunted. The New York City apartment where Heath Ledger was found dead of a drug overdose is supposedly spooking prospective tenants. Star magazine reports:
Potential renters are wary of moving into Heath Ledger's home. The New York Post reports that the three-bedroom, 4,400-square-foot Manhattan apartment, where the Aussie actor died of an accidental drug overdose, has been taken off the market. It's been on the market since July — after Heath died there in January — and nobody has been willing to spring for the $26,000-a-month rent.
The paper claims that the reason the place is vacant most likely is because of "its spooky provenance" as well as the slowed rental market.
Heath moved into the apartment in September 2007 when he moved out of the Brooklyn brownstone he shared with Michelle Williams and their daughter Matilda.
Is it a ghost that's scaring away customers, or the outrageous fucking rent?
I recently came across this unused ticket someone gave me in the year 2000 to a local Republican event that had on it's front a picture of Bill Clinton, an example of what a unifying figure he was to the Republicans who hated him. The phenomenon in reverse of course is the way Democrats were united in their hatred of George W. Bush.
Will Obama be as polarizing a figure as Clinton and Bush were? I think so.
Speaking of tickets, here's one from a yearly picnic me and the late great Jay Libardi used to put on every year in the 80's. Note the William Blake line about the road of excess leading to the palace of wisdom.
Blake was right of course, but as Jay and I discovered the hard way, it can lead to learning things you never wanted to know.
In Amherst College's Frost Library is this electronic sign that shows poems by Valley poets. Here's an appropriate one.
We never know how high we are by Emily Dickinson
We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies—
The Heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the Cubits warp For fear to be a King—
Did you know that Amherst writer Augusten Burroughs (above) has a blog (or "blob" as he prefers to call it?) Check it out here.
I looked out my window this morning and lo and behold while I slept it had snowed!
Not much of a snowfall, just enough to cover the ground. I love the way snow has the power to transform drab dead brown lawns like this one in Amherst into scenes of beauty.
Seasons change in meteorological and political ways, but the Amherst Sunday Peace Vigil never ends.
Finally, here is the local band Animental performing in a living room in Haydenville, Masachusetts.
The recent arrest and resignation of Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson is exactly the sort of corruption story I usually pounce on. But in this case I have hesitated to say anything. The reason is that I once knew Dianne Wilkerson when we were both teenagers at the High School of Commerce in Springfield.
Wilkerson was not born in Springfield, having moved to Massachusetts from Arkansas at the age of five. She was part of the first generation to suffer under Springfield's forced busing policies, and has spoken on the feelings of alienation she felt when compelled to attend a predominantly white school. I knew her at Commerce as a smart, quiet kid who suddenly became the center of notoriety when she became pregnant in her senior year. The custom at that time was for pregnant students to quietly withdraw from school, but Wilkerson demanded, and won, the right to graduate with our class.
Later she went to American International College, also in Springfield, and then to law school in Boston. Since she stayed in the Boston area after obtaining her law degree most of us in Western Mass lost track of her, until she suddenly resurfaced in 1993 as a Boston based State Senator, the first black woman to achieve such a high post. Of course, as her former classmates we were all very proud of her, but then came the scandals, and there were a lot of them. According to the Wikipedia.org:
Wilkerson was sentenced to house arrest in December 1997 after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s. She was suspended from practicing law for one year in 1999 because of the conviction and did not seek reinstatement.
In 2001, she was fined $1,000 by the State Ethics Commission for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
In September 2005, the state Attorney General and head of the state’s campaign finance office filed a lawsuit against Wilkerson, alleging she had not reported nearly $27,000 in donations and refused to explain more than $18,000 in personal reimbursements. She agreed to pay a $10,000 fine and forego about $30,000 in debts owed her to settle the allegations.
The state Office of the Bar Counsel filed a complaint on October 3, 2008, accusing Wilkerson of violating the rules of professional conduct by lying under oath at a 2005 court hearing at which her nephew, Jermaine Berry, requested a new trial on a manslaughter conviction.
On October 28, 2008, Wilkerson was arrested by the FBI on public corruption charges. A federal criminal complaint was filed against her that alleges she was caught on tape stuffing a cash bribe into her bra and accepted those cash payments in exchange for her official duties and responsibilities. She is currently free on a $50,000 non-surety bond after having appeared in U.S. District Court.
On November 18, 2008, a federal grand jury indicted Wilkerson on eight counts of accepting bribes.
Wilkerson also had an annoying tendency to denounce as racists anyone who questioned her. But even those who want to be supportive of Wilkerson now find it difficult to explain away those videos. Naturally, no one could feast on a scandal like this quite like Howie Carr, who has compiled this list of the winners and losers in the Wilkerson affair:
• Attorney General Martha Coakley, loser. This happened, literally, under Martha’s nose. Martha, the Crime Watch in your neighborhood failed.
• Speaker Sal DiMasi, loser. Martha is now going to have to start turning over some rocks that the culprits are hiding under, and her No. 1 target these days is Sal’s, ahem, accountant. I predict she turns up the heat.
• Secretary of State Bill Galvin, winner. No need to worry about Dianne’s sticker campaign now.
• Gov. Deval Patrick, winner. Now he doesn’t have to give her that $107,000-a-year job on the Industrial Accident Board. But we won’t forget the robo-calls he made for her before the primary.
• Mayor Mumbles Menino, loser. So what if he only took a call from her, he still has some ’splainin’ to do, about why he was such a big Dianne backer in the primary campaign.
• Black ministers of Roxbury, losers. Remember that sticker campaign for Sister Dianne - never mind, brethren!
• Public Corruption Unit, U.S. attorney’s office, winner. This is a nice appetizer, now it’s time for the main course - the Boston Fire Department.
• Sen. John Kerry, winner. Wasn’t Dianne supposed to be some big speaker at the 2004 Democratic convention here in Boston, but then got yanked at the last minute? Good move, somebody.
• Sen. Barack Obama, winner. She’s been with him at a Boston event at least once, but so far we haven’t been able to come up with a picture. So far.
What happened to the Dianne Wilkerson I knew at the High School of Commerce? I could be nice and say that she was corrupted once she moved east to the Big Bad Boston, but then she comes from Springfield, one of the most corrupt cities in Massachusetts! Now she must learn the hard way, like Gerry Phillips, Papa Ray Asselin, Anthony Ardolino and Frankie Keough, that the scams can go on for only so long before the inevitable arrest - after which all your worst nightmares come true.
At the First Congregational Church in Amherst today there was the annual "Cranberry Bog" fundraising event. Here a Seuss hat wearing Pat Vittum and her assistant Eric Allen supervise the silent auction.
I also noticed in Amherst today that the tables and chairs that usually sit outside of Rao's Coffee shop have all been put aside and chained up.
No surprise, with the arctic fall weather we've been having who would want to sit outside? Indeed, the re-appearance of Rao's outdoor cafe culture is one of the surest signs of spring in Amherst every year.
Speaking of cold, let me take you back to the Cold War year of 1985 for this otherwise beautiful song which unfortunately wrongheadedly declared the Cold War unwinnable. In fact it was only a short while after this song was popular that the Cold War was won by the United States under the leadership of Ronald Reagan.
