WMass Tea Partiers Arrested

Yesterday in Washington D.C.

 

Tea Partiers protesting in Springfield in January.

The national media was reporting yesterday afternoon that two people in the gallery of the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives were arrested for shouting slogans in opposition to the government healthcare takeover at the lawmakers below. What wasn't discovered until today is that the two are Western Massachusetts residents - Dave Sanders of Wilbraham and William Gunn of the town of Ware. The disruption was reported by nearly all major media but the most concise account of the incident, which included expressions of outrage from Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, appeared in the D.C. journal Roll Call:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Sunday that Republicans acted like “clowns” by egging on tea party protesters in the House gallery who were dragged out for shouting out against health care reform. A protester “stood up and started yelling, ‘kill the bill!’ … and then the Republicans started cheering him on,”

Frank vented to reporters after the incident. “You have dozens of Republicans standing and applauding and cheering on a guy who was disrupting the proceedings and resisting court officers. It’s really disgraceful.” Although Frank referred to only a single protester, Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider later said two men were arrested in the incident. William Gunn and David Sanders, both from Massachusetts, were charged with disruption of Congress, Schneider said.

Rowdy tea party protesters have flooded the Capitol grounds in recent days to oppose health care reform; group organizers on Sunday were encouraging attendees at a rally to get gallery passes and bring their message directly to lawmakers.

A visit to the website of the activist organization to which both activists belong The Western Mass 912 Group shows photographs of both of the men who were arrested yesterday in the Capitol. Here is Sanders of Wilbraham:

This is William Gunn and presumably a young Gunn.

Gunn looks familiar to me. I suspect this is him waving a "Don't Tread on Me" flag outside of the appearance of Barney Frank at UMass recently.

If so it would be ironic that it was Frank who would later denounce him and Sanders in the national media.

Both the Western Mass teapartiers have been released from custody and are back in the area and posting on the 912 Group website, where they are receiving mostly congratulatory messages from supporters. Most of the comments reflect the sentiment that their act of civil disobedience was justified, as in the spirit of this one quote by Orwell that someone posted:

"Speaking the truth during times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell

To read all the comments click here.

Post Parade

No, I did not go to the big parade yesterday in Holyoke, but the ever intrepid Kristen Beam did and here are a few of her snaps.

Naturally the media was out in full force, but this time they were also participants, not just observers. Of course if you want good weather for the parade invite the weathermen to march! Here are the Channel 22 folks Ryan Walsh, Brian Lapis and Adam Strzempko. 

Dave Madsen and Eric Fisher of TV40. 

Springfield Mayor Dom Sarno and his police department. 

The rock star himself, Senator Scott Brown. 

Representative D. Humason and Westfield Mayor Knapik.

 



When the crowds departed, only the trash remained. 

The Music Section

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right. 

Our New Pride

Massachusetts Reborn?

 



Wow, I can't believe the number of people from outside of Massachusetts who have been sending me messages about how much they appreciate the way our state voted on Tuesday. The whole country, if not the whole world, was watching our humble state to see whether we would start a second American revolution just like we started the first one over 200 years ago. Once again, we in Massachusetts have distinguished ourselves as champions of liberty, and may the light of freedom shine in the coming months, not only in our own country but the entire world.

However, the chorus of praise for our electorate is not universal. Paolo alerts me to this appraisal of the Bay State by Alexander Cockburn:

A year after his inauguration Obama has disappointed so many constituencies that a rebuke by the voters was inevitable. Yesterday it came in Massachusetts, often categorized as the most liberal in the union. This is entirely untrue. It's a disgusting sinkhole of racism and vulgar prejudice, as five minutes in any taxi in the state, listening to Talk Radio or reading the local newspaper will attest.

Ouch! However, I must say I approve of Cockburn's last paragraph:

A final note on Coakley. She rose to political prominence by peculiarly vicious grandstanding as a prosecutor, winning a conviction of 19-year old child minder Louise Woodward for shaking a baby to death. An outraged judge later freed Woodward, reducing her sentence to less than a year of time served. Then Coakley went after headlines in child abuse cases. Innocent people are still rotting in prison as a consequence of Coakley's misuse of her office. For this alone, regardless of the setback the Democrats richly deserved, I rejoice in her humiliation.

So do I.

Assorted Stuff

I've been doing interviews lately. One was with Dutch journalist Tom-Jan Meeus on the Brown/Coakley race. It's about time they started reading about me in Europe! I'll pass along the link when something surfaces from that. Also here's a picture of Michelle, a UMass grad student who interviewed me about my life story for a project she's doing. More about that later. 

Early this morning on my way to cooking pancakes for the homeless, I ran into Republican/Masslive dude Greg Saulmon in downtown Northampton. He's smiling despite having just been given a parking ticket.

Bird's is one of my favorite Northampton/Florence stores. Going inside is like stepping into a time tunnel.

 



My neighbor's psychedelic sled. 

Dr. King in a window in downtown Hamp on his birthday. 

Tale of the Ludlow Witch

A Ghost Story

 



The first time I heard about the Ludlow Witch was around the campfire at Boy Scout camp. I was never much of a Boy Scout, the organization seemed too religious oriented and militaristic in style for a free spirit like me. But I did like to go camping, so whenever news reached me through the boyhood grapevine (more efficient in its own way than the Associated Press) that the Boy Scouts were preparing for their annual camping trips, I would hurry over to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church and join.

I took absolutely no interest in their merit badges, paper drives or assorted good deeds, and never participated in them. I joined the scouts strictly to go camping, fishing, swimming and to goof off with my buddies far from the dull, hot mean streets of Springfield. When the camping trips ended for the summer, I'd quit the scouts until the next year.

On many nights on those camp-outs we would participate in what may well be the oldest continuous communal activity in human history. I'm talking of course about sitting around a campfire telling stories. Besides being the most ancient, it may also be the most human of activities. An anthropologist once defined human beings as "story-telling animals."

Many of the tales told around the crackling flames were creepy ones. The scary story is believed to be the oldest of all the literary forms. The ancient cave drawings of the Stone Age show stick figures being attacked by monsters. Psychologists have theorized that the scary story persists because it fulfills a deeply essential socialization need, which is the necessity of acquiring courage. Being frightened in the safe environment of an imaginary tale, and learning to handle that abstract fear, is practice for how to handle fearful emotions in real life.

In everyone's life will come moments of physical and psychological danger. As Ayn Rand once said, "Courage is not a mere virtue, it is a purely practical necessity."

Once upon a time, in Eastern Massachusetts during the colonial era, a terrible hysteria broke out in which several innocent people were tortured and killed as witches. One of the accused, a harmless, nature worshipping Pagan who came under suspicion as a non-Christian, escaped the Boston area and resettled in the tiny town of Ludlow in Western Massachusetts. The tolerant citizens of Ludlow left the Pagan woman alone, which was easy to do since she bothered no one and kept to herself. However, one day a small child went missing and could not be located. A panic arose that focused on the superstition of witches stealing children for use in their allegedly unspeakable rituals and recipes for stews.

Panic soon led to hysteria in which a mob marched on the Pagan's home and set it afire. Fleeing the inferno she was chased screaming through the streets, until finally arriving at the area where the bridge now stands connecting Ludlow with Indian Orchard. In a last desperate attempt to escape the bloodthirsty mob, she threw herself into the river. But instead of escaping she hit her head on some rocks and drowned. Her body was never recovered.

The next day the missing child showed up alive, he had simply gotten lost in the woods. The people of Ludlow realized too late that the Pagan woman had been completely innocent all along. But the soul of the Pagan demanded vengeance. If she was driven to her death by false accusations of attacking children, then she would show them through supernatural means what real danger to their young could be! Therefore it is said that forever after she has haunted our Valley, looking for wayward children that she can snatch away to some mysterious realm where they are never seen again, each time causing the community to grieve in guilt over how their false accusations had now come true.

Of course I don't believe that any of this really happened, but I'll admit it's easier to say that now, sitting in my well lighted den surrounded by modern luxuries, than it has been on some nights alone on the Connecticut River. I'd be a liar if I said I haven't occasionally heard things that sounded strange, or thought for a moment that I saw something that was more than just a shadow. But I simply remind myself that logic dictates that it is really nothing. Of course. Really.

There is a great scene from the movie The Shining where the character played by Scatman Cruthers is telling a small boy (who is about to be left in a hotel full of ghosts) what he believes ghosts actually are. Scatman says that they are the traces of things that once happened, sort of like when you burn toast. You may throw the burnt toast in the garbage, and put the toaster away, but the smell will linger in the air as evidence of what happened for a long time afterward. He told the boy that ghosts are like that, leftover traces of what happened.

So who knows?

Hellraiser Howie

Boston media legend Howie Carr was at the Holyoke Mall signing books, as seen here with blogger Bill Dusty. 

I've read Howie's The Brothers Bulger and recommend it highly. In fact there is much about the mentality of the Bulger Brothers that is very similar to the mindset of Valley political machines such as in Springfield, where Howie's guide to political conduct definitely applies:

1) Nothing is on the level
2) Everything is a deal
3) No deal is too small

In Springfield I would've added this rule - the bigger the scoundrel, the higher the honors!

Hamp Today

The Green Bean in downtown Northampton is becoming the essential Sunday morning hotspot for Hamp hipsters to meet to discuss the night before.

I've seen this painter all over downtown Hamp, even on arctic cold days, painting Northampton landmarks.

I'd say he stroked the historic Calvin pretty damn good.
 

henning by dwight