The Woodbine Crime Watch
Announcing launch of the the Woodbine Street CrimeWatch!
Starting December 1, 2005 we are going to begin official implementation of the Woodbine CrimeWatch.
Please follow these CrimeWatch procedures:
When one witnesses a crime or suspicious activity, they should:
(1) document the incident as completely as they can on a CrimeWatch Incident Report (If you don't have the CrimeWatch forms please contact me.).
(2) If necessary, notify the police using the appropriate phone number; sub-station, main office, or 911, all numbers available on the Website and on the CrimeWatch forms.
(3) Call any neighbors who may need warning.
(4) On Fridays, the reports will be submitted to the block captain and filed for future documentation of incident patterns and routine follow up.
We need more CrimeWatch Members in the neighborhood. If anyone would like to join or has any additional questions, please let me know.
Help me recruit, please. I need residents and GCCC members to go out with me on recruiting missions.
Thanks. Keep your eyes and ears open.
For information call me or contact: Ellen at CrimeWatch.
Ellen Baver
Submit a blog entry: BlogEntry
Posted at 07:20 PM | Community | Comments (2)
Boston's Crime Cameras
If it's good enough for Boston...
Today's Boston Globe features a front page, below the fold, story about the City of Boston's plan to install digital surveillance cameras in high crime areas and mentions the intent to allow the police drug unit to access the cameras if requested.
Digital Crime Camera - Lane Turner/Globe Staff
The globe quotes Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole: “We hope to be creative," she said in an interview. ''If the drug unit wants to monitor cameras in the areas where there's been drug activity, they can do that."
Of course the usual debate got underway among the usual suspects:
“Sarah Wunsch, a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said yesterday that cameras have not been effective in combating crime in Britain, where they have been commonplace since the 1990s. She also said the public should be concerned about the cameras' power to give the government more information on individual habits.”
'We're talking about the government and the police choosing to use high-powered surveillance cameras out in public, where people think the government is not spying on them,’ Wunsch said. 'We will turn into a very different society . . . ' Who are you meeting with? What book are you reading?' Americans ought to think about it.”
O'Toole said she has been responsive to the ACLU's concerns, saying the department agreed to dispose of tapes from the cameras after 90 days.”
In Boston, shootings are up 28% and the police force is down nearly 200 officers from 5 years ago. Chinatown will be the first Boston community to get the cameras.
Could it be good for Mt. Hope?
I know where I would put cameras in Mt. Hope. But let’s let our bloggers debate the issue. Would you put cameras in Mt. Hope? Why? Why not? Where would you put cameras in Mt. Hope. What type of crime would you like to deter? Would you contribute funds toward cameras if the money went only to Mt. Hope law enforcement? How long do you think the records should be kept. Do you think cameras would deter drug dealing in Mt. Hope? What if perps wear hooded sweatshirts, shades and caps and thus cannot be identified on camera. Thugs are smart and have thus far learned to operate successfully right under the police’s nose. Would cameras really be effective in Mt. Hope?
Read the Globe story, High-crime areas to receive cameras, below.
Peter Cassells & John Twomey contributed to this post
Cty to use cameras in bid to fight crime
Chinatown, other sites to get device
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff | November 19, 2005
By January, Boston will install about 40 sophisticated surveillance cameras in Chinatown, along Boston Harbor, and in high-crime areas, probably including Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday he believes the digital cameras can be an effective tool against crime. ''Any technology or any operation that we can use that will help us combat violence in the streets of our city, we're going to look at very seriously," he said in an interview.
Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said yesterday that the city eventually plans to link its cameras with others already in transportation hubs, housing developments, and private businesses to help stem a surge in crime.
''We hope to be creative," she said in an interview. ''If the drug unit wants to monitor cameras in the areas where there's been drug activity, they can do that."
The cameras to be installed in coming weeks were purchased for and used during the Democratic National Convention in July 2004, but have been shelved since. Police originally said the cameras would go up in Chinatown in February.
The delay, officials said, involved getting permission from businesses and homes to mount the cameras, as well as the technical difficulties of wiring the cameras.
Civil libertarians, however, said Boston should keep the cameras on the shelf.
Sarah Wunsch, a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said yesterday that cameras have not been effective in combating crime in Britain, where they have been commonplace since the 1990s. She also said the public should be concerned about the cameras' power to give the government more information on individual habits.
''We're talking about the government and the police choosing to use high-powered surveillance cameras out in public, where people think the government is not spying on them," Wunsch said. ''We will turn into a very different society . . . 'Who are you meeting with? What book are you reading?' Americans ought to think about it."
O'Toole said she has been responsive to the ACLU's concerns, saying the department agreed to dispose of tapes from the cameras after 90 days.
On Halloween night, Chelsea became the first Boston-area municipality to activate a digital camera surveillance network. It plans to install 27 cameras to cover the entire city.
In Chinatown, some residents said they are happy to be the first community that would get the cameras. Officials said the neighborhood will get eight or nine cameras in the next month.
Karen Chen, a community organizer with the Chinese Progressive Association, said residents are concerned about possible privacy infringements, but most are more worried about their safety.
A preliminary count of two homicides, 211 robberies, and 292 aggravated assaults through Nov. 13 in the police district covering downtown and Chinatown has left residents unnerved. Citywide, shootings increased by 28 percent through Oct. 23, compared with the same period last year.
Others said cameras aren't enough to fight crime.
''I think much more police officers would be helpful," said Tim Ruan, the former administrative director of the Chinatown Residents Association.
The department's patrol force of about 1,300 is down nearly 200 from five years ago, a decline the city attributes to federal and state funding cuts.
Police Superintendent Robert Dunford, who is spearheading the camera project, said the technology is intended as a tool to help police prevent and solve crimes.
''If we had a crime and we knew the area had been under surveillance, obviously we would pull the tape and we could identify who had been in the area prior to the event," he said.
Dunford said the cameras will also be used to help determine police deployment. He said there are thousands of cameras in the city to potentially link with, and he cited Chicago as a model.
Jennifer Martinez, a spokeswoman for the city of Chicago, said there are roughly 2,000 cameras in Chicago's network, which covers housing developments and transportation centers, but not private businesses.
Andrew Velasquez, director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications in Chicago, said city officials believe the cameras, which were installed starting in 2001, are partly responsible for a decline in crime. Chicago reduced its homicide rate by 25 percent last year, resulting in a 38-year low.
''Having that extra set of eyes and ears out there has contributed to the Chicago Police Department's crime-fighting strategy," Velasquez said.
Two dozen cameras are outfitted with gunshot detection software. ''There are acoustic sensors built into the cameras, so if there's a gunshot detected within the vicinity of the camera, that camera will focus on the area where there has been a shooting," Velasquez said. ''There will be an alarm or an alert to tell the person watching."
O'Toole said she hopes to buy more cameras for Boston soon and is looking for ways, including donations from businesses, to pay for them, since federal homeland security money only covers the cost of the 19 cameras to be placed along the harbor to help guard tankers carrying liquefied natural gas against terrorist threat.
She said she only wants to put cameras in areas where there is strong community support for them.
However, she said the issue is raised at most crime watch meetings, suggesting widespread interest.
Posted at 01:44 AM | Issues | Comments (4)
THE NAKED AND THE NUDE
Poem of the Week Feature
Two poems: Graves and Carver
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THE NAKED AND THE NUDE
For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness anatomy;
And naked shines the goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.
The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showmans’s trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.
The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometimes nude!
Robert Graves
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Bonnard’s Nudes
His wife. Forty years he painted her.
Again and again. The nude in the last painting
the same young nude as the first. His wife
As he remembered her young. As she was young.
His wife in her bath. At her dressing table
in front of the mirror. Undressed.
His wife with her hands under her breasts
looking out on the garden.
The sun bestowing warmth and color.
Every living thing in bloom there.
She young and tremulous and most desirable.
When she died, he painted a while longer.
A few landscapes. Then he died.
And was put down next to her.
His young wife.
Raymond Carver
Posted at 12:04 AM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Too Cute for Words
Butt to Buttsky
Molly & Ulysses
Posted at 11:50 PM | Website | Comments (0)
Right to Privacy II
Learning on the fly
More on the right to privacy in Wednesday’s NYTs, Can I Get a Little Privacy? By Dan Savage
Interestingly, in a Texas case, Lawrence v. Texas, where the SC knocked down a Texas law banning sodomy, gay and straight, Judge Anthony Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion questioning state’s laws against masturbation, adultery, and fornication. So all you wankers and tinker belles out there, you cheaters, and Sunday copulators, praise the lord and pass the right to privacy. (There is a song, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.)
Mr. Savage points out that the three recent nominees, Roberts, Miers, and Alito all seem to have problems with the privacy issue, and it is widely believed that the conservative right will attack the right to privacy through the Griswold v Connecticut ruling.
In his piece, Mr. Savage explains a little about Ms. Griswold.
Mr. Savage proposes an amendment to the constitution spelling out the right to privacy so that this right is no longer open to ambiguous interpretation. But he admits that not even that will stop an assault on Roe v Wade.
His op-ed piece Can I Get a Little Privacy? below.
John
November 16, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor
Can I Get a Little Privacy?
By DAN SAVAGE
WILL Estelle Griswold ever be able to rest in peace? Although she died in 1981, the poor woman gets kicked up and down the block whenever someone is nominated to a seat on the United States Supreme Court. But few people remember who Griswold was or what she did.
In 1961, Griswold, the executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, opened a birth-control clinic in New Haven. She was promptly arrested for dispensing contraceptives to a married couple and was eventually convicted and fined $100. She appealed, and when her case reached the Supreme Court in 1965, seven of nine justices voted to overturn the conviction, striking down Connecticut's law against selling birth control (effectively overturning similar laws in other states). Americans, the court ruled, had a fundamental right to privacy.
Much of American jurisprudence since then flows from Griswold - including Roe v. Wade, which found that women had a right to abortion, and Lawrence v. Texas of 2003, which found that the right to privacy prevents the government from banning sodomy, gay and straight.
Problematically, however, a right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. The majority in Griswold held that it was among the unenumerated rights implied by the Constitution's "penumbras" (which sound like something a sodomy law might keep you away from). The Griswold case didn't settle the matter, and the right to privacy quickly became the Tinkerbell of constitutional rights: clap your hands if you believe.
Liberals clap. We love the right to privacy because we believe adults should have access to birth control, abortion services and pornography as well as the right to engage in gay sex. Social conservatives hate the right to privacy for the very same reason, as they seek to regulate private behaviors from access to birth control to masturbation. (Think I'm kidding about masturbation? In Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, he wrote that the majority's decision called into question the legality of state laws against "masturbation, adultery, fornication.")
And now, with three Supreme Court nominees in three months, the issue is again on the front burner. In the 1980's, Chief Justice John Roberts was a Reagan administration aide who wrote a memo questioning the "so-called" right to privacy. During his confirmation hearings the press-release brigade at People for the American Way warned that these documents suggested that he believed that the Constitution did not guarantee a right to privacy.
In his hearings, when asked if he could a locate a right to privacy in the Constitution, Judge Roberts said that he could - but he was vague about what it actually covered. Heterosexual married couples have a right to use birth control, he conceded, but that was about as far as he was willing to go.
During her brief but thoroughly entertaining tenure as a Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers bumbled into a "he said, she said" dispute with the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Arlen Specter. According to Senator Specter, Ms. Miers told him in a private meeting that the Griswold case was "rightly decided." The White House, however, denied that Ms. Miers had said any such thing, and later she said that Senator Specter had misunderstood her.
Now it is Samuel Alito's turn. Senator Specter says he believes the nominee accepts the idea of a constitutional right to privacy. But we can still count on Judge Alito to be grilled about Griswold during his confirmation hearings next month. Does he believe in a right to privacy or not? Can he locate it in the Constitution or not?
Well, if the right to privacy is so difficult for some people to locate in the Constitution, why don't we just stick it in there?
Wouldn't that make it easier to find?
If the Republicans can propose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, why can't the Democrats propose a right to privacy amendment? Making this implicit right explicit would forever end the debate about whether there is a right to privacy. And the debate over the bill would force Republicans who opposed it to explain why they don't think Americans deserve a right to privacy - which would alienate not only moderates, but also those libertarian, small-government conservatives who survive only in isolated pockets on the Eastern Seaboard and the American West.
Of course, passing a right to privacy amendment wouldn't end the debate over abortion - that argument would shift to the question of whether abortion fell under the amendment. But given the precedent of Roe, abortion rights would be on firmer ground than they are now.
So, come on, Democrats, go on the offensive - start working on a bill. Not only would enshrining the right to privacy in the Constitution secure a right that most Americans rightly believe they are already entitled to, it would also allow Estelle Griswold to finally rest in peace.
Dan Savage is the editor of The Stranger, a Seattle newsweekly.
Posted at 12:58 PM | Politics | Comments (0)
Landmark Providence Lawsuit
Young v Providence
Why does the Providence Journal keep burying the coverage of the Cornel Young Jr. wrongful death suit deep inside the Rhode Island section of the paper? I would think that most people consider this lawsuit front page news in Providence and throughout Rhode Island.
The Journal prominently covers a party at the Brown student center on the top of the front page yet they bury a landmark legal case in the City’s history. Once again I wonder if Pro Jo functions as an arm of City Hall or as a de facto Providence Chamber of Commerce.
The article is even difficult to find in the on-line version of the paper, not featured in any of the teasers that lead readers to prominent stories.
I e-mailed the writer of yesterday’s piece Edward Fitzpatrick to ask this question.
Today’s article below.
John
Prignano defends 'on-duty' policy
Providence's former police chief testifies in a testy appearance on the witness stand.
01:00 AM EST on Thursday, November 17, 2005
BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Former Providence Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr., in a combative appearance in federal court yesterday, defended the policy that led Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. to intervene in an armed confrontation in 2000.
Young, who was off-duty, died when he pulled his gun and tried to quell a disturbance outside Fidas restaurant in the Valley neighborhood. He was shot to death by two police colleagues who mistook him for a suspect.
In a policy that Prignano inherited but stoutly believes in, the Police Department required off-duty officers to carry their department sidearms and to take action when "time is of the essence to safeguard life or property." In shorthand, it is known as the "always-on-duty policy."
Officers should have their guns with them at all times in case they encounter a criminal with a weapon, especially a "bad guy" that they had "put away" in prison, Prignano contended.
Leisa Young, Cornel Young Jr.'s mother, is suing the City of Providence in U.S. District Court for violating her son's civil rights.
She claims that the department did not train Patrol Officer Michael Solitro III, one of the officers who shot her son, and other officers on how to handle confrontations between uniformed and off-duty officers.
Her lawyers have sought to portray the department as having been isolated and behind the times, compared to other law-enforcement agencies, for clinging to the always-on-duty policy.
Since Young was killed, the policy has been changed.
Prignano, who prided himself on being a streetwise policeman with a knack for burrowing into organized crime, served as chief from October 1995 to Jan. 31, 2001, when he left amid controversy.
Now retired, he came to the witness box draped in a blue sport coat and a white shirt. Due to his heart condition, the lawyers had agreed to limit the duration of Prignano's testimony for any single sitting.
Although Leisa Young's lawyers called him to the stand, he was not a friendly witness.
Even as lawyer Nicholas Brustin would pose questions, Prignano would plow ahead with extended answers, talking over Brustin. Their awkward Q & A appeared to be complicated by Prignano's being hard of hearing. For a while, they sparred over the meaning of the term "common sense."
Several times Judge William E. Smith Jr. admonished Prignano to give only "yes" or "no" answers when the questions called for that and, in general, to restrain himself.
Prignano insisted that he needed to give explanations.
"It looks like I'm a police chief who doesn't care. And that's not so," he declared.
As Prignano persisted in his assertive responses, the exasperated judge finally remarked, "Maybe we should just break for the day."
Among the points Prignano made: If he was still chief, he would still require off-duty officers to carry guns and intervene in crimes if they were able.
While he was chief, he believed that officers were trained about how to show their badges if they had to pull their guns and act while off-duty. Cornel Young Jr. has been faulted for not showing his badge before he was shot.
While he was chief, he should have instituted a general order specifically instructing officers how to show their badges when they pulled their guns while off-duty.
Prignano is scheduled to resume his testimony this morning.
The other witness yesterday was Sgt. Michael Harris, who was assistant director of the police training academy from which Solitro graduated.
His wife, former Sgt. Tonya King Harris, was in the audience as a gesture of support, as a lawyer for the city relentlessly challenged him with questions.
Harris said that in Solitro's academy, there was no training on how uniformed officers should handle themselves during confrontations with off-duty officers and vice versa.
Harris testified that the Rhode Island Minority Police Officers
Association, of which he was vice president, was quite concerned about minority officers disproportionately being targeted as suspects, and shot, by on-duty officers across the country. Young was black and the officers who killed him are white.
Nevertheless, he acknowledged, neither he nor the association proposed at the time that police training be improved regarding misidentification of off-duty officers.
"Obviously Jai would still be here" if the training was better, Harris said, using Cornel Young Jr.'s nickname.
Online at: http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20051117_young17.170dd86a.html
Posted at 12:25 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
I believe in patronizing a lot of live music, and one of my favorite venues is The Narrows in Fall River. A non-profit, they feature local art & crafts, theatre and American roots music.
Two upcoming shows of note are the legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band, from down the Big Easy and for blues afficiandos, from the younger generation of African American bluesmen (he's in his 30's), Alvin Youngblood Hart.
From the Narrows press release: www.ncfta
This Friday we are proud/pleased to welcome back the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Direct from New Orleans, Louisiana, these boys will be bringing the party to the Narrows. These guys have been through a lot this year, let's give them a warm welcome from a capacity crowd.
Friday, November 18
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
What band has played on recordings by Dave Matthews, Modest Mouse, David Bowie (!), Elvis Costello, Dr. John and the Black Crowes? The Dirty Dozen Brass Band! They're based in New Orleans, but have been bringing their mix of brass, funk, r & b, rock etc. around the world for many years. Learn about 'em at www.dirtydozenbrass.com
Doors 7:00 Show 8:00. Admission: $20 advance, $23 day of show
Thursday, December 1
Alvin Youngblood Hart's Muscle Theory
Guitar fans, especially Blues guitar fans, TAKE NOTE!! Alvin Youngblood Hart is coming to the Narrows and he's bringing his hot guitar and band. He received the 1997 W.C. Handy award for Best New Artist and he's strummed with the likes of the Allman Brothers, Los Lobos, Neil Young, Gatemouth Brown and Buddy Guy! Learn more at www.mojomusic.com/alvin/
Doors 7:00 Show 8:00. Admission: $15 advance, $17 day of show
Narrows Center for the Arts
16 Anawan St.
Fall River, MA. 02722
(508) 324-1926/www.ncfta
Posted at 10:53 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Brown Sex Party on FOX!!!
DATELINE: Mt. Hope -- Lunchtime
Drunken Brown Gowns Piss on Town
It was with some great glee, I’m sure, that some folks read ProJo’s front page, top of the fold headline today about the “Drunken revel at Brown . . . “ that ended up on that arbiter of taste, good phone sex, and sexual harassment settlements, that Catholic of Catholics, Bill O’ Reilly’s Fox TV show, whatever it’s called.
Partially clad v Partially nude
I got a kick out of the description of Brown students being “partially clad” at the party. What constitutes being partially clad? If I remove from one foot one shoe and one sock, am I partially clad? A woman wearing a bikini, a man wearing a speedo, are these people partially nude or partially clad, or do they qualify for that other shadowy category, scantily clad? Could it be that if a man takes off his shirt he’s partially clad, but if he takes off his pants he’s partially nude? Then how is a woman dressed who is partially clad? This is an important issue that needs clarification.
Levity Aside
But if you read the article, (which I copied, below) you can learn what kind of good neighbor Brown is, and what residents of College Hill and especially Williams Street have been dealing with.
This is relevant because Brown has its eye on Mt. Hope, I believe, as does Miriam Hospital. If you want to know what type of neighbors these institutions make just ask the Summit Neighborhood Association and the College Hill Neighborhood Association.
I’m still working on the Brown’s Bad Science post that will bring these issues into sharper focus, but I’m stuck on how to present the information. Still a work in progress.
Read the PoJo article below: Drunken revel at Brown prompts review of school policy
John
Drunken revel at Brown prompts review of school policy
More than 30 drunken students needed medical aid after attending the annual Sex Power God party at Sayles Hall.
BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Brown University is reviewing its policy on student-run events after more than 30 students received medical assistance for intoxication at a party Saturday night that landed the university on national television.
About 20 students were taken to area hospitals and a dozen more students were taken to Brown's Health Services for intoxication after the large on-campus party. It was the highest number of students needing medical attention after a single event at Brown, according to university officials.
Several hundred students attended the Sex Power God party at Sayles Hall, a popular event known for its graphic posters depicting sex acts, which has been hosted by Brown's Queer Alliance since 1986.
Portions of the event were surreptitiously videotaped by a Fox News producer, who said he bought a ticket for the event off the Internet for $80. Scenes depicting partially clad male and female students, many of whom appeared to be intoxicated, aired on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor Monday night.
Saturday night's party followed several fistfights on the campus green and gunshots fired at Brown and Benevolent streets in the early morning hours after a fraternity party Friday night; Brown's public safety department said that no injuries were reported. In addition, residents of nearby Williams Street have complained to the university this fall, saying students throwing loud parties, yelling late at night and fighting in their neighborhood have disrupted their quality of life.
David Greene, vice president of campus life and student services, called the weekend's events "troubling" in an e-mail to Brown's 5,700 undergraduates Sunday night. He said administrators would review university policies for student events "to assess whether there were violations of the university's social function policies and to learn how we might strengthen our efforts to provide a safe environment for students."
"We are doing an investigation right now, so I don't know if any rules were broken or not," Greene said in a phone interview yesterday afternoon. "But we are worried about the health and safety of members of our community, and we need to review the rules we have in place and see if there is proper oversight at student-run events."
The Sex Power God event "has gone on for many years without negative consequences," Greene said. "We had police and security there and a night manager, but most events like this are primarily run by students. One question we should ask is: Can that model be sustained?"
Reports that the event was financed through Brown's student activities fund are false, Greene said. Ticket sales covered most of the cost, with just $100 of the $1,000 rental fee for Sayles Hall coming from the fund.
While alcohol was not served at the Sex Power God party and the Queer Alliance registered the event with the Office of Student Life, as required, university administrators say they are concerned about a growing trend of students drinking at private parties before events, known as "pre-gaming."
BROWN REQUIRES student organizations to receive training on how to manage large events, including keeping a log of students turned away at the door because they are drunk.
Such training has helped Brown's 10 sororities and fraternities run events on campus, said Meghan Gill, a senior who chairs Brown's Greek Council.
"Managing the door is the most important part of a party," said Gill. "You need to keep a log at the door so you know how many people are coming and you write down a name if you turn someone away because they are drunk, just to keep track."
Some students are worried that a crackdown by university officials will drive student drinking underground, not curtail such activity. They also want students to have a say during the review of university policies.
"Students are worried that harsh action would limit student events, and that would be a real shame," said Cash McCracken, a sophomore who heads the student activities committee of the Undergraduate Council of Students. "Students are also worried that there could be a clampdown on the alcohol policy, and we think Brown has the best policy in the Ivy League, because it gives students incentives to call EMS [emergency medical services] without worrying they'll get in trouble."
Greene said protecting students' right to call Brown's EMS without fear of punishment is a priority and will be maintained, even if other policy changes are made.
"We have a system here where students run an awful lot of events on campus and have a lot of responsibility and they go through comprehensive training," Greene said. "But if they don't work well, we can see some pretty risky behavior."
Greene said student representatives would be invited to join administrators and faculty on the review committee that will recommend changes.
NEIGHBORS ON Williams Street who say they are accustomed to living alongside Brown students and have had many positive interactions with them in the past say student drinking is worse this fall, and they have met with university officials to try to address the problem.
Late-night keg parties, yelling in the street, broken vodka bottles and inebriated students urinating in public have accelerated in recent months, said Anne Hersh, who helped form the Residents of Williams Street Association a few months ago.
"I've lived here six years and it's never been as bad as this year," Hersh said. "This is a great neighborhood, with a lot of interesting people, but we just want to be able to sleep at night."
She wants Brown to be more aggressive about cracking down on student drinking and encouraging students who live off campus to be better neighbors, as the University of Rhode Island has done in Narragansett. URI banned alcohol from all campus events several years ago. URI also formed a coalition with police, merchants and community groups in Narragansett, where hundreds of URI students live in off-campus housing, to integrate students into neighborhoods and crack down on large parties.
"We used to have 300 to 400 people going to keg parties," said Fran Cohen, URI's dean of students. "We don't have those anymore."
Salve Regina University in Newport has also worked to smooth out relations with neighborhoods popular with students.
"You can maintain your liberal image and curriculum, but still encourage your students to be respectful of the community at large," Hersh said. "It's time for Brown to host a debate about that subject and evaluate what URI and Narragansett have done."
Greene agrees. "In light of the issues we've had this weekend, we are beginning a review of our alcohol policy. We need to make sure it's consistent."
Brown officials will also discuss the possibility of offering more on-campus housing, Greene said. Usually about 1,200 undergraduates, mostly juniors and seniors, live off campus, although this year there were slightly more, due to an unexpected hike in the number of students, Greene said.
"We take the concerns of the residents of Williams Street very seriously, and it's important to us that our students act as good neighbors," he said. "We are in a non-academic disciplinary process with some of the students, and we are keeping in communication with the neighbors."
Staff writer Jennifer Jordan can be reached at: jjordan@projo.com
Posted at 12:30 PM | Community | Comments (1)
The Right to Privacy
Bedrock or Shifting Sand?
Current Events & Constitutional Law
I have been thinking about the” right to privacy” since the GCCC meeting of September 22, where during the wine & cheese reception the discussion came around to video surveillance in the cause of crime fighting. Someone suggested that video cameras be used to counter the outbreak of graffiti vandalism, since the city was considering using cameras for recording traffic violations at intersections. I vividly recall one member being visibly shocked that a member of GCCC would advocate such an invasive and reactionary tactic, and I myself piped up, with something like, “That would be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, wouldn’t it? Isn’t the ACLU” (of which I’m a card carrying member) “fighting traffic surveillance cameras on just such legal grounds? Doesn’t it violate our constitutional right to privacy?”
A few weeks ago I read an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe, by Jeff Jacoby, Privacy by decree, that shed some light on this issue. I set it aside in the “idea” pile on my desk thinking that it would make a good, informative, thought provoking post for the blog, along with the other partly written posts that pile up waiting for the free time to actually finish the writing. Well, I worked on it in bits and pieces as time allowed, saving the essay, copying and pasting it into Word and typing a few thoughts to keep the slim thread of an idea alive. By the way, I figured out there is no “free” time.
Now, with the news of President Bush’s nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court being prominent in the news, especially the revelation of Alito’s background as a partisan and deeply conservative republican who seemingly opposes abortion rights on ideological grounds, I dug back though that pile on my desk and then found the computer file where I’d begun writing this post in early November.
What struck me about Jacoby’s op-ed piece was the opening line: “Nowhere does the Constitution guarantee the right to privacy.” Jacoby goes on to explain how Justice William O. Douglas, in 1965, discerned “zones of privacy” in “the penumbras, formed by emanations” pertaining to the Bill of Rights in his ruling on the case, Griswold v Connecticut, which struck down a Connecticut law banning the sale and use of contraceptives. This same perceived privacy right was again used in 1972 in a Supreme Court ruling on a Massachusetts case, Eisenstadt v Baird, giving the unmarried the same right to access contraception as the married. In 1973, this perceived right to privacy became the bedrock for the Roe v Wade ruling that guaranteed women the right to choose abortion, as well as the basis for the recent Massachusetts state ruling allowing same sex marriage.
But as bedrock, it may be less than firm, if I read Jacoby correctly. The conservative right in our country sees the chance to overturn Roe V Wade and make abortion illegal by the appointment of a conservative, partisan, ideologue to the Supreme Court bench: in Alito, have they found their man?
Maybe they will ban the teaching of evolution and ban abortion in one fell swoop.
At any rate, it pays to be well informed. I’m no legal scholar -- I don’t even play one on TV -- is there a legal scholar in the house?
I’ve provided the complete text of Jacoby’s, Privacy by Decree, below.
John Twomey
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Privacy by decree
NOWHERE DOES the Constitution guarantee the right to privacy. The word ''privacy" isn't even mentioned in the text. But if all you had to go by was the obsessive interest in the subject whenever there is a Supreme Court vacancy, you might imagine that privacy is the very bedrock of American constitutional law.
Few legal cows today are more sacred. A judicial nominee who referred dismissively to the ''so-called right to privacy" or insisted that courts should not ''discern such an abstraction in the Constitution" would stand no chance of winning confirmation. That is why John Roberts, who wrote those words as a Reagan administration lawyer in 1981, smoothly disavowed them during his confirmation hearings in September. It is why Samuel Alito's nomination to the court was no sooner announced than his most important Senate ally -- the Judiciary Committee's chairman, Arlen Specter -- called a press conference to say the nominee had assured him that ''there is a right to privacy in the Constitution" and that Griswold v. Connecticut was ''good law."
Griswold was the 1965 case in which Justice William O. Douglas, writing for a 7-2 majority, discovered ''zones of privacy" lurking in the ''penumbras, formed by emanations" from the Bill of Rights. On the strength of that gaseous finding, the court struck down a Connecticut law banning the sale and use of contraceptives. The ''privacy surrounding the marriage relationship," Douglas wrote, was one of those ''penumbral rights" that lawmakers had no power to infringe.
In 1972 the court decided that this newly minted right to contraception wasn't connected to marriage after all. ''Whatever the rights of the individual to access contraceptives may be," Justice William Brennan wrote in Eisenstadt v. Baird, a Massachusetts case, ''the rights must be the same for the unmarried and the married alike."
A year later, Roe v. Wade expanded the ''right of personal privacy" to encompass abortion. In a 17,000-word opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun surveyed the history of abortion from the ancient Persians to modern times, detouring along the way to hold forth on the Hippocratic Oath, English common law, and the views of the American Medical Association.
But when the flood of rhetoric subsided and he finally got around to constitutional law, Blackmun had nothing more to offer on than the airy penumbra privacy that Griswold had unveiled eight years earlier. Even some liberal supporters of abortion rights were appalled by the decision's flaccid reasoning. In a withering critique, the legal scholar John Hart Ely wrote in the Yale Law Review that Roe ''is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be."
Yet Roe lives on, and so does the right to privacy, which is now said to be located not only in those emanating penumbras but in the 14th Amendment's guarantee of liberty as well. In 1992, Justice Anthony Kennedy cobbled the two together, upholding Roe in a decision that rhapsodized about how the Constitution protects ''the most intimate and personal choices a person may make" and how ''at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." In Lawrence v. Texas 11 years later, Kennedy invoked that language in striking down a Texas law that made homosexual sodomy illegal. Soon after, in a decision citing Lawrence and the Supreme Court's pronouncements on privacy, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that same-sex marriage must be permitted as a matter of state law.
From contraceptives to same-sex marriage is a distance that no one 40 years ago could have imagined the courts would travel. The thread connecting them is Griswold's judicially concocted ''right to privacy" -- amorphous, free-floating, and wonderfully handy for writing judges' personal opinions into constitutional law.
''I think this is an uncommonly silly law," wrote Justice Potter Stewart, one of the two dissenters in Griswold of Connecticut's ban on contraception. But it is not the job of judges ''to say whether we think this law is unwise, or even asinine." A statute can be foolish and unfair without being unconstitutional.
The other dissenter was Hugo Black, a champion of freedom who saw what was coming. He, too, found Connecticut's contraception ban absurd. But it is not the court's role to be ''a day-to-day constitutional convention," he warned, and adopting a standard as loose as the ''right to privacy" would set in motion ''a great unconstitutional shift of power to the courts which . . . will be bad for the courts, and worse for the country."
He was right. Griswold was wrongly decided, and its effects still poison American law and politics. But no Supreme Court nominee is prepared to say so. The last one who tried was Robert Bork.
From the Boston globe:
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist.
Posted at 11:13 PM | Politics | Comments (10)
A Thanksgiving Letter
As I sit here, reflecting on where I sat last year:
As my family and I are about to mark our first year anniversary of home ownership in Mt. Hope, I think of all the great things we have to give thanks for.
First and foremost would have to be my family: thanks be to god we have all been in good health. Next, I would give thanks for good friends, who give of themselves, their time, their hard work and their commitment to their neighborhood. Whether it is by catching stray cats, or running a web-log, running all over town to set up for GCCC meetings, running a neighborhood clean up day, these are people that I would like to give thanks to.
As I drove home today, I noticed how much work is going into the homes, apartment buildings, on Camp Street. This neighborhood is changing before our eyes from run down to fixed up for working families. And this is something we should all give thanks for.
I hope that in the coming year I can give thanks that my kids can walk to the park by themselves. For this change can happen, but we must all work together, put aside petty issues, and agree to disagree. We all want to give thanks for fewer crimes, less litter, more trees . . .
One last thing I would like to give thanks for is Lt. Schiavulli. Since his arrival, I think that crime has gone down. One can see that he cares about Mt. Hope’s residents, and he gets it: a few bad apples can not run the neighborhood. I see him and his men out and about all the time.
I invite everyone to post something that they have to give thanks for.
Yours Thankfully,
Uri Baver
P.S. I am thankful I have a place to post this ( :>)
Posted at 07:42 PM | Community | Comments (2)
Po Chu-I - 772 -- 846 C.E.
Poem of the Week
5 Poems
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HARD TIMES
Watch morning rise into heaven
And evening suns sinking into earth
And you don’t notice it in the bright
mirror: but here I am, suddenly 34.
Don’t say this body of mine isn’t old.
It’s getting there slowly, bit by bit,
and if white hair hasn’t grown in yet,
that young face has begun giving way.
However long this life may endure,
I’ll never be more than a visitor here:
though we’re promised seventy years,
not one or two in ten lives them out,
so why always on my way somewhere
and always finding myself nowhere
near awakened? This inch-wide heart
is a treasure-hoard of boundless ch-i.
It’s true poverty is a wretched thing,
but mastering Tao you abide in Tao,
and it’s true wealth is a joyous thing,
but if it comes it comes when it will.
Whatever brings deep wisdom to mind,
it’s here in these things nowhere else:
just sip a nice wine, and by day’s end,
a little drunk, you’re perfectly happy.
These words bear better than gold or jade.
Try them on and you’ll never lose them.
-
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ON MY DAUGHTER’S FIRST BIRTHDAY
Finally, after almost forty years of life,
I have a girl. We named her Golden-Bells,
and it’s been a year since she was born.
Saying nothing, she studies sitting now,
but it seems I’m no sage-master at heart.
I can’t get free of this trifling affection:
I know it’s only a tangle of appearance,
but however empty, it’s bliss to see her.
I’ll worry about her dying. Spared that,
I’ll worry about finding a good husband.
All those plans to find a mountain home:
I guess they’ll wait another 15 years.
-
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IN SICKNESS MISSING GOLDEN BELLS
What can I do? So sick, and your life
cut so short pitching me into such grief:
it startles me from sleep. I get up and try
lamplight for comfort against these tears,
but a daughter’s an absolute tangle of love,
and without a son the sorrow’s inescapable.
After three full years of nurture and care,
a sickness barely lasting ten quick days:
such things tear at the heart long after
tears follow the last cries of grief away.
Little robes still hung on dressing racks,
the useless medicines there at your pillow,
we send you off in this deep village lane,
then watch earth fill your tiny grave over.
Don’t say you’re hardly a mile away here:
this is farewell to the very ends of heaven.
-
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THE GRAIN TAX
An officer came pounding on their gate
In the night, shouting, demanding taxes.
They didn’t wait for morning. Hurrying
out to their granary, candles and lamps
alight, they winnowed grain till it shone
pure as pearls: one cart, thirty bushels.
Still they worried it wasn’t fine enough,
that they’d be whipped like sorry slaves.
I once took office, a fool devoting myself
utterly, regretting my meager talents.
Paid for sitting ten years like a corpse,
I served in four different departments
and often heard old hands proclaiming
gain and loss─it all comes round again.
If your sage hearts are so sweet and true,
why not send back a little imperial grain?
-
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FORTY FIVE
I’ve lived through forty-five years now.
My temples half way into grizzled gray.
I’m all skin and bone and song-seized,
wine-wild and each year more abandoned
still to the inevitable unfolding of things.
Anywhere tranquil is my old home now,
and I think my thatch hut may be ready
next spring up there beside Lu Mountain.
Po Chu-I
Translation: David Hinton -- New Directions
Posted at 06:26 PM | The Arts | Comments (0)
Veterans Day
It's Veterans Day, November 11, 2005!
WWI Veterans Plot, North Burial Ground
WWII Veterans Plot
Veterans Day was once called Armistice Day, enacted to celebrate the day that World War I officially ended at 11 a.m on November 11th, the 11th month of the year 1918. Later the holiday's name was changed to Veterans Day to honor all veterans who served their country.
It is a day to commemorate sacrifice and loss, to thank our Veterans, and to think of the men and women who serve today, especially those in harms way.
Posted at 01:28 PM | Community | Comments (0)
Re2: Getting out the Word
I think we should get the word out.
When I first began attending GCCC meetings in Mt. Hope many people told me that they were afraid to speak up at the open community meetings that were held at that time because criminals and drug dealers attended the meetings to see who was saying what, and people were afraid of recriminations if they spoke up. People also told me that they were afraid to call the police because the police would tell the criminals, who was calling about them, and that the police were in cahoots with the criminals and drug dealers. I thought at that time that that was a bunch of BULLSHIT. I still think so today. There may have been a time, where, maybe, once, it happened, but this notion has since taken on the aura of “Urban Myth” and Mt. Hope needs no urban myths at this point in its development. There is also an element of neighborhood paranoia at work in these myths.
In her October 27th post, Jen advocates not publicizing the website widely in Mt. Hope via posters, handouts, and fliers, because she fears recriminations from criminals who may read the blog if they knew about the site.
Jen writes, “A major focus of this blog is highlighting the crime that goes on here in Mt Hope, whether we like it or not, and I would not feel comfortable posting in the manner that I do now if I knew there was a potential for those who are committing the crimes to be reading it.”
I find several logical problems with this argument and one of them is the clause “…, whether we like it or not, . . .” in reference to the blog “. . . highlighting the crime that goes on here in Mt. Hope, . . .”. I suppose that “, whether we like it or not, ” refers to the fact that the blog highlights Mt. Hope crime, rather than that there is substantial crime in Mt. Hope.
Are we to take it that Jen does not like the blog highlighting the crime in Mt. Hope? Perhaps she is one who believes that people who post to the blog should only post positive things about the neighborhood. That is another argument altogether, and again, I reiterate, that if more people participated in submitting entries to the blog, positive things, like reviews, news, opinions, etc., as I have often called for, it would not seem like the blog was slanted towards highlighting crime.
Isn’t the alleged, percieved problem, that of the blog's slant toward crime, grounded in the fact that not enough people participate in submitting entries to the blog: in other words, the problem lies not in the content submitted by the people who do take the time to contribute to the blog, but by the lack of contributions by people who wish to highlight other aspects of the community. Surely Jen is not asking me and others who contribute to censor ourselves and post only the type of entries she approves.
The other logical problem I have with Jen’s statement is that there should be no potential for recriminations by criminals for anything anyone posts. There is no reason to identify yourself or your location when posting about crime. That is why we have a Crime Watch.
For instance, look at the post Pleasant Street Drug Dealing on October 27th, the only name on that post is mine, yet it identifies several addresses on Pleasant Street where alleged drug dealing is ongoing. The member reporting that activity contacted me through the Crime Watch and passed me the information which I in turn passed on to the police and posted on the website.
No recriminations yet. (knock on wood.) ( ;>)
Jen also writes, “Unless we are going to lift the policy on posting anonymously,. . .”
And I must remind everyone that there is no policy on posting anonymously, just a request I made because of a few cowardly people who began using the blog to snipe without having the courage to state their names (i.e. the July 7th post, Pro Jo Editorials = Two of a Kind -- Does Mayor Get It? : the comments made under that post), using names like Kangroo Communique, et al.
I suggested that people not write/post anything on the blog that they would not say aloud to another person’s face -- write nothing that they would not sign their name to -- and, I think that is a good policy.
It has always been understood that anyone requesting anonymity for safety’s sake would, of course, have that request honored, and I can cite several examples where it was honored and several where my judgment dictated that anonymity was in order despite it not being requested.
I reject the "anonymity" argument out of hand. Anyone who thinks they have a reason for anonymity has needed only to request it.
Another point I wish to make is that I know of no incidents of retaliation by criminals for anything posted on the blog, and since I post most often and have often posted my name, address, phone number, and e-mail address, I guess that I would be the one most likely to be retaliated against. I’m not worried about it.
Both the Blog and the Crime Watch are designed, partly, to function as a deterrent to crime and aberrant behavior by letting the criminal element know that they are being observed, watched, and reported on and that there are honest citizens participating on every block .
To keep the Crime Watch and the Blog secret partly defeats their purpose.
I don’t like to live in fear, and I believe a judicious person can proceed in using the Crime Watch and the Blog the way they were meant to be used and not fear recriminations.
I think we should widely publicize both the Crime Watch and the Blog on every street in Mt. Hope using every means available.
Get the word out, let the criminals live in fear, not the honest citizens.
John Twomey
Write your blog entry here: BlogEntry
Posted at 08:43 PM | Website | Comments (3)
A Tale of the City
CLANDESTINE OPS THWARTS GRAFFITIERS
A battle for the soul of Mt. Hope.
As you know from the October 27th, post, Graffiti in Mt. Hope, vandals again defaced the Cypress Street Walkway overpass tunnel and sidewall. Around the time I made that post I received a call from Alec McLeod, a long time GCCC member, about the graffiti. Mr. McLeod had taken the initiative to call the City about the graffiti’s return, and he'd spoken to Mr. Al Buco, of the Public Property and Buildings Department, who runs the Graffiti Removal operation for the city. As GCCC member Jessica Stein learned when she called the Graffiti removal hotline, Alec also learned that this department is vastly understaffed has only two people assigned to graffiti removal and that that is only one of their duties.
Rather than wait for them to ". . .get around to it", Mr. McLeod convinced Mr. Buco to send a crew out to paint over the Graffiti on the underpass and to leave the remaining paint with Mr. McLeod in case (if & when) the graffiti returns.
Sure enough, late last week Mr. Buco’s crew came out and put a very nice coat of grey paint over the graffiti and left the remaining paint with Mr. McLeod. All was well.
Until this morning when I saw newly minted graffiti defacing the wall again, right over the fresh paint! The vandals must have struck the night of the 8th or the morning of the 9th. But this graffiti was to be short lived.
An Anonymous MHGRT caught in the act of graffiti "removal"!
I phoned Mr. McLeod and informed him of the defacement. He in turn placed a call to the Mt. Hope Graffiti Removal Technicians, a newly formed clandestine citizen’s organization. Their response was swift and merciless. In a flash of paint and rollers the graffiti had been “removed” and the MHGRTs had blended back into the day.
MHGRTs -- Protecting the Innocent
Only one problem: the city crew had left Mr. McLeod the wrong colour paint. They left him a container of Urban Tan instead of the grey that had been used on the wall.
An MHGRT Stands at "Attention".
Another call to Mr. Al Buco and a short time later a container of the correct grey colour had been delivered and again the MHGRTs appeared (this time with a slender, bespectacled, female, field commander), and a colour correction was applied.
Graffiti Gone -- Urban Tan on Grey (before colour correction)
That makes Mr. Al Buco a F.O.M.H. (friend of Mt. Hope). Thank you Mr. Buco, thank you Mr.McLeod .
When citizens take action, things get done.
After all, it's a battle for the soul of Mt. Hope!
John
Posted at 12:13 PM | Politics | Comments (2)
Re: Mountain Hope
The potential dignity the greenway affords our neighborhood is measured in many ways.-- Brad Spencer
I like the way Mr. Spencer uses the Greenway running from Grandview as a metaphor for Mt. Hope -- he is right -- in many ways this pathway epitomizes many of the problems that plague Mt. Hope: governmental neglect; litter, debris, and environmental unawareness; crime, drug use, and drug dealing; the mis-use of property; zoning and housing issues; and neighborhood inertia and apathy.
As Katie pointed out, this land was sold by the Mt. Hope Land Trust to the State of Rhode Island to be developed into affordable housing units to be sold to qualified first-time buyers. Still, there must be an approval process before building that the builders must go through that should include hearings and an opportunity for input from the neighborhood and interested parties.
It would be in the interest of the neighborhood for someone to do a close reading of these proposals and an exacting study of what the process will entail and where and how it would be appropriate for people in the Mt. Hope neighborhood to voice their opinions and concerns. The pathway/greenway is definitely worth saving, worth fighting for.
Mr. Spence writes of Mt. Hope and its ills, “Something deeper needs to take place and a new path must be discovered.” He calls the path, “. . .an urban rarity and a true treasure.” and, truly, these words do resonate.
And then Mr. Spencer scares us: “This pathway just sits there defenseless waiting for some nearsighted government official, organization and developer to tear it out.”
Exactly! The path of inaction leads to destruction, I’m afraid.
Is this issue worth looking into? Is it worth neighborhood effort? When this website was launched we took a poll on what issues were important in Mt. Hope. A number of residents expressed grave concern for environmental issues. A clean, safe Greenway would be another symbolic sign that Mt. Hope is indeed coming back from the brink to once again be a family friendly place where its residents can use the entire neighborhood without shame or fear.
I agree with Mr. Spencer. What’s to be done?
John Twomey
Write your blog entry here: BlogEntry
Posted at 12:09 PM | Community | Comments (0)
Scope Internationale II
The list keeps growing & growing.
Amid an hectic flurry of international activity in November, GCCC welcomes visitors originating in the countries of Spain, Saudi Arabia, Italy, South Korea, Kuwait, Columbia, and Algeria.
You can go to the blog entry of August 24th, Scope Internationale to check out the complete list of countries from which our visitors have logged on to the website.
Funny, I don't see Portugal on that list. does that mean that our own Shab did not log on to this site while she was on vacation in Portugal. Shocking, indeed! (;>)
Keep your eye out for more flags. I don't know why so much international activity this month, but barely a week is gone by, and we've added 7 countries.
Stay tuned.
Columbia
com
Algeria
Spain
Italy
South Korea
Kuwait
Saudi Arabia
John Twomey
Posted at 08:45 PM | Website | Comments (2)
Mountain Hope
The treasure of our neighborhood is subtle. Mount Hope has a lot of problems, and these problems are likely not going to go away without something very substantial being done. What needs to be done to rid us of our community ills may not be so obvious. Something deeper needs to take place and a new path must be discovered.
The long foresty pathway running from Grandview street across much of Mount Hope is an urban rarity and a true treasure. The potential dignity the greenway affords our neighborhood is measured in many ways. Children can easily go to a friends house, couples can take strolls in the evening, grandmothers can easily meet their neighbors several streets over.
The city of Providence currently owns a key section of our greenway and they are to "go condo" on the greatest section of our Mountain. The greenway is currently underused and not maintained. This pathway just sits there defenseless waiting for some nearsighted government official, organization and developer to tear it out.
This is our Mountain. It is the land on which we live and where our family lives. The forest pathway rolling through our neighborhood is Mount Hope. Sure there is litter there and it is a bit dodgy to walk though at certain hours. The green pathway through our neighborhood truthfully reflects our community ills.
Hope and dreams are not reflected by vinyl sided condos but they are in the trees and canopy of leaves that shade the children playing below.
Brad Spencer
Write your blog entry here: BlogEntry
Posted at 11:59 AM | Community | Comments (1)
Re: Kevin's Post
Interesting, stimulating, thought-provoking
Thanks, Kevin, you said a mouthfull, and you said it quite well. I enjoy listening to an approach, an opinion different than mine, especially one thought out and not reactionary and based on fear but one that is pro-active, even aggressive in pursuing change.
People seem to be so busy and to have so little time these days that it is difficult to get them to sign on to any committment that involves making time for community action. Look at this website for instance: it was designed to give people a chance to be active and to have a voice in their community without even leaving the comfort of their home, without even getting off of their derriere. Yet look at the number of contributors we've had besides myself--a handful! And thanks, to them: I'm not trying to minimize their contributions, but add up the total entries and you will get the picture. Even you, Kevin, I think this is your third or fourth post to the blog.
Greater Camp Concerned Citizens and this website provide great opportunities to get involved in the community and to make a difference in the neighborhood. Now, Kevin, you've issued a call to action as well and given links to even more opportunities.
Now that Mt. Hope crime is down a bit, and the community is undergoing rapid change in demographics, and so many important buildings have been purchased by new owners who are committed to renovations and the physical improvment of property, now just may be the time to look at long range solutions to the social problems that plague a highly visible segment of Mt. Hope's population.
Why aren't the unfortunate junkies shambling up and down Camp Street, to get thir daily fix, in a program of some sort that would help them find their way out of their downward spiral?
Where are the Boy Scouts in Mt. Hope?
Who is doing community outreach to the youths who are obviously involved in drugs and drug dealing, counseling them to the pitfalls that await them down their chosen path? Who is presenting them with an alternative?
Aren't drugs and drug abuse a public health problem? Where is the Department of Health in Mt. Hope, and why don't they have a policy on drugs and their impact on public health?
Thanks for your thought provoking post, Kevin. I hope you get some response from others besides myself. For all those who don't know Kevin, Kevin is the Scout Master of a Boy Scout Troop in South Providence. He not only talks the talk, he walks the walk.
John Twomey
Write your blog entry here: BlogEntry
Posted at 01:54 PM | Community | Comments (0)
A Long View Through a Short Lens
Short term solutions to long term problems? Let’s view these problems from an alternate perspective . . .
I write this entry regarding the last GCCC meeting with much
apprehension for I am neither a property owner nor a parent. I fear my feedback may be naive and inexperienced, it may be taken the wrong way, but here goes nothing . . .
First I want to commend all the officials who attended: Kevin Jackson, Rita Murphy, Lt. Commander Schiavulli, Alen Gouleard, and most of all Mellisa Dubois. Crime has gone down significantly, and I'm confident that this trend will continue thanks to their efforts and their response to our requests.
There are 178,126 residents in Providence, as of July of 2004, and not just one, but four officials took the time to hear our small group of approximately 30 Mt. Hope residents. To those officials I say “Thank you": you all work hard and listen to many sides of the story. I commend you all for doing jobs that I and many others are not prepared to take on.
The drug problem . . .
Drugs - The commander is right. They're everywhere and they're not going anywhere. If you drink alcohol, coffee, or smoke cigarettes, you do drugs. Legalization does not define a drug. By definition a drug is a chemical substance, such as a narcotic or hallucinogen, that affects the central nervous system, causing changes in behavior and often addiction. Caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol do just this. I'm guilty.
Illegal drugs are on the other side of Hope street and they're in the wealthiest of neighborhoods in RI. Most of the complaints pertain to the image that has been established in our community b/c of drugs. Hanging out on corners and blatant drug deals that seem to say “screw you, Coppers, you can't get me!” are commonplace. If these individuals started dealing drugs indoors and out of sight many of us 'concerned citizens' would have an alternate opinion with less emphasis on the need to eliminate drugs in our neighborhood.
The generational thing . . .
The most insightful point brought up at the last meeting was the differentiation between generations. Older generations are fostering drug addictions established years ago. All hope is lost here because they are not changing. We see them on the streets but not in the way we see a younger generation just sitting around, doing nothing, dealing without regard for neighbors, and making the neighborhood look bad.
This younger generation is perpetuating an image they hear in music and see on T.V. It's almost comical how bold these young people are to deal drugs in the park when the risk of arrest and incarceration could easily be eliminated by moving their drug dealing inside.
For this reason I feel that maybe out of alienation these youngsters wish to create a community that some of them like to call 'the ghetto' 'the hood' etc. I've heard it referred to this way in the past by many, many times.
More cops = $$. If we're going to get more cops here on Camp we need them on Broad Street, Olneyville, etc. Would we all be broke if more cops were the solution?
:::NEWS FLASH::::
If drug dealers leave this neighborhood, they'll go to the next. When we're all content with the improvements made on Camp St. the trash will move right back to our neighborhood and set up 'camp' (no pun intended) once again.
Who is doing all the graffiti? A younger generation.
Who is littering? A younger generation.
Who is speeding? A younger generation.
Based on the community meeting, the solution was to pay someone to clean up the graffiti, pick up the trash, install speed barriers, and throw repeat offenders in jail time and time again. Not on my dime. No way.
Temporary solutions to permanent problems . . .
These are temporary solutions to permanent problems. With these solutions kids will continue to litter, deface property, and drive recklessly. Our taxes will pay for these solutions until the day we die, as they have in the past, and the problems will still be there!
The permanent solution is to embrace a younger generation and to start a snowball effect of proper behavior. Example.... take a young individual from a broken home that hates the community he/she lives in and fights it with 'tagging', littering, violence, drugs, and crappy lifestyles that he/she tries to emulate from T.V. and rap music. Instead of incarcerating and shoving these people off to be reprimanded and punished, what would happen if we stopped and actually tried to understand what they need in order to change their poor behavior?
What would Camp Street be like if there was a 'Boys and Girls Club' in place of other useless organizations in the neighborhood? What about a Boy Scout Troop or a Girl Scout Troop that met regularly at the Learning Center or at the Community Ministries? What if they were picking up trash, cleaning up the neighborhood and all the bozos holding down progress had to witness it on a regular basis? Over time we would start to see a change in attitude and quality. I see promise on Hope Street, but it hasn't seemed to make its way 500 feet west to camp Street.
This is a permanent solution to a permanent problem. The older generation will expire and a newer generation will move in with change that will carry on throughout generations, and then our community will be self sufficient as are many 'wealthy' neighborhoods in RI. Believe me, East Greenwich does not have the need for meetings or organizations like the GCCC.
What can we do . . .
This is where I get prickly... Everyone needs to stop expecting our government to fix problems that we don't want to fix ourselves. Stop complaining and do something about it. Get out there on the weekends and pick up some trash. If Cypress is snowed in, take Wickenden to Hope and over to Camp. If you see a younger generation hurting your neighborhood start an after school program.
My impression of the GCCC meeting was that many who had things to complain about are lazy and want solutions handed to them without putting forth an effort or even offering constructive suggestions, myself included. We're spoiled Americans and we expect everything to be done for us. Shame on us.
If you don't like the condition your Mt. Hope neighborhood is in right now, and you're not willing to put five hrs. a week into its betterment, then maybe you should take the time to rethink your position and where you want to live.
I commend home owners who purchase homes and take in responsible tenants. My guess is that the landlords of the 'problem individuals' on Camp St. were not in attendance at the meeting. Maybe we should contact these landlords. Any volunteers? I challenge just one of you to contact these landlords to come to the meetings to hear concerns in the neighborhood and guess what... it's fiscally beneficial for them and all of us if we improve our neighborhood! Let's act on greed and start doing something to increase home values. Landlords are open to this, I'm sure.
Here is a website that offers all public information on properties on camp street: http://providence.univers-clt.com/
Type in the street and you can find out who owns it. Contact them and get them to the next meeting to discuss concerns.
In conclusion we all need to step back and realize how fortunate we are. We are all blessed in so many ways and it's human nature to forget this. Our lifestyles transcend a majority of humans walking the face of the earth and America's reluctance to recognize this has painted us to be an ugly, selfish society. The state of our nation is not Bush's fault. It's our own. We can all learn something from the Pakistani victims.
Here is a website with a list of opportunities to get involved in your state and community: http://www.vcri.org/
Let's not allow Camp St. to fall under the stereotypical image of a desensitized America: let's all step up. Let us make news headlines, let's change our community, and let's demand more of ourselves and of each other.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you for being concerned. Please call me at 401-935-5595 if you would like to speak
further on any of the above issues.
Kevin Kazlauskas
Write your blog entry here: BlogEntry
Posted at 10:53 AM | Community | Comments (0)
Indian Summer
Enjoy it while it lasts!
These may be the last fine days of Indian Summer. Get out there and enjoy them even if you have to tear yourself away from something "important".
We've been granted a few fair weather days this week, and yesterday I took lunch at the Old North Burial Ground. For twenty minutes I walked around the small pond there, watched the ducks floating lazily, and looked at the autum foilage, the birches, the maples, the spreading oaks and the tall firs, and I felt refreshed, rejuvenated, and inspired. I'd recommend it. Go take a walk.
These pictures show a bit of what I saw there.
Birches by pond
Ducks on the pond
Reflection through the trees
The Red Tree
John Twomey
Posted at 10:53 AM | | Comments (0)
In Memorium
Rosa Parks: 1913 -- 2005
In 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress, sat down in the front of a Montgomery City bus, in Alabama, and refused to give up her seat on that bus to a white man and refused to move to the back of the bus as was required of black people by law at that time, Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation.
For her offense, she was arrested and convicted, fined $10.00, and $4.00, in court costs.
Ms. Parks action, her refusal to be a second class citizen, helped spark the Civil Rights Movement and helped bring an end to American apartheid. Her simple, courageous action has come to symbloize a universal message of courage, dignity, and equality.
Rosa Parks funeral was held today in Detroit, her adopted home town.
Montgomery Advertiser, via Associated Press
John Twomey
Posted at 10:52 AM | Politics | Comments (0)
21 Trees
Abbott & Knowles Tree Planting
Gemma of Peach Ave & I did applications for the planting and we had a great turnout to help plant last weekend. I'd say about 20 people turned up to dig holes, plant trees, mulch and water the 21 trees we put in the ground. It was wonderful to see people working hard together to do a positive, concrete thing for the neighborhood. I have submitted an application for parts of Knowles & Cypress for the spring and plan to continue widening the circle every year. It's easy and fun. I encourage everyone who could use a few more trees on their street to apply to PNPP. I meet fantastic new people every time I go out and ask if people want a tree in their sidewalk, and I feel good for days after the planting. It really cements the feeling that we live in a great place.
kathryn laferte
Click link to submit blog entry BlogEntry
Posted at 02:22 PM | | Comments (0)
Trees Grow in Providence
A good thing. . .
One of the good things the Cicilline administration has done is the hiring of Douglas Still, the new city forester. I don't remember much about his background, but I remember reading that he is passionate about trees, and I know that one can already see the diference he has made in Providnece.
I've copied an article from today's ProJo, below, for interested parties to read.
The deadline for getting in requests for tree planting on your street is December 1st.
GoodNews Contributers needed
The website needs several good news contributors to scour the local media, keeping their eyes and ears open, for good news to post on the website. We have enough people contributing truthful news about problems, but if you want a balanced website people need to contribute more good news.
Click on link to submit a blog entry BlogEntry
ProJo Article
Trees take root in Providence through planting partnership
01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, November 1, 2005
BY KAREN A. DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Employees of the Parks Department's forestry division have planted a record 878 trees this year, up from 539 last year, Mayor David N. Cicilline recently announced.
Plans are in the works to begin taking inventory of trees -- first this fall in the downtown area, then in the neighborhoods next year.
Cicilline joined a weekend effort by parks officials and volunteers to plant trees along Abbott Street and Peach Avenue, in the Mount Hope neighborhood.
He said records were shattered thanks to a partnership between the city and the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program. The planting program is a partnership of the Mary Elizabeth Sharpe Street Endowment, the Helen Walker Raleigh Tree Care Trust, and residents.
The trees were purchased, in part, with funds dispersed by City Council members and by Community Development Block grant money.
"Trees add to the beauty and vitality of our city, while helping to protect the environment," the mayor said in a statement. "Partnerships like these enhance the city's ability to improve our streetscapes and go a long way toward strengthening the neighborhoods of our city."
A 2004 study by Providence Plan and the University of Rhode Island found that only 16 percent of the city was covered by trees, short of the 27-percent national average reported by the U.S. Forestry Service.
The city would need to add about 40,000 trees to reach the recommended 25-percent tree-cover status.
Forestry officials and advocates say the benefits of having tree-plentiful urban communities are numerous.
Trees reduce flooding by intercepting rain, clean the air by removing dust and absorbing pollutants, prevent soil erosion, act as sound buffers, increase property values, add beauty and produce a source of community pride, they say..
Douglas Still, the new city forester, has begun the project to take inventory of the city's estimated 30,000 trees.
Volunteer stewards from the Rhode Island Tree Council have been trained; high school students from Groundworks Providence's E-team will undergo training this Thursday, Still said.
"An inventory will give us essential knowledge for managing our city trees, such as location, species, size and condition," Still said.
He said the inventory will also enable foresters to calculate the financial benefits of trees.
The pilot project is being conducted with a small grant from the state Department of Environmental Management and with support from the Downtown Improvement District.
Still said the volunteer team of 11 will use Palm Pilots to keep record of the size, location and species of trees located downtown.
He said downtown trees typically have shorter lifespans because they face more congestion and pollution than those in other neighborhoods of a city.
Frank LaTorre, of the Downtown Improvement District, praised the inventory project and the involvement of high school students.
LaTorre said the project will consider what trees should be on certain streets and which mix of species would result in flowering trees from spring to fall.
The types of trees planted throughout the city this year include crabapple, Kwanzan cherry, purpleleaf plum, callery pear, Homestead elm, London planetree, littleleaf linden, honeylocust, red maple and river birch.
For more information about the tree-planting program or to obtain an application to have a tree planted, go to http://www.pnpp.org/ Requests for the spring planting season are due by Dec. 1.
Posted at 12:19 PM | Community | Comments (1)
