Mt. Hope· Providence, Rhode Island: February 2006 Archives

February 28, 2006

Catch-23, Laferte's Folly

On Catch-23 Redoux and Katie Laferte's allegations

“Mount Hope doesn't need fifteen organizations fighting each other. We're talking about twenty blocks here.”

“ . . . rather than staking out territory and duking it out like the kids are doing in their ridiculous ‘gangs . . . ”

I’ve learned to have a sense of humor in dealing with Mt. Hope's unselfish, though ambitious and thoroughly ambivalent, citizen activists, because, well, a sense of humor is definitely needed in order to keep one's sanity -- otherwise one would roux the day they ever became active in neighborhood politics.

I think our illogical commenter, Ms Laferte, got caught a little bit off base in her mini-rant mini-skirt, about Mt. Hope neighborhood organizations, and here, she gets picked off base, to use a baseball metaphor.

I’ve been involved in community work in Mt. Hope and with GCCC for many years and have experienced no conflict with any other Mt. Hope organizations. The Mt. Hope organizations I know of have separate missions which do not overlap. For instance, the Ministries do community outreach to poor people using government funds, and the MHNA uses government funds to provide after school programs, while the GCCC uses only member dues to to their work, which focuses on quality of life issues.

Our Catch23 writer says that, “

“Mount Hope doesn't need fifteen organizations fighting each other. We're talking about twenty blocks here.”

And even earlier, in a related statement, she compares Mt. Hope organizations to teenage gangs fighting over turf.

“ . . . rather than staking out territory and duking it out like the kids are doing in their ridiculous ‘gangs’.”

Who are these 15 organizations, Ms. Laferte; which ones are duking it out; and what are they duking it out about? I, myself, want you to inform me as I’m a long time member and leader of one of the organizations (GCCC).

And I assure you, Katie, the "kids" don't in any way see their gangs as "ridiculous" -- they see them as deadly serious, as you should, too, as we all should. How many have died?

It seems to me that this commenter cemented herself concretely in an abyss of obese hyperbole, if you know what I mean. In other words, I think she’s got it all wrong.

Our Catch23 commenter asks that:

"The organizer of these meetings has told me she's contacted the GCCC leadership on a few occasions to extend an invitation to attend. I would like to pass on the information to a member who would like to get involved (not someone who would derail the process, but someone who would be willing to attend as a representative of the principles of the GCCC)".

My stance on meeting with other organizations at the request of CATCH is that that would be a waste of our time if they provided GCCC with no clear agenda. If CATCH had a concrete proposal for the GCCC organization asking GCCC to perform a certain function for them or aid them in a specific area or task we would have looked over the request carefully, put it to our members, and acted on it one way or the other. But we received no proposal, no phone call to discuss issues, just an e-mailed meeting announcement.

Since my wife, Irene, was battling cancer at that time, all such insignificant activities, we just put them on the back burner.

GCCC categorically rejects Ms. Laferte's allegation that a rift exists between any Mt. Hope organizations and challenges her to prouduce evidence of her unfounded manipulative, delusional, and paronoid accusations.

But we (you) can certainly create a rift if you so desire!

But we did ask a GCCC member to represent GCCC at a CATCH meeting; Ellen Baver; and Ms. Baver left that CATCH meeting in tears after being viciously attacked by the woman who works at the Learning Center, Ann Marie Ready, and from someone from the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association, a Mr. Carvallho, and Ms. Devine all for Ms. Baver’s writing a letter to the editor of the Providence Journal and the East Side Monthly expressing her point of view as a Mt.Hope mother, parent, and resident who walks Camp Street on a regular basis.

See 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.

Ghastly behavior! I’m appalled at the gall of these people. To publicly attack and criticize someone for exercising their right to free speech, their right to voice their political opinion? To verbally attack her out of the blue in front of all the other people present at the meeting.

One person implied, (in what I consider a manipulative lie) that Ms. Baver's letter offended Mt. Hope's youth -- can you countenance such an outrageous accusation -- who did Ms. Baver's letter offend, the youthfull drug dealers on Camp Street?

Another person told Ms. Baver that she intervened to keep somone from burning down her, the Baver's, house! Can you imagine?

Ms. Ready, Mr. Carvhallo, Ms. Devine, write your own letter of dissent to the editor, for Christ’s sake--voice your disagreement in the public forum like Ms. Baver had the courage to do.

Cowards! Cowards all!

Ms. Baver reported to me that she was totally unprepared for such a vicious, personal attack and that it really shook her and her family up. She left their meeting in tears and was upset for days afterwards. Ms. Baver is one of the Mt. Hope residents and GCCC members who has worked the most courageously, and unselfishly, for positive change in Mt. Hope.

What way is that to treat someone whom you invited to participate in your meeting?

I wish I had been there --I really, really wish I had been there. Despicable behavior! Shame, shame, shame on all you who participated!

Since my wife, Irene, successfully beat her cancer (she’s cancer free, thanks, to all of you kind people who inquired) she has attended every meeting of CATCH. She has not yet heard of a proposal for GCCC from CATCH.

So what’s the deal, Ms. Laferte?

What have you and CATCH got for the GCCC?

What are you calling for?

You sat right next to Irene at the last CATCH meeting, and you had every opportunity to follow up on this Catch-23 post of yours, yet you were as quiet as a little mousey. Are you mousey by nature?

Here is another Laferte quote from the Catch-23 post:

“The much maligned CATCH program has held a series of meetings since the spring about "affordable housing." The fallout of these meetings is the idea that all Mount Hope organizations should get together and talk to one another, to develop trust and accountability and really try and deal with the various problems people perceive in the neighborhood rather than staking out territory and duking it out like the kids are doing in their ridiculous ‘gangs’.”

What do you mean, “The fallout of these meetings . . . “? Should we all be in our “fallout” shelters?

And by the way, Ms. Laferte, who told you Mt. Hope organizations don’t have “trust and accountability” -- or are you making that up?

CATCH, Ms. Laferte? Who? Empty rhetoric, Ms. Laferte: we await proof?

Has anyone observed anything like a gang war between Mt. Hope organizations?

I think Ms. Laferte needs to stick to organizing neighbors and community residents to clean up the empty land trust lot that blights the view from her house: she has organized at least two such clean-ups, calling them “Community Cleanups”, when in fact they only cleaned up the filthy part of the community that she could see from her front window: I participated in one of her so called “Community Clean-ups, and I felt used and dirty afterward. And I vowed, never again.

There are many kinds of community activists -- Ms. Laferte is one kind.

Some people are only involved in CATCH because they think they can have some minor input into the affordable housing that is going into Abbott Court, the Walkway off of Knowles Street where Ms. Laferte lives. CATCH should be aware of such motives.

As far as for CATCH, none of the three principal organizers lives in Mt. Hope, nor have they invested financially in Mt. Hope. Only their meeting moderator, Ms. Devine, is a Mt. Hope resident, with a financial commitment to Mt. Hope. She is a professional in social work for Miriam Hospital. She is the CATCH front person because she lives in Mt. Hope.

In fact, most of the people involved in CATCH and the Mt. Hope Empowerment Network are what I refer to as Professional Liberals. They draw their paychecks either from the government or from organizations that draw funds from the government for social services. It is important for their careers, for their resumes, to be involved in something like CATCH. I call it resume building. Although these people all have an ulterior motive, I believe that all these people strongly, honestly believe that they are doing good. They just cannot tolerate anyone who disagrees with them. I do. I personally disagree with them. Believe me, liberals are less tolerant than conservatives, and I am in no way a conservative, but believe me, you, Professional Liberals are the least tolerant of all, as evidenced by their attack on Ms. Baver for voicing her opinion.

I consider the leader of CATCH to be Dr. Peter Simon, of the Health Department, and I wish he had the courage of his convictions to confront his associates for their viscious and unconsionable attack on GCCC's Ms. Baver.

I think CATCH or now, The Empowerment Network, can do some good and bring some needed services to people who need them. I hope they can bring some of their ideas to fruition.

GCCC remains ready and willing to work with CATCH: we simply await a written proposal explaining what CATCH is all about and what role they wish GCCC to play in their plans. I strongly believe that GCCC should be operated in a professional, legal, business-like manner. CATCH should approach GCCC with these principals in mind.

I respectfully ask CATCH if they have plans that include GCCC, please forward them in writing to us, or simply call us up on the phone, or e-mail us, and fill us in on the details. GCCC is open to considering any projects that will benefit the entire Mt. Hope community, as expressed in our Mission Statement.

GCCC also remains willing to reach out to the Mt. Hope learning Center’s Ms. Ready and to the MHNA’s, Mr. Carvhallo and to CATCH to work toward common goals benefiting Mt. Hope: but we strongly believe that the individuals who attacked Ms. Baver owe her an apology for their vicious and unconscionable, personal, ad hominem attack on her at the winter, 2005, CATCH meeting.

Yeah, one must have a “mind of winter” to behold “the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.” To quote Wallace Stevens.

And, oh yeah, one must have a mind with a sense of humor, otherwise, well . . .

Drug dealers still operate freely right around the Crossrroads, Camp & Cypress, within sight of the Police Department's District 8 Substation -- it takes both a "mind of winter" and a "sense of humor" to tolerate that!

John Twomey

Posted at 12:01 AM | Community | Comments (0)

February 20, 2006

Poem of the Week

Swifter, Sharper, Simpler

“I am so rich that I must give myself away”

Egon Schiele

According to local philosophy
Everything that I want to call divine
They call obscene.
I want to burn myself up
And shine like a light:
You allege mean things,
Grease and oil on the water:
All disguises go for naught
In the dark eternities of the night.

What I recognize in decay
Breathes forth stronger and stronger;
Perceived existence transposed --
The distant ones, the farthest away,
As far as love,
Lead me to this:
A great recognition of the world.

John Twomey

Note:

Egon Schiele (a great artist of the Austrian school, known for his landscapes, portraits, and for his sensual drawings) was a master of line. Schiele died at the age of 28, shortly after his wife, in the tragic Bird-Flu pandemic of 1918. He was once imprisoned for a short time because of the erotic nature of his drawings.

Posted at 08:57 PM | The Arts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 14, 2006

Happy Valentine's Day

All You Need is Love

It’s that special day, again, when I wish the wonderful women of Mt. Hope (especially the ones who love me so much—and you know who you are) a Happy Valentine’s Day. My wife and I treat every day like it's Valentine’s Day. (;>)

It’s a day of wooing and romance, kisses and candlelit dinners: but beware the Ides of March, wrote Shakespeare: can there still be some winter left in romance?

Garden Gargoyle in Love

Our Poem of the Week for Valentine’s week comes from William Shakespeare and demonstrates the lasting power of poetry and the way it can bend to the age and lend itself to interpretations far beyond the writer’s imagination.

LXIV

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

William Shakespeare

Post 911, post tsunami, post Katrina, given the state of our democracy and the direction our government is taking, read this sonnet with thoughtfulness and insight.

John Twomey

Posted at 02:01 PM | Community | Comments (0)

February 6, 2006

Graffiti Update

Graffiti UpDate – Mt. Hope

The Cypress Street underpass . . . 9 times it has been tagged since the City cleaned it and 9 times the MHGRTs (Mt. Hope Graffiti Removal Teams) have covered over the graffiti with paint supplied by the city. Direct citizen action, effective and uncomplicated, no meetings, few words, just action by concerned citizens. Look at this clean wall as of 2-6-06.

Graf-camb 012.jpg
Cypress Street UnderPass -- Clean for 60+ days

I know that some people see graffiti as a petty crime and not worth focusing on, and they say it allows youths to express themselves creatively, that it makes the landscape more interesting, and that it is intrinsically urban. True: who am I to argue. Yet a coin has two sides, and I disagree in the case of Mt. Hope graffiti. Some of our graffiti is gang related, racist, and hate oriented. The graffiti in Mt. Hope signifies the power of forces that wish to see our neighborhood in decline, where forces of lawlessness, ignorance, and disrespect for property take precedence over working people who respect their environment. Private property is sacrosanct and vandalism against it is a crime and an insult, and public property, jointly owned by the citizenry, should also be considered sacrosanct and vandalism should not be tolerated by the citizenry who jointly own our public property.

I think that by law property owners are required to clean up graffiti on their property.

Take the sign pictured below, for instance -- when you drive north on Camp Street you have been treated to the sight of this graffiti for well over three years. The sign belongs to the Mt. Hope Learning Center, recipients of generous government funding. You would think that such an august institution that has contributed so much to our community, and is so dedicated to serving our youth, could organize a team of Mt. Hope’s young people to clean up the back of the Mt. Hope Learning Center sign of graffiti.

Learning Center Sign, Back

It is up to our community organizations to set a good example. Even the Camp Street Ministries has cleaned up their act, and the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association has painted most of their facade. The seediest section of Camp Street, from Cypress to Grand View is now all under renovation with owners committing hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovating their buildings, which includes making them look aesthetically pleasing. Graffiti is an eyesore in any neighborhood, let alone Mt. Hope, a rapidly changing neighborhood undergoing gentrification.

The Mt. Hope Learning Center could be a good institutional neighbor by cleaning up the graffiti from the back of their sign. Perhaps an e-mail or two to the woman who works there, Ms. Ready, would help them see the light. I’m sure they want to be good institutional neighbors; they have just overlooked the symbolic nature and importance of allowing their vandalized sign to go unaddressed. Clean it up, please!

If need be, GCCC volunteers can clean up the back of the Mt. Hope Learning Center sign if the Mt. Hope Learning Center is incapable of doing it themselves. We’d be honored to do it. It would be our pleasure.

John Twomey

Posted at 08:28 PM | Community | Comments (1)

Laferte's Foolishnesss