Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Introduction.
2. My proposed letter: Cleaning up the Homeless.
3. Dan Geer - Endangered Specie.
4. Roy Bercaw - Police, Bread and Jams.
A. Roy.
B. Your Editor.
C. Roy - Email for Bread and Jams.
5. Cambridge Chronicle.
A. Publication.
B. Editor's Explanation.
6. Letter to Boston Globe.
1. Introduction.
The Cambridge Chronicle printed a letter to the editor in its June 1, 2006, edition on behalf of the “Friends of Alewife Reservation.” The letter may be found at http://www.townonline.com/cambridge/opinion/view.bg?articleid=507167.
A typical piece of its sort, patting themselves on the back for a very destructive cleanup of the Alewife reservation.
I responded with a letter to the Cambridge Chronicle. Roy Bercaw and Dan Geer responded with their comments on my response, all below.
2. My proposed letter: Cleaning up the Homeless.
The following was sent by your editor to the Cambridge Chronicle for publication. This includes one further edit by me.
***********
Taken from a Chronicle letter:
"The most remote part of [several ponds] . . . got cleared from trash . . .
"Huge amounts of homeless shelter debris, some abandoned, was cleaned up. [Name withheld] commented: 'It was so sad being involved with the homeless possessions and their makeshift shelters. What can we do when they don't want to be with society.'"
Apparently these seven people went to about as wild an area as they could find and destroyed the meager possessions of homeless people living as far away from humanity as they could get.
And these seven people are spouting pious about how sad it is to destroy the meager possessions of these homeless people who went as far away as they could go to be out of people's way.
That people could publicly spout pieties about such behavior is a condemnation of our community.
Fresh Pond is seeing thousands of trees being destroyed by our city council and its friends. All wetlands and animal habitat on the Charles and hundreds of trees are being destroyed by our city council and its friends. Beautiful animals are being deliberately and heartlessly starved. Deliberate starvation is inflicted on the white geese on the Charles. Deliberate starvation is inflicted on untold numbers of unseen other beings on the Charles River and on Fresh Pond. By our city council and its friends.
And these seven people are bragging in public about destroying the meager possessions of homeless people who did nothing worse than try to live away from humans. It is very clear that these seven people are the sort of people nine city councilors are trying to please.
Those nine city councilors spout comparably lovely words while they lead the charge to destroy anything and everything in Cambridge which dares to be different, especially parts of our environment.
These seven and the nine city councilors will all be very pleased to tell you how much they are improving the community.
And they will all tell you how much they are concerned about the environment of our world and about improving the lot of the needy people in our world.
While they destroy what little has not been destroyed of the world around us, and destroy the meager possessions of their homeless victims, and they deliberately starve their victims, as with the Charles River White Geese, or with the homeless whose meager possessions are now casually destroyed and their tormentors spouting pious.
Cambridge has gone a long way. The lovely words are still here. The actions are strikingly different.
3. Dan Geer - Endangered Specie.
Bob,
Think of homeless people as a species. Note that 90% of all endangered specie are so endangered by habitat destruction. Assume that City Father (the one) is not stupid. The rest follows.
--dan, who does have a dog in this fight
[Ed. I assume the "City Father" is City Manager Healey.}
4. Roy Bercaw - Police, Bread and Jams.
A. Roy.
I saw your letter about removing the belongings of the homeless in Alewife. It is a matter discussed by the Council previously for the city parks, especially Cambridge Common. There is a system for the police holding their belongings when they are found.
It is a matter for the homeless advocates like Bread and Jams. You can leave them a message or any of the shelters perhaps the Multi Service Center also and On the Rise. They should be at the Council each week to embarrass the Council.
B. Your Editor.
I would agree with Roy that Bread and Jams should be constantly on top of the City Council. Regrettably, in response to his comment, I have gone to their website and determined that they do not allow emails to be sent to them. You have to fill out their form. That says too much. [ed: on looking at the website closer, if you know what you are doing, you can figure out the email address.]
With regard to police holding the possessions. Once again regrettably, this is not a police matter. This is a matter of "volunteers" cleaning up the wildest part of Cambridge, MA and trashing everything they consider not in place. These are the sort of people who have been running around the Charles River for the past four years poisoning every goose egg they can get away with.
C. Roy - Email for Bread and Jams.
One email address for Bread and Jams is: kmccraw@breadandjams.org.
5. Cambridge Chronicle.
A. Publication.
The Cambridge Chronicle published this letter on June 8, 2006, minus the paragraph that starts "Fresh Pond is seeing thousands of trees being destroyed . . ."
Ed. Note: The Fresh Pond reservation is located about half a mile south of the Alewife reservation which is the principal subject of this entry.
B. Editor's Explanation.
I posted the following on the Cambridgeport list on June 8, 2006:
The Chronicle is to be commended for its prompt printing of my response to the homeless attacks.
Reading that letter, it became painfully clear to me (as a bcc has commented) that the letter was excessively wordy. The editor responded to the length of the letter by deleting a paragraph which tied in nine councilors' destructiveness and which made the matter more relevant to Cambridgeport.
If you are interested, the full letter (with comments) is the first entry on the Charles River White Geese Blog, address below.
I did not include on the blog the communication on the length in the comments I published, nor did I include another responding to that communication or a third responding to the second because the three communications went afield and included somewhat personal comments, plus really were not on point. I had the same problem this listserve has had on occasion and I was aggressively trying to calm things down (I thought).
6. Letter to Boston Globe.
On June 11, I submitted the following to the Boston Globe (with some clean up edits):
**********
The following letter is submitted responding to the racism letter in today's Globe:
**********
Editor
City Weekly
Boston Globe
The real attitude toward diversity in Cambridge is demonstrated by the following statement by Cambridge "leaders" which appeared in a recent Cambridge Chronicle letter. They went out to Alewife and cleaned things up. They commented in their letter:
"Huge amounts of homeless shelter debris, some abandoned, was cleaned up. [Name withheld] commented: 'It was so sad being involved with the homeless possessions and their makeshift shelters. What can we do when they don't want to be with society.'"
The homeless apparently in large numbers went to as wild a part of Cambridge as they could so that they could find a place to sleep with their meager belongings.
The homeless were followed by "improvers" who destroyed those meager belongs and spout pieties about it.
The reality is that most residents of Cambridge say terrific words, and most mean those terrific words. There is very major trouble, however, with too many people in Cambridge who call themselves "leaders." The people who did this attack on the homeless have very major connections among the most visible of Cambridge residents.
Pieties are lovely. Reality is what these "leaders" did to the homeless at Alewife and then bragged about in the press.
*************
For more details, please see my blog, below which ties the problem into the behavior of the Cambridge City Council. See also the letter in question, posted on line at http://www.townonline.com/cambridge/opinion/view.bg?articleid=507167.
Signers were: ELLEN MASS, Cambridge; JOHN WALKER, Cambridge; STEW SANDERS, Belmont; OAKES PLIMPTON, Arlington; ANN TENNIS, Cambridge; KATHY CONNELLY, Belmont; DON BOCKLER, Belmont (taken from the on line citation).
Robert J. La Trémouille
875 Massachusetts Avenue, #31
Post Office Box 391412
Cambridge, MA 02139-0015
617-283-7649
visit our blog: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com
visit our website: http://www.charlesriverwhitegeese.org
