Bob La Trémouille Reports.
On January 29, 2009, I sent the following letter to the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with copies to: The Governor, The Department of Conservation and Recreation, former Transportation Secretary Francis Salvucci and the Cambridge City Council.
The letter has some oddities in it because it is a patchwork. It concerns the fake meeting of January 27, 2009 concerning BU Bridge repairs but the letter is an expansion of my letter of November 19, 2008 to the Governor concerning the first fake meeting on the subject. An extended portion of this letter is a copy of part of my ongoing draft comments concerning the Urban Ring environmental document.
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RE: BU Bridge Reconstruction Project
Gentlemen:
The bulk of this letter is based on my letter of November 19, 2008 to Governor Deval Patrick, with one addition.
Tuesday evening, January 27, 2009, I attended what claimed to be a public meeting on the BU Bridge Reconstruction Project.
This was one of three recent meetings concerning construction in the BU Bridge area. Only one, reconstruction of the bridge over Memorial Drive to Magazine Beach, is environmentally neutral. Only that one is being held in the neighborhood.
The first meeting on BU Bridge reconstruction was conducted in response to a request by the Cambridge Conservation Commission in response to the fact that the environmental destruction is occurring in Cambridge. That meeting was conducted in Boston on the Boston University campus.
A follow on meeting in the neighborhood was promised.
The follow on meeting was conducted combined a totally different project and located in Kendall Square, far from the destruction.
The total lack of environmental comment by the speakers and the absence of anybody other than me in the room concerned about the BU Bridge area emphasized a clear agreement among residents and bureaucrats that the meeting was being conducted in bad faith.
There is nothing surprising about this, this incident of bad faith repeats a decade of bad faith in the DCR’s ongoing fight to destroy the environment of the Charles River.
I demand that the DCR be obliged to at least go through the motions of being a decent, responsible organization.
A meeting should be conducted in the neighborhood.
Notwithstanding that, Secretary Salvucci is to be commended for repeating his advice that the project be delayed to coordinate it with related work on the Boston side.
I think the project should be delayed to reverse damage on the Cambridge side as stated below.
I find it unlikely that the project will be delayed because, more than anything else, it is the goal of the DCR to destroy the natural environment on the Charles River.
My prior letter, with one addition to the text and an added addendum:
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Please be advised of my opposition to the BU Bridge Reconstruction Project as currently proposed. I do think that the project can be accomplished with minimal responsible modifications to the proposal.
I propose:
1. Chop down the bizarre vegetated wall at Magazine Beach, as the DCR chops down useful vegetation everywhere else.
2. Return Magazine Beach to the historical green maintenance instead of chemicals and fertilizer and a new, expensive drainage system to drain the crap.
3. Kill the new, expensive drainage system at Magazine Beach. Green maintenance does not require this expenditure.
4. Let the White Geese return to Magazine Beach where they lived for 25 years.
5. Let them return to their nesting area, the location of the current proposal for environmental destruction, as they deem necessary.
6. Put the staging where it is environmentally responsible, under Memorial Drive.
7. To the extent this delays the current project, so be it. The DCR has scheduled things for maximum destruction. Minor delays for responsible behavior comport to the delays the DCR has already incurred in the area attempting to introduce vegetation at Magazine Beach which is unfit for planting on the Charles River.
8. Prohibit the continuation of destruction of protective vegetation lining the Charles River. Require twice annual chopping to one foot of the bizarre designer vegetation introduced at Magazine Beach, or, better use, require its removal. Prohibit the continued poisoning of the eggs of waterfowl.
9. Change the drainage to the Cambridge side so that it goes into the existing Memorial Drive drainage. The complicated system IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ANIMAL HABITAT is just another technique to destroy the natural environment for which the DCR has such great contempt. Just another piece of bad faith.
This project is most definitely NOT free standing but is carefully coordinated to fit in with directly related environmental destruction efforts by the DCR. The coordination should be modified to minimize environmental destruction. Currently, the coordination maximizes environmental destruction.
The DCR is in the process of destroying all living beings on the Charles River, either directly or indirectly through destroying their ecosystem. The goal is to replace a viable and mixed ecosystem with a dead ecosystem. A balance of nature is being replaced with a suburban lawn. And a lot of lying has been and continues to be used in that regard. The important lie in this project is the claim that the project is independent of the DCR’s many other environmental outrages in the area.
Key in this project’s link to environmental destruction is deliberate and cumulative harm to the local animal and vegetation population.
In 2004-2005, the DCR took their food away from the Charles River White Geese by destroying the wetlands at Magazine Beach and replacing that wetlands with an introduced wall of bushes blocking access from the Charles River to most of Magazine Beach.
The DCR and Cambridge have just expanded on that destruction by digging up all the grass at Magazine Beach, the 25 year food and habitat of the Charles River White Geese. The grass has been replaced with a mudpit. It is the intention of the DCR and Cambridge to poison that grass with new additions to the soil whether technically called “chemicals” or otherwise.
The DCR has denied any responsibility for the actions of its agent, Cambridge. The DCR is playing the DCR’s usual irresponsible game of saying don’t talk to me, talk to my coconspirator/agent. No way. It is all one package. It is all highly irresponsible. The denial of responsibility is yet another type of the very varied amount of lies we have seen from the DCR over the past nine years.
A summary of the record:
In September 2004, the DCR and Cambridge simultaneously walled off the Charles River White Geese from all of their food.
The DCR destroyed access at Magazine Beach with the construction zone followed by the bizarre wall of introduced vegetation. At a public meeting during the past week, a DCR representative bragged that this bizarre wall prevents the feeding of the Charles River White Geese. The bizarre wall of vegetation directly violates the so-called Charles River Master Plan.
Cambridge destroyed access at the BU Boathouse and across from the Hyatt Regency by installing a wall of plastic between the Charles River and the grass.
In the past five years, the DCR through its agents has destroyed every piece of ground vegetation between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse except for the vegetation in the core nesting area just east of the BU Bridge which this project proposes to destroy. This is the only portion of their habitat that DCR and Cambridge did not bar them from in 2004.
So pretty much all of the world of the Charles River White Geese was simultaneously destroyed to them, and they would now be confined to an artificially created (by the DCR) mudpit in one quarter of their nesting area in place of the mile long habitat centered on the BU Bridge where they lived until September 2004.
This extreme and deliberate cruelty is inexcusable.
Its importance is emphasized by the flat out lie that the DCR put out about the Charles River White Geese starting in 2000, repeatedly stated and continuing even after the DCR and its agents / associates imposed starvation and deprival of habitat in 2004:
The promise that the DCR would do no harm to the Charles River White Geese.
This has been followed up by the demand of the DCR at the recent meeting in Boston that the Charles River White Geese find temporary housing while this latest destruction is inflicted on them. This is the sort of sick mentality by which man is destroying our world, compounded by the obvious stupidity of the demand, given their proven attachment to their home of nearly 30 years, and the high likelihood that the DCR would happily kill them if they did move.
The heartlessness of this latest attack is compounded by the simultaneous and totally needless conversion of Magazine Beach, the primary habitat of the Charles River White Geese, into a mudpit.
The combination of the two projects destroys the little that was not destroyed in September 2004, AND prevents immediate conversion of Magazine Beach to use Magazine Beach as the nine month home of the Charles River White Geese, which is the proper nine month residence of the Charles River white Geese anyway.
The DCR’s priorities in the BU Bridge area should be reversed.
Use of and destruction of the nesting area for staging should be prohibited. Staging under Memorial Drive is good for the sidewalk project. It should be good for the Memorial Bridge project.
If use of the staging area under Memorial Drive delays the project, that is the fault of the DCR.
Instead of timing the project to maximize animal harm, it should be timed to minimize animal harm. The totally unnecessary destruction of Magazine Beach to replace green maintenance with chemical maintenance should be stopped in its tracks. GREEN seeding of grass should be resumed. The bizarre massive athletic complex should be killed and fields with athletics on top of it should resume.
Instead of the DCR’s current semi-annual destruction of valuable native ground vegetation twice a year everywhere on the Charles below the Watertown dam, the protective vegetation should be allowed to resume.
The bizarre INTRODUCED wall of vegetation walling off Magazine Beach should be chopped to the ground and removed instead of the semi-annual destruction of useful vegetation, and the resumption of this wasteful destruction should be prohibited. Mr. Corsi at a meeting last week essentially bragged that this wall is starving the Charles River White Geese in response to a question.
The total destruction of ground vegetation between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse should be reversed by normal seeding. The tiny portion that has not been destroyed should not be destroyed except for that area next to the BU Bridge needed for the BU Bridge project.
Once Magazine Beach once again becomes fit to use and the destroyed vegetation between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse is returned to normal, the Charles River White Geese should be allowed to resume their migratory lifestyle within their mile long habitat centered on the BU Bridge, spending most of their life at Magazine Beach in A HEALTHY GREEN environment, with nesting at the destroyed nesting area only interrupted insofar as necessary to do the work on the BU Bridge within 25 feet of the BU Bridge for the most part, less near the water.
To the extent the current irresponsible timing is impacted by responsible behavior, that is the fault of the DCR for proposing irresponsible timing.
Sincerely,
Robert J. La Trémouille
ADDENDA:
1. Objection to recognition of “organization.”
2. Approach to interpretation of DCR Comments.
3. Example of “independent activity.”
4. Response to DCR / City of Cambridge Characterization of the Charles River White Geese.
A. Introductory.
B. Wide recognition of value.
C. Other residents and visitors.
D. Lying originates in lack of fitness for positions to which appointed.
1. Objection to recognition of “organization.”
It is my understanding that a purported citizens group created by an employee of the Cambridge City Manager will be approaching the board claiming some sort of independent existence and not informing the board of its connection to the Cambridge City Manager.
Please note my objections to the claimed independent status of this group and to its very destructive goals.
This group calls itself something like “liveable streets coalition.” It is a highway organization with goals too close to those of the Cambridge City Manager. It is fighting for a new highway which would destroy approximately 83 out of the 110 trees located between the Hyatt and the Memorial Drive split. It is also supporting destruction of the Nesting Area for a similar highway connecting to the railroad bridge.
I condemn these outrageous proposals and I condemn the tactics behind these proposals.
The Cambridge City Manager is a co-conspirator with the DCR in the destruction of the environment of the Charles River. The Cambridge City Manager’s supposed independent organization is fighting for his very destructive cause.
The Cambridge City Council will hopefully fire the Cambridge City Manager because of a jury verdict finding heartless behavior in a civil rights matter, $1 + million damages, $3.5 million punitive damages.
If the Cambridge City Council behaves in a responsible manner, perhaps we will see fewer of these supposed citizen’s groups with undisclosed connections to the Cambridge City Manager.
2. Approach to interpretation of DCR Comments.
The level of lying and the variation of the techniques of lying by the DCR over the past nine years has been nothing less than incredible.
I believe nothing that the DCR says that would help them in their quest for the destruction of all living beings on the Charles River.
At its last discussion of this matter, the Conservation Commission questioned why the DCR has not conducted public meetings on this matter with its major harm to Cambridge. The DCR with entirely unsurprising bad faith conducted a meeting on the BU campus and invited a whole bunch of developer types. They did not conduct their meeting in a location convenient for Cambridge residents who are concerned about the DCR’s belligerent lack of responsible behavior.
One flat out lie from the Boston meeting has been abandoned: that the vegetation needlessly being destroyed for staging is larger than the area available under the BU Bridge. The latest explanation (and the DCR keeps on varying explanations) is that the excess destruction is for convenience. The DCR brags that the DCR is too lazy to cross one and a half lanes of traffic for their staging.
The other flat out lie from the Boston meeting seems to continue: This is the bizarre lie that the Charles River White Geese WILL find temporary housing as justification for the needless destruction of their homes.
I anticipate that the “expert” who made this bizarre statement will plead stupidity.
“Oh, you mean there is a difference between the White Geese and the Canadas?”
Claiming to be this stupid after being introduced as an expert is another variety of flat out lying.
The Canadas are migratory.
The White Geese are permanent residents for nearly 30 years and have remained in their devastated habitat after the outrages of 2004 and after the ongoing destruction of ground vegetation in their consigned ghetto.
That very major attachment to their home of nearly 30 years says everything and proves the comparison to Canadas to be a flat out lie.
I anticipate that the DCR’s “expert” will brag that the DCR’s “expert” does not understand the difference.
3. Example of “independent activity.”
In the Boston meeting, I was shouted down by a person known to be a friend of the DCR and Cambridge when I attempted to respond to the above analyzed two outrageous lies of the DCR.
There are too many friends of the DCR and Cambridge running around falsely claiming to be independent.
I consider the activities of such people and their claims of being “independent” just another technique of lying.
4. Response to DCR / City of Cambridge Characterization of the Charles River White Geese.
A. Introductory.
Most valuable among the Charles River residents and very popular are the 30 year resident Charles River White Geese.
The standard insults tossed at the Charles River White Geese reaffirm the fact that heartless animal abusers sound a lot like heartless wife beaters when discussing their victims. The fact that the DCR has spent nearly a decade lying that the DCR has no intent to harm them is very strong proof that the insults as well are lies.
The gaggle consists mostly of Emden Geese and White China Geese with a limited population of Toulouse Geese / Toulouse descendents. Some of the White China descendants bear vestigial Brown China markings.
For most of the past 30 years, they have lived in a habitat of about a mile east and west on the north side of the Charles River centering on the BU Bridge. Within that habitat, they did a minimigration, living in other parts of the habitat for 9 months of the year, and returning to their nesting area in the spring for mating and rearing of the young. The Nesting Area of the Charles River White Geese is the meadow just east of the BU Bridge on the Cambridge side.
They are a unique population. They are a tourist attraction which surprises people who encounter them. People go out of their way to visit them from various Boston suburbs. They are popular with local commuters who enjoy their beauty. If properly publicized they would be an even more valuable part of the Charles River world.
These are free animals who have survived on their own with very little human assistance for nearly 30 years until Cambridge and the DCR started their ongoing attempts to destroy them.
The uniqueness of a gaggle which has lived in this wild area surrounded by civilization for nearly three decades cannot be understated.
The DCR has noted the importance of the Charles River White Geese by the DCR’s repeated and flat out lies over the past ten years that the DCR had no intent to harm the Charles River White Geese. The DCR defines starving the Charles River White Geese as not harming them. The DCR defines as taking the most environmentally destructive possible alternatives in various projects as not hurting them.
The DCR has irresponsibly confined the Charles River White Geese to the meadow just east of the BU Bridge on the Cambridge side, directly impacted by Grand Junction plans. The statement that these proposals (page 5-67, section 5.7.2, Environment Consequences) “would not result in adverse impacts” is a knowing lie. The characterization of this important gaggle as “low value” is similarly a knowing lie.
B. Wide recognition of value.
The beauty of these excellent and unique animals may be viewed at the follow sites. Their importance, their very presence, and the presence of many other animals, may be recognized through the fact that this list includes but a portion of the references obtained through Google. I offer this information and these citations in response to the continued lies coming out of the DCR:
· The Charles River White Geese website: http://www.friendsofthewhitegeese.org.
· The Charles River White Geese blog: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com.
· Historic Pages Photo Appreciation, proving historical analysis dating back to 1989: http://www.historicpages.com/geese/wg.htm.
· Della Huff’s Show on goslings: http://www.pbase.com/dellybean/goslings
· Roy Bercaw: Visit to the Charles River White Geese, June 16, 2007: http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/06/charles_river_white_geese_June_16_2007.html.
· Roy Bercaw, A day at the Goose Meadow, April 2000 (note date in framing portion differs from the date in the video): http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/07/friends_of_charles_river_white_geese.html
· Cambridge Candle, January-February 1999: http://www.cambridgecandle.com/candle_online/jan_feb1999/14_geese.html
· Zip Docs 02139, documentary about Charles River White Geese: http://cctvcambridge.org/node/2037
· MOVIE: “White Geese” by Akai Hoto, on deviantART: http://akaihato.deviantart.com/art/MOVIE_quot_White_Geese_quot_25167453
· Pictures taken along the Charles, 2004.07.16: http://www.aq.org/js/gallery/2004.07.16_charles/
· Freeman A. Report: 07/22/01, Charles River Wildlife Killings, The Charles River White Geese: http://www.freemanz.com/fzdc/political/01_07_22/index.htm
· Radio Boston, The Charles River (photos of the White Geese): http://www.flickr.com/groups/782470@N21/pool/with/2566129288/
· Charles River White Geese, YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXYQqjoidIM
· Photos of the Charles River White Geese, Linden Tea: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linden_tea/2196474800/
· iNaturalist.org report, observations by Tueda: http://inaturalist.org/observations/185
· White Geese video by Amy Rothwell: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=_6983789396318540077
· Fun on Foot in America’s Cities by Warwick Ford, Nola Ford: The Cambridge White Geese greet visitors: http://books.google.com/books?id=gAmIj4gh_7oC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22Charles+River%22+and+%22White+Geese%22&source=bl&ots=qUMjZm1ZPN&sig=2IRf_Rnz7cnP1xX4IkEB31x9wr8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result
The Grand Junction rail and bridge use would be devastating to this valuable and threatened population of animals.
I will post this letter at charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com. That will simplify your check of these URL’s.
C. Other residents and visitors.
The meadow to which the DCR in its extreme misbehavior has confined the Charles River White Geese also has included hawks, sea gulls, Canadas and various types of ducks. It is a haven for migratory waterfowl in spite of nearly ten years of DCR misbehavior.
D. Lying originates in lack of fitness for positions to which appointed.
This ongoing pattern of lying would appear to come from the severe lack of fitness of key people in the DCR for their jobs. The mentality of these individuals is parks surrounded by cities. The seem to constantly attack and destroy living creatures in their jurisdiction under whatever guise presents itself.
These individuals have no use for any areas which are wild as opposed to urban. They are aggressively destroying the wild areas on the Charles River because the wild areas on the Charles River do not fit their preconceived and incompetent ideas.
They are very simply and aggressively unfit to manage environmentally sensitive environments because their reflexes are the reflexes of the 19th century which caused so much environmental destruction and which continue to destroy our world because these incompetents are so active in the 19th Century equivalent of environmental management.
The DCR has a goal of and actively works for the driving away or killing water fowl in the water habitats controlled by the DCR. This is in sharp contrast to responsible environmentalists who object to the ongoing destruction of areas used by and needed for the survival of migrating waterfowl.
The key DCR people are unfit for their jobs.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Environmental Destroyers Don't Know Their Part of the Charles River
Bob La Trémouille reports:
The following entry appears in the January newsletter of the reprehensible Charles River Conservancy:
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CRC Weighs in on State’s Accelerated Bridge Rehabilitation Program
As the DCR proceeds with the much-needed restoration of the Charles River bridges under Governor Patrick’s Accelerated Bridge Program, the CRC has weighed in . . . to ensure that the Craigie Street and B.U. Bridges also become more user-friendly for pedestrians and bicyclists and provide better access to the parklands. To read more, click here.
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The total lack of expressed concern of the CRC for the environment in this posting is not at all accidental.
I will shortly post my objections to the BU Bridge repair proposal.
The bad faith public hearing on this proposal was combined with a hearing on the repairs to the Craigie Drawbridge.
The Craigie Drawbridge is located just south of the Museum of Science and is perhaps half a mile from Mass. General Hospital. The Craigie Drawbridge is part of the DCR's McGrath & O'Brien Highway. McGrath & O'Brien shows on Google Maps as Charles River Dam Road. The Craigie Drawbridge allows Charles River traffic to travel from the Charles River to Boston harbor in spite of the Charles River Dam.
The proposed work has nothing to do with Charles River access except for concerns about people with regard to the sidewalk and bike lanes. The proposed work has everything to do with the fact that the drawbridge is very old and needs work.
The location of the hearing on the BU Bridge was part of the bad faith. Combining the two hearings was another part of the bad faith.
There is a Craigie Street in Cambridge. It is perhaps half a mile from the CRC's Harvard Square offices.
The Craigie Drawbridge is perhaps four to five miles from Craigie Street.
Interesting, this destructive group had an office close to the Craigie Drawbridge. They could have had a clear view of the Craigie Drawbridge from their building is except that the viaduct holding the Green Line blocked their view. The CRC does not seem to even know what or where the Craigie Drawbridge is.
The following entry appears in the January newsletter of the reprehensible Charles River Conservancy:
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CRC Weighs in on State’s Accelerated Bridge Rehabilitation Program
As the DCR proceeds with the much-needed restoration of the Charles River bridges under Governor Patrick’s Accelerated Bridge Program, the CRC has weighed in . . . to ensure that the Craigie Street and B.U. Bridges also become more user-friendly for pedestrians and bicyclists and provide better access to the parklands. To read more, click here.
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The total lack of expressed concern of the CRC for the environment in this posting is not at all accidental.
I will shortly post my objections to the BU Bridge repair proposal.
The bad faith public hearing on this proposal was combined with a hearing on the repairs to the Craigie Drawbridge.
The Craigie Drawbridge is located just south of the Museum of Science and is perhaps half a mile from Mass. General Hospital. The Craigie Drawbridge is part of the DCR's McGrath & O'Brien Highway. McGrath & O'Brien shows on Google Maps as Charles River Dam Road. The Craigie Drawbridge allows Charles River traffic to travel from the Charles River to Boston harbor in spite of the Charles River Dam.
The proposed work has nothing to do with Charles River access except for concerns about people with regard to the sidewalk and bike lanes. The proposed work has everything to do with the fact that the drawbridge is very old and needs work.
The location of the hearing on the BU Bridge was part of the bad faith. Combining the two hearings was another part of the bad faith.
There is a Craigie Street in Cambridge. It is perhaps half a mile from the CRC's Harvard Square offices.
The Craigie Drawbridge is perhaps four to five miles from Craigie Street.
Interesting, this destructive group had an office close to the Craigie Drawbridge. They could have had a clear view of the Craigie Drawbridge from their building is except that the viaduct holding the Green Line blocked their view. The CRC does not seem to even know what or where the Craigie Drawbridge is.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Photos of Magazine Beach from 1901
Thanks to Phil Barber for providing the following two photos.
The name at that time was "Captain's Island."
He comments:
Hi Bob, hope this finds you well. I've found some old photos of Magazine Beach which I haven't seen republished elsewhere. They're from the City Engineer's Annual Report for 1901.
The name at that time was "Captain's Island."
He comments:
Hi Bob, hope this finds you well. I've found some old photos of Magazine Beach which I haven't seen republished elsewhere. They're from the City Engineer's Annual Report for 1901.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Martin Luther King, Jr., the Charles River, Civil Rights in Cambridge, MA, USA, City Manager Rehired
Bob La Trémouille reports:
The following was forwarded by Karen Parker:
__._,_.___
"The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we
live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have
guided missiles and misguided men."
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but
also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him."
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity."
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit
together at the table of brotherhood. "
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." ... "Love is the only
force capable of transforming an enemy into friend."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
He was a very wise man.
__._,_.___
The paragraph that caught my eye immediately was:
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity."
A couple of points:
1. Sounds to me like a very destructive state bureaucracy and Cambridge pols with regard to the environment, EXCEPT they are not that stupid.
2. The mentality of the City of Cambridge on Civil Rights has included the following position on Civil Rights laws: "We have our laws. They are better than the Federal Laws. How dare they expect us to respect Federal law."
UPDATE: I have recently updated my reporting on the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge. I gave my opinion that the judge in the case could be preparing an order firing the Cambridge City Manager without pension because he was found to have destroyed the life of Melvina Monteiro, a black, Cape Verdean, female department head, in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
That report may be found below at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-is-judge-in-monteiro-case-doing.html.
The Cambridge City Council, with pretty much the very minimal formalities, just rehired the Cambridge City Manager for another term of three years.
The following was forwarded by Karen Parker:
__._,_.___
"The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we
live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have
guided missiles and misguided men."
"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but
also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him."
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity."
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit
together at the table of brotherhood. "
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." ... "Love is the only
force capable of transforming an enemy into friend."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
He was a very wise man.
__._,_.___
The paragraph that caught my eye immediately was:
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity."
A couple of points:
1. Sounds to me like a very destructive state bureaucracy and Cambridge pols with regard to the environment, EXCEPT they are not that stupid.
2. The mentality of the City of Cambridge on Civil Rights has included the following position on Civil Rights laws: "We have our laws. They are better than the Federal Laws. How dare they expect us to respect Federal law."
UPDATE: I have recently updated my reporting on the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge. I gave my opinion that the judge in the case could be preparing an order firing the Cambridge City Manager without pension because he was found to have destroyed the life of Melvina Monteiro, a black, Cape Verdean, female department head, in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.
That report may be found below at: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-is-judge-in-monteiro-case-doing.html.
The Cambridge City Council, with pretty much the very minimal formalities, just rehired the Cambridge City Manager for another term of three years.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Comments on Urban Ring Environmental Review Due Feb. 10, available on Line
1. General.
2. The Urban Ring Explained.
3. Filing Requirements on this Document.
4. My Status.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. General.
Please remember that the Urban Ring RDEIR/DEIS may be downloaded from http://www.theurbanring.com/currentmaterials.asp?area=gen.
2. The Urban Ring Explained.
The spelled out acronym is Revised Draft Environmental Impact Report / Draft Environmental Impact Statement, I think. Basically, this is a very important submittal in the ongoing bureaucratic efforts to put in a massive bus system rather than putting in needed heavy rail subway in Boston. The bus system includes some strikingly environmentally destructive aspects on the Charles River which are included in one of the two rapid transit options for the Urban Ring subway concept in Boston.
I have worked on the Urban Ring since about 1985 because it is an excellent concept. The idea is to take pressure off the increasingly overloaded central subway system in Boston. The idea is to create a new subway line connecting the existing spokes so that people do not have to go into Downtown Boston to go from one outer point to another outer point.
There are two possible crossings of the Charles River, the Kenmore Crossing (which I first suggested in 1986), and the BU Bridge crossing. I suggested the Kenmore Crossing because the BU Bridge crossing is so destructive to the environment of the Charles River. As it has developed, details have come out under which the Kenmore Crossing is increasingly more superior. So naturally, the dirty tricks have started, especially from people with visible or not visible connections to the Cambridge City Manager.
The Urban Ring subway would run from Charlestown / Somerville to Roxbury. There are variations as to how far it would go in either direction.
The environmental problem is at the Charles River. The two possible crossings each connect proposed stations in Cambridge and in the Longwood Medical Area. The Cambridge station which is not controversial would be at Massachusetts Avenue where Massachusetts Avenue crosses what is now the Grand Junction railroad track. This track is located between Albany and Vassar Streets, near the heart of the MIT Campus. The Longwood stop seems to be getting firm at Avenue Louis Pasteur and Longwood Avenue.
The Kenmore Crossing would proceed under the tracks and then turn south under the MIT playing fields and under the Charles River to Kenmore Square. It would have a station under Brookline Avenue over the Massachusetts Turnpike. At that point, it would connect to the three Green Line branches going to Brookline, Newton, and Allston, and to the Commuter Rail coming in from Framingham and Worcester. It would provide a covered connection between the Commuter Rail Yawkey Station and the existing Kenmore Station. This station would provide excellent connection to Fenway Park. It would be heavy rail, Orange Line technology, which would allow the trains to run as alternate service / extensions on the existing Orange Line as well.
The BU Bridge Crossing would be light rail, streetcars. It would have two additional stops. It would stop in Cambridge at the end of Putnam Avenue where it hits the railroad tracks near Fort Washington Park. It would then, by the original plans, proceed under the Charles River. This passage would cause severe damage to the environmentally sensitive area where the Charles River White Geese and other animals live whereas the other crossing is environmentally neutral.
There would be a stop at Mountfort and St. Mary’s. This is one block from the heart of the BU Campus, Morse Chapel and directly against the Massachusetts Turnpike. At this point, it would connect to the Commonwealth Avenue (B) branch of the Green Line and connect to the Framingham-Worcester line. Connection to the Commonwealth Avenue line would be by a tunnel under St. Mary’s Street to the northern sidewalk of Commonwealth Avenue. Commuters would then have to cross Commonwealth Avenue traffic exposed to the weather to get to one of the three Green Line branches.
Commuter Rail would not have direct connection to the other two Green Line branches, and would overload the Commonwealth Avenue line during morning rush hour. The original plans called for Yawkey Station to be moved away from Fenway Park so that it would be next to Mountfort Station, drastically reducing support for Fenway Park.
The line would proceed to a new station located under Park Drive about two blocks away. The new station would directly connect to the existing Fenway Park station on the Riverside (D) branch on one side and to a new station under Beacon Street on the Cleveland Circle ( C ) branch.
Thus the connections to the three western Green Line branches would be accomplished by two stations two blocks from each other, commuter rail transfers would be made drastically inferior, support for Fenway Park would be drastically inferior, and the purpose of the Urban Ring would be drastically degraded because light rail is incredibly slower than heavy rail. Additionally, Green Line vehicles would not be able to switch off onto the Orange Line.
In addition to pushing buses and environmental destruction for an area which should have the heavy rail subway, the existing proposal would make the heavy rail subway impossible in favor of the far inferior light rail subway.
3. Filing Requirements on this Document.
Comments on the document must be submitted in writing (oral comments made at the public hearing will not be recognized by the MEPA office). A 60-day comment period has been established. Comments must be received no later than February 10, 2009. Written comments must be addressed to:
Secretary Ian A. Bowles
Director of Program Development
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
Attn: MEPA Office, EOEA #12565
Richard Bourre, Assistant Director
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02114
617-626-1181 (fax; please follow up with a print copy of the fax)
Email comments should go to: Richard.Bourre@state.ma.us.
Commenters can copy the Project Manager at EOT:
Ned Codd
Director of Program Development
Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works
10 Park Plaza, Room 4150
Boston, MA 02116
617-973-7473
To request a print or CD version of the RDEIR/DEIS, please contact Regan Checchio, Regina Villa Associates, at 617-357-5772 x14 or by email to rchecchio@reginavilla.com.
It is a bit late to go for hard copy or CD, I would think.
4. My Status.
I myself am far into my draft. It is about 9 pages long so far with heavy analysis of the environmental chapter, which has major defects.
So far, I object to the failure to formally include heavy rail or light rail among the alternatives studied, and to the failure to formally include a Green Line spur from the BU Bridge / Comm. Ave. to Harvard Station as an alternative in Allston transportation.
2. The Urban Ring Explained.
3. Filing Requirements on this Document.
4. My Status.
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. General.
Please remember that the Urban Ring RDEIR/DEIS may be downloaded from http://www.theurbanring.com/currentmaterials.asp?area=gen.
2. The Urban Ring Explained.
The spelled out acronym is Revised Draft Environmental Impact Report / Draft Environmental Impact Statement, I think. Basically, this is a very important submittal in the ongoing bureaucratic efforts to put in a massive bus system rather than putting in needed heavy rail subway in Boston. The bus system includes some strikingly environmentally destructive aspects on the Charles River which are included in one of the two rapid transit options for the Urban Ring subway concept in Boston.
I have worked on the Urban Ring since about 1985 because it is an excellent concept. The idea is to take pressure off the increasingly overloaded central subway system in Boston. The idea is to create a new subway line connecting the existing spokes so that people do not have to go into Downtown Boston to go from one outer point to another outer point.
There are two possible crossings of the Charles River, the Kenmore Crossing (which I first suggested in 1986), and the BU Bridge crossing. I suggested the Kenmore Crossing because the BU Bridge crossing is so destructive to the environment of the Charles River. As it has developed, details have come out under which the Kenmore Crossing is increasingly more superior. So naturally, the dirty tricks have started, especially from people with visible or not visible connections to the Cambridge City Manager.
The Urban Ring subway would run from Charlestown / Somerville to Roxbury. There are variations as to how far it would go in either direction.
The environmental problem is at the Charles River. The two possible crossings each connect proposed stations in Cambridge and in the Longwood Medical Area. The Cambridge station which is not controversial would be at Massachusetts Avenue where Massachusetts Avenue crosses what is now the Grand Junction railroad track. This track is located between Albany and Vassar Streets, near the heart of the MIT Campus. The Longwood stop seems to be getting firm at Avenue Louis Pasteur and Longwood Avenue.
The Kenmore Crossing would proceed under the tracks and then turn south under the MIT playing fields and under the Charles River to Kenmore Square. It would have a station under Brookline Avenue over the Massachusetts Turnpike. At that point, it would connect to the three Green Line branches going to Brookline, Newton, and Allston, and to the Commuter Rail coming in from Framingham and Worcester. It would provide a covered connection between the Commuter Rail Yawkey Station and the existing Kenmore Station. This station would provide excellent connection to Fenway Park. It would be heavy rail, Orange Line technology, which would allow the trains to run as alternate service / extensions on the existing Orange Line as well.
The BU Bridge Crossing would be light rail, streetcars. It would have two additional stops. It would stop in Cambridge at the end of Putnam Avenue where it hits the railroad tracks near Fort Washington Park. It would then, by the original plans, proceed under the Charles River. This passage would cause severe damage to the environmentally sensitive area where the Charles River White Geese and other animals live whereas the other crossing is environmentally neutral.
There would be a stop at Mountfort and St. Mary’s. This is one block from the heart of the BU Campus, Morse Chapel and directly against the Massachusetts Turnpike. At this point, it would connect to the Commonwealth Avenue (B) branch of the Green Line and connect to the Framingham-Worcester line. Connection to the Commonwealth Avenue line would be by a tunnel under St. Mary’s Street to the northern sidewalk of Commonwealth Avenue. Commuters would then have to cross Commonwealth Avenue traffic exposed to the weather to get to one of the three Green Line branches.
Commuter Rail would not have direct connection to the other two Green Line branches, and would overload the Commonwealth Avenue line during morning rush hour. The original plans called for Yawkey Station to be moved away from Fenway Park so that it would be next to Mountfort Station, drastically reducing support for Fenway Park.
The line would proceed to a new station located under Park Drive about two blocks away. The new station would directly connect to the existing Fenway Park station on the Riverside (D) branch on one side and to a new station under Beacon Street on the Cleveland Circle ( C ) branch.
Thus the connections to the three western Green Line branches would be accomplished by two stations two blocks from each other, commuter rail transfers would be made drastically inferior, support for Fenway Park would be drastically inferior, and the purpose of the Urban Ring would be drastically degraded because light rail is incredibly slower than heavy rail. Additionally, Green Line vehicles would not be able to switch off onto the Orange Line.
In addition to pushing buses and environmental destruction for an area which should have the heavy rail subway, the existing proposal would make the heavy rail subway impossible in favor of the far inferior light rail subway.
3. Filing Requirements on this Document.
Comments on the document must be submitted in writing (oral comments made at the public hearing will not be recognized by the MEPA office). A 60-day comment period has been established. Comments must be received no later than February 10, 2009. Written comments must be addressed to:
Secretary Ian A. Bowles
Director of Program Development
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
Attn: MEPA Office, EOEA #12565
Richard Bourre, Assistant Director
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02114
617-626-1181 (fax; please follow up with a print copy of the fax)
Email comments should go to: Richard.Bourre@state.ma.us.
Commenters can copy the Project Manager at EOT:
Ned Codd
Director of Program Development
Executive Office of Transportation and Public Works
10 Park Plaza, Room 4150
Boston, MA 02116
617-973-7473
To request a print or CD version of the RDEIR/DEIS, please contact Regan Checchio, Regina Villa Associates, at 617-357-5772 x14 or by email to rchecchio@reginavilla.com.
It is a bit late to go for hard copy or CD, I would think.
4. My Status.
I myself am far into my draft. It is about 9 pages long so far with heavy analysis of the environmental chapter, which has major defects.
So far, I object to the failure to formally include heavy rail or light rail among the alternatives studied, and to the failure to formally include a Green Line spur from the BU Bridge / Comm. Ave. to Harvard Station as an alternative in Allston transportation.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Archie Mazmanian on Urban Ring Public Meeting
Bob La Trémouille reports:
Archie Mazmanian of Brookline has passed on the following email sent to Ned Codd, the Urban Ring project Manager on Friday, January 16. Some apparently electronic errors creeped into the version he passed on. I have cleaned them up. The January 6 meeting was the official public hearing on Urban Ring project. It was conducted in Government Center in Downtown Boston. It was a small to moderate sized meeting room, and it was filled. Regina Villa is the consultant.
The Light Rail on Washington Street refers to Washington Street in Boston’s South End and Roxbury neighborhoods. This neighborhood lost Orange Line heavy rail service in the 1980’s with lovely promises of replacement. That replacement turned out to be fancy buses.
RE: Jan. 6, 2009 Public Hearing Comments Transcript
Ned,
I assume my earlier request to Regina Villa was passed on to you. I have been linking to EOT's Urban Ring website to see if the transcript has been posted. Will the transcript be posted and if so timely well prior to the Feb. 10th close of public comments? The extent of comments at this public hearing was far greater than at the CAC meetings, most of which I attended. You may recall my repeated statements over the past several years that there was lacking a ground-up support for Phase 2 demonstrated either at CAC meetings or in the media. This was demonstrated at this public hearing. In contrast, there was substantial ground-up support for light rail on Washington St. but not for BRT.
Archie Mazmanian
Archie Mazmanian of Brookline has passed on the following email sent to Ned Codd, the Urban Ring project Manager on Friday, January 16. Some apparently electronic errors creeped into the version he passed on. I have cleaned them up. The January 6 meeting was the official public hearing on Urban Ring project. It was conducted in Government Center in Downtown Boston. It was a small to moderate sized meeting room, and it was filled. Regina Villa is the consultant.
The Light Rail on Washington Street refers to Washington Street in Boston’s South End and Roxbury neighborhoods. This neighborhood lost Orange Line heavy rail service in the 1980’s with lovely promises of replacement. That replacement turned out to be fancy buses.
RE: Jan. 6, 2009 Public Hearing Comments Transcript
Ned,
I assume my earlier request to Regina Villa was passed on to you. I have been linking to EOT's Urban Ring website to see if the transcript has been posted. Will the transcript be posted and if so timely well prior to the Feb. 10th close of public comments? The extent of comments at this public hearing was far greater than at the CAC meetings, most of which I attended. You may recall my repeated statements over the past several years that there was lacking a ground-up support for Phase 2 demonstrated either at CAC meetings or in the media. This was demonstrated at this public hearing. In contrast, there was substantial ground-up support for light rail on Washington St. but not for BRT.
Archie Mazmanian
Friday, January 16, 2009
DCR Bridge Meeting in Context of DCR Environmental Destruction
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. DCR Meeting, General.
2. Formal communication.
1. DCR Meeting, General.
On Wednesday, January 14, 2009, the Department of Conservation and Recreation conducted a public meeting on its bridge repair program.
Former Transportation Secretary Fred Salvucci spoke in favor of delaying the BU Bridge repair to coordinate it with other highway work pending on the Boston side.
The next meeting, in a striking but typical example of bad faith, will be January 27. It will be combined with a discussion of the Craigie Drawbridge at the Museum of Science and will be conducted on the MIT campus near Kendall Square. A subsequent meeting on the footbridge over Memorial Drive connecting Magazine Beach will be held at the Morse School.
Interesting. Non controversial meeting held in Morse School in the neighborhood.
Two meetings on highly controversial BU Bridge repair, first conducted in Boston in response to a request from the Cambridge Conservation Commission, second conducted in Kendall Square combined with another bridge.
Business as usual from a strikingly irresponsible DCR.
I responded on January 15, 2009, with the following letter to the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs and to the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works, copies to DCR and the Governor.
To put it succinctly, it is my opinion that the DCR is belligerently destructive of the environment, is using the bridge repair process as an excuse to forward its cause, and is making a mockery of the public reviews by locating environmentally sensitive meetings, BU Bridge, in inconvenient locations while putting environmentally neutral meetings in convenient locations.
The DCR’s public description of the Charles River White Geese shows that heartless animal abusers sound strikingly like heartless wife beaters when talking about their victims. I provide a page full (the PS at the end) of web citations on the Charles River White Geese, a tiny portion of the cites available. Why is it that the heartless animal abusers are saying one thing and so many people are treating these very valuable beings as something to be cherished?
2. Formal communication.
I attended the “public meeting” on the accelerated bridge repair program last night sponsored by the DCR.
I was distressed but not at all surprised to hear Commissioner Sullivan refer to environmentalism as “pedestrians and bicyclists.” By doing so, he reaffirmed his department’s contempt for the animals, the land, and the natural vegetation which are his duty to protect, a duty for which DCR has contempt.
A few days ago, I attended a Boston Conservation Committee meeting in which the DCR made a presentation. A commissioner asked about why bordering vegetation on the Muddy River was allowed to get as overgrown as it has. The DCR representative looked shocked. If they did not let it get overgrown, animals might get on the land from the river.
The DCR has been poisoning the eggs of as much waterfowl as it can get away with. The DCR has been destroying as much natural protective vegetation on the Charles River as it can get away with. The DCR warps whatever it does to destroy resident animals, visiting animals and natural protective vegetation.
The DCR’s head is firmly in the 19th Century with the bizarre environmental destruction associated with its that century. The DCR is an aggressive part of man destroying our world.
The DCR and its commissioner are unfit to make environmental decisions. He should be fired, and his agency should be cleansed of his fellow environmental destroyers.
In implementing these destructive policies combined with continuing practices of bad faith and flat out lying, the DCR, since 2000, has repeatedly promised to do no harm to the Charles River White Geese who have lived for nearly 30 years in a mile long habitat centered on the BU Bridge.
They DCR demonstrated their lack of fitness for their duties by proceeding with starving the Charles River White Geese by the bizarre wall of vegetation introduced at Magazine Beach, heartless destruction of habitat, and the ongoing replacement of GREEN maintenance at Magazine Beach with CHEMICAL maintenance and the associated poisoning to all animals who eat off it. A representative has recently bragged that the wall starves the geese.
The DCR likes the accelerated bridge program. It gives them another chance to find excuses for environmental destruction.
To no surprise, they are attacking the beautiful and valuable Charles River White Geese.
The program puts staging in the middle of what little of their habitat which has not been taken from them instead of under Memorial Drive where it belongs. The staging would destroy the last ground vegetation which the DCR has not destroyed since 2004 between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse.
The program puts a new water filtration device in the habitat for drainage off the BU Bridge which should connect instead to existing drainage under Memorial Drive. Why do something that makes sense when you can destroy animal habitat?
The DCR has told the Charles River White Geese to move. The DCR claims to have no duty to their charges. The DCR is totally unwilling to destroy the bizarre wall of introduced vegetation at Magazine Beach to allow the Geese to return to their feeding ground at Magazine Beach for most of the last 30 years. The DCR is totally unwilling to continue Magazine Beach in GREEN maintenance instead of introducing their beloved chemicals. The last time they introduced their beloved chemicals in support of NON WATER RELATED activities on the Charles was at the playing fields next to Mass. General Hospital. Their beloved poisons did not work, so they added Tartan and poisoned the Charles River.
The management of the BU Bridge repairs has been done with typical lack of responsibility. The environmental irresponsibility in the project is in Cambridge. The Cambridge Conservation Commission asked for a public hearing. So the DCR conducted one, in Boston.
The DCR is now conducting other public meetings concerning their bridge projects.
They are repairing the pedestrian bridge to Magazine Beach over Memorial Drive. This project is environmentally responsible, so a public hearing is being held at the Morse School near Magazine Beach.
They are also conducting another public meeting on the BU Bridge project. The meeting has been combined with the environmentally neutral Craigie Drawbridge project, on the MIT Campus near Kendall Square.
Typical bad faith.
The destruction of nearly all the ground vegetation between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse has been conducted with no meaningful public input. The BU Bridge repair project would now needlessly destroy all that which they have not destroyed to date.
The annual destruction of as many eggs of waterfowl as they can get away with is conducted with no public input.
The destruction of as much protective vegetation as they can get away with on the Charles and the associated driving away of migrating waterfowl is conducted with no meaningful public input.
The bizarre wall of introduced vegetation at Magazine Beach has been conducted with no meaningful public input, although DCR apologists, with the usual lie techniques, conducted a photo opportunity to brag that this WALL would encourage swimming. While useful natural vegetation is destroyed twice a year, this silly starvation tool is allowed to grow without apparent limit.
The poisoning of the dirt at Magazine Beach is being conducted with no meaningful public input.
Public input on any of these projects would be irrelevant in any case.
The DCR’s heads are firmly in the sands of the 19th Century. The DCR is aggressively destroying as much of our world’s environment as it can. The outrages at and near the BU Bridge/Magazine Beach must be reversed, and new outrages ended.
PS: Heartless animal abusers sound a lot like heartless wife beaters. Both do a lot of flat out lying about how useless their victims are.
To no great surprise, the heartless animal abusers at the DCR and their apologists put out lies about the VERY VALUABLE Charles River White Geese.
The following are but a few URL’s obtained in a Google search for the Charles River White Geese. Fire the DCR commissioner. Fire the rest of his crew with their contempt for the environment and for the living beings in it.
• The Charles River White Geese website: http://www.friendsofthewhitegeese.org.
• The Charles River White Geese blog: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com.
• Historic Pages Photo Appreciation, proving historical analysis dating back to 1989: http://www.historicpages.com/geese/wg.htm.
• Della Huff’s Show on goslings: http://www.pbase.com/dellybean/goslings
• Roy Bercaw: Visit to the Charles River White Geese, June 16, 2007: http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/06/charles-river-white-geese-June-16-2007.html.
• Roy Bercaw, A day at the Goose Meadow, April 2000 (note date in framing portion differs from the date in the video): http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/07/friends-of-charles-river-white-geese.html
• Cambridge Candle, January-February 1999: http://www.cambridgecandle.com/candle_online/jan_feb1999/14_geese.html
• Zip Docs 02139, documentary about Charles River White Geese: http://cctvcambridge.org/node/2037
• MOVIE: “White Geese” by Akai Hoto, on deviantART: http://akaihato.deviantart.com/art/MOVIE-quot-White-Geese-quot-25167453
• Pictures taken along the Charles, 2004.07.16: http://www.aq.org/js/gallery/2004.07.16-charles/
• Freeman A. Report: 07/22/01, Charles River Wildlife Killings, The Charles River White Geese: http://www.freemanz.com/fzdc/political/01_07_22/index.htm
• Radio Boston, The Charles River (photos of the White Geese): http://www.flickr.com/groups/782470@N21/pool/with/2566129288/
• Charles River White Geese, YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXYQqjoidIM
• Photos of the Charles River White Geese, Linden Tea: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linden_tea/2196474800/
• iNaturalist.org report, observations by Tueda: http://inaturalist.org/observations/185
• White Geese video by Amy Rothwell: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6983789396318540077
• Fun on Foot in America’s Cities by Warwick Ford, Nola Ford: The Cambridge White Geese greet visitors: http://books.google.com/books?id=gAmIj4gh_7oC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22Charles+River%22+and+%22White+Geese%22&source=bl&ots=qUMjZm1ZPN&sig=2IRf_Rnz7cnP1xX4IkEB31x9wr8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result
I will post this communication on charlesriverwhitegeese.blogspot.com. That will give you an electronic version to simplify check of these citations.
At the top of the list of links in the blog is a link to my prior communication spelling out quite exact ways to responsibly accomplish the BU Bridge project while being a responsible member of the world’s environment.
1. DCR Meeting, General.
2. Formal communication.
1. DCR Meeting, General.
On Wednesday, January 14, 2009, the Department of Conservation and Recreation conducted a public meeting on its bridge repair program.
Former Transportation Secretary Fred Salvucci spoke in favor of delaying the BU Bridge repair to coordinate it with other highway work pending on the Boston side.
The next meeting, in a striking but typical example of bad faith, will be January 27. It will be combined with a discussion of the Craigie Drawbridge at the Museum of Science and will be conducted on the MIT campus near Kendall Square. A subsequent meeting on the footbridge over Memorial Drive connecting Magazine Beach will be held at the Morse School.
Interesting. Non controversial meeting held in Morse School in the neighborhood.
Two meetings on highly controversial BU Bridge repair, first conducted in Boston in response to a request from the Cambridge Conservation Commission, second conducted in Kendall Square combined with another bridge.
Business as usual from a strikingly irresponsible DCR.
I responded on January 15, 2009, with the following letter to the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs and to the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works, copies to DCR and the Governor.
To put it succinctly, it is my opinion that the DCR is belligerently destructive of the environment, is using the bridge repair process as an excuse to forward its cause, and is making a mockery of the public reviews by locating environmentally sensitive meetings, BU Bridge, in inconvenient locations while putting environmentally neutral meetings in convenient locations.
The DCR’s public description of the Charles River White Geese shows that heartless animal abusers sound strikingly like heartless wife beaters when talking about their victims. I provide a page full (the PS at the end) of web citations on the Charles River White Geese, a tiny portion of the cites available. Why is it that the heartless animal abusers are saying one thing and so many people are treating these very valuable beings as something to be cherished?
2. Formal communication.
I attended the “public meeting” on the accelerated bridge repair program last night sponsored by the DCR.
I was distressed but not at all surprised to hear Commissioner Sullivan refer to environmentalism as “pedestrians and bicyclists.” By doing so, he reaffirmed his department’s contempt for the animals, the land, and the natural vegetation which are his duty to protect, a duty for which DCR has contempt.
A few days ago, I attended a Boston Conservation Committee meeting in which the DCR made a presentation. A commissioner asked about why bordering vegetation on the Muddy River was allowed to get as overgrown as it has. The DCR representative looked shocked. If they did not let it get overgrown, animals might get on the land from the river.
The DCR has been poisoning the eggs of as much waterfowl as it can get away with. The DCR has been destroying as much natural protective vegetation on the Charles River as it can get away with. The DCR warps whatever it does to destroy resident animals, visiting animals and natural protective vegetation.
The DCR’s head is firmly in the 19th Century with the bizarre environmental destruction associated with its that century. The DCR is an aggressive part of man destroying our world.
The DCR and its commissioner are unfit to make environmental decisions. He should be fired, and his agency should be cleansed of his fellow environmental destroyers.
In implementing these destructive policies combined with continuing practices of bad faith and flat out lying, the DCR, since 2000, has repeatedly promised to do no harm to the Charles River White Geese who have lived for nearly 30 years in a mile long habitat centered on the BU Bridge.
They DCR demonstrated their lack of fitness for their duties by proceeding with starving the Charles River White Geese by the bizarre wall of vegetation introduced at Magazine Beach, heartless destruction of habitat, and the ongoing replacement of GREEN maintenance at Magazine Beach with CHEMICAL maintenance and the associated poisoning to all animals who eat off it. A representative has recently bragged that the wall starves the geese.
The DCR likes the accelerated bridge program. It gives them another chance to find excuses for environmental destruction.
To no surprise, they are attacking the beautiful and valuable Charles River White Geese.
The program puts staging in the middle of what little of their habitat which has not been taken from them instead of under Memorial Drive where it belongs. The staging would destroy the last ground vegetation which the DCR has not destroyed since 2004 between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse.
The program puts a new water filtration device in the habitat for drainage off the BU Bridge which should connect instead to existing drainage under Memorial Drive. Why do something that makes sense when you can destroy animal habitat?
The DCR has told the Charles River White Geese to move. The DCR claims to have no duty to their charges. The DCR is totally unwilling to destroy the bizarre wall of introduced vegetation at Magazine Beach to allow the Geese to return to their feeding ground at Magazine Beach for most of the last 30 years. The DCR is totally unwilling to continue Magazine Beach in GREEN maintenance instead of introducing their beloved chemicals. The last time they introduced their beloved chemicals in support of NON WATER RELATED activities on the Charles was at the playing fields next to Mass. General Hospital. Their beloved poisons did not work, so they added Tartan and poisoned the Charles River.
The management of the BU Bridge repairs has been done with typical lack of responsibility. The environmental irresponsibility in the project is in Cambridge. The Cambridge Conservation Commission asked for a public hearing. So the DCR conducted one, in Boston.
The DCR is now conducting other public meetings concerning their bridge projects.
They are repairing the pedestrian bridge to Magazine Beach over Memorial Drive. This project is environmentally responsible, so a public hearing is being held at the Morse School near Magazine Beach.
They are also conducting another public meeting on the BU Bridge project. The meeting has been combined with the environmentally neutral Craigie Drawbridge project, on the MIT Campus near Kendall Square.
Typical bad faith.
The destruction of nearly all the ground vegetation between the BU Bridge and the BU Boathouse has been conducted with no meaningful public input. The BU Bridge repair project would now needlessly destroy all that which they have not destroyed to date.
The annual destruction of as many eggs of waterfowl as they can get away with is conducted with no public input.
The destruction of as much protective vegetation as they can get away with on the Charles and the associated driving away of migrating waterfowl is conducted with no meaningful public input.
The bizarre wall of introduced vegetation at Magazine Beach has been conducted with no meaningful public input, although DCR apologists, with the usual lie techniques, conducted a photo opportunity to brag that this WALL would encourage swimming. While useful natural vegetation is destroyed twice a year, this silly starvation tool is allowed to grow without apparent limit.
The poisoning of the dirt at Magazine Beach is being conducted with no meaningful public input.
Public input on any of these projects would be irrelevant in any case.
The DCR’s heads are firmly in the sands of the 19th Century. The DCR is aggressively destroying as much of our world’s environment as it can. The outrages at and near the BU Bridge/Magazine Beach must be reversed, and new outrages ended.
PS: Heartless animal abusers sound a lot like heartless wife beaters. Both do a lot of flat out lying about how useless their victims are.
To no great surprise, the heartless animal abusers at the DCR and their apologists put out lies about the VERY VALUABLE Charles River White Geese.
The following are but a few URL’s obtained in a Google search for the Charles River White Geese. Fire the DCR commissioner. Fire the rest of his crew with their contempt for the environment and for the living beings in it.
• The Charles River White Geese website: http://www.friendsofthewhitegeese.org.
• The Charles River White Geese blog: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com.
• Historic Pages Photo Appreciation, proving historical analysis dating back to 1989: http://www.historicpages.com/geese/wg.htm.
• Della Huff’s Show on goslings: http://www.pbase.com/dellybean/goslings
• Roy Bercaw: Visit to the Charles River White Geese, June 16, 2007: http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/06/charles-river-white-geese-June-16-2007.html.
• Roy Bercaw, A day at the Goose Meadow, April 2000 (note date in framing portion differs from the date in the video): http://enoughroomvideo.blogspot.com/2007/07/friends-of-charles-river-white-geese.html
• Cambridge Candle, January-February 1999: http://www.cambridgecandle.com/candle_online/jan_feb1999/14_geese.html
• Zip Docs 02139, documentary about Charles River White Geese: http://cctvcambridge.org/node/2037
• MOVIE: “White Geese” by Akai Hoto, on deviantART: http://akaihato.deviantart.com/art/MOVIE-quot-White-Geese-quot-25167453
• Pictures taken along the Charles, 2004.07.16: http://www.aq.org/js/gallery/2004.07.16-charles/
• Freeman A. Report: 07/22/01, Charles River Wildlife Killings, The Charles River White Geese: http://www.freemanz.com/fzdc/political/01_07_22/index.htm
• Radio Boston, The Charles River (photos of the White Geese): http://www.flickr.com/groups/782470@N21/pool/with/2566129288/
• Charles River White Geese, YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXYQqjoidIM
• Photos of the Charles River White Geese, Linden Tea: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linden_tea/2196474800/
• iNaturalist.org report, observations by Tueda: http://inaturalist.org/observations/185
• White Geese video by Amy Rothwell: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6983789396318540077
• Fun on Foot in America’s Cities by Warwick Ford, Nola Ford: The Cambridge White Geese greet visitors: http://books.google.com/books?id=gAmIj4gh_7oC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22Charles+River%22+and+%22White+Geese%22&source=bl&ots=qUMjZm1ZPN&sig=2IRf_Rnz7cnP1xX4IkEB31x9wr8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result
I will post this communication on charlesriverwhitegeese.blogspot.com. That will give you an electronic version to simplify check of these citations.
At the top of the list of links in the blog is a link to my prior communication spelling out quite exact ways to responsibly accomplish the BU Bridge project while being a responsible member of the world’s environment.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
“Social Justice” in Cambridge, MA, USA
Bob La Trémouille reports:
1. Environmental Destruction in Cambridge starts with the “progressives.”
2. Chronicle letter.
3. Follow Up.
4. Links.
5. Chronicle Publication.
1. Environmental Destruction in Cambridge starts with the “progressives.”
The Cambridge City Manager and his ilk have been very aggressive neutralizing Cambridge residents who want to do good.
What they do is set up organizations dominated by the bad guys or by well meaning people who are duped, but they sound so good.
There are many, many, many such incidents. One very recent such incident was the creation of a group which calls itself the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association. This was openly created by friends of the Cambridge City Manager at the request of the Cambridge City Manager.
They organized about the pending sale and development of property owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, the Blessed Sacrament Church and School in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge.
A year or two later, after a lot of yelling about the project being too large, they announced a “victory” for the neighborhood.
These people who had organized about a project they called too large SUCCEEDED IN MAKING THE PROJECT LARGER, and they bragged about it without using those words.
The group has a spinoff which they call "Greenport." In a neighborhood directly under attack by an environmentally reprehensible city and state government, this group calls itself after its neighborhood and is HOSTILE to discussing environmental attacks on the neighborhood. It concentrates on saving the world.
The technical name for such groups is "company union."
With a very long record in mind, of which this is only a tiny part, an oped piece in the Cambridge Chronicle caught my eye.
It was first on line and then in the hard copy edition. I just tried to find it on line to provide a link, but it no longer seems to be on line.
The article was part of a series by the city’s Republican activists.
The author had been checking out schools and was shocked by what he saw as training in “Social Justice." He was concerned that kids were being indoctrinated in the ways of the left.
My concern, knowing reality in Cambridge, is that environmental or civil rights destructiveness could be sold as the opposite of what it is.
Of particular concern to me is anything which would give the false opinion of the nine very destructive Cambridge City Councilors. These destructive people, as usual, would be advertised as being on the side they claim to be on.
I have submitted the following letter to the Cambridge Chronicle.
2. Chronicle letter.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I appreciated the oped piece on Social Justice. My concern about such training is that kids will be taught that Cambridge is a good example of Social Justice.
An excellent analysis of social justice in Cambridge was the jury’s decision in Malvina Monteiro v. Cambridge. The Monteiro jury found that the City Manager destroyed the life of a Black Cape Verdean woman who was a department head in Cambridge because she filed a civil rights complaint. The jury ordered Cambridge to pay her $1.1 million in real damages and $3.5 million in penalties.
The judge is deciding what to do with this verdict. I would not be surprised to see the judge order the City Manager fired and stripped of his pension. She would be making law, but press reports indicate an excellent case for making law.
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination has twice found probable cause of discrimination because the city council is trying to keep a handicapped woman from using her guide dog. The victim says, in addition, that a group of rogue cops have abused her guide dog in the lobby of the police station and have not been punished.
"Environmentalism" from the City is best known for heartless animal abuse: the deliberate starvation and destruction of habitat targeted at the valuable and popular Charles River White Geese.
This is part of an effort in which Magazine Beach is being walled off from the Charles River by bizarre introduced vegetation. Green maintenance is being destroyed at Magazine Beach and replaced with chemical maintenance, poisoning feeding birds.
The state’s BU Bridge repairs would extend the needless, heartless destruction.
Or Fresh Pond? Perhaps thousands of trees plus animal habitat are being destroyed to put in a thousand saplings.
Or the imminent destruction of the Alewife Reservation? This is proposed for flood storage that should be put under a parking lot 500 feet to the south, a parking lot which is about to be built upon.
And too many open space projects start with needless destruction of trees.
I am concerned about training in social justice in Cambridge schools because I think the behavior of the City and its friends will be communicated to kids as something to respect.
In civil rights and the environment, Cambridge is worthy of the contempt expressed by the Monteiro jury. Kids should not have Cambridge shown to them as some sort of good example.
3. Follow Up.
I tried to include the abuse of the guide dog by a roomful of rogue cops as succinctly as possible.
The lobby of the Cambridge Police Station has a camera trained on it to provide evidence usable by the police.
To no surprise whatsoever, they “forgot” to put in a tape that day.
I had the victim and her dog on our cable show, The Cambridge Environment, the next day.
The dog is ordinarily very effusive. The dog was very visibly still shaken by the experience.
4. Links.
The following is my article below going into detailed analysis of the matters pending in the Monteiro case:
http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-is-judge-in-monteiro-case-doing.html
The Boston Globe had a good write up on the case. It may be found at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/28/ex_cambridge_city_worker_is_awarded_45m_in_suit/?page=2.
5. Chronicle Publication.
The above letter was posted by the Cambridge Chronicle on line at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x1060496916/Letter-Social-justice-dissected, at 7:02 am, January 6, 2009.
It was printed in the January 8, 2009 edition in a very prominent place on the first letters page continuing on the second letters page. A related op ed piece was printed on the third op ed page. Strikingly good coverage.
1. Environmental Destruction in Cambridge starts with the “progressives.”
2. Chronicle letter.
3. Follow Up.
4. Links.
5. Chronicle Publication.
1. Environmental Destruction in Cambridge starts with the “progressives.”
The Cambridge City Manager and his ilk have been very aggressive neutralizing Cambridge residents who want to do good.
What they do is set up organizations dominated by the bad guys or by well meaning people who are duped, but they sound so good.
There are many, many, many such incidents. One very recent such incident was the creation of a group which calls itself the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association. This was openly created by friends of the Cambridge City Manager at the request of the Cambridge City Manager.
They organized about the pending sale and development of property owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, the Blessed Sacrament Church and School in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge.
A year or two later, after a lot of yelling about the project being too large, they announced a “victory” for the neighborhood.
These people who had organized about a project they called too large SUCCEEDED IN MAKING THE PROJECT LARGER, and they bragged about it without using those words.
The group has a spinoff which they call "Greenport." In a neighborhood directly under attack by an environmentally reprehensible city and state government, this group calls itself after its neighborhood and is HOSTILE to discussing environmental attacks on the neighborhood. It concentrates on saving the world.
The technical name for such groups is "company union."
With a very long record in mind, of which this is only a tiny part, an oped piece in the Cambridge Chronicle caught my eye.
It was first on line and then in the hard copy edition. I just tried to find it on line to provide a link, but it no longer seems to be on line.
The article was part of a series by the city’s Republican activists.
The author had been checking out schools and was shocked by what he saw as training in “Social Justice." He was concerned that kids were being indoctrinated in the ways of the left.
My concern, knowing reality in Cambridge, is that environmental or civil rights destructiveness could be sold as the opposite of what it is.
Of particular concern to me is anything which would give the false opinion of the nine very destructive Cambridge City Councilors. These destructive people, as usual, would be advertised as being on the side they claim to be on.
I have submitted the following letter to the Cambridge Chronicle.
2. Chronicle letter.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I appreciated the oped piece on Social Justice. My concern about such training is that kids will be taught that Cambridge is a good example of Social Justice.
An excellent analysis of social justice in Cambridge was the jury’s decision in Malvina Monteiro v. Cambridge. The Monteiro jury found that the City Manager destroyed the life of a Black Cape Verdean woman who was a department head in Cambridge because she filed a civil rights complaint. The jury ordered Cambridge to pay her $1.1 million in real damages and $3.5 million in penalties.
The judge is deciding what to do with this verdict. I would not be surprised to see the judge order the City Manager fired and stripped of his pension. She would be making law, but press reports indicate an excellent case for making law.
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination has twice found probable cause of discrimination because the city council is trying to keep a handicapped woman from using her guide dog. The victim says, in addition, that a group of rogue cops have abused her guide dog in the lobby of the police station and have not been punished.
"Environmentalism" from the City is best known for heartless animal abuse: the deliberate starvation and destruction of habitat targeted at the valuable and popular Charles River White Geese.
This is part of an effort in which Magazine Beach is being walled off from the Charles River by bizarre introduced vegetation. Green maintenance is being destroyed at Magazine Beach and replaced with chemical maintenance, poisoning feeding birds.
The state’s BU Bridge repairs would extend the needless, heartless destruction.
Or Fresh Pond? Perhaps thousands of trees plus animal habitat are being destroyed to put in a thousand saplings.
Or the imminent destruction of the Alewife Reservation? This is proposed for flood storage that should be put under a parking lot 500 feet to the south, a parking lot which is about to be built upon.
And too many open space projects start with needless destruction of trees.
I am concerned about training in social justice in Cambridge schools because I think the behavior of the City and its friends will be communicated to kids as something to respect.
In civil rights and the environment, Cambridge is worthy of the contempt expressed by the Monteiro jury. Kids should not have Cambridge shown to them as some sort of good example.
3. Follow Up.
I tried to include the abuse of the guide dog by a roomful of rogue cops as succinctly as possible.
The lobby of the Cambridge Police Station has a camera trained on it to provide evidence usable by the police.
To no surprise whatsoever, they “forgot” to put in a tape that day.
I had the victim and her dog on our cable show, The Cambridge Environment, the next day.
The dog is ordinarily very effusive. The dog was very visibly still shaken by the experience.
4. Links.
The following is my article below going into detailed analysis of the matters pending in the Monteiro case:
http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-is-judge-in-monteiro-case-doing.html
The Boston Globe had a good write up on the case. It may be found at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/05/28/ex_cambridge_city_worker_is_awarded_45m_in_suit/?page=2.
5. Chronicle Publication.
The above letter was posted by the Cambridge Chronicle on line at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x1060496916/Letter-Social-justice-dissected, at 7:02 am, January 6, 2009.
It was printed in the January 8, 2009 edition in a very prominent place on the first letters page continuing on the second letters page. A related op ed piece was printed on the third op ed page. Strikingly good coverage.
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