1. General.
2. George Orwell, Al Vellucci and a very smart comment in the Chronicle’s oped.
3. The Boston Globe / boston.com as part of environmental destruction on the Charles River and related.
1. General.
The Cambridge Chronicle had an op ed in their December 22, 2011 edition concerning Occupy Harvard as a result of which Harvard Yard is in now in a state of lockdown in response to an Occupy Harvard demonstration. No non Harvard people are allowed in Harvard Yard.
The piece was well written and went into some silly behavior by Harvard.
It concluded with: “Where are George Orwell and Al Vellucci when you need them?”
Al Vellucci was a quirky long term Cambridge City Councilor who stood up to a lot of behavior of Harvard’s, but, more importantly, stood up to some pretty silly thinking by many people in Cambridge who consider themselves intelligent. He had a term for such people. I forget exactly what it was, but the key thing about Al was common sense. While the people he belittled frequently had trouble recognizing what was occurring to their faces, Al never had problems recognizing the reality about him. The basic mentality was that too many people in Cambridge are too intelligent to recognize reality, finding all sorts of complicated situations when all that was necessary was to look around you and observe.
Based on my appreciation for the astute comment and my thought that Vellucci-speak is very relevant today, I have submitted a response to the op end.
I really was thinking of holding this for awhile, but the Boston Globe’s glorifying environmental destroyers at Alewife as some sort of concerned citizens brought it home to me a lot more slice of reality, which I analyze in part 3.
2. George Orwell, Al Vellucci and a very smart comment in the Chronicle’s oped.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
Where are George Orwell and Al Vellucci when you need them?
One of the most astute comments in Cambridge in many years.
Al would not explain it this way, but Al was not smart enough to convince himself that the obvious was not true.
A superior court judge responded with “reprehensible” to the Cambridge City Manager destroying a female department head’s life in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint. The appeals court treated Cambridge’s appeal with disgust by refusing to grant a formal opinion. “Ample evidence [of] outrageous actions.” The jury tacks on $3.5 million PENAL damages in addition to $1.1 million real damages.
The Cambridge Pols cannot believe what is in front of their own eyes. They cannot understand that Healy should be fired for Monteiro.
The Cambridge Pols spent 15 years “defending” Alewife by telling people concerned about Alewife not to look at the totally unnecessary and down right bizarre destruction being planned by Cambridge and its friends. They just cannot understand that protecting North Cambridge against massive flooding from 50 year storms cannot be done with environmental destruction that protects against 2 year storms. They just cannot understand that there is a massive parking lot directly across the street from their new strip mine / former irreplaceable forest. They cannot understand that that massive parking lot can do the flood protection job that their destruction of this irreplaceable treasure cannot do.
The Cambridge Pols cannot see why there is a problem with destroying healthy grass at Magazine Beach which survived most of a century and replacing it with sickly stuff that needs poisons to survive. They cannot understand why there is a problem with dumping poisons on the banks of the Charles to keep alive vegetation which should not be there.
They praise swimming in the Charles and cannot understand why there is a problem with walling off Magazine Beach from the Charles with a bizarre wall of introduced bushes.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why heartless animal abuse aimed at the Charles River White Geese as part of so many bizarre projects is wrong.
They condemn Michael Vick and cannot understand why mass killings of thousands of animals at Alewife is wrong.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to fool himself as efficiently as the Cambridge Pols insist they are fooled.
Al Vellucci was not smart enough to even consider such nonsense.
3. The Boston Globe / boston.com as part of environmental destruction on the Charles River and related.
The Cambridge Pols do a lot of lying. They lie skillfully.
The bizarre party the Globe / boston.com reported on is a typical form of lie out of these people.
They give the false impression they are decent human beings by behaving like decent human beings and suppressing the really rotten stuff they do.
I have reported at http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/bostoncom-glorifies-people-key-in.html the Globe’s on line equivalent, boston.com, printing a photo of the group most responsible for the destruction of the core Alewife reservation conducting a winter solstice dance. The background in the photo could be the trees on the edge of the acres of strip mine these people have succeeded in creating in place of acres of an irreplaceable native forest. The supposed goal is flat out bizarre.
So these fakes conduct a party to show their great “concern” for Alewife and do not mention their destruction of Alewife.
The Boston Globe does a lot of this stuff. The false publicity put out for the Cambridge Pols by the Boston Globe too often fools people into thinking that environmental destroyers are environmental saints.
There was one op ed in the Globe accurately recognizing the vileness of the Cambridge City Manager in destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro. And, for the most part, the reporting of the Boston Globe on Monteiro has been excellent.
But, on environmental issues, the Boston Globe / boston.com very clearly fits the mentality that Al Vellucci mocked. “Well intentioned” people incapable of looking at their surroundings and accurately describing them.
If the Boston Globe is meaningfully concerned about the environment, the Boston Globe should send a reporter and a photographer out to the site of that photo.
They may have difficulty getting close to the artificially created strip mine where, until October or so, there was an irreplaceable virgin woods if they stay in the area of the photo.
They should just follow the marked path to Alewife Station, walk past Alewife station and turn right at CambridgePark Drive. Not too far up, on the left, they will see a massive parking lot and across from the parking lot, they will see an entrance to a construction zone. Just past the construction zone entrance is an asphalt small vehicle highway. The Boston Globe needs to realize that both these segments less than a year ago were part of a dense woods. Go up that small vehicle highway to the turn and look in both directions. This was a massive, virgin woodland not that long ago in all directions straight ahead, right and left. That massive woodlands has been replaced with a strip mine.
The Boston Globe should question Cambridge Officials from the Department of Public Works including the City Engineer and the Public Works Commissioner. The Boston Globe should question whoever will come out of hiding in the Planning Department of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
After extended cross examination, the individuals will either claim stupidity or admit that their destruction of the core Alewife Reservation is for flood protection which will protect against the worst possible storm in any two year period.
Try asking them about the fact that the area has seen two 50 year storms in the past 20 years.
Try asking them about that massive parking lot. If you look closer at that massive parking lot, you will realize that it is even larger than it looks. Go quickly to Google Maps, satellite view, and you will see that it extends along the railroad to Fresh Pond Parkway.
And Google Maps still shows the strip mine as a massive, irrepleable virgin woodland, the way it was for more than a century.
And ask the “planners” why they have destroyed an irreplaceable resource for flood protection which will not even approach the needs of the area. Ask them about this massive parking lot across the street which could readily be used for the flood protection the area needs and then have above the flood storage, on air rights the office buildings the owner wants.
As far as the private citizen “protectors” go, this type of people is usually rather useless as far as meaning and damning discussions go.
But the Boston Globe keeps printing these severely misleading puff pieces which give the impression that environmental destroyers are environmental saints. And the Boston Globe somehow cannot see the reality in front of its own eyes.
It takes next to no effort to observe that strip mine that, until recently, was a magnificent irreplaceable woodland. They even have signs bragging about the project without telling the key information, that it cannot achieve the flood protection the Pols imply and that the massive parking lot across the street can.
I do not recall that Al Vellucci had much use for the Boston Globe.
