Must Have Done The Trick
Just a quick update to keep us "in the loop"
What is up everyone! Been way too long since my last written post on here. I’ve been busy with other parts of the job—one of them very exciting, can’t wait to share! But I’m already well past the best practice one week maximum between postings. So a quick update on all things Worcester to keep things fresh. Not a masterpiece, not trying to be. Getting this post “out of the way” so I can spend the rest of the week on the actual masterpiece I have cooking, contracted out for an outlet you’re never going to believe. Hehehehe.
A taste: H. Ladd Plumley, the chairman of State Mutual Life Insurance (Hanover Insurance), and the one-time head of both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Worcester Redevelopment Authority received a letter from George Herbert Walker Poppy Bush on July 22, 1980 that read...
Dear Ladd,
Your letter to Governor Reagan must have done the trick.
I am honored to have been placed on the ticket and Bar and I will work our hearts out to insure his election. Jimmy Carter must go for the good of the country.
Thanks so much for your support.
Sincerely,
George Bush
(dictated but not signed)
Just five days earlier, Reagan made the last-minute decision to add Bush as his running mate, effectively ending the competitive primary contest between the two, and consolidating what would end up being a decades long and nearly complete capture of the federal government by “the free market” that is in many ways ongoing though I think we can admit it’s mutated slightly from the haughty “high minded” days of Plumley and Co’s silent corporate coup. Whatever Plumley said to Reagan—that letter didn’t end up in the archives—did “the trick,” as Bush put it. And here we are, four or five failed Middle East wars later, in the throes of our dumbest one yet, with H. Ladd Plumley to thank, apparently, for all of it.
An interesting hingepoint: What if Worcester’s own little Robert Moses didn’t throw his political weight behind the fusion of Bush and Reagan? An unholy matrimony of the proto-Trump sensationalist media politics in Reagan and Bush’s Spook Skullduggery that, among a million other evil things, put Dick Cheney in charge of the Department of Defense.... What If Reagan Would Have Chosen Someone Else If Worcester’s Biggest Historical Dickhead Didn’t Cash In His Ill-Gotten Political Capital? There’s a version of events where Plumley minds his own business, Dukakis wins, and we’ve got a three hour train to Chicago. Instead, we ended up in the reality where you might get to see a doctor.
This letter’s one of the more interesting standalone tidbits gleaned from a 15 hour session over multiple days at the Museum of Worcester library, poring through dusty bins that haven’t been opened in at least eight years, I’m told. Some, I was the first. There’s so so so much more. In order to get back to that work, I gotta do this work though. Please subscribe!
The city council meeting is going on as I type this. I’m not watching because I need to re-evaluate this newsletter’s approach to the council in a big way. The thought of having to write about these people and what they do is a major contributing factor to the massive block I’ve been dealing with over the past couple weeks. I cannot find an honest reason to care, and won’t insult my readers with a pandering faux enthusiasm. The only question worth asking about the city council is why it’s so useless, and I’ve got nothing new to add to that discussion at the moment. I’ve contributed my fair share over the years.
On the agenda tonight there’s city reports on leaf collection and street sweeping. So... that’s four hours of diffuse grievance airing right there. And then another report on Newton Hill (originally preserved as a fire buffer between the West Side and the slums—I will never pass on an opportunity to bring that up.) So tack on another two hours. Nothing, at the end of the day, will get accomplished that wouldn’t have gotten accomplished without them. They’ll likely make a few things harder and more annoying for the real city government in the process.
It gets harder and harder to give a crap about this council. They are worse than useless. I’ll watch the meeting on double speed with a transcript tomorrow. Just because they don’t value their time doesn’t mean we all have to masochistically fall into the same hole.
Here’s the agenda. And here’s a public Google Drive folder I set up for links I need to share here that aren’t otherwise available: “WorcSux - Public Links”. Something to bookmark if you just want a repository of easy to access links relative to Worcester stuff. It’s going to end up being mostly agendas and minutes and other city documents.
I’ll say it one more time I guess: It is insane that you cannot get a standalone link for an agenda with the city’s new system. PrimeGov, at least the way Worcester has it implemented, fucking sucks.
Then again, should we expect any better from the city that surreptitiously decided to block any and all social media engagement?
Then again squared, This Week In Worcester has some of the screenshots of the shit people were saying about the South High girls basketball team a few days before this ban went into place... Will not be repeating any of it here in any form. But it’s a friendly reminder this city is extremely racist, in ways we have yet to even come close to reckoning with. And now that it’s apparently out of style to “do woke” I don’t foresee a circumstance in which we will.
That’s what was animating a joke I made at the Roast of Worcester on Saturday that definitely landed the worst of all of them.
—”Civility” has returned to the city council! Now that we’ve gotten rid of all the women and queers.
Every meeting now is just the last five minutes of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm
‘Grandstanding? Oh grandstanding? Oh im not grandstanding you’re grandstanding’
But instead of five punchy minutes it’s five agonizing hours
Here’s one that hit though...
—Someone should tug on Kate Toomey’s hair and see if it’s a disguise like in Scooby Doo
‘Gahhhh it was Anthony Petrone the whole time?!’
Just kidding. No one do that to Kate Toomey. That’d be assault and battery on a make-a-wish police officer.
And here’s one contributor at-large Gillian Ganesan wrote as soon as they showed up to the White Room, ripped off a stiff martini or two at Femme, spitting hot fire like it’s nothing.
Yeah I’m on Grindr... for work. I gotta check and make sure Eric Batista is putting in full days at City Hall.
I had all intentions of doing it then forgot. Woulda hit hard.
There’ll be video of it eventually but there isn’t any right now. Will share when it’s available.
Stuff coming up!
Tomorrow (Wednesday): There’s a fundraiser and community celebration for Etel Haxhiaj at Mint. 7-9 p.m. See you there! Funds are going toward the appeal process and to LUCE. You can donate here as well.
Progressive Worcester, a new political advocacy group, is holding its first meeting tomorrow as well at 5:30 p.m. Jonathan Cohn is speaking which is pretty cool I like him. Takes place at 301 Pleasant Street.
Also on Wednesday (sheesh) Remembering and Imagining A Vernon Connected Exhibition and Workshop 6 to 8 p.m. at Girls Inc. (125 Providence Street)
The idea is it’s a workshop to look at the bridge, at the surrounding neighborhoods, what they used to be like before the highway and what they could be with a better bridge design. While you can attend the whole thing, the organizers say it’s perfectly fine to bop in for a few minutes, leave some ideas if you have any, then head off into the gray March night to do whatever it was you were gunna do anyway.
Here’s a dropbox folder with some slides and such. Vernon Connected - Dropbox
Aaand Ghost of Christmas Future I guess, the Laurel Street Bridge will be closed starting Thursday 5 a.m. until April 3. Telegram: Laurel Street Bridge over I-290 to be closed for upgrades
On Thursday, an interesting labor action at Holy Cross. Justice For Contingents, a grassroots campaign to pressure the administration for better treatment and protections for non-tenured faculty, is holding a rally at 3:30 p.m. on the Fenwick Lawn. I’ll probably go down there and check it out, loathe as I am to spend any time at all on the most accursed grounds in the city. Here’s a release from the newly formed group about the rally and the mission.
Worcester, MA— Justice for Contingents – Holy Cross, a grassroots campaign at Holy Cross, will hold a rally calling on Holy Cross’ administration to respond to concerns raised by contingent faculty. The rally will take place on March 26 at 3:30pm on the Fenwick lawn.
On March 10, 2026, Holy Cross’s Faculty Assembly voted 137 to 3 in favor of a resolution directing the administration to “devise acceptable remedies to the concerns identified” by contingent faculty. The administration has yet to respond with their proposed remedies.
The Rally will bring together students, contingent faculty members, and tenured and tenure-track faculty allies to ask the administration to address identified concerns about the lack of Security, Equity, and Transparency they face. Speakers will underscore how the Holy Cross Mission calls on the college to address contingent concerns.
Following the gathering on the Fenwick lawn, rally participants will walk down Linden Lane to the college’s main gates and stand in front of the Holy Cross seal. Rally participants will distribute information about the campaign and campaign leaders will be available for questions.
Justice for Contingents has noted that about one third of the faculty is made up of contingent faculty and teach over half of the courses offered on campus. Many contingent faculty at Holy Cross work on year-to-year contracts and face a mandated end to contract renewal after 5 years. They also lack an internal pathway to promotion. Contingent pay is substantially lower than that of their tenure-track colleagues, despite the fact that they carry a comparable workload. Meanwhile, Holy Cross has not published a salary scale with clearly defined raises, and contingents have observed and reported salary inconsistencies. Research funding for contingents has decreased over the past five years, and contingents now only receiving about 80% of promised support.
Then a little further out but the news broke this week: arraignments for the four state police officers charged in connection with the boxing ring death of Worcester recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia will be held on April 2 for three of them and April 14 for one. The arraignments will be held at 2 p.m. (a cushy timeslot, gotta love the way the solidarity of Massachusetts law enforcement community manifests) at the Worcester courthouse, where a remake of Michaelangelo’s “Moses,” a recurring fascination of Sigmund Freud’s, oversees a straight four-story drop in the middle of the building with no protections against jumpers despite the jumpings in recent memory. Freud pondered the strange angle of repose chosen by Michelangelo, fascinated by how it captured a certain psychic kickback—the moment of introspection following an angry lashing out.
News you can use folks!
Freud’s only trip to America was brought on by an invitation from Clark University, and he spent most of his three weeks in Worcester. His conclusion upon leaving: “America is a mistake; a gigantic mistake it is true, but nonetheless a mistake.”
Good sir I do concur…
In case you missed it, there was a hugely significant lawsuit filed against the WPD on the question of whether they are breaking ADA by sending 100 percent cops to medical emergencies of the mental variety, versus more reasonable responses like EMTs to the physical variety. We covered it in depth on the most recent episode of Outdoor Cats.
A dirty little secret of the WPD is mental health “wellness checks” make up an inordinate amount of their dispatches. Should those be put into more capable hands, the question of what it is exactly the cops do all day will become even more unavoidable. And then maybe we can start having some productive conversations about how we might adequately fund the DPW via some light restructuring in other areas of the municipality.
For now, though, we’re all being forced to swallow this carefully orchestrated line, the product of multiple ‘press invites’ to different outlets for ‘exclusive’ tours that make the reporters feel oh so special and in on it, that the police are in desperate need of a new headquarters building. Our roads are from The Road and as best I can tell the main complaint about that building is the locker rooms sorta suck. Big whoop! Shower at home like the rest of us.
Can you imagine teachers complaining about such things? In a just world not a day goes by where a teacher has to buy their own school supplies that a cop is not filling his cruiser’s tank off his personal debit card. Hard absolutely not to a new police station, not that you or I have a say in the matter. It’s not like this is a democracy...
Odds and ends
Again I’m asking nicely! Please subscribe!
My friend Sam down in Rhode Island (we won’t hold it against her) is putting together a really cool podcast project called “Hex Line,” coming out in earnest sometime in the summer. I did the theme song for it, which you can hear in the teaser they just released. Check it out! The mandate was psych rock that’s a little sexy, a little spooky. I really like how it came out.
Friendly reminder I am open for musical commissions—podcast music, soundtrack, tracking or editing or mixing or (rough, non-professional) mastering. I simply love making tunes I churn them out pretty much every day. Billshaner at Substack Dot Com.
This from This Week In Worcester got a chuckle out of me haha Exclusive Interview: Potathan, Worcester’s Most Famous Pothole
Other stuff:
Skyscraper Plan for 19-story skyscraper with 225 apartments advances in Worcester - masslive.com
Been reading Exploit. Really solid new comic written by Laura Hudson and Tim Leong about journalism and private equity. I purchased Issue #1 on the recommendation of Spencer Ackerman over at Forever Wars (who’s been killing it on the coverage of the Iran stuff.)
And uhhhh good song right here.
Ended the most recent episode of DTF St. Louis (Love it love it love it. Whole soundtrack is killer.)
Talk soon!