The freak is finally on the leash!
The freak is finally on the leash!
What better way to kick off the year-end review than Aidan Kearney behind bars?
Hello everyone! Today we’re looking back at what turned out to be an interesting year for Worcester. A lot of bad stuff, some good stuff, some theater of the absurd, and a whole lot of unfortunate business as usual.
I didn’t get a post out last week and I’m sorry for that. I played that show with my Roky Erickson band last Wednesday and wouldn’t you know it spending 10 hours in a crammed and poorly ventilated venue gave me and my girlfriend COVID! We had a bummer Christmas. But we’re both feeling better now and I’m excited to get back to it.
Before the comprehensive 2023 recap, we simply have to address the news of the day: Aidan Kearney is in jail. A Christmas miracle!
The freak is on the leash
Aidan Kearney is in actual jail, folks. Actual jail! A registered inmate in the Norfolk County Correctional Facility.
Someone who’s good at video editing should do a clip of the celebration scene at the end of Return of the Jedi with pictures of Kearney in court.
Let me repeat: The absolute worst person Worcester ever produced is behind bars. For years this man has been a menacing evil and now he is in a house of corrections.
How he got there is almost entirely inscrutable but I’ll do my best to provide a succinct explanation. Kearney was first arrested back in October on charges of witness tampering that seemed pretty easy to avoid by being normal. But Kearney isn’t normal. For months, he’d been leading a sort of mini Qanon movement around the Karen Read trial. Kearney, serving as a Q figure, and his army of bored housewives have led a campaign to prove Reed’s innocence, alleging a massive coverup by the state police. Huge if true! If Kearney ends up being right and it brings about the downfall of the Massachusetts State Police that would be great. But for now, it’s bringing about his downfall which is also great 🙂
Kearney was arraigned on a laundry list of charges back in October. Then, last Friday, he caught another 16 or so new counts. All of them have to do with harassing and intimidating, which is what Kearney has been doing since day 1 without suffering any consequences—in fact he was greatly rewarded for it. But when you start doing that stuff to witnesses in a high profile murder case the court looks at harassing and intimidating a little different. He was released on Friday, but with conditions that amount to “stop harassing and intimidating.” He might have been in legal hot water, but he wasn’t in jail. Not yet!
The next day, he went over to the house of a woman he’d recently broken it off with. There, during a heated quarrel, Kearney grabbed the woman’s arm and shoved her into a couch, according to the woman. She got a restraining order the next day. There was a BOLO order out for Kearney for a short time (sparking wishful thinking for a manhunt story arc) before he turned himself in on Tuesday afternoon. After a very long arraignment, the judge revoked his bail on all the previous witness tampering charges, due to the new assault and battery charges. The judge said it violated the conditions of his release to do assault and battery. So there you have it. Kearney in jail, and likely for the duration of the witness tampering trial(s).
The Turtleboy camp, naturally, says he’s being framed for the assault and battery, as part of a massive conspiracy to stop him from uhhhh… posting. To support this claim, Kearney’s defense played the entirety of this 15 minute video...
...to the whole courtroom, which was packed. It is a sneaky-recorded live stream of a quarrel Kearney and this woman had the night he allegedly hit her. Like the phone is just running a stream in Kearney’s pocket as they’re screaming at each other. It was introduced as evidence by Kearney’s own attorney. That’s crazy.
In the abstract, putting your phone in your pocket and livestreaming a very serious-sounding couple’s quarrel is grotesque behavior. The way he chose to title the video—“Medfield woman verbally abuses Turtleboy, endangers her 4 children”—is also grotesque! Who describes their girlfriend/ex-girlfriend as “[Town name] woman”?! That’s so fundamentally weird!
Having listened to the video, the substance is hard to decipher. But it’s certainly heated, and Kearney doesn’t sound like a very good guy in it. While taking and posting such a video is poor form, thinking it would exonerate you is complete delusion. They really thought they were going to get away with “your honor, as you can hear this broad is clearly nutso.” Unbelievable.
Word on the scene was it went over like a lead balloon.
In another tweet, Grant Smith Ellis offered some context on the substance of the argument:
"It's like giving birth, I can't be alone. You said you would stay if I took the [abortion pills]."
Heartbreaking audio was released overnight Monday by fugitive Aidan Kearney AKA Turtleboy, indicating that Kearney promised to stay with his pregnant girlfriend on Friday after she took an abortion pill, only to then leave right after the victim did so.
Yiiiiikes.
Kearney’s affair with this woman seems to be bound up in a shared interest in the Karen Reed case, and the meeting on Saturday had something to do with some sort of “evidence” on top of the abortion pills and whatever else. This prompted Kearney’s lawyer to make the most insane argument possible, per the Telegram.
“Mr. Kearney, I guess, his nature as a journalist, he went over there to learn what was going on," Bradl said.
Lol. “Nature as a journalist.” Come on, dude.
So anyway, this whole story keeps getting crazier and crazier and really it’s not my business. Free Karen Reed or don’t I dunno. But after years and years of deserving jail, Aidan Kearney is in jail. And I think that’s just plain nice.
New Year, New Deal
Please consider a paid subscription if you can swing it! Thank you! Doing a little New Year’s Deal for the next two weeks. Get it while it’s hot.
A paid subscription makes you personally responsible for this newsletter’s existence! And all the other stuff I get to do—City Council Twitch streams, a newborn community media foundation, a video store—because I don’t have to work a “day job.”
That I’ve been able to treat this newsletter as a full time job is due solely to the ~675 of you that volunteer a small amount of your money a month or year. And writing the year-end review below has me feeling sentimental and grateful that my paid subscribers gave me the time to produce all of this work. I’m so proud and so thankful. There are so many pieces from this past year that are long and ambitious and time consuming to produce. I simply would not have been able to do all that without my ~675 amazing bosses.
Tips are great as well! (Venmo / Paypal)
The year in Worcester!
First of all we got a nice convo going over here in the “threads” feature. You need a Substack login and it seems like it works best on the app. But hop in if you want! And thank you to everyone in there for the nice discussion. It looks like I can do a lot more with this “threads” feature, including allowing paid subscribers to start their own threads in there. Like a mini Worcester reddit! Lemme know if that’s something that would interest you. With Worcester Twitter in shambles, it would be nice to find a new home for “the discourse.” If there’s interest, I would happily make that a paid sub perk.
January
Looking back at my first regular post in January, there’s a passage at the top that hits me more now than it did then:
The thought I’m going to leave up at the top like an epigraph is that there’s something about trying to be invested in Worcester which grinds the spirit out of you. I had a nice long chat with someone about this the other night, the both of us feeling our spirit had been especially ground down over the last year. It’s a city that punishes you for caring. I think a lot of us are feeling pretty punished right now. I can’t imagine how our progressive councilors are feeling, as they’re rather unfairly made to take the brunt of it. It’s like there’s a Dementor in City Hall but he doesn’t suck the soul out of your mouth all at once like in the books he just takes little sips every day and you don’t really notice until you’re completely miserable and soulless. So the question this piece is really asking: Where is that Dementor coming from and how do we get rid of it? And is it actually just Ray Mariano? Is he the Dementor? Just kidding haha… unless...
It’s pretty good context for the entire year, honestly. Caring was punished in 2023.
The piece focuses on a January Ray Mariano column headlined “Worcester City Council is Dysfunction Junction.” It laid the early groundwork for attacking progressive councilors as “divisive”—a line that ended up working pretty well on the Worcester electorate in November. Ray Mariano would go on to write countless such columns. The former mayor, he is the city’s only proper newspaper columnist. Which is crazy.
January also saw the beginning of Cafe Neo’s fight for existence in a gentrifying city. And it’s the month we lost Michael Foley, one of our most colorful, beautiful Worcester people. Rest in peace.
In late January, the murder of Tyre Nichols dominated the national conversation for weeks and Worcester officials made their canned statements. But, of course, they did not do anything of substance. Despite being under active federal investigation, our police department was not cause for concern, despite having the same hyper militarized and legally-shielded “plain clothes” units that carried out the murder of Nichols in Memphis. And the Worcester plain clothes officers are named quite a bit in civil rights and use of force complaints. I looked at that issue substantively in this post: “The WPD has its own scorpion unit.” This will come back into play later in the year, when the city council passes a body camera policy with a lot of exemptions for plain clothes officers.
We know where the bad apples are. Pretending otherwise is a national pastime.
February
Just a few weeks after the canned condemnations of the Memphis plain clothes police officers who murdered a boy, City Hall passed a body camera policy which almost completely exempts plain clothes officers in Worcester from having to wear them or turn them on. This was not a major issue. The body camera policy was widely celebrated as a “step in the right direction.”
At that same meeting, Councilor Kate Toomey texted through a prayer for Black lives while on camera (video here). She is chair of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and has never once done that job. Mayor Joe Petty still gives her the position, and will likely do so again in a few weeks.
February also saw the push from Old Sturbridge Village to open a charter school in Worcester. Despite it being an obvious scam abusing a loophole in state law, it would eventually get state approval in March.
The Telegram won its lawsuit against the city for police misconduct records! After years in court. The judgment was a profound and precedent-setting win for public records. And our City Hall’s foolishly secretive behavior produced that judgment.
March
Month #3 was a busy one. Multiple storylines emerged that would come up again and again over the year. I’ll break it up in sections.
Crisis pregnancy centers: On March 2 Teen Vogue ran a story of mine on the fraught history of Problem Pregnancy and the difficulty to regulate these centers locally and nationally. An order to try to do something from Councilor Thu Nguyen was still languishing, unaddressed by the city administration. That issue would start to boil to a head in the weeks and months that followed.
Routine encampment sweeps: On March 15 I published a long and brutally depressing (to write) essay on a routine homelessness encampment sweep I personally witnessed. This was the first of several such essays throughout the year. Around this time, two ideas started to take hold: the idea of a moratorium on encampment sweeps and the idea of a sanctioned camp location. Both languished, meeting fierce opposition from the cranks, and the status quo was preserved as the homelessness crisis increased in severity.
Inclusionary zoning: At the same time, City Hall was deciding whether to take real or pretend action on the worsening and extremely related affordable housing problem. The issue centered around an “inclusionary zoning” policy requiring larger developers to set aside a certain number of units for people of lesser means. The City Council decided on a neutered and useless version of the policy out of fear they’d scare off developers.
The Caribbean Carnival vs the Parks Department: The city heard from event organizers about some pretty objective racism they were experiencing in trying to get permits from the Parks Department. Rather than condemn the Parks Department, Batista fell on the sword, promising to make “systems'' changes.
ARPA injustice: Seems the issues with the Parks Department rhyme with issues in doling out the city’s ARPA money. A story by Sam Turken at WGBH puts the issue in stark relief, including interviews from several small community organizers whose organizations were snubbed without explanation. Though there was some chatter, this was effectively ignored by a city council that’s very good at ignoring things.
April
This month marked the start of election season, which I will try my best not to linger on. We all know how that went. As the ballot was taking shape, we saw a lot of really exciting progressive challengers! At this moment in time, there was a sense we might have been on the precipice of pulling off something unprecedented in November. But then came Maureen Binienda. Alas. More on that later.
Early in the month, former City Manager Ed Augustus inexplicably left his job at Dean College without letting on any plans for a new post.
As is the case every year, the city published its salary list and the amount we pay police officers versus other municipal employees was yet again absurd. Out of the 50 highest paid people, 47 were cops.
A very interesting but slept-on moment from this time: Eric Batista just sort of unilaterally decided that we weren't going to try to do municipal broadband. And that was that.
And don’t forget about the WRTA, which voted to keep the buses fare-free for another year.
May
The month of May was summed up pretty well in this one tweet I think.
In “Who Controls Who?” I looked at the space between the cops, who had just got handsome stipends to wear body cameras, and the Education Association of Worcester, which was ramping up toward a full strike for a fair contract. A mere cost of living increase. The cops get everything they want from city hall, but for everyone else it’s a struggle. Why is that, we think? A very good question for understanding not just Worcester but basically every city in America.
Also this month the idea of a moratorium on homeless encampment sweeps entered official channels via a council petition. There was a subcommittee meeting in which experts implored the city to stop doing these sweeps and reactionaries said hmmmm no thank you. Then City Manager Eric Batista went on the radio as is tradition to say the sweeps will continue. And that was that pretty much. And then the cranks got up in arms about a proposed family shelter in the Greendale neighborhood, a moment in which I took the opportunity to deem them all Lady Uncles. Later that month Ray Mariano proved himself to be a Lady Uncle, writing a column about another proposed development for sheltering the unhoused in which the unhoused were the villains—lost souls—and the neighbors the protagonists.
On a very related note, Jose Rivera moved his council candidacy from at-large to District 5, loudly preaching to the Lady Uncle choir about how we’re not being cruel enough to the unhoused.
A team of experts released a report showing Polar Park was going to produce a massive $40-60 million deficit and would not come close to paying for itself. And they were written off as naysayers, of course.
A giant in the Worcester community and in particular Worcester journalism passed. Rest in peace, Tim Connolly.
Aaaaand we found out why Ed Augustus abruptly left Dean College. After wantonly pursuing a development strategy that left Worcester in a dire housing crisis, he became Gov. Maura Healey’s housing secretary.
Just because I’m so proud of it, I wrote a not-at-all journalism travel essay about my time on the road with High Command. I personally think it’s my finest work writing wise.
June
In a rare win for productive homelessness policy, the Lady Uncles were made to eat shit and cry about it after the Zoning Board of Appeals issued a special permit for the family shelter in Greendale.
Then more good news the Worcester Police Department was hit with a massive class action lawsuit for the egregious handling of protestors in June 2020. I went through the lawsuit and my personal experience that night in a long essay full of absolutely unacceptable abuse of power by the police and complacency from city hall.
City hall won a national “Golden Padlock” award for government secrecy relating to the lawsuit it lost against the Telegram for police records.
On the council floor, Nguyen forced the issue of unaccountable and psychotic “outside constables” which routinely harass and intimidate residents. The city administration said not my chair, not my problem.
Then, later in the month, an unhoused man died on a park bench a few days after the Chamber of Commerce decided to insert itself into the homelessness policy debate, strongly opposing an end to the routine encampment sweeps which exacerbate the problem and immiserate the people made to experience it. They wanted the cruelty to continue, and then they got it.
Heading into July, the seeds laid in March on the crisis pregnancy center front started coming to a head. A reproductive rights group filed a class action lawsuit against the Clearway Clinic on behalf of a woman that was nearly killed by shoddy medical advice she received there. After ignoring Nguyen’s order to try to regulate these places for close to a year, City Manager Eric Batista was made finally to comment on the progress of it: he scrapped the idea without telling anyone, and blamed the attorney general’s office.
July
The CPC issue continued to heat up. Worcester became the subject of several high profile national news stories, including the Washington Post. The majority of the city council remained committed to ignoring it. But some great digging from Neal McNamara at the Patch showed that Batista and co. were misrepresenting how they handled Nguyen’s request for an ordinance. The issue was forced to a head and in clumsy fashion Batista brought two proposed ordinances to the city council for consideration.
Also, we couldn’t staff lifeguards so we closed beaches and paid the cops to make sure no one went swimming.
And the Chamber of Commerce started trying to get the city to do less than nothing about the environment, poisoning the waters on an emerging debate over stretch building code for green energy.
August
As the city elections approached, the city began the process of becoming increasingly psychotic. This was kicked off, to my mind, at a packed and intense “community meeting” over the redesign of Mill Street. The cranks were out in force decrying the corruption of adding a protected bike lane and traffic calming measures. District 5 Candidate Jose Rivera seized on the moment to ramp up tensions in know-nothing fashion.
And on the school committee side, Maureen Binienda showed her true colors, railing against the otherwise popular decision to bring busing services in-house and away from a company which had done a lousy job for years. She thought the bus company was nice to her though so it was good.
The Central Mass Housing Alliance sued Holden over its refusal to cooperate in the construction of new, sorely needed housing. (Earlier this month, the lawsuit was unfortunately dismissed, but I hear CMHA has plans to appeal.)
And then perhaps the #1 psycho moment of the year: Local crank Wayne Griffin and Police Lieutenant Anthony Petrone doxxed a teenager, wrongly accusing her of being a “cop killer,” because she donated a small amount of money to Etel Haxhiaj. Both of the grown men were vocal supporters of Jose Rivera, who went out of his way to avoid taking any responsibility or show any leadership in the fallout.
Then, cherry on top, local Catholic Bishop Robert McManus launched a war on gender, yet again putting Worcester in the national spotlight for the worst possible reason.
The psycho meter was off the charts at this moment.
While Rivera was ducking responsibility for his supporters acting like psychos, he was going hard on the unhoused, hammering on them as a scapegoat at every opportunity, demanding more cruelty. This prompted yet another long essay on Worcester and the unhoused, adding to a series of essays over 2021-2023 which is book length for sure.
September
Summer turned to fall and Police Chief Steven Sargent became the main character for a long time. It was one of the most impressive falls from grace I can remember seeing. On September 1, the chief abruptly announced his “retirement,” effective immediately. A few hours later, Paul Saucier was named interim chief. This “retirement” came not 24 hours after the Telegram published a story about how an investigation into Sargent would be submitted to the new police oversight board. Two weeks prior, there was another story about how the chief had tried to run over an officer with his car. But right. Sargent “retired.” And it was all amicable. That’s how Batista and Petty put it in statements effusively praising the chief. Buuuut then a few weeks went by and some more stuff started coming out.
On Sept. 13, Neal McNamara at the Patch put up a story about how the chief was investigated in 2019 for a “road rage incident.” The incident was that he got out of his car, drunk, and screamed at a guy for pulling out of his driveway too slowly. The cops “investigated” by asking Sargent what happened. Then-City Manager Ed Augustus declined to discipline the chief because the investigation was “non-conclusive.” These records were released to the press one business day after Sargent “retired.” I outlined the course of events leading to Sargent’s retirement in chronological fashion in this post. The clear conclusion to be drawn is that Sargent’s September 1 “retirement” was the direct result of a public records request made on July 30 by the Telegram’s investigative reporter Brad Petrishen. To my mind, this was the biggest tangible win of the year for local journalism. Cherry on top: the investigation into the road rage incident was one of 12 such investigations into Sargent. Woof!
Also in September: The preliminary elections, which left us all feeling an unwarranted amount of hope in retrospect. It also very obviously spooked the old guard, which is a great way to contextualize the next news item.
The Worcester Guardian—a new, non-profit and definitely 100 percent independent news outlet—was announced by the city’s shadow mayor Tim Murray to much fanfare, getting write ups in all the media verticals and taken as an earnest attempt to save local journalism. The launch was a little hasty, it seemed, because the about page was directly copy and pasted from another outlet. Nevertheless, with $50,000 in seed money, they quickly hired an editor and Tim Murray told anyone who would listen that there would be no editorial interference. Since, the press release rewriting has been going steady.
This becomes important later: I wrote about how the city had a projected 200 bed shortfall projected for the coming winter and there weren’t substantive plans to address that fact.
October
As the election drew near and the need to scare people in the “nice neighborhoods” in order to beat back a perceived progressive wave increased, reliable crank Moe Bergman pulled a stunt! He tried to get the council to sign on to a resolution to amend a proposal for accessory dwelling units to enforce, among other things, blood relation in order to “preserve the character of the neighborhood.” He was widely condemned for this and backtracked eventually.
In the same spirit, Tim Murray and Co decided the Worcester Guardian wasn’t enough so they unveiled the trollishly-named Progress Worcester PAC, dumping obscene money exclusively into the campaigns of candidates who were running against progressives.
Meanwhile the city council was mostly avoiding real issues at all costs, concerning themselves with whether or not the useless Ballpark Commission should remain being useless, which they decided to do.
Then a bit of great news: Aidan Kearney of Turtleboy Sports was arrested in hilarious fashion for his involvement in a mini Qanon-type movement I don’t really care to understand. But it was sick to see him get arrested for sure. And now that story’s gotten even better! And more inscrutable.
Then, toward the end of the month, I put up a story I had spent pretty much the entire year working on quietly. It is the crowning achievement of my career, and it’s about the bravest person I’ve ever known: “John Monfredo's "teen-age accuser" takes her power back.” Heather’s story is horrific and the way this city went about suppressing and discrediting it is a deep, thorough condemnation of a rotten political culture. In a just world, anyone involved in John Monfredo’s political life and the maintenance of it would be run out of town. That’s not what happened. The opposite happened, really. And it’s worth thinking long and hard about why that is.
November
We entered the week leading up to the election with public condemnations of Monfredo from progressive politicians and the story spreading through the community like wildfire. So many people asking how this could have happened and why there was never any justice. But the old guard political and the majority of the press were silent. Only one follow-up article from Neal McNamara. Monfredo was out holding signs for Binienda and Binienda was standing by him.
And then election day, and Binienda got more votes for school committee than Joe Petty got for mayor. Any hopes of a progressive swing on the city council were quickly done away with. Sarai Rivera was replaced by her chosen successor and Jenny Pacillo took Sean Rose’s seat. The progressive minority stayed the same, more or less.
The school committee on the other hand got fucking destroyed—half due to Binienda’s political influence and half due to the well-meaning progressive reform of the board to a district system. What was intended to increase influence for marginalized people gave us Binienda and two of her cronies in Kathy Roy and Dianna Biancheria. We lost the smartest and most capable school committee member we could have in Tracy O’Connell Novick and a young, passionate and talented person of color in Jermoh Kamara. The rightward shift is hard to understate and the next two years are going to be chaos. Kathi Roy is a January 6 person! It is very likely we will find ourselves on the news for the wrong reasons with this incoming school committee.
It was a spirit-breaking night through and through.
But, afterwards, school committee member Sue Mailman introduced Heather’s story to the public record, asking the administration for a report on what the district can do for victims of sexual assault. It was nice to see it finally acknowledged in an official capacity and finally written about in our paper of record.
Another glimmer of positive development: the Planning Board and the Standing Committee on Economic Development endorsed a restriction-free accessory dwelling unit ordinance. The council was poised to take real action on affordable housing without intentionally rendering it feckless. Of course it didn’t in the end. But we’ll get there.
December
To address the projected 200 shelter bed shortfall the city proposed a new 60 bed emergency shelter in the old RMV building. As for the remaining 140 beds? Big shrug.
Meanwhile Batista and the Human Rights Commission became at odds over his attempts to stop them from looking into the abuses of the police department, going as far as barring access to records they’re entitled to. He walked it back some but is still not giving them all the records they want.
The ADU proposal endorsed by the Planning Board and Standing Committee on Economic Development passed, but not without restrictions. In a last minute turn of events, Sean Rose, chair of economic development, changed his mind and added an owner-occupancy restriction. That’s the version that the council passed, after city officials explained to them that other cities with owner occupancy restrictions in their ADU policies are getting rid of it because it leads to no accessory dwelling unit construction at all. Just like with inclusionary zoning, Rose was there to make sure we did the thing that looks nice on paper but is functionally useless. Thanks again, bud.
But hey, we did end the year with Aidan Kearney in literal jail! So. Not all bad.
Collected Worcester Sucks Writing on Homelessness
For keeping track’s sake, here’s a running list of the ‘big’ or ‘good’ essays I’ve written on homelessness in Worcester in this newsletter. It’s the work I’m most proud of and the form I’m most committed to refining. It could be a short book at this point (and maybe it should be hint hint wink wink?). Here’s the updated list, 2021-2023:
Oct. 25, 2021 | “Options were offered”: The city demolished a homeless encampment because Walmart asked them to
Nov. 6, 2021 (for Welcome to Hell World) | They were going from tent to tent throwing it all in the back of a truck
Aug. 17, 2022 | If cruelty's the goal, we're doing a damn good job: Another camp eviction highlights the city's poor homelessness policy
March 15, 2023 | “I wish I had a magic wand and I could find you an apartment” The cruelty continues unexamined
May 12 & May 20, 2023 | End the sweeps! & Under Batista, the sweeps will never end
June 27, 2023 | Before Adam was dead, Adam was blight: The city's cruelty produces an inevitable outcome
Aug. 27, 2023 | “Attack the lowlife abusers”
Sept. 26, 2023 | “Why do people have to live outside?”
Dec. 1, 2023 | “The bureaucratic machinery mirrors popular belief”
Odds and ends
That’s a wrap on 2023 folks. What a year. Don’t forget about that 20 percent off deal!
Radical honesty time: I went down 15 paid subscribers over the past month. Totally natural—the paid subscriber number ebbs and flows all the time and money is tight for people this time of year, especially this year—but it causes psychic damage to see it dip! It makes me start doing calculations of how much longer I have until this project fails. Totally irrational. I’m doing fine. So if I’m hammering on the subscription plugs a little too hard bear with me! I just want to make sure I can do this as long as I can.
On that note tips here: (Venmo / Paypal) and tips are great!
For those of you who already signed up for a Rewind Video Club membership thank you! I’m printing your cards out today! If you’re thinking ‘Rewind Video Club? What’s all this then?’ in a British accent, check out the Rewind Video Club Patreon.
I suppose I should touch quickly on “the Billboard.” If you missed it a very corny and fearmongery pro-Israel billboard on I-290 got vandalized by someone who took the occassion to point out the fact that the IDF has killed some 25,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7. The vandalism was widely condemned locally and nationally. The “25,000 dead” part was underplayed, naturally, in favor of the real political violence—spray painting a billboard.
The billboard was one of hundreds of pithy, corny billboards thrown up around the country by a company called JewBelong. Turns out there’s a particular flavor of political violence the founders of JewBelong are fond of!
From The Forward:
But (JewBelong founder Archie) Gottesman’s statements on the issue have often been sharper than others in those generally centrist organizations.
In 2018, for example, she tweeted “Gaza is full of monsters. Burn the whole place. Won’t matter. The U.N. will just give another meaningless sanction.”
Hmmmm. Do not feel bad that this person’s weird ad got edited.
Congrats to friend of the newsletter Joanne McNeil who just got her 2023 book Wrong Way on The New Yorker’s “The Best Books of 2023” list!
Crazy! The book rules I would highly suggest it. I read it in four days which is very fast for me and there’s a particular part of the ending that people who’ve spent time in Boston will find quite affecting.
And lastly big yikes the inauguration is next week! On Jan. 2, 5 p.m. The Worcestery Council Theatre crew will be streaming it some way some how. Smash the follow on Twitch.
Next post, we start looking at what the hell we can do about Worcester in 2024. Keep it moving.
Ok enough for now I think. Til next time!
P.S. — A Good Song
Great post, and if you were to offer an "I'm one of 675!" t-shirt with a Worcester Sucks logo I'd happily buy one. Whatever we can do to bump that number up...your Substack is essential reading.
Nice break down!
Happy New Year!