Man dead, media silent

On Saturday, March 27, a man named Clyde Ratcliff was allegedly speed and not long after was pursued by Springfield police.  Mr. Ratcliff lost control of his car and it crashed into a fence.  Police broke a car window and pulled Mr. Ratcliff from the car.  Everything that happened after that is in dispute.  The outcome, however, is not: Mr. Ratcliffe is dead.


Many questions will be raised in the weeks to come, and whether they will be answered to the community's satisfaction, I don't know, but right now I just have one question:  where the hell was the media?  Four days passed and the Springfield Republican and our three television stations, WWLP 22, CBS 3 and ABC 40 were silent.

Now, there is no doubt that Mr. Ratcliff's death after an encounter with the Springfield police would be of immediate and great interest to the residents of Springfield.   Since November numerous accusations of police brutality that have rolled through this city starting with the beating of Melvin Jones III by Springfield police which was recorded on a cellphone.  Much has happened since then, including the firing of two police officers just yesterday.  Masslive.

But the media was silent for four days, until today, when member of the African-American Clergy Alliance and family members of Clyde Ratcliff paid an unannounced visit to Mayor Domenic Sarno.  . Someone told me that the night Mr. Ratcliff died, Channel 40 did a preview of upcoming news and said something about a man chased by police who had crashed his car-- but that no news story ever followed.  I didn't see that for myself and if anyone knows of any media coverage of Mr. Ratcliff's death that took place before today, I'd like to know.  I do know for sure that the Republican wrote nothing, and before this evening, found nothing on the local stations..

Now, just how does something like that happen?

It could be incompetence, but how does incompetence happen to affect one newspaper and three TV stations at the same time?

How does the media get this kind of news?  Obviously police scanners play a role.  What other ways is information communicated?  Did all these methods break down at the same time?

Or was the media asked to sit on this story for a while?

Living near a power plant is dangerous

Our children are at risk from power plant pollution: Over 25 million children in the U. S. live in counties

that violate national air quality standards for the common pollutants ozone, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide;

Cases of asthma have rapidly increased, more than doubling in the past two decades. Six percent of U.S. children have asthma; 

Thirty-five million of our children live within 30 miles of a power plant — a distance within which local

communities may reasonably be affected by a power plant’s smoke plume; an estimated 2 million of these

children are asthmatic and are particularly susceptible to these pollutants; 72,000 of our schools are within 30 miles of a power plant; Average health risks to children due to exposure to power plant combustion wastes could be up to

10,000 times higher than EPA’s allowable risk levels for cancer and other illnesses. Power plants are a major source of the most common pollutants in the air that harm children. Power plants emit 67 percent of the sulfur dioxide (SO2), 23 percent of the nitrogen oxides (NOX), 33 percent of the mercury, and 38 percent of the carbon dioxide from energy related sources. In much of the U.S., especially in the East, Midwest and South, sulfates make up the bulk of so-called fine particulate matter. Power plants are responsible for about half of the fine particulate matter in

many parts of the U.S. Numerous epidemiological studies have suggested that sulfate particles are among those most strongly associated with health impacts and premature mortality in adults.

http://www.catf.us/publications/reports/Children_at_Risk.pdf

 (Thanks, Meg Sheehan from Stop Spewing Carbon.) Photo from ahhyeah's photostream at Flickr.

Biomass plant on fire

(The entire content of this post is from Geoff and Rebecca  Brown.  Thanks!)

There are several biomass plant fire videos available on the web.  This one from Sittard, Holland is probably the most dramatic; watch at 2 minutes, 14 seconds when a large explosion occurs:

Mayor William Martin of Greenfield included a letter regarding the Pinetree Power burner from Westminster, MA Town coordinator, Karen M. Murphy, in his pro-biomass task force report.  It includes this passage: "On the down side, the facility by its very nature is prone to fires.  There was a five-alarm fire at the plant in 2004 and there have been a number of other fires over the years.  Extreme care should be given to implementing adequate safety measures in this regard..."

Finally, within the last week employees fled a significant fire at "Creative Biomass" (a wood pellet production facility in Fitchburg, MA):

BRIEF: Fire breaks out at Creative Biomass

By Emily Devlin, Sentinel and Enterprise, Fitchburg, Mass.
Feb. 17--FITCHBURG -- Local and state fire officials worked to identify the cause of a fire inside a Creative Biomass warehouse on Tuesday, after Fitchburg firefighters responded to a call at around 3:10 p.m, according to Deputy Chief Kevin Curran.
"They're really not suspecting arson. However, they're trying to figure out what did happen," Curran said.
Three employees saw a "very quick flash fire," Curran said, before fleeing the warehouse and calling the Fire Department.
Creative Biomass is located at 22 Kimball Place, just off River Street.
The fire likely originated in a wood-pulverizing machine in the rear section of the warehouse, Curran said. The wood product the company uses to create its home heating wood pellets caught fire, which spread to other areas, Curran said.
The state Fire Marshal's office was on the scene carrying out an investigation just before 6 p.m., along with Fitchburg firefighters.
Curran said Creative Biomass employees would monitor the warehouse overnight, to watch out for any fire resurgence.
"They think they have a probable cause," Curran said.
Curran declined to provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

Is this how you want our state forests to look?

Photo by Christ Matera, Mass Forest Watch.  More on his site.

Say NO to SeaWorld!

Do you agree that orcas and other dolphins should not be held in captivity for our pleasure?  Then sign this petition!  The Petition Site. 

Photo from EyeBallard.

Death at Guantanamo, tigers, dolphins and random kindness

Once again I've had to take time off from blogging to take care of personal and other matters....I try to prepare for these times in advance, thanks to Blogspot's scheduled posting feature....but that doesn't help with the local and breaking news that I do try to cover, at least if it's something that interests me or that I think is important to the community.

Meanwhile I keep collecting items I want to share, more than I can ever write about in detail, so I'm just going to share some links.

If you aren't furious and disgusted by the time you finish reading Harper Magazine's 'The Guantanamo "Suicides': A Camp Delta Sergeant Blows the Whistle" then you must be Dick Cheney.  The good news is that some people are willing to speak out, now matter what it costs them.


As the New York Times reported February 12, the Year of the Tiger could turn out to be a real bummer of a year for the slightly more than 3,000 tigers left in the wild.  Neither India nor China have strong protections in place for their tiger populations and the Chinese ascribe magical properties to tigers in various  pieces that  a whole, living tiger apparently lacks.

I first wrote about The Cove, a film about the secret and ongoing slaughter of dolphins in Japan, last July.  The film is now the front runner for Best Documentary at this Year's Academy Awards, but what's most important to those who made The Cove is that that the film will finally be shown in Japan, where people are mostly unaware, not only of the slaughter, but of the high levels of mercury in the dolphin flesh they eat.  While the Japanese themselves are the key to political change in their country, you can sign a petition asking the Japanese government to end this slaughter here. 

Finally, three acts of kindness and self-sacrifice: The homeless man who saved five people from a fire before succumbing himself was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery last month.  Ray Vivier, 61, had been getting himself together, had a job, and was living in a boarding house in Cleveland when arsonists set it on fire.  A Bozeman, MT police officer caught a shoplifter putting food and pencils and pens in his pocket, arrested him for theft, and then released him.  The man was upset and apologetic, saying he had nothing for his kids and no money. Later that same police officer bought some frozen pizzas for the man and his family and delivered them himself. A reporter hanging out at the dispatch office picked up the story from scraps of conversation.  Homeless people at a Baltimore, MD shelter scraped together $14.64 to donate to Haitian Earthquake victims and brought it to an area Red Cross.  "We were all weepy-eyed," recalled Red Cross volunteer coordinator Bobbie Jones, who was at the front desk when the donation arrived. Baltimore Sun.

Photo of Arlington National Cemetery from rccola159's photostream at Flickr.

too cute not to share - aardvarks!

Thanks, Cute Overload!

Pity the poor nursing home resident-- especially at Wingate/Springfield

I wrote about my friend's trials and tribulations at Baystate a few weeks ago, and how he wound up with a colostomy when he'd been admitted for a broken clavicle and ribs. (!)

He did, eventually, get transferred to a Wingate Healthcare facility on Bicentennial Highway in Springfield.  They kept him there nearly three weeks and then sent him home last Wednesday while he was in an extremely frail condition.  He lasted exactly two days, fell again, and is now back in Baystate.

I'm sure I don't know the half of what happened at Wingate, but I'll write what I do know.

There is no separate wing there for short stay patients; they're mixed in with people who will breathe their last breath in that facility.  My friend's roommate died while he was there.  Obviously it would be much more heartening to be housed with patients all of whom are working hard to go home.  Not all facilities are like this.

My friend is both diabetic and a vegetarian.  I presume they have a dietician on staff but the kitchen seemed not to know what to do with him.  Three meals in a row (minus breakfast) he received potatoes and a vegetable, five meals in a row he was served a grilled cheese sandwich.  After the third meal, I told him to insist that the kitchen at least add a vegetable.

Apparently they preferred to control his diabetes through insulin rather than diet and insulin.  I was visiting one afternoon when a nurse took a sugar reading and it was high-- 220.  He returned with an injection of insulin.

The physical therapy department seemed to be a well-functioning unit.  The therapists I met were kind but not wimpy.  They pushed my friend to help him regain his strength.

But they failed to properly train him in the full ramifications of having an ostomy, how to care for it, tips for changing the ostomy bag, or the fact that having an ostomy requires drinking extra liquid to avoid dehydration.  This lack of information beaame a crucial factor in why he wound up back at Baystate.

My friend had his blood drawn several times in three weeks, but apparently whatever lab the facility uses failed to recognize that my friend had an infection (later determined to be caused by a wound he was accidentally given in Baystate!) This became factor number two in his re-admittance.

Worse, when my friend went for a follow-up visit to his surgeon on Friday, just hours before he went back to Baystate, the surgeon was furious that Wingate had reduced my friend's pain medication to a level so low as to be ineffective.  He had also made it clear in written orders to Wingate that my friend was not to be discharged until he was truly able to care for himself, as he lives with his elderly mother.

I started out angry writing this but I'm ending up just sad. When people are sick they are the least able to be effective advocates for themselves, and not everyone has family and friends who also have the time and resources to fight for them.

I also have more to say about Baystate, but I think I'll save it until my friend is safely out of their care.

The Trilogy Meter

Found at Nerdlike.

Mayor Sarno stumbles with the new city council, the public and the police

When Ward Four City Councilor E. Henry Twiggs put out the call last week that his committee would be discussing proposals for a new Civilian  Police Review Board, I'm sure he had no idea that Mayor Domenic Sarno would release his own proposal by executive order the day before the meeting.  For some strange reason, the city council actually thought it would have some input into the proposal, given that nine police officers in two separate incidents are now under investigation and at least some councilor's phone have been quite busy with calls from constituents.

But the meeting still took place last night in Room 220, and members of the Civil Rights and Race Relations Committee-- E. Henry Twiggs, John Lysak and Keith Wright-- were joined by Melvin Edwards, Katari Walsh, Michael Fenton, Thomas Ashe, Zaida Luna and Timothy Rooke!  With James Ferrera and Tim Allen in the audience, the only city councilors who weren't in attendence were Clodo Concepcion and and Jose Tosado.

On one side of the room sat members of the Springfield Police Department.  On the other side sat about 40 community members.

The first part of the meeting was given over to a presentation by City Solicitor Edward Pikula, who had completed the thankless task of coming up with the civilian police commission plan.  He was closely questioned by council members about some fairly complicated elements that shaped the plan-- Police Commissioner Fitchet's contract, civil service requirements, charter change and the police union's contract.  Councilor Twiggs made it clear he was not happy that council members were not consulted in the drafting of the proposal.  Then the meeting was turned over to speakers.

Police Union President Joseph Gentile spoke first, and said that the union did not support Mayor Sarno's new civilian police commission.  He said he wanted very much to see race relations in between the police and the community improve, and thought that community policing, which we no longer have, would do it.  He reminded us that the original police commission, which was disbanded as a condition of Commissioner Edward Flynn's hire, had the power to seek funding, develop program, hire, fire, commend and discipline as well as other powers.  Gentile's solution was something close to the original commission.)

(I'm going to stop here for a moment to .remember Ed Flynn as one of the most arrogant and incompetent persons I've ever met.  He wanted to be Commissioner, not Chief; he wanted all the powers of the Police Commission, and he left for a job in Milwaukee only 19 months into a five year contract. In trying to his leaving, he said, "I am two things ... and they're both real. I am an idealist about this job, and I am ambitious. The gap between the two gets filled with guilt," said Flynn, a well-traveled, pedigreed executive in blue, whose presence in Springfield has been unwelcome by many among the rank-and-file of the department."  Republican.   Some of the problems we're facing right now belong on his shoulders.)

Most of the people who spoke next talked about their intense disappointment  in being excluded from the process of determining the form pf police oversight; some, such as Arise for Social Justice and Rev. Talbert Swan, had submitted written suggestions. Others spoke about the mistrust in the community and the need to make sure that allegations of police brutality were thoroughly investigated by a commission with real powers, lacking in Sarno's commiission. 

I spoke near the end.  The point I wanted to make is that people who voted for ward representation in Springfield did so with the expectation that their councilors would be able to participate in decisions that affected their neighborhoods.  But first, I mentioned that I had been arrested in that very room about five years before at a city auction of tax title property, and charged with disturbing the peace, which was true, seeing as I was speaking out of turn, and with assault and battery on a police officer, completely untrue, and that the charges had been dropped when the officer failed to appear in court..  At that point I inclined myself toward the police officers, and said, ruefully, "You know, guys, that's the kind of thing-- putting charges on people they don't deserve-- that breeds cynicism and mistrust and that has to stop."

After I sat down, I glanced over to the officers' side of the room. It happened so quickly that at first I wasn't sure what I saw, but what I saw was an officer with his hand in the shape of a gun, held low to his lap, and pointed directly at me.

How the issues of police management and accountability in this city will be resolved, I don't know, but it's clearly not over yet.  Councilor Ferrera will be introducing his own version of a police commission on Monday night, which Councilor Twiggs has already said he doesn't support, but as Ferrera said to me this morning, at least the council will have the opportunity to debate, amend, accept or reject his proposal, an opportunity they were denied with Sarno's executive order.   And although no councilor at the meeting overtly expressed anger at Mayor Sarno (Ed Pikula was the stand-in for that), relations certainly haven't been improved.  It was only this January 20 that City Council President Jose Tosado called the lack of communication between the mayor and city council "institutionalized disfunction."  Ward representation can't be effective if the council continues to be shut out of the government.

Drawing from Shell's Daily Drawing.

Buy beauty, do good

Bookmark this page at Dharma Shop and remember it when you want something special for a gift-- or a treat for yourself.  The shop supports Tibetan artisans and donates part of their profit to charity.

Pop-up photo: it's OK to play when you're a grown-up

OK, this is really cool.  WikiHow takes us step by foolproof step and at the end, we have a pop-up photograph!


Reading these instructions, I suddenly remembered cutting out the cardboard animals on boxes of animal crackers, and using them as actors on a television screen made from a Muller's macaroni box.  Anyone else?

Steal this plan for Haiti, urges Architecture for Humanity

On Wire's Haiti Rewired site, a fascinating and content-rich "ongoing conversation about technology, infrastructure and the future of Haiti," I found a link to an organization that has a solid plan for helping the people of Haiti get through the immediate crisis and into rebuilding.

Architecture for Humanity operates many projects worldwide and has disaster planning experience with Hurricane Katrina.  Here's the first three bullets of their eleven point plan:

1. Community Based Anchors
We will set up Community Resource Centers to supply architecture and building services to community groups, NGOs and social entrepreneurs on the ground. This is not an 'exclusive' center, it is open and collaborative. We've already talked with a dozen local and international organizations to create the Haiti Rebuilding Coalition. This team will be housed in each of these centers. See below for the value of these facilities. Want to start another? Donate here.
2. Distribute lessons learned
Translate and distribute a Rebuilding 101 Manual that we originally developed after Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami. If you just read aid agency websites you'd think they never got it wrong. In eastern Sri Lanka I sat with representatives from nine other NGO's and we discovered in our 'no BS sessions' we had made the same $500 mistake. Collectively, that is a transitional school for 120 kids. Don't get me started on New Orleans. If we only share 'best practices' we never really adapt and learn. The handbook of 'what not to do' is far more valuable. P.S. Read The Man Who Tried To Save The World on the work of Fred Cuny, the original NGO whistle-blower.
[UPDATE: Project Underway]
3. Earthquake Resistant Housing Manual
Adapt, translate and distribute an Earthquake Resistant Housing Manual for local NGOs and community groups. A coalition of partners can collaborate and work on this, including Haiti-based AIDG, Build Change, Engineers Without Borders and other engineering partners. We developed one after the Kashmir Earthquake a few years ago. This time we need to put them on every NGO workers' Kindle and create a training manual for local contractors.
[UPDATE: Project Underway]

The last paragraph of Executive Director Cameron Sinclair's plan overview is a sad but hopeful commentary on the politics of disaster relief.


STEAL THIS PLAN
There is no 'ownership' in rebuilding lives. It sickens me when I hear agencies say their processes are proprietary. If you like what we are doing either support us or steal this plan. We need dozens of tug boat NGO's working together to build back Haiti better. Let's not waste donor dollars on working in silos. Haiti has suffered enough.

You can donate to Architecture for Humanity here.


Photos of current projects: straw bale housing for the Navajo Nation; Ugandan AIDS Orphans School.

Monday morning: mothers from hell, bullying, public apologies, welfare motels

No stranger killed a six week old infant in a West Springfield motel; the three year-old sibling did it, when he and the infant were left alone for three hours by their mother.  That's what Hampden County District Attorney Bill Bennett announced on Friday, also saying it was likely that charges would be filed against the 21 year old mother, Erica Luce.

The "welfare motel" aspect of this tragedy is raising nearly as much ire as the death of the baby.

"The policy fails on all levels,. it fails for the taxpayers, if fails for the communities that are taking these families into their communities and at the same time its failing the families, it’s not placing them in a situation where they can succeed," said Representative Jim Welch.

Representative Jim Welch and Senator Stephen Buoniconti are pushing legislation to change the current system, hoping to change the way the homeless are housed, something they believe will help prevent the tragedies of late.

"Enough is enough we need to change this policy, this policy is a failed policy, " said Representative Jim Welch.  CBS3.

I'll have to spend at least part of today finding out what this new legislation is, but I'm worried.  Last year Sen. Buoniconti had a piece of "welfare reform" legislation that was punitive and showed a lack of understanding of conditions "on the ground" for poor families.  I've said before that the only thing worse than housing homeless families in motels is not to house them at all.

In Boston, the trial continues for a Hull woman accused of killing her four year old daughter with an overdose of psychotropic drugs.  Oddly, the doctor who prescribed these drugs for the child when she was only two years old, and who approved increasing the dosage, has not been indicted and has returned to her practice.

Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen wrote passionately this weekend about the bullying of Pheobe Prince, a South Hadley High freshman who killed herself five months after a specialist in bullying spoke at the high school to a mostly empty school auditorium.  Massachusetts lawmakers are now hurrying to get proposed anti-bullying legislation out of draft form and to the floor for a vote.  I wonder if it's crossed the mind of Springfield mother Sirdeaner L. Walker, whose 11 year old son killed himself last year after unrelenting bullying by other students at the New Leadership Charter School, that it's seemed to take the death of a white student from a middle class community to get the anti-bullying ball roll again?  It's certainly crossed mine.  The local blog Granby 01033, whose author teaches at a local high school, has a great description of how bullying can be tackled by school administrators-- but it takes the political will to do so.

This morning's Boston Globe reports that a public apology for years of dumping sewage from its cruise ship into Salem Harbor may be part of a plea agreement for the Rockmore Co. with federal prosecutors.  I didn't know this sort of thing took place, but apparently it won't be the first time in Massachusetts that those found guilty of violating environmental laws have had to put an apology in the newspaper or on a billboard.  According to the Globe, "some defense lawyers and scholars say the ads represent a throwback to the stocks and pillories of Colonial times and are designed less to educate the public and more to humiliate wrongdoers."

Would they rather be in jail instead of having to publicly humiliate themselves?  Sorry, if done fairly, I've got absolutely no problem with this.  How about you?

Photo from kpishdadi's photostream at Flickr.

Disorderly conduct arrests faulted by NYC's Picture the Homeless

They're tired of being targeted, ticketed, jailed and fined under the banner of New York City's Disorderly Conduct statute, and they're doing something about it-- launching a civil rights campaign..

Members of Picture the Homeless, a grassroots organization founded and led by homeless people, last week held a civil rights summit with other community groups to discuss how this "overly broad and ill-defined law"  is used as a way of making money for the city.  Meanwhile, the lives of people who can least afford it are disrupted as they accumulate arrest records and default warrants if they can't pay the $150 fine.

PTH members talk about their experiences and why they're involved in this campaign on video.  It's not a slick production but bear with it and you will hear real people, obviously weary, who haven't had it easy, stand up for themselves and each other.

The Indypendent has coverage of this forum, at at PTH's blog, the administrator says, "We appreciate the Center for Constitutional Rights for hosting -- and much appreciate the participation of George Bethos of NYC AIDS Housing Network / VOCAL NY Users Union, Lalit Clarkson of Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the courageous Juanita Young of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality and Parents Against Police Brutality.  Within PTH, we thank Maria and Salaam for running the show, and Carlos for his always-blazing poetry."
 Photo: Picture the Homeless members

The Future is in Your Hands

1964 NAACP comic book on the importance of voting. From Comics with Problems, a collection of public-minded comic books-- most of them odd, unintentionally hilarious, touching, repulsive..