Podcasts – Pie and Coffee

Podcasts – Pie and Coffee

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Podcasts – Pie and Coffee episodes

  • Merry Christmas!

    Not long before he retired, Fr. Ed Bell began his Christmas homily by asking if anyone remembered any of his past Christmas homilies. After an embarrassed silence, he laughed and said he didn’t remember any of them, either. That’s OK–Christmas isn’t about homilies. (Or blog posts.)

    • mp3: “If I Had One Christmas Wish”

      • Words by Bruce Russell. Music by Mike Benedetti. Performed by Benedetti and Russell with Sarah Assefa.

      From today’s homily by a different priest at the same parish:

      I don’t care if Wal-Mart doesn’t have a nativity scene. I don’t care if K-Mart doesn’t have a nativity scene. I care if these pews are filled.

      My Christmas wish is that your heart and home are filled today.

      And the Word became flesh

      and made his dwelling among us,
      and we saw his glory,
      the glory as of the Fatherâ€s only Son,
      full of grace and truth.
      —John 1:14

      1 min
    • 508 #96: The local green economy

      This week: the 508 Christmas Spectacular! The panel is Julius Jones and Mr. Brendan Melican. Theme song: “If I Had One Christmas Wish.” Words by Bruce “Snow Ghost” Russell, music by Mike Benedetti.


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      Buddha Hut buffet Saturday; Stone Soup party Friday; Winter Mystery Band signups happening now.

      The NYT is not selling the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Top suggestions for the T&G: stop running the internet poll on the front page, because you’re deceiving people who don’t realize it’s a phony poll, and you look bad to people who know what’s going on; create an RSS feed for Worcester news; make use of the element so it will be easier to Google T&G articles; add features to the comment system to filter out noise.</p>

      <p>Julius, who helps run the Regional Environmental Council’s gardening program, talks about the local green economy, or lack thereof.</p>
      <p>Holiday gift guide:</p>
      <ul>
      <li><a href="http://seahcb.com/worcester-tees/">New Worcester shirts!</a></li>
      <li><a href="http://parisoftheeighties.com/">Old Worcester shirts!</a></li>
      <li>Hex signs and other anti-demon items</li>
      <li>You can reportedly make a contribution to <a href="http://parkspirit.org/">Park Spirit</a> to help buy a real live Holiday Tree for behind City Hall.</li>
      </ul>
      <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_benedetti/4179128014/" title="IMG_1177 by mike.benedetti, on Flickr"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4179128014_8694a5b450_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="IMG_1177" /></a></p>
      <p><a href="http://nicolecommawoo.wordpress.com/">Nicole</a> has posted an <a href="http://worcesteractivist.org/wiki/Virtual_Assignment_Desk">experimental Virtual Assignment Desk</a>; Jeff Barnard <a href="http://www.wormtowntaxi.com/2009/12/scott-hayman-mystery-deepens.html">highlights Bill Randell’s reporting</a> on low-income housing financing.</p>
      <p>You should wear a hat to stay warm! I’m told Lutheran Social Services has classes for recent immigrants to help them dress appropriately for the (bad) weather.</p>

      26 min
    • 508 #95: Barnraising

      508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Scott Guzman, Heather Mackenzie, Drew Wilson, and Brendan Melican.


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      This week is the 10th anniversary of the Cold Storage Fire (photos). Brendan explains the city maintaining its current tax structure.

      There’s an “energy barnraising” weatherization event at the Woo Church, 911 Main St, Worcester, Saturday, December 5th, 11-5pm.

      Drew points out that Al Gore is finally speaking out against factory farming. Mike and Drew will be doing some vegan outreach at the local colleges.

      Spectrum Health has a peer recovery center at 25 Pleasant St; also a Twitter feed. Mike asks Nicole to post a virtual assignment list.

      She has been looking into, among other things, relations between Holy Cross students and their neighbors. This discussion has recently escalated. We need Holy Cross students to invite us to some parties so we can report on them.

      Mark Lund has revived theater at Becker; they have some free plays this weekend. There’s an art fest at Union Station Sunday; Seah will be debuting a three-decker tee shirt that sounds like this season’s smash holiday gift.

      0 min
    • 508 #94: Journalism

      508 is a show about Worcester. This week, we talk with legendary Telegram & Gazette columnist Jim Dempsey and his WPI class about the state of Worcester journalism and whether bloggers can help.

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      Two possible inspirations for Worcester amateurs: the NYT’s Virtual Assignment Desk, Clay Shirky’s “Let a thousand flowers bloom”

      16 min
    • 508 #93: Faceplant

      508 is a show about Worcester. This week, Mike and Brendan discuss a skateboarding accident.

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      This week’s top story: US Rep. Jim McGovern skateboarded with Stephen Colbert. Mike compares his falling off the board to former Worcester Mayor Tim Murray’s disavowal of metal. (We previously tried to help Mr. Murray with his metal problem; we will make efforts to help Mr. McGovern as well.)

      Also: Happy birthday Jim!


      (screenshot by Jeff Barnard)

      Worcesterites are working towards a local green economy; the Neighborhood Network Center celebrated 10 years; Dismas House has a farm; the day after Thanksgiving is “Buy Nothing Day”; Brendan likes kids.woot.com; VegWorcester is holding a “feed-in” at the Shrewsbury Street McDonald’s on Saturday; you might listen to jazz and look at art at the Dzian Gallery Saturday night, or enjoy music and film about psychoanalysis at Clark on Saturday.

      The T&G followed Gary Rosen in using chess as an incoherent metaphor for local politics. (Do the proportions of the chess pieces imply our local pols are pawns?)


      (photo: Drew Wilson)

      Brendan explains the grand issue of local political succession. Mike’s mushrooms are finally growing. We recommend the Nicole, Worcester blog.

      The Colbert Report
      Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
      Better Know a District – California’s 12th – Jackie Speier
      www.colbertnation.com
      Colbert Report Full Episodes
      Political Humor
      U.S. Speedskating
      23 min
    • “Shaping a Local Green Economy” in Worcester

      Last night there was a forum on “Shaping a Local Green Economy” at Clark University in Worcester.

      People experimenting with Worcester green initiatives, along with institutional players, spoke briefly about their work. The keynote speaker was Omar Freilla of the Bronx-based Green Worker Cooperatives.

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      My video of the event was only so-so, so I’m posting the audio of the Worcester speakers here for anyone curious about the range of local green things happening.

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      The Worcester speakers were:

      • Joel Fontaine, Worcester’s Director of Planning and Regulatory Services. Worcester has “adopted the state’s first climate action plan.”
      • Stephen O’Neil of the Worcester Regional Transit Authority. The bus system is seeking ISO 14001 certification of their Environmental Management System.
      • Patricia Feraud, Toxic Soil Busters Co-op. TSB, part of the Worcester Roots Project, is a youth-led project that tests lawns for lead contamination and deals with the problem when they find it.
      • Julius Jones of the Regional Environmental Council. Julius works on projects that manage community gardens and teach young people how to grow and sell food in their neighborhoods. The “overall vision is to have community gardens within walking distance of anybody that wants one.”
      • Jill Dagilis of the Worcester Community Action Council. WCAC would like to “reduce and eliminate the reliance on fuel assistance” by increased weatherization.
      • Clark Provost David Angel. Clark is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1995 levels by 2010, and to be “climate-neutral by 2030.”
      • Mary Knittle of Quinsigamond Community College. QCC will have a regional training center for clean energy jobs.
      • Stacie Brimmage and Ashey Trull of the Worcester Energy Barnraisers. At their events, people learn weatherizing by joining dozens of others in weatherizing a local building. (I made a short video of their last event.)
      • Stephen Healy of the Worcester Green Jobs Coalition.
      • Sarah Assefa of the EMPOWER Energy Cooperative. EMPOWER is a business that plans to make biodiesel out of local waste vegetable oil.
        • 35 min
      • 508 #92: Bald eagle

        508 is a show about Worcester. This week Brendan Melican and Drew Wilson talk about a bald eagle.

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        Also: Buddha Hut’s vegan meatballs a top 10, Saturday is a VegWorcester buffet, Stone Soup porch burned, Rosen’s Roundtable talks taxes, and Hermis Yanis starts a podcast after his radio show is “terminated.”

        20 min
      • 508 #91: Fox Cops

        508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Kevin Ksen, Brendan Melican, and Tracy Novick.

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        We talk about the City Council election. We talk about the School Committee election. We talk about a new Worcester video site Mike’s playing with (and you should, too). We talk about a $10 million lawsuit against Worcester for an incident during the taping of the Fox TV show COPS in 2006.

        30 min
      • 508 #90: Performance Oval

        508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Gabe Rollins.

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        We talk about Gabe’s attempts to send his own survey to the City Council candidates; the “performance oval” behind City Hall; the Worcester energy barnraising; and the pros and cons of voting.

        24 min
      • 508 #89: Challengers

        508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel is Aria DiSalvo and Brendan Melican.

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        Aria DiSalvo tells us about the “Stop Spewing Carbon” anti-biomass incinerator campaign.

        Election molehills: Mayor Lukes’s husband has cars registered outside Worcester! Candidate O’Brien linked to his boss!

        Brendan talks about the police department’s latest feud with the newspaper. Mike talks about the Center for Nonviolent Solutions kickoff.

        As the centerpiece of the show, we come up with reasons to vote for every challenger in the upcoming election.

        Mike contrasts Worcester Magazine’s search for an “edgy” writer with their past claims to be “non-dowdy.”

        Worcesterites will be celebrating the October 24 International Day of Climate Action with a weatherization “barnraising” and tree planting.


        The clip on voting for challengers:

        30 min

      About Podcasts – Pie and Coffee

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      Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.