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Fund raising which aids destruction at Alewife
2. Letter to Cambridge Chronicle.
1. General.
The following letter has been submitted to the Cambridge Chronicle in response to a series of versions of a report on a fund raiser concerning private property at the Alewife reservation.
The most recent version of the report is at http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x1341770199/Concert-raises-money-for-the-Silver-Maple-Forest#ixzz1m7JJl1QC. It is quite a bit shorter than the other versions. Sorry. This is the best I can see.
Please note that the Cambridge Conservation Commission will be discussing the office project slated for that massive parking lot on the fourth floor of City Hall Annex at Broadway and Inman Monday, February 13, at 7:15 pm.
The bragging about the destruction was done by Ellen Mass to a non profit which calls itself “Greenport” on January 18 at the church on the corner of Brookline Street and Putnam Avenue. The related “Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association” has spent years telling people who are concerned about Alewife to go to the fake Friends group.
Since the destruction of the core Alewife reservation the “Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association” has started strongly denying that Alewife is any proper interest of their group.
The “Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association” has joined the falsely named Charles River Conservancy in creating a group for Magazine Beach which stinks of the “Friends of the Alewife Reservation” group.
The “Friends of Alewife Reservation” now seems to have disappeared with its success in destruction of the core Alewife reservation.
2. Letter to Cambridge Chronicle.
Editor
Cambridge Chronicle
I appreciate your “Silver Maple Forest” report.
For nearly 15 years, a group “defending” Alewife told people who were concerned about Alewife to protect the “Silver Maple Forest.” That group said not to look at the inexcusable and in fact downright bizarre environmental destruction being accomplished at Alewife by Cambridge and by Massachusetts’ Department of Conservation and Recreation, which owns the core Alewife reservation.
A few months ago, these entities accomplished the first stage of destruction. They bragged about “flood storage” their destruction cannot achieve. They brag about needed flood storage which can be achieved on the other side of the adjoining CambridgePark Drive.
The destruction so far can protect against two year floods (the worst flooding in any two year period). Alewife has seen two fifty year floods in the past twenty years.
The needed protection can be provided by taking the massive parking lot across CambridgePark Drive or by further destruction of the reservation. The flood protection should be placed under office buildings whose construction in that parking lot is imminent. The alternative is a doubling, tripling or more of destruction of the irreplaceable woodlands.
The key “activist” has gone from “defending” Alewife to bragging about the destruction of the core Alewife reservation. The “defending” group which is now visible does not even use the word “Alewife” in its name.
Your report describes “Silver Maple Forest” in glowing terms. Those glowing terms describe the destroyed area and the phase 2 destruction as well. Total public destruction will easily be much larger than the destruction at this privately owned long shot at “Silver Maple.”
If Cambridge had a responsible city government, that massive parking lot would be taken by eminent domain and used for the flood protection needed. The imminent office buildings would be built on top of the flood storage. The inexcusable strip mine which replaced an irreplaceable woodlands would be given back to nature to undo damage which should never have been done.
Instead we see people fighting Don Quixote fights who do not want to see the bizarre and totally avoidable destruction a hundred or so feet away. They destroy their own credibility by their indifference.
Cambridge and its friends keep the good guys “out of trouble” by having them chase their tails. They keep up the lie that they are environmental saints. How dare you object to totally wasteful environmental destruction. Cambridge pols sound great!Charles River White Geese Blog
Ask Dog Lady: The Rottweiler that made my Shih Tzu turn yappy
Dear Dog Lady,
I have an acquaintance I see from time to time. Whenever we bump into one another, she launches right into the latest medical trials of Louie. For the longest time, I had no clue who Louie was. I thought he was her father or uncle because she kept talking of “elderly Louie’s’ liver problems.” Finally, when I ran into her a few weeks ago, she told me about Louie’s doctor finding a nasal passage tumor and an age-related heart murmur. She finally referred to Louie’s doctor as a “vet,” so I figured out Louie is her dog. Why must people talk about their dogs like people?
Harley
Guest commentary: MBTA cuts will derail Cambridge development
By now if you haven’t heard that the MBTA has a huge operating deficit and is proposing steep fare increases and service cutbacks that still won’t solve the problem in the long term, then stop reading and go back to the TV. Most of the coverage of this mess has concentrated on the impacts on T riders. Very little has been said about what it might do to cities like Cambridge.
Independent Businesses Report Strong Holiday Sales in 2011
An annual survey has found that independent businesses had strong sales growth over the holidays and appear to be benefiting from growing public interest in supporting locally owned retail stores, banks, restaurants, and other enterprises.
The survey, which was conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in partnership with several business associations, gathered data from 1,768 independent businesses across 49 states over an 8-day period in January. Among the key findings:
- Independent retailers, which comprised about half the survey respondents, reported stronger holiday sales than the industry average. While overall holiday sales were up 4.1% in 2011, the independent retailers surveyed said their holiday sales increased 6.7% on average.
- More than three-quarters of the businesses surveyed said that public awareness of the benefits of supporting locally owned businesses had increased in the last year.
- Independent businesses in communities with an active “buy local” campaign operated by a local business organization reported annual revenue growth of 7.2% in 2011, compared to 2.6% for those in areas without such an initiative. (“Buy local” campaigns run by Independent Business Alliances and Local First groups are now underway in about 150 cities.)
- Looking specifically at retail respondents, the survey found that those in areas with an active “buy local” campaign reported holiday sales growth of 8.5% in 2011, compared to 5.2% for those retailers in areas without such an initiative.
Read the whole report and download the data on the ILSR website HERE »
Cambridge Local Thirst – Thursday, 2/16 @ West Side Lounge
Join us for “Local Thirst!”
Got the February doldrums? Too much to do, not enough time, sick of it getting dark at 5:00, why not go out and have a drink? I’m sure that’s a good solution.
Join me and your other local business people for the February Local Thirst at the West Side Lounge on Thursday, February 16 from 5:30 to 7:30. We can discuss the state of the economy, business plans, marketing strategies, employee relations, or what you had for lunch, (we’re pretty open on the topics). If all else fails, I’ll regale you with stories of what the West Side Lounge used to be, the Acropolis Restaurant and its neighbor, the much beloved Nick Beef and Beer House (also known as Nick’s eef and ear House or Nick’s Beef and Beer Hose).
Your February host,
Gavin Kleespies
Cambridge Historical Society
MIT creates remote-controlled zombie moths
Electronics Weekly reports researchers at MIT have managed to stuff an electrode into a moth that can be used to control the moth's behavior:
"This is a major advance," says insect neurobiologist Roy Ritzmann at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. DARPA hopes this kind of control will one day allow intelligence agencies to use insects to carry surveillance equipment and spy on unsuspecting enemies.
The article does not say if they are also experimenting with ill tempered sea bass.
Via BostInnovation.
Griffin: Donald Hall's revulsion to baby talk spoke to me
For the last two weeks, I have been haunted by a sentence of six words. A guide at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C spoke them unwittingly.
The person reporting these words, in an essay published in The New Yorker, is the writer Donald Hall. A former poet laureate, he is one of America’s most distinguished literary figures.
I have felt a kind of kinship with him ever since discovering, after the fact, that we were classmates in college. Not knowing him in those days may be counted as yet another of my young manhood’s failed opportunities.
“Non profit” wants to gold plate the Boston / lower end of the Charles River
The non profit claims to love the peace and the beauty of the Charles. The Boston Herald link very prominently shows their proposal for a Ferris Wheel dominating the skyline at the Charles River Dam overwhelming the Museum of Science.
And the non profits, as a group, will keep on telling you how lovely they are. And their proposals are always called "improvements" or the like.Charles River White Geese Blog
Man allegedly threatening to shoot police in Central Sq causes scare
I’ll take some responsibility for this. Earlier today, our office’s police scanner started crackling about a man walking down Mass. Ave. threatening to shoot police.
Well apparently this was not the nightmare scenario it sounded like. Police did get a …
Alleged threat against police overheard in Central Square
A little after 2 p.m. on Friday someone reported overhearing a man with a thick accent threatening to shoot police officers as he walked down Mass. Ave. in Central Square, according to police spokesman Dan Riviello.
The witness did not report seeing a weapon. Police searched the area but were unable to find any suspects, Riviello said.
Cambridge’s new code word for high-density highrises: efficiency
Efficiency has traditionally been code for layoffs, but at a Central Square planning session last Wednesday I heard a new proposed definition for the word.
Rather than using the politically charged word density to talk about zoning that allows for …
Cambridge mourns Nelson Albandoz, the "mayor" of Central Square
While the city of Cambridge’s hunt for a mayor continues, friends of Nelson Albandoz will always fondly remember him as their ‘mayor.’
Albandoz, a longtime Cambridge resident died of cancer Jan. 9 in his home. He was 69.
“He was kind of like the mayor; everybody knew him,” Claudia Murrow said.