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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
 Posted - 05/15/2008 : 09:39:57 AM
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Tetris,
Yes, I read your commentary and it was very good. I think that should be sent to the Independent, in it's entirety.
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2008 : 9:10:06 PM
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| Did anybody else read the article in today's Independent about the state rep race. I thought that it was a riot. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2008 : 9:12:36 PM
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| I read it. How far up Wayne's butt is the Independent? Talk about being biased! |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2008 : 9:16:21 PM
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| Some of Stat's stuff was priceless. I'm glad the paper gave it to Wayne a little bit on the editorial page about considering filing a police reports for the "threats". Grow a backbone, my friend. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2008 : 9:24:21 PM
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How ridiculous was that? Stat was clearly talking about burying Wayne in the election.
I did get a kick out of Wayne's arising from bed comment. though. |
Edited by - massdee on 07/09/2008 9:26:59 PM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 09:55:09 AM
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I didn't get a chance yesterday to comment on the Independent's commentary about the elected official that they claim does not live in the City of Everett. If you are a regular reader of the boards, you know who they are talking about. I just didn't understand why they would print that commentary without naming names and sharing their "proof". Posting something like this on the internet in this fashion seems to have become common practice; but, to paraphrase the commentary, shouldn't newspapers be held to a higher standard?
Usually the answer to why newspapers do what they do in this city involves "following the money". Without getting into the specifics of this situation, because I personally don't know whether is is true or not, I'm having a hard time making those pieces fit together. I'm sure that there is a rhyme and reason to all of it but it's not readily apparent to me at the moment.
Had anyone heard the false rumor that Representative Smith was an opponent of casinos before yesterday's paper? I hadn't but, that not saying much. I'm actually surprised about it; from what I've seen so far from the State Representative's race, it's about as close as the campaign has gotten to discussing a real issue. |
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justme
Advanced Member
1428 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 12:03:35 PM
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| I'm not sure why you say the "rumor" about Stat being an opponent to casinos is false. When it was up for a vote, he cast a NO vote. That's not speculation or rumor, he's on record as being against casinos in this state. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 12:19:45 PM
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That's the Independent's take, not necessarily mine as I haven't followed the votes. It's their contention that the last vote cast on the subject at the state house was a vote to send it to committee which would effectively kill it, and Stat voted against that.
To be honest though, I do remember seeing Stat on Jason Marcus' cable show sometime this spring where he was asked about the casino issue. My best recollection of that interview was that Stat didn't support the casino legislation in its form at that time but he thought that it would pass at some point in the future. As I recall, he didn't think it was wise for the state not to be involved because the casinos will get done in some form and the state won't get a cut if they are not involved, much like what happened in Florida originally. |
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justme
Advanced Member
1428 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 2:37:16 PM
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My husband had a conversation with Stat and he told him he was voting against it. After the vote, one of the Boston papers listed how everyone voted and Stat was listed as a no vote.
The way I see it, this state is losing a lot of revenue to Rhode Island and Connecticut. Take a ride any day of the week and you'll see a significant number of cars & busses at the casinos. We might as well benefit from the jobs and the taxes instead of letting it all go south! |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 3:00:59 PM
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I am in agreement with the casinos. I feel the State of Massachusetts lost out on a lot of revenue and jobs. Wonderland Dog Track probably could have been saved if they were allowed slot machines. That place foreclosed after constant late payments.
On the other hand, I can understand that casinos bring trouble too and gambling addicts. I wish it wasn't killed so quick and something could have been worked out, like making the casinos age 25. I would have loved a part time job at a casino but I'm not going to commute to Connecticut. So the people there benefit, we do not.
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justme
Advanced Member
1428 Posts |
Posted - 08/28/2008 : 3:49:43 PM
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I also have considered working in a casino if they ever get here. The benefit being if I work there, I can't play there!!
I would like to see something done. Both Wonderland & Suffolk Downs are Prime locations............... Although Suffolk would have been better before they stared selling off their land. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2008 : 8:22:00 PM
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I'm still not sure exactly what's going on at the Independent but, at least part of this week's edition made a little more sense to me in terms of the "follow the money" mantra.
The editorial in this week's Independent about the Smith/Matewsky rep race was the standard Independent "sit on the fence/we don't endorse anyone" tripe right up to the point where they felt it was necessary to pay homage to the patron saint of Everett newspaper advertising, FFF. The Independent asserted that for many, Stat's membership on the school committee and battles with FFF are a liability for his campaign; I'd assert that are also a lot of people who feel that Stat serving on the school committee and standing up to the superintendent works in his favor. I couldn't say exactly how that split works out though. Not everyone in the city has to be so beholding to the superintendent that we need to run this editorial, a lead story on the opening of schools and an article about homecoming in order to get a full page homecoming ads for three consecutive weeks. Looks like they might squeak out two weeks of Matewsky ads out of the deal too, although this week's ad was rather small.
In contrast, I didn't understand the coverage that this same race got in the Eye on Everett column. It made it sound as if there was nothing going on in this race. Of course, this the same paper that claimed a couple of weeks ago that it didn't know anything about the outcome of the charges that Matewsky had brought against Smith. Although parts of this race have been fairly low key, the events of the last week or so, rightly or wrongly, were dragged into this race and could have an impact on it. Of course, some of it could also backfire as well. To me, ignoring these issues would tend to favor Smith, which would seem to the opposite of where the editorial was pointed. This is why I'm confused.
As a side question, does anyone know what the disclosure requirements for paid political advertisements are? Matewsky's ad was clearly labeled as a political ad and acknowledged who paid for it. One of Smith's ads was only labeled as a paid political advertisement and the other wasn't labeled at all.
Speaking of paid political advertisements (that's the way the following were labeled too), I thought that it was interesting that the only two politicians who had ads on the football kick-off page (Oh, look! More school department advertising!) were the Mayor and RVC. Can/should we read something into that? |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2008 : 1:18:43 PM
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There is an article in today's Independent that was having a tough time figuring out why Matewsky lost yesterday's election. To be honest, I'd be hard pressed to put my finger on it as well. But, let's just hope that Smith won the election the right reason; namely, that the majority of the people that voted felt that Stat was the better person for the job.
Did the Independent think that by running two separate full page ads for homecoming in two different sections of the paper that it wouldn't be as noticeable? Wrong. I hope FFF approved or there's going to be some 'splain to do.
Well, I guess that the posting community has gotten under the the Independent's skin. For the second straight week, we made the editorial page for giving the mayor a hard time over the sale of the city yards to Thibeault. For the second straight week, we were all painted with the same broad brush in that we are making fun of the mayor and his family. This week, the charge of making fun of the mayor's appearance was added as well.
As someone who tries to read everything that is posted on the internet about the city, I just don't see this. First off, the mayor does have a few supporters that post on the boards regularly. I don't think that they would appreciate being lumped in with the rest of us. Secondly, there are some of us that are not regular supporters of the mayor who will occasionally throw him a compliment or even side with him on an issue. In the case of the sale of the city yards, I believe that more posters supported this move than not. Even those that hard a hard time doing so I think would admit, in a moment of weakness anyways, that it was the right thing to do but they were just having a problem dealing with the fact that Thibeault would be the new owner of the property. This was a fairly easy issue; what's going to happen the more contentious ones come up in the future?
As far as picking on his family, I made my feeling known on that after last Monday night's meeting. The thing is, I just don't see that either. Yes, of course, there are the same old rumors that get trotted out every so often; they were trotted out on Topix again just last week. It's wrong but I just can't classify it as picking on his family. Exposing them to unnecessary rumors, yes; but picking on them, no. I think that his family pretty much gets left alone, as it should be. Can't control everybody though, as much as we'd like to sometimes.
As far as the newest charge goes, I don't see that on a regular basis either. Being a fellow "big guy", I'd be all over that. One time last fall, I thought that it was being done and I jumped all over the poster. As it turned out that wasn't the case; instead, I had just misunderstood the context of the poster's message. The only thing that that I could figure out that this was in reference to is the name of the No Doughboy site. As I understand it, the "dough" reference in that site name refers to money. Not being the owner or the namer of that site, I'm unsure whether it's intended to have a double meaning or not. Even if it did, I find the name fairly benign as no emphasis is put on that aspect in any of its blogs. It's easy to pick on the obvious; I just don't get any sense of that from that site.
The same thing that people post on this site can be heard on the streets of Everett. So why go after us? Because our opinions can potentially reach a larger audience? How many people in Everett are actually reading the boards on a regular basis? Probably not as many as we'd like. Because we can remain anonymous? Does that really matter? Look, I'm just a dope with an opinion. Why would it matter if you know who I am or not? You can chose to agree or disagree with my opinions without knowing that.
What I'm looking for in a leader is someone who is more concerned with doing what they believe is the right thing rather than worry about what a few people are saying about it. I don't think that the Independent did the mayor any favors by continuing to focus on this topic for a second week. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 09/25/2008 : 10:37:07 AM
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Didn't get to these yesterday:
- I'm glad that when the Independent ran into former Mayor Hanlon, they found him to be healthy. But do they really believe that it would be a good idea for Mayor DeMaria to find something for Hanlon to do in the current administration? Really?
- They have been hinting at it for a couple of weeks now but the Independent finally decided that the reason that Matewsky lost the election was due to him running a negative campaign. At this point, I'd certainly have to agree, to an extent at least. It seems that "negative" campaigns don't do well in this city of late. What I hope that this doesn't mean that is that campaigns can't be issue oriented going forward. To my way of thinking, a issues oriented campaign should be able to include how your platform differs from your opponent's.
- From the story that Independent related, it sounds like the Matewsky campaign didn't take their defeat very well. If Wayne wants to try this again, I think that he needs to make some changes to help broaden his base. We'll have to wait and see if he has that in him.
- The letter to the editor from Adam Ragucci in support of Chief Mazzie rang a little hollow to me. I'm sort of on the fence about the chief. I think that he has his good points but there are also things that I don't like about him. His contract is up in the forseeable future so we may have a chance to discuss some of these in the near future. But as far as the letter goes, isn't the chief somehow related to the Ragucci's? I'm also wondering if Adam is trying to use this as a way to jump start his political career. |
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Head
Senior Member
111 Posts |
Posted - 09/25/2008 : 11:51:21 AM
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| And where was the piece on that boy who died? |
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The Independent
