Over the past several decades, Somerville has become fairly infamous for the “aggressive” style of politics that rears its ugly head every couple of years. The stories are legendary – and some of us have been lucky to witness some of them first hand.

Today the only thing really different from the 60’s, 70’s or the 80’s is that more and more people are participating in on line discussions, especially on community-based web logs (more specifically our weblogs, thank you very much). The majority of what goes on around here is still face to face and incidental, which means that by the time you hear what happened, 88 people have put their own little twist on it and it almost never remains true to what actually happened – for example, something as benign as “how could anyone not get the signatures to get put on the ballot for re-election?” changed into “I’m going to run as a sticker/write in candidate for the open seat in Ward 4”. See what we mean?

One of the variables that has never changed over the years in this city is how rumors – false as they may be – and as wild as they may be – seem to race across this city in a matter of hours. Sure, one could say that every falsehood has a tinge of truth to it, but, some of the crazy rumors that have been flying around lately are over the top and completely fabricated.

Have you heard the one about the mayor’s wife leaving him, taking their kids and hiding out in another state and that he had to borrow someone’s car to go after her? How about the one where an elected official is a cocaine addict and that a city worker is his/her supplier? And how funny is the one about the “mob” backing a mayoral candidate?

There are three examples of out and out lies – the mayor’s wife didn’t leave him, there is no cocaine addicted elected official and finally – just because there are a bunch of wannabe Tony Soprano’s running around “the ‘Ville” doesn’t mean they’re really mobbed up – they and the people who support this myth need to really get a life.

At the end of the day, its great fun to hear the rumors, to be part of the bump and grid that is the rumor mill, but we need to be able to separate fact from fiction people. No election would be exciting without revelations about people’s pasts – but making shit up just to cause controversy or to inflict personal damage is just stupid.