Reality Bites by James Norton for the week of Sept. 6 

‚ÄúYou know how big this is?  Bacio di tutti‚Ķthe kiss of all kisses‚Äù

  I bet only a handful of people will know what movie that came from or who said it ‚Äì so I will wait until the end of my ranting to reveal the source ‚Äì no skipping ahead!
  Labor Day has come and gone ‚Äì and thank God ‚Äì some people have been waiting for me to start in on the Pod People again and I‚Äôll be honest, so have I.  There‚Äôs plenty of time for that ‚Äì for now I want to say a few things about some shit that‚Äôs been bothering me.

  Dunkin Donuts at Broadway and McGrath ‚Äì I realize I have had my share of issues with Dunkin‚Äôs over the years, and yes I know I seem biased because I have been banned from a few of them.  So what ‚Äì aside from the stupid, non-English speaking employees and the dumb-ass stream of rude customers, I am calling for a boycott of this one specific Dunkin Donuts.  Why?  How about the illegal workers who have taken over the parking lot, the contractors that ‚Äúcruise‚Äù for them and the cops that sit there and watch this shit?  Never mind that there will undoubtedly be an accident there ‚Äì how does it look to the thousands and thousands of people who drive by every day?  I bet they all laugh.
  Proposed new Middlesex County Jail ‚Äì Don‚Äôt get me wrong, I think the Sheriff is doing a fabulous job and obviously I‚Äôd rather see money spent on a new building rather than rehabbing an antiquated section of an old bloated Cambridge building.  My problem isn‚Äôt that a new jail would bring unsavory people to the city, because that‚Äôs a bunch of bullshit lies certain people would love for you to believe.  If we can‚Äôt get Assembly Square right after how many years, if we can‚Äôt get a straight answer on the Green Line Extension, if we bother to make certain developers (like KSS) wait four years and still do the dance, why in the world would we fast-track something this big, this visible, this controversial ‚Äì a shiny brand new jail complex which will undoubtedly be the new image of Somerville for years and years to come?
  Assembly Square ‚Äì Sure the Edsel was built there ‚Äì in the 1950‚Äôs ‚Äì but why does this area continue to be a blight on the community and the source of so much aggravation on so many levels?  Never mind that it literally adds another notch on the bedpost of community embarrassment we have to endure, year after year.
  They say there‚Äôs nothing like Somerville Politics ‚Äì and Assembly Square is quite possibly the greatest example ever of politics and politicians playing puppet master with the common good.
  The wheeling and dealing involving this site has been going on for close to 30 something years now ‚Äì and still the area is little better than when it was a ghost town in 1976 ‚Äì but at least we got some kind of measurable income from taxes then.
  The saddest thing about Assembly Square is that it‚Äôs too late.  If a final plan had been approved six or seven years ago, there would have been long term commercial and retail tenants there, residential condo units and transient living accommodations would have reached their peak while actually selling out.  Now, no matter what is built there, the residential side of the project will be too much of a gamble for a serious developer and the amount of units, the quality and the creativeness of construction that could have been will be lost ‚Äì unless of course the whole mess continues to drag out until the next big cycle as a seller‚Äôs market.  The way things have gone to date ‚Äì it just might.
  I‚Äôm not all about bad news ‚Äì none of this is really terrible news ‚Äì but it is stuff that you and I as residents, voters and taxpayers can voice our opinions about.  I‚Äôve said it a million times, and I‚Äôll say it once again ‚Äì call your elected officials and let them know how you feel ‚Äì otherwise, they just won‚Äôt know.  If they don‚Äôt listen to you, then call them out ‚Äì in the voting booth ‚Äì bet they listen then.
  Before I forget ‚Äì rest in peace to former Mayor Larry Bretta, Steve (the Crocodile Hunter) Irwin and Actor Bruno Kirby ‚Äì who was in over 60 movies ‚Äì and who said the quote used in title of this column in ‚ÄúThe Freshman‚Äù.