Our ears were burning last week Рit seems even before the paper hit the streets, certain individuals were on the phones, making calls Рall denials, they said Рone or two were even threatening. Frantic calls were made to individuals around the city asking how we found out about certain items in Newstalk. Well, we have a lot of Newstalkers out there and the list keeps growing all the time Рmore and more individuals have joined, so that we now have eyes and ears in a lot of places. We think its called being thrown under the bus so to speak, so when we’re called, and we ask the famous question: “whom did you recently piss off?” Рstart there.
    

By George P. Hassett

Hundreds of people, some with bats and knives, fought inside the children’s birthday party area at Good Time Emporium on Easter Sunday, according to police.

When Officer James McNally arrived at the scene, he said he saw a crowd of 150 to 200 people fighting, with “tables and chairs being thrown in every direction.”

“I observed people climbing tables and jumping on other people. I observed several out of control altercations. [Police officers] were running around trying to break up each new altercation that erupted,” McNally wrote in his incident report.

By William C. Shelton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

A statement may be factually accurate, but not true. I may say that you have a hysterical fear of water, but I don’t mention that you’re on top of your house, praying for rescue from a rapidly rising flood. The first fact accurately conveys one meaning. Adding the second fact radically changes the meaning.

Off The Shelf by Doug Holder

When a publicist from Harper Collins in New York City emailed to see if I wanted to review Mark Doty’s new poetry collection: ‚ÄúFire to Fire,‚Äù I was on it like the proverbial hornet. Doty is high on the top shelf of American poets, a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Whiting Writers Award and the U.K’s T.S. Eliot Prize. His poetry has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Ploughshare, Prairie Schooner, and many other well-regarded literary journals. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ingram-Merrill Foundation, as well as the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. In his new collection Doty peppers his work with beautiful studied images, and haunting apparitions he spies in the most unlikely of places. Doty has an astute ear for music, he can smell death’s most subtle odor, and he can explain to you what you have been just dying to articulate. To be honest, few of the poetry books I get to review are dyed-in-the-wool page turners. But Doty’s is hands down. I interviewed Doty recently for The Somerville News.

On The Silly Side by Jimmy Del Ponte

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Easter was a special time in my family because I had an Uncle Chick and an Uncle Bunny. Really! I used to love telling people that. It was that kind of holiday when we got new shoes and new clothes. I remember it was a struggle because my parents never liked the suit jackets I liked – I ended up wearing some dumb looking thing that I hated. The trip to Anderson-Little in Medford was a pain in the butt – the only good thing about it was that we always went to Howard Johnson’s on Wellington Circle when we were done. We’d pile into my father’s old Rambler American and take the drive to hell – it was an hour of trying on hideous suit jackets that made me look like an Italian version of a mini Wally Cleaver.

By Mia Lamar

The neighborhood surrounding Foss Park is at odds over recent calls to have the Foss Park pool house mural repainted. Peter Ungar, chairman of the Foss Park Neighborhood Association, said he has experienced backlash and even some “threatening” phone calls after he initiated a community discussion over whether the mural should be repainted.

The phrase “grease the skids” is an unfortunate one to use when discussing municipal business. Here in Somerville, it brings up decades-old memories of federal prosecutors playing audio tapes of local politicians demanding bribes and kickbacks.

But the phrase used by a NextG employee to describe how the company gained favor with the city is not the most disturbing piece of their proposal to put more than 3,000 feet of wiring through the city.

No the “grease the skids” comment made in an internal email accidentally released to the Lynn Department of Public Works Director seems to be nothing more than a poor choice of words. It simply referred to the company expressing a willingness to support a community program such as the Sunsetters if they are allowed to do business here.

By Joe Lynch

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Somerville voters adopted its city charter, which established the basic form of government upon its incorporation as a city in 1871. Back then, we had only 4 wards and elections for Mayor and Aldermen were held every year. By 1934, the population of the city had exploded to well over 100,000 residents. Our form of government still consisted of the executive position of Mayor and the legislative body called the Board of Aldermen. By then the city, by charter change, had been divided into seven distinct wards, we added four aldermen at large positions, and had already changed our election cycle to every two years. More routine maintenance items have been performed on the city charter over the years. We’ve deleted provisions of the charter that are no longer needed, we’ve added provisions necessary to adapt to our ever-changing current and future municipal needs and desires. But over the last 75 years, we have not revised, nor even had a significant widespread public discussion about, our charter and how our form of government is constructed.

By Hilary Dyer

Somerville’s immigrant community, and their supporters, met at a Brazilian restaurant on lower Broadway last week to launch a campaign to make Massachusetts a ‚Äúsanctuary‚Äù state.

Welcoming Massachusetts is a statewide initiative striving to deliver more rights to immigrants, regardless of their legal status. The coalition was formed in October 2007 by community leaders in greater Boston in the wake of high profile immigration raids in international neighborhoods and heightened animosity towards immigrants throughout the country.

By Keith Howard

With the help of a Somerville democrat, Congress is taking steps to restore public faith in the government.

The passage of House Resolution 895 will give the Office of Congressional Ethics, a newly created body within the House, power to investigate ethical violations of its representatives, delegates, officers and employees.

The six-member board-split equally between Republican and Democratic appointees-will be able to investigate any House member, as long as at least one board member from each party agrees.

‚ÄúBasically the presumption is that everybody in Congress is here to protect our friends. That’s just not the case. That’s never been the case. I think public presumption is that it is,‚Äù said Congressman Michael E. Capuano, who lead the effort.