I am often asked where I get the ideas for my more humorous blogs. My answer is always the same:
They are handed to me on a plate.
Dog complaints longer than casino discussions. Forty-minute diatribes by selectmen while the public is verboten from emitting so much as a peep.
Red signs are stolen right off lawns. Sign wavers at the Rotary cause mayhem.
A psychologist who’s own behavior borders on the psychotic accuses good people of being racist while he lies about his identity on blogs. He wears his intimidating scowl like a bullet proof shield and brandishes his camera like death ray. He gets right in your face, and when you tell him to knock it off, he brings the police to ‘protect’ him while he snaps dozens more. What’s his personal reason for wanting a casino? His wife works at the library and her hours have been cut. He wants more money for the Library!
A selectman’s wife who acts more like Cruella DeVil. “Get me that casino! I don’t care how you do it! Poison them! Drown them! Bash them on the head! I don’t care how you kill the little beasts, just do it and get me my casino now!"
The soon to be retired school teacher who wants to move to Florida and sell her land on Precinct Street, stuffing Casino-Friend feathers into hands at every opportunity.
The chief of police who wants the casino because he owns some unusable land near the proposed casino site he wants to unload.
The Fire department that wants a casino so they can get 16 new employees – why? So they can all get promotions!
The school superintendent who took only a month to decide before selling out every schoolchild for generations to come. Why? Money! That’s more important than kids, right?
One morning I stood in front of the Post Office with a NO CASINO sign in my hand and within minutes I was surrounded by the familiar faces of Casino-Friends, as if someone at the Honey Dew had made a call to the Wicked Witch, who in turn sent the flying monkeys to intimidate Gladys with her terrifying red sign along with the rest of town. “Thank you for being here,” more than one demoralized anti-casino resident whispered in my ear that day.
An agreement to bring the biggest change to the town in Three-Hundred-and-Thirty-Eight years, a decision to inflict one of the most massive changes ever seen on the residents of the South Shore and it all goes down in three months.
An agreement handed to the public five days before deciding on it.
The most hideously planned town-meeting in Massachusetts history is going off tomorrow because a few people, not the majority of people, can’t wait.
I have a niece-in-law with an autistic child who wants to come to the meeting but can’t find a babysitter who can care for her child. All her friends and relatives are going to be at the meeting. I suspect a lot of parents, people who should most certainly have a say in this casino issue aren’t going to make it because children are banned from this town meeting. This wasn’t always the way. They could have been allowed. Marsha was adamant to the Town Moderator that they would not be. She sited historical precident. In the earliest town meetings only men voted. But now women and men both work and vote and care for children. But in Middleboro, their rights weigh less than does the patience of the Mashpee Wampanoag’s billionaire investors. Why? Money!
Unions threatening their members to put blue signs on their lawns. To vote yes or else.
Older citizens too frightened for their health to attend a day-long ordeal in the drop dead middle of summer are staying home while others bend to persuasion of a rich landlord, for a bus ride and free dinner.
We give quote after quote after quote to the press, and they nevertheless expend their precious news ink on the insights of his highness, that magnificent inexplicable town-jacker, Adam Bond.
At an Oak Point forum he refuses to debate anyone from CasinoFacts, and so Ted Eayers shows up and says it’s inevitable - the predictable lament of the uniformed.
CasinoFacts organizes a forum and brings in speakers like Citizens for Limited Taxation, The League of Women Voters and, the Massachusetts Council on Gambling Addiction.
The Middleboro Board of Selectmen brings in lawyers, the Tribe, and more lawyers.
Casino-Friends pays people from out of town to hold signs, make phone calls, send out postcards, and carry petitions.
We hold a public rally of over 200 people at the town hall with photographers and newscameras, and close it by walking through the center of town holding NO CASINO signs. Quite a sight. And yet, what photo did the paper use the next day? Two Casino-Friends sitting dejectedly on a bench, obviously after we had left.
During the rally, a doughy redhead in a K car drives by twenty-children and hurls the F-Bomb out her window like some blood-drenched harpy. She is followed minutes later by a man in a pick-up grinning as he waves the one-gun salute with both hands.
A marauding band of teenage girls in mini-skirts and hoop earrings marches back and forth in front us waving their blue signs. They remind me of the type of girls who used to hang out in the restrooms in high school and steal your tampon money for cigarettes. They yell at us, and call us ‘fools’. Somehow I suspect these ladies haven’t yet had the chance to sit around the table and dissect the new agreement at length, because I if they had, they probably wouldn't have missed that part which forbid nude dancing on the premises. So much for that high-glamour career, girls.
Make no mistake, if this casino gets in, this will be the Think Tank running Middleboro in twenty years.
Mr. Bond was once quoted, in regards to not having enough money for tents for the town meeting, that it would be "silly" if they couldn't get the money for the tents, and "silly" again if this whole thing fell apart because of those tents.
But hasn't this whole thing been silly? Let's face it, the past three months of jaw-dropping one liners have all been perversely, disgustingly, and disturbingly "silly".
Let's end this circus. Vote NO. Send this thing straight back to hell.
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11 comments:
as a union member I've had five different unions wanting my support. I declined. I think they'll find they've been misled by false promises. Soveriegn nations do not support unions from what I've heard.
YA KNOW- I CAN ONLY HOPE THE STATE IS LETTING THIS ORDEAL PLAY OUT TO GET THE PUBLIC'S OPINION ON THE ANY CASINO ISSUE. I CANNOT SEE THE STATE LETTING AN ALLEGED CASH COW, AS SO PROCLAIMED, SLIP AWAY. AN INDEPENDENTLY RUN INSTITUTION WOULD CERTAINLY TAKE MONEY FROM THE LOTTERY. I CAN'T SEE THE STATE LETTING ANY TAX DOLLARS LEAVE IT'S GRIPS. THE BIG DIG STILL NEEDS TO BE MAINTAINED, AND WHITEY BULGER NEEDS TRAVEL MONEY. GOOD LUCK MIDDLEBORO!!!!
Good luck Middleboro. I know that all my memories of your lovely town will be only that. You've been well and truly sold out, but you seem to have bought the goods. And to think that the pro-override group was complaining about decreasing property values! We reap what we sow.
"I suspect a lot of parents, people who should most certainly have a say in this casino issue aren’t going to make it because children are banned from this town meeting."
You suspect correctly - I am one of them. I wanted to vote today but the absurd logistics of this ill-conceived plan have made it impossible. My husband is at the meeting as I write this - but one of us had to stay home with the children. Funny how I can vote for president with a baby carriage in tow, but am denied an opportunity to vote on this issue - which will directly impact my family, property value and way of life more directly than the outcome of a presidential election ever has.
Isn't it curious as we watch the re-broadcast of the town meeting casino vote how many appear to have no hand stamps? Isn't it strange that they all appear to have orange tshirts?
Bob made good points! The Gambling investors have made major contributions to unions, that endorse the casinos in initial job creation. And then the casinos prevent reasonable wages and benefits.
Political prostitution?
After attending the town meeting, listening to the many speakers , I felt this had finally put an end to the voters who said they wanted their chance to vote on this agreement. Then I read the blog stating " people in Orange Shirts had no stamps on their hands" No one got thru to the ballfields without their hands stamped. If someone is accusing some sort of ' wrong doing' you're wrong. Everyone there that was given a booklet and a yellow voting paper was a registered voter. You've made the day of democracy for this town sound like it was deceiving. It wasn't. My hand stamp smudged as the day wore on.....Enough of nit picking and let's work together to make the best of what's coming to Middleborough. It's time to come together!
If you think that this was democracy in action you are terribly mistaken. Not everyone who wanted to come out to vote were able too. What was the rush? There is a freeze on all land being put into trust for 18 months anyway. Why didn't the selectmen request the special legislation for a special election. Pacheo was there to run with it. Why? I tell you they knew the outcome if everyone in the town were able to come out to vote. The special interests were out to vote - those who were being lied to about how much money the town will get. But what will it realize? FinCom didn't agree with the figures. The costs are too great. A community that has many broken homes, due to abuse,drugs and drinking and yes gambling. You think that this Casino will be good for the community. There is no "HOPE" here. Are you aware of the median income. Low wage jobs will be the only jobs that go to our people. Wise up! I've have heard more promises that have been broken by every developer that has brought in a controversial project. The majority are broken. Even if they are in writing you have to twist their arms to enforce them. We have no idea what this is going to look like in our landscape. These backers are treating us like we are all stupid in Middleboro. I take the fact that they have shown us no conceptional designs as a major slap in the face. The reality is we still have a long way to go before this is finished.
To the clown who refused to watch the comcast video of the casino vote, don't deny what you refused to see!
The deal sucks!
Anyone who supports a casino agreement that fails to include slot revenues (inter alia) is brain-dead!
At least Alan has a promised reward down the road. What's your excuse?
By the time casino supporters recognize their grievous error, Alan Bond will have left town and gained a higher elected office thanks to his appreciative political campaign patrons. Queen Victoria will have found the appropriate underwear so that her panties aren't always in a 'wad.' Marsha will be raising hamsters.
Roger will be sitting in his underwear, wreaking havoc with the town's computer system, convincing others of his worth.
Spartacus will be sitting in a corner, his hands in his lap, giggling to himself, looking like a Bobble Head. Wayne will be drooling, but insisting, yet again, 'towns in Connecticut that have casinos, pay no taxes. I just know it's true! And those $7 an hour casino employees don't count.'
And Pat Rogers? He'll be shaking hands for the Recall Election next April and explaining to voters how he won election against a candidate who never campaigned, was out of the country during the election, and beat him by a 'landslide' ! (99 votes!)And he did much better than John Ashcroft (who lost to a dead guy). And he'll be explaining how he shook the hand of Senator Sympson.
SILLY, SILLIER AND SILLIEST
"Mr. Bond was once quoted, in regards to not having enough money for tents for the town meeting, that it would be "silly" if they couldn't get the money for the tents and "silly" again if this whole thing fell apart because of those tents."
SILLY is that, at that very town meeting, Mr. Bond stood under “a tent” and tried to convince the people of Middleboro that they need a casino built in their town so they can pay the town's bills and in turn, keep their dignity! We all know that Middleboro's financial problems are due to the mismanagement of the town and that; dignity isn’t an issue with the town, but he proved it certainly is an issue for the man.
SILLIER is the fact that 3 huge tents that cost a pretty penny where empty while the townspeople sat in the sun burning to death! Why didn’t they set the tents up so they could actually be used? Just another waste of Middleboro's money-but did we expect anything different?
SILLIEST is the fact that the very people who came to this town for its country setting will soon be moving out because of its city problems. All in the name of greed and MONEY!!!
15 yr middleboro resident
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