Benefit performance helps fund this weekend’s OpenAir Circus

 
By Jack Nicas

More often than not, teachers scold their pupils for clowning around. However, in class at the OpenAir Circus, teachers not only encourage goofiness, they teach it.

That was the story Friday night. The ExtraTerrestrial Circus Experiment, made up of OpenAir teachers, held a benefit performance at the VFW Dilboy Post in Davis Square, with all proceeds going towards the OpenAir Circus. The gang of captivated children strewn across the hall’s floor was mostly OpenAir students, attentively watching tricks they’ll perform this weekend.

‚ÄúIt’s really nice to share it with them,‚Äù said Adam Dipert, a five-year teacher with OpenAir and main character of Friday’s show. ‚ÄúI’m able to show them the skills that I’ve been teaching and have the opportunity to translate my vision of how it should go in a performance situation.‚Äù

Two detectives now work ‘inconceivable’ sexual assault cases

By George P. Hassett

When Somerville Police Detective Martha Costa was on the news this month for her role in catching a man police say sexually assaulted two women in West Somerville, she said her parents began to understand the serious and disturbing nature of the work she does each day.

“I think seeing the case on television woke them up. Before that, they had no concept of what I deal with here,” she said.

The Mayor‚Äôs annual Boston Harbor cruise is next week on August 6 at Long Wharf, we hear its another sell out crowd, and why wouldn‚Äôt it be, we here at Newstalk think Joe is doing an outstanding job. We hope to see everyone there ‚Äì some of us will be on the back of the boat secured to the railing – so none of those department heads or board members can easily throw us off ‚Äì and some of us will be roaming the boat. 

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This Thursday evening candidate Bob Trane, the only candidate on the ballot for State Representative, will hold a get together for friends and supporters at PJ Ryan‚Äôs in Teele Square from 5 to 8 pm. We think he should have had a bigger place, but things are tight in the district – he didn‚Äôt want to go outside the district like Stickers Carl has done several times already. Bob has stated that he won‚Äôt accept any donations from special interest groups, like Stickers Carl has done in the past.    

By George P. Hassett

The Somerville Divestment Project is back. The polarizing group that has brought hundreds to City Hall to protest and support Israeli policies in the Middle East, is pushing another non-binding ballot question to city  voters in November.

The resolution would direct State Rep. Denise provost, D-Somerville, to “vote in favor of a non-binding resolution calling on the federal government to support the right of all people, including non-Jewish Palestinians of Israel, to live free from laws that give more rights to people of one religion than another.” Provost’s district covers roughly two-thirds of the city.

Theater granted license for entertainment, dancin

By George P. Hassett

The theatrics are back in Davis Square. Eight months after Jimmy Tingle shut down his Off-Broadway Theater on Elm Street, the owners of the theater’s building at 255 Elm Street have been granted a license to entertain once again.

Robert Goren and Micah Goren are expected to oversee the management of the theater while allowing a variety of entertainment companies to put on shows. They did not immediately return a phone call for this story.

By Mario Barros (Lenguaviva)

(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.)

In a recent, very sensible decision against firearms reduction in Washington D.C., the Supreme Court ratified the inviolability of the sacrosanct Second Amendment to the Constitution (A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed). As a result, my friend Ken and I have decided to form a Bostonian militia to defend our personal turf from the other three hundred-odd million people who share this country with us and who, by the way, also have access to firearms. We are only complying with the spirit of the amendment, right? With that goal in mind, we are thinking of purchasing the following weapons, with their corresponding ammunition: 

Conclusion: Toward openness, accountability, and participation

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.)

Lord John Dalberg-Acton famously wrote that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Massachusetts politics offers convincing evidence. Less than eight percent of its 351 cities and towns have a strong mayor form of government. But they historically account for all of the Commonwealth’s major municipal corruption scandals. Somerville is one of them.

When power is highly concentrated in a chief executive, the corruption need not be an illegal exchange of money for favors. Highly concentrated power in the executive branch fosters an unconscious arrogance that usurps the legal and democratic prerogatives of aldermen and voters. It leads to decisions made in the absence of public awareness or input, which when politically necessary, are justified after the fact.

Off The Shelf by Doug Holder

Sam Cornish, the Boston Poet Laureate, invited me to his office to chat before participating in another meeting we were involved with later in the day with Boston-area poetry activists. On the subway, on the way to the meeting, I read through a collection of Cornish’s that I picked up at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop some time ago: ‚ÄúCross A Parted Sea.‚Äù Cornish writes about everything from Pullman Porters, sharecroppers, Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, his father, etc. He does it with just the right amount of raw energy and the Blues, and his choice of words packs a wallop, or at times a well-appointed sucker punch: Case in point:

Somerville Lions Club President Tim O’Malley discusses club’s 75th anniversary and spiraling membership

By Jack Nicas

As the Somerville Lions Club approaches its 75th anniversary, its age is beginning to show. After beginning with 100 members in 1933, and an estimated 125 at the club’s peak in the 1990s, King Lion Tim O’Malley said membership has recently dwindled to 47.

‚ÄúUnfortunately the older generation is dying off,‚Äù he said, ‚Äúand now people aren’t there to take their place.‚Äù

The Lions Club was the 1917 brainchild of Melvin Jones, a Chicago businessman who wanted businesses to aid their communities rather than just themselves. One of the decrees adopted at the club’s first annual convention was ‚Äúno club shall hold out the financial betterment of its members as its object.‚Äù O’Malley said that rule still stands to this day.