Flags
were flown at both the corner of McGrath Highway and Broadway and at
the top of Winter Hill – on brand new flagpoles donated by the local
Kiwanis Club – with the help of students from the East Somerville
Community School and the Healey School. There were some of us there who
live in that immediate area who have been going to the annual
reenactment at Foss Park for over 40 years straight and have seen the
attendance by the public ebb and flow over the years.

So we
stood there, enjoying the morning and the festivities and it occurred
to us that the annoying politicians and their hangers-on (aka Pod
People) weren't there. In fact, neither were the "haters" – you know,
the ones who start their own little groups because they claim there's
too much "old school" shenanigans going on.

According to them,
there's not enough transparency in local government, there's too many
"back room deals" happening and there's too much one-sidedness in the
news.

But they have their own "secret meetings" and they call
themselves journalists, having email interactions with elected
officials and then calling them "interviews." They are even now trying
to pass themselves off as historians because someone is stupid enough
to give them some space in a print medium. You have to love this stuff
– you can't even make it up, it's that comical.

Officer McNally told the
group about the GPS theft problem in Somerville and in many neighboring
cities. "We've got a couple people running around, probably substance
abusers, checking out cars. They don't even look at the cars, they just
look through the front window for lap tops or GPS's. If they see one
they can break the window and grab the devices and be gone in, say 45
seconds." The city distributes notices that look like parking tickets,
but are warnings to owners of parked cars with potential theft items
visible to officers checking as they walk by the cars.

The group
searched for problems on the street involving public safety and basic
street aesthetics. Things such as potholes, untrimmed tree limbs, stubs
from utility polls, un-kept storefronts and the like. "We look at what
I call 'quality of life issues'…This is really what an alderman's
work is," said Alderman Heuston. "The more sets of eyes, the better."

In
just a short time the group discovered dangerous holes in the sidewalk,
downed signs and potential trash problems in the yards of industrial
businesses. If a problem seems urgent enough, the group notifies the
NIT (Neighborhood Inspection Team), and a whole group of departments
(fire, police, DPW, and more) will visit the business to check on the
problem. These different groups often visit the business all at the
same time, Officer McNally said.

Nicole Rioles,
Shape-Up-Somerville Coordinator, walked with the group. Her group with
the Somerville Health Department targets obesity in the community and
helps people get and stay physically active. "Shape-Up-Somerville tries
to make the streets safer for walking and biking. We're looking at ways
that people feel safer and to make walking more desirable. Stuff like
trash, glass, holes. Also we're rezoning and you don't see it yet
because of the ongoing construction, but we're going to have more bike
locks and bike paths. We strive for less car supremacy and more equity
for biking and walking transit."

Business signs were also looked
at. "All we're trying to do with the zoning (on signs) is for people to
be more thoughtful with their signs," Heuston said. "We're constantly
calling inspectional services to get them to get people to take down
tattered banners that have been up for too long." Heuston praised
"Mike's Automotive," saying if she could have a "poster child" for
signs/storefronts that "Mike's" would be it.

Another member,
Theresa Cardoso, Ward 2 School Representative, admired the "Hope and
Glory" shop sign visible on the other side of the Square. Cardoso
observed keenly throughout the walk pointing out potential problems.

A
group member mentioned that when the green line extension comes through
Union Square things will really pick up. "It'll be hopping," said
McNally. He watched over the outdoor dining in front of the Precinct
restaurant Friday night and he said everything was nice and orderly.

In the same area the group found bread fed to the pigeons that was still lying around. This left out bread can attract rodents.

The
forty-five minute stroll was relaxing and informative. The group talked
about their favorite restaurants in the Square, praising the quality
and quantity of cuisine. "You don't really have to leave Somerville,"
Cardoso said. "It's all right here."

Heuston leads three to
four walks per month in her district. The walks are open to everyone.
Heuston can be reached at mheuston@hotmail.com and Rioles can be
reached at nrioles@ci.somerville.ma.us.

One of the most simple and underrated ways of
helping the world has always been community service. Students, or any
citizens get organized, or join a pre-existing community service
organization and help out either people or places in need. Recently
President Barack Obama has stressed the importance of community service
by pushing for a mandatory fifty hours of community service a year
served by all middle and high school students, and going so far as
proposing a four thousand dollar tax credit for anyone who clocks in a
hundred or more hours of service in a year.

At Tufts University,
students have been making a difference now for over half a century.
Through the Leonard Carmichael Society, students have been organized
and pushing for a better community since it's founding in 1956.
According to Suzanne Miller of Public Relations at Tufts University,
the Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS) first gained formal recognition in
1958 when students began volunteering at a local mental hospital.

The
LCS has gone through decades of growth and decline, but it now running
strong with sixty organizers and over one thousand student volunteers
in thirty different programs. That is to say, one in five
undergraduates at Tufts University is a member of the LCS and are
helping to make a difference in its own and surrounding communities.
Terri Harding, a student at Tufts and member of the LCS stated "One of
our biggest achievements is helping the Somerville Homeless Coalition
start in the mid-1980s, and today they are still one of our most
important community partners."

According to the LCS website, the
organization is split up into over thirty programs addressing five
major issues. These 36 programs include groups that are interested in
such things as issues of hunger and homelessness, mentoring youths,
literacy and education, health issues, and programs addressing special
interest groups. According to Miller, The LCS hosts events like the
annual 'Faculty-Waits-On-You-And-Auction' dinner and fundraiser, as
well as a 'Kids Day' which features a carnival for elementary school
students in the area.

The LCS exhibits a strong sense of
community activism and service that all members of a given community
should have. Their leadership in the volunteerism side of things is a
lesson worth following and participating in. With so many cuts
happening in local and federal government spending because of the
historical and harsh recession the United States in the midst of, so
many of the pivotal programs that help those who need it most are
rapidly declining. The LCS is a strong example of a grassroots attempt
to improve the standards of living, one that all members of communities
like Somerville should follow in the footsteps of.

For any more
information on this organization, or to stay informed of their events
and programs, visit their website at
http://ase.tufts.edu/lcs/index.asp.

Many
foolish myths are woven through the popular culture that saturates our
every waking hour: The future will be richer than the present. This
ever-growing wealth will trickle down to uplift the poor. The things we
buy will make us as happy as the people in television commercials seem
to be, and if they don't, there must be something wrong with us. Our
rugged individualism makes cooperating with neighbors and resolving our
conflicts unnecessary.

Yet our own history reveals these myths
to be lies that serve the consumption-driven economy that has produced
our deepening national distress. My parents suffered during the Great
Depression. They knew that things are not always better for the next
generation.

Contradicting the myth of individualism, older
Somervillians speak wistfully about times when people took the
streetcar to local, family-supporting jobs; times when neighbors
intervened swiftly to help those devastated by tragedy, rather than
sending them to three different agencies for three different
"services;" when they sat on their front stoops, visited with each
other, and made their own entertainment rather than buying video games.

Contradicting
the myth of individualism, older Somervillians speak wistfully about
times when neighbors intervened swiftly to help those devastated by
tragedy rather than sending them to three different agencies for three
different "services;" about times when people took the streetcar to
local, family-supporting jobs; about when they sat on their front
stoops, visited with each other, and made their own entertainment
rather than buying video games

The pervasiveness of today's
myths causes many of us to view those who extol yesterday's modes of
living as sentimentalists who romanticize practices to which we cannot
realistically return and wouldn't want to.

Such a view makes us brittle. It undermines our ability to recognize forces for change and respond flexibly to them.

We
get a sense of these forces when we pay four dollars for a gallon of
gasoline. Or when our city faces a potential loss of $9-to-10 million
in state aid, is forced to lay off scores of workers, and reduces
municipal services.

But these are the merest hints. The
coincidence of peak oil and climate change will dramatically transform
the way that we live. Many of us don't yet believe this, and none of us
is prepared for it.

Peak oil comes when half of the world's oil
reserves are used up. At that point, demand continues to increase from
nations with growing economies, while supply declines and prices rise
suddenly and sharply. When the peak comes, we will be unable to pay for
much of what we now take for granted.

In 2005, the Bush
administration's Department of Energy published a document commonly
known as the Hirsch Report. It stated that, "The peaking of world oil
production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk
management problem….Without timely mitigation, the economic, social,
and political costs will be unprecedented."

Reasonable energy
experts disagree about when the peak will occur. Some, like Abdullah
Jum'ah, president of Saudi Aramco, believe there are sufficient world
reserves to last another century. But a majority of experts believes
that the peak will come in less than a decade. And the Hirsch report
states that "Viable mitigation options exist…but to have substantial
impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of
peaking." We are not now initiating them.

I have written in the
past about the consequences of peak oil's evil twin, climate change
(http://www.thesomervillenews.com/print.asp?ArticleID=272&SectionID=3&SubSectionID=3
and
http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2007/12/climate-change.html).
Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency completed a
scientific review that was ordered in a two-year-old Supreme Court
decision. It concluded that greenhouse gases' impact on the climate is
endangering our health and welfare. The same week, scientists at the
National Centre for Atmospheric Research concluded that cuts in CO2 of
at least 70% are necessary to avert catastrophic consequences. It's
hard to fully imagine the impacts of such a reduction on how we live.

While
governments dither, citizens are preparing for the profound and
inevitable changes that these dual phenomena will bring. Among their
efforts is the Transition Movement, which began in Kinsale, Ireland
five years ago and is spreading through Western Europe and the U.S.
Among its key concepts is the idea of resilience. Resilience is the
ability of a system-economic, familial, environmental, political-to
hold together and keep functioning in response to abrupt change. A
second key concept is self reliance.

Transitionists work at the
municipal level. Their practices are as varied as getting people to
support local businesses, repairing equipment rather than tossing it,
implementing energy conservation policies, and growing food within
cities.

In the context of Somerville, the urban farming part
seemed bizarre when I learned of it. Then I remembered a dear old
neighbor, since passed on, who grew his own grapes and made his own
wine. And another neighbor who grew so many tomatoes that with a large
hammer, he could have produced a lifetime supply of catsup from one
season's harvest. And the Somerville Garden Club's annual tours.

Much
of the environmental movement has worked to make us feel guilty for
wanting comfort, or self-righteous for giving it up.
Transition-Movement activists believe that life beyond peak oil can be
richer and more fulfilling than it is now. They aim to inspire hope,
enthusiasm, and delighted participation.

Three Somerville
women-Vanessa Rule, Emily Hardt, and Jennifer Mazer-are exploring the
possibility of making Somerville a transition town. They will conduct
an informational session this evening, 7:00 PM, at the Visiting Nurses
Association's community room, 259 Lowell Street.

More
information on the Transition Movement can be found at Transition
United States (http://transitionus.ning.com/) and Transition Culture
(www.transitionculture.org).

The
final phase of the competition takes place this summer, when each of
the 32 finalists will send a delegation to Tampa to showcase their
community.

On Thursday night, the Somerville Chamber of
Commerce, along with 25 collaborating organizations, hosted a
fundraiser at The Holiday Inn's Night Games Lounge to help offset some
of the trip's travel costs. An 8-piece band called Soul Picnic played
tunes from the likes of Otis Redding and Etta James, inspiring a few
guests to dance, while others simply enjoyed the food spread provided
by a number of local restaurants.

Guest of honor Mayor Curtatone
addressed the crowd, speaking excitedly about the award. Last year, he
pointed out, the top ten eluded the city by a single spot. He also
alluded to the city's 1972 victory, asking the audience "how many
people remember that?" He was answered with loud cheers.

Curtatone
spoke of the importance of maintaining civic and community engagement,
especially when fiscal cuts are leading to the elimination of programs
and services. "At times like this, people say 'why do you want to hold
parades or have fireworks?'" he said, "but this is exactly when we need
to come together to celebrate who we are, what we've accomplished,
where we're going."

The city's delegation will consist of 30
people, including two youths in attendance who Curtatone excitedly
called "our secret weapon".

During the three-day competition,
each delegation will present challenges and solutions to issues the
community has faced, and peer-to-peer dialogues will bring Somerville
in touch with other communities, including larger cities such as
Phoenix, Arizona and smaller towns like Benson, North Carolina, which
had fewer than 3,000 residents in the 2000 census.

The Marathon in its
original form followed Paul Revere's route on his midnight ride. As you
may know, Revere rode through, and was nearly caught in, Somerville on
that historic night in 1775.

He began in Charlestown and turned
around on Broadway when he encountered a small group of British
soldiers. As Doherty said, "You might say it was the greatest horse
race in American history."

Revere warned Winter Hill, whose residents warned Prospect Hill, where they lit torches to warn everyone else.

The unveiling of the first American flag took place on Paul Revere's fortieth birthday: January 1, 1776.

In
1774, months before the famous Battle of Lexington and Concord, the
Powder House was attacked. It was the incompleteness of the attack that
led to the violence at Lexington and Concord.

The British were chased to Boston, where they remained for a year, until the still-celebrated Evacuation Day.

After
the great American victory at Saratoga, NY, four thousand prisoners
were taken to Massachusetts, where Revere was a Colonel. Twenty-three
hundred of them were brought to Prospect Hill; the others were brought
to Winter Hill.

In fact, Somerville was nearly named for Paul
Revere's general, Dr. Joseph Warren, who was killed at the Battle of
Bunker Hill. The two men were very close: it was Revere who identified
the slain leader's body, and he named his next son after his fallen
general.

When it came time to vote on the name of the city, Warren's cause simply didn't have enough votes.

Revere, however, continued to make an impact on the area after his midnight ride.

He
continued his job as a silversmith, and worked for America's first
millionaire, Somerville native Elias Haskell Derby, for whom Derby
Wharf in Salem is named.

Revere's foundry made a lot of the city's church bells, some of which may still be in use today.

Curtis Street in Teele Square is named for Revere's grandson Edward Revere Curtis, a Somerville alderman in his day.

For all these reasons, Paul Revere's name and legacy has always been a part of Somerville.

In
1910, President Taft recognized Revere with a small plaque at
Somerville's Paul Revere park, the smallest national park in the United
States.

There have been other commemorations of Revere: a
now-defunct fountain once existed in front of Somerville High School,
known as the Wilson Monument, dedicated to the memory of Revere's
heroism. Somerville is still home to Paul Revere Apartments, Paul
Revere Liquors, and Lexington and Concord Apartments.

"The Boston Globe, the LA
Times-institutions that you never thought would leave are leaving. The
newspaper on the driveway is disappearing," Matthews said, in reference
to the financial troubles that are threatening many major newspapers.
"A blogger can get up in the morning, be living with his parents, ask
them for pancakes, and then blog about the president," he quipped,
implying that blogging, by democratizing access to the influence that
newspaper and television reporters once took for granted, is part of
the threat facing newspapers.

Dukakis, however, did not give bloggers much credit.

"Without
dismissing the bloggers and the Limbaughs," he said, referring to Rush
Limbaugh, the right-wing radio pundit, "I have to tell you that they
don't really play a large part. If I were in office today, I wouldn't
pay attention to the bloggers or any of these characters, but if
someone like a Janet Wu said something, I would take it seriously."

But
Wu countered that many journalists are themselves paying attention to
blogs, because "you don't know what nugget of information your
competitors will pick up from the bloggers."

"I would argue
the profit incentive has changed the landscape," she said. "The
business is so profit driven these days compared to what it was 20 or
30 years ago," and, for this reason, she said, the competition to
uncover new stories is much more intense.

Matthews implied that,
while bloggers and the internet have challenged the newspapers'
business model, the problems facing newspapers stem from the fact that
the pursuit of journalism and the pursuit of profit are not compatible.

"There's
no money in print journalism, so nobody would go into it for the money.
I question the premise that someone would start a newspaper to make
money," he argued. Nevertheless, he said of print journalists that
"it's unbelievable how good they are. Their ability to get a story and
get it right on deadline is amazing."

With the fate of
traditional newspapers very much undecided-indeed, none of the speakers
confessed to knowing quite what newspapers should do to reverse their
downward spiral-Matthews concluded the discussion with a dire warning.
"There will come to a time," he said, "when we don't know what the
facts are. We watched Hitler rise to power, but at least we had
reporters there to tell us what was happening, that he was taking over
other countries."

The speakers and audience developed an easy
rapport, with audience members occasionally shouting questions or
comments to the speakers, and Matthews spontaneously polling the
audience whenever he, Wu, or Dukakis disagreed with one another. At one
point, he exhorted those students in the audience pursuing a career in
politics to stand up-and then exhorted those who did not stand to
promise themselves that, lacking the courage to stand, they would never
pursue a career in politics.

Dukakis, perhaps dismayed that only
one in ten or so students heeded Matthews' demand, spoke glowingly of
public service, recalling of his thirty-year political career that "I
never remember coming home in the evening and not feeling as thought I
had made some kind of difference." He added that "there is nothing more
personally fulfilling than being in a position where you can make
improvements in the lives of your fellow citizens."

But Wu
rejoined that "I would never encourage my children to run for office,"
because, she explained, "I know how brutal we can be."

"Every morning I get up, I still ask myself, is it fair for me to do this story?" she said.

Her concern was echoed by the questions several students posed during the question-and-answer session.

"It
becomes a slippery slope when we want to get a job with Obama, and they
want every blog comment we've ever made. Where is the line between
what's fair and legitimate and what's unnecessary information?" one
student asked.

"This may seem tough," Dukakis responded, "but
one thing I try to help my students understand is that if you put it in
writing, assume its going to be on the front page of the local paper."
Dukakis teaches at Northeastern University in Boston.

"There are
ways of dealing with these issues," Wu said, referring to how
politicians should handle "unnecessary information" that might be
leaked anyway. "Too many politicians try very hard thinking it will go
away and no one will ever find out."

"There are people out there without any kind of judgment, Matthews explained. "If they get it, they'll run it," he said.

The
forum-titled the Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism, in
honor of pioneering broadcast journalist Edward Murrow-was sponsored by
a variety of Tufts University departments and programs, including the
Communications and Media Studies Program and the Jonathan M. Tisch
College of Citizenship and Public Service. Past speakers have included
Ted Koppel, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw.

Medicaid
reimbursement rates are well below the actual cost of care. Mental
health and substance abuse services were reimbursed by Medicaid at an
average rate of just 63% last year. Reimbursement rates for emergency
room care, primary care, and other critical care services also fell
grossly below the cost incurred by hospitals. There were collectively
$11.6 billion dollars in Medicaid underpayments in 2006 nationwide.

Safety
net hospitals like the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) and Boston
Medical Center (BMC), which serve a disproportionate share of uninsured
and low income patients, rely heavily on Medicaid funding. Prior to the
implementation of the state's public insurance program, known as
Commonwealth Care, these safety net hospitals were able to tap into
additional Medicaid dollars in recognition of deep losses sustained by
caring for a large number of Medicaid and uninsured patients.

Rather
than adjust reimbursement rates for all providers, it was more cost
effective to supplement those providers serving high proportions of
free care and under reimbursed care. Following the implementation of
Commonwealth Care, however, this supplemental money was no longer
directed solely to hospitals to offset the costs of uncompensated care.
Massachusetts is the only state that has secured a waiver of Medicaid
requirements so that this additional federal funding can also be used
to subsidize coverage expansions for Commonwealth Care. While this
funding is essential to ensuring that health care in Massachusetts
continues to be a model for other states and the federal government,
the pool of money available to safety net hospitals is diminished.

More
states will surely follow the Commonwealth's lead in expanding access
to health care to their residents. s they do, the mechanisms available
to finance these reform efforts must be carefully examined to ensure
that critical funding is not drawn down from disproportionate share
hospitals. If the Obama Administration and new Congress are serious
about making health care reform a priority, they must make available
other sources of federal dollars to support public insurance programs.

Governor
Patrick and the administration have been faced with the difficult task
of supporting the new reform model while at the same time sustaining
the large safety net hospitals that are just as vulnerable as they were
prior to the reform. Despite these challenges, the Governor and the
administration, especially Health & Human Services Secretary Judy
Ann Bigby, have remained committed to disproportionate share hospitals.
The federal stimulus law includes funding for an enhanced Medicaid
matching rate that increases the percentage contribution from the
federal government toward Medicaid from 50% to 58.8% in Massachusetts,
adding about $2 billion dollars and acting as a tourniquet to quell the
financial bleeding that threatens safety net hospitals with cardiac
arrest.

Unfortunately, stimulus money will be used to prevent
more layoffs rather than address the previously laid off health care
workers. CHA, for example, has already undertaken a painful
restructuring of its hospital network to do its part. The long-term
survival of our safety net hospitals, however, depends on a Medicaid
reimbursement rate structure that addresses the disparity in providing
critical care to the most vulnerable patients.

Downward
financial pressures can serve as the catalyst for unprecedented change
in government. The inequity of low reimbursement rates existed before
the recession began, but it can be remedied by the time recovery
arrives.