Author Archives: Paul Steven Stone

SURVIVOR CAMBRIDGE PART 2: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast

Episode Two: Sugar-Coated Gentrification

Hello, and welcome back to Survivor Cambridge, the TV show that chronicles the downfall and banana-slip slide of “Life As We Know It” on the island of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both our competing tribes live, work, and fight for survival daily on the streets of Cambridge.

Last week, as you recall, Tribe #2, with its rock-grip hold on the Cambridge City Council, pushed through a mega gift, worth skillions of bucks for the greedy, graspy real estate division of MIT, protestwhich is quickly becoming the Kingpin of Cambridge Real Estate. Theirs is the power to squeeze out everyday homeowners and families by unleashing thousands of graduate students to suck up available local housing; theirs is now the authority to build a tower reaching 25 stories or more, and 2 million square feet of offices, homes and labs, or whatever MIT wants to build.

Just to review, Tribe #1 is made up of the city’s diverse population, with a heavy emphasis on those living near or below poverty levels. Given the quickly rising rents resulting from the area’s rapid gentrification, oddsmakers give Tribe #1 little chance for survival.

Not unless they can Outwit, Outplay and Outlast Tribe #2!

Tribe #2, the odds-on favorite, whose motto is “Build, Baby, Build!” is made up of pro-business folks, some of whom actually live in Cambridge, who are the engines of all this development activity in the city. Tribe #2 wants to continue building housing, office and lab facilities for the engineers and technicians drawn into the city by all the new commercial development; engineers and technicians who will eventually outbid families and poor people for the city’s limited housing.

Tribe #2 is clearly the most dangerous and least likable tribe in today’s show. Its members have grown rich and, what’s worse, increasingly entitled as the value of Cambridge real estate continues to climb. It’s a sad irony that Tribe #2 is attempting to remove zoning restrictions at the same time their real estate holdings have become so valuable the tribe no longer needs up-zoning to access reasonable profits.

Want to see something tragic? Look at things from Tribe #1’s point of view. They’ve arrived at a critical juncture; a moment when their salaries no longer keep pace with inflation, when the cost of college is priced beyond their children’s reach, when assisted housing appears to be a distant memory, and section 8 vouchers are no longer large enough to cover the gap in their monthly rent check. And now, just at this critical moment, along comes a once-in-a-lifetime overheating of the Cambridge real estate market.

This Week’s Tribal Challenge: Race For The Future

As you’ll recall from last week’s show, the City Council voted prudence and good stewardship off the island, voting 7-1 to approve a massive up-zoning package for MIT in exchange for some $14 million in cash and a significant commitment to creating low-cost incubator office space for new business development. This was counted as a victory for Tribe #2 and a loss for Tribe #1, who will never see a penny of the swag paid by MIT.

The rapid succession of Tribe #2 victories as evidenced by city council votes on up-zoning petitions, has put Tribe #1’s back against the wall. As more developments are approved, more of the tribe’s families are squeezed out of Cambridge and sent into that dark unfriendly night.

Note the irony in Tribe #2 trumpeting this ongoing gentrification as their attempt to create affordable housing, while Tribe #1 has seen for itself that gentrification, no matter how you sugar-coat it with modest set-asides for affordable units, pushes the lower and middle economic stratas out of their homes and into someone else’s city.

So, this is basically a fight for survival, in the meanest sense, for Tribe #1. And this week on Survivor Cambridge we’ve got a challenge that reflects how desperate the situation has become.

Tribe #1 and Tribe #2, are you ready to race each other for the Survivor’s Crown?

Excellent! You realize the losing tribe will need to find somewhere else to live, or somewhere else to build 16- and 18-story residential towers? Tribe #1 and Tribe #2, you will race against each other, but each with a different challenge. Tribe #1, your challenge is simply to drive your cars from Central Square to Memorial Drive via Western Avenue. The only catch: Western Avenue will be a virtual parking lot, because we’ve simulated the expected auto impact from all of Tribe #2’s towers and up-zoned buildings, which will bring a minimum of 50,000 additional car trips onto Cambridge roadways.

Tribe #2, given your lock-hold on both the Planning Board and the City Council, you are being asked to get the entire Central Square Up-Zoning package approved and legislated before the first car from Tribe #1 reaches Memorial Drive.

The winning tribe of this challenge will be crowned Survivor and be allowed to live (or develop towers) in peace on the island.

Update: Clearly Tribe #1 had the more difficult task. In a move hailed as “Unexpectedly mischievous and tactically brilliant!” Tribe #1’s competitors quickly abandoned their vehicles for wheelchairs, which should have cut their time in half and given them a victory, had it not been for all the angry motorists who objected to anyone—even someone in a wheelchair!—cutting in front of them. We were still totaling up Tribe #1 casualties as Tribe #2 not only won approval of their Central Square up-zoning petition, but also laid down the cornerstone for their first 18-story residential tower.

Join us for the next episode of Survivor Cambridge.

• Watch as waves of low-income residents get stuck once again on Western Avenue, attempting to make their final Exodus from Cambridge.

• See members of Cambridge’s Community Development Department turn their attention to up-zoning Porter Square and North Cambridge. You’ll want to see just how high these folks can build towers on that side of town.

• Watch the Cambridge School System begin dismantling all the schools that become superfluous once most of Cambridge’s families are chased out of the city.

• Watch current residents vote the entire City Council off the island. Except Minka (of the unpronounceable name) who is elected Mayor for her courage in standing up to her colleagues and MIT.

• And please, remember to watch your back. If it can happen to Tribe #1 today, can your tribe be far behind?

Survivor Cambridge is a production of Blind Elephant Press.

Tell Me Lies: A Republican Songbook

Tell me lies,

Tell me sweet little lies

 …goes the refrain from Fleetwood Mac’s elegy to love, “Little Lies,” never envisioning it would someday become the default anthem for the Republican Party.pinocchio

The verse, innocent as it seemed at the time, goes on to threaten eventual public exposure…

Oh, no, no you can’t disguise

(You can’t disguise, no you can’t disguise)

Well, the Republicans, bless their little hearts, have resolutely ignored the import of the second two lines of the refrain, as they continue to cling to the first two lines as a strategic response to whatever they find unlikable in our shifting political landscape. In fact, they’ve been so successful in elevating lies to a status where they’ve become worthy of discussion, we are often placed in the unenviable position of defending reality or a political position against the onslaught of either (choose one) gross stupidity, willful misrepresentation, or extremist religious ideology.

(If you chose “ All of the Above” consider yourself smarter than most people who vote for Republican candidates.)

What songs must echo through your mind when you vote for the party that angrily shouts “Death Panels!” in response to a proposal that seeks to help the elderly prepare for their end of days.

Tell me lies,

Tell me sweet little lies…

And what refrain do you sing to yourself when you deny Global Warming and minimize it as a liberal conspiracy to hobble industry and waste taxpayer dollars? Even as you’re forced to shout, rather than sing, to be heard above the 100 year storms, once-in-a-lifetime floods, and record-breaking droughts and wildfires that are suddenly multiplying on the planet like Pharaoh’s plagues?

Tell me, do they really believe God made Adam from dust, and Eve from Adam’s rib bone? Or that Darwinism is heresy, Evolution an atheist’s revenge? Could anyone with higher than a fifth grade education truly believe that?

Tell me lies,

Tell me sweet little lies…

 But the biggest, balls-of-brass lies are the ones they sing about George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama (yes, the “Hussein” must be kept silent because lying, possibly unhinged Republican extremists regard the name as proof positive that Barack Obama is not only a Muslim but an Islamic terrorist out to destroy the American way of life).

And, of course, it’s also final proof—if any is needed—that our president wasn’t even born on American soil!

Oh, no, no you can’t disguise

(You can’t disguise, no you can’t disguise)

Then there’s the question of their wholesale ransacking of government programs. Programs critical to the upward mobility of the middle class; programs crucial to the very survival of the social safety net. The Republicans blame it all on Barack Hussein Obama and his policies, as if he were responsible for the size of the national debt, as if he chose to conduct two wars at once, as if the country’s financial sector collapsed on his watch instead of his predecessor’s, as if his policies somehow led to the recession he inherited!

As Bill Clinton said about the Republicans at the Democratic convention, “They made the mess, then blame him cause he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough.”

So, why suddenly do we need to throw out the character and conscience of America, as illustrated in the warp and woof of 80-plus years of humane, socially progressive legislation? Why should financial scarcity brought on by the excesses of a Republican administration; an administration so unconcerned about the public treasury it’s prescription drug bill prohibited the U.S. government from bargaining for better prices; why should Bush’s many over-indulgences, managerial incompetencies and financial missteps be allowed to kill off programs that were the work of many administrations and the combined will of the American people in the modern era?

There was no need to defenestrate government programs, no need to tinker with Medicare benefits, no push to reduce social security cost-of-living adjustments before George W. Bush embroiled us in two unwinnable wars and looted the treasury with two rounds of tax cuts. As was often remarked, no previous president had ever called for tax cuts in the midst of a war—let alone two wars!

That was only one of George W. Bush’s many firsts. Like being the first president to initiate a preemptive war; the first to make torture an acceptable means of interrogation; the first to attack a foreign country on trumped up evidence; the first to cripple his own war effort by starting a second war before finishing the first; and the first ex-president who can’t travel to foreign countries for fear of being arrested and tried as a war criminal.

Oh, no, no you can’t disguise

(You can’t disguise, no you can’t disguise)

By the time the Republicans—following the dictates of their millionaire and billionaire masters—finish dismantling assistance programs for the poor, eliminating food stamps and Pell grants, crippling Social Security and Medicare, killing off public sector jobs, there won’t be an America left to celebrate as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

We’ll think of it instead as the Land of the Rich and the Home of the Poor.

And that’s no lie.

My Night In George W. Bush’s Presidential Library

Man, I’m just glad I didn’t get caught!

Then again, what can they do to me for breaking into the new, and as yet unveiled, George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum?George-Bush-center

I’m a blogger! I get paid (practically nothing) to go where others fear to tread.

Besides, whatever they do to me, it couldn’t be worse than what I experienced in the Bush Library’s Enhanced Interrogation Pavilion (a/k/a/ “The House of Pain”).

Though it was late at night, and not open to visitors, all the exhibits were furiously getting ready for opening day.

Okay, let me say this just once: This place is a treat! I never expected Bush’s Library to be so interactive, so true to the Bush legacy, or so compelling.

Visitors to The House of Pain feel like they’re actually being tortured in a black site prison. As a souvenir, when you eventually escape, you’re given a copy of your signed confession. The Bush Library’s “Easy Money” Wind Booth lets you know how it feels to be a bank CEO grabbing for free U.S. Treasury bucks during America’s financial free fall; and once you take two steps into the Cheneyville exhibit you feel like you’re out on the prairie hunting with Dick Cheney, which means any moment you could get shot in the face.

Speaking of Cheneyville, it might interest you to know that even though it wasn’t the largest exhibit, or the most complex, it did end up being the most costly exhibit in the entire Bush Center. Not surprisingly, it was designed and constructed in a no-bid contract awarded to the Halliburton Company.

George W.’s impish side comes out in many ironic touches added to the exhibits, such as the empty desk in Cheneyville supposedly awaiting the return of Scooter Libby from prison. You can recognize the desk by the photo of Valerie Plame that sits on top.

Then there’s this great exhibit room that doesn’t even exist. I’m not sure how they do it, perhaps with holograms or stealth technology, but it looks like a normal room when you look at it from the outside. As soon as you step through the door, however, you’re also stepping back outside the room through a different door, as though you had stepped through a time warp curtain rather than a room. The sign above both entrances, smugly declares this to be the “W.M.D. STORAGE ROOM AND WAREHOUSE.”

Simply put, you have never experienced a presidential library—or even an amusement park—to rival the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. It’s non-stop action, non-stop machismo sabre rattling and, to a discerning mind, non-stop destruction of America’s civil liberties, moral authority and international leadership.

For the kids, the Library has a Bicycle Center with indoor stationary bikes that let you race against the former president on some of his favorite runs around the hills of Camp David. One of the videotaped runs is the actual course George W. rode the morning he barely skimmed the CIA’s briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.”

There’s also a room toward the back of the vast library complex called “The Educational President” that features video interviews with the millions of children who were inadvertently left behind during his presidency. “Sorry, kids!” George W. is quoted as saying. “I’ll get you next time!”

As I learned, from running around like an idiot in the middle of the night, the Library can exhaust you. By the time I was waterboarded for the sixth time I barely had the strength to play “Whack-A-Wimp” in the Alberto Gonzales Pavilion. “Whack-A-Wimp” is weirdly like “Whack-A-Mole,” except you whack Bush Administration U.S. Attorneys instead of moles, but only those who were fired by Alberto Gonzales for not prosecuting Democrats or voter fraud cases.

Centerpiece exhibit of the Bush Library is the Hurricane Katrina Hall, which has a replica of the basement White House conference room from which George W. held his videoconferences with Michael Brown (a/k/a “Brownie”) during the crisis. Also, featured is a diorama recreating President Bush’s meaningless speech from Jackson Square. The speech was given at night, you’ll remember, so that spotlights could light up the president and make him look super presidential or, perhaps, super human. The exhibit also features photographs of the California fundraiser President Bush was flying to when he made his in-depth flyover inspection of the death and destruction in New Orleans.

The new George W. Bush Presidential Library, sitting on the campus of Southern Methodist University, on a 23-acre parcel curiously named The Green Zone, is scheduled to formally open later this week. The Center boasts many exhibits besides those mentioned in this report, most of which are listed as classified and not open to the public. Which is why you might also find it prudent to pay your visit at night.

As a curious side note—I have no memory of how it got there, but when I left the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum I held in my hand a copy of a confession, signed by me, stating that I had been living in this country illegally for 15 years and cheating on my tax returns that entire time. Neither of which was true, as far as I recall.

 

SURVIVOR CAMBRIDGE: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast!

Episode 1: Tribal Adversaries

Hello, and welcome to Survivor Cambridge, the TV show that chronicles the downfall and banana-slip slide of “Life As We Know It” on the island of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both of our competing tribes, as you’ll see, are drawn from the streets and neighborhoods of the city;catapult living, working, and fighting for their survival in Cambridge’s breakneck economy and rapidly changing population profile.

As the competition in this arena seems a bit complicated, here’s a brief profile of the two tribes who will be fighting and scrapping to survive on the island—all for your viewing pleasure.

First tribe, and probably the least favored by the Vegas morning line, Tribe #1 is made up of the city’s diverse population, with a heavy emphasis on the middle class and those living on or near poverty levels. With upscale development (smelling a lot like gentrification) proceeding at a dramatic pace in the city, with the prohibitive rise in housing costs that usually accompanies such development—not to mention federal housing assistance funds drying up—is it any wonder these folks are not expected to survive very long on the island?

Not unless they can somehow Outwit, Outplay and Outlast Tribe #2!

Tribe #2 is the morning line favorite; their motto being “Build, Baby, Build!” Made up of a variety of interests and business types, its tribal members wish to benefit handsomely from all the opportunities that come to a city whose real estate market is blisteringly hot.

Tribe #2 believes A Bigger Cambridge is A Better Cambridge. They believe you can bring massive change to a city without harming those aspects that make Cambridge special. They see nothing wrong in 16- and 18-story towers dotting the Cambridge landscape where before there were only modest storefronts and triple deckers. They pooh-pooh any concerns about the Red Line, Cambridge’s most critical subway line, being already maxed out.

Confidentially, they would also wish to be the ones to develop and feed off all the new housing, office and lab facilities being built for affluent engineers and technicians who will easily outbid families and poor people for the city’s limited housing.

Key strategic relationships with the City Council, the City Manager and the Community Development Department have emboldened Tribe #2 to make a staggering grab this season for increased power and profits through massive up-zoning of Kendall and Central Squares, in a city-sponsored study process commonly known as K2C2.

Three major strategic initiatives in the last 20 years have put Tribe #2 steadily on the offensive and Tribe #1 with its back against a wall.

We’ll have more on those initiatives, and Tribe #1’s subsequent fight for survival, but first a word from today’s show’s sponsor, The Cambridge Residents Alliance.

 ANNOUNCER: The Cambridge Residents Alliance is an organization made up of your neighbors and friends: people who can see what is happening in Cambridge today and are rightfully concerned.

Concerned about flagrant disregard of the city’s zoning code, with spot-zoning the norm rather than the exception, and Cambridge clearly for sale if the sweetener is right. Concerned about a City Council so quick to say “Yes!” it voted to move MIT’s petition along before comments were taken from the public.

Mostly, of course, we are concerned about the future. About what kind of Cambridge we will leave behind for those who follow. Will it be a Cambridge of diverse ethnicities, ages and economic levels? Will it be a Cambridge where we still have neighborhood communities, still have room to breathe? Will we have traded away the essence of who we are for another great year of keeping taxes low and streets clean?

Yes, as you might have heard, we are concerned about the proposed rezoning of Central Square that could bring 16- or 18-story towers and their shadows, plus more cars and congestion, more people and traffic, more bio labs sited next to apartments, more apartments built without parking spaces. More noise, chaos, confusion. And we are concerned that we appear to be moving in no particular direction, with no particular plan in mind.

If that sounds familiar, you might want to lift your voice or lend a hand .To help play a role in deciding Cambridge’s future, click onto CambridgeResidentsAlliance.org.

If you can donate to help get our message out, so much the better!

Now back to Survivor Cambridge.

Three Strategic Blows Hit Tribe #1

It’s been a rough 20 years for the tribe. The end of Rent Control in 1994 seriously upset the ability of many low income people and middle class families to safely remain in their Cambridge homes. Owing to its proximity to Boston and a unique combination of academic and urban influences, Cambridge’s strong residential appeal and concomitant high property values have remained consistent even in the worst of real estate markets.

In 2005, the tribe was struck again, when a city-wide reassessment of property values disproportionately affected the valuation of houses owned by low-income residents, so that hundreds of economically disadvantaged homeowners had their property taxes increased by over 100%. Resulting in another tidal wave exodus of the poor and disadvantaged from Cambridge.

Okay, fast forward to today, where the poorer members of Tribe #1 are in danger of being replaced wholesale by newcomers who can better afford Cambridge’s pricey real estate. Both tribes have taken their best shots to halt or assist this rapid development, making hundreds of presentations (or so it seems) to the Planning Board, the Ordinance Committee, the City Council, and to anyone else who’ll listen. The word “Housing” gets repeated so often in these public ventings its very vibration has become almost hypnotic. As an ironic side note to these ongoing tribal skirmishes both sides repeatedly lay claim to the overriding goal of protecting Cambridge’s diverse, impoverished and family-based population.

Tribe #2 is clearly the most dangerous and least likable tribe on today’s show. Its members have grown fat, rich and increasingly self-important as the value of Cambridge real estate has rocketed. Living off the highest of economic tides a city might ever see, these build-baby-build fanatics are staunch enemies of Tribe #1, whom they see as hindering “progress” and “growth” for the city. Of course, they’re also hindering countless money-making ventures for Tribe #2, thus threatening tribe members’ profits and thwarting their long term agenda to become Multi-Millionaires.

So, at the critical moment when assisted housing appears an ever more distant memory, and section 8 vouchers are no longer large enough to cover the gap in a monthly rent check, along comes this once in a lifetime overheating of the Cambridge real estate market.

With a city government in place that seems a pushover for Tribe #2’s arguments. And, in some cases, an actual advocate of those very same arguments.

This Week’s Tribal Challenge

Okay,  you’ve met our two teams of contestants, and realize what a crucial juncture we’ve reached here on the island.  So here’s this week’s tribal challenge… With the recent explosion of residential complexes nearing completion in the Alewife area, rush hour driving, already difficult for those living in the vicinity, is expected to become a monumental disaster.

Tribe #1, your task is quite simply to bring traffic relief to the trapped residents of Alewife by delivering an auto catapult—a Supremo Auto Catapult—to Alewife during the very next rush hour! As you no doubt already know, a Supremo Auto Catapult can airlift approximately 15 cars an hour out of a gridlocked neighborhood.Your team will be given two hours, from 8am to 10am, to pick up the Supremo Auto Catapult parked at the Science Museum and deliver it to Alewife Station…Ordinarily, such a simple delivery would only take 15 minutes.

Tribe #2, your challenge is to stop Tribe #1 from making that simple delivery.

The Winning Tribe will be given extra time to make its case at the next city council meeting. Tribe #1, you will get 5 extra minutes if you win; Tribe #2, you will be given 30 extra minutes. (And, yes, we do realize those are different time allotments. Just goes to show why Tribe #2 is such a smart money favorite.)

Join us for the next episode of Survivor Cambridge. Where you can…

 • Watch as the Planning Board wastes precious minutes searching for their rubber stamp!

 • See undercover footage of members of Cambridge’s Community Development Department enjoying secret meetings with developers.

 • Watch Central Square start it’s journey to become a tower-studded affair, with far fewer parking lots and thousands more people.

 • See our next Tribal Challenge, when Tribe #2 is asked to prove, using real live T passengers, its claim that Red Line subway cars have room for 40% additional capacity during rush hour.

Last Minute Challenge Update: This just in…I’m told that Tribe #1 successfully picked up the Supremo catapult at the Science Museum but was unable to deliver it to Alewife in the allotted time. In a move hailed as “brilliant! Illustrative of the best military minds” Tribe #2 used its city hall connections to have Cambridge’s chief contractor and traffic inhibitor, the D’Allessandro company, start tearing up streets everywhere in Cambridge, thus knotting up the city in a giant gridlock and keeping the catapult far from Alewife territory.

I know, it sounds like a normal rush hour to me, too.

To My Children, With Apologies

Hey Guys:

I’m writing this note to apologize for some of the things you’ll be inheriting when I go to my final reward. It’s unlikely your father will have time to make amends then, so I’m sending my apologies now.

ruins

First off, kids, I’m sorry about all this war and destruction that’s running riot on the planet. We older Americans tried to put an end to war, but not enough foreigners and strangers would listen to us or take our orders. After that, what choice did we have but to send in soldiers?

At least we tried.

My apologies also for those crowded roads you and your families have to drive on. My generation would have built more public transportation but, in all honesty, we just didn’t give a damn. We never travel by train, so why the hell should anyone else? Try not to hate us too much when you spend half your days driving to and from your jobs.

Come on, guys, honk if you still love your father!

And speaking about cars, I sincerely apologize for the mega-tonnage of planetary resources I seem to have consumed during my brief stay on Earth. Quite frankly, when I think about the tons of materials used to satisfy my individual desires—all the buying, spending and consuming I required to keep myself feeling whole and happy—I find myself surprisingly without shame or remorse.

I’m sorry, but there it is! Your father is a selfish hungry pig and, apparently, revels in the raw honesty of it. He also loves driving around in big cars and buying thousands of unnecessary plastic items.

Hey, somebody has to!

And speaking of raw honesty, children, I want to apologize for the way I laid waste to the land. Lord knows your father, as a responsible businessman, couldn’t let all that good, solid real estate remain undeveloped and glorious in its natural state. Much as I hated to, if I hadn’t sliced up the land, ate up the woods and fields, and built wall-to-wall malls and sprawls, think of all the money I wouldn’t have made…!

Somebody had to make that money, might as well have been me.

Lastly, I want to apologize for leaving you a world much filthier, cruder, harsher—and far less friendly—than the one my father left me. It seems a shame people treat each other so roughly these days, or that values have been so perverted by money, false gods and distorted self images.

Of course, if that’s the price of admission to gain entry to the RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, I want to see you kids first in line to buy tickets.

Just remember two things, children: I never promised you a perfect world.  And I’m too selfish or lazy to help create one.

Oh…and did I apologize for that hole in the ozone layer…?