Category Archives: New Bedford, Mass.

Gulls

Last week, I was walking up William Street towards the church when I saw two Herring gulls standing together in the bright morning sun, right in the middle of Achusnet Avenue. The one was an adult gull, and the other a brownish first year gull. The first year gull had hunched itself down and was trying to peck at the red gonys spot on the bottom of the adult’s bill, all the while making a high-pitched call note. The adult, its bright gray and white plumage looking quite dapper in comparison with the dirty brown of the younger bird, had its head pulled back, dodging and keeping its bill out of reach of the young gull.

We are told that young Herring gulls on the nest will peck at the red gonys spot, stimulating the adult to regurgitate food for them. At this point in the year, the young gulls should be able to forage for themselves, but here was this gull engaging in what seems to be immature behavior. The two gulls were oblivious to the car rumbling along the paving stones towards them, the young gull still trying to hit that red spot, the older gull moving its beak out of the way but not flying away either. The car came to a complete stop a foot from the young gull. The adult immediately flew away, and the young gull hesitated for just a moment, and then fled.

Gulls live their own lives in this city, and seem to pay little attention to human beings. The roof tops of the tall downtown buildings are their domains. You can hear them calling ten stories up, you can see them wheeling around, settling in, gathering in little groups at the edges of the building roofs. The Elm Street parking garage is never full, and the fifth and top level, open to the sky, is littered with shell fragments where gulls have dropped shellfish to crack them open. The gulls swoop down into the streets to rifle through garbage cans, or to pull open particularly fragrant garbage bags on trash collection days. From a gull’s point of view, human beings must seem to be little more than annoyances who sometimes come along to drive them away from garbage cans, or from pecking at the red spot on an adult’s bill. If all the humans went away, the gulls would miss the garbage we produce, but aside from that I doubt they’d notice we were gone.

Why church is important

Here in New Bedford, the anti-gay attack at Puzzles bar in the North End sent shock waves through our community. How could an 18 year old man walk into a gay bar to attack the patrons with a handgun and a hatchet just because those men happened to be gay? Right now, many of us in New Bedford are trying to figure out what to do.

Scott Lang, our mayor, has called on churches and other religious communities to provide better support to youth. I’m all in favor of supporting teenagers, but I don’t think it works quite that way.

First of all, research shows that teenagers who go to church are far less likely to engage in risky behaviors of all kinds. The issue is not providing additional support to the teens who are already coming to church, the issue is the large numbers of teens who have no religious affiliation to speak of.

Secondly, I’m increasingly of the opinion that the way we get teens into our churches is to support their families. In a recent article about ministries that support whole families (instead of just supporting, say, youth), Rev. Phil Lund asks a rhetorical question:

…Why are so many of our current youth strategies and programs focused on trying to put the pieces back together after kids are already in crisis rather than on providing the early and continuing nurture that will keep them healthy and whole?

Phil’s answer is that congregations should be what he calls “authoritative communities,” and before you get your back up about that word “authoritative,” let’s find out what Phil really means. Citing a new book titled Hardwired To Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities, Phil writes:

Authoritative communities are [multigenerational] groups of people who are committed to one another over time and who model and pass on at least part of what it means to be a good person and live a good life.

Authoritative communities have 10 key characteristics. Based on careful analysis of both the new science of nurture and the existing child development literature, the Commission on Children at Risk [authors of Hardwired To Connect] identified the following 10 principal characteristics of an ideal authoritative community:

  • “Authoritative communities include children and youth.
  • They treat children as ends in themselves.
  • They are warm and nurturing.
  • They establish clear limits and expectations.
  • The core of their work is performed largely by nonspecialists.
  • They are multigenerational.
  • They have a long-term focus.
  • They encourage spiritual and religious development.
  • They reflect and transmit a shared understanding of what it means to be a good person.
  • They are philosophically oriented to the equal dignity of all people and to the principle of love of neighbor.” —[Hardwired To Connect]

This might provide a useful model to us here in New Bedford: make sure our churches and religious communities function as this kind of authoritative community.

More to the point for my own church, this should serve to remind us why we’re doing what we’re doing. You don’t come to church when you feel like it so you can hear some good music and maybe an inspiring sermon. You come to church to be a part of a multi-generational community that is shaping the life of the surrounding community, by transmitting what it means to be a good person, and by promoting equal dignity all all persons as set forth in the Golden Rule.

Not that that is easy. But the more of you who show up at church, the easier it will be, and the less likely it will be that we’ll have another incident like the one at Puzzles bar. And no, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, I’m trying to give you a good reason why you should get out of your comfy jammies on Sunday morning, leave behind the crossword puzzle in the Sunday paper, and go out into the cold to come to church. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, I’m telling you that you really do make a difference when you show up.

Link to Phil Lund’s complete post

Blizzard conditions

Ten people showed up at church this morning. One of them was a reporter from the New Bedford Standard-Times, reporting on Mayor Scott Lang’s call to religious organizations for a day of reflection and prayer this weekend, following the hate crime at Puzzles Lounge last week, and its aftermath; the reporter visited us because apparently First Unitarian was just about the only downtown church that held worship services this morning. The wind-blown snow made driving very difficult. I’d say we’ve had close to blizzard conditions all day: high winds and heavy snow.

Carol and I went home after church, had lunch, and sat around updating our respective Web sites. By four o’clock, I was getting a little stir crazy. “Let’s go for a walk,” I said. We could see blowing snow outside our windows, so we bundled up.

We walked down to the end of State Pier. Blowing snow kept visibility very low.Looking across the harbor, we could see some lights on the Fairhaven side, and I just barely made out the ghostly profile of the Unitarian Universalist church’s spire.

We didn’t walk around much; the wind was too fierce, driving the snow right into our faces, blowing cold air into our heavy coats. We mostly looked at all the fishing boats tied up, an unusually large number of them in port, riding out the storm.

I noticed something out in the water. “Look!” I said, “a seal.” Carol spotted two more, and then we saw another two right up next to the pier, and another two; maybe eight all told. The two up close to the pier poked their heads up, looking around, looking at each other nose to nose (it almost looked like they were kissing). Another one rolled in the water close by, and when I took a step forward to get a better look, it slapped its tail on the water and dove down out of sight. I’ve never seen so many seals in one small area in New Bedford harbor; perhpas they, too, are riding out the storm in a safe port.

Rainbow connection?

With the anti-gay assaults at Puzzles Lounge, it seemed like a good time for First Unitarian in New Bedford to fly a rainbow flag, as a sign of solidarity with the gay and lesbian community in New Bedford. So today, Carol and I walked down to Brewer’s Flag on 77 Forest Street.

We rounded the corner from County St. onto Forest St. “I wonder which building it is?” I said. I’m always worried we’re going to miss whatever building we’re looking for.

“I’ll bet it’s the one with all the flags,” said Carol, and sure enough, I could see a number of brightly colored flags just down the street. We got closer, and Carol added, “What a cute little building!”

Brewer’s Flag is in a lovely, friendly little brick industrial building tucked into a residential neighborhood. The building is right on the sidewalk, and you walk up five steep granite steps to get to the door. Once inside, we found ourselves in a high, bright little anteroom, from which you could see the back room where they sew the custom flags.

The owner, Penny Brewer, said she had three sizes of rainbow flags in stock: 2 x 3 ft., 3 x 5 ft., and 4 x 6 ft. I asked if she didn’t have anything larger. She might have a 6 x 10 ft. one in stock, but she doubted it. While she looked in her stock, Carol and I looked at all the flag paraphanelia — flagpoles, flagpole brackets, flagpole ornaments — and the flag decals, flag posters, sample flags of every sort, wind socks (Carol has been looking for a nice fish wind sock), holiday flags, Azorean flags, everything to do with flags.

The biggest rainbow flag in stock was 4 x 6 ft. Penny Brewer unfolded it for us to look at. Carol thought it looked big enough. “It looks bigger in the store,” Penny Brewer warned. The flag will probably be dwarfed by our huge granite church building, but we’ll figure something out. At the moment, the most important thing is to just get the rainbow flag flying.

On our way out, Carol looked back up at the building housing Brewer Flag. “What other city could you find a neat little flag store in a great little brick industrial building within walking distance of where we live?” she said. “I like New Bedford.”

So do I.

Candlelight vigil at Puzzles Bar in New Bedford

In the wake of last night’s anti-gay hate crime in New Bedford, the Marriage Equality Coalition of the SouthCoast organized a candlelight vigil at Puzzles bar, the site of the hate crime at 426 N. Front St. I drove over with Ann Fox, minister at the Fairhaven Unitarian Universalist church, and Lisa Eliot, the director of religious education at the Fairhaven church.

“What street number is the bar again?” asked Ann, who was driving. Just then Lisa pointed out the flashing blue lights: the police had blocked off N. Front St. for the vigil. We found a parking place within sight of one of the police cars, and walked a block to the bar.

Several people already had lit candles. I brought over 100 candles left over from our church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service, and I began passing them out to anyone who wanted one. One or two gay couples felt safe enough to quietly hold hands. I saw the core members of NBPI, several ministers, and several Unitarian Universalists. The crowd kept growing, until I estimate over 200 people were present.

Right at 7:00, Andy Pollack from the Marriage Equality Coalition welcomed everyone, explaining that the Coalition organized the vigil because at the moment, they are essentially the only gay/lesbian political organization on the South Coast. David Lima, interim executive minister of the Inter-Church Council, gave the invocation. Then Andy introduced the bartender of Puzzles who was there at the time of the attack.

The bartender told essentially the same story you can read in the New Bedford Standard-Times Web coverage of the incident. He said what he witnessed was far worse than any horror movie, any gory slasher movie, that he had ever seen.

According to the bartender, the attacker came into the bar and showed an I.D. that said he was 23, though it now appears that was a false I.D. The attack started after the attacker had been in the bar long enough to have a couple of drink. The attacker struck his first victim from behind with a machete, and almost immediately the attacker was jumped on by the bartender and the other patrons in the bar. The attacker kept lashing out with the machete and a small hatchet that he carried; he was overcome by the others, disarmed, but then reached down and pulled out a 9 mm handgun, shot upwards at the bartender and another man who were on top of him. Everyone backed away, the attacker stood up, and then shot the face of the first man he had hit, and shot into the head of another man whom he had knocked down. The third shooting victim was a mentally challenged man in his early twenties who emerged from the restrooms at just that moment accompanied by his mother; the attacker shot him in the abdomen.

The bartender managed to get everyone out of the building, and went back in. As he went back in, the attacker grabbed him, put the handgun to the bartender’s head, and pulled the trigger; but the gun was out of ammunition. “That gun ran out of ammunition so I could be here tonight,” said the bartender, who cried intermittently as he told this story to us, “so I could be here tonight to tell you this story. He could not silence my voice! [cried of “yes” and “amen” from the crowd] We must not be silenced!” He urged us all to stand up and speak out against all hate crimes directed at gay and lesbian people.

Barney Frank was unable to be present, but he did send a statement which was read by one of New Bedford’s city councillors. Tony Cabral, state representative, spoke compelling about the need to be tolerant of all persons no matter what their race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Bev Baccelli of the Marriage Equality Coalition spoke next, pointing out that while it is no longer OK to use words like “kike” or “nigger,” it is still considered socially acceptable to say “fag” or “dyke,” and this must change. Bev Baccelli also said that her office was getting calls all afternoon from news outlets across the country, and they all asked what kind of city New Bedford is; to which she replied, “New Bedford is just like any other city in this country. A gay man or a lesbian woman is harassed each an every day in some city somewhere in this country. New Bedford is just like your city.”

Mayor Scott Lang arrived a little late, so he wound up speaking last. He said the police and the city will not stop until the attacker is brought to justice. But, he added, we will have to do more than take care of the legal end of things. The city must come together and put an end to hatred of all kinds. Lang was very serious, and very compelling. Ann Fox gave a very short closing prayer, and led the crowd in singing “We Shall Overcome.”

I saw maybe seven or eight reporters scribbling in notebooks, and there were at least three video cameras; I know the Associated Press picked up this story, so watch national news media for coverage of this vigil. Also, I heard a rumor that the primary suspect, an 18 year old New Bedford man, has been apprehended, but this could not be confirmed — follow news media for more on that aspect of the story, too.

Community response to last night’s hate crime in New Bedford

I’m posting the following press release, just received from the Marrriage Equality Coalition of SouthCoast. Link to local press coverage of the story. Please come to the vigil if you feel safe doing so. For those of you elsewhere, your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

PRESS RELEASE

Vigil to be held at Puzzles Lounge, 426 North Front St., New Bedford, MA

7 PM Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006

A vigil will be held at Puzzles Lounge, the site of an anti gay assault early this morning. The unprovoked attack by a single individual wielding a knife and a gun left three men seriously injured with face, head and chest wounds.

The Marriage Equality Coalition of the SouthCoast, in conjunction with other community and religious groups, is organizing the vigil to protest not just this horrendous hate crime, but violence of any kind in our community.

The ongoing campaign to deny gay men and lesbians the right to marry has resulted in the portrayal of the gay community as “less than equal” by some, and has included hateful, bigoted rhetoric. When groups of people are characterized as “second class”, they then can more easily become targets of others’ rage and anger.

We deplore violence of any kind in our community. Gay men and lesbians deserve to live their lives peacefully and securely, without being targeted solely because of their sexual orientation.

Contact person: Bev Baccelli
Marriage Equality Coalition of the SouthCoast
Tel. 508-965-3996

Toxic

According to a Washington Post article, Toxic Waters Provide ‘a Snapshot of Evolution,’ from Monday, January 23, New Bedford harbor is now swarming with Killifish. This is remarkable because New Bedford Harbor, designated as a Superfund site, is so polluted by PCBs that almost nothing can live there:

The waters of New Bedford Harbor, Mass., sparkle on sunny days. But beneath the bay’s gleaming surface lies one of the most toxic environments in the nation.

“You’d think nothing, absolutely nothing, would be able to live in New Bedford Harbor,” says Jim Kendall, a fisherman and president of New Bedford Seafood Consulting. “But you’d be dead wrong. Something does live there, and in huge numbers.”

Killifish, three-inch-long saltwater fish common along the Atlantic coast, thrive in these polluted waters…. “Sometimes they’re so thick in the harbor, you could just about walk across on them,” Kendall says….

No one is quite sure how the killifish have managed to adapt to the toxic environment. There are representatives of other species — the article mentions quahogs — living in the harbor, but the killifish are there in great numbers. Why so many killifish?

“That’s the big question,” said toxicologist Mark E. Hahn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass. “It’s what can happen when animals are exposed over generations to high levels of contaminants.” The result goes one way or the other, he said. “The population dies out or it adapts through genetic changes to extreme pollution levels.”

In one way, this is a hopeful story: even with all the toxic sludge we’re pumping into the environment, some organisms seem to be able to adapt. In another way, this is a very worrisome story: the killifish are filled with PCBs, they are being eaten by other animals, and so the PCBs have a new entry point into the wider food chain. I’ve seen lots of Mergansers on the harbor this winter; Mergansers eat fish; the Mergansers are likely getting pumped full of PCBs.

Winter beach

Drove to Horseneck Beach for a long walk today. I had a desire to walk down the beach and pick up a few shells and not think about anything but sun and sand and waves. A brisk westerly breeze kept me walking quickly until I drew near to the Westport River where the beach was somewhat protected by a low rise of land to the west. I slowed down and started looking at the beach.

A different mix of shells from the beach at Fort Phoenix: Most of the clamshells appeared to be Atlantic Surf Clams, and I don’t think I saw any quahogs. (I saw one clammer working the beach, and I would have liked to have asked her what she was raking in, but she was too busy.) I also found a good number of Blue Mussel (Mytilu edulis) shells, which we haven’t found at all at Fort Phoenix. I picked up two or three clamshells that I couldn’t identify; after looking at the “Marine Organisms Database” on the Web site of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood’s Hole, I believe the shells are either Transverse Ark (Anadara transversa) or Blood Ark Clam (Anadara ovalis), both of genus Anadara. It must be a somewhat different ecosystem along Horseneck Beach.

At one point, I saw a Great Black-backed Gull floating on the sea with something quite large in its mouth. I looked through the binoculars to see what the gull was carrying. It was a sort of pinkish color; the gull had to open its bill quite wide to hold onto whatever it was, and at one point it dropped the thing into the water, but quickly snatched it up again. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was, and the gull’s eye glowed a brilliant, mysterious red in the setting sun. At last the gull flew ponderously up into the air, and I could see that it was carrying a Horseshoe Crab with the long tail dangling down. Off the gull flew, presumably to drop the crab onto something hard to break it open.

But mostly I just walked, and didn’t think of anything at all.

Less than moral

Carol’s car wouldn’t start, which meant she had to stay up in Cambridge a couple of extra nights. She was supposed to go to a meeting of New Bedford Public Interest, but since she couldn’t, she sent me instead.

A little background for those of you who live outside New Bedford: the Fairhaven Mill building at the head of New Bedford harbor has been in limbo for many years. The first floor houses an antique market, there are a few other businesses, but mostly the building is empty. Given its location right on the Acushnet River with beautiful views of the harbor and the city, and given the fact that it sits right next to an interchange on Interstate 195, the site is ripe for creative development.

What I learned at the NBPI meeting is that Home Depot is trying to push a deal through the city quickly, a deal that will allow them to erect a big-box retail store on the mill site. Of course, their business plan does not allow for such contingencies as utilizing a historic brick mill building that happens to stand in a very visible spot, so they will bulldoze the building. According to Home Depot, decisions have to be made quickly, there is no time for long studies or discussions, the city council has to vote now. The New Bedford city council voted to bulldoze the building.

To be fair to the city council, Home Depot holds out the prospect of 400 jobs coming from this development, which means a lot in a city like New Bedford. But the city councilors forgot to ask if that meant 400 net new jobs for the city; or if, as was the case when Home Depot built a store on Cape Cod, there will in fact be a net job loss for the region.

You know the rest of the story: most of the people in the surrounding neighborhood are not well off, many are people of color, and the nieghborhood looks like it’s unlikely to cause any trouble to Home Depot. So yes, this is a classic ecojustice issue of putting less desirable development in poorer communities.

I hate to see an outside corporation bulldoze a historic building, destroying some of New Bedford’s sense of place, simply because their business plan is inflexible. As a minister, it’s my job to point out when a person or group of people is being less than moral and ethical. Home Depot could be ethical and moral corporate citizens and figure out a way to use the historic mill building, and grace a poorer neighborhood with a more attractive development. This could be a win-win situation — but so far Home Depot refuses to bend. Personally, I think they should be ashamed of themselves.

The NBPI Web site has links to New Bedford Standard-Times coverage of the situation. Read the stories, do some investigating on your own, and tell me what you think.