Paul Camuso - Respect Your Elders! Learn what RESPONSIBILITY means, Public Service, not Self Service

Death...and the promise of SPRING


    They say another winter storm is brewing for this week.  Yet Daylight Saving(s) (the s is optional) Time is here http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-daylight-savings-20140308,0,4528883.story#axzz2vW9OtjTj
 and the promise of rebirth, renewal, growth and infinite possibilities.

     Last week came the news that two close friends had died.  On Wednesday a tribute was published here on the Patch, then on Thursday the wife of a good friend called to tell me that her husband was gone. They have a special needs son who knows that daddy isn't around, but doesn't know why. 

   A bitter winter should mean an incredible spring.  For as they say, hope springs eternal.  But how do we best commemorate the lives of fallen comrades while keeping our own sanity and learning to live without the people we knew, the people who said kind things about us, the people who were on our side?    A wonderful woman was on the phone with me this week, a stranger, yet we were both quoting the Bible to each other.  Just a business woman from out of state who took the time to chat about life and loss.  She said "sometimes it is about our experience, as much as it is about their passing" (paraphrased.)  Which, of course, is kind of the opposite of the late Jerry Garcia's quote that I have used often when writing about people passing on:
Death only matters to the person that's dying. The rest of us are going to live without that voice.

http://books.google.com/books?id=xy2zO9bUVboC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=jerry+garcia++death+only+matters...

We lost Jerry in August of 1995, and one wonders if he knew how poignant his quote would become since so many of his colleagues passed on after him, and in quick succession! 

Yet I'm finding that venerable old Jerry's quote is not entirely accurate. The rest of us have to live without more than that voice.  My friend Doug & I had a get together with a mutual friend around Christmas 2012.  My best friend and I had plans the same day this year so I didn't get to see him in 2013.  Now Doug is gone, as well as the fellow whose wife called me on Thursday. These individuals had so much to offer the world, and the world has changed without their presence.  So Mr. Garcia, all due respect, but the impact of those dying is great on those who were close to them.  It MATTERS for the people left behind, it certainly matters.

   I Thank God that I called Doug two weeks ago and that we got to chat. He had fallen and didn't know that he broke two ribs and punctured his lung. He told me that he had hurt his back, but it was worse than he thought. He was unconscious on Saturday, and hospitalized for a week and a half before passing away on the fifth. Meanwhile the other friend's passing was more complicated with the possibility that he was given the wrong medication.  Have not got the full details yet and only know that these two individuals are now gone.

__________________________________________________   I canceled a trip to New York this week, as well as a get together with friends today, Sunday.  It's a time for reflection.  What helps those of us in Medford with this promise of spring is the promise from the Mayor that he will do the right thing.  We can only hope. 

   Those of us who go up to the City Council week after week and professionally state our case might politely ruffle Mr. Camuso's feathers.  That says a lot more about Mr. Camuso than it does about the speakers.  You see, there is responsibility that comes with being a Council president.  Not the responsibility to vote yourself a pay raise, but to listen to the residents and be truthful with them, no matter how much that truth might appear to stand in the way of your political aspirations.     Helping citizens instead of a politician helping himself would go a long way to giving the residents some indication that we matter to elected officials every day, not just on election day.

   Mr. Camuso showed disrespect to the late Pat Fiorello.  He has disrespected Dr. Storella, disrespected me as well as others older - and sometimes wiser - than him.  Note to Mr. Camuso: respect your elders. We may have information that you need.  Glad I could get you up to speed on the Open Meeting Law, yet I wonder how much you've yet to learn taking a position that you, clearly (by virtue of being unaware of the total of the Open Meeting Law) aren't ready for.

   Which brings us to public access.  So on Thursday night seven people looked at a viable space for a new station.  I have submitted a solid, logical proposal on how to best utilize that space in a win/win/win situation.   

   When the now-dissolving corporation read this, they went on the attack.    They just didn't have the decorum to allow citizens to move forward with access without the bad history that was MCC TV3 lurking like a shadow attempting to pounce and sabotage the new situation.

   The rocks that got thrown at me by a small group of heartless and cruel individuals is mind boggling.  For the readers who don't know the back-story, the Mayor receives X amount of funds from the Agreements with Comcast and Verizon.   The non-profit in charge is supposed to do tremendous outreach to the citizens.  A retired judge found that it was an insiders club, a private access station.  Citizens - including over two dozen former board members, ran from the situation because of the bad experience of speaking out.  There was harassment, there was name calling, there was violence perpetrated on the victims.

   Then, after this writer kept the battle alive at the City Council when it looked like it had little support, we gathered our strength and got City Hall to do the right thing.  City Hall pulled the funding.

   I didn't pull the funding.  The other brave souls didn't pull the funding. City Hall pulled the funding.  I worked diligently to help out two elected officials and an employee at City Hall to remove egregious materials aimed at them.  It was a horror show.  It was difficult.  We were dealing with people who were steeped in cruelty and have to hide behind aliases to throw the rocks that you saw thrown at me today.

     The meeting minutes are missing.  The financial records are missing. The citizens who paid a LOT of money to the cable providers want to know why the Mayor hasn't been proactive in getting to the bottom of this. 

     While two of my colleagues in the media are being buried, while I'm working hard for my community, those vindictive individuals can't let up.  They just can't stop their abusive taunts and their bad behavior that got them thrown out of Channel 3 in the first place.  They can't behave like adults. 

     The cold hard winter is a reflection of what dozens and dozens of residents experienced at the cold, cruel hands of TV 3 and their accomplices.    But the promise of Spring is around the corner, and one of the people in a position to say this told me on Thursday night that we will have a new access TV station. 

     I was there.  The former cronies who took a wrecking ball to the station were not there.  You do the simple math, and you'll know why this writer is being cyber bullied by multiple people who - quite clearly - have something to hide. 

     It takes courage to go up to the podium on a Tuesday night. It takes courage to prepare a speech that you know will be dissected by cowards who sit behind a keyboard and call you names, without the courage to look you in the eye, face to face.

   You see  people, EVERYONE knows where I am on Tuesday nights. I invite people to come up and be civil and state their case.  So when someone accuses people of not looking them in the eye, when a person who should adhere to a code of conduct lies to her superiors in her current situation, maliciously attacking a man who is available to talk to the entire community every Tuesday night, then you know what you are dealing with when she writes the filth that this writer had to put up with today.

 
    Julie Kelleher says that bullies write from the darkness and won't look at you.  She's 100% correct, and she's describing herself.  Unlike cowardly Julie, you can find me at 85 George P. Hassett Drive just about every Tuesday night at 7 PM while Julie Jarhead is throwing rocks and the ugliest things imaginable, and pontificating that she has no sins and is as pure as snow. Sounds like the Kool-Aid TV 3 fed us for decades, and it begs the question, if Julie Kelleher wants to be with the old TV3 board, Malden Access TV should give her the permission to leave them and join the old TV3 board.  That appears to be where she wants to be and what she wants to do.   Julie is behind her typewriter attacking a man, doing the opposite of what a marine is supposed to do.  This man is at City Hall every week for any legitimate person to speak to in a civil fashion, something that woman can't comprehend or define: civility.

      It begs the question: why can't they just bow out gracefully and let us build our new station to benefit this city?  Is it because they are so afraid that we will do a better job instantly?  That's certainly part of it.
    I'm working hard for this community, and the community knows it.


     Kicking a dog when he's down is not smart; because every dog has his day.  Spring is around the corner.  I'm not afraid of that charlatan and fraud, Julie Kelleher.  But I am man enough to pray for her.