Posted on 07/17/2004 2:29:28 PM PDT by Libloather
Pols swim against tide of DNC `overkill'
By Dave Wedge
Saturday, July 17, 2004
While angry parents fumed over the shutdown of some public pools during the Democratic National Convention, U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano blasted the state agency in charge, calling the decision ``overkill.''
``To close down a pool on what is on average the hottest week of the year is nuts,'' Capuano said. ``These kids have no other place to go. It's unnecessary.''
The Department of Conservation and Recreation - the agency formerly known as the oft-criticized Metropolitan District Commission - decided to close pools in Somerville and Cambridge 1 1/2 hours early each night during the convention because of traffic concerns.
Another pool, the Lee Wading Pool on the Esplanade, has been closed entirely until Aug. 1 because it is being used as part of a state police command post.
Capuano sent a letter to DCR Commissioner Katherine Abbott yesterday asking her to immediately reverse her decision to close the Magazine and Latta Brothers pools at 4 p.m. instead of 5:30 p.m. during the DNC.
``It's overkill. It makes no sense,'' Capuano said. ``The DCR, the MDC or whatever alphabet soup name they're using, they don't have a long history of being sensitive to community needs.''
Cambridge Mayor Michael Sullivan also has sent a letter to the DCR, while Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone too has complained. All say traffic concerns are invalid since most pool-goers are neighbors who walk to the facilities.
But the DCR isn't budging. In a letter to Sullivan, Abbott said, ``The closure of roads adjacent to (Magazine) pool and the pool in Foss Park in Somerville will cause both traffic and public safety issues if the pools do not close by 4 p.m.''
``Many, many organizations have made adjustments to their hours to accommodate the convention, and DCR must do the same,'' Abbott said.
Swimmers at Magazine pool yesterday said the pool is a city oasis on hot July nights.
``I think it's wrong to shut down one of the best things we have to offer kids - free swimming,'' said Kathy Coll, who swims at the Cambridge pool with her two children almost daily.
Drawing the line between what's necessary and what's excessive when it comes to security and traffic control for the Democratic National Convention is not an easy job, to be sure. But we'd feel a lot better if we knew it was someone's job to draw that line.
At the peak of summer, the Magazine Pool in Cambridge and theLatta Brothers Pool in Somerville will be closed 1 hours early - the one because it's on Memorial Drive, the other because it's near an Interstate-93 off-ramp. How silly.
Is anyone commuting down I-93 to go for a swim? Officials in both communities say that neighborhood kids, who mostly walk to the pools, are the ones who will be shut out by the early closures.
The trouble is - when it comes to traffic gridlock or security - most politicians are afraid of their own shadows and concerned about their own political futures.
No one wants to be the one to say ``no'' to a road closure or any other measure suggested by the ``experts'' because if something happens, fingers will be pointed.
But someone has to start pushing back. Any grownup with clout and a little courage will do.
Free Pools???
We didn't have "free pools" when I was growing up.
No! Then we had to walk ten miles through the snow
just to take a dip in a muddy irrigation ditch filled
WITH PIRANAS.
Then after the fun was over we didn't have "Towels"
No! We had to use stinging nettles that we pulled with our
own bleeding hands!
Then we had to walk fifteen miles home!
Free pools indeed!
Don't they know there's a war on?
Those children could be collecting rubber or something.
I can't get too worked up about pools closing 1 1/2 hour early for a few days.
They'll survive.
If we are really lucky the weather will stink. Nice to see it rain on the DNC's "parade"
We had free pools growing up.
One was dog river, another was judge Nolan's pond.
Boston must be a really nice place to live.
Welcome to the gulag.
Nettles? You had nettles? All we had were tiny bits of broken glass! We would have been grateful to have nettles!
We had to walk twenty miles to the pool, which we had to pay for by working sixteen hours in a coal mine in the dark! And that was without water...if we wanted water, we had to carry it by foot from a hand pump a half a mile away in buckets! That leaked!
Nettles, indeed!
Our pools weren't free, it was either,
pick a bale of cotton, lay a mile of railroad track,
or shell 500 lb of butter beans.
I usually went with the tracklaying, two people could do that faster than butter beans!
The tough part was finding some half dead critter to lure
the piranas away long enough.
I suggest these parents take their children in bathing attire and go and protest outside the Fleet Center, just
to add a touch of humility to the other riff raff there.
Let them keep p*ssing off the people they claim to be for. The RAT elites don't know the first thing about real people.
I just need to stay away from it. The slightly post-pubescent girls in their bikinis are not something that I need to get anywhere near.
Broken glass?
First we had to go dig up the sand......
Really, I suggest buying these children lots of CocaCola
and feeding them sweeetarts for an hour or so, then dragging
them in a hot car as close as you can afterwards making them walk barefoot on hot asphalt to the demonstration site.
They will devour the other protesters in a flash!
As Hillary would say, "we're going to take some things away from you for the greater good".
Can't you feel the love?
Paraphrased, he mentioned that since the dems think this whole terror thing is overblown, and that Osama and his ilk are no threat, the DNC should put their money where their mouth is and remove ALL the security from the Fleet Street convention center.
The funny thing is, regardless of their complaints today, these same people will not think twice about pulling the "D" lever in November.
AND turn down any and all chemical antidote packs. I haven't heard anything about it yet. I assume the RATS accepted that delivery...
If your a property owner in Boston you know there is no such thing as 'free' pools.
The 'Four Yorkshiremen' Sketch.
One little excerpt, though:
"GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
Once again Kerry and Edwards show their concern for the "common" man.
Buckets? You had buckets? We'd have killed to have buckets to haul our water. We used have have to use our cupped hands. Sometimes it took us all night just to get enough to drink let alone fill the dry hole we were supposed to swim in.
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