Eideard

Rep. Barney Frank, the most prominent gay member of Congress, is getting married.

The Democrat, who is retiring from the House at the end of this term, will marry his partner, Jim Ready, in a Massachusetts ceremony. No date has been scheduled and no other details were provided…

Frank, 71, and Ready, 42, have been together since spring of 2007. The congressman told The New York Times in an interview after he announced his retirement that he wanted to spend more time with Ready, a photographer who also owns a business doing custom awnings, carpentry, painting, welding and other handyman services.

In 2007, Ready made headlines when he was arrested for growing marijuana in the backyard of his Maine home. Frank acknowledged in 2009 that he was present at the time of Ready’s arrest. The Boston Globe reported Ready pleaded guilty to civil possession of marijuana, and the charge was later dropped.

Frank, a liberal firebrand known for his quick wit, was first elected to the House in 1980. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank co-authored the most sweeping changes to banking industry regulations since the Great Depression…

There are four openly gay members of Congress, all Democrats: Frank and Reps. Jared Polis of Colorado, David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

Same-sex marriage is legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

That last sentence certainly says something about the most advanced, forward-looking and democratic corner of the country. But, then, the bastion of revolutionary separation from colonial England, the heart and soul of the abolition of slavery – would be expected to do no less than continue the region’s history of support for civil rights.

So, Barney – mazel tov!

Federal civil rights officials announced…they have sent election observers to locations in five states to keep an eye out for potential trouble at the polls Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division dispatched 11 staff attorneys along with 85 trained election observers from the Office of Personnel Management to watch activities at the polls and report any irregularities…

In Mississippi, monitors are being dispatched to four counties, as voters go to the polls in a gubernatorial election to replace Haley Barbour, who is term-limited from running again. The campaign features the white Republican Lieutenant Gov. Phil Bryant and African-American Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, a Democrat. Mississippi political observers say Bryant is a strong favorite to win the election…

The Justice Department has also assigned monitors to Lorain County, Ohio, to protect the rights of Spanish-speaking voters. Last month, the federal government signed an agreement with Lorain County to resolve concerns that limited-English Hispanic voters were being denied their full voting rights because the county failed to provide language assistance as required by law.

In Alameda County, California, the U.S. will monitor voting following an agreement between federal officials and the county in July. The agreement requires Alameda County to provide election materials and information in Spanish and Chinese. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said the agreement “ensures that Alameda County’s Spanish- and Chinese-speaking citizens will be able to cast an effective ballot and successfully participate in the electoral process.”

In Jasper, Texas, racial tensions have run high over the recall election for three African-American city council members responsible for the hiring of the city’s first black police chief.

In Springfield, Massachusetts, activists claim minorities were turned away at the polls in the September primary, and said there was no Spanish-language assistance for voters. Hispanic leaders, the NAACP and ACLU had all urged the Justice Department to travel to Springfield to protect voting rights of all minorities.

Republicans around the country continue to mobilize to deny the franchise to citizens on the basis of ethnicity and language. Nothing new about the practice. Nothing less than bigotry is expected – after all – since the so-called Southern Strategy has never been limited to the South. Or to Black folks alone.

In the hours after the 2008 election of the country’s first African-American president, three white men crept up to a predominantly African-American church being built here in Springfield, Massachusetts, blessed it corruptly with gasoline — and faded into the fresh November night.

Soon the church’s pastor, Bishop Bryant Robinson Jr., was at the crime scene’s flickering edge, weary, saddened. Moments before, he had been anticipating a new chapter in American history, and now here was one page, stuck. He didn’t need an investigation to tell him this was a racist act of arson. He is a black man with snow in his hair; he knew.

As he watched the new home for the Macedonia Church of God in Christ burn to the ground, Bishop Robinson imagined only one response: Rebuild.

Now, nearly three years later, that election night’s crisp air of possibility has all but faded in Washington, where the first African-American president, Barack Obama, struggles with grinding wars, a broken economy and spirit-killing partisanship. But here in Springfield, the smoke has lifted to reveal a new, 20,000-square-foot church standing on top of an old crime scene, its sanctuary walls painted the color of a clear blue sky.

Resting in one of its pews the other day, a silver cane by his side, Bishop Robinson, 74, said that this building on Tinkham Road reflects the ever-unfolding American story of race, in Washington, Springfield, everywhere. “The hatred in our country,” he said. “And the goodness in our country.”

The election night burning of a New England church became national news…Two months after the fire, three white men in their 20s were charged with burning down the church to express their rage at the thought of a black president. Two pleaded guilty, and the third was convicted after trial, in a case that The Republican newspaper of Springfield described as a “blot on the whole city.”

“Unfortunately, it was a confirmation of my experiences as an African-American,” Bishop Robinson said, adding: “My faith teaches me to forgive, and I forgive them. But I cannot be accepting of their behavior. I cannot be victimized by hatred. So I have to move forward.”

How many Americans have not “moved forward”?

I’d rather you RTFA and study the courage and spirit of Bishop Robinson. I’m certain I’d find a number of issues to debate with the gentleman. I’m equally certain I’d be honored to welcome him under my roof.

DA Gerry Leone initiated the cold case program after taking office in 2007

State Police arrested and charged a Holyoke man last night with a 1983 slaying, moving to close an investigation that had been open for 28 years.

The Middlesex district attorney’s office said Shawn Marsh, 46, of Holyoke, had been indicted by a Middlesex grand jury and arrested by State Police in connection with the homicide after evidence against him emerged through new fingerprint testing technology…

The case dates to Aug. 22, 1983, when Malden police, responding to reports of gunshots, found Rodney Wyman, of Simsbury, Conn., suffering from a gunshot wound at the Town Line Motel in Malden. Wyman was rushed to Malden Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Authorities said an immediate investigation into the case yielded no arrests at the time because of a lack of evidence…

The technology, including a national fingerprint identification database, had not been developed at the time of the homicide. The system was launched by the FBI in 1999 and contains the fingerprints, criminal history, and physical description of more than 66 million criminal subjects. It is the largest biometric database in the world…

Authorities alleged that the defendant and another suspect, who has yet to be identified, shot Wyman after breaking into his hotel room with the intention of robbing him.

Bravo. I’m enough of a CSI-freak as it is. But, re-opening and solving cold cases like this one are a special benefit of advances in forensic science.

Former Massachusetts House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for his conviction on political corruption charges, the longest federal sentence handed out to an elected official in Massachusetts history, climaxing a years-long scandal that had captivated the state’s political establishment.

DiMasi’s codefendant, Richard McDonough, a well-known State House lobbyist, was sentenced to seven years in prison for taking part in the conspiracy to help a software company win state contracts in exchange for kickbacks.

US District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf called the sentence appropriate, saying he balanced the ages of both men, 66, and consideration for their families, against the fact that they had betrayed the public’s trust by orchestrating the criminal scheme…

“You and Mr. McDonough devised a scheme to sell your office,’’ the judge told DiMasi, who was forced to stand as Wolf handed out the sentence. “You’re standing here today because you committed what I consider to be, what the law considers to be, a most serious crime…’’

US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said outside the courthouse…“Public corruption is a very, very serious crime, and it has a tremendous amount of impact on the citizens of this Commonwealth and the trust of the public,’’ Ortiz said. “The reality is that the core of this case was simply about how a high, powerful speaker of the House took kickbacks in exchange for using his political position to benefit himself and his friends…’’

In his remarks, Wolf said he was troubled by the fact that DiMasi was the third consecutive House speaker to be convicted in federal court. His predecessors were Thomas Finneran, who was convicted of obstruction of justice, and Charles Flaherty, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion. They did not serve prison sentences.

Some cases come up to legal standard. Some to American political standards. If that’s what they’re called?

The body of a woman who apparently drowned in a state-run swimming pool in Massachusetts remained in the water unnoticed for two days until passersby finally alerted police…

No one reported seeing Marie Joseph, 36, between Sunday and late on Tuesday, when police were called to Veterans Memorial Swimming Pool in a park in southeastern Massachusetts where they found her in the water, Fall River Police Lt. Roger LaFleur said on Thursday.

“There were some individuals who were in the park and who noticed there was a body in the pool and subsequently called police,” LaFleur told Reuters.

Authorities said visitors to the recreational pool on Monday and Tuesday apparently didn’t notice Joseph’s body…

Joseph, a resident of Fall River, a city about 50 miles south of Boston, was last seen at the pool on Sunday. Her belongings were later found there, but she had not been reported missing, police said.

Police Chief Daniel Racine told a news conference Joseph may have had an accident on a water slide at the pool, citing a 9-year-old boy whom she had been taking care of on Sunday. The boy said Joseph accidentally went down the slide and landed on top of him, then went underwater and failed to resurface…

Eeoough!

Eeoough, eeoough!!

UPDATE: Three staffers have been fired for incompetence.

Before the tornado

After – showing tornado track

Satellites provide a lot of useful information and the Landsat 5 satellite captured an image of the long damage track created on June 1, 2011 when a tornado tracked from Springfield to Sturbridge, Mass. An earlier image is now available from 2010 that enables people to more clearly see the damage path the June 2011 twister created on its eastward track.

A Landsat 5 satellite image from October 8, 2010 has been released from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey that shows the area between Springfield and Sturbridge, Mass. where the tornado touched down.

Massachusetts’ technology sector is fueling strong growth, helping the state’s economy expand more than twice as fast as the nation’s in the first three months of this year, the University of Massachusetts reported yesterday.

Global demand for technology products and increased business spending on software and equipment have provided a strong boost in Massachusetts, which has a high concentration of companies that sell high-tech equipment, components, and services, particularly to other businesses…

“It’s the reason we have a stronger economy than the country as a whole,’’ lan Clayton-Matthews said. “We export a lot of science and technology-based goods and services to other countries around the world, especially developing countries like China and India.’’

The global tech boom helped the Massachusetts economy grow at a 4.2 percent annual rate, accelerating from 3.3 percent in the last quarter of 2010, UMass said. The US economy expanded at a 1.8 percent rate in the first quarter, after growing at a 3.1 percent rate the previous period, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.

In March, the state’s 8 percent unemployment rate, though historically high, remained well below the national rate of 8.8 percent.

Reflecting technology’s strength, some Massachusetts companies are fiercely competing for skilled workers, offering cash bounties to find them…

The same is happening on an even larger scale in Silicon Valley. Growth and expansion there requires another 150,000 staff and local sources can’t provide for the situation.

I note this – as I have been for years – that college-level education in one or another arena of technical prowess is what should be recommended to those with any apparent talent, a bent for geek adventure and economics. Ain’t nothing wrong with being overqualified until the right job happens along.

Police responded in force today to a report of a man with a rifle at a mall, evacuating shoppers and calling in a SWAT team as worried workers locked themselves into stores. But it turned out that the man was only carrying an umbrella.

Police said the umbrella, which had a samurai sword-style handle, did look like a rifle, and they didn’t fault those at the Burlington Mall who had reported the man…

“I’d do it all over again if this happened tomorrow,” said Burlington Police Chief Michael Kent, who said about 40 officers responded to the scene from his department, surrounding departments, the State Police and federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement…

Police raced to the mall, blocking off the parking lot as four helicopters hovered in the sky. The North East Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council SWAT team, composed of officers from area communities, was summoned.

Tigges said that once police were inside the building, they were alerted that there was surveillance video of the suspect leaving the Sears store at the mall. Police showed the video to two people who had spotted the man at the Nordstrom store. They confirmed it was the same person, and police were able to determine the object the man was carrying was an umbrella and not a rifle…

State Police also said in a statement that a man had called them to report that he was the person seen in the mall. Troopers and officers went to the area of the nearby Lahey Clinic hospital, where the man worked, and interviewed him, determining he was not a threat…

Chief Kent praised the man, whom he would not identify, saying he had helped to bring the crisis to quicker end by contacting police. “We appreciate that he put an end to it a lot sooner,” he said. The man still has his umbrella.

Yes, this is the mall where they filmed the movie “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

A white man has been convicted of setting fire to a mostly black church in November 2008 to protest Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president.

The arson fire on November 5, 2008, just hours after election results were announced, destroyed the almost-completed Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield, Massachusetts, about 90 miles west of Boston. Several firefighters were slightly injured battling the flames.

Prosecutors argued that Michael Jacques, 26, and two white friends were motivated by racial resentment when they doused the building with gasoline and torched it. The church’s congregation was about 90 percent African American and authorities said the white men wanted to denounce Obama’s victory.

After a three-week trial, the jury in U.S. District Court in Springfield deliberated for nearly three days before finding Jacques, of Springfield, guilty of conspiracy to violate civil rights, religious property damage because of race and damage to religious property by use of fire…

Jacques faces up to 60 years in prison when he is sentenced on September 15, said assistant attorney Paul Smyth, the lead prosecutor in the case.

Two other men charged in the hate crime, Benjamin Haskell and Thomas Gleason, both 24, already have pleaded guilty to similar charges. Haskell was sentenced in November to nine years in federal prison, and Gleason, who testified for the prosecution in the trial, will be sentenced in October…

The church is being rebuilt and is now expected to open later this year, its pastor, Bishop Bryant Robinson, said last month.

Throw away the key.