So…remember a few weeks back I was grousing that there wasn’t enough activity on the local political scene?
Yeah. About that…
Jacob Ferreira, who is running for the State Representative seat currently held by Eric T. Turkington (D – Falmouth), shared with me the fruits of his scouting-the-competition labor. He nosed around with the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office and learned that Roger W. Wey, Daniel J. Larkosh, Catherine O’Brien Bumpus, and Nancy Archer-Martin had all pulled nomination papers.
You may recall I mentioned Mr. Wey and Ms. Bumpus last week, though at the time their candidacy was still in the rumor stage. Mr. Wey is a selectman from Martha’s Vineyard, the director of the Oak Bluffs Senior Center, and a Dukes County Commissioner, while Ms. Bumpus is a Falmouth selectman.
But what of Mr. Larkosh and Ms. Archer-Martin? Well, Mr. Larkosh, another Vineyardian, belongs to the law firm of Larkosh and Jackson (he’s the “Larkosh” half) and ran unsuccessfully for Dukes County Clerk of Courts in 2006. Ms. Archer-Martin is a senior adviser for the education and non-profit search practice at J. Robert Scott and the founder of Educational Management Network, which performed a similar service.
She is also a published author; she co-penned with Jennifer L. Bloom Career Aspirations & Expeditions: Advancing Your Career in Higher Education Administration.
So, add these names to the existing list (which includes Timothy R. Madden of Nantucket and another rumored candidate, Falmouth Selectman Kevin Murphy) and we now have a grand total of seven prospects, and I’m betting that number has yet to top off.
Boy it’s getting crowded. Is my aunt Minnie in here?

But wait! There’s more!
Glenn S. Paré (pronounced parr-AY) announced on Wednesday he would challenge State Representative Jeffrey D. Perry (R – Sandwich) this fall!
Mr. Paré is currently a member of the Sandwich Finance Committee and co-owner of the Salt Meadow Gallery (along with his wife Sharon). He is also the former executive director of the Heritage Museums & Gardens.

But wait! There’s yet still more!
Carey M. Murphy of East Falmouth announced last Thursday he would run as an independent candidate again four-term State Representative Matthew C. Patrick (D – Falmouth)! In a press release faxed to the office – faxed? How quaint! – Mr. Murphy said he would be “an independent voice on Beacon Hill.”
Pardon my cynicism, born of years of cold cruel reality, but isn’t that what every candidate says when they’re running for office? That’s up there with, “I will not accept any donations from special interests.” Someone needs to think up some new campaign clichés.
Mr. Murphy is a three-term Falmouth selectman and, coincidentally, joined the Falmouth Board of Selectmen in 2000, the same year then-Falmouth Selectman Mr. Patrick won the Third Barnstable District state rep race.

How much more more can you stand?
Word is that Mary (Pat) Flynn of Falmouth, a selectman, co-chairman of the town’s Democratic Committee, and former chairman of the Cape Cod Economic Development Council, will indeed run for the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners.
Ms. Flynn’s name had been tentatively attached to both the board of county commissioners and Mr. Turkington’s seat, but looks like she’s decided to take a shot at the former.
I’ve personally seen nothing in the way of formal announcements, but other sources say Thomas P. Bernardo of Chatham, Sheila V. Lyons of Wellfleet, and J. Gregory Milne of Barnstable are also in the race for sure…and all jockeying for the open seat currently occupied by Mary J. LeClair, who is stepping down at the end of her current term.
One could infer Mr. Bernardo is official as his 2006 campaign website has been updated.
Sort of.
Okay, he changed a couple of dates to be 2008-compliant. The rest is the same stuff that was on there two years ago.

PS: Did you know Ms. Lyons spoke before the Sandwich Democratic Town Committee on Monday? Me neither. Boy, sure would have been nice if someone had told me about that. What with me having this nifty column for announcing political events and all.
Yep. Would’ve been nice.

At the risk of jinxing myself with more work down the road, I’d like to point out that no one has announced their intention to run against Congressman William D. Delahunt, Senate President Therese Murray, State Senator Robert A. O’Leary (D – Barnstable), or State Representative Susan D. Williams Gifford (R – Wareham).
Thinking about taking a shot at public office yourself? Then you’d better get on the ball, because completed nomination papers are due by April 29.
Papers are available locally at the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s southeastern district office in Fall River. Go to the Elections Devision website for more information about the process.

Did you happen to catch Jeffrey K. Beatty on Sunday’s “Keller at Large” segment on WBZ-TV? If not, give it a look-see.
Mr. Beatty, a Harwich Republican, is one of five people setting their sites on US Senator John F. Kerry this fall. If you’d like to learn more, hit his official campaign website (and groove to its recent and much-needed facelift).
On the topic of campaign websites…

Check it out! The first new campaign websites of 2008! And they both belong to the Republican ladies running for Barnstable County Register of Probate: Priscilla J. Young and Anastasia Welsh Perrino.
By the way, Ms. Young is holding her official campaign kick-off event on Thursday, April 3 at Sam Diego’s in Hyannis (a superb choice, madam! I love that place). It runs from 5 PM to 7 PM, and if you’d like more information, shoot an e-mail to ElectPriscillaYoung@comcast.net

Speaking of campaign events, Mr. Perry is officially kicking off his re-election campaign this evening at the Sandwich Hollows Golf Club this evening from 6 PM to 8 PM.
As a bonus, Jim Ogonowski, one of the aforementioned five people planning a run against Kerry, is planning to stop in.
As a better bonus than a candidate for one office piggybacking onto another’s event, Mr. Perry is collecting goods to send to troops serving overseas. He’s asking that everyone attending tonight’s event bring an item in support of “Cape Cod Cares For Our Troops,” a Brewster-based non-profit organization that sends weekly care packages to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the needed items are personal care/hygiene products, batteries, current new magazines, travel games, playing cards, trail mix, gum, and mints. Hit the website for more information.

Hey, remember a few paragraphs ago when I said someone needs to think up some new campaign clichés? Well, let’s have some fun with that! If you have a funny political slogan or platitude for the age of modern politics, e-mail it to me or post it as a response to this post.
Entries will be judged on originality and wittiness, and bonus points will be awarded if you can give it a local spin. I’ll choose the best one next week and I’ll personally present the grand prize winner with a free cup of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, or Coffee Obsession (look, people, I’m not made of money…)
Political news, events, and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net

All righty, looks like the casino bill is dead as the proverbial dodo. Let the recriminations begin!
And by that I mean, keep your ears pricked up for any passive aggressiveness on the part of Governor Deval Patrick aimed squarely at Sal DiMasi. The casino bill was Patrick’s baby, quite potentially his legacy, the accomplishment that would inspire his supporters to dip him in bronze that we might admire his image in statue form for years to come.
Kid yourselves not, o readers — DiMasi was the unabashed architect of this bill’s destruction, and I would be surprised if Patrick did not let us all know it. He’ll predict financial doom for the state. He’ll make not-so-offhanded remarks about how casino revenue could have averted the Crisis du Jour, served piping hot with a side of I Told You So. Every tax hike (of both the straightforward and “fee” variety), every budget cut, every program elimination, every state job hacked away like gangrenous flesh, all will be haunted by the ghost of the casinos that never were.
Yes, Patrick might take the high road and move on to an economic stimulus plan that’s most agreeable to everyone, like renewable energy or life sciences, but this is Sal DiMasi we’re talking about, and those two chaps simply do not get along. I cannot shake the feeling DiMasi’s opposition was born as much out of a driving desire to decisively scuttle something so near and dear to Patrick as any genuine concerns about what casinos would do to (rather than for) the state. Why wouldn’t Patrick take at least a few parting shots?

I’ve been told that the Patrick/DiMasi conflict is a clash of working styles, not personalities. Patrick comes from a business background and likes to run things in such a wise, whereas DiMasi is pure politician, so of course they’re going to be at odds.
Yet many have claimed that DiMasi is really just Tom Finneran Lite. Finneran ran a very tight ship, so tight that complaints that he stifled productive debate on issues he didn’t personally cotton to were commonplace. He was a back-room dealmaker. A fellow who put the bully in bully pulpit.
The gripes I’ve heard attached to DiMasi are similar, if diluted. He’s the guy who shoehorned a provision allowing wind farm development in state ocean sanctuaries into an ocean management bill when it got kicked out of the Green Communities Act he authored. Quoth State Representative Matt Patrick: “This was the Speaker’s way of saying, ‘Okay, you don’t like the amendment in the Green Communities Act, so I’ll amend to Ocean Management Act’…He’s going to get it in somewhere.”
Whatever Lola wants Lola gets, I guess. Now let’s sit back and see what happens when Governor Patrick tries to advance his proposal for closing corporate tax loopholes…which DiMasi also opposes.

Now, this isn’t all to say that I mourn the loss of casino gaming in Massachusetts. I don’t gamble myself, and it’s not just because I’m terrible at it (though that certainly is an incentive to avoid it). I simply don’t find it fun or relaxing, not one whit. I understand that other folks do, and if that’s their particular groove, then hey, let the good times roll.
What I cannot buy into is the notion of building the state’s gleaming financial future on human vice. Patrick predicted that the gaming revenue alone — as in, the money people will blow just on gambling and not all the other ballyhooed amenities these “destination casinos” were to offer – would generate in the neighborhood of $50 million a year.
To put this in some sort of graspable context: the US Census Bureau’s latest estimates state there are 4.98 million adults in Massachusetts, and to generate $50 million, each of those adults would have to spend $10.
I’m not going to get into the math of this — I became a writer to avoid math, thank you very much — but I think we all know very well not everyone in Massachusetts is a casino patron, which means that fewer people will be chipping in much larger portions of that $50 million — which, in turn, represents only a portion of the gaming revenue (for sake of comparison: Foxwoods gives Connecticut 25 percent of just its slot machine revenue, which came in at $200 million in 2007).

I guess my point in a nutshell is: the casino bill was, pun intended, betting on the compulsions of the few to provide a better life for the many. As a wise Vulcan once said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but taking such a harshly pragmatic approach in this case feels like we’re cheapening ourselves as a society.
I also can’t agree with the angle some people are pitching, that all we’d do in opening our own casinos is recoup a goodly portion of the money currently flowing into neighboring states. The Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth stated in its 2007 New England Casino Gaming Update that Massachusetts residents squandered $1.1 billion at gaming establishments in Connecticut, Maine, and Rhode Island. They spent in 2006 an estimated $876 million at the two Connecticut casinos alone, accounting for 35 percent of Foxwoods’ patrons and 21 percent of Mohegan Sun patrons.
Sure, it’d be great that if all this money stayed in-house, but is the best sales pitch really, “All the cool kids are doing it, why can’t we?”
There are better solutions. We just need our elected officials to use their imaginations to come up with something more creative than soaking gullible residents or shifting even more of the burden onto Joe Average in order to protect their corporate sugar daddies.

We’re screwed, aren’t we?

Ray Gottwald, who sits on the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, has the inside track on the race for the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners.
Last week in his blog, Mr. Gottwald dropped many a name in connection with the race, which has one open seat, currently occupied by Mary J. LeClair (Commissioner Lance W. Lambros is running for re-election, but you can bet no one is going to try and bump him off when there’s a convenient vacancy to fill).
On the list of prospects, according to Mr. Gottwald:

• Thomas P. Bernardo of Chatham, a former member of the Assembly who last ran for the county board in 2006 (he lost to William Doherty) and State Rep. Demetrius Atsalis’s aide
• Mary (Pat) Flynn of Falmouth, a selectman, co-chairman of the town’s Democratic Committee, and former chairman of the Cape Cod Economic Development Council
• Sheila V. Lyons of Wellfleet, a first-term member of the Assembly
• J. Gregory Milne, a Barnstable town councilor and another former county commissioner candidate (from 2002)
• Ricardo M. Barros of Centerville, who ran against State Senator Robert A. O’Leary (D – Barnstable) in 2006
• Brad Crowell of Dennis, member of the Cape Cod Commission and that body’s former chairman
• Troy Clarkson of Falmouth, a former selectman

Can you imagine if all of these people confirmed their candidacy? It’d be just like WrestleMania!
Except, you know, without the excitement.
If he does indeed run, Mr. Bernardo would have the edge, primarily due to his extensive experience in county government from the Assembly side of things; he served with the county’s legislative branch from 1997 to 2006. He also has a knack for garnering loyal supporters, which would help his campaign, particularly here on the Upper Cape where he’s not as familiar a name.
And consider that two of the three sitting commissioners – Mr. Lambros and Mr. Doherty – are themselves former members of the Assembly. Mr. Doherty’s predecessor, Roland Dupont, was also a delegate before he was a commissioner.
BLOG BONUS!
“Bernardo? Really?”
That’s the response I got to the above remarks, followed by “You don’t think Pat Flynn?”
I have to stand by my initial assessment; I think Bernardo has more name recognition across more of the Cape than Ms. Flynn, despite her time on the county’s EDC. And, from what I know about Bernardo, he’s got one more things going for him: he knows how to play the political game. He can talk a good fight.
You think I’m crazy? You have a different take? Well, there’s a handy link at the bottom of this post that allows you to leave a comment, so use it.

It begins! We have our first new candidate for State Representative of the Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket District following Eric T. Turkington’s (D – Falmouth) announcement he is not running for re-election!
Timothy R. Madden of Nantucket has filed his paperwork with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance and is now set to start raising funds for his campaign. He does not list a party affiliation, much like the first candidate to officially enter the race: Jacob Ferreira of Vineyard Haven, who filed his paperwork with the OCPF prior to Mr. Turkington’s announcement.
Mr. Madden is a former Nantucket selectman and the Mr. Turkington’s legislative liaison to the Island.
Another Vineyardite (Vineyardian?) on the short list of prospects is Roger W. Wey, an Island selectman, director of the Oak Bluffs Senior Center, and Dukes County Commissioner.
Although nothing is official, the aforementioned Ms. Flynn has also been mentioned as a possible contender for Mr. Turkington’s state rep seat, as has fellow Falmouth Selectman Catherine O’Brien Bumpus.

It’s a slow week, so time to check in with some of our third party Presidential hopefuls.
There’s quite the field of Libertarians out there, including one local bloke: George Phillies of Worcester, who is the party’s state chairman. Among the usual favorite campaign topics – the war in Iraq, the economy, energy and the environment – Mr. Phillies is vowing to make the Libertarian Party stronger by “investing in real advertising.”
Admit it, that’s a pretty big step for a Libertarian candidate. That’s like a Neanderthal vowing to invest more time in creating fire (he said, expecting at least one angry e-mail for that particular analogy).
Who else is out there?

• Jim Burns of Nevada, the state’s former party chairman and, according to Politics1.com, a “frequent candidate” (never a good tag to have pinned on you)
• Dave Hollist of California, a bus driver and – there it is again – a “frequent [Libertarian Party] Presidential hopeful”
• Dan Imperato of Florida, a businessman who offers something unusual on his campaign website: a look at his family coat of arms…

…because that’s what this race is lacking: heraldry
• Bob Jackson of Michigan, business owner, professional engineer, and Eagle Scout
• Mike “Jingo” Jingozian – and you though Huckabee was a funny name – a software company founder from Oregon
• Steve Kubby of California, a marijuana activist and dead wringer for Conrad Veidt (look him up)
• Alden Link of New York, a manufacturing exec
• Robert Milnes of New Jersey, whose website, for reasons I can’t fathom, asks visitors if they would vote for a guy who smokes medicinal marijuana, suffers from depression, has Alzheimer’s, suffers from macular degeneration, or uses drugs recreationally
• Wayne Allyn Root of Nevada, a sports handicapper (aroo?) and TV host, who posted on his website an endorsement from TV producer Burt Dubrow, who discovered Sally Jesse Raphael and Jerry Springer (double aroo?)
• Christine Smith of Colorado, an author, political activist, and self-described humanitarian

BLOG BONUS THE SECOND!
“At 11am on Tuesday Obama spoke to Americans about race as though they were adults.”

Political news, events, and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net

I know I usually start off with Presidential developments, but this week I have some momentous local news (at last!).
As you may have read last week, State Representative Eric T. Turkington (D – Falmouth) will not seek re-election this year, and will instead run for the Barnstable County Register of Probate. The current register, Frederic P. Claussen, is retiring at the end of his term after nearly 40 years of service.
Trivia time, the first! Mr. Claussen is the state’s longest-serving Republican elected official (he believes outgoing County Commissioner Mary J. LeClair is the runner-up for that title), and is one of only five individuals to hold the post since 1918.
In a brief interview with Mr. Claussen last week, he said he first approached several fellow Republicans about running as his successor, and when that yielded no results, turned to Mr. Turkington because of his extensive experience as a lawyer.
Two people are already lined up to claim the Republican nomination for register: Anastasia W. Perrino of South Dennis and Priscilla J. Young of Pocasset, both of whom are assistant registers. Trivia time, the second! Ms. Young is the only person to ever challenge Mr. Claussen; she did so in 2002 but lost in the primaries.
Now, as you may recall from last week’s column (which went to press before Mr. Turkington dropped his bombshell), Jacob Ferreira of Vineyard Haven had filed his paperwork with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance and is now the sole formal candidate for Mr. Turkington’s House seat.
Expect that to change, soon and in a big way. When an incumbent steps down, especially a well-established sort like Mr. Turkington, the flood gates open and the wannabe heir apparents come a-gushin’ forth.

In case you missed the story in Tuesday’s Falmouth edition, I urge readers to hie thee hither to Coffee Obsession in Woods Hole to check out a new exhibition featuring satirical mock movie posters starring this year’s Presidential candidates.
The posters are the work of Falmouth High School graphic arts students under the guidance of their teacher John Holladay, so go and support these young rabble-rousers. They’re my kinda folk: artistic, politically minded, and snarky.

And now, onto the Presidential race, where US Senator Barack Obama slowed any further momentum from US Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
As you’ll recall last week, Clinton derailed Obama’s 11-state winning streak and nailed three much-needed wins in last Tuesday’s Mini-Super Tuesday. However, she was unable to keep that up and dropped Saturday’s Wyoming Democratic caucus on Saturday, taking only four of the 11 available delegates.
That put Obama at a 99-delegate lead going into Tuesday’s primaries in Mississippi, where he extended that lead further. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting in as I write this, Obama received 61 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 37 percent, so the delegate split is 17 and 11.
The next primary, in Pennsylvania, isn’t until April 22, so until then we’ll just have to amuse ourselves with Obama and Clinton’s staffers, supporters, and hangers-on saying inflammatory things about the opposition to the press, then seeing how quickly they get thrown under the wheels of the bus.

Speaking of buses, US Senator John “Straight Talk Express” McCain – okay, that was a flat segue, I admit it – got some wonderful news indeed when former Massachusetts governor, former Presidential candidate, and current shameless self-huckster W. Mitt Romney said in an interview Tuesday that he would “honored” to serve as McCain’s running mate if asked.
Not that he’s trying to plant the seed in anyone’s mind, of course. Not that he’s making a transparent and pathetic attempt to salvage the train wreck of his political career and weasel his way into the VP slot so he can build a support base for a future Presidential run, no no. He’s just sayin’ is all.
This is the political equivalent of the playground sad sack offering the coolest kid in school a quarter to be his friend.
What frightens me is that McCain, who I consider a fairly reasonable man, will take Romney up on his not-so-offhand offer to give him more cred with the uber-conservatives who would rather have someone less moderate as their candidate.

Reminder! State Representative Jeffrey D. Perry’s (R – Sandwich) official campaign kick-off event is coming up! That’s at the Sandwich Hollows Golf Club on Friday, March 28 from 6 PM to 8 PM. The evening’s special guest is Bradley H. Jones Jr. (R – North Reading), House minority leader. Campaign donations will be gladly accepted at the door.
For more information, visit Mr. Perry’s official website, call 508-888-3094, or write to the Committee to Elect Jeffrey Perry, PO box 1435, Sandwich, MA 02563.

Here’s a contest of a different sort: which Cape politician has the most egregiously out-of-date website? Our contenders are State Senator Robert A. O’Leary (D – Barnstable) and State Representative Susan D. Williams Gifford (R – Wareham).
Well, actually this is an easy one. Ms. Gifford’s site does still list the “upcoming” fifth anniversary of 9/11 (that happened 16 months ago, FYI), and the press release section hasn’t been updated since February, but that’s a far cry from Mr. O’Leary’s site, which doesn’t look like it’s been touched at all since the 2006 campaign.
If the Internet had tumbleweeds, I’d fully expect to see them blowing across Mr. O’Leary’s homepage.
A word of advice to anyone thinking of running for office this year: no website is better than a lame website.

Political news, events, and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the art of protest is dead, dead, deader than disco dead…or at the very least in the grip of some entertaining yet disturbing death throes.
Consider as evidence the whimsy on display at Monday’s Cape Cod Wind Farm hearing in Yarmouth.
The tone of the pre-show was set neatly as I entered the school’s front parking lot and saw, sprawled across two spaces, the neon pink “Buffoonery Bus” belonging to “Clown Around Town” (a reputable local business, I hasten to add). I know not whether the C.A.T. folks were just there as ordinary concerned citizens and managed to score some prime real estate before the rest of the property became choked with cars — people were forced to park along Higgins Crowell Road after the lots filled up — or were there with greater purpose.
One could infer an answer to that question upon spying the cluster of costumed rabble-rousers hanging out in front of the school. There they were: two sea captains, a scuba diver…

what I assume was some sort of shellfisherman, and a pirate — yes, I said a pirate — holding signs and chanting, “Great idea, bad location!”

I reckon if the Village People had originated on Cape Cod, they’d have looked something like this bunch:

I never did find out who they were. Truth be told, they scared the hell out of me and I didn’t want to go near them.

Behind them was an essential part of public protesting: pizza and coffee, served tailgating style. Yes, nothing fuels righteous political indignation like grease and caffeine (they’re two of the four food groups, along with sugar and booze).

As I stood there dutifully photographing this rather Dadaist spectacle, I bumped into Ron Bergstrom, who sits on the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates. He observed, with an almost Wildean air of dry understatement: “They’re definitely colorful.”

I stuck around to watch as the anti-wind farm people wrestled with a strange bundle the size of hay bale which, as it unfurled, I realized was a banner.
A big banner.
No, make that a huge banner.
No, make that a @?!*&$! huge banner. Like Paul Bunyan would use this thing as a cravat for fancy dinner parties.

“What are they trying to do?” I asked to no one in particular. “Give the spy satellites something to look at?”
Spy satellites and perhaps any passing aircraft would be the only ones that could appreciate the mainsail-sized banner, which (I eventually learned) read “Nantucket Sound is not renewable.” Nevertheless, the banner handlers tried their level best to do something with it, even if that something was the rather juvenile act of using it as a fluttery blue blind that obscured the pro-wind farm picketers from the view of the many nearby news cameras.

At one point, they got an ironic assist from a stiff breeze that inflated the banner and lifted it off the ground, giving people a good if fleeting look at its message. One of the Clean Power Now blokes shouted out with impeccable timing, “Thank God for wind power!”
Petard, meet hoisting.

By the time the start of the hearing came around, both sides had resorted to simple-minded chants. The Peninsula People (I call trademark on the name!) had taken their show on the road; to be more precise, they’d take it off the driveway and onto a side walkway to assail latecomers as they entered. Pity the poor lollygagger, who paid for their tardiness by having to run a gauntlet of rhythmic slogans, picket signs, and volunteers all but forcing their literature into their targets’ hands.

I think teenagers have entered abortion clinics with less hassle.
Once past the Klingon Rite of Ascension, the public was greeted by the time-tested chant of, “What do we want?…When do we want it?” thanks to the Clean Power posse.
(By the way, the answers are, respectively, “Clean power!” and “Now!” These will be on the test.)

Having had my fill of tomfoolery, shenanigans, and ballyhoo outside, I wandered inside in a vain quest to find some dignity and respect, self- or otherwise. Boy, was that a colossal failure.
The proceedings rolled along nicely for a while, then as the night progressed and tempers flared, speakers were treated to the same sad behavior I’ve seen at the one hundred seventy-three past wind farm hearings I’ve attended*: boos, catcalls, and angry words hurled at anyone having the audacity to state a personal opinion. This, despite moderator Chris Moore’s call for respectful behavior.
This phase of the meeting, which I call The Ornery Phase, climaxed when a fellow named Luke Olivieri took to the mic and violated four of the cardinal sins of public hearings:

1) Straying off-topic
2) Making personal attacks
3) Ignoring whatever time limits have been set
4) Ignoring the moderator

Much of his diatribe was not focused on the Minerals Management Services’ whopping draft environmental impact statement on the wind farm, that which brought us all to this particular herky-jerky dance, but instead on the superior benefits of harnessing tidal energy. Off-topic.
Olivieri returned to the wind farm long enough to call the gents from Cape Wind “callous executives.” “Shame on you!” he shouted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Personal attack.
When the red light popped up to signify the end of his time, Olivieri kept right on a-rantin’…I think this is because he had deliberately turned his back to the stage so he couldn’t see it. Ignoring time limits.
Then Dr. Moore attempted to intercede, even as the crowd began shouting, “TIME!”, and Olivieri, he kept right on a-rantin’. Ignoring the moderator.
Then, for his encore, he informed the audience that it was rude of them to interrupt his speech.
That’s class, ladies and gentlemen.

But oh, such displays of arrogance are still more high-minded by the horror that followed. Yes, I speak of faux-impromptu song parodies. One of the speakers regaled the audience — who evidently had much lower standards for quality entertainment than I — with self-penned ditties that copped The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun” and “Revolution,” the latter tune complete with simulated fuzz-tone electric guitar noises.
Could it possibly get any worse? I wondered.
YES! Yes it could, for lo, there was an encore, courtesy of John Bussier from WindStop.org, who recreated John Cusack’s classic moment in “Say Anything“…which I must say is far less impressive with an iPod and a portable docking station and a folksy wind farm protest ditty flowing forth instead of “In Your Eyes.”
Singing? Musical serenades?! What next, interpretive dance? Mime? Sock puppets?
That’s it, I’m out of here.

The evening lingered in my mind like a particularly bizarre dream. Did I truly witness all that? Was it real?
Oh, I had and it was, and the realization saddened me. Is this what the art of public protest had become? Gaudy, garish spectacle punctuated by surreal, self-humiliating displays and angry rhetoric? People simply trying too hard to get attention and be heard over the other guys? And what of public activism in general? Was it now nothing more than two sides slinging mud at one another with no effort given to trying to communicate facts and ideas, not only to us poor dopes on the sidelines watching in shock and dismay, but to their ostensible opponents?
I received a press release from the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound yesterday. It read, in part:

“Thanks to all of you [Save Our Sound] supporters, we OWNED the Yarmouth hearing last night. Over 1,000 people attended the meeting, and 3/4 of them wore SOS lanyards in support of our cause to stop Cape Wind and protect the future of Nantucket Sound.”

Why anyone would want to claim ownership of that evening is beyond me.

* - Pure hyperbole. I’ve only been to fifty-eight.

Today marks the beginning of a new semi-regular feature here, which will one day have a much wittier title than “The Court of English,” but for now, it’ll serve.
The purpose of this feature is to educate readers by spotlighting boneheaded mistakes in spelling, grammar, and punctuation in a public setting. On today’s docket: this bumper sticker, which I saw on the back of a car parked outside the Barnstable County court complex in Barnstable Friday morning.

The offense: apostrophe abuse.
The evidence: the purpose of this bumper sticker is to, one would surmise, illustrate the owner’s pride in the New England Patriots. However, the misplaced apostrophe changes the meaning; taken literally, it now means, “Beware the fan of the Patriot.” Is this person referring to the overblown Mel Gibson movie? The obscure WWE wrestler? The Marvel Comics character?
The correction: Removing the apostrophe would be best, but even nudging the apostrophe over one letter to the right would work; that would indicate the fan belongs to the plural Patriots, not the singular Patriot.
The sentence: In the off-chance the owner of this sticker — or a similar one, for that matter — should see this, the punishment is to pass on the next New England Patriots-related purchase you plan to make, be it a jersey or tickets or memorabilia, and spend that money purchasing copies of Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation and donate them to a local school or library.
Court is adjourned.

Ernest Gary Gygax - July 27, 1938 to March 4, 2008
The name Gary Gygax probably means jack-all to most of my readers, but if you know the name, then you know its significance, and you know of Gygax’s recent passing at age 69.
For the uninitiated, Gary Gygax created “Dungeons & Dragons,” the game that introduced many a youngster the weird world of role-playing games, in which players assume the role of a character they create, then gad about a Tolkienesque fantasy world exploring underground catacombs, slaying hellspawned monsters, and collecting scads of gold and magical gewgaws.

This is all accomplished with little more than a few books, a pre-fabricated game scenario, some notebook paper, and a handful of funky dice.

Or it was, rather; nowadays the RPG is more likely to be found on a video game console or computer than on a tabletop, though those versions still exist and are, for my money, superior in every way.
It may be hard to understand the appeal of sitting around in a pal’s kitchen or basement with a bunch of friends, scarfing down very unhealthy amounts of soda and Doritos and Domino’s pizza, and pretending you’re a mighty armor-clad warrior in a strange land where even the trees could kill and eat you under the proper circumstances…yet, if you were one of those kids, as I was, you understand the appeal just fine. It’s nothing that can be explained, only experienced.
I was but a wee lad, a student in the Morse Pond School, when I was first introduced to the game by a friend. The scenario was “The Keep on the Borderlands,” which I think at the time was the scenario that every new inductee experienced on their first D&D outing. It was a straightforward adventure, representative of the game as a whole: venture into a big maze, kill lots of things, score lots of treasure, get out with your rumps intact.

No surprise, Mr. Gygax wrote the module himself.
Admittedly, I did not get the game at all the first time out. To my narrow way of thinking, a proper game had a board and little plastic pieces you moved around said board, and used nice, normal six-sided dice. You moved around the perimeter of the board accomplishing mundane tasks. You tried to beat the other players, not work with them.
Then there were the many befuddling details of the game’s mechanics…

DUNGEON MASTER: Okay, Mike, you enter a ten-foot-by-ten-foot.
ME: Okay.
DM: What do you do?
ME: Uh…look around?
DM: You look around the room, but it’s pretty dark. What race are you?
ME: Huh?
FRIEND: You’re a human. It’s right there (He points to my character sheet, indicating where I scribbled “Race – Human” not a half-hour ago when I created the character)
ME: Oh.
DM: Okay, you don’t see anything.
FRIEND: I’m an elf, so I’ll use my infravision to look around.
ME: Your what?
DM: You see a warm shape in the corner. It’s not moving.
FRIEND: It may be a kobold.
ME: A what?
FRIEND: Mike, draw your sword in case it attacks.
ME: Uh, okay. I draw my sword.
FRIEND: I take one of my plus-one darts and throw it at the shape.
DM: What’s your dex?
FRIEND: Seventeen, so I have a plus two to hit, plus my plus-one for the dart.
ME: Wait, what’s going on?
DM: Roll a d20.
FRIEND: (Rolls the twenty-sided dice, which looks a lot like a golf ball in its larval stage) Arright, natural twenty! Critical hit!
DM: I don’t do critical hits.
FRIEND: What? Ray does criticals.
ME: What’s a critical hit?
DM: Yeah, but I don’t, so you don’t get a critical, you just get a normal d4 for damage plus the magical bonus, so roll damage.
FRIEND: All right.
ME: Would someone tell me –?
FRIEND: Just be ready to swing at whatever it is if it charges. And don’t hit me!
DM: Just so you know, Mike, you won’t get any dexterity bonuses because it’s dark, unless you have blind-fighting, and you’re encumbered because of your armor, so you’ll be rolling your to-hit at a minus two penalty.
ME: I’m confused…

This is what I called fun.
For many years, I called it fun. Once I wrapped my brain around the concept, then the rules, then all the addenda to the rules that popped up over the years, I became a D&D fiend. I bought all the books. I played with my friends as often as possible, even sneaking in quickie sessions during study hall (D&D was seriously frowned upon by the teachers; in my youth, Dungeons & Dragons was the Bad Influence of the day…you can find it on the “Things That Are Corrupting Our Children” timeline between comic books and heavy metal music).
My D&D fervor waned in the years immediately following high school graduation as my life went into a period of heavy flux (as often happens to newly minted adults) but, unlike other childhood possessions, I clung to my D&D materials, expecting one day to return to the World of Greyhawk and renew my fight against all things evil and slimy (and I mean that last part literally…you ever encounter a green slime or a gelatinous cube? They’re annoying as hell).
That return coincided with my return to Falmouth from the wilds of New Jersey (that’s another story) as I reunited with other high school chums who had yet to escape the Cape’s clutches and, soon enough, found myself once again sitting around a table, eating junk food and rolling dice. Aside from the fact we now quaffed ice cold beers instead of soda, it felt as though nothing had changed.
It’s been a long time since I picked up a d20, but the impact of Dungeons & Dragons on my life is evident everywhere I look. It fired my imagination off into bizarre directions and eventually evolved into a desire to become a writer that I might share the tales that develop, frequently and sometimes unbidden, in my brain. It led me to get involved with the equally nutty and spiritually similar world of renaissance faires, which in turn brought me more great friends than I ever thought I’d have and the best wife a guy could ask for.
Dungeons & Dragons did not, despite the unfounded fears that initially surrounded the game, drive me insane (like it did to Tom Hanks in the TV-movie adaptation of Rona Jaffe’s Mazes and Monsters). It did not turn me into a loser utterly disconnected with the real world, the stereotypical man-child neo-nerd that has never known the touch of a woman or, thanks to his nigh-hermitic residence in his parents’ basement, direct sunlight.
Dungeons & Dragons did not ruin me; Dungeons & Dragons made me.
It never occurred to me to thank Gary Gygax for this gift. I hope, despite his passing, it isn’t too late to correct my grievous oversight.
So: thanks, Gary. Thank you so very much.

What a great vacation! I did almost nothing productive, unless you count getting up off the couch to change DVDs in the player.
Nothing much major happened on the Presidential primary scene last week, unless you count Hillary Clinton trying to soften her image through good-natured self-mockery on “Saturday Night Live”…

…or Barack Obama once again responding to asinine “accusations” that he’s a closet Muslim.
On that latter point I must say: if he is a Muslim, so what? Are we really so small-minded that the idea of having a President that is (gasp!) of a non-Christian faith is just cause to reject him outright? Grow up, people.

This week marked what many pundits called Mini-Super Tuesday or Super Tuesday Junior — I just called it Regular Tuesday because I’m lazy — when Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont held their primaries, the last biggish batch of elections for the rest of the year.
US Senator John McCain locked up the Republican nomination with wins in all four states, and that puts him at a strategic advantage since Obama and Clinton, who are still running neck-and-neck, have to waste time and resources on each other instead of being able to focus on McCain.
And yeah, the two Democrats are in a virtual dead heat. Clinton, who needed some big wins to stay viable, got them when she took Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas. Obama still leads in the delegate count, but only by an 86 delegate margin, and we still have 10 primaries and Democratic caucuses between now and June.

Granted, Clinton’s showing Tuesday was important in light of Obama’s 11-state winning streak, but Wyoming is holding its Democratic caucus tomorrow, and Mississippi is holding its primaries Tuesday. Losses there could easily undo Clinton’s mini-surge of momentum.

And now, a moment of silence for the valiant Mike Huckabee who, despite earlier claims he was in the race for the long haul, dropped out after McCain crossed the magical 1,191 delegate threshold.

“I extend my congratulations – and my commitment to John McCain and the Party – to do everything possible to unite our party and our nation, to be the best country we can be, not for ourselves, but for future generations,” Huckabee said in a statement to the media. “It’s now important that we turn our attention, not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but what to now must be, and that is a united party.”
PS: Ron Paul? Still in the race. Mike Gravel? Still in the race. No, I don’t know why they’re bothering.

Great googily-moogily, we have a new local candidate at last!
According to the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance website, a gent by the name of Jacob Ferreira of Vineyard Haven has filed has paperwork as a candidate for State Representative of the Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket District, a.k.a. Eric T. Turkington’s turf.
Mr. Ferreira did not list a party affiliation with his paperwork, which clears the way for him to begin collecting campaign donations, which he’ll need against Mr. Turkington; the incumbent’s most recent filing with the OCPF showed that he has more than $76,000 sitting in his war chest.

Even though this isn’t quite in our neck of the woods, I feel compelled to mention that the OCPF lists another newcomer to the local political scene, and this chap is running for the under-loved Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates: Mark Lohan of Yarmouth.
A quick Google search showed that Mr. Lohan sits on a library planning committee and the town’s recreation commission. That’s not much of a résumé, and he’ll need every advantage he can get considering who he will be running against: Charlotte Striebel, who is marking her 10th year on the assembly. Ms. Streibel served as the deputy speaker from 2001 to 2004, and is the current speaker of the assembly.
Nevertheless, kudos to Mr. Lohan for taking a shot at the assembly, and here’s hoping more candidates will follow.

But wait, there’s more! A Marstons Mills man is getting involved in one of the more under-reported political contests in a given cycle, the race for governor’s councilor of the first district. Oliver P. Cipollini Jr. filed his paperwork with the OCPF on Monday, and in doing so further shames the Cape political scene…I mean, really, we have fresh faces running for governor’s council and register of probate but only ONE new guy taking a shot at the Legislature?
Anyway. According to Mr. Cipollini’s entry on the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth Alumni Association website, he graduated from that school in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, then obtained his master’s degree in agency counseling from Rhode Island College. His professional résumé lists him as a retired clerk-magistrate with the Barnstable County Juvenile Court.
Further digging revealed that he is a former candidate for Barnstable’s charter commission. Even further nosing about found an introductory campaign speech in a most unusual place: as a response to blogger Gary Lopez’s post about alleged shady goings-on attached to the aforementioned charter commission election.
I won’t repeat the speech here (you’ll have to go here for that – scroll down a bit and you’ll see it) but I will say: it had absolutely nothing to do with the post topic, so Mr. Cipollini is also apparently a member of the Non-Sequitur Club of America – Cape Cod Chapter.
Political news, events, and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net

(This is the latest entry in a semi-regular feature at Snark-Infested Waters, where I point out things that should be really obvious but, somehow, are not.)

“Irregardless” is not a word.
I know it makes you feel all brainy and stuff, to pepper “irregardless” into your speech, especially when you’re attempting to make a point during a debate or discussion, but it makes you sound like a dolt who didn’t pay attention in English past grade six.
When you use the proper word, regardless, as in “regardless of what you think…”, what you are saying is, “Without taking into account what you think” or, more succinctly, “In spite of what you think.”
When you add the prefix “ir-” to it, you cause the rest of the word to become a negative (e.g., irreversible, irresponsible). Therefore, if you say “irregardless of what you think,” what you are effectively saying is, “Taking into account what you think” or, more succinctly, “Considering what you think,” which is contrary to your intent.

I know fans of the English language will argue that that English is a sort of living entity that constantly grows and evolves, and we should make allowances for “irregardless” to enter the lexicon, but this non-word is not evolution; it is dumb people trying to sound smart, and by failing to correct them, by letting their linguistic offense slide, we are empowering the dumb and contributing to the society that has given birth to the MCAS and No Child Left Behind and other government mandates that tell us, in essence, “Stop being so stupid. You’re making us look bad in front of Canada. And Britain. And China. And Japan. And…”

I promised something special for this week’s column, and those of you who frequent my blog may have already seen it: a new feature I’ve dubbed “Political SoundBytes,” short videos featuring candidates for office making their appeal for your support this fall.
State Representative Jeffrey D. Perry (R – Sandwich) was kind enough to be my test subject, and his SoundByte is now available for viewing on my blog (one post down, as a matter of fact!). I’ll be adding more videos as I corner other candidates in the coming weeks and months.

Speaking of Mr. Perry, remember that his official campaign kick-off event is next month. That’s at the Sandwich Hollows Golf Club on Friday, March 28 from 6 PM to 8 PM. The evening’s special guest is Bradley H. Jones Jr. (R – North Reading), House minority leader. Campaign donations will be gladly accepted at the door.
For more information, visit Mr. Perry’s official website, call 508-888-3094, or write to the Committee to Elect Jeffrey Perry, PO box 1435, Sandwich, MA 02563.

There are no primaries or caucuses this week, so let me take the opportunity to take a peek at some of the third party people who have thrown their name into the ring for kicks and giggles (since they have absolutely no chance of overthrowing the mighty and well-funded two party juggernaut that is our current political system).
A couple of Californians are running under the Constitution Party banner: Dr. Donald J. Grundmann, a chiropractor whose website (www.truthusa.org) has a bizarre “Matrix” theme to it; and Diane Beall Templin, an attorney and anti-gay activist who is running as an American Independent Party candidate (the state’s affiliate of the Constitution Party).
Five people are running as Green Party candidates: ol’ reliable Ralph Nader (what would a Presidential election be without him?); Jesse Johnson, an actor who appeared in an indie film called (yes, really) “Invasion of the Space Preachers”; Cynthia McKinney, a former US Representative from Georgia; Kent Mesplay, who also ran in 2004; and Kat Swift, the Texas Green Party co-chairman.
I’ll leave it at that for now, and we’ll check out some of the other colorful third party characters in future columns, including folks from the Prohibition Party (yes, that is what you think it is); the Balanced Party; the Give Me Back America Party; the Vampire, Witches & Pagan Party; the United Fascist Union; and the Marijuana Party.
I did not make a single one of those up. Yes, I’m terrified. And you?
Political news, events, and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net